Prima – Performance

Yo means yo

On this page the word happened

Kiss my nerves
make them jangle

Fun things to make with discarded headless skulls: prophecies in a vacuum

A midsummer night’s defence mechanism

There’s a new horse in the area
someone tells me it’s a neighsayer

A wide field studied with a narrow vision is still a wide field, but will be poorly understood

The glories of the former are the burdens of the latter

The chair is king! All hail the chair!

There is no truth, so believe everything. Except for the outright lies.

This room has many corners
not all of them are dark
it’s the lighted ones that hide the most

I just need to know how to get to the roof
the trouser snake paused in his commotion

I used to be a siren
sitting on a rock

Please don’t step on the cracks in my soul.
It makes them that much harder to repair

Please don’t drive wedges between the gaps in my personality.
The holes are harder to fill when occupied with foreign bodies.

People who consider themselves untouchable need to be touched more often

Actually, I’m trying to de-cipher you

Luísa Maita – Fio da Memória

Another completely contrasting Soundberg, this is from Brazil. We have previous with Brazil, but this is a completely different kettle of sonic fish; although, in common with Rakta the tags on the bandcamp page are: Brazil, world…. gotta love it.

The music is impossible to put a single simple label on. One tune will be a sort of loungey-jazzy feel with mild inflections of dub, beats, etc and the next will have a low key Garbage-like synth-grunge feel to it. The predominant mood is downbeat electro with guitars and hints of r’n’b (the modern iteration of that genre), I suppose, but as this isn’t my usual area I am even less knowledgeable than is usually the case.

Back at the beginning of the millennium, I used to spend a lot of time listening to the Nortec Collective. Through them, I discovered the wonderful Julieta Venegas, who has a voice to die for, or at least, listen to in pleasure. And the reason I tell you this is because I thought of her whilst listening to this. Another artist I think of is Cibelle,who is also Brazilian (which I didn’t know until just now – I thought she was Portuguese!)

 

Karina Vismara – Casa del Viento

I’ve been reading Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits during my lunch breaks at work (a very good book, by the way, easy to get back into when I haven’t picked it up for a fortnight or more, but still with a phenomenal amount of depth to the narrative).Coincidentally, I’ve also discovered another South American person, this time a woman who plays guitar and sings excellent songs.

This is one of those really lazy ways of saying that I discovered a whole two artists based in South America and I think it’s a Thing. After all, it’s hardly the first time I’ve found artists from the continent that do good things to my soul (Jodorowsky, Borges, Os Mutantes, Coelho, Rakta… and they’re just the ones off the top of my head as I sit at the usual enquiry desk at work…) But actually, there is a similarity of atmosphere, in a way I cannot possibly put into words. (sidebar: does something exist if there isn’t a word for it?)

Karina Vismara is a singer-songwriter from Argentina who seems unreasonably young for one with such music, though I say that with admiration rather than envy. Her voice is strong and expressive, and her guitar playing is seriously good with some gorgeous passages of droney finger picking finding their way into the songs.

The opener, Tied up Tight actually puts me in mind somewhat of Led Zeppelin’s Battle of Evermore. Also you might want to consider Joni Mitchell. Most of the references I could think of (they always leave my head when I sit in front of a blank blog post) also date from the late 60s/ early 70s folk revival. And of course, she’s from the same country as the wonderful Juana Molina, who you know all about, obviously.

 

Sargent-Major Waffle

Or: here are some things that are not albums, or maybe they are.

So, we likes Hey Colossus, we do. And earlier this year they did something right out of the 90s, they released a single backed with 2 ‘remixes’ (strictly speaking, ‘versions.’) And what versions they are – the version of In Black and Gold is like a deconstructed drum’n’bass / free improv mashup, whilst the 11 minute re-take of Wired Brainless is pure repetition bliss, with added electronic noises (I can’t tell whether some of the added noises are vocals that have been very harshly treated).

Oh, and the actual single track isn’t half bad either. Go here and listen.

Rise of the Echo Drone seem to be largely doing Ep’s. Since I last mentioned them, another couple have hit the wires and they are definitely worth checking out. They seem to have camped in a field which touches on psych, shoegaze, dreampop, electronica, tribal rhythms, that 90s techno that included people like The Orb, and sensual vocals. Needless to say, I’m a bit hesitant of trying to reduce them to one sonic label. I also want to draw your attention to this track off one of the ep’s for two reasons – Milo used a shorter excerpt of the same Lennon speech on the second Patterns of Faith album (which I can’t currently link to because it’s no longer available anywhere), and secondly because seriously, listen to what he is saying. It is really very simple, a bit scary, and very liberating.

