hey guys

Sorry for not posting enough, I'm still trying to find a proper file-sharing service for this. The stupid drop.io stuff doesn't seem to work anymore?!

Will try to fix ASAP. Grrr. Anyone have hints/recommendations please leave a comment, thanks.

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Transmetropolitan

Sorry for the long hiatus but celebrations take time. Work also takes time. Life sucks lololol. Whatever.

Anyway, one of the things keeping me alive these days is the brilliant Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis. I actually got his name completely confused with Garth Ennis, the master-god who created Preacher, probably my favourite comic of all time, and was talking about the themes in "his" work with regards to Transmetropolitan. Yes, its all a bit WTF but they are very similar.

Preacher was the story of a man who managed to bring God to trial for causing the world to suffer. Transmetropolitan is the story of a Gonzo journalist, Hunter Thompson's kin, no doubt, in the future who works to uncover conspiracies, fuck shit up, beat people and expose Truth. Both are, like comics should be, total wish fulfillment. While Preacher lets a man attack God on equal footing, making it seem that random injustice can be accounted for and revenged, Transmetropolitan lets a man attack the Government on an equal footing, also making it seem that random injustice can be accounted for and revenged. It makes it seem like journalism actually means something.

I know I'd like to believe that.

It also really helps that Spider Jerusalem, the protagonist, is so fucking bad-ass. He seemingly beats up everyone that he doesn't like and never, ever loses. Despite being all drugged up all the time and smoking in every panel, he manages to evade government assassins, kick the president in the crotch, throw cops through windows and STILL the public listens to him. It's a bad-assery that's beyond belief, like Beowulf (in the movie), and it's very, very, action-movie cool.

Anyway, I'm posting up the first volume of Transmetropolitan, the files are in cbr format after you unrar them so you'll need something like CDisplay to read it. I personally use some wierd Chinese thing called 'Comics Viewer' but I takes forever to google, but it's out there and its really awesomely good so cheers if you can find it.

Edit: Found it here. Chinese viewer FTW!


Transmetropolitan Volume 1 (drop.io)

King Of The Internet - Greatest Hits

So ur with ur honey and yur making out wen the phone rigns. U anser it n the vioce is "wut r u doing wit my daughter?" U tell ur girl n she say "my dad is ded". THEN WHO WAS PHONE?

No, actually, I was with my honey and we were talking about those crappy marketing slogans for generations that used to be so popular, 'Baby Boomers', 'gen-x' etc and I was wondering what my generation's term was. A quick search on wikipedia reveals us to be called 'Gen-Y' or 'Millenials', which is completely retarded. I'd always rather think of us as GENERATION TERRORISTS, but I think that's reserved for the post Sept-11 crowd.

There was one time, however, where I was thinking vaguely about what characterized this particular generation and realized that, most of us 20-somethings, we grew up with the internet. The more socially inept of us, which of course means me and my friends, were raised by the internet and when we grew up, became proud citizens of the internet. Our generation should really be called 'WTF' when the Schadenfreude of FAIL becomes so ubiquitous, the world becomes meaningless drivel. Nothing is new, nothing is unique, all is recycled garbage and I am such a fucking cynic. Fuck you, me.

The term 'religious freedom' has no meaning on the internet, because it is, at heart, an anarchist society and most religions serve as nothing more than food for trolls anyway. There are a few contenders for God of The Internet and/or Final Boss of The Internet, though, but there is only one man who has truly united the internet enough to be called... I don't know, they don't really have a special name for him. President of the Internet? King of the Internet? I don't know. But just his name alone makes you never want to give him up, let him down, run around or desert him.

If you don't know who I'm talking about, you obviously haven't read the wiki about Ignace Paderewski, the man who was single-handedly responsible for the rise of Polish music. Yes, people. I'm talking about POLAND.


King Of The Internet - Greatest Hits (drop.io)

Sergei Rachmaninoff/ The Philadephia Orchestra/Eugene Ormandy - Piano Concertos 2 & 3

Ooh let's have a music to x to thread, x being a variable. Those are always fun, right? Music to take buses to, Belle & Sebastian... Music to look at trees to, Nick Drake... Music to kill yourself to, Joy Division... ummm Music to have sex to?

One of the bad things about having been on livejournal for so long is that you start to make meta-lists in your head. Whenever there's another stupid meme, the whole of livejournal becomes flooded. And making a list of music to have sex to was one of the popular memes yonks back when. My Bloody Valentine Loveless, ooh yes wailmeout251, I did my ex to that once and it was soooo goood, too bad he's gay now. So the meta-list becomes populated by things drippingly romantic or oozingly sleazy. Also I never really liked Marvin Gaye all that much, you guys. How you MEN can listen to man called GAYE sing "Let's Get it ON" makes me question your heterosexuality.

I mean, what if you don't like your sex romantic or sleazy? What if you like it... strange? My ex used to try and wrest control of the stereo from me everytime we wanted to get it on because I would always insist on putting on June of '44 because I wanted to pretend we were making out on ship in a storm and she would think, this is not romantic, this is your sailor fantasy! Let's put on some Bjork instead. Boooring. Which was the cue for me to blow my load, roll over and fall asleep, of course.

Later on in life, though, I was fortunate enough to meet someone who didn't mind my insistence on playing strange music during 'It' and, as a consequence, the music just went all over the place, from Spiritualized to Glenn Branca to John Coltrane. But the best music to xxx to, from that period of time, was something weird even to me. It was SERGEI RACHMANINOFF'S THIRD PIANO CONCERTO! Or the RACH3 as idiots who hear it through that stupid movie Shine would say it. Oh yes! THE RUSSIAN MOTHERLAND! The best place to do it.

