Advertising Durex condoms at soccer matches

McCann Erickson for Durex:

We decided to use the electronic boards held up at half time and the end of matches to signify how much extra time will be p|ayed.These boards were branded with the Durex Performa colours and logo. Of course, with our branding of the boards, the extra time took on a whole new meaning and relevance.

Via.

*Previously: Durex pillows.

Angry Birds in real life courtesy of T-Mobile

Play Angry Birds on your phone, watch Angry Birds launch in real life.

Placing apples to advertise an archery school

Apples placed on statues to advertise an archery school.

*Buy travel posters at eBay.

Iroha - Last Day Of Summer

British post-metal band Iroha's latest single from their self-titled debut album. they got one of Jesu's bandmates playing in this band. That explains why they sound that good.



Iroha by irohamusic

Jesu - Ascension

Jesu's fourth studio album's been out for a month now. I've been listening to Ascension for some time now and I have to say that it's different from what I expected to hear. It still got this melange of electronica and shoegaze, the long and repeatable tone clusters and the lengthy epicness of a good ambient album, but it's somehow different. Jesu's distinctive electronic sound has taken a back seat and in the forefront is music that makes use of more guitars and drumming that of electronic elements. Other thing I noticed is that the overall tone of the album is rather gloomy for the exception of probably "Sedatives" which is kinda upbeat compared to the rest. Don't get me wrong. The album is good but it takes time to get used to it. Probably you won't fall for it from first listen. Still check it out.

Chris Morris - Blue Jam

I'm not British, so until briefly having XM radio in my car I hadn't experienced much British radio. It's interesting stuff, though I don't really know how to accurately describe it. Would it be accurate to say there seems to be a lot more room for experimentation and diversity? That's the impression I got. Satellite radio like XM and Sirius are great services and seem to emulate this style, albeit in a looser fashion. Just in case you're wondering, I dropped my XM subscription close to when I lost my job but it had more to do with the fact their billing department is detestable and couldn't get any information right, so I continued to get bills saying I was late despite multiple calls to provide and confirm my billing data. Standard US radio sucks, though I'd love to hear some standard British radio. I'm assuming it suffers a lot of the same issues but probably doesn't suck nearly as bad.

One radio show I would gladly have stayed up for would have been Chris Morris' Blue Jam, a bizarre presentation of ambient sounds with twisted monologues running atop them. The show ran in the early morning hours from 1997 to 1999, potentially giving new meaning to the title of The KLF's 3 A.M. Eternal. It was disturbing, fascinating and all around engrossing, sounding like something you'd hear while half-awake or having a fever dream. Of course, living in the US, I knew none of this until I started seeing ads for a then imminent CD release of material from the show on the always wonderful Warp Records. After some research and eventually downloading a rip of it, I found myself in love with the absurd world of Blue Jam, enough that I went to a certain record store, one I absolutely DETEST, and exchanged my hard-earned funds for an official pressing of the CD. The art was great, it had liner notes that referenced the backing tracks and even led to a web-only bonus track. A purchase I am eternally pleased with!

The soundtrack to Blue Jam is just as essential as the disturbing sketches. Morris and his crew selected a lot of Warp and Ninja Tune's catalogs for the broadcasts as well as works by Eno and other producers, though nothing here sounds contractually chosen, it all seems hand-picked by true music lovers who clearly enjoyed their work. This perfect mesh leads to bizarre skits like that of the television repair man, Mr. Lizard, who deals with two angry patrons who have found lizards to be crawling out of their tv, all while being extremely cool and quiet and backed by sounds from Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Volume II. If that description doesn't entice or sell you on this, I'm not sure anything will, but trust me, this is some truly bizarre and funny stuff, although I suppose the old American argument still stands that you either enjoyed Monty Python or you didn't, there was no in between.

