Seems that in my exhaustion, I inadvertently re-posted an Iskra LP that Jim had already put up on MS long ago, though with the unexpected and happy knock-on effect of replacing a problematic original link. Anyway, that being the case, I've decided to offer one further share (below) for this go 'round to make up for the redundancy.
The cat behind the Les Splendid moniker is one Jean-Claude Pierric, one of France's most prolific library music composers of the era. This particular outing on the Disc L'Agami imprint probably won't prove a monster revelation to anyone that's spent some time exploring this territory, but it's still larded a very specific period charm. Flute laden for its duration, the best bits here will plaster a big dumb grin on the mug of anyone charmed by the likes of The Bigroup, Braen's Machine or Bernard Wystraete/Structure.
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Maintaining our recent course of Swedish underground offerings, here's a fairly crucial one. I'd long ago shared their final LP Fantasies, though their attack by that point had morphed into a sorta whimsical ethno jazz fusion ala later Archimedes Badkar. At the time of my posting that album some three years ago, I'd opined that this earlier and more lauded era of their work was of a lesser order. Truth be told, I'd probably still opt for Fantasies given the choice of any one of their albums, but this more overtly improv driven era of their work now sounds pretty damn remarkable to me, though being in the mood for it helps. If I remember their history correctly, Iskra were doing improvised childrens music workshops around this time, which certainly jibes with the whimsical spirit of some of the instrumental voicings here and their zoological call and response arrangements, particularly evident on the cuts that open and close the first side. This squirrelly approach manifests itself elsewhere in forms ranging from the ceremonial to celebratory, at various times evoking everything from Bengt Berger's Bitter Funeral Beer to Germany's Anima, with everything from Gamelan to New Orleans funeral marching band music coursing through these tracks.
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One of the earliest shots over the bow for both the French underground music scene and one of it's most formidable movers, the Gallic grand old man of the outwardly bound Jean-Pierre Massiera, whose subsequent releases from the late 60's to the early 80's have marked this producer/arranger/conceptualist as one of the cornerstone figures within the history of French musical radicalism; Massiera having been the driving force behind legendary left field acts like Les Maledictus Sound, Horrific Child, Visitors and Venus Gang. This little known unit's sole outing was issued during the same year as his far better known Les Maledictus Sound LP and offers up a similarly dada-detourned incursion into pop psychedelic song arrangement, only with barnyard antics replacing the grand prix and haunted house settings of Les Maledictus Sound, as buzzsaw fuzz beat psych tendencies compete with mooing cows, chansons and episodes of spluttering gibberish.
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Whether as a member of Vapaa, (Kheta) Hotem or under the his solo or ensemble banners, Keijo Virtanen has long been one of the artists we're flown a flag for here on MS and this epic double disc set exhibits his most sense-expanding tendencies. Offering up Virtanen's muse in both solo and group settings, this set initiates with Keijo's solo efforts on Unfolding Emptiness, which unfurl at a lovingly glazed pace, with vibrating filaments of string scrape and pluck slowly coiling their way though a hookah haze of wobbly twinkle and organic subterranean clatter over which technicolor geysers of delicately tweaked synth juice periodically jet. Joined by his brother Sami (whose project Mosaic Antenna I've also shared) and another frequent sparring partner in the form of Juri Joensuu for disc 2, Decomposing Dawn and Dew opts for a decidedly less tranquil stance overall; to wit, it' contains some of the harshest material that I've heard the normally more low key Keijo commit to tape, with threadbare exoskeletons of pluck and scrape escalating into intensive cascades of shearing clatter that border on the post-industrial.
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Here's another lost episode of Swedish underground action courtesy of blog friend Ola Astrand, though this one sweeps past his previous 70's/80's underground shares and brings us up to the following decade. Crude, flailing and piss-takey, the "air quotes" around this one are written in Jamie Reid ransom note font. Musically, the sub-underground currents that this highly obscure unit glance off would have made this crew a shoe-in for a release on Stomach Ache Records back in the day, as deconstructive games and lowbrow genre disruption are hewn from intentionally inept 2 chord punk bashing.
