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Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band - Trout Mask Replica - 08-Aug-09 02:04 AM
A milestone LP which has probably stimulated more debate amongst my friends over the years than any other. Some hate it with a passion, some love it with equal passion. Lets put it like this ... you will never ever forget what it sounds like once youve heard it!
Crazy poems, even crazier music; the brain child of Don van Vliet, pouring forth his mind undiluted and straight through his harangued musicians and producer Frank Zappa.
The bizarre thing is it sounds and has been previously argued that none of the band could play their instruments. I have seen The Magic Band and let me tell you - these guys can play! Note for note! Amazing musicians all...
If you love formulaic blues re-re-hashed a zillion times over AVOID...
If you are prepared to OPEN up your mind, this little fella will blow it clean out of your cranium and when it finally returns home nothing will ever be the same again.

Ragga Twins* - Ragga Twins Step Out - 25-Jun-09 08:27 AM
Its hard to imagine now what kind of an impact these guys had on the music scene in the UK for anyone not familiar with these classic tunes... The mixing of reggae and breaks, and ragga and rave certainly caught my attention back in the day, and i dont think im alone in that.

This is a pretty comprehensive collection of their output from the excellent Soul Jazz label and really worth your hard earned cash in my opinion. Its not fully comprehensive though, and is missing some quality tunes. However, there is plenty to be going along with here, with such absolutely stonking tracks as Shine Eye (sampling Black Uhurus Shine Eye Girl), 18" Speaker and Spliffhead (both versions). If youve got the vinyl, buy it anyway for its crisp sound - if you havent got the vinyl, lucky you, you dont need it now!

Various - Chains And Black Exhaust - 20-Jun-09 04:50 AM
This crackly, vinyl lifted rare release from Chicago label Memphix is a break diggers dream come true... Dante Carfagna has spared you hours of looking and listening through crumbly old vinyl and presents you with a stylised collection of obscure joints from what sounds like the 60s and 70s. "Stylised" in this case meaning the title tells all - Hells Angel/bikers funk(-adelic) with a distinct garage flavour; acid-rock fuzzed up guitar and bass; adrenaline (amphetamine?) fuelled RnB with a large dose of blaxploitation for good measure! There are some real beauties on here, for listening or sampling... take ya choice. Puts me in mind of other biker themed releases such as Angel Dust - Music For Movie Bikers, presented by Savage Pencil.

The cds presentation has no info as to tracks/artists whatsoever apart from some partly obscured photographs of 7" labels, and the Iron Knowledge Showstopper centre label in full view - lucky we have Discogs/internet to inform us otherwise you could possibly spend a whole lifetime digging just for the track listing!

Expect to pay good money for the original which contains the previously mentioned Iron Knowledge track which has a badass break nestling in its almost heavy metal heart. Like Parliament/Funkadelic? This s**t is definitely for you!

DJ Ordeal - You Win 4 I - 14-Mar-08 04:49 PM
This is really heart-warming stuff - a joyful little thing which amuses and cheers me up everytime i hear/see it...
Done in the Ordeal style of tape cut, paste, recut, fiddle, slice, dice - or as the You Win 4 I song says
"PUNCH! KICK! CHOKE! BREAK BONES!".
This is certainly one of my favourite DJ Ordeal releases (I mean, theyre all pretty good in my opinion.)
You Win 4 I - noodling ivories, nonsensical skits and tinkling voices with SFX smattered about -
an aural canvas of playful joy : this is DJ Ordeal on top form - even the tape cuts percuss toward the end...
Delicious pretty much speaks for itself - a disco/jazz muffin with female voice - in fact perhaps a new genre altogether... advert-garde!
(Worth noting that this is a different version than the one included on the Magic Trick LP of 2001.)
Marianne is a sexy softpornadelic sonic lovely with rewinds, lots of percussion on a bed of electropopboogie,
with Joanna rounding off with a nice simple piano line.
This is elastic, fun and non-rigid stuff, brought to life by the mind of its creator and also by its method of creation -
magnetic tape manipulation! Painstaking stuff! Bravo DJ Ordeal!

DJ Ordeal - Organistics - 13-Mar-08 02:28 AM
A great album from a mad, but very friendly genius!
This is a collection of some of the earlier work from DJ Ordeal, South Coast tape machine destroying legend. For that is how Organistics has been produced - cutting, slicing, manipulating tape in ways that tape machine manufacturers wouldnt recommend (in fact, probably wouldnt have the wits to conceive of)!
But if at first it isnt very accessible, thats only because you havent adjusted to the mans style! Its like free-jazz, Negativland, Trout Mask Replica, if you like comparisons - any such music which challenges your preconceived and comfortable notions of what music should be. In fact, its probably more like art - sonic art.
In places its all wibbly-wobbly like a recording gone wrong, but see this more as a whammy bar for the tape machine - which is truly like this guys instrument (no, not organ)!
Kicking off with the seven inch release Wild Orgy, which is utter brilliance in my eyes, via such delicacies as Jungle, Verda Sex Machine (i am a sucker for spoken samples from old sources though!) and Not In Love - if you can find it to buy anywhere i suggest you do so at the earliest opportunity, because when you tire of formulaic dance music, this is gonna save your life!

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