CAN- EGE BAMYASI (1972)

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If I have a spare 40 minutes, I listen to this album. Really, it's the best way to spend 40 minutes. This album is so brilliant that I have been putting off posting it in reluctance of making the effort of doing it justice with my words.

You may not understand it when you first listen to it, I didn't. Damo Suzuki's lyrics are almost completely illegible (I wonder sometimes if he is even singing words at all), but he sings them with such fluidity that they translate into whatever you want them to mean. These songs were written for YOU. This album is MAGICAL.


Taken from the wonderful and all- powerful All Music Guide:

"The longtime lead vocalist for Krautrock pioneers Can, Kenji "Damo" Suzuki was born in Japan on January 16, 1950. An expatriate street poet inspired by Jack Kerouac's On the Road, he spent the better part of the late 1960s wandering through Europe, and while busking outside a cafe in Munich in May of 1970 was discovered by Can members Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit; asked to replace the group's former frontman Malcolm Mooney, Suzuki joined them onstage that very night."

This is one of my favorite albums of all time. Please download and savor every second of it.

Can at the Bataclan in Paris, March 22 1973

THE OLIVIA TREMOR CONTROL

The Olivia Tremor Control are FUCKING awesome. It's like George Harrison and Syd Barret started a band. A viable member of the now defunct Athens, GA based Elephant 6 Recording Company Collective that spawned bands like Elf Power and Of Montreal, the first lineup of the Olivia Tremor Control included members that would eventually go on to form bands The Apples in Stereo and Neutral Milk Hotel (namely Jeff Magnum).

Thier music comes in three flavors: wonderfully crafted and well- rounded Beatles- esque pop rock, mind bending psychedelic sound experiment music, and this kind of very nice aesthetically pleasing soothing ambient atmospheric shit. Way cool.

On their first album, Music from the Unrealized Film Script (Dusk at Cubist Castle), you will get a taste of the first two aforementioned flavors. They like blending these flavors throughout their albums and do so shamelessly (notice the long string of many tracks all entitled "Green Typewriters", that is the kind of sound experiment shit I was talking about). Think of it like one of those swirly soft- serve ice cream machines.

download #1

download #2
(it is a hefty album and requires two links)

The demo they released before Cubist castle is also well worth checking out.

Explanation II: Instrumental Themes and Dream Sequences was originally packaged as a bonus disc included with Dusk at Cubist Castle, but was subsequently released as its own album several years later. This is an example of the third flavor of OTC, the dreamy ambient music. Very nice to listen to, I like to listen to this while reading, doing schoolwork, or making art. You can listen to it while you do whatever you want to do.

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Enjoy!

MATCHING MOLE'S LITTLE RED RECORD (1972)

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Matching Mole is the band that Robert Wyatt formed after he left Soft Machine. Their name is a play on "machine molle", the French translation of "Soft Machine". This is their second album.

Produced by King Crimson frontman (and guitar innovator extraordinaire) Robert Fripp, Matching Mole's Little Red Record is a good example of why I love canterbury scene prog so much. Not a perfect example, but a good example. Perfect examples will be posted within the upcoming days.