I stumbled on Dark Beloved Cloud sometime in 1999. Back when the label was still based in New York. I was digging for a copy of Fly Ashtray’s Clumps Takes A Ride, yet another cassette that suffered the same fate as the Mommyheads tape I’ve written about… curdled in the heat of early-90’s South Floridian sun. And just like Swiss Army Knife, Clumps became progressively harder to find as the years went on. The fact that even in their “heyday” both were relatively obscure, compounded their elusivity further.

After a few emails and a never-realized design trade, Dark Beloved Cloud’s owner, Douglas Wolk, confirmed that he did indeed have a copy, and kindly hooked me with Clumps in both plastic and vinyl. A couple more generously stuffed envelopes later, and many other DBC artists found their way into my collection and onto my plate of earfood — Azalia Snail, The Magick Heads, Spaceheads, some Uncle Wiggly that I never knew existed and Fly Ashtray guitarist James Kavoussi’s almighty alter-persona, pHoaming Edison.

Fly Ashtray deserves and likely will receive a post of their own here someday. They’re among the handful of bands whose music fundamentally altered the landscape of listening for me. In fact, they were a shoe-in before I ever even dropped the needle. Their name alone detonated an avalanche of pre-pubescent memories — Star Wars and Micronaut figures manning the cockpit of my parents ashy, functional version of their namesake.

Then as now, Fly Ashtray’s sound swings the ~25yr gamut from quirky pop, deeply explorative noise to neo-psychedelic heaviness. Even when coupled with a frequent helping of silly lyrics and song titles, the hallmark of their home/rec mastery is never lost. Kavoussi’s solo releases as pHoaming Edison bear the brilliant genetic signature of Fly Ashtray (and vice-versa) garbled in crap-sounding lo-tech splendor. Occasional cover tracks easily finding a place in the ranks of an unrealized list of tops (should I ever realize the need to write one).

When Douglas Wolk moved to Portland a few years ago, he made the coastal switch with a new addition to the family and a few book titles in tow. Namely, the much-heralded Reading Comics and his 117 page critical introspective James Brown: Live at the Apollo for Continuum’s 33⅓ book series.

It turns out Wolk is also one of the hardest working men in the music/comic critic business. Lucky for us, he brought Dark Beloved Cloud along with him and still finds time to bring the precipitating noise.

Noise that is made readily available via the DBC catalog and the ill-conceived (not ill meaning ill, but ill meaning ill) Singles Club. A collaborative means of sampling the label’s catalog in the form of 3-inch CD singles swapped in exchange for the investment of your own creative time and effort. Design a cover for the latest single, send it in and get the single adorned with someone else’s cover artwork. A simple, brilliant concept that Fly Ashtray is currently wielding for the release of their latest plate, Pantswind Folder. See? Totally silly album titles as well.

If you dig the links below, get in on both collabs and find yourself far from disappointed.

s|b Muxtape v.0002 → HYPOBLAST! Fly Ashtray + pHoaming Edison
The Dark Beloved Cloud Muxtape

Dark Beloved Cloud: Precipitated / Band Pages / Singles Club / covers
Douglas Wolk: Lacunae / Reading Comics / JB 33⅓ / 52 Pickup / Slate / Savage Critic / Kottke Interview
Fly Ashtray: off.site, blog + mspce / Discog / Videos / Song Titles / Thanks Mauvis
pHoaming Edison: mspce / Silly Bird

 

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SB/MUXTAPE.0002 → HYPOBLAST! Fly Ashtray + pHoaming Edison

Fly Ashtray 2nd Song (1:58)
Fly Ashtray Harmony Grutz (2:54)
Fly Ashtray Moist Floor Ruined My Bad Idea (3:13)
Fly Ashtray Best Boy (2:43)
Fly Ashtray Hypoblast! (1:40)
Fly Ashtray Berries (3:01)
Fly Ashtray Flunch (3:31)
pHoaming Edison Laughing at Keys (2:43)
pHoaming Edison Owl Mound (1:30)
pHoaming Edison Street Fighting Man (1:59)
pHoaming Edison Crate (Let’s Have Some) (1:16)
Fly Ashtray My Flash On You (2:21)

sourced: Fly Ashtray / pHoaming Edison
also see: muxtape with coverflow using fluid

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Continuing with the toner thread, I recently found the blatantly semi-local (mere excuse for a JFA ref) Jason Willis Flyer Collection (’81-’06) while searching out resources for giving visual direction to one of our designers on a Nemo project. I actually remember receiving multi-generational copies of these used as stationary for scrawled notes folded into zines during the early eighties. 

Bryan Ramond Turcotte has a wider sourced compilation in his book, Fucked Up and Photocopied: Instant Art of the Punk Rock Movement, the predecessor to Punk Is Dead Punk Is Everything and the source of this post’s title.