After Blue Jam left the radio, two television shows were produced mostly using the original radio sketches and adding perverse visuals and twisted editing. You can still order the CD from Warp but it may no longer be in print as they're offering a cassette version at Bleep. On top of that, the album isn't available digitally which I'm sure has a lot to do with the ownership of the sketches and the music beds. The DVDs of the shows are still available but those are only available in Europe in PAL format, so anyone with an NTSC DVD or Blu-Ray player will find themselves terribly out of luck. All of that is terribly disappointing which is why I'm posting the album for your listening enjoyment. This is ripped from my original Warp Records CD of the album and I'm posting it as a set of high quality V0 MP3s, though you'll also find the video from the web-only exclusive, Bishop Slips, an MP3 of that track and Amon Tobin's collaboration with Morris, Bad Sex, in the archive. Grab this, play it in the middle of the night and get freaked out. As someone who doesn't indulge in "extra-curricular-substance-excursions" you can take my word that this record will freak you out whether you're smoking a J, getting shitfaced or doing anything else significantly mind altering. It's simply wonderful! Download link is below and I've listed all the music beds beneath the specific tracks. Enjoy!


Chris Morris - Blue Jam

01 Blue Jam Intro

02 Doc Phone
music bed: Labradford - P

03 Lamacq Sting

04 4ft Car
music beds: Propellerheads - Go Faster
Moloko - Day For Night

05 Suicide Journalist
music beds: Amon Tobin - Sordid
Amon Tobin - Nightlife
Funki Porcini - Going Down

06 Acupuncture
music bed: Naked Funk - Dreamland

07 Bad Sex 2
music bed: The Herbaliser - A Mother For Your Mind

08 Mayo Sting

09 Unflustered Parents
music beds: Pat C. & The Maxwell Implosion - Tic Tac
Funki Porcini - English Country Music
Brian Eno - Deep Blue Day

10 Moyles Sting

11 TV Lizards
music bed: Aphex Twin - SAW2 CD1 TRK7

12 Doc Cock
music bed: Propellerheads - Oh Yeah

13 Hobbs Sting

14 Morton Interview
music bed: Sie - Message From Jupiter

15 Fixit Girl
music bed: Aphex Twin - SAW2 CD1 TRK5
Jimi Tenor - Nobody's Perfect

16 Porn
music bed: Fila Brazillia - A Zed & Two L's

17 Kids Party
music bed: The Clifford Gilberto Rhythm Combination - Restless

18 Club News
music bed: 9 Lazy 9 - Brothers Of The Red

19 Whiley Sting

20 Little Girl Balls
music bed: Kensuke Shiina - Luv Bungalow

21 Blue Jam Outro

Bonus Tracks:
Bishop Slips (video and MP3)
music bed: Soul Coughing - Screenwriter's Blues

Amon Tobin - Bad Sex (feat. Chris Morris)

Los Angeles, November 2019: Blade Runner Ambiance

I don't know who is responsible for this incredible release other than their association with Esper Productions, but kudos to them for their incredible work. This CD was issued in 2003 and features ambient sound from the film Blade Runner. I love Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? but equally adore Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and it's associated ephemera. Vangelis isn't one of my favorites but his score is beautiful, transcendent and mystifying, though the absence of the peculiar sounds and effects throughout the proper soundtrack leaves me wanting more. The answer is this remarkable collection for whom the responsible party is unknown, at least to my knowledge and, as far as I can tell, outside of whatever private circle of fans and collectors this originated from. Whether this was meant to remain a secret or not, some secrets are just too good to keep to oneself. Put this on, close the door, lower the shades and slip into a future that will never come.


Los Angeles, November 2019

01 Los Angeles, November 2019
02 Third Sector - China Town
03 Fourth Sector - Downtown
04 Nineteenth Sector - Police Headquarters
05 Twenty-Fifth Sector - Tyrell Corporation
06 Seventh Sector - Apartment 9732
07 Ninth Sector - Urban Blues
08 Fifth Sector - Animoid Row
09 Second Sector - DNA Row
10 Seventh Sector - Apartment 9732 (Reprise)
11 Eighth Sector - Nocturnal Rain
12 Tenth Sector - The Bradbury Building

Brian Eno - Textures

Captain Willard has somehow disappeared. AGAIN! I have no idea what has happened to his wonderful blogs but I hope he's alright. Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll return for good soon.

