BRIAN SANDS-REHEATED CHOCOLATE TANGOS, 12" EP, 1979, USA

Following on from my post of this eccentric American private press art popper's Fixation LP, here's his debut EP and it's another total charmer. The whiff of R. Stevie Moore emanating off of Fixation is even more in evidence here, right down to the schtick-y asides and tape speed fuckery. Over the course of side A you'll also be treated to defocused Skip Spence-like baladeering, a Buddy Holly style rave-up and a rather Nazz-like cover of The Beatles' "Baby You're A Rich Man", though events veer substantially further askew on the flip, with the three tunes on side B taking on a very Cleveland/
Akron tinge, specifically one pitched somewhere between the Harvey Gold and Andrew Klimek singles that I've shared elsewhere.

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APOLLO-S/T, LP, 1970, FINLAND

One of the very first Finnish prog bands, Apollo was in fact the launching pad for the world renowned fusion drummer Edward Vesala, whose gorgeous work I've previously posted both under his own name and as a member of Toto Blanke's Electric Circus. Dag Erik Asbjornsen described this extraordinary acid rock/proto prog crew in Scented Garden's Of The Mind as sounding "like they're fronted by a singing moose", a description too perfect to try to top, though it only applies to the half of the album where they're in post-Cream acid pummel mode, but oh...when they are, it's sublime. If any of you out there have been hepped to Kalevala, you'd almost swear this was the same band when they're functioning off this tip; Apollo's iteration sounding as though it's being filtered though the same heavy fogbank of dope smoke that also resulted in expressions of this form like May Blitz or Peru's Tarkus. Yes. That heavy. Stomping stoned caveman shit that is just too gobsmackingly ridiculous and wonderful for words. It's also contrasted about 50/50 here with swoon-worthy orchestrated proggy prog that's very McDonald and Giles/early Crimson in tone. The tension between these poles makes for a truly epic listen.

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D-DAY-GRAPE IRIS, LP, 1986, JAPAN

Long touted as a minimal synth album of some note, this is actually more of a mixed bag of new wave moves, disarming electronic confections and the sorta Japan-specific winsome preciosity that reminds you that this was the culture that gave us Hello Kitty. It is however worth noting that the majority of the slight stuff gets front loaded here, so stick with this curio and the rewards will become ever more manifest, though the apropos of nothing sampladelic interventions on the first track ought to at least signal that something about this shebang is gonna be rewardingly off. The outre interventions really begin coming to a head with the delicious synthetic woodblock and effected vocal side A closer "Sweet Sultan", and there's more where that came from on side B, along with the one explicitly minimal synthy number here; "Dust" , a sort of Nipponese spin on Algebra Suicide. I however am more apt to opt for what follows; particularly "Ki-Ra-I", a gorgeous Woo-like heat mirage of time-suspending beatbox exotica and the limpidly beautiful pastoral electronic album closer "Float A Bort".

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LOST GRINGOS-NIPPON SAMBA, 12" EP, 1982, GERMANY

Slippery, wacky art funk innovation meets suave soundtrack-y world music kitschedelia on this debut EP from these utterly unique Neue Deutsche Welle wags. Nippon Samba, as the title would suggest is brimming with sly and irreverent winks toward world music forms, with the title track being precisely some species of Japanese Samba, albeit re-imagined ala B.E.F.'s Groove Thang. Elsewhere you'll find sly tips 'o the hat to everything from 40's Hollywood musical kitsch to turkish psychedelia. A singular marvel.

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NIMBUS-OBUS, LP, 1974, FINLAND

Following on from today's post of Apollo, here's one more long forgotten slice of Finnish underground musical magic. Finland's 70's underground music culture has been rather eclipsed in the public imagination (to the extent that it exists there at all) by the wealth of post-psychedelic activity emanating from there nowadays. Here's one more reason to cast your gaze backward and roll some heavy duty hippy meat around your assorted pleasure centers. This appears to have been this unit's only outing, but it's a corker. Nimbus' is a very distinctly Finnish sound. You can hear within it both the milky, moody atmospheric mystery of Fantasia as well as a very sizeable dose of Wigwam circa Fairyport, and given that Fairyport just so happens to be my all time favorite Finnish album, that's no small feat, methinks. That said, as is almost always the case with vocalists from these particular hinterlands when they choose to serenade us in their native tongue, the results are something of a big and awkward vowel sandwich to us non-native speakers. Don't let that hinder you from delving into this little beauty though...

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YXIMALLOO-FANGS OF LUCIFER, LP, 1999 (RECORDED: 1981-1986), JAPAN

A highly amusing compendium of naif wheedle, decrepit mirth and tinker toy esoterica from this longstanding Residents-indebted Japanese operator probably best known for his collaborations with Jad Fair of Half Japanese. Fangs Of Lucifer culls together material from his early cassette culture forays, the hand hewn roughness of which gives this an almost Tori Kudo-like air of ennobled ungainliness.