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Viny'l'isten presents the aesthetics of two esteemed avant turntablists, both individually and in conjunction; each exhibiting a keen capacity to open doors to your subconscious by careful manipulations of antiquated vinyl's dust flecked scrying mirror. Jeck's initial solo salvo here piles up effected layers of skipping shellac disc textural grit against which stray dictophone chatter and needle-gunked fragments of 1/4 speed ethnic recordings mark time to vaguely Crawling With Tarts-like effect, while one time Z.D.L. member Van Bebber (whose other experiments with vinyl abuse I've previously posted) uses his alloted solo space here to cycle about in a statically charged orbit before his hairball-caked carousel gradually slides off it's psychically noogie-ing axis into a field of faded media ghostings and gradually finds footing once again on another purgatorial roundelay. These two then come together for a half hours worth of untitled fascination; their surrealist exquisite corpse summoned from the debris of the radiophonic age, with media and musical signifiers piling up in far greater densities than their solo efforts frequently allow for.
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Though most folks surveying this artist's body of work would have you believe otherwise, this home recorded 4-track spectacular is actually the crowning glory in the recorded canon of this iconic guitarist/keyboardist, whose musical contributions have spanned many of the key divides in the history of subcultural audio, from his teen years in the 60's psychedelic outfit Sproton Layer and his post punk work in the the legendary Mission Of Burma to his years in the systemic/post-prog/art rock ensemble Birdsongs Of The Mesozoic. Issued in a hand sprayed sleeve on Forced Exposure's old in-house imprint, the plangently squalling detuned edifices of stacked electric guitars that inhabit many of these tracks either cede to or buttress episodes of phenomenal Chris Knox-by-way-of-Skip-Spence psych pop ingenuity.
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To keep the Swedish underground thread that we've been mapping lately moving right along and as a follow up to my semi-recent post of this flautist's sensational Sissel LP, here's another manifestation of his particular muse; the five year interim between these albums having modified his approach from Sissel's seductively strutting and relaxed funk fusion to a more juiced up attack that's simultaneously slickly streamlined and ethno-shimmyingly seductive, with the best bits here (aside from the wonderfully wonky if atypical lounge jazz of "Boathouse Club") arriving at this sound from an angle reminiscent of late 70's French underground outfits like Clivage and Sonorhc.
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The scowling and yowling sturm und drang kicked up by this disconsolate Greek post punk crew is fairly naked in it's Birthday Party worship. It's also a damn good bit of misanthropic amusement for the right set of ears, with scabrous guitar debris and attitudinal vocals spewed over a monolithically lumbering rhythm section, at times almost reaching an early Swans level of pylon pounding malevolence.
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More charmingly naif detuned ethno improv malarky from the Finnish hinterlands, this luddite crew hewing more to the scuttle-tweedle-tinkle falling-apart-at-the-seams improv-directed end of the spectrum (think Hertta Lussu Assa or Lauhkeat Lampaat), with broken flute and horsehair scrape getting lackadaisically tangled up in the forest floor foliage.
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If you can avoid feeling a mite wrongfooted by the rather stiff and verbose first side here, the sole album from this highly obscure kraut-y sounding Austrian crew has some very real merits, with the flip offering up an engaging side long title track suite with a wide ranging attack that factors in hard rock, sequenced space rock-y bits and somewhat Genesis-like proggy prog bits for an end result that could be compared to Nektar, Grobschitt/Eroc, Muck Groh and Tyll's Sexphonie LP.
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LUSTIGE MUTANTEN-UNPOP, 7" EP, 1981, GERMANY
More proactive kookiness from the Neue Deutsche Welle fringes, this one featuring oodles of unfettered chanting and spluttering vocal antics abetted by detuned jangle and bonking little cheap key embroidery.
MAAD-WAKE UP/ERHEBE, 1978, ITALY
Happy, horn-y funk fusion moves by this unit whose eponymous LP I posted long ago. To be sure, this is a rather more slick affair than their entho-inflected prog fusion foray from two years earlier. Indeed, I recall hearing somewhere that Wake Up was the theme music from some Italian TV show in the 70's. Whatever the case, this sorta thing is just effortlessly enjoyable to me.
