After a small interval Mutantsounds is back

Dear friends
as you may noticed no posts were done from my side for a little while.That's because i was away with family for Easter(Orthodox) vacation.Now i'm back.Tomorrow new posts will be up.I apologise for this absence and especially for the lack of comments publishing the last 4 days(yet they are all published now).
Glad to be back
Jim Mutantsounds

KOHICHI MAKIGAMI-MINZOKU NO SAITEN, LP, 1982, JAPAN

Choice demented Japanese avant rock moves from the leader of the exceedingly nutty Hikashu, two of who's essential recordings have been posted here previously by Jim. This terminal headscratcher consistently locates pockets of unhinged sonics within the fabric of the intentionally and often maddeningly stiff sounding, the latter mostly wrought by Makigami's vocals, which are worthy of an Enka spewing salaryman in a karaoke bar. In a way not wholly dissimilar to the Virgin Vs. LP that I posted a short while back, acid rock, lopsided new wave and utter schmaltz rub shoulders relentlessly in Makigami's polymorphous musical universe, occasionally in ways that can make you squirm. That said those willing to grapple with this fascinating hairball will find a top notch mindfuck awaiting you here.

***************NEW LINK POSTED SEPTEMBER 2012***************

Get it here  

DENIER DU CULTE-L'ARCHANGE ENFLAMME, CD EP, 1994, FRANCE

This French experimental project features both Lieutenant Caramel and Alain Basso, both of whose evocative electronic works have been featured elsewhere on MS. That said, the baleful vibes and clattery, cavernous, dissected quasi-rock malevolence enacted by Denier Du Culte operates at a distinct remove from either Caramel or Basso's solo works. Brief bits are suggestive of Holy Money-era Swans, Hwyl Nofio and Circle X Internationale, but this is really it's own beast.

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SKELETON DISMEMBERED!-BIN ICH ODER IST ES KNOCHEN?, TAPE, 1993, GERMANY

Intensive and claustrophobic Neue Deutsche Welle with an obvious akin to the acrid sturm und drang of Einsturzende Neubauten, though Skeleton Dismembered manipulate similarly corrosive components to appreciably different ends, from teasing out events into acidy tracers though suctioning filtration on ""Reliefpfepler" and "Flehen Ohne Ende" to downshifting into the spectrally droning malevolence of the lengthy "Rite". The cover appears to suggest that this is from 1977, which seems distinctly unlikely given the look of the cassette shell itself and the sonics contained therein (and if it is in fact from '77, then give these boys a prize, as they both anticipate and surpass much of what followed 3-4 years hence), but whatever it's date of origin, this is The Serious Goods.

NOTE: As Joseph mentioned in the comment board, it turns out that this is in fact not a NDW-era release at all, but a tape from 1993, though one would be forgiven for mistaking the sonics for the period article, so close is the spirit here to early 80's Einsturzende Neubauten...

Get pt. 1 Here


Get pt. 2 Here

ALFRED 23 HARTH-ANYTHING GOES, LP, 1986, GERMANY

This solo album from Cassiber/Gestalt Et Jive/Goebbels & Harth member Harth picks up where Goebbels and Harth's Frankfurt/Peking left off, with Harth checking his sax at the door in favor of slashing and burning his way through a pile of wax. Distinct in attack from either (to cite two obvious examples) Christian Marclay or Yoshide Otomo, Harth instead prefers to assemble these two side-long brainscramblers of detourned cultural detritus into glutinous and bleary slurries of psychological disjunct that relentlessly swarm about the mix.

***************NEW LINK POSTED SEPTEMBER 2012***************

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KIDO NATSUKI-DISCO SPACE BABY!, CDR, 2000, JAPAN

Issued on Acid Mother's Temple in an edition of 100 copies and available for all of 15 minutes or so, this solo CDR by Kido Natsuki, axe slinger for avant prog titans Bondage Fruit may be a bit of a jokey toss-off (obviously getting into the house spirit of AMT's piss-takey irreverence), but at least it's a rather amusing one. There's zero in the way of correlation between what transpires here and the concussive Zeuhl-ish prog bombast of Natsuki's work with Bondage Fruit. Rather, Disco Space Baby is a soupy and willfully ass-backward stab at pseudo space rock that shares with Atsushi Tsuyama of Acid Mothers Temple and Omoide Hatoba his snarkily faux and wobblingly distended take on genre expectations.