The good Captain posted this Eno album on his blog and I've seen it a few other places too, but I received a lossless copy and thought it would be a nice upgrade to a great album. For the record, most comments regarding this album make it out to be unreleased, but that is not accurate. It was released on the Standard Music Library label which issues production music for use in film, television, radio and other mediums. It seems they released Textures at least four times, each with different packaging but the same musical contents. The label is still functioning and has a website where much of their catalog can be purchased, though Textures no longer seems available so it must be out of print, at least for the time being.

Eleven of the tracks on Textures are otherwise unreleased, although the rest are edits or alternate versions of commercially released tracks. I'll give information regarding these differences in the track list below. Otherwise, it's important to note that the version I received of Textures was sent as one track and I believe is available via Avax. Like Plunderphonic, I split the file into multiple tracks with the Medieval Cue Splitter, but there was no special indexing on the cue so I decided not to include it with the album. I've also included artwork from all four issues of the album, all of which is taken from the wonderful Discogs reference page. And finally, as with Plunderphonic, Discosphere and the Sign O' The Times box, make sure you download both FLAC parts and extract each individually as they are not linked to each other. Once you've extracted both completely then you can delete the rars. Enjoy!


Brian Eno - Textures

FLAC Part 1

FLAC Part 2

V0 MP3

01 Soft Dawn

02 The Water Garden
aka Cavallino from The Shutov Assembly

03 Shaded Water
aka Alhondiga from The Shutov Assembly

04 Suspicious
aka Lanzarote from The Shutov Assembly

05 Ozone

06 Landscape With Haze
aka Riverside from The Shutov Assembly

07 Mirage
aka Triennale from The Shutov Assembly

08 River Mist
aka Asian River from Music For Films III

09 Constant Dreams
aka Neroli (Edit) from Neroli (Thinking Music Part IV)

10 Dark Dreams

11 Black Planet

12 Night Thoughts

13 Travelers

14 Evil Thoughts

15 Darkness

16 Jungles

17 Sanctuaries

18 Menace

19 Suspended Motion
aka Markgraph from The Shutov Assembly

20 The Wild
aka Stedelijk from The Shutov Assembly

21 River Journey
aka Asian River (Extended Alternate Mix) from Music For Films III

Brian Eno - My Squelchy Life

What an appropriate name for a Brian Eno album.

This 1991 release was shelved by Eno shortly before it's release date, although promos had been mailed and the album was reviewed by at least one publication. Some of the tracks appeared on Eno's Nerve Net album and others saw release via varying compilations, but the full album has never seen the light of day, at least in a legal sense.

My Squelchy Life had been touted as a return to vocal work for Eno, with some claiming it to be classic Eno pop, but this is certainly no Warm Jets 2. The best comparison might be to Another Green World as there are songs next to instrumental pieces, but even that is a bit misleading as Green World was still a youthful album, whereas Squelchy is filled with recollection and darkness. Older, yes, but no less intriguing or gripping.

Eno sings in a tone quite similar to that of his friend and collaborator, David Byrne, but sometimes he hits chords that are thoroughly unexpected. On Over, he conjures the spirit of an Elvis Presley ballad, while on Tutti Forgetti he sounds like a parody of Byrne and soul singers. Stiff is a glorious ode to welcoming death, and yet it's probably the poppiest number on the album. On Everybody's Mother, his vocals are processed in a way that you could listen to the story, but if you treat his vocal like an instrument you're greeted by what sounds like a quiet voice over a short-wave radio, all with the sound of a thunderstorm in the background. There are also wonderful instrumentals like the tinkling piano of Little Apricot and the dark vocal collage of the title cut, leaving a truly unsettling feeling. Beauty like this covers the album, leaving the listener fascinated if not a little disturbed.

As to why the album was not released, a clear answer has never been given. It's assumed part of the problem stemmed from the end of Eno's Opal Records partnership with Warner Bros., but that's only a logical assumption rather than a sturdy explanation. Regardless, it's unfortunate that My Squelchy Life never saw release as it was intended.