It seems obvious to mention Bryan Coley, Lydia Lunch and Thurston Moore’s No Wave — a chronicle of the collision of art and punk in the New York underground of 1976 to 1980. No Wave was recently released with an exhibition at KS Art and a Teenage Jesus and The Jerks show at Knitting Factory NYC. Thanks to Rich for the tip on this one.

more: TJ+tJ show (sb_t) / No Wave (prefix,vid)

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I’ve been spending a lot of time gathering new findings of intentionally unintended, random beauty from the school of experimental field recording lately. As a result, Xeni Jardin’s interview with David Byrne regarding his project, “Playing the Building” for BBTV naturally caught my attention when it wound through some friend’s sites over the past week.

Watch: Playing the Building (stills via the header)

Alhough the audio acoustics of Byrne’s Building are intentionally engineered and by definition more installation-based than field recording, the resultant environmental susceptibility certainly blurs the line between the two. Beautifully.

Straight jacked from Roy Christopher’s site, June 10th, 2008:

My favorite Talking Head, David Byrne, turns an entire old building in New York City into a giant sound machine in an installation called “Playing the Building.” Xeni Jardin takes a tour.

Under David’s manipulation, New York’s hundred-year-old Battery Maritime Building becomes a giant sound sculpture. He explains:

“Devices [have been] attached to the building’s structure — to the metal beams and pillars, the heating pipes, the water pipes — and are used to make these things produce sound. The activations are of three types: wind, vibration, striking. The devices cause the building elements to vibrate, resonate, and oscillate so that the building itself becomes a very large musical instrument.”

Read the full post at Roy’s site, soon to include the 2008 edition of his reknown, Summer Reading List.

via: Dave Allen / Roy Christopher / Xeni Jardin / David Byrne / Boing Boing

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The first of many mixes to come from the enjoyably simple web app, Muxtape. Thanks to Dave for the original tip.

SB/MUXTAPE.0001 → Heavier Than a Death in the Family

The Heads Sat Up All Night Just Looking At It (0:41)
Boris Woman On The Screen (2:39)
Bardo Pond Back Porch (4:43)
Chrome TV as Eyes (2:19)
DMBQ Smoker (3:53)
Hisato Higuchi Grow (3:06)
Magic Dirt Goofy Gumb (6:11)
DMBQ S.S.S. (9:28)
Les Rallizes Dénudés Unknown (october 2nd, 1982) (7:57)
Butthole Surfers Boiled Dove (4:33)

also see: muxtape with coverflow using fluid

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Received a bubble-lined manilla from Ecstatic Peace last week (Thanks AK!), packed with good, good stuff more than worth mentioning. Here’s my tops:

Free Kitten Inherit
Its been over a decade since Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth), Julie Cafritz (Pussy Galore) and Yoshimi P-We (Boredoms) released a Free Kitten disc. If you’ve been waiting since Sentimental Education, it was well worth it. Inherit is what you’d get if the combined lucid dreams of all three and their former/current band mates were pre-recorded while listening to Evol’s Shadow of a Doubt, only with a distinctively dirgey backbone. It’s like the more noisy, experimental passages of each, fine-tuned into one brash, hypnotic and totally accessible sound.

Track 01. Erected Girl (6:45)
Track 03. Seasick (3:24)
Track 04. Free Kitten On the Mountain(7:51)
Track 09. Bananas (2:49) w/ J.Mascis on drums

Awesome Color Electric Aborigines
This album would have certainly been included on the tracklist of any Thrasher Skate Rock comp, as easily as I would have coveted it by album cover alone in the forbidden racks of the Golden Triangle heavy rock aisle when I was a kid. Unabashedly heavy, distorted, power rock wrapped in a sheet of White Lightning. Critics will doubtlessly cite obvious references to Detroit in general and the MC5 in particular when bashing Electric Aborigines for all the things that make them the great continuation of the lineage that they are. If this doesn’t make you want to load up the van, drop acid and head out the weird wilderness, then enjoy your dirt nap. The soundtrack of Summer unbridled.

Track 01. Eyes of Light (5:43)
Track 02. Already Down (2:42)

via: Ecstatic Peace / Free Kitten (PK) / Awesome Color (PK)

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Not unlike the last couple of Silver Jews releases, I’ve been giving a pre-release of their latest, Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea heavy rotation in hopes that it will grow on me (thanks DaveE!). In the midst of the first spin, I was surprised and stoked to find that one of the tracks is a cover of one of my favorite artist’s songs, Maher Shalal Hash Baz’s, Open Field from Blues Du Jour.

Oddly enough, I was also in the middle of adding to a list of questions I’ve been working on for a future interview/post when it played. I love that shit.

Here’s the original, and it’s cover…
PS. Does anyone know the name of the artist that did the (possible) cover?

