GONG FAMILY JEWELS (1987-1998)

GONG : FAMILY JEWELS (1987-1998)
Compilation of Gong and related artists including unreleased material
Disk 1 - Thinky Disc
1. Pip PYLE: Seven Year Itch [1998]
2. Pierre MOERLEN'S GONG: Second Wind [live Bremen Aug 1988]
3. Gilli SMYTH: Cyberwhale
4. Daevid ALLEN: So What? [1997]
5. Pierre MOERLEN & ORCHESTRE REGIONAL DE JAZZ D'ALSACE : Little House I Used To Live In* [live Strasbourg 1997]
6. GONG: Radio Gnome Transmission / The Secret Language* [Oxford, Zodiac Club - 17 Oct 1997]
7. GONG: Steffe Sharpstrings' Master Builder Guitar Solo* [Manchester, Nia Centre - 3 Oct 1997]
8. Daevid ALLEN: Flagship Farewell* [1997]
9. Pierre MOERLEN'S GONG: Say No More [1988]
10. GONG: Master Builder Sax solo* [Sheffield, Leadmill - 5 Oct 1997]
11. GONG: Can't Kill Me Jam* [Cambridge, Junction - 21 Oct 1997]
12. GONG: You Are I And I* [Manchester, Nia Centre - 3 Oct 1997]
Disk 2 - Feely Disc
1. Didier MALHERBE: Hadouk [1995]
2. GLO: Let's Glo [1997]
3. GONGMAISON: Blame The Rich [1989]
4. GLO: Back To The Sea [1997]
5. Didier MALHERBE: Zeff Dance [1992]
6. SMYTH, ALLEN & WILLIAMSON: Stroking The Tail Of The Bird [1987]
7. Mike HOWLETT with Ben HOFFNUNG : Mountains of Venus* [1997]
8. GLO: Deia [1997]
9. Didier MALHERBE: Blues del' Horizon [1994]
10. Daevid ALLEN: The Voice of Om [1989

KTU - 8 Armed Monkey (2005)

8 Armed Monkey
Studio album by KTU
Released September 27, 2005
Genre Progressive rock, experimental music
Length 43:05
Label Thirsty Ear

8 Armed Monkey is the debut album of the band KTU. It was drawn from the group's first few live performances in Japan.

Track listing

1. "Sumu" (Pohjonen) - 8:43
2. "Optikus" (Pohjonen) - 8:36
3. "Sineen" (Pohjonen, Kosminen) - 7:23
4. "Absinthe" (Gunn, Mastelotto) - 8:21
5. "Keho" (KTU) - 10:02

Line-up

* Kimmo Pohjonen: accordion, voice
* Samuli Kosminen: accordion samples, voice samples
* Pat Mastelotto: drums and rhythmic devices
* Trey Gunn: Warr guitar

Praxis ~ Sacrifist

Sacrifist
Praxis
Released 1994
Genre Avant-garde, Rock, Experimental, Heavy metal, Electronic music
Length 44:41
Label Subharmonic

Sacrifist is the second album of the Bill Laswell led project Praxis, released in 1994 on Laswell's label Subharmonic.

Originally, the album was intended to be a Rammellzee project, but soon was converted into the second Praxis album, after suggestions made by John Zorn.

The line-up features the core Praxis trio of Laswell, guitarist Buckethead and drummer Bryan "Brain" Mantia. Additionally, Bootsy Collins and Bernie Worrell (of Parliament-Funkadelic), both also featured on the debut album, return for one lengthy track each: "Deathstar" includes Collins' "free-form bass explorations" and "Crossing" features Worrell's "psychedelic improvisation on a distorted Hammond organ". Vocals are handled by Mick Harris from Napalm Death and Scorn as well as Yamatsuka Eye from Boredoms. John Zorn added some saxophone parts.

The music itself is a mix of noisy speed/thrash metal with short interludes of dub music and hip-hop.