Regarding this version, I received a lossless rip of the album from someone who got it from a popular music downloading site. I investigated it's spectral data and everything looks to be from a lossless source, although some files cut off a little below the full frequency range of a standard CD. Is this a collection of tracks from different sources put together? Is this a pre-master? Was this the master and Eno simply not concerned about such details? Whatever the answer, this is a serious upgrade from the version of the album I previously had and I'm sure anyone listening will find it thoroughly pleasing. Enjoy!


Brian Eno - My Squelchy Life

UPDATE: HERE is another download link for the album, this time in ZIP format as requested. To the Anonymous poster that requested this ZIP file, I still don't understand what difference this makes but I hope it helps you out. The original link located above still works just fine and has a recovery archive, which the ZIP version does not.

01 I Fall Up
02 The Harness
03 My Squelchy Life
04 Tutti Forgetti
05 Stiff
06 Some Words
07 Juju Space Jazz
08 Under
09 Everybody's Mother / Step Up My Boys
10 Little Apricot
11 Over


PS - Two little notes. First, I'm sure that the art featured above couldn't be official. It certainly is cheesy looking, isn't it? Second, does Juju Space Jazz live up to it's name or what?

Robert Fripp - Live at Café Campus, Ste Foy, Quebec, 8/16/79

Awesome bootleg recording of Fripp doing a Frippertronics show in Quebec, 1979. He solos all over the place throughout this set.

I got this show at Dime and it was originally uploaded by kingfrippson, so credit goes to them. I did a little work on the files afterward, putting all seven back together, normalizing the complete show, trimming the cuts between tracks so they're not as obvious and then cutting all the files back into seven individual tracks, but that's all. I've got a lossless version of my edit that I can share upon request, but you can still get the original files over Dime along with tons of other great Fripp shows.

UPDATE: Sorry guys, but Fripp's lawyers are becoming mighty feisty regarding his solo material. With that said, I'm not going to be posting any Fripp for a while, but I may post this again down the road as part of something special. Keep an eye peeled!

Robert Fripp - Live at Café Campus, Ste Foy, Quebec, 8/16/79

01 1756 / Under Heavy Manners
02 1753 To 1755
03 1752
04 1751 To 1752
05 Red Two Scorer
06 God Save The Queen
07 The Zero Of The Signified

Daryl Hall - Sacred Songs

If there was ever an example of people just not getting it, Sacred Songs is it.

Daryl Hall, fearing that his artistic abilities were being smothered by his success with John Oates, decided to record an album on his own. After bumping into his friend, Robert Fripp, it was decided that Fripp would produce the album and off they went. A lot of people were understandably confused regarding what to expect of a supposed Hall & Fripp album. On the surface it certainly sounds like Hall & Oates but once you listen a little closer the differences start to show. Lyrics about two women named Babs that might be the same person, songs about life as business and vice versa, truly mature songs about how perplexing love is, mentions of magick, all backed with Fripp's guitar and fascinating production skills, it becomes clear that this is certainly not a Hall & Oates album.

Daryl Hall wrote all the songs but two, the Frippertronics solo Urban Landscape and NYCNY, a kind of progressive punk ode to New York with music written by Fripp and lyrics by Hall. The songs all have a semi-serious, sober vibe about them although the production is concise and filled with fun little touches throughout. Babs and Babs shifts into a Frippertronics chill-out mid-way through only to flip back into the proper song full throttle and end with a meeting of both worlds. Don't Leave Me Alone With Her fades all the way out only to come right back and keep chugging away. NYCNY ends with what sounds like a locked groove or a skip on a record, only to have someone lift the tone arm, all completely audible on the recording.

