Back To School Part II

First, a report from one of your classmates on how to school a wingnut evangelist:



Bravo, young lady! You deserve an A for atheism.

Okay, attention class, this next subject is a fun one! It's a survey of the plethora of cover songs within the spacerock realm, whether it's spacerock bands covering songs not normally considered to be part of the genre, or bands not normally considered to be spacerock indulging in a little lysergic pleasure. It allows us listeners and aficionados to peek into the psyches of these artists and discover more about them by exposing their personal tastes and influences - after all, you wouldn't cover a song you hate, would you? Except ironically, of course, and there's a modicum of irony or satire in spacerock (look at Hawkwind, for example), but it's definitely not the modus operandi. Seeing which covers these bands choose, and how they choose to cover them - whether in sincere homage or by completely dismantling the song to reassemble it their own way - helps us to discover the lineage between these musical movements, develop contexts and histories, and better understand the solar systems and larger galaxies of spacerock.

In this segment we also get to break three rules of the Spacerock Continuum: we can play the same artist in the same set, and we can play two versions of the same song in the same set. AND, we'll be going a bit over the two-hour mark this time, so get comfortable class, this will be journey of discovery for us all.

Ready? Begin:


We start in an obvious place (at least for those of us familiar with the LA supergroup featuring members of Failure and Tool who formed purely to put out a one-off collection of radically reinterpreted cover songs) with The Replicants and their take on a "silly" Paul McCartney & Wings ditty, and a track from Pink Floyd's spacey soundtrack for the obscure 70s film 'More'. Speaking of the Floyd, we follow with Japanese electronicists Color Filter and their dreamy version of one of my favorite Floyd songs ever from the Meddle album, and Red Temple Spirits doing another track from 'More' as well as a track from 'Umma Gumma'. We then have two drastically different versions of a 13th Floor Elevators' chestnut from Oneida and Primal Scream. Red Temple Spirits put out more than their fair share of covers and here we have another one from them in the form of their version of a Spacemen 3 gem, which was actually a cover of a 13th Floor Elevators track. Confused yet? How about Spacemen 3 themselves (who put out and album coincidentally called 'Sound of Confusion') with an unrecognizable cover of a Sun Ra song? Speaking of the Spacemen, next up are two of the best tracks from a tribute album to the opiated astral travelers from Frontier and Asteroid #4.

Okay, let's get a bit more down to earth (as much as we ever do in spacerock): next up, The Gun Club's fitting rendition of an oldie-goldie from Creedence Clearwater Revival, followed by True West making their acquaintance with Syd Barrett's friend Sam and Bauhaus meeting an entirely different Sam, a friend of Marc Bolan and T. Rex. Paying tribute to The Rolling Stones' ill-advised foray into sci-fi rock are 80s goth favorites Danse Society, then Maynard James Keenan from Tool feting Bauhaus survivors Love & Rockets with his side project Puscifer. Also from that album of L&R covers is Film School sounding reverential to their obvious forebears. Also proudly displaying their influences are Jessamine covering Suicide and Loop doing Neil Young. We then have a bizarre take on another Neil Young classic from The Flaming Lips, as well as their surprisingly faithful rendition of Queen's quintessential (if overplayed) rock opera. Another surprise choice is Husker Du, here mangling a slice of Byrdsian psychedelia. Then Th' Faith Healers demonstrate where they tuned up their motorik by covering vintage krautrockers Can.

In addition to Pink Floyd and the 13th Floor Elevators, another iconic band to cover is, of course, The Velvet Underground, and here are just a couple from 80s experimental stalwarts Clock DVA and Japan (REM was too obvious). Another is, even more obviously, David Bowie, and here we have the late, great Zen Guerilla paying debt to a classic Ziggy Stardust glamrocker (which I had the tearjerking pleasure to witness live on the very day of Spiders From Mars guitarist Mick Ronson's untimely death). Then we come full circle back to the Replicants with their reinterpretation of Bowie's finest epic.