I don't really know why, but the rhythm is perfect if you skip the 2nd movement. It starts off slow but insistent and builds up into a crescendo of RUSSIAN EMOTION, which is really the best kind of emotion and the 3rd movement is just really fast, which, if you're like me, is exactly what you want.

But seriously, why have lame British/American pussy emotion about loveing yohu long tiem babbyyy when you can have TRUE RUSSIAN EMOTION ABOUT DOING IT FOR THE MOTHERLAND?!!

Aaarhgjknsfh. Anyway, I am providing you the version played by Sergei Rachmaninoff (conductor Eugene Ormandy) himself even though I prefer the one played by Vladimir Horowitz (with Fritz Reiner) by far, because people love authenticity and I appear to be missing all my second movements for the other pianists hurr hurr. Also, Rachmaninoff kind of looks like Vladimir Putin, who is totally hawt, and Horowitz looks like a Ferengi from Star Trek, which is totally nawt. I might post up the Horowitz/Reiner and Volodos/Levine versions sans second movements in the days to come though. So, there you have it, the best music to have sex to. Also great music to shoot bears to. Oh and last night I dreamt I was in a Halloween costume in Norway and they said wow, please be a composer for us and I said ALRIGHT LET'S KILL SOME HORNETS. True story.

Oh shit I also included Piano Concerto 2. Which merits a whole other entry altogether. I did not, however, include the rest of the things you see on the CD cover, so har har.


Piano Concertos 2 & 3 (drop.io)

June Of '44 - Engine Takes To Water

1. Have a Safe Trip, Dear
2. June Miller
3. Pale Horse Sailor
4. Mindel
5. I Get My Kicks for You
6. Mooch
7. Take It With a Grain of Salt
8. Sink Is Busted

I've gone by the intarnet name, or 'handle' as they used to call it in the 90's, Pale Horse Sailor for a really long time. 5 years at least? I don't know. It's a total bitch trying to give your email address to people, let me tell you that. Very few people get the 'Pale Horse' reference and even those who do don't understand why 'Sailor' is tacked on after. I thought it would be completely apparent to people that I was Captain Ahab, seriously. I mean was there ever a phrase more perfectly fashioned to describe him?

Well, whatever your opinion is, mine is the opposite. Unfortunately, I did not create this wonderful three-string dangle of words. That honor belongs to the fine, fine people that made one of the best albums about sailing and seas, the highly underrated June of '44.

I really don't know much about them, other than one guy has something to do with the band Rodan and later on some of them (or one of them) became another band called The Shipping News. I also know they came out of the Slint Spiderland era where American hardcore-ish indie-ish bands were starting to discover they could turn the volume up and down and up and down and oh lawdy dynamics?!

Well, as evidenced, I was never a really big fan of Slint. But something about this particular band managed to reel me in like a fish into frying pan. Maybe it was the drums that pulled me in first, the rhythms tighter and more exciting than anything else I was listening to then. Maybe it was the sharp, stacatto guitar riffs, as catchy and punchy as Hit Me Baby One More Time (lawl). Maybe it was the fact that I listened to them during that strange period of time where I just kept re-reading that passage from Moby Dick about biscuit and chowder. I'm pretty sure it wasn't the vocals, not at first anyway, but by the time they started screaming "PORT AND BOWWW, STERN AND STARBOAAAARRD" I was fucking sold, man.

On second thought, I think the rhythms had the most to do with it. I don't know what the drummer's name is, but he's definitely one of my favourite drummers. How, from the very first track even, he manages to emulate a rolling sea so accurately, is completely beyond me. You can literally feel the ship boards shifting under your feet, soaked with water and crumbling, rocking from side to side. All the other parts, the guitar parts, vocal parts etc, bring you the stories and the salt sea air but it's truly the drums that set you on deck, bringing you the motion of the ocean. The aptly titled first track, Have A Safe Trip, Dear, kicks off the album by throwing you out to sail through a terrible thunderstorm punctuated by periods of whirlwind calm.

And the fourth track is Pale Horse Sailor yey so you can all understand my name now. Damn I started this review last night while I was still drunk and I spent the whole day working today so I don't feel like continuing it anymore. Sigh. Exhausted exhausted yahoo! Just download the album, it's really good.



Engine Takes To Water (drop.io)

The World Ends With You (Nintendo DS)

Ok I'm sorry, this isn't music but it still is a thing to download and anyway I plan to include other things in the future, like comics and e-books etc. Also, it is really awesome.

There are some games that you just have to give up a big chunk of your life for, some games that, despite having tons and tons and tons of work to do, you say fuck it all and spend whole days trying to complete and make people dislike you and never want to talk to you again ever but you think noo it's not laziness, look I'm on the ninth fucking level of Pork City, do you know how fucking hard I worked to get to that level?!!!?!?

A lot of RPGs try to be like that but Pokemon Diamond/Pearl actually was like that. Actually all the goddamn Pokemon games were like that. You had to catch them all dammit. You had to have them ALL, even if it meant spending entire Sundays wandering around the stupid grass farming for a good catch. There's something about collecting that appeals to our inner otaku. And if you're big enough a nerd to play Pokemon at 23, you're a big enough nerd to want to CATCH THEM ALL!!

But, let's face it, when you're 23 Pokemon feels as kiddy as Legend Of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. Even though the gameplay is awesome and the collecting aspect makes you feel like your life is actually worthwhile, you still feel a decade over the age limit. Also the fighting engine sort of sucks. Turn-based RPG fighting just sucks on a console like the DS, no two ways about it.

The World Ends With You addresses these two problems and provides us with solutions so elegant, they might be worthy of Bruce Einsteen. With a quick substitution of what to collect, The World Ends With You drives your in-built consumerism into a frenzy. What you collect are 'pins', which are like little badges that contain different powers or 'psychs'. These can then be exchanged for YEN which you can bring to SHOPS to buy CLOTHES in SHIBUYA. No, seriously. Clothes in Shibuya?!?! Gotta have them all! Especially when your nice Dragon Couture boots with the spazzed out name of ONE MAN, NO EQUALS, can add to your HP, Attack and Defense.

