REPLACEMENT LINKS UP FOR BESOMBES, FOUSSAT AND V/A-DUMBSTRIKING INCIDENTS POSTS

Replacement links just got plugged into the respective posts for these since several users were complaining about not being able to open these files for some reason.

PHILIPPE BESOMBES-LA GUERRE DES ANIMAUX, LP, 1982, FRANCE

This French electronic maestro's rep has latterly gotten a bit more outsized after reissues of his dazzling Libra, Ceci A Cela and Besombes-Rizet LP's surfaced over the last decade. The blithely engaging if rather more slight tunes found on this archetypal early 80's library release of his share more in common with Teddy Lasry or Claude Perraudin's library outings than they do with either the more acidic cosmic pulsations and Cluster-like constructs of his time in Pole or the more sequentially pumping funkiness of the two albums that he did with Hydravion that preceded this. This is all quite enjoyable for what it is, regardless.

Get it via Rapidshare Here 

JEAN MARC FOUSSAT-ABATTAGE, LP, 1983, FRANCE

Popcorn bursts of pointillist plucks and gristly electroacoustic splatter set the stage on this first solo outing by this somewhat obscure French electronic musician, guitarist and improvisor. His recording career would pick up again decades later, with recent outings for both Leo and Ayler records alongside the likes of Noel Akchote and Roger Turner, but this would be his sole document under his own banner for some 18 years, Foussat having been principally engaged as an engineer during this time for a broad swath of Europe's free improv culture and it's evident in his own music's prickly keen attention to detail and sharp attack.

With its initial salvo of air raid sirens, coughing and tap dancing you know you're in for something edgy and peculiar with this one. And indeed, it's not long before the aforementioned plucks rush to the fore and then coagulate into dense Agencement-like thickets before being sent tumbling down the nearest stairwell. Foussat generates a lot of compelling tension here between slurries of free music gabbiness and concise electroacoustic vivisections  while still somehow finding room for ruminative piano doodling, Eraserhead ambience and Barbara Streisand's bellowing pipes across the A side, while the flip finds him initially ferreting away at his guitar to substantially more musical ends, but alas, it's a honeytrap, as Foussat whips it all up into a frothy Futurist lather of buzzing bandsaws and stuttering power drills.

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V/A-MYKISTAVIA VALIKOHTAUKSIA / DUMBSTRIKING INCIDENTS, LP, 1993, FINLAND

Before detuned communal drug fug became the touchstone of Finnish underground musical life, the Bad Vugum label and its scrappily art damaged house aesthetic were emblematic of much left field Finnish musical culture from a decade or so earlier. Keuhkot's crunchily corroded and Gonk-like cod ethno mulch, Deep Turtle's smurfy prog-punk conniptions and The Vacuum Cleaners Residential rock deconstructions earn pride of place in this collection to this set of ears.

1. Keuhkot-Kiihkoilijan Masentava Iltapäivä
2. Keuhkot-Poliisia Ei Arvosteta, Mutta Sehän Onkin Jo Klisee
3. Keuhkot-Liikaa Järkee
4. Deep Turtle-Jeriko Jr
5. Deep Turtle-Mr Coltrane
6. Deep Turtle-Arbean (It Makes You Dance!)
7. Deep Turtle-Tequno
8. Oak-Salvo
9. Oak-Go
10. Oak-Under The Wheel
11. The Leo Bugariloves-Tamminiemen Valtias
12. The Leo Bugariloves-Basic Question I
13. Dr Gunni-Til Ama Mömmu
14. Dr Gunni-Ziggi Zösä
15. Dr Gunni-Skerdingin
16. Dr Gunni-Kiddi Kindabyssa
17. Dr Gunni-Haettu Ad Strida Hundinum
18. The Vacuum Cleaners-Defy The Silence
19. The Vacuum Cleaners-Feline Gutz
20. The Vacuum Cleaners-In Plastic
21. The Vacuum Cleaners-A Zed And Two Noughts