Last, but certainly not least, Built To Spill's Doug Martsch conjures the god of thunder guitar on Neil Young's most torrential opus. Exhausting but not exhaustive, this set is by no means meant to be comprehensive - there are simply to many choice covers from which to choose. What are some of your favorites not included here, class? Discuss.

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Silly Love Songs - Replicants - Replicants
Ibiza Bar - Replicants - Replicants
Fearless - Color Filter - I Often Think In Music
Nile Song - Red Temple Spirits - Dancing To Restore An Eclipsed Moon
Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun - Red Temple Spirits - If Tomorrow I Were Leaving For Lhasa I Wouldn't Stay A Minute More
Slip Inside This House - Oneida - Come On Everybody Let's Rock
Slip Inside This House - Primal Scream - Screamadelica
Rollercoaster - Red Temple Spirits - If Tomorrow I Were Leaving For Lhasa I Wouldn't Stay A Minute More
Rollercoaster - Spacemen 3 - Sound Of Confusion
Starship - Spacemen 3 - The Perfect Prescription
Hey Man - Frontier - A Tribute To Spacemen 3
Losing Touch With My Mind - Asteroid #4 - A Tribute To Spacemen 3
Run Through The Jungle - The Gun Club - Miami
Lucifer Sam - True West - Hollywood Holiday
Telegram Sam - Bauhaus - In The Flat Field
2000 Light Years From Home - Danse Society - Heaven Is Waiting
Holiday On The Moon - Puscifer - A Tribute To Love & Rockets
An American Dream - Film School - A Tribute To Love & Rockets
Cheree - Jessamine - Another Fictionalized History
Cinnamon Girl - Loop - A Tribute To Neil Young
After The Gold Rush - Flaming Lips - A Tribute To Neil Young
Bohemian Rhapsody - Flaming Lips - A Tribute To Queen
Eight Miles High - Husker Du - single
Mother Sky - Th' Faith Healers - Lido
Black Angels Death Song - Clock DVA - Advantage
All Tomorrow's Parties - Japan - Quiet Life
Moonage Daydream - Zen Guerilla - Trance States In Tongues
The Bewlay Brothers - Replicants - Replicants
Cortez The Killer - Built To Spill - Live

SPACE JAZZ...?!?!?

It's back-to-school time, kids! And our first lesson is about the intersection of spacey sounds and high-minded JAZZ! Now it's no secret that the illustrious Sun Ra claimed to be from outer space (Saturn, I believe), as have many African American auteur/musicians from George Clinton to Dr. Octagon (aka Kool Keith who insists, "Earth people: I was born on Jupiter")... what IS it with that, anyway? So this month's installment is a bit of an inter-disciplinary study, deviating from the decidedly rockist format of this spacecast; a chance to explore the spacier tangents of jazz from the bop era to the space age, from free jazz exploration to avant garde science fiction.

We begin with the band who brought jazz (along with dub, latin rhythms, spaghetti western and experimental electronics) to the nebulous genre known as post rock, the mighty Tortoise, standard bearers of the Chicago sound. Following them are their Chi-Town schoolmates Pit Er Pat who bring a skewed melodicism and scattershot rhythmic edge to the proceedings. Next up, a very a-typically jazzy track from no-wave avant gardist Rhys Chatham who's more known for postmodern orchestral pieces (if a composition for 100 electric guitars is your idea of orchestral) as well as inspiring the likes of Sonic Youth. And how could this playlist be complete without drum-and-bass DJ and all-around madman Squarepusher, who alongside his prodigious programming talents just happens to be one berzerk mofo on electric bass. Another entry from the realm of electronica, the former drum-and-bass experimental duo Spring Heel Jack have morphed in recent years into extreme avant garde jazzists along with many trad jazz players and other unlikely guests including Spiritualized's J. Spaceman.

Another couple entries from the Chicago school (are they dominating this genre?), Exploding Star Orchestra and Isotope 217, both feature an alchemical mix of trad jazz and avant players, from cornetist and composer Rob Mazurek to multiple members of Tortoise. Next we trip lightly through a segment featuring the godfathers of space jazz, the always angular Ornette Coleman, the free jazz pioneer Pharoah Sanders, and the spaceways exploring Sun Ra.