Which brings us to the amazingly beautiful, built-just-for-DS battle system. Oh yyyeeeaahhh! I really can't describe how damn fun the battle system is. Like Spiderman's fighting engine, you get to use the stylus a lot but different 'psychs' need different stylus moves to pull off and since you can pick and choose what pins to wear and the pins have their own levels, you are motivated to switch often to level up your pins, making the gameplay incredibly modular and fresh all the time. And that's not all! You get the option of controlling your in-game partner, who uses the top screen, with the control pad! Your partners don't use pyschs but there's a kind of card system in play that you can use to collect stars to pull off massive sync-ing attacks. It sounds really complicated and, well, it kind of is, but somehow, the makers of the game have managed to make the learning curve really gentle and welcoming. The potential for FUN that this crazy system has, though, is IMMENSE. There's so much room for growth!

That the story smells so much like a bad anime... who cares? The game is set in goddamn Shibuya!! That already makes up for everything bad in the story. And the crummy characters actually start to grow on you after awhile. Then again, humans are creatures of habit, right? I mean any character will grow on you after ten straight hours of playing them. But seriously, MORE THAN TEN STRAIGHT HOURS OF BEING ENTERTAINED!! You don't want that?

Anyway, you need a Nintendo DS to play this game. Also something like the Supercard or R4 to run this ROM. But if you're downloading this, I'm sure you know the hows and whats. I'm not sure if there's a PC emulator for the DS, but if you don't own a DS but own a tablet, it's surely worth googling.


The World Ends With You (drop.io)

Shakti with John McLaughlin LIVE (1975)

Shakti with John McLaughlin - Shakti with John McLaughlin LIVE

1. Joy
2. Lotus Feet
3. What Need Have I For This What Need Have I For That I Am Dancing At The Feet Of My Lord All Is Bliss All Is Bliss

Indian food is amazing. I really don't know what the Indian food is like in America or Europe or other western places but here, in Singapore, it's really, really tasty. And it can be had for so little money! Or a lot of money, if you're so inclined. But really, the rice, yoghurt, vegetables and spiced meat, the thosai, the dhal, the rasam... oh lawdy, I haven't had lunch.

Indian food, however, as in, the food people eat when they go to India, has a curious knack for making the people that I've met violently sick and bringing them closer to the jaws of death than they would care to be. One of my friends, who loves India, considers the chance of DEATH to be a legitimate reason for not visiting it. Not right now. Maybe when he's older and more ready to be snatched from life.

But the best Indian food, should be Indian food, right? And why am I talking about food anyway?

To the uninitiated listener, Indian classical ragas, long droning things based around one scale, can be interminably dull. Especially since they last for hours. Ok, not hours, one hour, maybe half, but still! It's not like Western classical where the structure is all important and the composer actively tries to engage you. It's more a meditative thing that you really have to be in a certain state of mind to appreciate. If not you just fall asleep.

But even though sleep is nice too, the riches and depth of Indian classical music once you get into it, is quite unparalleled, offering a very unique, very special kind of peace of mind and beauty.

So, how do you get into it without sleeping for hours? Well, what I did was, I listened to this album. It's not Indian classical but introduces you to some of the intstruments and the vague form of it. The songs are long but exciting, not meditative, and much easier to get into. There are sparks, flashes of beauty in the tracks, gorgeous melodies that will pull you in and it doesn't take you years to get into, just a couple of weeks, maybe.

In short, this is the Singaporean version of Indian food, which is still very tasty since it is made by actual Indians, some of whom come from India, but is clean enough not to upset your stomach and kill you (or put you to sleep).

Now consume it and godspeed. I'm off to find some Indian food for myself.

Shakti with John McLaughlin - Shakti with John McLaughlin LIVE (mf)

Manic Street Preachers - Know Your Enemy (2004)

Manic Street Preachers - Know Your Enemy

1. Found That Soul
2. Ocean Spray
3. Intravenous Agnostic
4. So Why So Sad
5. Let Robeson Sing
6. The Year Of Purification
7. Wattsville Blues
8. Miss Europa Disco Dancer
9. Dead Martyrs
10. His Last Painting
11. My Guernica
12. The Convalescent
13. Royal Correspondent
14. Epicentre
15. Baby Elian
16. Freedom Of Speech Won't Feed My Children
17. Hidden Track

The Manic Street Preachers are a Welsh band who like to dress up, act intellectual and shout political slogans. Unsurprisingly, they seem a little silly. Also unsurprisingly, they command a huge cult following. They're made up of three people right now. Nicky Wire, James Dean Bradfield and Sean Moore. Nicky is the cross-dressing, vacumming, teetollar bassist who writes all the lyrics, James is the singer and lead guitarist and musical genius, Sean is the drummer. Adding to their mystique is the fact that one of their band members who used to cut himself with knives and take pictures of it (Richey James Edwards), disappeared in 1994. Poof! And he never came back.

The year is now 2008 and my Manic Street Preachers tickets just came in the mail yesterday. It seems like I've spent the better part of my youth spraypainting my clothes, buying tiaras, feather boas, leopard skin tights, obsessing over them and acting like a bit of douche but good fucking god was it fun. And now I am old and it's hard to be as excited as I was, today especially, since I'm in one of those Serge Gainsbourg moods where you're old and bitter and drunk and just want to fuck girls.

It actually might be part of the reason that I'm posting Know Your Enemy. A quick Google survey reveals that a huge portion of the people who actually post in forums (as opposed to trolling, like normal internet denizens) think that this is the album when everything started skating downhill for the Manics. It was then that I realized that in the back of my mind, I felt everything after The Holy Bible to be a bit of a footnote. And I was overcome with shame. Was I really one of those cutter Richey fanatics who was depressedlawl and pined for his return? How could I have been so... so... unfair to James, the person who actually wrote all the music and was, possibly, the only talented one in the whole band?

