My Body, The Hand Grenade (Hole)

Amazing Hole comp, courtesy of Sean (No Paris, No Harm) Includes a cover of my favorite Donovan song and another of "He Hit Me, It Felt Like A Kiss" (Carole King/The Crystals). Goodies include demo of "Miss World" (on which Kurt Cobain plays bass) and songs spanning from Pretty On The Inside to Live Through This. The compilation has the rare quality of feeling cohesive while still representative of Hole's varied sound through the years. Highly recommended.

My Body, The Hand Grenade (released 1997, City Slang Records)

Sublime Frequencies World Music Compilations

I absolutely love Sublime Frequencies for doing all these compilations. I originally came across the label after downloading Cambodian Cassette Archives: Khmer Folk & Pop Music Vol. 1. My eventual goal is to get a large majority of the Sublime Frequencies comps uploaded on the blog. However, this is one of those labels where I seriously recommend buying the CDs/LPs too because this is stuff you can feel really good about supporting.

SF describes themselves as the following: "Sublime Frequencies is a collective of explorers dedicated to acquiring and exposing obscure sights and sounds from modern and traditional urban and rural frontiers via film and video, field recordings, radio and short wave transmissions, international folk and pop music, sound anomalies, and other forms of human and natural expression not documented sufficiently through all channels of academic research, the modern recording industry, media, or corporate foundations."

As a note, all descriptions of these comps are taken from the Sublime Frequencies website. 

Molam: Thai Country Groove From Isan 

Molam is a multi-faceted folk music native to Laos and the predominantly rural Northeastern region of Thailand known as Isan - home to myriad ethnic groups and provinces, and once a part of present-day Laos. Mo meaning "master" and lam meaning "song", molam literally translates into "master singer", but it remains more of an umbrella term covering over a dozen types of lam styles in which male and female singers can be backed by a free-reed bamboo mouth organ called a khaen, indigenous lute-like instruments (the phin or the soong), a bowed fiddle called a sor and a percussion ensemble featuring finger cymbals and hand drums.

Lam phun and lam sing are the two molam styles featured most prominently in this collection. Also in the musical family is look thoong, a slower, more tragic style, usually lamenting lost love and perpetual poverty. Examples are heard on tracks 10, 15 and 20. Costumed Isan comedy troupes called Talok incorporate hyper-eccentric molam and look thoong renditions with low, vaudevillian comedy and high social satire on stages and TVs throughout the country. Maniacal examples are heard on tracks 2, 8 and 11. The classic recordings featured here are selections from rare vinyl LPs, 45s and cassettes recorded in Isan and beyond between the 1970s and 1980s. This was a pivotal time when music of the region began to be electrified and integrated with Western instruments. When electric bass, effected guitars, electric organs, kit drums and horns played alongside the khaen and the phin. Molam had never sounded this way before -and due to the typically ephemeral nature of the music industry and the introduction of the modern keyboard workstation, molam will never sound like this again. 

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Pakistan: Instrumental Folk & Pop Sounds 1966-1976 

Spending the greater part of the last decade assembling this masterpiece while tracking down most of the musicians in the process, Stuart Ellis of Radiodiffusion Internasionaal has compiled a mind-blowing set of Pakistani instrumentals spanning the period between 1966 and 1976. It’s all here: rock and roll beat, surf, folk traditional mixed with pop, film tunes, electric guitars, sitar and organ solos, brilliant percussion and arrangements crafted by the grooviest bands of the period: The Panthers, The Mods, The Bugs, The Blue Birds, The Abstracts, The Aay Jays, The Fore Thoughts, Nisar Bazmi, and Sohail Rana. 

Situated between Afghanistan, India and Iran, the collision of cultural influences in Pakistan gave birth to music that was, and still is, unlike anything heard anywhere else on the planet. By the late 1960s, previous restrictions on musical expression began to soften and bands that were playing American and British pop covers became popular in Karachi’s burgeoning night club scene and at private dance parties. Long hair came into fashion among young men and hashish became the popular drug of choice on college campuses across Pakistan. Soon, hippies from both North America and Europe began flocking to Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar. Very few of the bands that formed during this time actually got to record. Like their neighbors in India, the Pakistani record industry was more focused on releasing “filmi” music, which had just started to incorporate the electric guitar and electric sitar. 

Pakistan’s musical revolution ended in June 1977 after a coup d’état and the establishment of a pure Islamic state governed by Sharia law. This marked the end of the “Swinging ‘70s” in Pakistan as night clubs and alcohol were banned throughout the country. Television and cinema, as well as popular music, were now subjected to government censorship. After the clamp down, many Pakistani musicians left the country and moved to America, Canada and England. 

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Folk and Pop Sounds Of Sumatra Vol. 1 

The equator runs through only ten countries on earth and I bet that you cannot name them all without consulting a map. Indonesia is one of them and the only nation in Asia with the equatorial stripe impaling it. There are so many different cultures spread-out on these islands, that it would take several lifetimes to experience them all properly. Within this umbrella of diversity is one of the world's richest and most dazzling sound museums. Sumatra is the northwestern entry point to the great archipelago. It is a large island approximately the size of California. There are jungles, mountains, swamps, various forms of myths and folklore, hustlers, Padang Food, Tigers, the Durian, dozens of cultures and languages, and more music than you've ever been allowed to hear. 

