VA - Balearic Beats Vol. 1

VA - Balearic Beats Vol. 1 (1988)

This one is courtesy of the once magnificent, now defunct audio.out blog. So much great music lost to the void (that I hadn't gotten hold of yet...) when he went offline. This is probably up someplace else, but since I've been mentioning it to friends so much and it fits SRO's style such as it does I'm tossing it up here just for simplicity's sake. Cover blurb:

balearic beats by farley

"wot shall i file this BALEARIC BEATS under?" so young joe public, y.t.s., go-getter at yo-price megastore hits his first problem in pigeon-holeing the black vinyl. now seeing that the only "MATEY" joe's "EVER GOT RIGHT ON" is the rubbery balloon type his guv'nor sells, i think we should explain this happy, happy, groove a little more.

now while it's true that the balearic beat was born in IBIZAN clubs, such as AMNESIA and PASHA, it's breeding took place in a small, sweaty, strobby, smokey south london club called ..... THE SHOOM. the hardcore original shoomers, along with another london club THE FUTURE, had discovered the JOY'S of balearic beats, during several previous "summers of love" (sic), and had brought the music and the attitude back to london with them. the kinectic style of dancing now associated with balearics ugly brother, ACID HOUSE, is pure ibizan in origin. The loudest screams at SPECTRUM are always reserved for NITZER EBB and the RESIDENTS while hearing ENZO AVITABILE booming through the smoke at JOY is an ecstatic experience one step away, (some say forward) from sex.

THE FINI TRIBE and MANDY SMITH have become anthems all over clubland, whilst my personal faves are the fast euro-rhythms of CODE 61 and the post-punk thrashing of THE WOODENTOPS. every track of this album will fill floors and put smiles on faces, Throughout the balearic underground. look, i wonder if poor joe's getting the gist of all this, for joe and the yet uninitiated, balearic is the following and much, much more.....

.....loads of hugs and kisses ... smiley t-shirts and happy faces.... feeling saucey instead of sauced......eating fruits on the dance floor....bashed up converse trainers.....lovely girls with blinding accents.....ice pops.....hedionism....sparklers at the future....indian belly dancers at the shoom....almost everyone finally realising that "only love can conquer hate"....watching the sun set at the café del mar....watching the sun rise on primrose hill....the karma collective....poncho's pony tails and body paint....dj alfredo....new friendships....loads more hugs and kisses....just let this piece of warm anglo-ibizan club culture rush over you, enjoy it mateys!!!

loves & respects to OAKEY, THE RAMPLINGS, GARY HAISMAN, JOHNNY WALKER, STEVE PROCTOR, NANCY NOISE, and to all those out there who truly "shoooom!!!"

xxx hugs and kisses xxx - farley.
BOYS OWN FANZINE

God, don't you just love that knackered proto-raver writing style. This one's even better than the Technorave thing from last month. Anyway, this comp was released by the Boy's Own crew and stands as the defining first-generation balearic collection. Toss it on the monitors and play like you're Rampling at Shoom. Check this out too, I keep forgetting to buy this damn thing and I'm sure by the time I have the spare cash around it'll be sold out and worth a few hundo on ebay or something. Grab the 44-page pdf preview, only a tenth of the full book. Epic shit.

D.D.A.A. - La Famille Des Saltimbanques

D.D.A.A. - La Famille Des Saltimbanques (1984)

One of the jewels of my meager cassette collection here. Includes scans of the packaging and all that. I'll leave the rest up to this short bit off the WFMU blog.

I've raved about DDAA elsewhere on this blog, and also addressed the fact that several of their best releases were cassette-only. La Famille des Saltimbanques was released in a beautiful custom package by the Italian ADN label in 1984, and is among my personal top three DDAA recordings, along with their masterpiece, the Ronsard LP (1988) and their first full-length album, Action and Japanese Demonstration (1982). DDAA's songs have a relentlessly human quality, an emotional intensity that I find lacking in much of the post-punk avant-garde, having more in common with Can or Amon Düül than with DDAA contemporaries like Nurse With Wound and P16.D4. The two lengthy songs that make up most of Face 2 of this tape are mindbending excursions of plodding percussion and monolithic distorted guitar.

