Archive for July, 2018

Fuck Up Nazis and Listen to David Bowie

Sunday, July 22nd, 2018

I haven’t been all that political on my blog as of late. To be honest, it’s just been too damn draining, but I felt the need to speak up against this, only because I don’t feel like enough people are.

In case you haven’t been paying attention, James Gunn was fired from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 because a man who bragged about sexually assaulting women and a Nazi started a smear campaign against him.

In a world where everything seems to be falling to shit all around us, I know it might sound trite to have this be a hill I’m willing to die on, but fuck this. This is emblematic of everything wrong with American discourse. Bad faith actors, “fake news,” public shaming, hypocrisy, and the ever-growing shamelessness of the right-wing, who slam a man for jokes he apologized for all while praising a President who admitted on video to sexually assaulting women.

I can’t do much to fight against this, all I can do is share this petition asking for Disney to give the man his job back, and not to kowtow to literal Nazis and literal rapists. Please sign and share it. Let them know.

Also, if you see horribly-written, poorly researched articles about the topic (like this one or this one), maybe comment or email the writers. Let them know how you feel about them being taken on as useful idiots for a right-wing smear job designed only to silence anyone who speaks out too loudly against Trump. Remind them that any article about Mike Cernovich that doesn’t feature the line “a man who has admitted to sexual assault and condones rape” is fucking up. Remind them that Jack Posobiec is a LITERAL NAZI who spreads Nazi propaganda and codes his messages with Nazi symbolism.

And don’t forget that it’s always okay to fuck up a Nazi.

Okay, now David Bowie.

Tin Machine
You Belong In Rock ‘N’ Roll (Extended Mix)
Amlapura (Indonesian Version)
Shakin’ All Over (Live)
I’m really interested in hearing the upcoming Loving The Alien David Bowie box set, which covers the artist’s much-maligned mid-80s output. I’ve always though that a little bit of that kickback was unwarranted. Let’s Dance has a few bad songs on it, but it’s a good album. Ditto for Tonight. I will fight anyone who tells me that “Blue Jean” is not a wonderful 80s pop song.

Of course, there was a lot of less-than-stellar stuff there too, the most obvious being Never Let Me Down, the only album in Bowie’s discography that he seemingly disowned completely. That’s why I’m so interested in buying the box set, as it will include an entirely remixed and redone version of the album that will hopefully strip out some of that horrible 80s production and polish some of those songs into the gems that I know they can be.

It really can’t be understated just how bad that album is though. If it was an album by a band, it would’ve caused them to break up. It led David Bowie to do the opposite and form a band, Tin Machine, just so he could escape from being David Bowie for a while. Yeah, Tin Machine wasn’t perfect either, they also had seemingly had a miss for every hit, but they were at least different, and they really gave Bowie a good place for him to experiment and re-invent himself for the 90s, where he reached another creative high-point, in my opinion.

I occasionally read that the Tin Machine albums served as a precursor to grunge, and while I love them both dearly, I certainly can’t see that. Tin Machine’s sound may be stripped down, but it’s certainly not raw. These albums still sound like slick 80s rock albums, just slick 80s rock albums that are a little less bombastic than what else was going on at the time.

“You Belong In Rock ‘N’ Roll” was the lead single off of the group’s second album, and it failed to light up the charts anywhere. It’s a great tune, if a bit odd. It feels like a cross between “Low” era and “Let’s Dance” Bowie; brooding and off-kilter, but still pop. Not an easy balance to make, but Bowie (of course) pulled it off just fine. Can’t believe it bombed.

The original version of “Amlapura” is an album cut, this version, recorded in Indonesian, was exclusively a B-side and has never been re-released. Same for this live cover of “Shakin’ All Over,” which features a short-but-dope-as-fuck solo by Reeves Gabrels. Wonder if these will get remastered and repackaged for the next Bowie box set? Those things have been really random with the rarities, so it’s hard to tell.

Enjoy the Bowie. And pleas don’t forget to sign that petition.

And if you feel the need to comment in praise of Cernovich, don’t fucking bother, I screen comments for a reason.

Posted in B-sides, David Bowie, remixes | 2 Comments »

Japanese Electro-Jazz for Dangerous Days

Tuesday, July 17th, 2018

I’ve been buying a lot of extremely out-there records lately, so many that I put together a whole blog post about them over at Mostly-Retro. It didn’t feel right writing about them here as they were all in-print in some way or another, and I don’t like to spend too much time writing about music here if I can’t share it, that’s kind of the point of an MP3 blog after all.

Tonight’s music is definitely out-of-print, in fact, I don’t think it was ever commercially released in the first place. Shit, I can’t even find it streaming on YouTube.