Naked City ~ Black Box [Torture Garden/Leng Tch'e]

This two-CD set was first released by John Zorn in Japan in the early 1990s. It couldn't be sold in the United States because of the cover art, now concealed within the Black Box. These are Zorn's most horrific inspirations--Torture Garden incited by the images of Japanese sadomasochist pornography contained herein, Leng Tch'e by photographs of a Chinese public execution involving extended torture. A key part of Zorn's aesthetic is to create a musical methodology that matches his subject matter, or, conversely, to find a subject that matches his compositional methods. Like Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty, William S. Burrough's cut-up method, or the cutting and pasting of collage, Zorn's methods mimic violence, creating new forms out of the torture and destruction of the old. Torture Garden and Leng Tch'e are, literally, the short and the long of it. Torture Garden consists of 42 tracks, the longest of which is a minute and 14 seconds, the shortest a scant 10 seconds. Musical genres are literally cut up and stuck together, snippets of free jazz, lounge, country and western, pop (ancient and modern), and classical colliding and overlapping in a kind of cultural shock treatment. The 32-minute Leng Tch'e is drawn out to excruciating lengths in its simulation of the agony (and ecstasies) of torture and death. Throughout the two discs, the execution is at a very high level. With Bill Frisell on guitar, Fred Frith on bass, Joey Baron on drums, Wayne Horvitz on keyboards, and vocalist Yamatsuka Eye of the acclaimed Boredoms), Naked City combines many of Zorn's most talented collaborators, and it inspires some of his most brutish and brilliant alto saxophone playing. The Black Box creates a literal connection between "hard core" music and hard-core pornography. To say that it isn't for the squeamish is understatement.

The Capricorns ~ Ruder Forms Survive

"Capricorns is an even mix of the dirty biker rock of Orange Goblin and the prog-metal sound of instrumental kings Pelican. It’s complex and intricate, yet still very direct in execution. And like their debut self titled EP, Ruder Forms Survive is primarily instrumental. The band lets the music speak for itself. Compelling stuff for sure."

"Ruder Forms Survive sees Capricorns up the sonic ante whilst still maintaining a deep love for the purity and tradition of The Riff. Capricorns have succeeded in combining the armageddon punk attitude of Amebix with a doomed out Ummagumma-era Pink Floyd propelled by the deepest swing this side of John Bonham."

What Burns Never Returns

What Burns Never Returns is the third album by Don Caballero, a Pittsburgh-based math rock band. What Burns Never Returns was released on Touch and Go Records in 1998 and was a reunion of sorts for the band -- it was their first album after a two-year hiatus and it marked the return of original bassist Pat Morris.

The album is notable for guitarist Ian Williams' first significant experimentation with pedals and other electronic effects. This style would be prevalent in both Williams' and the band's subsequent work.


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Magma - 1974 June 01 - Chaumont, France

MAGMA
1974-06-01
Chaumont
France

01. Theusz Hamtahk
02. Soi Sowiloi
03. Kohntarkosz
04. MDK (cut)

Line-up:
Christian Vander, Klaus Blasquiz, Janik Top, Michel Graillier, Gerard Bikialo, Brian Godding

I always liked this show a lot, Janik Top and Christian Vander are playing very tight especially on this one.Claude Olmos had left the group by this time, and Brian Godding was shortly in on guitar during June/July and probably August 74. This tape and the Grande Motte being the only known live tapes with him.
I am actually still wondering, if this might not as well be a soundboard tape, the bass sound is so clear and upfront in the mix without interfering with any of the other instruments. All instruments are clearly audible. I think it sounds pretty good. As with all Magma shows from this era, and to get the real idea of how dynamic the playing of this line-up was: PLAY THEM LOUD!

Hugh Hopper

Hugh Colin Hopper (29 April 1945 - 7 June 2009) was a progressive rock and jazz fusion bass guitarist. He was a prominent member of the Canterbury scene, as a member of Soft Machine and various other related bands

Rhythms from a Cosmic Sky ~ Earthless

Rhythms from a Cosmic Sky is the second album by the San Diego psychedelic rock band Earthless, released on May 8, 2007 by Tee Pee Records. It consists of two instrumental pieces, with the first track "Godspeed" divided into five suites. The CD version also includes a cover version of The Groundhogs' "Cherry Red", which is the only Earthless recording to include lyrics and vocals. The album was recorded and mixed January 1-4, 2007 by Tim Green at Louder Studios in San Francisco and mastered by Paul Gold at Salt Mastering in Brooklyn. The album artwork was designed by Andy Kman, with illustrations by bassist Mike Eginton.