My friend D, however, was being very fair to James when he told me that Know Your Enemy was actually his favourite album. I jumped back in shock! But why? According to him, the guitar work on Know Your Enemy was amazing. I jumped back in shock! But... I never noticed! So caught up was I in the Manics not sounding like the Manics anymore!

So, recently, I've tried to rediscover the Manics, this album in particular. It's not a very good introduction but there really are some good tracks on there. My favourite being So Why So Sad, which is an odd ditty that sounds like James has the same crush on Brian Wilson that I do. Stuff like Let Robeson Sing and Found That Soul has also kind of aged better. I find myself enjoying it a lot more than before. Maybe it's because I'm older, maybe it's because it so poppy, maybe it's because... I don't care, it just sounds better. I haven't discovered the amazing guitar work yet but I'm sure it's in there since my aforementioned friend is also a really amazing guitarist. Let me know if you find it though.

God, my writing has become really lazy all of a sudden. Oh well, WORKING WILL DO THAT TO YOU. Now I will proceed to get drunk to Serge Gainsbourg.


Know Your Enemy (drop.io)

Muji BGM 1980 - 2000

MUJI BGM 1980-2000 (disc a)
01. Original BGM.mp3
02. TALKING -BGM ver.-.mp3
03. 冬の夜.mp3
04. 星の子供たち.mp3
05. 星群の船.mp3
06. 星のささやき.mp3
07. 天の川.mp3
08. 星たしのラグタイム.mp3
09. 星たちの眠る頃.mp3
10. 流れ星.mp3

MUJI BGM 1980-2000 (disc b)
01. モダンパストラル - 夏の手掛かり～小卓の夢.mp3
02. モダンパストラル - オリーブ風.mp3
03. Dr.Kプロジェクト - Leona.mp3
04. Dr.Kプロジェクト - To,To,To,Walking.mp3
05. Dr.Kプロジェクト - Cape Light.mp3
06. Dr.Kプロジェクト - Pelican in the park.mp3
07. 配島邦明 - bicolore livre.mp3
08. 配島邦明 - color tote.mp3
09. 配島邦明 - tiny pet.mp3
10. 配島邦明 - banal look.mp3
11. 配島邦明 - mignard,e divan.mp3
12. 配島邦明 - pave ring.mp3

MUJI BGM 1980-2000 (disc c)
01. [春夏編]Akogare.mp3
02. [春夏編]Samba.mp3
03. [春夏編]鏡の上の波.mp3
04. [春夏編]Deja-vu.mp3
05. [春夏編]In the Forest.mp3
06. [秋冬編]Bug's Dance.mp3
07. [秋冬編]Funny Strut.mp3
08. [秋冬編]Julian.mp3
09. [秋冬編]Rio.mp3
10. [秋冬編]Crow's Eye.mp3


Muji started out as a small stationery store in Japan and gradually evolved to become this huge company that sells all sorts of things, from furniture to clothing to candy to bikes. Everything in Muji is unbranded, natural-looking and pleasantly minimal. What strange, wonderful things will they make today? A notebook with pretty lines that help keep you organized? A wall-mounted CD player that starts up with the pull of a string? All their items are crafty, kitschy, very Japanese and very lovely indeed.

Even just walking into a Muji store transports you into a new land. That the store itself is color co-ordinated is not a surprise but everything in the store is, not just color co-ordinated, but simply co-ordinated, feeling like irreplacable pieces in a puzzle, which, when put together, becomes a picture of a beautiful natural landscape with breezy fields and smiling people.

One of the biggest defining factors of the Muji experience, for me, is actually the wonderful music they play. They don't use standard elevator muzak but commission musicians to create actual background music to enhance the environment. The music is very, very Muji. Clean, modern and natural, unintrusive, somehow painting everything in cream, maroon and cardboard tones... It gives you the strangest kind of store-bought serenity.

So, when I saw that they were actually selling their background music, I went out of my mind with joy. Now, you too can take Muji with you wherever you go! Put in on in your house and watch it get more spacious! Listen to it while you lie on the grass and watch the sunlight diffuse! Listen to it when you're taking the train and watch your destination change to Tokyo!

This is really some of the most perfect ambient music ever made. If Brian Eno gave us an immense, gorgeous imaginary airport with Ambient 1: Music For Airports, then Muji turns the whole world into an extension of a Muji store. Which is, honest-to-God, not as bad as it sounds. Not bad at all! Just because we hate consumer culture doesn't mean we have to hate people who make wonderful things and sell them right?? Hell, William Gibson swore by their toothpaste!

Anyway here's the Muji BGM 1980 - 2000 box set. It took me a long time to upload. Enjoy.


Muji BGM 1980 - 2000 part 1
Muji BGM 1980 - 2000 part 2
Muji BGM 1980 - 2000 part 3
Muji BGM 1980 - 2000 part 4

re-up Tyrannosaurus Rex - Unicorn / Keith Jarrett - Koln Concert

Tyrannosaurus Rex - Unicorn (drop.io)
Keith Jarrett - Koln Concert (drop.io)

re-up John Cage - Daughters Of The Lonesome Isle / Works For Piano 4

John Cage - Daughters Of The Lonesome Isle (drop.io)
John Cage - Works For Piano 4 (drop.io)

Original entry here.

WHAT THE FUCK?

My files have been deleted from Mediafire, apparently. FUCK YOU MEDIAFIRE!!!

I will solve this problem by moving the files onto a different server. It will take me some time so, in the meantime, please don't leave my blog pleaaaseee?

FUCK YOU MEDIAFIRE!!!