Continuing the theme of melding electronic to organic, we have the familiarly monikered Spacetime Continuum from San Francisco, the polyrhythmic dub-jazzniks HiM (not to be confused with the thoroughly awful Finnish goth-metal band Him), and a collision between British electronica composer Kieran Hebden (aka Fourtet and 1/3 of post rockers Fridge) and old school American free jazz drummer Steve Reid. And if that doesn't leave you exhausted, prepare to wrap up this astral traveling set with New Zealand motorik-monotonists The Necks.

Okay class, school's out! Time for a nap...

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

TNT - Tortoise - TNT
I Am The Jungle - Pit Er Pat - Emergency
Flash - Rhys Chatham - Hard Edge
Delta-V - Squarepusher - Just A Souvenir
Autumn - Spring Heel Jack - The Sweetness of the Water
Sting Ray and the Beginning of Time, Part 1 - Exploding Star Orchestra - We Are All From Somewhere Else
Luh - Isotope 217 - Utonian Automatic
Civilization Day - Ornette Coleman - Complete Science Fiction
Astral Traveling - Pharoah Sanders - You've Got To Have Freedom
Lanquidity- Sun Ra - Lanquidity
Manaka - Spacetime Continuum - Double Fine Zone
A Verdict of Science - HiM - Sworn Eyes
Morning Prayer - Kieran Hebden & Steve Reid - The Exchange Sessions
Abillera - The Necks - Chemist

WAKE UP, SPACEMONKEYS!!!

Let us now celebrate the most uncompromising bands of our time from within and around the genre known as psychedelic. Surely it would too easy for me too just play All Pink Floyd, All The Time. Instead you're in for a dose of the obscure, noisy, and unrelenting.

I hope you enjoyed the above video from the all-time psych-pop masters of Oz, the Church, who just released their 23rd album this year (!). This track was recorded live very recently but comes from their second album of their mid-80s heyday (album title pun intended), back when I must've seen them at least a dozen times. These guys are pushing 60 (!) and rock like nobody else out there. There must be something wrong with me but this video brought tears to my jaded eyes.

So on to the blitz: there's a lot more I could've included in this set, but it started out just as any other, and only later did I attempt to classify it. I hesitate in my hasty inclination to call this my Best. Set. Ever. But whatever... "it is what it is" (to quote the most inane phrase ever coined in the English language)... and it RAWKS.

We start with the prolific favorite sons of Wales the Super Furry Animals, and the opening slab of psych/glam from the their latest (and greatest?) album, and follow them with their countrymen Future of the Left, who rose from the ashes of the mighty Mclusky, that postpunk juggernaut that was the Welsh answer to Fugazi but with a wicked sense of misanthropic humor. Both they and Death From Above 1979 could hardly be called psychedelic per se (although an argument could be made for their spacerockingness), but I thought they fit well in the set, so don't question it - you'll thank me later.

We then take a turn toward the dark side with spaghetti-western psychesters Spindrift, trance-inducing Texans The Black Angels, nerve-fraying Sacramentoans the Ganglians, raucous troglodytes Cave, and motorik madmen Circle, with a stomping tribute to their Finnish home town.

When it comes to uncompromising... with their proclivity for reinventing the same circular song pattern over the course of dozens of releases and a plethora of microgenres, all the while toiling in obscurity, Circle wrote the book. Other contributors to various chapters of this tome include Brooklyn's Oneida, and this monster of a track is culled from their umpteenth recording, an ambitious 3CD sprawl that succeeds in melting my mind easily 90% of the time. And with only 10% filler it's better for you than most American-made foodstuffs. The next chapter is writ large by Chicago postrock OGs Tortoise who, judging by this track, haven't decided to mellow into the tepid smooth jazz fusion of some of their contemporaries. They certainly backed that statement up at a stellar San Francisco show earlier in the month which I was lucky enough to witness. And of course, the foreward and epilogue to this anthology would have to be written by 70s-era krautrock pioneers Faust who are still at it today (this track coming from 1997, one of their many "comebacks"), and who continue to be more challenging and uncompromising than ever.

