There Is A New Arp Album And It Is Great

I duno if you guys remember Alexis Georgopoulos AKA Arp and his wonderful album 'In Light' from back in 2007, but i sure do. It contained soothing tunes full of analog-synth minimalism, kinda like Terry-Riley's "Descending Moonshine Dervishes' on vintage synthesizers instead of organs. Well, he has a new album, and it is similar but also great. This time he seems to be more focused on kraut-y electronics more akin to Cluster or Eno, and if you are a hard-liner for that type of thing you might be put of by the inescapable derivative-ness of these two albums. But I don't really mind, and if you can get down with Emeralds' latest album then you can definitely get down to this. Let's face it, the world will never stop needing more new-agey komische records. So I'm posting the whole thing, because I have absolute faith that no one reads this blog and that therefore I will not get in any trouble.

Arp - The Soft Wave

Happy Halloween... BITCHES

DUDE. I know I talk a lot about Resident Advisor mixes, and really I have to give props to Jimmy for alerting me to the presence of both this mix and the Scott Grooves one I posted a week or so ago, but DAMNS. They are on a serious roll. This week, for the special spooky Halloween edition of the RA Podcast they got frickin ALAN HOWARTH to put together a few tunes from his heyday of making amazing soundtracks to your favorite horror films of the '80s and '90s, along with frequent collaborator JOHN CARPENTER. This is the real deal, as they say, and most of my favorite JC jams are here and accounted for. I don't think I should have to sell you dudes too much on this stuff... synthy, tense, dramatic, repetitive compositional amazingness is contained in these here megabytes... dl soon or forever hold your peace.

Alan Howarth RA Podcast

Linda Perhacs - Parellelograms re-release on Mexican Summer

Hey brahs, thanks for inviting me to be in your blogging club!

I'll start with a little post about Linda Perhacs. I work for Human Ear and we just hosted Linda and her band two weeks ago for a concert at San Francisco Art Institute. This was her third public appearance ever! Unlike all of us at The Society of Mutual Affirmation, she's incredibly generous and modest. She literally talked to probably everyone who attended the show afterwards. She currently lives on her ranch in Topanga Canyon - continuing to work as a dental hygienist while writing new music on the side.

You're probably familiar with her, but her album might be worth revisiting since it was just released on Mexican Summer. Linda received the new vinyl the night before traveling to SF for the show! I would definitely recommend buying a copy, it looks great. There's a print of her visual score as an insert! Parellelograms was originally released on Kapp Records in 1970, but Linda told me the original recordings were so crappy she gave up hope as a musician - and the label pushed her aside when they found it unmarketable. It's really soo amazing what music blogs have done for rediscovering artists.



Linda chatting with a fan at the SFAI show.

WFMU Record Fair Finds

SRC - Milestones
Detroit, 69, their second record. Their first release is their best, but their first two are solid records and not too easy to come by. This was the hit from their first album.

Second record gets more of a prog lean.

Another find worth sharing is the Paul Clark Songs from the Savior LP from 1975. I always want to find the good private press christian folk, acidy, oddball records (cause they're often overlooked and cheap), but am never sure what will be good and what will be just like the rest of them. This I got really cheap, and it is a solid soft rock record with fun backwards guitar and neil young vocals. Can't find youtube from this record, but one of his later records is here, and it kinda gets at the idea. Yacht rock + baby jesus = good used record.

I also picked up a good Wild Man Fischer record, Bukka White's Sky Songs, which Elijah got to before me when we went to the record store in redwood city, Albery Ayler's Love Cry, and an Eddie Hinton album I'm really into.

New (old) Records (albums)

Yoga Records is one of my favorite reissue efforts around. I've raved about them here before when that Robert Lester Folsom album came out last year. I just saw Folsom play his first show in decades tonight, and it was amazing. I wasn't the only one singing along to every word. There was at least one other dude in the crowd that I saw doing it too.

For reals though, this is the real deal. Yoga's two latest releases are totally worth getting your mittens on. The first is this Ted Lucas Record, which no one has ever not liked. The second is the record by Dwarr called Animals, and it is like if Bobb Trimble covered Sabbath. Like some proto-doom metal shit. So so so excellent.

I also really like Matthew Young's Traveler's Advisory and Jeff Eubank's A Street Called Straight. Yoga put all these out as digital releases and some vinyl and then bigger outfits (Drag City, Mexican Summer) put them out on vinyl later. I think he's running a really smart and effective label this way. Getting this stuff out into the world. I can't say enough to support this dude's label. I hope to catch him at the wfmu record fair tomorrow to pick his brain more about doing reissues and how to be so damn cool and stuff.

This track sounds like it could be by the Durutti Column (sorta). He is just reading lines out of his car's owner's manual. His hammered dulcimer work is technically, nerdily, brilliant. The record also has a spectacular cover of Michael Hurley's Werewolf.

New (Old) Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom Stuff

So there's a new EP on DFA from Delia & Gavin, who brought us the incredible full-length The Days of Mars in the mid 2000s. "Track 5" is an outtake from that album, that first was featured on the DFA Holiday mix in 2005 that aired on Beats in Space that year. You may also recognize Gavin Russom from his Black Meteoric Star and Crystal Ark projects, both also on DFA and both quite excellent. This track is actually pretty different from the stuff on Days of Mars, beginning with a characteristic bubbling synth line but eventually changing course with a psuedo-balearic guitar riff towards the end that almost reminds me of something Studio could be responsible for. Good stuff, and don't forget about the also-excellent remix from deep-house producer Ame, who turns the original slow burner into something far more uptempo and dance-worthy.

Track 5 & Ame remix

More 80s Bar Rock, But Mostly the Same Old 80s Bar Rock

As you all know, I've got this sad little soft spot for really awful blues rock. I got embarrassingly into the new Grinderman record, only listening to it on headphones cause I didn't want my roomies to think I wasn't cool. Then I started going back through my stuff trying to find some more shit to scratch the itch. Jon Spencer Blues Control didn't do it, Doo Rag didn't do it, Delta 72 didn't do it, and well, shit man, you get the idea.

So it all came back to Gun Club and The Pontiac Brothers. 80s Los Angeles alternatives to X, the cramps, or the bad seeds. Both Gun Club and Pontiac Bros. hit the white dude blues sound on the head better than anyone since Canned Heat. Like REM, White Stripes, and like, other people you dont care about couldn't exist without these bands. They also covered the Dead and shit. Anyways, this is the stuff I'm listening to on headphones lately. My latest Steve Hillage record lost my living room music privileges for the month.

Here's a good Pontiac Brothers album if anyone's interested....