Magma - Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh (1974)

Magma - Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh

1. Hortz Fur Dehn Stekehn West
2. Ima Suri Dondai
3. Kobaia Is de Hundin
4. Zeuhl Wortz Mekanik
5. Nebehr Gudahtt
6. Mekanik Kommandoh
7. Kreuhn Kohrmahn Iss de Hundin


When I was younger and more stupid, I got really excited over the term 'math rock' because I thought it was music that was derived from special equations. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that it was just a sound, a style, a term some idiot music journalist conjured up. Oh sigh.

On a vaguely related note, many other idiot journalists use the the term 'Space Opera' to describe everything from Star Wars to Dune to whatever Sci-fi and David Bowie. In fact there's even a Wiki for 'Space Opera' which describes it as "a subgenre of speculative fiction or science fiction that emphasizes romantic, often melodramatic adventure, set mainly or entirely in space, generally involving conflict between opponents possessing powerful (and sometimes quite fanciful) technologies and abilities."

But no no no no non on ono! We know they are wrong! A REAL Space Opera only happens when you take some French people, shoot them into space, give them a collective messianic fantasy and make them sing in harmony. A true Space Opera is... MEKANIK DESTRUKTIW KOMMANDOH, also known as M.D.K, the towering, glowering album from Magma that originates from somewhere beyond the stars.

The story surrounding this album is something like, a long time ago, some aliens from the planet Kobaia came down to enlighten us and all of us rejected their 'message' with the exception of this one man called Nebehr Gudhatt. Years pass and our world fucks up and Nebehr Gudhatt becomes something of a prophet and this album is all about a kind of march he organizes to... something. I don't know, do they go to Kobaia?

But, weird stories aside, Kobaian is a fucking glorious language to sing in! I heard it's made from a weird mix of French and German but, since I don't speak either, I'm not sure if I can say anything intelligent about it other than it sounds damn, damn good. It sounds absolutely PERFECT when set to the music, really. Imagine Carmina Burana given a huge forward driving beat, immense production and psychotic singers who sing in this made-up language that sounds gruttal and punchy in all the right places. A real call to arms! A call to Kobaia!! AAaaaAamlaKAaKAdlkaaaaa WLASIK KOBAIA!!!!!

And it's so goddamn catchy too! It's constructed such that one melody repeats for as long as it feels sweet and then another melody takes over and then again and again so it feels like you're really moving forward, up and outwards, into the future. After awhile, you'll really start singing along, I swear. There was a time I could actually sing this whole album, despite it being in Kobaian. It's that catchy.

In conclusion! This is one fine, fine album by make-believe spacemen. Listen to it and you, too, will feel like joining the Six Billion Man March Against McCain.


Magma - Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh Part 1 (mediafire)
Magma - Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh Part 2 (mediafire)

Keith Jarrett - The Köln Concert (1975)

Keith Jarrett - The Köln Concert

1. Köln, January 24, 1975, Part I
2. Köln, January 24, 1975, Part IIA
3. Köln, January 24, 1975, Part IIB
4. Köln, January 24, 1975, Part IIC

So, I went to a party last night and ended up in a park arguing with this guy from California about music. Despite being pretty drunk, I managed to make what seemed like sound arguments to me but not to the guy, apparently.

Anyway, he was gushing about how emotional gothic rock like Evanesence and Nightwish was and I told him I had the exact opposite opinion of gothic rock because I felt that the subculture and structures in place have corrupted, to some extent, the 'natural-ness' of the music. No matter how hard you scream at the top of your lungs, choosing a mode of expression that has been so standardized feels a little stilted to me and I can't connect to it emotionally at all.

But maybe, that's just my personal bias against gothic rock. I've always been a structure over style person when it comes to music, really. AND FUCKING JOY DIVISION WAS SO MUCH BETTER THAN THAT SHIT. Wow, I wish I was fucking Joy Division. Last night, I dreamt I was taking pictures with Liam Gallagher, of all people.

So anyway, long and rambling intro over? No, not yet.

So, I told him about my ideas of the 'natural-ness' of music, a kind of authenticity and sincerity that has not so much to do with sincerity of emotion as the sincerity of the mode of expression. I firmly believe that it is something you can hear in the music and it's something that is very, very valuable. Maybe because I didn't explain myself properly, he went off on a tangent on how I contextualized music too much but that's really besides the point.

Anyway, I tried to break into his tangent with my tangent on how I HEARD IT, I REALLY DID, THERE WAS THIS GUY WHO PLAYED POP MUSIC, POPPY IMPROVISED TUNES, BUT FUCKING HELL IT HAS SO MUCH DEPTH AND SOUL AND EMOTION AND EVERYTHING YOU COULD WANT IN MUSIC AND ITS FUCKING POP TUNES AND DO YOU KNOW WHY ITS SO FUCKING GOOD ITS BECAUSE ITS SINCERE EXPRESSION ITS REAL ITS SOMETHING REAL SO THE OUTER FORMS REALLY MATTER LESS THAN THE SOMETHING SOMETHING BLAR BALR BLARR. Sadly, he didn't hear me (how? right?) and the rest of my friends ignored me because they all knew I was in one of my Keith Jarrett frenzies again.

So, this is it! The kind of music that changes your life, if you let it. The kind of music I have slapped people for insulting. The kind of music you cry to. The kind of music you listen to for the rest of your life and it just gets better and better and better each time. This is real music.