Toshinori Kondo
China Boogie
Black Port
Antonio Fire
When I comb through old Japanese records there are a few names I’m always on the lookout for. A lot of my favorite Japanese artists from the 70s and 80s just as often appeared on other artists’ records as they did their own, so I never know where they’ll turn up. One such artist is Yasuaki Shimizu. I’ve been into his stuff for the past few years now and I can’t believe that this is the first time his name has come up on this site.

Shimizu is primarily a jazz saxophonist, but he’s popped up all over place through the years, playing a variety of instruments across all kinds of genres. He’s developed a bit of a cult following in the West for a pair of albums; his 1983 album with the group Mariah, their amazing Utakata No Hibi, and his 1982 solo album Kakashi. Both albums are monumental works that defy all attempts of categorization. Dope as fuck shit that melds jazz, synthpop, rock, ambient, you name it. Not a day goes by where I don’t see copies of either hanging in a record store. They’ve become mainstays of the Japanese music scene and are some of the most influential records of their generation.

But like I said, the dude has been around. He’s shown up on some Ryuichi Sakamoto albums, a couple of records by Kazumi Watanabe (former YMO guitarist) and has even contributed to a few works by Towa Tei. I never know where he’s going to show up, so I always keep an eye out.

My diligence paid off recently. With this album’s rather lazy cover, I nearly skipped right past it in the bins, but I checked out the back cover just to be sure, and lo and behold, I found Shimizu’s name, alongside some other notable performers as well. Playing with Shimizu on this promo-only 12″ single are legendary experimental guitarist Fred Frith and bassist/producer extraordinaire Bill Laswell (who keeps popping up on records I buy because he’s literally on almost everything). That’s a hell of a line-up.

You might recognize Laswell’s name from Herbie Hancock’s electro-jazz masterpiece Futureshock, and that can give you a pretty good idea as to what this sounds like. It’s hyper-sample heavy electro-jazz/funk. The only thing that makes it sound more jazzy than Hancock’s similar work is that the primary instrument, the trumpet, remains entirely acoustic.

That trumpet is played by the person whom this track is credited to, Toshinori Kondo. Again, like a lot of the music I’ve been sharing lately, I don’t know a ton about him. I know he’s been releasing music since the late 70s, and most of it is jazz, especially of the free improvisation and abstract variety. But he also occasionally dips his feet into more electronic things like this. He’s worked with DJ Krush a few times, and released a dub record in 2002 called Nerve Tripper. I hope can I dig more into his discography in the future, save for the free improvisation stuff. Not my thing.

I love this kind of stuff though, it’s dated in a way that most 80s music isn’t. You see retro synthpop and hair metal act all the time. No one is making stuff like this anymore.

 

Posted in Yasuaki Shimizu | No Comments »

Mega Game Mega Mixes

Friday, July 13th, 2018

Shinji Hosoe
Running UP! (Arrange Version)
Running UP! (Megamix Version)
These are remixes of the theme to Dirtfox. I have never played Dirtfox. I don’t know what Dirtfox is. (It’s apparently an arcade overhead racer.) I only know that the soundtrack I found at Book-Off was just 300 yen so I thought “hey why not?”

I’m glad I picked it up, it’s a fun, bouncy soundtrack with a good, upbeat theme. Although the theme is pretty much all the soundtrack is. It opens with the “Arrange Version” of the main theme, continues with the two versions of the theme actually hear while playing the game, and then concludes with the “Megamix Version.” Aside from that, there are just three other tracks, none of which top a minute in length.

Shinji Hosoe went on to do the music for Ridge Racer by the way, so I guess racing game music is in his blood.

 

Darrell Harvey, Rex Baca & Kip Martin
Dungeon Master (Mega Mix)
Chaos Strikes Back (Mega Mix)
I stumbled upon this one in Osaka and it immediately unleashed a flood of memories. I actually never played the original Dungeon Master, my family didn’t have a computer when it came out. However, my friend had it for his Apple IIGS, and I would sit and watch him play it for hours on end. I don’t think either of us were ever able to really wrap our heads around the game, we were both probably eight or nine at the time, but we just loved the look of it, and it would always inspire me to draw my own dungeon monsters, demons and heroes. Now that I’m a grown-ass adult with a (slightly) better understanding of dungeon-crawling RPGs, I really should try it again sometime.

I was surprised to see that the game had a soundtrack release (especially in Japan) as I didn’t recall the version we played having any music at all. Turns out that the game was released for the FM Towns computer in Japan, which came with a CD_ROM drive. And the version of Dungeon Master that was released for the FM Towns took full advantage of said drive, packing a Redbook audio soundtrack on the game disc.

Since you can play Redbook audio on any standard CD player, it’s kind of funny that they decided to released the soundtrack for the game and it’s Chaos Strikes Back expansion pack on a regular CD. I guess that might be why they included the above “Mega Mixes,” which were not featured in the games themselves?

Finding out that a few Western games made it over to Japan on CD for the FM Towns makes me want to scour the used racks for those games to see which others might have obscure soundtracks tucked away on Redbook audio. Wonder if there are any hidden gems there!

