Steven Tetzloff – Flyspecks Buzzworld (1985/2011)

 

Archive.org

The Living Archive of Underground Music 

 Meteor Face Tapes

 

• Industrial music 
• Lo-fi 
• Avant-garde 
• Avant-rock 
• Improvised music 
• Dada music
• No Wave
  
• Experimentalism 
• DIY 
• Post-punk
• Outsider music
  
• Psychedelic 

 

11-looline teos avaldati algselt Meteor Face Tapes'i all (ilmselt Steven Tetzloff'i isiklik plaadifirma, kuivõrd tema nimi figureerib ka plaadifirma ülejäänud 3-4 albumil) ning peegeldab kahtlemata tee-seda-ise kassettikultuuri elujõudu California osariigis. Tänu põrandaaluse kultuuri aktivistile ja selles osalejale Don Campau'le on teos pimedusest osalise päikesevalguse kätte tõusnud. Ei ole see piinav teps mitte loojatele endile, küll võib see kimbatust tekitada tavakuulajale. Esiteks eeldatakse tervikalbumit, ent teos kõlab splitalbumina – ühelt poolt tagasihoidlikult kirjeldades kitarrimuusika ((psühhedeelne alternatiivrokk/agiteeriv (post)punk)), ent teisalt justkui industriaalpioneeride algusperiood kohmakate kandiliste rütmide, podiseva rasvase primitiivelektroonika ja kinnisideelisi sõnumeid-silpe kordava solistiga. Albumil on lisaks Tetzloff'ile (laul, kidra, sünt) tegev ka Mauro Aragon (sünt, klarnet, trummid, trummimasin). Kuigi mainitud harud on näiliselt üksteisest erinevad, kuuluvad nad ometi ajalooliselt kokku. Ühisnimetajaks on postpunk, selle mässuline ja mängu muutev hoiak. Sellel albumil muudab veelgi enam mängu tahtmatus väljuda keldrist, kasta vanu juuri ning seda maksimumini kurnata. Kuuluda sõgedasse subkultuuri kahtlaste tegelastega. Ja tulemuse järgi on nende hoiak vägagi õigustatud. Muuseas, Campau'l on hea huumorisoon, kuivõrd on kirjeldanud albumit grungerokina.

8.0 (7.5-8.5)

Timothy Gilbert – Come And See (1987/2016)

The Living Archive of Underground Music

Archive.org

• Experimental rock 
• Avant-rock 
• Psych-rock 
• Improvised music 
• Singer-songwriter 
• Acid folk 
• Psych-folk

Comment: at the first glance, this issue embraces a couple of lengthy compositions, one of them is 27-minute and the other side is 31-minute long. A windy and rainy Sunday for nice listening, isn't. In fact, the two blocks are divided into many tracks. The US-born artist's 58 minutes is a vivid excursion based on a galvanised, needle studded electric guitar full of lasting riffs and heavy twangs to be resulted in psychedelic maelstroms and lysergic incantations. By its timbre, reverberant echoes and spiritual touch it chimes like an underground artist or combo out of the beginning of the 70s by loaning something from Zappa, Captain Beefheart, and acid folk artists. Indeed, it is an obvious virtue to reach such sort of sound. And of course, the artist's gritty timbre and expressive singing manner is worth on their own by conjuring up a bit spooky ambience. The aforementioned main course is interwoven with spoken word snippets, "accidental" sounds and something singular else. There is one ditty about an uncanny snowman. It is an unusual and solid songwriter outing. Thanks to Don Campau and his headed The Living Archive of Underground Music it was recently made available for a wider audience (initially in 1987). In a word, come and see.

Herzliyya Boardwalk String Sextet – Godzilla´s In The East (1989/2018)

The Living Archive of Underground Music

Archive.org

• Improvised music 
• Freeformfreakout 
• Abstract 
• Improvised noise 
• Experimentalism 
• Avant-garde

Comment: this release is twofold consisting of compositions both longer than 22 minutes. Behind the issue is the Israeli/Jewish Joseph Copolovich whose sound is built upon smithereens-alike noises, intermittent concrete sounds, tectonic bass rumbling and much more I am not able to describe it for though. I am tempted to find out a possible location for this release but I am not allowed to do it. Undoubtedly it is crushing and crashing as if the aforementioned elements were put into some kind of virtual washing machine and then all the produced audible debris taken out from within it and put gravitating toward comprehensible centres (read: human beings). Of course, one can imagine an even more funny-tragic mixed event when some amateurish kabbalist were demolished under the curse because of his/her falsely chosen words. Getting knocked down by the Golem. The question is whether is the music positively or negatively appreciated? For me, it is quite neutral by listening experience because of being the abstract strip yet by historical importance it is a positive cut. We know a little about Israeli noiseniks except Dror Feiler who though has been living in Sweden for a while. The release was initially released in 1989 and now it is picked up by Don Campau`s The Living Archive of Underground Music.