From there we tackle some analog synthtronica from Cluster-philes like Eine Kleine Nacht Musik, who is really a solo composer dedicated to the Teutonic arts (Mozart, anyone? gene-splice it with some modern drone theory? add some Fahey-esque guitar? yes please!), Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas, space-technoist Norwegians who occasionally fall off the dance floor and rise into something more cerebral, and Sinoia Caves, the keyboardist from Black Mountain getting his Cluster (aka Kluster) on.

Yanking us, sleep-deprived from our reveries, is everyone's favorite spacepunk superheroes the Trail of Dead with a devastating track from their latest magnum opus, which then leaves us in the hands of the unarguable godfathers of hyper-dynamic post rock, Tokyo's Mono, who show us how to go from very quiet to VERY LOUD to even LOUDER to LOUDER STILL, but Glasgow's mighty 'Gwai take it further still, to the heavens and back, with their side-length biblical epic that one-ups even their other lengthy classics like "Mogwai Fear Satan" and "Like Herod". Apocalyptic times indeed, but squint a bit and you might see that elusive light at the end of the long... dark... tunnel.

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Crazy Naked Girls - Super Furry Animals - Dark Days/Light Years
The Hope That House Built - Future of the Left - Travels With Myself And Another
Turn It Out - Death From Above 1979 - You're A Woman, I'm A Machine
Goin' Down - Spindrift - The West
Black Grease - The Black Angels - Passover
100 Years - Ganglians - Monster Head Room
Gamm - Cave - Psychic Psummer
Back To Pori - Circle - Pori
10:30 At The Oasis - Oneida - Rated O
Yinxianghechengqi - Tortoise - Beacons Of Ancestorship
Liebeswehen 2 - Faust - You Know Faust
Feuerprobe - Eine Kleine Nacht Musik - Eine Kleine Nacht Musik
Rothaus - Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas - II
Evil Ball - Sinoia Caves - The Enchanter Persuaded
Bells Of Creation - ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead - The Century Of Self
Com (?) - Mono - One Step More And You Die
My Father, My King - Mogwai - My Father, My King

Space travel is fun...!

And we're traveling all over the place this month, which should explain my tardiness in posting this installment. I briefly touched down on terra firma for summer vacation the last couple weeks, ports o' call within my orbit from San Diego to Portland, but I'm back in the satellite now with a set of the heavy, the majestic and the obscure, just for you.

Attention metalheads! The first meaty chunk of this set is for you! If you're not so metallic don't let that frighten you off - this is only the most progressive of modern day post-metal, from Harvey Milk, Torche, Helms Alee and Oceansize. The once-defunct but recently regrouped Athens GA trio Harvey Milk bring the heavy to closeted metal lovers in the oft-effeminate indie scene. Torche, who I saw on a bill with Red Sparrowes and Isis (two bands that would fit perfectly in this set, but time doesn't permit), bring a surprising melodiousness to their manic punk-metal hybrid. Helms Alee came to me through the impeccable taste of my cohort Sully, who caught the Seattle three-piece at their recent stop at Petaluma's illustrious Phoenix Theater. Oceansize is a band I struggle with pigeon-holing, because despite hailing from Madchester UK, their drift and crunch conjurs not only their namesakes Jane's Addiction, but everything from Radiohead to Tool to vintage grunge circa Alice In Chains. Confusing? But not necessarily a bad thing.

We then transition to a proggier segment with the vintage keyboard saturated space travels of Zombi, the spaciest track from the stellar new Tortoise album, some shoegazin' bliss from Ulrich Schnauss, a motorik-inspired selection from the Phantom Band, and a Phil Spector worshiping slice of melodrama from Pink Mountaintops (side project of Black Mountain stalwarts Stephen McBean and Amber Webber).