Due in part to Hall's then label, RCA, and manager Tommy Mottola (of Sony fame), the album was denied release due to fears it was uncommercial. Hall and Fripp's reaction was to share copies of the album with dj's, writers and fans in a push to get the word out. The album finally saw the light of day in 1980 and didn't sell badly, but the label didn't support it or release any singles, damning it to obscurity. As bad as that is, what's worse is the debacle that followed with Fripp's first solo album, Exposure. Hall contributed vocals to eight of that album's songs but Mottola again decided to butt in. This time he told Fripp that he would only allow two of Hall's vocals to appear on the album unless the album was credited to Hall & Fripp and released on RCA. Fripp kept two Hall vocals and had the rest re-recorded by other performers, although versions of most of Hall's performances for the album have been released as of 2006 via Fripp's own DGM label on a two disc reissue of Exposure.

Sacred Songs did see a CD reissue with Hall's two contributions to the initial release of Exposure added as bonus tracks, but that has gone out of print and the album is unavailable even as a digital purchase, so I'm featuring it here today for download. The best thing I can tell you to expect is more than you probably do. It's poppy enough you might be able to slip some of the songs on soft rock radio but this is not a pop album in the normal sense. It's also not a Hall & Fripp or Fripp & Hall album. Fripp's contributions are great and can be heard and felt throughout, but Hall is the main attraction. This is a really great record that has been forced to languish in obscurity, and that's truly unfortunate. I hope you give it a chance, you might be just as surprised by how great it is as I was, and you might find it stuck on repeat just as I have.


Daryl Hall - Sacred Songs

01 Sacred Songs
02 Something In 4/4 Time
03 Babs and Babs
04 Urban Landscape
05 NYCNY
06 The Farther Away I Am
07 Why Was It So Easy
08 Don't Leave Me Alone With Her
09 Survive
10 Without Tears

FFWD or Robert Fripp meets The Orb uptown. WAY UPTOWN!

This will most likely be my final Fripp feature for the foreseeable future, only because I don't have a lot of Fripp stuff to share with everyone. This one is very cool though I don't have much information to share with you other than the basics.

First off, FFWD is a convenient acronym for the group's contributors, namely Robert Fripp with guitar and treatments, Thomas Fehlmann with electronics, Kris Weston, better known to the world as Thrash, also credited with electronics, and finally D.A.R. Paterson with ambient treatments. That's how the CD credits the individual talents at work, and everyone but Fripp was a member of The Orb around the time of this project. With that said, one would probably assume that FFWD would sound like The Orb with Fripp on guitar, but that's not quite accurate. It's actually rather out there and very peaceful while still occasionally grabbing the opportunity to be naughty with the sounds of clocks being destroyed or funny vocal samples drifting in and out. It certainly wouldn't disappoint fans of The Orb, although Fripp fans might be confused what to expect, but if you go into it with minimal preconceived notions then you'd probably be quite taken with it. Listen to this with headphones on and you'll be drifting through space, enjoying whatever distractions float past. I suppose that would make this good drug music, but the only thing I use is caffeine and still I think it's wonderful.

FFWD's self-titled album, issued in 1994, appears to be out of print so I am featuring it here, but the other part of this post is their so-called demo tape, Orbert. Fripp and The Orb supposedly met over a few days and recorded everything here, with the first example of their fruits of collaboration being Orbert, a fifty-minute-plus track that features elements of some tracks from the album but is very much it's own thing. Work on the sessions continued and mixing occurred in the summer of 1993, leading to the self-titled album being released in 1994. Orbert remains unreleased though, with it purportedly having been leaked by Thrash or from a hard drive of his that was "compromised". Whatever the case, Orbert seems to be two long tracks that are shared as one, so I didn't separate them.

I don't want to go into too much detail regarding the sound of FFWD, other than to say if you love the ambient work of The Orb you'll be pleased, and if you're open to experimentation and don't expect guitar solos and happen to be a Fripp fan, you too should be satisfied. And let me note, as some may wonder afterward, Hasson Ramsey is responsible for the wonderful percussion on Collossus. Enjoy!