Maher Shalal Hash Baz: Open Field (1.3mb, mp3.zip, MF)
Silver Jews: Open Field (4.9mb, mp3.zip, MF)

Maher Shalal Hash Baz: Acetone Interview / Bookmat review of Blues Du Jour
Silver Jews: Drag City / Pitchfork: David Berman interview

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Here’s a re-up of David Lynch’s Ghost of Love from the Inland Empire soundtrack and a older post, with props for the curious folks that let me know that the previous link was dead. Communication is always welcome and appreciated. Well, almost always, I suppose (although some spam is ridiculous enough to actually enjoy). Said exceptions aside, notification of the need for re-ups are never filed under that category, so thanks again.

And a funny thing happened on the way to this re-up…

While in the process of digging for a new header/gallery link image, I was reminded of a scene in Inland Empire that reminded me of one from another film. The film, Meshes of the Afternoon by Maya Deren had such an impact on me as a young film student (preparing to drop out of art school to work at a skateboarding magazine) that I named my daughter after the woman who made it.

I wonder if Lynch intended the shot as an homage? It wouldn’t surprise me at all considering Deren was as much of a risk-taking, visual-narrative driven, abstract filmmaker as Lynch. She hasn’t been referred to as the High Priestess of Experimental Cinema for nothing. Plus, Meshes of the Afternoon deals with transitive states of consciousness shot in a nearly seamless linear flow, leaving a more obscure line for the viewer to strain their mind in their attempt to follow. Classic Lynch, classical Deren…

Although I’ve got a more focused post about Deren in the works, in the spirit of serendipity, homage and the Silver Jews’ Open Field nod I’m about to post about, I thought I’d upload the scenes from both for your own comparison, edification and amusement.

Screens via the image above, Ghost of Love re-up below.

David Lynch: Ghost of Love (9.2mb, mp3.zip, MF)

Previous, link-laden s|b posts:
strange what love does
strange what love does (redux)

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I don’t want to live in your conformance.

I had a friend named Ryan who was always up for mayhem. Typically drunken. We skated together a lot in the early 90’s. He had a kid brother named Brandon who didn’t skate much, but exerted the same energy with dual tape decks, his guitar and whatever else was lying around his bedroom in his parent’s Kendall townhouse in Miami, Florida.

His explorations ran the gamut. From teen-angst/devotional ballads, to goofy instrumental hip-hop-de-blanc, wailing distorto-noise, and minimally accompanied field recordings. I remember them impacting me almost as much as they do now. It all swells with nostalgia, not just because it was so long ago that these recordings were made but because of the time in Brandon’s life he made them. A time which he communicated with youthful and heartfelt ease.

Perfectly flawed. Familiar, yet signature Sparling.

I ran a short-lived cassette label called TIMEKILL Recordings at the time, and worked with Brandon to gather enough work to fill a 90 minute tape. That part was easy. Life got heavy and TIMEKILL collapsed under the weight along with it’s third release.

Over a decade later, in one of those decisive moments of synchronicity, I found the cassettes and photos we’d planned on using for the j-card while digging through separate boxes at nearly the same time. It took it as a sign.

14 years in the making, Four Years of High School in My Room is the perfect first release to get things moving and start killing time again.

With only a few exceptions, track names for this collection have long-since been forgotten or never existed in the first place. I don’t know where Brandon is now, but I hope this finds him well. Say hello and let me know, B.

Get the full cassette rip here.

via: timekill recordings

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Scorces is the strange child of two Charalambides members, Christina Carter and Heather Murray (formerly of Ash Castles on the Ghost Coast). Their label’s namesake is synonymous with their sound —beautiful, haunting and wholly other.

Scorces opened up the Thurston show at Doug Fir Lounge on 10.25.07. They also opened up my mind, utterly possessing it for the duration of their set. The concept of sirens kept returning, until my search for definition folded under the lull of their call and the weight of their performance.

Comparisons can be drawn to an associative vocal array ranging from the space whisper of Gilli Smyth to the thick and layered barrage of Diamanda Galas, but the closest reference I have to the resultant affect of Scorces is related to a new years party I attended many years ago in Coral Gables, Florida. That night, the drumming and chanting of three Afro-Cuban Santeros gradually culled me toward an extremely deep state of trance. Sans chemicals and completely without expectation or explanation. One minute I was following the building and wandering syncopations, the next — face to face with one of the drummers who was no longer drumming but instead, standing mere feet away from me. Nodding in knowing recognition as I slowly regained focus.

By replacing the drumming with the duo’s densely effected slide and pedal guitars and the chanting with echoed coos to wailing glossolalia, Scorces performance resounds as strikingly similar. It left me affected, haunted and yearning for more.

In the ensuing search, I found a live performance of theirs from Brian Turner’s show on the almighty WFMU circa 2003 with Double Leopard’s Marcia Basset. A gently psychedelic inversion of their more overdriven show last month but just as alluring and now, ripped and shared for offline listening until more winds its way from across the distant waves.

Scorces via: Brian Turner / WFMU (.ra)
One ( 25mb, mp3.zip, MF)
Two ( 22.1mb, mp3.zip, MF)

Related: Heather Leigh / s|b_tube: 01, 02 / Charalambides
Reviewed: Stylus / Tiny Mix Tapes

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