Valerio Cosi seems to have dug out many collaborations and older works for his Bandcamp. You won’t like everything unless you happen to like every single instance of recorded sound, anywhere, ever, or maybe I’m just narrow minded. My favourite is the split single he did with Fabio Orsi (their collaborative album is also worth your time). Sadly he has yet to put up Heavy Electronic Pacific Rock – maybe he is not at liberty to. One of the greatest albums ever made, that is, to this mind, but if you like that kind of mind-bending psychedelic-jazz  featuring saxophones with tribal rhythms – and who doesn’t? – then you’ll also want to check out Pulga Loves You.

Also, Rakta.  When I first typed this paragraph, I typed ‘They have also not yet done another album but have put out some songs.’ So I go to do the links, and the page for III – which was roughly two songs long when I bought it –  now describes what is either an album or a long EP. Ditto, Intencao had one track and now has two, and there’s Rakta em Transe as well. Odd marketing. However, the Rakta energy is still very much present, and they still tag their cavernous sounding tribal post-punk as ‘World Music.’ Love it.

 

Electric Moon – two and a half hours of live psychedelic jams. Technically it’s an album, yes. You are no doubt different to me, but I am unlikely to listen to it all in one go, because two and a half hours, and that’s why I’m not treating it as an album. Anyway, I didn’t write this post to be argued with. Just go and listen to it. Whilst I’m on the subject of Electric Moon, bass player and graphic designer Komet Lulu put out this song, and this also comes with a hearty Soundbergs recommendation.

Also, when I did the Menimals post, I mentioned that there may be another album with the same title and opening track and yet be a different beast altogether? That there is. It is also very, very good, and I invite those of you who enjoyed the first of their self titled albums to go and listen to the second.

Little tidbit – I did my first ‘general chat‘ type of post on July 28th 2015, the second one not long after. This here third instalment is brought to you by July 29th 2016. This was not consciously intentional. I wonder if it’s a time of year thing?

Scroll Downers – Hot Winter

Sometimes you have to order a cassette to buy an album you like digitally.

I like how their tags include both 90’s and Not 90’s. Do they really not have a website?

These have a pleasing energy which matches their intensity very well. Stylistically, I’d say we’re looking at a kind of garagey-gothy-post-punky-sludgey-shoegazey-new wave kind of thing, an admittedly undercrowded field. A couple of the songs have a couple of chords too many for my taste, but hey, I’m not going to tell them how to twang their muse, that’s their own thing.

Most of it’s pretty up-tempo, but they do mix it up nicely. The layered sounds on Runnin’ and Bossin’ especially create a brilliant atmosphere, almost sun-kissed amongst the pounding surrounding numbers.

The most obvious reference point is probably Siouxsie and the Banshees, who I never actually liked. Oddly, Effi Briest from a few years back also reminded chiefly of them, and they also made an album I really liked. Maybe I should try Siouxsie again (know what? I like that song I just linked). I’m also feeling a similiar vibe to what Rakta do. But then they go and surprise you and go all Melvins on the title track.

Malayeen

I don’t find much about these on tinternet, though I can tell you that Malayeen are “the Lebanese trio of Raed Yassin (Keyboards, Turntables & Electronics),Charbel Haber (Electric Guitar & Electronics) and Khaled Yassine (Darbouka, Percussion).” I believe I actually first read about them over at Dusted in Exile, but can’t be bothered to trawl their archives (I am not a fan of the tumblr sites, no, not at all).

Given my general abhorrence to labelling musics these days, it probably comes as no surprise to start stumbling across music that my limited western mindset wouldn’t even know where to start in terms of classification (although I believe I may have had a rant about the notion of classification…) All I’m going to tell you is that this puts me in a trance, particularly the longer songs on the album (one of which I have linked up top), and by my definitions, that makes this music psychedelic. It also reminds me somewhat of some of the ecstatic Sufi music I’ve heard. Boy, would I love to be around that in real time.

Because I can’t find any ways of playing you the album, here’s another tune:

Föllakzoid

I dunno if it’s just me, but I’m beginning to get a bit concerned about bands not having a standalone website. I mean, the top hit for the wonderful Föllakzoid was their bandcamp page. The first two pages in the search engine are mostly reviews. Although there is this, but the ‘this’ I mentioned takes me to a page that flashes and does nothing else…

Probably this is a rant for another time, though.

So, I like Föllakzoid’s new album, III, very much indeed, and it seems I’m not alone from the reviews I found.

It’s a very atmospheric groove they’ve got going on. I actually think the kosmiche/krautrock labels I’ve seen applied to them sell them a lot short. I mean, sure, they probably would rock a jam with Gunter Schickert or Ash Ra Tempel, but they’ve definitely got their own thing going on here too. I have, however, yet to hear their first two albums, so I may be missing some context. I will no doubt get round to listening to said albums soon; I’ve had a veritable cornucopia of wonderful music of late, so fitting it in can be my favourite kind of problem.

And that was before GNOD released their new epic…