Then it's time for a couple left-field departures, where Japan's Mono bring postrock ever nearer to neoclassical proportions on their latest release, and Australia's Necks launch jazz instrumentation into Space 1990. That's when things get really weird: Black Eyes are not for everyone, and can be just as painful as their namesake to those unaccustomed to the abrasive textures where ART meets NOISE. But fear not, after the band broke up their helium-voiced singer formed a new band Mi Ami that melded the sandpaper skronk of his previous outfit to mind-melting echo chamber dub! And as icing on the noise cake, three epics of endurance: one from the enigmatic Majik Markers, one from the latest installment of the saga that is Sonic Youth, and a lengthy closer from Kiwi atonalist Birchville Cat Motel a man who straddles the line between aural and textural as well as anyone in the history of spacerock.

I hope this reaches you in time to annoy the neighbors at your Independence Day BBQ and ignite fireworks in your brain. Happy Birthday America! May your current trajectory carry us like a comet, arcing ever higher and never crashing to earth!

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Death Goes To The Winner - Harvey Milk - Life... The Best Game In Town
Amnesian - Torche - Meanderthal
A New Roll - Helms Alee - Night Terror
Catalyst - Oceansize - Effloresce
Earthly Powers - Zombi - Spirit Animal
High Class Slim Came Floatin' In - Tortoise - Beacons Of Ancestorship
On My Own - Ulrich Schnauss - A Strangely Isolated Place
Throwing Bones - Phantom Band - Checkmate Savage
Axis: Thrones Of Love - Pink Mountaintops - Outside Love
Battle To Heaven - Mono - Hymn To The Immortal Wind
Next - The Necks - Next
Yes, I Confess - Black Eyes - s/t
Echonoecho - Mi Ami - Watersports
Axis Mundi - Majik Markers - Boss
Antenna - Sonic Youth - The Eternal
Chi Vampires - Birchville Cat Motel - Chi Vampires

June Gloom?

Got politics? What a clusterfuck this world is in! Ah, nevermind... the weather's great up here on the satellite, let's forget about petty human affairs and blast off into SPACE!

We start this month's installment with some seriocomic glam/prog entries from the Crazy World of notorious British eccentric Arthur Brown (circa 1968) and a tongue-in-cheek slice of "social commentary" from vintage Roxy Music ('73), winding out with THE all-time space-glam epic from our beloved spaceman Ziggy Stardust ('72) and a classic from little-known but highly influential analog synth oddballs the Silver Apples ('68). Our progression shifts to quasi-shoegaze with San Francisco's Halcyon High (a one-man psych-guitar extravaganza), and Chicago's notoriously "difficult" Labradford proudly wearing their influences on one of their most linear and accessible tracks.

From there it's a decidedly motorik affair with Swedish retro-futurists The Low Frequency In Stereo, the UK's The Horrors (suddenly dropping their Cramps/Birthday Party goth tendencies in favor of smooth krautrock for their second album), and San Francisco's Wooden Shjips from their fine second full-length release. Splintering off from that realm, the Phantom Band shows the motorik/instrumental side of their Beta Band/Super Furry Animals-style psych-pop which leads us to some acid-soaked americana from Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound, from their long-lost first album (look next month for a track from their just-released third album, a contender for best of the year!), MV & EE, Dead Meadow and Comets On Fire. Aussies The Dirty Three then uplift us from the morass with an upbeat instrumental love-ditty composed of guitars, violins and... bagpipes?!?!?

Finishing this set on an up note, musical breathren Oneida and Pterodactyl drop some spaz-prog science, Fridge put the chill on post-rock and Unwound take their moniker to heart. All in a day's work, folks... enjoy!