Keith Jarrett - The Köln Concert (drop.io)

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Tyrannosaurus Rex - Unicorn (1969)

Tyrannosaurus Rex - Unicorn

1. Chariots of Silk
2. 'Pon a Hill
3. Seal of Seasons
4. Throat of Winter
5. Cat Black (The Wizard's Hat)
6. Stones for Avalon
7. She Was Born to Be My Unicorn
8. Like a White Star, Tangled and Far, Tulip That's What You Are
9. Warlord of the Royal Crocodiles
10. Evenings of Damask
11. Sea Beasts
12. Iscariot
13. Nijinsky Hind
14. Pilgrim's Tale
15. Misty Coast of Albany
16. Romany Soup

The 'freak-folk' revival of yesteryear gave us gems like Animal Collective and Joanna Newsom, but also washed up trash like Devendra Banhart and, well, everyone on that godawful The Enlightened Family compilation, with the exception of Vashti Bunyan. Anyways, thank god that's over!

But to find real freaky folks who are real freaks of folk musicians, one has to look a little harder and a little further back. What did your face look like before your parents were born? Who was Animal Collective's music before they picked up instruments?

Why... Marc Bolan, of course!

Collaborating with such luminaries as 'Steve' Peregrin Took, Meriadoc Brandybuck and Saruman of the Many Colors, with bells and whistles and puppy dog tails, Marc Bolan created a mystical, child-like wonderland where sound roamed freely, all around.

It's stunningly experimental for it's time, fearlessly incorporating all sorts of sounds into its patchwork of melodies. Kind of like an In An Aeroplane, Over The Sea, lo-fi, kitchen sink approach to things, only much less emotional crazy and a lot more quaint crazy. It fucking works, though! The clapping hoofs and bird song and Marc Bolan's loopy thin voice mumbling "sky sky sky" all come together in a way that is really quite magical. And the melodies! Good god! I really didn't expect some of the best, most gorgeous, most comforting melodies I'd ever hear in my life to come from people pretending to be hobbits but fuck! They are so crazy catchy and beautiful, it's hard not to melt into a puddle of fairy goo. The flow of the album is also very solid, which is surprising, given how loose-sounding the songs are. But, well, that's what it is. All the songs make sense in their little compartments but put together they weave a wonderful world around you... How much more convincing do you need? It's a great album, pls download kthnxbai.

Oh man... look at that cover. Is it just me that wishes it was a picture of them doing each other instead? Did I just come out to the internet?


Tyrannosaurus Rex - Unicorn (drop.io)


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King Crimson - Starless and Bible Black (1974)

King Crimson - Starless and Bible Black

1. The Great Deceiver
2. Lament
3. We'll Let You Know
4. The Night Watch
5. Trio
6. The Mincer
7. Starless And Bible Black
8. Fracture

Starless and Bible Black, the King Crimson album named after one of the opening lines of Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood. King Crimson, if you weren't aware, are an English progressive rock band started sometime in the seventies. The King of King Crimson, Robert Fripp, is also El Presidente of the League of Crafty Guitarists, members of whom he refers to as 'Disciplined Mobile Units'. I heard that he also whips them from time to time.

If you don't feel like you've stepped off this planet into some twisted children's storybook yet, it is clear that you have not listened to Starless and Bible Black and I urge you to download it now. There's some amazing guitar work for you to discover! The lyrics stumble from surreal to poetic but they always, always feel very art noveau. In The Night Watch, particularly, it all comes together in this amazing, amazingly amazing, wonderful beautiful tribute to Rembrandt's painting of the same name. The sense of time that they convey, the chilling melancholy of the pentatonic tones, the guitars that sound like an electric orchestra... it's all very, very good.

Oh and I do have to say something about Fracture as well. Recently, I attended an art exhibition where one of the works was a wall full of sketches, photographs and text regarding a single subject. I really enjoyed the work even though it was dull, because I like the idea of extrapolating so much from one thing, like a raga. Fracture explores this also, running over many different melodies extracted from a single theme but does so in a way quite like the work, in a disjointed, sketchy manner. I really do enjoy it! And there's also someone whooping in the background of the song so I think he enjoys it too!


King Crimson - Starless and Bible Black (mediafire)

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My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult - 13 Above The Night (1994)

My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult - 13 Above The Night

1. The Velvet Edge
2. Delicate Terror
3. Badlife
4. Dirty Little Secrets
5. China De Sade
6. Dimentia 66
7. Final Blindness
8. Blue Buddha
9. Starmartyr
10. Electrical Soul Wish
11. 13 Above The Night
12. Disko Fleshpot
13. Savage Sexteen
14. Blue Buddha-Master Of The UltraFlesh Mix
15. Electrical Soul Wish-Miss Hate Mix

I actually picked up this album on a whim at a discount store because I thought the cover was interesting. In exchange for 5 dollars, I was treated to some of the sleaziest, most salacious goth-y music I ever heard. And I mean this in the best possible way, because I usually dislike the gothic sound quite a bit.

My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, as far as I can tell, is this huge band that looks more like a biker gang than a bunch of goths. But, they were in The Crow! Also, one of them looks like one of the Lone Gunmen in the X-files. Does this make it more gothic? I don't know. But they sure make some nice music!

Their sound is full of the normal synths and samples and funny drum machine beat and stuff but, somehow, they manage to infuse it with so much non-wanky atmosphere. They transpose the goth sound from misguided self-importance into something that doesn't take itself very seriously at all, taking the long, awful B-movie inherent in the whole gothic subculture and giving it life! Turning it more into something like Ilsa She Wolf Of The SS than er... I dunno, Saw? No, it doesn't fit but you get what I mean, right?

Some of the tunes here are impressively catchy as well. The Velvet Edge is silky soft and lovely, Badlife just sticks in your head forever and don't even get me started on Disko Fleshpot, possibly the catchiest, danciest, most loveable disco song ever. It has one of those melodies that you want to run your tongue over even though it's probably full of veneral disease. The way the creepy Lone Gunmen dude's voice slides over the breathy porn samples, over the beat and the horns, it really sounds like you're in the sleaziest club in some kind of urban wasteland. It's so good, in fact, that I forgot to include it in the folder and you'll have to download it seperately because it's the king of the album.