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V/A-GROOVY POP SESSION, LP, 1971, FRANCE

A classic compendium from the early era of French underground music, Groovy Pop Session captures a few cornerstone units in their infancy, with Ange delivering their typically wrenching Gallic spin on the early Genesis sound and Pulsar offering a glimpse of what their epic Floydian grandeur sounded like four years before hitting the studio with the same eponymously titled track. Other notable tracks include ones by Absinthe (no idea otherwise about 'em) who turn in a powerhouse bit of spooked and Leslie cabinet-filtered psychedelia and Tac Poum Systeme, who managed a few other singles in their lifetime and here churn out the quite odd "Everybody Needs Somebody To Love". which singlemindedly grinds though a relentless 10+ minute Delay '68-style psychic noogie over which is spattered recordings of symphonies, crowd hysteria, gurgling electronics, backwards tapes and guitar fireworks.

Track listing:

1. Ange-Le Vieux De La Montagne
2. Abracadabra-Tiger
3. Pulsar-Pulsar
4. Tac Poum Systeme-Everybody Needs Somebody To Love
5. Les Moonlights-Reviens Vers Moi
6. Absinthe-Strage Life, Strange Soul

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SCHNITZLER/THOMASIUS-TOLLING TOGGLE, CD, 1991, GERMANY

With his founding memberships in both Kluster and Tangerine Dream, Conrad Schnitzler requires little in the way of introduction. Here, he's collaborating with one of his frequent sparring partners from this period of his work, former DDR resident Jorg Thomasius, whose excellent Tomato LP is featured elsewhere on MS. This one's a follow-up on from my recent post of their three way split CD together with Propellor Island's Lars Stroschen and is a very fine example of this era of Schnitzler's explorations. Together, these two construct unsettling environments in which arctic blasts, dense electronic wedges and concatenating links of tintinnabulating clatter float and writhe over beds of moody minor key synth themes over eighteen episodes of unresolved tension, explored as an end in itself.
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TON STEINE SCHERBEN-WENN DIE NACHT AM TIEFSTEN..., 2xLP, 1975, GERMANY, NWW LIST

Fairly stunning Polit-rock mongering from these NWW listed Krautrockers who operated in the grand German tradition of Checkpoint Charlie, Floh De Cologne and Kollektiv Rote Rube. Not understanding a word of German is surely hindering a deeper appreciation of it's contents for me, though there's so much else here to revel in that you'll scarcely feel deprived, with this double album of theirs featuring perhaps their most musically advanced output extant. Some really stunning and wide ranging probings here, that cover the gamut from brusque and snarling hard-rockish bits akin to later Checkpoint Charlie to more fluidly krautrockin' material whose level of musical development and innovation sometimes warrant comparisons to Embryo and Amon Duul 2.

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V/A-THE BONE TICKLING NIGHTMARE PIG, CD, 2004, VARIOUS

Devotees of dadaist brain-scramble in the mode of Nurse With Wound and (early) Negativland are keenly advised to lend an ear to this delicately titled compilation, featuring as it does several Richard Rupenus-related projects in this mode, from his own Mixed Band Philanthropist (featured elsewhere on MS) to others that have collaborated with him under his more well known noise qua noise moniker The New Blockaders, like Anomali and Broken Penis Orchestra, both of whose contributions here take a page (and a raspberry and a dog whistle) from Rupenus' prankish audio detournements. This is not to under-sell the rest of this comp's contributors. It is in fact a pretty nice cross-section of post-industrial probings of a (largely) non-generic nature, with a few particularly choice bits here from Plethora and, especially, Cybercantautores Del Mierda, whose fevered synth freakishness is genuinely unhinged sounding. Anyone out there have any of their CDR or tape releases listed on Discogs that they'd care to share with us?

Track Listing:

1. Cybercantautores De Mierda-La Mujer Que Entretuvo Al Cruel Submarino
2. Erek Gita-Acid Momma & The Japanese Potters
3. Mixed Band Philanthropist-Le Systeme De Domination
4. Plethora-Lunacy Factor #212
5. Observe I-Recognizably Those Soulless
6. Nequaquam Vacuum-Famine Season
7. Wazu-Montana Wildhack
8. Anomali-Ovaraka Trig (Sick As A Pig)
9. Broken Penis Orchestra-Could Someone Please Turn This Off?
10. Idx1274-The Vagina
11. Koma Fuzz-Sus Scrofa
12. Anakrid-Forming Lesters House Music
13. Forms Of Things Unknown-Interrupted By Interior Design: A) Speculum (Dedicated To Marcel Duchamp) B) From Here To Parker Posy
14. Gate 33 & DKD Girl-Silk Nose Trot
15. Snma-Cranfhl

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