FFWD - FFWD

01 Hidden
02 Lucky Saddle
03 Drone
04 Hempire
05 Collossus
06 What Time Is Clock
07 Can Of Bliss
08 Elevenses
09 Meteor Storm
10 Buckwheat & Grits
11 Klangtest
12 Suess Wie Eine Nuss


FFWD - Orbert

Robert Fripp - God Save The Queen / Under Heavy Manners

Oh how I am tired. Ever woken up at one in the morning to find you might be suffering from a potentially severe sleep disorder that causes you to scream out for no logically clear reason about things that make no sense? Didn't sleep well after that, although the fact I couldn't NOT sleep means I'm not suffering from insomnia which I suppose is a good thing. Anyway, the funny part is I was listening to this very record while falling asleep which leads me to wonder if it might have affected my state. I suppose one shouldn't listen to things which might affect them but this is some good shit! Maybe I need Breathe Right strips or something.

Anyway, in the recent Bowie post I mentioned my lack of knowledge regarding Fripp and Belew and requested some guidance. I want to thank everyone who wrote me which includes Roger Camden, Stanley, Anonymous (beefheartfan) and Nathan Moore (I'll be responding to you soon Nathan!), for your advice which has been quite helpful. I've found that the King Crimson stuff really isn't my thing as it just doesn't add up for me, but Fripp's work with Eno, his productions for Daryl Hall and Peter Gabriel, his group the League Of Gentlemen and his solo records are all pretty incredible! (No Pussyfooting) kinda drags but the music is so beautiful and Fripp's later pieces with Eno are amazing. Fripp's supposed AOR trio of albums are rather good if not totally off the wall, with Peter Gabriel's PG 2 ("Scratch") probably being the most sensible of the three, Hall's falling somewhere between his work with Oates and Fripp's Zen Garden vibes, and Fripp's Exposure being totally insane to the point I have no idea how it could have been labeled AOR by anyone. Exposure is incredible though, and from there I listed to the League Of Gentlemen album which is excellent and very much of it's early eighties dance/punk era. But that's when I finally heard some solo Frippertronics recordings and fell madly in love with God Save The Queen / Under Heavy Manners, one of the only albums Fripp has not reissued since it's original release.

I haven't gotten to do much research as to why GSTQ/UHM remains unavailable, but I suppose it has something to do with Under Heavy Manners, the song, also appearing on the League Of Gentlemen album and a reworked version of The Zero Of The Signified, the album's closer, also appearing on the League album as God Save The King. It's a shame though that the Frippertronics pieces haven't been reissued as they are stunningly beautiful. I've read commentary from other listeners that many see those pieces as repetitive and boring, but for myself they were just the opposite. Relaxing, beautiful, stretching out as far as they need to, it's the type of thing Eno would be proud of. And the non-Frippertronics tracks, labeled by Fripp as Discotronics for featuring bass and percussion augmenting his guitar loops, I've also seen get bashed for supposedly not changing very often, but The Zero has all kinds of little subtle shifts before the rhythm drops out leaving only Fripp's loops, and David Byrne's vocal appearance on Manners, odd and more disjointed than usual with all the lyrics written by Fripp, is stunning. Maybe Fripp thought this album, which is clearly meant to be taken as two separate sets of recordings, was damaged by this split, but I thoroughly disagree.

After having found some low bitrate MP3s of this album, a friend on a private site (who wishes to remain anonymous) hooked me up with a beautiful lossless rip that sounds so clear it's almost not believable that it's a vinyl transfer. He also gave me the artwork and liner notes for the album which are very informative, and I decided to share these all back with you, my beloved readers! So, please enjoy this ridiculously clean rip of the God/Manners album and I hope you are just as enchanted as I am. Now I'm going to do some research about sleep disorders in my family tree.


Robert Fripp - God Save The Queen / Under Heavy Manners

UPDATE: Sorry guys, but Fripp's lawyers are becoming mighty feisty regarding his solo material. With that said, I'm not going to be posting any Fripp for a while, but I may post this again down the road as part of something special. Keep an eye peeled!

01 Red Two Scorer
02 God Save The Queen
03 1983
04 Under Heavy Manners
05 The Zero Of The Signified


PS - Gotta drop you a line and chat Michael! Thanks again for the kind words.