My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult - 13 Above The Night (mediafire)
My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult - Disko Fleshpot (mediafire)

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John Cage - Works For Piano 4 / Daughters Of The Lonesome Isle

John Cage - Works For Piano 4


1-3. Triple-Paced (1943) (1:07, 1:01, 0:45)

first version, piano


4. Triple-Paced (1944) (2:04)

second version, prepared piano


5. Totem Ancestor (1942) (1:55)

prepared piano


6. Ad Lib (1943) (3:14)

piano


7. Jazz Study (1942) (3:03)

piano


8. Music for Marcel Duchamp (1947) (5:45)

prepared piano



Works of Calder (1949-50) prepared piano

9. I. Prepared Piano (5:05)

10. II. Film soundtrack with narration* (3:09)

11. III. Film soundtrack with percussion* (2:19)

12. IV. Prepared Piano (10:37)

* with Burgess Meredith, narrator, and John Cage,
percussion & tape collage


First recording


13. One² (1989) (18:51)
for 1-4 pianos, 1 performer

Version for 3 pianos
Written for Ms. Tan




John Cage - Daughters Of The Lonesome Isle

1. Bacchanale (1940) (6:46)
2. In A Landscape (1948) (7:49)
3. Daughters Of The Lonesome Isle (1945) (8:54)

The Seasons, Ballet In One Act (1947)
4. Prelude I (1:28)
5. Winter (1:20)
6. Prelude II (0:47)
7. Spring (2:15)
8. Prelude III (1:35)
9. Summer (3:15)
10. Prelude IV (0:53)
11. Fall (2:24)
12. Finale (Prelude I) (0:56)

Suite For Toy Piano (1948)
13. 1 (1:35)
14. 2 (1:41)
15. 3 (1:34)
16. 4 (1:24)
17. 5 (1:04)

18. Ophelia (6:43)

In the Name Of The Holocaust
19. A (3:37)
20. B (2:22)




Most people remember John Cage as the fellow who wrote that kooky song with nothing in it. Most people who know the name of that kooky song love to RAAAGE about how it's not music, or how it is music (cue 'What is Art?' discussions).

Few people remember John Cage as the loveable old codger who enjoyed picking mushrooms. Fewer still remember him as the guy who wrote a fuckload of incredible piano pieces. For someone who once said that he would bang his head against the wall of melody forever since he didn't have a feel for it (this is paraphrased), he actually wrote quite a few catchy songs! Only you can't call them 'songs', they're 'pieces' because it's classical music. But, whatever, most of them are three to five minutes long... just like songs!

Anyway, I am posting up two of my most beloved John Cage collections, Works For Piano 4 and Daughters Of The Lonesome Isle so the raging people can settle down because 1. it's modern 2. it's music. And it's good music too! The melodies are pretty interesting, the rhythmic structures are very, very engaging and the sounds are... out of this world. Most of the stuff is on prepared piano and Suite For Toy Piano is there too so, rest assured, the sounds won't be boring. One of my absolute favourite tracks off these collections, however, is a straight up non-prepared piano piece titled Jazz Study and is just that, a jazz study. I feel that it's simplicity and deliciousness really shows just how underrated John Cage's actual music is. It's fucking brilliant! It really sounds like jazz that's all chopped up thin like parsley and sprinkled on large portobellos which are then drizzled with olive oil and oven-baked. I can listen to it on repeat for hours. In fact, I used to. Please download Works For Piano 4 at least for this one amazing track.

Actually Works For Piano 4 has so many amazing tracks! The use of dynamics in Triple-Paced is mycologenioutastic, with a singular aesthetic that smells like an expansive backyard. Totem Ancestor is a modern classical classic, but deserves to be a jazz standard instead since 'modern classical classic' sounds so goofy. Even stuff like Works of Calder is great if you have the time to sit and digest it.

Daughters Of The Lonesome Isle takes even more digestion than Works Of Calder. It's much less immediate and insistent. I'm not such a big fan of The Seasons but In the Name Of The Holocaust is creepy and scary and... just perfect for Halloween! No, not really but it is damn good. Suite For Toy Piano executes the child-like feel to perfection. The way the notes play around, as if searching for some kind of order to fall into yet still trying to retain their playfulness and their freedom is just wow. It sounds really cute too.

So there you go, the hidden side of John Cage that is actually more akin to Hello Kitty than Genius Artist or Twisted Bastard.

By the way, if you enjoy the music I post, please take the time to link to this site, tell your friends about it or click on one of the sponsors banners/links. Or just comment so I know people are actually reading this. Also, you can check the link at the side entitled 'Music Albums You Can Request' to see if there are any albums there that you want me to post up and comment if you want anything. For now, it only tracks my recent acquisitions but I'll be posting up my entire album list in time.


John Cage - Works For Piano 4 (mediafire)
John Cage - Works For Piano 4 (drop.io)

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John Cage - Daughters Of The Lonesome Isle (mediafire)
John Cage - Daughters Of The Lonesome Isle (drop.io)

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SebastiAn - Remixes (2008)

SebastiAn - Remixes

01. Intro
02. Revl9n - Walking Machines (SebastiAn Remix)
03. Daft Punk - Human After All (SebastiAn Remix)
04. Mylo - Paris Four Hundred (SebastiAn Remix)
05. The Rapture - Get Myself Into It (SebastiAn Remix)
06. Editors - Camera (SebastiAn Remix)
07. The Rakes - We Dance Together (SebastiAn Remix)
08. Kelis - Bossy (SebastiAn Remix)
09. The Kills - Cheap & Cheerful (SebastiAn Remix)
10. Kavinsky - Testarossa Autodrive (SebastiAn Remix)
11. Benjamin Theves - Texas (SebastiAn Remix)
12. Das Pop - Fool For Love (SebastiAn Remix)
13. Bloc Party - I Still Remember (SebastiAn Remix)
14. Sebastien Tellier - Sexual Sportswear (SebastiAn Remix)
15. Klaxons - Golden Skans (SebastiAn Remix)
16. Annie - Happy With You (SebastiAn Remix)
17. Nadiya - Tous Ces Mots (SebastiAn Remix)


A collection of highly enjoyable remixes by SebastiAn big-A, a French artist on Ed Banger Records. His remixes kind of remind me of steak, like a large, tasty, well-cooked cut of beef. The sounds he uses are just so punchy and... beefy. While not exactly life-changing stuff, its dance-y and addictive and worth listening to. The remixes of Daft Punk and Sebastian Tellier are particularly delicious.