Dave Fuglewicz – Orange Mist Sunrise/Orange Mist Sunset (1996)

The Living Archive of Underground Music

• Synth music 
• Improvised music 
• Electronic music 
• Avant-garde 
• Experimental electronica 
• Psychedelic 
• Experimentalism 
• Minimal synth 
• Drone 
• Minimalism 
• Avant-electronica

Comment: one of the main characters of the blogosphere is to dig out music having been produced many decades ago and having the status of virtually forgotten. Given that many of these blogs used to have a considerable following it will give a refreshing impulse to many projects. One of the most striking categories is music which can be pigeonholed as minimal synth, krautrock tinged experiments most of them following DIY attitude. One of those issues is also Dave Fuglewicz's Orange Mist Sunrise/Orange Mist Sunset consisting of 12 tracks. You can see an impressive analogue synthesiser-based technical park on pictures and your sonic experience probably fits with it. One hears throbbing Moog synths providing the pace and intriguing layered synthesises with different phases on experimentation. You can hear how different layers used to shift against one another, more profoundly, one of the layers is switched off white the other one is switched on for pitch effects, deceleration and acceleration, lots of arpeggio moves. And vice versa. All of that used to happen in a minimal vein and at the same time you obviously figure out it is an example of improvisational music. And at the same time it does not do away with a free flow and psychedelic facets. It might be you start thinking of it as way too lengthy but one should consider the fact it is in concordance with the nature and mind of this kind of music. Remember the works of Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, for example. By the way, with regard to contemporary synth wizards like M Geddes Gengras, Steve Hauschildt, Daniel Lopatin you can see the same tendencies to go on. The issue was the tape of a month of The Living Archive of Underground Music curated by Don Campau.

Dave Fuglewicz - Orange Mist Sunrise and Sunset (1996)

The Living Archive of Underground Music

Dave Fuglewicz

/Avant-garde, Minimal synth, Kosmische Musik, Drone, Krautrock, Experimentalism, Electronic music/

Comment: this is Georgia, US-based musician Dave Fuglewicz`s tenth issue which originally has been issued on two tapes in 1996. It consists of 12 compositions, however many of them are being longer than 10 minute thereby reaching a total time of 1 hour and 55 minutes. Musically it harks back to those golden Kosmische Music/krautrock/minimal synth days when the artists like Konrad Schnitzler, Symboter, Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream, Cluster, Harmonia, Monoton and many other ones started to experiment on synthesisers and sequencer machines to create slightly psychedelic and dreamy electronic landscapes and acid fringed items to broaden the listener`s (sub)consciousness. More profoundly, it was frequently a fertile shift between calmed harmonic progressions and more intense rhythmic patterns and resonant swelling in chord progressions to conjure up different perceptions at the same time. Because of his dreamy approach the album chimes in a hyper-realistic manner now and then. Fuglewicz`s sound is replete with quite intense droning and tranquil wobbling of such electronic keyboards as ARP 2600, and ARP Odyssey and one Casio keyboard and all that sound has been recorded on Vesta-Fire MR-10B four track recorder. The listener could perceive the tracks with flourishing analogue quality. In a word, the result is an outstanding issue which is worth to be kept alive for future days. Of course, let`s discover other issues by Dave Fuglewicz either. 

LA Screamin Popeyes - Save The Brainforest (1990)

TheLiving Archive of Underground Music 

/Avant-garde, Improvised music, Dada music, Synth pop, DIY, Field recording, Weird pop, Electronic pop, Art punk, Leftfield, Post-punk, Dance rock, Spoken word, Experimental pop/

Comment: thanks to this 9-track issue (the download version is zipped into the two lengthy tracks in total, though) I discovered a new platform for old, rarefied music, called The Living Archive of Underground Music which is curated by Don Campau. Indeed, it is time to discover amazing sonic examples from the past. First of all, I truly like the title of the album which was relevant many decades ago and is still today. By watching what is going to happen every day worldwide it is ridiculous and sad at the same instant. People make this shit happen to. Given that the singularity of human being used to diminish remarkably. Save The Brainforest reflects upon these deranged and oppressed tendencies excellently. In detail, it veers from robot-alike spoken word snippets and roughly processed guitar riff noises to psychedelic and orchestrated synth lines and such sort of improvised situations reminding of radio drama and sultry jungle encircled happenings. There are up some hilarious artsy (post-) punk and fucked-up synth pop/dance rock progressions either. Behind the project were Jeff Olson, and Carl Strong who recorded the issue on the 4-track tape machine set up on a kitchen table. With this fabulous issue the project did continue to uphold the Dadaist and obscure DIY tradition within the US-based music scene (The Residents, Big City Orchestra, Fantomas, Negativland, No-Neck Blues Band, Bob Chaos based imprint etc).