MAIN-CODERAYS, ONE-SIDED 7", 1995, UK
The first of three one-sided singles in this batch and the first of two on the Austrian micro-imprint Syntactic, this superb 100 copy outing from former Loop member turned atmospheric electronic innovator Robert Hampson sets rotating planes of groan, drone, metallic chitter and ghosted vocalese in motion to deeply immersive and disorienting ends.
MARBLE SHEEP-UNTITLED, ONE-SIDED FLEXI, 1994 (RECORDED: 1988), JAPAN
Super primitive and murky Amon Duul worship pressed on a one-sided flexi for maximal shit-fi, this is nonetheless a fabulous first salvo from these Japanese psychonauts who'd morph over time from noise psych marginals to something more akin to The Grateful Dead (a transformation that's been documented elsewhere on MS). This earliest glimpse of their sonic evolution is pure caveman pound and mantric string repetition styled for maximum psychic noogie effect and shares some of the same spirit as early Ghost material like Sun is Tangging.
ALBERT MARCOEUR-COMPTE RENDU D'ANALYSE, 1984, FRANCE
Absolutely delirious R.I.O. innovation from this Gallic avant prog genius. With it's simultaneously minor-ish and celebratory tone, this is the recording where the link between Marcoeur's band and Sweden's Von Zamla becomes most obvious, as both Jan Garret and Denis Brely from his ensemble had had just gotten done moonlighting with Lars Hollmer's post Samla Mammas Manna ensemble. 
MELODIC ENERGY COMMISSION-MELODY IS ENERGY/NIGHT RHYTHMS, 1981, CANADA
This was the group that Hawkwind's synth splatterer Del Dettmar joined upon his move to Canada, though this single stems from the period right after his departure. This single begins atypically with a sorta poppy Here And Now-like space rock stormer that's somewhat anomalous to their rest of their catalog but great fun on it's own terms, while the flip is pure acid rock manna, with sinuous layers of violin-led entwinement transforming into a kraut-y acid rock scorcher.
METABOLIST-IDENTIFY/TIZ HOZ NAM, 1980, UK
The work of this odd and edgy UK post punk crew has garnered them passing comparisons with This Heat elsewhere, though the contents of this single are rather more atypical, with Identify offering up an attack far more scrappy and no-wave splintered than on their other outings while Tiz Hoz Nam wallows around in slithering layers of narcotized guitar scrawl.
METROPHASE-IN BLACK/NEOBEAUTY/COLD REBELLION, 1979, UK
Though these songs were penned by one Steev Burgess, Metrophase's line-up renders this almost The Swell Maps in disguise, with Nikki Sudden, Epic Soundtracks and Jowe Head all involved to some extent with this outfit. Their myspace explains their work thusly: "A low budget attempt was made to marry synth, folk and indie instruments at a time of sectarian views in music when certain instruments or indeed haircuts, made you a person non-grata in the various music scenes.". The upshot is a sorta narcotized post-White Light/White Heat sense of drug disabled rock motion. It's a sound that would later reach it's nadir with Peter Stapleton-led New Zealand units like Dadamah and The Terminals and is best expressed by the tracks Neobeauty and Cold Rebellion, which are the crucial bits here to these set of ears.
TED MILTON & THE BOBONUS BEATS-POSTCARD, ONE-SIDED 7", 1995, UK
The second one-sided micro-release on the Syntactic imprint from this batch, this is a Blurt offshoot from the inimitable Ted Milton, and offers up a truly great round of lip flap over bonking rhythm boxes and accordion wheeze; the end result having a strong akin to Terry Day's work on Jean-Francois Pauvros' mid-80's albums.