This is certainly one of the more rockist outings for DDAA, heavy on the bass and the screaming guitar. I've chopped this rip up into the songs as listed on the packaging, if you'd rather get sidelong rips or grab it from a different source, WFMU has sidelong rips and this blog has their own rips as well. Quality might be better from them, I haven't checked. Tape's a bit spotty at points on my copy, ravages of age and all (can you believe it's really been 25 years since this came out? so much more interesting than most of what's coming out now)

V-Effect - Stop Those Songs

V-Effect - Stop Those Songs! (1983)

This is my personal rip from my copy, one of those 'this looks neat let me check it on the old demo turntable' thrift store buys. Mutant Sounds posted this about three years ago but took it down because some label said they were going to re-release it. Since they never did (so far as I can tell), here it is again. I'll knock it down when someone links me to a press on forced exposure or wherever.

V-Effect straddle the no-wave and downtown scenes, though I imagine they didn't see it that way. The downtown people probably didn't see it that way either, since Mori is still with that downtown set and none of the people involved with this record seem to have kept an explicit presence within the "downtown scene" (or anywhere else I can find). Background established, this is... well... likely an album unlike anything you've heard before. Somewhere between no-wave and post-punk, free jazz and actual revolutionary sentiment. Call and response, self-taught sax squeal, analog clap pads on mic stands to add to the drummers' repertoire, thoroughly DIY and anti-capitalist.

This is what w-burg hipster bullshit should be right now. Enjoy.



first your feet... then your back... then your mind... then heart attack...

Ruth - Polaroïd/Roman/Photo

Ruth - Polaroïd/Roman/Photo (1985)

Another classic minimal synth rip, delved from a long-lost backup dvd. This is the CD rerelease of Ruth - Polaroïd/Roman/Photo with all the bonus tracks. Got some terrific cuts on this one, even beyond the classic proper Roman Photo single found on my last post. Mabelle, Mots (and the 2001 remix), and the 14 minute original instrumental Roman Photo mix. This numbers among the greatest minimal synth albums ever produced, perhaps even surpassing those of Ensemble Pittoresque.

VA - So Young But So Cold

Various Artists - So Young But So Cold

Well, guess who just discovered a dvd backup of mp3 rips from 3 years back? This is a (now complete) repost of the terrifically hard-to-find french minimal synth/coldwave comp put out by tigersushi back in '04 featuring some of the best tracks of the era. Don't forget to hit up Artefact's site if you like the M.A.E. track on this comp, you can download the full album from there. (recommended above all for their version of the internationale!)

VA - Han-Ichi Independents

Alright, up today we have one of the gems of my tape collection. It's been posted elsewhere in various forms (actually having trouble figuring out where I found it in the first place, come to think of it), but this rip is from my copy of the original cassette. It remains in raw, full-side v0 mp3 form, since I don't think cutting it up into 'tracks' makes any sense. Have a listen and you'll see what I mean.

This release was a recap/medley of live performances for a 1983 Japanese Anarchist festival. Features bands such as A*MUSIK, Skeleton Crew (Fred Frith/Tom Cora), Remedy Control, and at least one or two noteworthy Japanese-name acts who I can't seem to remember and I'm having a surprisingly difficult time digging up the other blogs that have posted this in the past (I BELIEVE one of them is Zuno Keisatsu but I can't read Japanese at all). If anyone wants to translate the cover in the comments, there's a larger copy of the scan in the file. Anyway, I'm hoping to start varying up the posts from my increasingly regular dance single rips, so look for more like this in the future. Enjoy.

VA - Han-Ichi Independents (1983)

One Plus One - 1+1 EP

Four track EP from this obscure (only one mention of them on the internet and a track on a discogs comp) NJ minimal synth duo, featuring a synthy cover of 'Time Has Come Today' and three other synth rock tracks. Reminds me a little of Nash the Slash without the virtuosity and much more of a punk edge to it. To guess, that's an 808 and a pro one or minimoog, alongside some guitar and bass. Enjoy.

One Plus One - 1+1 EP

The Passage - Degenerates

Second LP of the night, highly literate english synth-pop from The Passage. First track is one of my favorites of the genre, 'XOYO' is a paean to gender & sexual equality and features some of the lushest synth work I've ever heard. That synth work carries on through the rest of the album, and should strike a chord with both minimal synth fans and fans of more grandiose works (Schulze, for example, or the various albums I've posted in the past). 'Fleck', for example, is a mean little song with a couple of aggro little monosynth basslines, while '(Ourselves)' is a bit like Vangelis-gone-synthpop. Punky up-tempo synth lines and intelligent lyrics found here in spades. Enjoy.