***************NEW LINK POSTED SEPTEMBER 2012***************

Get it here

BRUME-STANDARD, CD, 1994, FRANCE

Following on the heels of umpteen other Brume posts I've hoisted, here's another mind molesting morsel of surrealist sonics from this French master. Something of a grab bag of Christian Renou's methodologies, Standard traffics in a wide array of experimental electronic techniques, with Renou consistently rejiggering gossamer drifts of warping ambience, churning fourth world rhythmic drives, spliced 'n' diced tape collage, occult-ish atmospherics and NWW-like surrealism into kaleidoscopic mosaics of weirdity.

***************NEW LINK POSTED SEPTEMBER 2012***************

Get it here  

ESCALATING MASSMIRROR ISSUES FORCE A (TEMPORARY?) SWITCH TO XIRROR

Sorry to all those that attempted to download any of my new posts in the first 3-4 hours that they were up, as all the Massmirror links that I'd upped yesterday (and which functioned just fine then) were suddenly found to be dead upon attempting to use them today. Need I say that I'm completely disgusted? I just finished re-upping all these links to Xirror, which may wind up being a permanent replacement for Massmirror if this crap keeps up. Quite the bummer, as Xirror doesn't provide any counter for the number of downloads like Massmirror does [sigh]...

TOTAL ISSUE-S/T, LP, 1971, FRANCE

This throat-lump-inducing psychedelic pop masterpiece effects such a flawlessly dewy eyed demeanor, you'd have to be made of stone to not get some sorta frisson from having this caress your ear canals. Countrymates Ame Son could be considered a touchstone for the breed of psych pop into low-key acid rock perfected by Total Issue and so too could the whole school of sanguinely playful methodologies that Gong ushered in with their presence in the French scene. One of the lost classics of France's early 70's underground.

***************NEW LINK POSTED SEPTEMBER 2012***************

Get it here   

***NOTE: THERE'S A MIRRORED MEDIAFIRE LINK IN THE COMMENT FIELD*** 

NOVO TONO-PANORAMA PARADISE, CD, 1996, JAPAN

Yet another supergroup of sorts from the salad days of Japan's 90's avant prog boom and one of the most stylistically profligate as well, wildly swinging across vectors of experimental music praxis with nary a consideration for coherency. The formidable cast of characters present here include Boredoms/Omoide Hatoba guitarist Seiichi Yamamoto, legendary experimental vocalist and Can collaborator Phew, Ground Zero drummer Masahiro Uemura and experimental polymath Otomo Yoshide and each of their presences are keenly felt in the end result; Omoide Hatoba-like effect fucked genre fracture, propulsive femme vox art pop, episodes of histrionic prog bombast, reflective passages of chanteuse-y melancholy, vivisected funk...all flung together willy nilly like strands of airborne silly string.

***************NEW LINK POSTED OCTOBER 2012***************

Get it here  

V/A-CREEPING DAWN VOL. 1, 4x3" CDR'S, 2006, VARIOUS

This instantly deleted 50 copy compendium of four discreet 3" CDR's, each by a different experimental outfit (volumes 2 & 3 will follow soon) is a minor treasure trove. All four groups have amassed formidable discographies that've been disseminated through the international freak folk/improv acid jam CDR network. On Nocturnal Birds, Digitalis/Foxglove label mainman Brad Rose's North Sea proffers a typically lovely bit of bucolic pastoralism that gradually falls away in favor of esoteric harmonium-laden atmospherics full of chimes and rattles. New Zealander Stephen Clover's Seht project subjects a repetitively chiming guitar motif to systematic accretions of This Heat 'Testcard"-like tones until the whole is swallowed by an engulfing tide of hive-like digital micro-activity that'd do Pimmon proud. Keijo Virtanen has long been one of the elder statesmen of the Finnish freak/free folk axis and here, he celebrates his 50th birthday with the jam at hand. Virtanen's vast discography contains many pearls (perhaps none more so than "Soon With The Sun", which you can expect to find posted soon), but the haphazard acoustic sprawl effected by Keijo and his baked associates on the occasion of "50 Pieces Of Me", mildly ingratiating though it may be, doesn't rank as one of the highlights of his canon for moi. New York free psych blasters Heavy Winged engage in a thoroughly smothering form of monochromatic acid psychosis. The howling Tsurubami-like psychotropic black hole of "Blacc Stork" initially registered as a sonic ice cream headache, but there's a unique gravity to their form of acid rock abuse that has reluctantly won me over.