The album was well-received by critics. Thom Jurek of Allmusic gave it 4½ stars out of 5, saying that They literally enter the sonic maelstrom of inspiration and free flowing, molten, deeply emotional energy where most felt it was at its peak, and they go up from there. Drawing comparisons to American and British psychedelic acts of the 1960s and 1970s such as Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Free, and Humble Pie, as well as more recent Japanese acts such as The Stars and Acid Mothers Temple, he remarked that "they're a whole other thing in American power rock right now. They point a way that few will be able to follow. George Crosland of Skateboard Revolution called the album A mix of Motörhead, the Melvins, Funkadelic and Led Zeppelin, kind of; music to get amped and stay amped to.

Can ~ Unlimited Edition

Unlimited Edition is a compilation album by the band Can. Released in 1976 as a double album, it was an expanded version of the 1974 LP Limited Edition, which as the name suggests was a limited release of 15,000 copies (tracks 14-19 were added). The album collects unreleased music from throughout the band's history from 1968 until 1976, and both the band's major singers (Damo Suzuki and Malcolm Mooney) are featured.

Eye On You

Ronald Shannon Jackson and the Decoding Society

Sonny Sharrock - Ask The Ages 1991

Sharrock was semi-retired for much of the 1970s, undergoing a divorce from wife/occasional collaborator Linda in 1978. In the intermittent years until producer/bassist Bill Laswell coaxed him out of retirement, he worked as both a chauffeur and a caretaker for mentally challenged children. At Laswell's urging, Sharrock appeared on Material's (one of Laswell's many projects) 1981 effort, Memory Serves. In addition, Sharrock was a member of the punk/jazz band Last Exit, together with Peter Brötzmann, Laswell and Ronald Shannon Jackson. During the late 1980s, he recorded and performed extensively with the New York-based improvising band Machine Gun, as well as leading his own bands. Sharrock flourished with Laswell's help, noting in a 1991 interview that "the last five years have been pretty strange for me, because I went twelve years without making a record at all, and then in the last five years, I've made seven records under my own name. That's pretty strange." ^[5] Laswell would often perform with the guitarist on his albums, and produced many of Sharrock's recordings, including the entirely solo Guitar, the metal-influenced Seize the Rainbow, and the well-received Ask the Ages, which featured John Coltrane's bandmates Pharoah Sanders and Elvin Jones. One writer described Ask the Ages as "hands down, Sharrock's finest hour, and the ideal album to play for those who claim to hate jazz guitar

Material - Hallucination Engine

(Zawinul,Johnson) 7:30
7) The Hidden Garden / Naima (BL,SS,NS,Coltrane) 13:00
8) Shadows of Paradise (BL,LS,NS) 9:45 Bill Laswell: basses, beats, loops, samples, etc
Wayne Shorter: soprano & tenor sax
Simon Shaheen: violin and oud
Nicky Skopelitis: acoustic and electric 6 & 12-string guitars, coral electric sitar, baglama and Fairlight
Bernie Worrell: electric piano, Hammond B-3 organ
Bootsy Collins: space bass
Lakshmi Shankar: electric violin
Sly Dunbar: drum kit
Jeff Bova: synthesizers
Jihad Racy: ney
Aiyb Dieng: chatan, congas, percussion
Jonas Hellborg: acoustic bass guitar and fretless electric bass
Zakir Hussain, Trilok Gurtu: tabla
Vikku Vinayakram: ghatam
Fahim Dandan, Liu Sola, William S. Burroughs: voice
George Basil: dulcimer, qanoun
Michael Baklouk: daff, tambourine
1) Black Light (BL,WS) 7:33
2) Mantra (BL,LS,Caroline) 8:44
3) Ruins (Submutation Dub) (BL) 8:54
4) Eternal Drift (BL,NS) 7:35
5) Words of Advice (BL,WSB) 3:58
6) Cucumber Slumber (Fluxus Mix)