The Passage - Degenerates (1982)

The Fall - Live 1977

one more from a cd rip i did today



The Fall - Live 1977

wiki:
Live 1977 is a live album by The Fall, first released in March 2000. Although the sound quality is poor and live documents of The Fall are plentiful, this one is of particular note as it is the earliest available recording of the group in action, apart from two tracks on the Short Circuit: Live at the Electric Circus compilation. It dates from December 1977, about six weeks after the group recorded their debut single "Bingo-Master's Break-Out!" (which wasn’t released until August 1978). It is the only release where early song "Hey! Fascist" can be heard, although it was reworked as "Hey! Student" and released on Middle Class Revolt some seventeen years later. There are also very early versions of "Oh! Brother" and "Cop It", both later found on The Wonderful And Frightening World Of The Fall, the latter retitled "Copped It". In addition, it is only here that the group’s reworking of "Louie Louie" can be accessed, an opportunity for cult figure John the Postman to join the group on stage. The original line-up was caught on tape just in time; this was to be Tony Friel’s last performance with the band. After a couple of short-stay replacements, the job would eventually be taken by Marc Riley.

Lio - Premier Album

Lio - Premier Album (1980)

Bit of synthy electro-pop from this belgian starlet, featuring some help from superstars TELEX. From the booklet:

Born out of a belgian comics writer's imagination, the character of Lio soon became known all over Europe as the alias of glamour pop icon Wanda Maria de Vasconcelos, a 18 years old, smart and provocative singer. Teamed-up with belgian songwriters Jacques Duvall, Jay Alansky and Marc Moullin (from the electro-pioneer band TELEX), the alchemy was soon to be accomplished with their first single "Le Banana Split", a light-hearted sugary pop tune co-written by Alansky and Duvall - also known as Hagen Dierks. The first hit was launched, soon to be followed by plenty of others which would all hurl Lio at the top of european charts. The second single, and probably the most successful in France, was the now classic "Amoureux solitaires", a refreshingly naive and at the same time deeply emotional song. The text is signed by Eli Medeiros and the music is produced by Jacno (from the french infamous pop-rock duo "Eli et Jacno"), resulting a catchy halting beat with a minimalist melody which will be engraved in your memory as soon as you hear it.

Anyway, one can feel a clear and distinct touch of contemporary atmosphere all over the record, a certain kind of 'Avant-Gardism' which is not without reminding us the later oversea productions of electro legends as New Order, Yaz, Human League, etc. Intresting patchwork of typical french pop ("Si belle Et inutile", "La Petite Amazone") and dance oriented songs (see the amazing break part of "Comix Discomix" or the twisted beat of "La Panthere Rose"), this debut effort also includes, among other things, the more languid and ambient cover of Gillespie and Coot's "You Go To My Head", later interpreted by Billie Holiday.

I've got a stack of similar bits of euro and japanese electro-pop, probably start ripping more of it in the next month. Think of it like the minimal fan's answer to twee, only a lot more fun.

VA - So Young but So Cold

VA - So Young but So Cold (2004)

My first foray into minimal synth when it came out. Unfortunately I can't seem to find the original rips I did and the CD hasn't fared well, so it's missing the final three tracks. Otherwise a good rip. I'll update it if I can get the missing songs. Not a single bad track, but the one which caught my ear at the time was the Artefact track, "Mae". I'd listen to that over and over back then. To this day, I aspire to it. The rest of the tracks are amazing to me now, given a few years to increase my familiarity with the genre and contextualize. If you've never gotten into minimal synth, here's your starting point. Hit it.

The Feelies - Crazy Rhythms

The Feelies - Crazy Rhythms (1980) Unfortunately, this post earned me a DMCA notice. With any luck, this amazing album will be re-released soon.

This is one everyone ought to have by now, but it means so much to me that I've got to post it. I found a copy of the 1990 cd release of this in a used bin in my hometown when I was 14, before I'd ever heard the Velvet Underground, Iggy Pop, or even the original Rolling Stones version of Paint it Black (shit, I think I was still listening to Blink 182 then. I picked up the album because the cover resembled the first Weezer album. I'm young. Forgive me my transgressions). Possibly before I'd ever heard Led Zeppelin, not that they're relevant but to give a proper picture of the impressionable mind that discovered this. This is one of those rare albums that surpasses the scene which allowed it's conception. It's one of those albums that probably shouldn't exist, the kind of thing that drives home how impressive a group of friends making their own kind of music can really be. Easily the greatest influence on my own guitar style after the Beatles and Hendrix, and only then because that was all I had until I was 12. Their later albums weren't nearly as impressive, that version of the Feelies only had two of the original members and fell into a bit of an REM-esque Athens-type rut in my opinion (though still retaining the style and approach that made this). The rips come from my original WAVs of the album, which was stolen many years ago. There has never been another album like this, and somehow I doubt there ever will be. Enjoy.