CONTENTS:
Disc one: The North Sea-Nocturnal Birds
Disc two: Seht-New Blues For Whitey
Disc three: Keijo-50 Pieces Of Me
Disc four: Heavy Winged-Blacc Stork


Get The North Sea Here


Get Seht Here


Get Keijo Here


Get Heavy Winged Here

TONI ESPOSITO-GENTE DISTRATTA, LP, 1977, ITALY

Lyrical and airy Italian fusion with a certain akin to Napoli Centrale. Not quite solid (some of it's a mite too sweet tempered for it's own good), but there's nevertheless much here to cheerfully endorse, most notably some spectacular and intricate percussion work from Esposito on steel drums, xantur and marimba (often wetly effected) that helps shepherd these jams to a very lofty place indeed, never more so than on "Xantur" and the title track.

***************NEW LINK POSTED SEPTEMBER 2012***************

Get it here  

DAEVID ALLEN-THE DEATH OF ROCK AND OTHER ENTRANCES, CD, 1992 (RECORDED: 1965-1982), AUSTRALIA

Originally issued in 1982 as a 12" EP, this vastly expanded CD version compiles a large passel of Gong mastermind Allen's highly eccentric electronic and vocal experiments, plus some stray odds and sods. Yes, some of this makes a beeline right for the land of the indulgent, but there's much that's tremendous here as well, including the unsettling "You Never Existed At All", which situates an Alan Spelt Eraserhead atmosphere against a tweakily effected vocal for maximum Rubber Johnny alienation effect and, most notably, the nearly half hour long "The Switch Doctor", a "Registered Nurse"-like sprawl of surrealist audio art pastiche thats a must hear for anyone into the Gong myth.


Get pt. 1 Here


Get pt. 2 Here

TOTO BLANKE-SPIDER'S DANCE, LP, 1975, GERMANY

Hard burning jazz rock splendor from one of Germany's masters of the game (and a relatively unheralded one at that), many of who's other titles, both solo and or as part of Association/
Association P.C. and Electric Circus I've posted elsewhere on MS. In my recent post of Joachim Kuhn's Cinemascope LP, I'd failed to recall that the line-up of on that stellar album was almost exactly the same as the one here, the only difference being that legendary jazz rock all-star saxophonist Charlie Mariano (Embryo, Supersister...endless others) takes the guest seat here in place of Zbigniew Siefert and this is absent the orchestral shadings lent by Kuhn's brother Rolf and the orchestra he conducted. Instead, the focus of Spider's Dance is the taut chemistry between Blanke, Joachim Kuhn's dense, coloristic key clusters and vamps and the ferocious boil of American expats John Lee and Jerry Brown on bass and drums respectively. An integral piece of the Krautrock canon and one of Toto's finest hours. Not to be missed!

***************NEW LINK POSTED SEPTEMBER 2012***************

Get it here  

DRAGON BLUE-HADES PARK, CD, 1998, JAPAN

In keeping with the spate of 90's Japanese underground posts being offered here of late, here's a quasi-supergroup from that scene's heyday (though so were most of the other acts of the era in that incestuous musical petri dish) fronted by the hoarsely hectoring vox of one-time Mizutama Shobodan frontwoman Tenko and featuring Tipographica's Tsuneo Imahori on guitar and Akira Sotoyama on drums, Ground Zero/Dying Ground bassist Kato Hideki and Otomo Yoshide interjecting his trademark turntable scramble. Sometimes brilliant, sometimes a bit wayward, the best bits here seize on a sort of galvanizing Massacre-like attack, though how much better this might have sounded had it not been saddled with a typically airless and murky Martin Bisi mix is anyone guess.