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Thanks once again to Ola Astrand, who gifted us all last time with the remarkable Tand Morkret compilation (and whose own extraordinary late 70's unit Blodarna is shared elsewhere today), we can now offer up this insanely rare piece of Swedish underground musical history. I'll let Ola himself take it from here:
Thomas Tidholm is best known as a poet and writer. He was born 1943 and was an original member of Pärssons Sound and Harvester, but quit 1969. He made this record Varma smörgåsar (Hot Dogs) with member of Träd gräs och stenar and Arbete & fritid 1974 to almost no recognition at all in Sweden. Except that Kung Tung made a cover of the song Två blodröda segel 1979. Today this is a most forgotten piece of music that really deserves a wider spread and a bigger audience. The songs depicts a Sweden long gone with a small hotel in every little town center, the kind of longing for something different and not knowing how to find it that's been Tidholm's main theme as a poet. The music is maybe more influenced by Stones than Terry Riley but still with a real Harvester feeling to it.
Together with Thomas Mera Gartz lp Sånger this is this the best off shots from the Pärssons Sound/ Träd gräs och stenar, and they are both really good records. Thomas Tidholm made another record 1985 called Obevakade Ögonblick and Mera Gartz made Luftsånger 1984.
Some of Tidholms poems in english here: http://thomas.tidholm.se/poems/
Mucicians:
Bo Anders Persson
Piano, sång, gitarr
Jakob Sjöholm
Gitarr
Katarina Abelli
Fiol, sång
Sten Wallin
Gitarr
Thomas Gartz
Trummor, fiol
Thomas Tidholm
Sång, gitarr, fiol, blås
Torbjörn Abelli
Bas, fiol
Urban Yman
Dragspel
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Note: as is the case with four of my five other posts today, both my usual megaupload and my fall-back Sharebee were dysfunctional when attempting to up the secondary links for these particular albums, so in this *one instance* I've opted to use Mediafire instead. Don't mistake this as a continued willingness to do so, as I've been burned by their file deletions in the past...
Blodarna (or, in English, The Bleeders) were a short lived outfit featuring our current patron saint of underground Swedish sounds, Ola Astrand. This 7" EP from the late 70's appears to be their sole output, but eegads is it a monster! For anyone who thought that the spirit that animated iconic Swedish underground bands like Parsson Sound, Harvester, International Harvester and Trad Gras Och Stenar to create their celebrated mantic psych/drone/folk/trudge continuum was a done deal by the end of the 70's, Blodarna were there to prove them fools. As before with the Hot Boys LP, I'll now once again turn you over to Ola himself for further elucidation:
Stry Terrarie is one of Swedens front figures in punk rock and famous from bands like Kriminella Gitarrer, Garbochock and Ebba Grön. But in the short lives band Blödarna (The Bleeders) it was far from punk rock. In this record the music has more in common with Pärson Sounds than Sex Pistols The song is divided on both sides. Blödarna also contributes to the compilation cassette "Eldbegängelse" från 1981.
Both Stry Terrarie and Mikael Westergren later continued in Garboschock and Eva Sjuve in Kabinett Död.
Side 1 and 2:
Diggar ditt hål
\
Heartwork Records
Stry Terrarie: vocals
Ola Åstrand: guitar
Mats Svensson: drums
Eva
Sjuve: organ
Mikael Vestergren: Bass
Recorded live in Lund/Seden
spring 1979.
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Note: as is the case with four of my five other posts today, both my usual megaupload and my fall-back Sharebee were dysfunctional when attempting to up the secondary links for these particular albums, so in this *one instance* I've opted to use Mediafire instead. Don't mistake this as a continued willingness to do so, as I've been burned by their file deletions in the past...
On his second solo effort here, one time Palais Schaumburg member and overarching Neue Deutsche Welle figurehead Hiller (two of whose singles have been featured elsewhere on MS) has excised much of the rock element that underpinned his first full length outing Ein Bündel Fäulnis in der Grube. What we have here in lieu of that here is a queer mix of quasi-symphonic and sampler centric bombast and art pop fracture, portioned out with lots of gaps of space in the mix and mixed up with bouts of mischievous chamber R.I.O. of the ZNR, Comelade or Look De Bouk school, occasionally even migrating into Danny Elfman Pee Wee's Big Adventure territory.
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Note: as is the case with four of my five other posts today, both my usual megaupload and my fall-back Sharebee were dysfunctional when attempting to up the secondary links for these particular albums, so in this *one instance* I've opted to use Mediafire instead. Don't mistake this as a continued willingness to do so, as I've been burned by their file deletions in the past...