Posted in Game Music, remixes | No Comments »

PARTY LIKE IT’S 1992

Monday, July 9th, 2018

Well, forest fires, flash floods, and deadly heatwaves can only mean one thing: decades of inaction on climate change have doomed us to millennia of disastrous weather.

Also, time for some summer jams woooo!

Summer Hit Mix ’92
Mix 1
Mix 2
Mix 3
Mix 4
I fucking love the cover to this album, it’s like they had a $20 budget, 45 minutes, a moderately interested model and they were like “fuck it, buy a float, put her in it, and take a few pics. No, don’t worry about the lighting it’s not important let’s get this done.” There’s a Laura Branigan’s video for “Gloria” level of laziness here that I really respect.

The album itself is great though, four fantastic mixes featuring pop hits, euro-dance, house, and some hip-hop. You got some big numbers here that you probably know, two 2 Unlimited numbers, for example, but there are also some lesser-known jams that I never heard of. A club mix of the “Escape From New York” theme? Sign me up! A U 96 song that isn’t “Dos Boot?” Word! You can find the whole tracklist here if you’re curious.

These mixes were put together by DJ Torsetn Fenslau, who was a big name in the German techno scene in the early 90s before he sadly passed away in a tragic car accident in 1993. He also worked as a producer, and found huge mainstream success right before his untimely passing with the super-uber-huge house hit “Mr. Vain” by Culture Beat. And if you’re thinking, like I did before I went to YouTube to see the video, that you never heard that song, trust me, you have. In terms of insanely catchy 90s euro-house mainstream hits, it’s probably only second to “What Is Love.”

I was going to finish this post off by making a crack that the worst song on this mix is better than the best song that’s currently on the Billboard Dance Chart, but I did a quick look at the charts and found that both Donna Summer and Diana Ross remixes are currently in the top 10 so that’s just not true.

Everything on here is better than that Hasley song though because ugh fuck that thing.

Posted in Complete Albums | 3 Comments »

Synthi Bach

Sunday, July 1st, 2018

Yuji Takahashi
The [Electronic] Art of Fugue (Complete Album Download)

I’ve heard a lot of synthesizer renditions of Bach, so trust me when I say that this one is different.

There were a lot of electronic interpretations of Bach in the 1970s, obviously trying to capitalize off of Wendy Carlos’ Switched-On Bach. Nearly all of them (even the good ones) are pale imitations of that album that lack the sophistication and multi-layered approach that Carlos took when crafting her masterpiece. A reminder, synthesizers back then could only produce one note at a time. To create a proper Bach arrangement meant countless playbacks and tape dubs. Not everyone was up to it. Additionally, nearly everyone at the time was sticking to the similar Moogs that Carlos used. So you ended up with a lot of derivative works.

Yuji Takahashi’s take on Bach is a bit different, probably because Takahashi himself is a bit different. Takahashi is a classically-trained pianist, but he also holds an interest in the avant-garde and experimental. He started putting out albums in the late-60s, his earliest stuff being interpretations of John Cage works, while also releasing avant-garde and experimental works of his own. Even early on in his career he was working in left-field. In 1974 he put out an album with Masahiko Satoh, another acclaimed Japanese pianist, that consisted of performances on synthesizers and prepared pianos. I have no idea what that sounds like but I sure as hell bet it sounds different.

A year later, he released this. As far as I can tell, it’s the first electronic interpretation of Bach’s The Art Of Fugue, which is just one of many reasons why it stands out among the other classical Moog albums of the day. Not only is the material odd, but his arrangements are slightly more off-kilter than what you might hear on other electronic Bach albums.

A lot of that has to do with the instrumentation that Takahashi chose to use. Takahashi doesn’t just limit himself to the “traditional” Moog synthesizers of the day. Added into the mix is an EMS Synthi 2. The Synthi is a strange beast that can produce very unique sound effects, such as stark popping sounds and tones that have a unnatural drop off or arpeggio effect. Used poorly, the Synthi just creates seemingly random noises. Used correctly, it can be Pink Floyd. It has some range. Here, Takahashi uses it to pushes the limits of “music” from time to time, especially on “Contrapunctus XI,” but he shows enough restraint with the device that it never becomes grating, just supremely odd. And the more “normal” sounds of the traditional Moog help reign him in when things get dangerously close to pure noise.

I first bought this on LP a few months back, but that copy was pretty banged up. And it’s hard to digitally restore a record that uses harsh sound effects like the ones used here: they often get removed alongside the record’s scratches and crackles. Thankfully, the record was re-issued on CD a few years back and I managed to find one at not-too-crazy prices. These files are taken from that CD.

If this ain’t your thing, don’t fret. Next post will feature nothing but hot summer jams.

 

Posted in Complete Albums, Yuji Takahashi | 4 Comments »