SebastiAn - Remixes (mediafire)

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Lindsey Buckingham - Gift Of Screws (2008)

1. Great Day
2. Time Precious Time
3. Did You Miss Me
4. Wait For You
5. Love Runs Deeper
6. Bel Air Rain
7. The Right Place To Fade
8. Gift Of Screws
9. Underground
10. Treason


Lindsey Buckingham, the talented former Fleetwood Mac guitarist, returns with an album full of the best guitar work you'll ever hear. I am completely serious about this. This album has the best guitar work I have ever heard, trumping Nick Drake, Thurston Moore/Lee Ranaldo, John McLaughlin, Robbie Basho and Vini Reilly.

With some kind of magical unicorn strings, Lindsey Buckingham has managed to hit the sweetest spot possible with his sound that lingers somewhere in between candy, ice-cream, a cold morning and kissing the one you love. It's clear like ice and a little detached, but somehow, still warm inside, like that bad boy who you know is really a sensitive, cuddly softie. It's a perfect sound, an absolutely perfect guitar sound that he uses to bring out his catchy, poppy melodies. The perfect equation for bliss, really. The swirls of guitar in Great Day are so intense and the production so immersive, it pulls you in right away. Songs like Wait For You, Did You Miss Me, Love Runs Deeper and the exceptional The Right Place to Fade bring to mind his former glories with Fleetwood Mac and turns them into new glories, not ghostly memories of a distant past. The best track, for me, is Bel-Air Rain where a beautiful, driving, finger-picking melody runs all around you and turns wherever you are, whatever the weather is, into a cold, pale grey, urban melancholy that feels prettier than diamonds.

His voice is also amazing. It sounds at once wise, youthful, passionate yet secure, so rich and full of depth. It sounds like the kind of voice that only comes with years of experience yet sounds more like the Lindsey Buckingham on the cover of Buckingham Nicks (link to the cover) rather than the old man on the cover of Gift Of Screws. It's a voice that carries weight, a voice full with the shades of things. The whole of Gift Of Screws seems like an album made out of the shades of things, the shades of history in his voice, the shades of color in the reverb, the shades of stories in the guitar, like a collage or a fuzzy pencil drawing of a blurry man standing on a hill far away. You can't tell the whole story but, somehow, it feels close to your heart.


Lindsey Buckingham - Gift Of Screws (Mediafire)
Lindsey Buckingham - Gift Of Screws (Sharebee)

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Brian Wilson - That Lucky Old Sun (2008)

Brian Wilson - That Lucky Old Sun (2008)

1. That Lucky Old Sun
2. Morning Beat
3. Narrative: Room With a View
4. Good Kind of Love
5. Forever My Surfer Girl
6. Narrative: Venice Beach
7. Live Let Live
8. Mexican Girl
9. Narrative: Cinco De Mayo
10. California Role
11. Narrative: Between Pictures
12. Oxygen
13. Can’t Wait Too Long
14. Midnight’s Another Day
15. Lucky Old Sun [Reprise]
16. Going Home
17. Southern California
18. Roll-Around Heaven [Reprise]

I'm sure everyone has heard a couple of Beach Boys songs here and there, I know I did when I was a bit younger. Combined with their slightly dorky name (Beach Boys?!), for those who don't really bother to listen, the Beach Boys easily become synonymous with the bit pieces used in commercials.

It's sad, really, but I think the first time I really, really listened was when Brian Wilson (the member of the Beach Boys) released SMiLE in 2004. I had encountered Pet Sounds before that but I didn't let myself drown in the music the way I did with SMiLE, parts of which made me believe that I had touched God, so sublime it was. With his heavenly feel for harmonies and arrangement, he constructed sky-high surround-sound angelic sonnets to... melancholy. Pocket symphonies marred only by inner turmoil.

In That Lucky Old Sun, the follow-up release to SMiLE, eagerly awaited by the gnarly set, the geriatrics, a few slimy critics, basically a bunch of old people and me, all of that melancholia seems to have evaporated under the warm, honeyed, Californian sunlight. Retaining his harmonic ideas, he seems to have given up complex, linear, classically-inspired construction for simple, incredibly catchy, poppy melodies and, instead of foward, built up up up! Think of the best four-chords you've ever heard and imagine them swallowing you up in a swirl of oranges and trees and sea and sand and surf and waiters, and you have an idea of what this album is like. The lyrics accurately create an amazing world for you to sink in, the spoken word adds not detracts from the album, and with the music, Brian Wilson has thrown out the complexity of SMiLE and substituted a wholeness for it.

Every song is a love letter to California, a celebration of Brian Wilson's ideal of California, and though it can sound a little forced at times, the joy that permeates every note is a welcome breath of fresh air. It's all so positive and happy and beautiful and... sublime. The way only Brian Wilson knows how.

Brian Wilson - That Lucky Old Sun (Sharebee)

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disclaimer of sorts

This is a blog of music and other download links culled from the internet. I do not host these links, I just collate them because I'd like to write about them and I am not responsible for how you or other people use them.

Do not sue me. Thanks.