The selections on this CD are a combination of droning beat pop, pseudo-gypsy songs, jungle folk trance, and other improbable traditional and hybrid styles heard by only a handful of outsiders. These recordings are from old cassette tapes received as gifts, in trade, or purchased from sources in Sumatra in 1989. Some of the tapes are unmarked with the artists unknown, yet all of them are decaying documents of various sound quality containing some of the most eccentric artifacts ever uncovered from this fascinating island.

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Check out all the other amazing compilations on the Sublime Frequencies website. (I've got my eye on Saigon Rock & Soul: Vietnamese Classic Tracks 1968-1974.)

Babes In Toyland - Peel Sessions

Love this band. 

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Big Black -- Atomizer

Posting this because it rules and it's a pain in the ass to find online now.

DL

BB - "Lungs" EP

This little EP is often forgotten in the wake of Songs About Fucking and Atomizer, but I actually really like these six songs. They present an awkward, pared-down, almost...relaxed sound from Albini.

Also of note: "The original EP came with an array of objects, including loaded squirt guns, bloody pieces of paper (one of Albini's friend suffered from a nosebleed), dollar bills, condoms, concert tickets, Bruce Lee trading cards, pictures of old people and firecrackers. Things like fishhooks and razorblades were discounted, fearing lawsuits." - via Wikipedia

DL

Onna -- Onna (7" RE)

Via Discogs: Reissue of a 7" single originally released on Cupid & Psyche Records in 1983.

A)		コルティジアーナ・ダル・ベーロ (Cortigiana Dal Velo)	7:30
B)		胸をつつんで (Mune O Tsutsunde)

So awesome.

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Six Finger Satellite -- The Pigeon Is The Most Popular Bird

Figured I'd post the first Six Finger Satellite album because for some reason their stuff is rather difficult to find online. The Pigeon Is The Most Popular Bird serves up an hour of paranoid noisy rock, a la Shellac* or The Jesus Lizard. The record has a crooked kind of humor to it, and seems to occupy a tortured little niche between grunge and punk. TPITMPB had the misfortune of coming out on Sub Pop the same year as In Utero, and it tends to veer off sonically in the style of bands like Arab on Radar, which can drive listeners looking for a pop-hook off fast. Nevertheless, I adore this record, so without further ado, here it is.

*Bob Weston of Shellac recorded this album, so no real surprise there.

Six Finger Satellite -- Law of Ruins

Six Finger Satellite never gets enough recognition as an awesome band. Their first record, The Pigeon Is The Most Popular Bird allies itself stylistically with post-punk, whereas Law of Ruins has a textured, grating space-rock sound with bits of Kraftwerk style synth thrown in--all within the bracket of 90s noise rock.

Law Of Ruins -- 1998, Sub Pop

Slowdive -- Live in Oslo

This cassette is like the gentler (underrated) little sister to Loveless. Gorgeous, atmospheric, one of my favorites of all time.

Live in Oslo

Flowers From Exile -- Rome

For fans of Nick Cave, Swans, and Death In June--this is your new favorite record. Rome is an incredibly underrated band, and the simplicity of Flowers From Exile can at first be disconcerting for those expecting something more jarring from such masculine vocals. Instead, Jerome Reuters' voice comes off as gentle, almost vulnerable. Though clearly influenced by German minimalist Krautrock and neofolk, Flowers From Exile has a distinctly Spanish flair. The record strikes a perfect balance between gaping aural space, field recordings, layered instrumentals, and industrial-percussive elements. Put on this record and tell your friends it's from the early 80s (they'll believe you).

The Spanish elements could possibly be explained by the following:  

"Flowers From Exile is supposedly based upon the events of the Spanish Civil War, a conflict in which Retuer's family partook." - Brainwashed

IMO, "Odessa" is the most heartbreakingly gorgeous song on the record. 

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April Mix

Most upbeat mix I've made in a while. Includes a track off the new Merchandise release on Katorga Works,  quality chick tunes (Fleabag, Bad Banana, Dark Times, Veruca Salt, Libyans), power pop, twee, and some classics. Had to include The Jesus & Mary Chain because of "April Skies," obviously, and threw on a super underrated My Bloody Valentine track because who isn't getting psyched up for the remastered releases of Isn't Anything and Loveless and a compilation of their EPs/unreleased tracks--which comes out on May 7th. You're welcome. And with a picture like this, who the fuck WOULDN'T download this mix. Seriously.

Tracks: 

1) Time: Merchandise
2) N.A. Kicker: Superdrag
3) Cherry Outline: PET MILK
4) Station Wagon: Technicolor Teeth
5) Shed: Roomrunner
6) Pretty Like A Girl: Bad Banana
7) Shallow Breather: Dark Times
8) Good For You: My Bloody Valentine
9) Jogging Song (He's Your Mr. Right): Mika Miko
10) April Skies: The Jesus & Mary Chain
11) Breathing In: Libyans
12) Pity: Royal Headache
13) Curb Appeal: Fleabag
14) Seether: Veruca Salt
15) Sunbathing In Squalor: Taco Leg

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Superdrag: "Regretfully Yours"

Grunge/power pop. Every song is nostalgic even if you've never heard it before. This is one of those albums that I can listen to all in one go, and then some. "Sucked Out" is clearly the hit, but "N.A. Kicker" is a close runner up. "Phaser" is my favorite moody adolescent-melancholic track, and holds up on it's own, albeit sounding a tad bit dated (though "dated" in terms of sounding like 1996 isn't too bad).

Recommended if you listen to Weezer "but only at the gym" (ok that's me, but seriously, download this) 

All about this song.