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QUICK CULTURE-S/T, 12" EP, 1982, GERMANY

From Die Radierer and Die Partei to The Wirtschaftswunder, Tom Dokoupil has had his sticky fingers in some of the most delectable of Neue Deutsche Welle pies. Quick Culture was another brilliant if short lived manifestation from his cheerfully fevered mind, this time in a trio alongside Detlev Kuhne, who'd go on to Die Hornissen from here and one Rosita Blissenbach. The drolly playful synth pop blip and zip of his work in the sensational Die Partei the year prior is evident, but there are a lot of other layers to this confection too, with this trio sometimes shimmying along the perimeter of Planet Claire and at others, exhibiting a mutant funk-y rhythmic gestalt with an almost Ike Yard-like insistence to it.

Get it via Rapidshare Here 

KOEN DE BRUYNE-HERE COMES THE CRAZY MAN!, LP, 1974, BELGIUM

Damn fine Belgian funky fusion with a distinctive dual trumpet front-line and some obvious overtones of Belgium's most high profile jazz rockers, Placebo. Mr De Bruyne's the one tickling the ivories and unfurling the occasional bed of synth syrup, but it's his bandmates' show every bit as much as his, with the overt brassiness of this at times suggesting Chicago in their early ChicagoTransit Authority days. Butressed by guest spots for whirligig flute and breathily cooing Flora Purim-like vocalese, this is just what the doctor ordered.

Get it via Rapidshare Here 

NEW POSTS UP BY THURSDAY NIGHT...

NEKROPOLIS-MUSIK AUS DEM SCHATTENREICH NOW REISSUED ON VINYL ON PURE POP FOR NOW PEOPLE

It's a very rare thing when I choose to hype a new release, but this one needed doing. Revered as a godfather of dark avant prog, the unnerving and balefully beautiful work of German composer and bassist Peter Frohmader has long been championed by us Mutants. Indeed, I've just recently pulled the link down for this very title; one of several by him on Mutant Sounds and perhaps my very favorite out of Frohmader's intimidatingly large discography. And it's been yanked because the same folks at Pure Pop For Now People that were responsible for recently releasing two albums by my band Vas Deferens Organization (Quicksand and our Science Of The Impossible collaboration with Perihelion) have now gone and re-gifted the world with a new and definitive edition of Musik Aus Dem Schattenreich, finally offered up on a proper slab of vinyl after its last incarnation as a mid-90's CD. And a beautifully housed slab it is! For those who are unaware of the sinister majesty of this music, have a listen to the first track, Hölle Im Angesicht Here and if you want a copy, write directly to Joachim at Pure Pop. He's distinctly old-school in approach, so there's no cart system on his site. Just write to him at purepop (at) buissnet (dot) com (the same way you'd go about ordering the new VDO LP on his label) and he'll be happy to hook you up with a copy of this masterpiece.

HANS FRISCH-LEVENDE OPJECKTEN SJOOOO, LP, 1969, NETHERLANDS

Batshit crazy acidhead bedazzlement from the heyday of the Dutch counterculture, with the free rock/free improv spirit summoning unleashed by this band of furry freaks begging comparison with the earliest and most shamanistically summoning wing of the Krautrock continuum from Amon Duul to Limbus 4 to Anima. It's a stance which makes their sound far more musically prescient and less time-bound than most anything else emanating from Holland at the time; their unfettered roundelays of bongos, flutes, horns, percussive clatter and wailing avant vocals offering direct pointers toward the sort of sounds currently embodied by the Finnish free rock and improv scene. The pics of half naked Dionysian abandon enclosed and the knowledge that part of this edition was seized by the Dutch police elevate the actions of these cultural provocateurs to an even higher level. An album to be relished.

Get it via Rapidshare Here

SCAPA FLOW-ENDLESS SLEEP 7" + AT HOME AND ABROAD 7", 1980, AUSTRALIA

Unrelated to either the Finnish proggers or the Swedish EBM-er's who operate under this same handle, this Aussie mob offer up tight, tricky and pop-centric post punk entanglements of a very fetching sort. These guys apparently started out in the mode of something as prosaic as The Jam, but just kept getting more knotty, fidgety and arty until they arrived at something more akin to the the savvy of The Shiny Men or XTC.