Note: Massmirror resolutely refused to work in my numerous attempts to use their service to upload this title, so it's been upped via Xirror instead.

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KENNEDY-KENNEDY! LP, 1988, JAPAN

This Dada-related Japanese prog outfit (guitarist Mutsohiko Izumi was one half of the NWW-listed duo) erect dense and hectic walls of febrile prog relentlessness of a vaguely post-Crimson/post-
Mahavishnu cast, with charging heroic guitars set on stun scything their way across fevered keyboard runs and airless blanketing symphonisms. Despite the date, this owes more to the (to my mind anyway) Bi Kyo Ran-related dimension of non-pomp 80's prog than the sorta digital key sub-Genesis cheeseburger moves of much of their prog contemporaries of the period.

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IMAN CALIFATO INDEPENDIENTE-CAMINO DEL AGUILA, LP, 1980, SPAIN

Exquisite, blazingly intense and fluidly soaring Spanish prog monster, which meshes the acidy ethno fusion of Gulaberto and the blistering flamenco-inflected symphonisms of Mezquita with the sorta buoyant and breezy fusionoid moves I associate with Germany's Release Music Orchestra or France's Nadavati. One of Spain's finest prog units, to be sure.

NOTE: THERE WAS A SMALL ERROR WITH THIS POST, AS THE TRACKS CONTAINED WITHIN THE DOWNLOAD ARE LISTED AS #5-8. THIS WAS DUE TO THIS ALBUM BEING STORED ON A CDR ALONG WITH THEIR FIRST ALBUM, "CAMINO DEL AGUILA" THUS EQUALING TRACKS 5-8. ALL TRACKS ARE THERE. SORRY FOR THE CONFUSION.

Get it Here

THE CENTIMETERS-PRESENT THE FACTS OF DESTINY, CD, 1999, USA

Completely ignored, this fiercely idiosyncratic L.A. unit existed (still exist?) in a bubble of their own creation whose touchstones, at least to these ears, seem to come from an earlier era of the L.A. underground via outfits like 45 Grave and The Fibonaccis. It's a very curious combination of quirk and quease and one that takes a few spins to assimilate, as arch, addled cabaret pop shares space with offkey dirges about wanting "a dead one". Anyone who downloaded the Iceplants' headscratching E.P. that I posted a little while back will find a certain simpatico to their ungainly approaches to songform in the sparely fucked arrangements here as well. Guest spots from ex-Germs/45 Grave/C.E.D.S. nutter Don Bolles and L.A.F.M.S. vet Joseph Hammer should go some ways toward providing a context for this curio cabinet of experimental pop maneuvers, but this is really it's own unique beast and deserves a reckoning from anyone with a yen for the peculiar.

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VIRGIN VS.-VIRGIN, LP, 1981, JAPAN

Profoundly headscratching as only the Japanese can be, this early 80's masterpiece of pop fragmentation, like all the best examples of the type, consistently wriggles free of any contextual envelope you'd care to attempt to file this away in. Childrens TV show-worthy instrumentals suddenly dismantle themselves into a round robin of freaks making quacking sounds, egregious hard rock cheese moves alternate with female choruses chirping lines seemingly lifted from French 80's Zeuhl-ies Super Freego. Cod doo-wop, antic P-Model-like new wave herky jerk and even sitars manage to play into Virgin Vs.' profligate constructs. Obvious parallels exist with the contemporaneous work of Wha Ha Ha, but Virgin Vs. circumvent both the R.I.O. dimension and intensive studio trickery of Wha Ha Ha in favor of privileging zany real-time thematic incongruities, evidently accompanied by a Peter Ivers' like musical revue format that looks like new wave Sha Na Na. Effortlessly integrating the awe inspiring and sphincter clenching, Virgin Vs.' sickness is just waiting for curious
hosts to infect.

Note: Though it appears that the download is missing track 9, this was due to a snafu on my part. All the tracks are there. Track 9 was a blank track, as this album was encoded on a friend's recorder and I accidentally left the numberings wrong.

Get it Here