King Crimson
The Road to Red:
21 discs of amazingness. The first 20 discs are live recordings from the US/Canada tour of 74 and finds the group in flying form. The music constantly feels like it's on a knife edge, songs mutate each night and full pieces materialise out of the air never to be seen again. The set finishes with a remaster of my favourite King Crimson album,
Red. I bought this for my birthday last year and this is my third full trip through it, it's fucking mega. I need to pick up the
Larks Tongues in Aspic and
Starless and Bible Black box sets soon.
Om
Advaitic Songs:
I love how Om have changed over the years. As a big fan of Sleep, I really enjoyed the early albums where they were the duo of Al and Chris both live and on record. However, after Chris left and Emil from Grails joined, I thought the sound had opened up a lot. Nothing would prepare me for how rich they would sound rounded out to a trio with Robert Lowe from Lichens. The live show at the Button Factory was the best I had ever seen from Om (and was way better than seeing Sleep live too). Can't wait for the gig in November.
Neil Young
Freedom:
The "he's finally got it back!" album. The 80s were a patchy time for him and this album squarely placed him back as a force to be reckoned with. It's also the first Neil Young album I ever got so it has a special place in my heart.
Keiji Haino/Jim O'Rourke/Peter Brötzmann
Two City Blues 1:
Skronk! Shriek! Shred!
David Lynch
Ghost of Love:
Think these two songs are from
Inland Empire, it's a while since I've seen it. Two great atmospheric pieces that are way better than the solo albums he put out after this. If he and Badalamenti can pull something like this out of the bag for the upcoming
Twin Peaks season then we'll be laughing.
The Jimmy Cake
Master:
Gets better with each listen.
Yehudi Menuhin and Stephane Grapelli
Hits of the Thirties:
This was my granny's and was her favourite record (though her favourite music was Puccini's
Madame Butterfly). It's light, it's breezy but it's wonderful.
Andy Irvine
Rain on the Roof:
Irish albums have some awful covers. This one isn't the worst but it would have put the younger me off. It's a fab album though, some of Irvine's best songs are here like "Băneasă's Green Glade", "My Heart's Tonight in Ireland" and "Never Tire of the Road".
The Birthday Party
Mutiny/Bad Seed:
One of those albums you hear that blows you away but never loses its impact no matter how old and jaded you get. Possibly has more of an impact now. Hands up who wants to die!
Mayhem
De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas
Mayhem
Of Lord Satans Mysteries:
The weather is getting cooler so time to break out some black metal.
De Mysteriis is the best thing Mayhem did so I jumped on the bootleg demo album
Of Lord Satan's Mysteries when I saw it a couple of years ago. Not quite as rough sounding as I expected and some great takes on it.
Seijaku
Last Live
Keiji Haino, Mitsuru Nasuno and Yoshimitsu Ichiraku
After Seijaku
Two new 2CD sets both featuring the same line up under different names. Seijaku were one of the more interesting bands Haino has been involved in over the past ten years. Combining excessive volume and power with moments of almost silent restraint, they were second only maybe to Fushitsusha in the great Haino bands stakes. Unfortunately they split up with only two albums and an extremely rare CD-R. According to the liner notes for
Last Live, this was because Yoshimitsu Ichiraku was told that if he kept drumming he would end up in a wheelchair with back problems. So they played one last stormer of a gig (I had a bootleg of it but here it is officially released) and started recording under a new name with everyone playing synthesiser drones. Very, very different but I dig it.
The Jimmy Cake/Domotic split 12”:
Grand but non-essential release (both Jimmy Cake tracks are on
Dublin's Gone) and Domotic is fairly forgettable but pleasant.
Kan Mikami/Yoshizawa Moto/Keiji Haino
平成元年Live 上:
Listening to Seijaku got me hankering for another classic Haino band but this time with the equally brilliant Kan Mikami. This live album from the early 90s is a masterclass in songwriting. I think. I don't speak Japanese so the lyrics could all be about MDF and flooring.
Mick Turner
Don’t Tell the Driver:
Guitarist from Dirty Three's most recent (or at least fairly recent) album. It's nice but every time I hear one of these guys outside of the Dirty Three, I wish that they were making another Dirty Three record.
Pauline Oliveros
Accordion & Voice:
Exactly what you expect it to sound like. An accordion. A voice.
The Resident
The Commercial Album:
Bizarre but weirdly compelling album from The Residents. The idea was to make commercial sounding music that fit the format of a TV commercial, so all the tracks are exactly one minute long and they later did a different video for each song. The songs are incredibly catchy given how odd they are, the videos are a bit crappy though.
Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse
Dark Night of the Soul:
Soundtrack for a David Lynch book featuring lots of big names and shelved for various contractual reasons, leaked on the web (the book sold with a blank CD-R to burn your own copy) and later properly released on vinyl. It's grand but not something I feel the need to hear often. The book is class though.
Bruce Springsteen
Nebraska:
The Springsteen album for people who don't like Springsteen. Fucking terrific album. I keep meaning to give his other stuff a fairer chance based on this but I'm afraid I'll just be disappointed.
Neil Young
Tonight’s the Night:
A lot of people's favourite Neil Young album but for me it is a B or B+ at best. Lots of spirit and doomy vibes off it but it feels too disjointed without enough catharsis to cut through the "all my friends are dying and my marriage is in bits" atmosphere.
Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson & Sigur Rós
Angels of the Universe:
Largely boring with some nice classic Sigur Rós soaring bowed guitars moments.
Circle
Forest
Circle
Tyrant
Circle
Andexelt:
The only three circle albums I have but every time I hear them I keep meaning to go spend a ton of money to get more. I can't pick a favourite out of these three.
Forest is a heady, atmospheric work that sounds like Indian classical music transported to Finland,
Tyrant is a more straightforward kraut/heavy rock album and
Andexelt doesn't know what it wants to be but it's cool anyway. Give the first track from
Forest a go, it takes 2-3 minutes to get going but it's worth waiting for.