Get it via Rapidshare Here

NIEBIESKO CZARNI-ROCK OPERA NAGA 1 & ROCK OPERA NAGA 2, LP'S, 1972, POLAND

What we have here are two albums worth of a longstanding (since 1962) Polish vocal troupe spilling out their ardent paens both individually and en masse over variable beds of brassy jazz rock, oleaginous funk and stray bits of slightly musty organ grinding progginess in the direction of something like Julian Jay Saavarin amid the generalized soaring orchestrations one would expect in this context, in the process landing this curio somewhere in range of the Czechoslovak Radio Jazz Orchestra's collabs with The Blue Effect Group. There's plenty more going on here than just campy period amusement, though there's no shortage of that either, should you be requiring any.

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TEDDY LASRY-ACTION PRINTING, LP, 1975, FRANCE

Following on from Jim's long-ago post of his E=MC2 solo debut, here's a snootful of campily blipping and funkily arpeggiating electronic library music gravy from this one time sax player for French avant prog gods Magma turned synth wielding library music kingpin. With overtones of both Alex Cima and Frederic Mercier, the playfully dancing electronic miniatures heard on Action Printing remain some of Lasry's most infectious and memorable work.

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BASS ARMY-KARADA WA OTO O DASU MONO, CD, 1994, JAPAN

Ginchy, pummeling and darkly funked up in a sorta post-Laswell/post-Elliott Sharp fashion, the avant prog maneuvers this Japanese power trio work their way through are, for better of worse, very 90's sounding indeed. They're also damn fine. The dual leaders of this army are bassists Kato Hideki and Kimoto Kazuyoshi, the former an avant prog and improv scene fixture with a CV spanning collaborations with Otomo Yoshide, John Zorn, Ikue Mori, Fred Frith, the latter a one-time bassist for both Ruins and P.O.N. Together with Ground Zero and Novo Tono drummer Masahiro Uemura, they're a modulating hurricane of whirligig motion, albeit one with much of its motion being more supple and restrained than what you might anticipate from their former associations.

Get it via Rapidshare Here

NEW LINKS FOR 313 MORE ALBUMS

Plowing right ahead with the massive re-upload campaign, I've managed to get 313 more of the downed links back up again, with assistance from some fantastic friends of the blog. You can download a list of all these new album links here 

New posts will be coming from me later in the week...

FIRST BATCH OF RE-UPPED FILES POSTED

The file re-upload campaign has been moving along at full speed here at Mutant HQ. 177 of the album links that were down are now back up again with new Rapidshare links. Unlike the old files that were removed, these links are now housed in my paid account with them, so this should hopefully forestall more disasters like the one that occurred. I know many will carp about my continued use of Rapidshare, but I'm not looking for a debate on the worth of one hosting strategy over another. At this late date and after Mediafire killed hundreds of my links dead within weeks of using them on the heels of the Megaupload take-down, Rapidshare are the only one left standing who have been around long enough to convince me they'll remain viable in the long run. With that said, you can download the list of these 177 re-ups and their new Rapidshare links here   

An un-named blog friend is doing Mutant a great turn and moving some 400 of the other downed titles to an ftp server for me to grab them from right now, so within days I'll begin re-upping those albums and plugging them back into Mutant as well. This will put us close to the half-way mark with getting all these links back up again.

I've compiled a list of the 650 or so remaining albums beyond those I've already plugged back in and the other 400 I'm already getting help with. If you'd like to contribute to the cause, you can download the list of titles that are still needed here and you can contact me at pantheonbar (at) gmail (dot) com to sort out details. Thanks in advance to one and all.

Onward and upward...