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Prelude/Nightmare - Arthur Brown - The Crazy World of Arthur Brown
In Every Dream Home A Heartache - Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure
Moonage Daydream - David Bowie - The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars
Oscillations - Silver Apples - s/t
Close Your Eyes And See The Light - Halcyon High - Live on KDVS
Soft Return - Labraford - Prazision
Solar System - The Low Frequency In Stereo - Futuro
Sea Within A Sea - The Horrors - Primary Colours
Down By The Sea - Wooden Shjips - Dos
Crocodile - Phantom Band - Checkmate Savage
Creeping Spirits & Talkonaut - Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound - s/t
Canned Happiness - MV & EE - Green Blues
One And Old - Dead Meadow - Howls From The Hills
Brotherhood Of The Harvest - Comets On Fire - Blue Cathedral
Doris - Dirty Three - Cinder
Up With People - Oneida - Happy New Year
Share The Shade - Pterodactyl - Worldwild
Astrozero - Fridge - Early Output 1996-1998
Side Effects Of Being Tired - Unwound - Challenge For A Civilized Society

May Day!!! May Day!!!

Happy Beltane!!! That's all I got by way of topical or witty banter this month. Let's cut to the chase, shall we?

We start slow with some stream-of-consciousness motorik from Psychic Ills, whose great new album has a more improvised-in-the-studio feel, and Wooden Shjips from their debut album (I'll be back next month with a track from their brand new one!). Then an oddball track from Mercury Rev's new one, a free download on their website, which is entirely instrumental! Just as you're drifting off you'll be startled out of your reverie by a blistering track from the incredilbe new Trail of Dead album, their best in a long line of great albums and a true return to form (thanks to Kevin at Pandora Studios for the invitation to a private Trail of Dead taping - that was AWESOME!). We move on into a set of some proggy polyrhythmic pandemonium from our beloved Animal Collective (new one's brilliant!), Marnie Stern (last track from her for a while, I swear!), and Lucky Dragons (file under WTF?!?!?). Then we have some Chicago-school jazz-prog from Pit Er Pat (sounding alot like Pram, who I've been playing a lot of lately) and some full-on space-kraut from Japan's Rovo (always amazing).

Then, as I am wont to do, we drop shear off the cliff into oblivion, with Birchville Cat Motel, a one-man experimental "outfit" from New Zealand, lo-fi San Diego noisemonger Wavves, also a one man band, and a meandering krautrockin' track from late-great San Francisco absurdists Chum Frink (hi Derek!). Speaking of absurd, if I wasn't familiar with the individual members' pedigrees (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Le Fly Pan Am... basically a who's who of the Montreal post-rock scene) I wouldn't know what to make of the next band, Pas Chic Chic, but suffice it to say their "trippy Francophone pop" is meant to be both tongue-in-cheek AND spacerockin'.

And I daresay the remainder of the set is a collection of the most linear stuff I've ever compiled on the Spacerock Continuum (barring the more free-form January best-of editions): Crystal Stilts' surfin-'in-Motown psychedelia, Sian Alice Group's PJ Harvey-esque minimalist post-rock, the Cocteau Twins-esque retro-futurist leanings of School of Seven Bells (featuring an ex-Secret Machines guitarist and the two lovely sisters from On! Air! Library!), a vintage shoegazing classic from Slowdive, the aforementioned Secret Machines whose third album, from which this track is taken, is not as bad as their miserable second but not as good as their stellar debut, and one of the greatest tracks from the sorely-overlooked and long-defunct Chameleons (UK), circa 1985. Of course I have to leave you with a mind-melting show closer, so in this case prepare to be utterly transported by Germany's Daturah (fittingly named after the traditional name for the powerful hallucinogen jimson weed). Work for you? It did for me...

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Mantis - Psychic Ills - Mirror Eye
We Ask You To Ride - Wooden Shjips - s/t
Because Because Because - Mercury Rev - Strange Attractors
Far Pavilions - ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - The Century Of Self
Lion In A Coma - Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
Grapefruit - Marnie Stern - In Advance Of The Broken Arm
Givers - Lucky Dragons - Dream Island Laughing Language
I Am The Jungle - Pit Er Pat - Emergency
Cisko - Rovo - Tonic 2001
Damn Infinity Hair Tie - Birchville Cat Motel - Four Freckle Constellation
Sun Opens My Eyes - Wavves - Wavvves
Palimony - Chum Frink - EP
Vous Comprenez Pourquoi - Pas Chic Chic - Au Contraire
The Dazzled - Crystal Stilts - Alight Of Night
Way Down To Heaven - Sian Alice Group - 59.59
Sempiternal Amaranth - School Of Seven Bells - Alpinisms
Morningrise - Slowdive - Catch The Breeze
Have I Run Out? - Secret Machines - s/t (third)
In Shreds - The Chameleons - What Does Anything Mean, Basically?
Ghost Track - Daturah - Reverie