Lou Reed - Metal Machine Music

I know, I know, how could anyone truly enjoy this? A lot of people are going to say that without ever listening to it, but most of them are correct anyways. To my friends and family though, I am seen as insane for enjoying this blast of utter chaos, and that's the best way to describe Metal Machine Music. That said, I truly do love this album, and that's a capital LOVE in bold lettering! There is simply nothing like Metal Machine Music, painful yet beautiful, I can use it to force myself awake yet it can also lull me to sleep. There aren't any words or melodies, but there are plenty of sounds and things to grasp throughout. I can't help but imagine this is what contact with an alien race might sound like. Lights and sounds not in our spectrum, terrifying yet, if you move past the horror, fascinating if not beautiful.

Metal Machine Music is understandably viewed by many as a joke. There is art there, but the joke part is understandable. Think about it, Lou Reed records a new album that his label is contractually required to release and it's nothing but noise. No vocals, no songs, nothing resembling form, just waves of feedback caused primarily by Lou placing guitars against extremely loud amplifiers and letting the feedback vibrate the strings, essentially allowing the amps to play the guitars. It almost destroyed Lou's career, and if he hadn't released Coney Island Baby as the follow-up it may have succeeded.

I'm posting this because most people haven't heard it and, if you're interested in it, you really shouldn't have to pay up front to possibly be tortured. That said, if you find yourself in love with the chaos, you should really purchase a copy. I love Lou's bizarre liner notes and packaging, which includes a completely fabricated list of equipment used to create the album. As I understand it, the list was meant to be a parody of "serious-musicians" and their want to share every bit of detail possible about the recording process.

Give this a whirl, but keep in mind it's not for everyone. It's not necessarily meant to be listened to in one full sitting. Hell, few people have even bothered to do that. I can attest that I haven't and probably couldn't, but that's not a bad thing, and it isn't that type of album. Things about it will stick in your mind. I went so far as to write a song around the locked groove at the end of Part IV, which is replicated at the end of the 2000 CD reissue which is the source of this upload. Experiment with this and you'll find yourself, at the least, intrigued. You can play the left or right channels alone, giving you, along with the stereo presentation three different ways of listening. You can also play it backwards. Play it soft, play it loud, just play it and make up your own mind. The majority may be right about Metal Machine Music, for the most part at least, but that doesn't mean it's bad, just that it's different. It really IS different!


Lou Reed - Metal Machine Music
UPDATE: Lou has just reissued Metal Machine Music via his website on vinyl, DVD and Blu-Ray. Because of that, I'm removing the album from download. If you enjoy it, please check out his website and the packages available for purchase. I got the vinyl/DVD combo which features the album's original quad mix on the DVD.

Rafael Toral - Wave Field

WHO HERE LOVES MY BLOODY VALENTINE'S LOVELESS?

Rafael Toral plays experimental electronic instruments and calls his style of music post-free jazz electronic music. That's almost a direct rip from his his website's biography but it's pretty damn accurate. He also creates drone/ambient works, of which he does a great job.

NOW BEAR WITH ME! THE MBV THING IS COMING UP!

Ambient and drone music is what he's probably best known for, for better or worse, primarily because of his wonderful album Wave Field, of which it's cover is a tribute of sorts to the aforementioned My Bloody Valentine's intensely adored Loveless. One could say the album is a tribute to Loveless in itself, but that's not fair since Kevin Shields didn't invent the drone. That said, it does sound like is an extended coda to Loveless that maintains that fever dream vibe for another fifty minutes, so whether you're listening to this for the ambient bliss or the MBV sound, you should find yourself pleased.

Despite posting this excellent release here, I can't help but feel that I'm misrepresenting Mr. Toral's body of work. Lucky for my conscience and anyone interested in his works, his website is extremely detailed and features plenty of samples to examine. So, if you like this, please pay him a visit and examine his catalog.


Rafael Toral - Wave Field
Album removed from download at artist's polite request.

01 Wave Field 5
02 Wave Field 6
03 WF Radio Edit