ASSESSING THE MASS FILE WIPEOUT FROM RAPIDSHARE AND DETERMINING STRATEGY

There's been a 600 pound white elephant sitting in the Mutant Sounds room for a while now, though the extent of its damage has until now meant that I've been unwilling and unable to confront it in all its magnitude before today. And that thing that must be confronted is this: while the Megaupload shutdown may have gotten all the press attention, Rapidshare's semi-recent decision to eliminate all files from their servers that were either unconnected to a paid account or from someone not signed in to their system (as per their current requirements) has created far more catastrophic damage for Mutant Sounds that what happened with Megaupload. It has in fact wiped close to 1200 titles from our blog, between the removal of many early files from a period when I was less than fastidious about remaining a member of Rapidshare and their interconnected elimination of all rapidshare links created by third party file-spreaders like Sharebee. It's taken me three consistent ten hour days of work to sift through the entirety of Mutant Sounds and figure out how many links are down, but I now have a final tally (1196 files; 813 of mine, 386 of Jim's) and a master list of all those files that are now gone from their system. Complicating matters, much of my collection is currently boxed up and/or in storage in preparation for a move.

my plan of attack is this: over the next few days, I'll be tooth-combing my way through both my own (admitted all over the place) files and those of my bandmate Matt from VDO to figure out everything we do have directly on hand to begin re-uploading. For the albums that don't prove to be directly accessible right now (read: from albums/tapes/CD's/CDR's that are currently boxed up and/or in storage), I'll be putting out a list of those titles to download once my sifting is done, so that, should you be so kind as to want to offer help in re-uploading titles, you can at that point.

This is surely a huge undertaking and an obvious setback for the blog, but Mutant will still be soldiering on regardless. Thanks to one and all for sticking by us for all these years…

CLUSTER & ENO-PARIS, NOVEMBER 1977, UNRELEASED, GERMANY/UK

Nope, no backstory needed with these folks. This file has been floating around various channels for some time and, regardless of the sketchy sonics and general hiss blanket this resides under, this is still a pretty fascinating peek in on a process many would have given their eye teeth to be present for. Cocooned in a warmly defocused blur of elemental pulsations, wavering tones and occasional insectile flutterings, these 27 minutes of ectoplasmic ooze will transport you to one singularly heavy lidded psychological zone.

Get it via Rapidshare Here

BARBED-S/T, CD, 1994, UK

Some choice funny-bone prodding and media mulching from these two British wits, whose sampler-centric approach was created under the direct sway of early genre markers like Negativland and John Zorn's Spillane, but who contort these tactics to ends both more beat-scrambled and more effect smeared then their predecessors.

Get it via Rapidshare Here

LARS HOLLMER WITH LOOPING HOME ORCHESTRA-VENDELTID, LP, 1987, SWEDEN

One time leader of RIO legends Samla Mammas Mamma/Zamla Mammaz Manna/Von Zamla turned solo recording artist, Lars Hollmer passed away in 2008, but his hallmark mix of buoyantly percolating folkloric themes and giddy joie de vivre remains stuck to the bones and bonded to the hearts of many who've encountered his enchanting music. This first outing with The Looping Home Orchestra (many more would follow) traces a direct line from his exploits on both the Von Zamla LP's and from his preceding solo albums, though working with this crew (which includes drummer Martin Tiselius from Von Zamla), tethers his compositions to more streamlined structures than in the past.

Get it via Rapidshare Here

DIE KRUPPS-FOUNDATION, CD, 1997 (RECORDED: 1981-1990), GERMANY

Clangorous and tight jawed meat machine pounding from the smile-free wing of the Neue Deutsche Welle scene. These cats would later gain much greater renown formulating the genre of EBM, eventually culminating in their collaborating with one Nitzer Ebb, but at the early stage  documented on these live recordings from 1981 (contemporary with their debut album Stahlwerksymphonie) what's heard here sounds more like an especially focused Einsturzende Neubauten emulating DAF. You'll find some extra EMB stuff filling out the remaining space on this CD, but that's all sorta outside the Mutant remit.

Get it via Rapidshare Here