And how's about a bonus video? One for Mogwai's biggest mindfuck ever? Well, okay then:


Mogwai - Mogwai Fear Satan from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

Is there spring in space?

Okay we're back to the random spacerock this month after a couple exhausting lessons in experimental rock history... no theme this time, no focus, no plot, just a cluster of stars that spun itself off into yet another galaxy in the Spacerock Multiverse! We begin with a bit of epic ridiculosity from the ever-reliable Germans, the lost-to-obscurity Agitation Free and the freak commune known as Amon Duul II (vintage krautrock can always be depended on for some kitsch psychedelia and in these two tracks our intrepid Teutonic explorers head to Eastern outposts), and then off into some Gabriel-era Genesis, who unfortunately are not actually intending to be tongue-in-cheek here, but are still notable in this context. We then delve into some polyrhythmic pandemonium from the early 80s (23 Skidoo) and just last year (Mahjongg), and then transport to some acid-fried Americana from Tobacco (also from last year, spun off from Black Moth Super Rainbow) Religious Knives (also last year), The Gun Club, Green On Red and Red Temple Spirits (all three are originators from the 80s and as such these recordings are poorly mastered, so turn 'em WAY up, especially the Gun Club!). Then we settle into an extended passage through some pastoral psych/folk weirdness, beginning with a track from Black Mountain to commemorate their recent passage through the Bay Area to which I was lucky enough to bear witness - mind blown? check! - culminating in the new single from the almighty Circle's latest album... with vocals in English even (courtesy of one Bruce Duff, former singer for the Jesters of Destiny, an obscure and long-defunct LA prog-metal also-ran)! Will wonders never cease? In there we hear from the very enigmatic Jane, the very French Benoît Pioulard, a pair of tracks from Ulann Khol and Hala Strana, who are basically the same person (Steven Smith from San Francisco's Thuja), a solo guitar workout (in keeping with the two previous tracks) from Charalambides, minus the usual soaring vocals of Christina Carter, and a couple of tasty morsels from freak-folksters Wooden Wand and Akron/Family. Last but not least: settle deep into yer oooohhhhmmm... with the indescribable sounds of the man known as Lichens.

The following tracks should appear in the player below:

Malesch - Agitation Free - Malesch
Deutsch Nepal - Amon Düül II - Wolf City
Riding The Scree - Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
The Gospel Comes To New Guinea - 23 Skidoo - The Gospel Comes To New Guinea
Rise Rice - Mahjongg - Kontpab
Backwoods Altar - Tobacco - Fucked Up Friends
Downstairs - Religious Knives - The Door
Walking With The Beast - The Gun Club - The Las Vegas Story
Narcolepsy - Green On Red - Gravity Talks
Exorcism / Waiting for The Sun - Red Temple Spirits - Dancing To Restore An Eclipsed Moon
Bastards of Light - Black Mountain - In The Future
Berserker - Jane - Berserker
Ragged Tint - Benoît Pioulard - Temper
Untitled 1 - Ulaan Khol - II
Wood Scree - Hala Strana - These Villages
Pasé el Agora - Charalambides - Our Bed Is Green
I Am the One I Am And He is the Caretaker of My Heart - Wooden Wand & The Vanishing Voice - Buck Dharma
Raising The Sparks - Akron/Family - Akron/Family & Angels Of Light
Connection - Circle - Hollywood
M St R Ng W Tchcr Ft L V Ng N Sp R T - Lichens - Omns