ODD-STRALIA pt 3: The Invented Instruments of Rod Cooper

Another strange-music-making Australian ("odd-stray-alien," as our expert in such matters Buttress O'Kneel says) is the chap in the above video, Rod Cooper, a metal-worker who makes fantastic plunky/boingy/screechy hand-built metal instruments. Seeing him live would be the optimal way to experience him, I would imagine, considering how, to quote B'O'K: "he used to play in subterranean stormwater drains and stuff, secret illegal gigs that utilised the tunnels' natural reverb to the fullest." And of course, you'd get to see these gizmos up close.

He has a few albums for sale, but here's one you can listen to via Bandcamp as Klunk, a duo with John Bell on vibraphone and percussion:

Klunk: "Metalic"

Many of these improvised instrumentals are nice indeed, with Cooper coaxing all kinds of atmospheric, almost ambient soundscapes out of his Highly Resonant Object. No harsh industrial pounding here. The interplay between vibes and HRO on "Aluminum" is quite lovely, and the dramatic "Columbium" is compelling.  I love jazz vibes, but on some tracks the aimless wandering vibraphone doesn't do much for me. Tracks like the sparse, haunting "Stainless" are more successful.

Here are two samplers, both almost 6 minutes long:

http://www.divshare.com/download/25367194-1bb

http://www.divshare.com/download/25367195-e86

And then there's:

Interview

Artist Statement - Like the man says: "Comfort Through Dissonance"

BeerBottle Percussion, NewWave Music-Boxes, Avant-Catholic Masses

Last year's assortment of experimental/alt-classical/unclassifiably weird new releases received a succinct two-word comment from reader Outa-Spaceman: "Astonishing stuff!" Like last year's roundup, these are new(ish) commercial releases that are well worth your hard-earned dollars/francs/pounds/heads-of-cattle/etc., with album moods ranging from Carton Sonore's charming toy-pop and the krazy kovers of Hanna Peel and Misfit Toys, to chin-stroking Afro-tronica and new avant-chamber music; from modern-day high holy masses to Neon Lushell's creepy "No Religion" - we're covering a lot of territory. And when was the last time you heard music performed entirely on beer bottles? Prepare to be astonished!

Astonishing Stuff!

1. Paddy Steer - "A. Welson Senior II": reader Phil C. hepped me to this Mancunian cat with this description: "He's a crazy one man moog/ glockenspiel/drumkit band with a penchant for paper maché robot/creature heads. I saw him at a tiny little festival a couple of years ago (he was on after the band I was with) and it was the best and strangest thing I've ever seen. For the whole of his set I felt like I was having an acid flashback." One of the best albums I've heard in recent years.  Was very hard to pick representative tracks, they're all doubleplus good. Watch the vids on his label site!
2. Misfit Toys - "Alone Again Naturally": from the ridiculously entertaining debut album "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is," a mad collection of '70s covers performed on banjo, bowed banjo (?!), marimba, oboe and clarinet, among others, radically reinventing Stevie Wonder, Chicago (as you may have guessed by the album title), Tony Orlando and Dawn, Black Sabbath, Talking Heads, the Gilbert O'Sullivan song featured here, and more. Transcends novelty, but still a must for any Maniacs' party.
3. Neon Lushell - "Black Confetti": I really liked these Midwesterners debut "Modern Purveyors of Filth and Degradation" and their new one (to be released Oct 8) is just as good - two-discs bulging with experimental ambient evil, as dark as goth or metal but without those genres' kitschy cliches.
4. Mammane Sani et son Orgue - "Bodo": hypnotic '70s Space-Age organ instrumentals from Niger, Africa; who knew such things existed?
5. Gunnelpumpers - "Bottley Functions": The six musicians of this Chicago-based avant/improv group perform here only on beer bottles. From their new one,"Montana Fix."
6. Gunnelpumpers - "Buffalo Jump": groovy percussion with three double-basses; that's like, what, 6 basses total? (boom-tish!)
7. Hannah Peel - "Electricity" - Peel's splendid 4 song EP "Rebox" performs '80s hits by Soft Cell, New Order, Cocteau Twins, and the song featured here, OMD, on sampled antique music box. May be corny as hell, but I love it.
8. Phil Kline - "John the Revelator - Sanctus": We reviewed this NYC composer's Christmas music for massed boom-boxes previously, and reader James C. recommended the Catholic inspired "John The Revelator;" the eclectic music sometimes doesn't immediately suggest a mass, tho it does get a bit Gregorian at times; quite lovely. 
9. Kurosounds - "Manège d'éléphants": Fantastic hypnogogic ambient soundscapes; looped delayed instruments echo rhythmically as dreamy sound effects drift in and out; owes as much to psychedelic dub as it does to  Minimalism. 
10. Bruce Cropley - "March Into April": This Aussie's excellent album "Modal Podal" is almost all instrumental, exploring a wide variety of styles that aren't necessarily all that weird; which makes it all the more unique - he's not afraid of risking his avant credentials by throwing some perfectly pleasant jazz fusion-type stuff in with the almost Zappa-like quirkiness; makes one realize how even "strange" "experimental" music can be predictably formulaic.
11. Bruce Cropley - "Modal Podal": Copley's is also the man behind the super-swell "Quirky Music" on-line radio station
12. Juan Blanco - "Musica para Danza": Was I surprised to find this album in my PO box - "Nuestra Tiempo" is a retrospective of Cuba's electronic music pioneer, Juan Blanco. Cuban electronica? As in, with those infectious Latin rhythms? Yes, on one almost 14 minute -long track. The rest of the album doesn't offer much mamboing, just tasty analog bloopiness, like this track from 1961, the very first piece of electronic music ever recorded in Cuba, available for the first time.
13. Tino Contreras - "Santo": Perhaps not as historically startling as the Blanco album, but "El Jazz Mexicano de Tino Contreras" is another worthy reexamination of an overlooked Latin American artist from decades past; this one unexpectedly veers from psych Afro-Latinisms to exotic international styles, to such oddities as numerous tracks from his groovy '60s a-Go-Go Catholic mass, like the track featured here that mashes up Latin (in the original sense of the word) chanting with Brubeck-esque cool jazz and sleazy electric organ. Que pasa?!
14. Paddy Steer - "Stun phlogiston"
15. Carton Sonore - "The Mexican Roads": The latest from France's adorable "naive music" toy-pop maestro.

Le Enfant Terrible: Music Made from Pots, Pans, and Toys

Manchester band Le Enfant Terrible sent me a link to their new album, describing it thusly: "It's effectively 'World Music' but not quite. It's music made from pots and pans, and toy instruments bought off street venders around the world." I thought: no way. But the opening moments of the really good tune "jucomeba comebi chi" convinced me otherwise.  Still, that description may not be entirely accurate, as there do seem to be some "proper" instruments on these somewhat exotic, mysterious, percussive instrumentals, but maybe they just really know how to play their toys. Recommended for fans of the Forgotten Fish Memory Orch. Picks To Click: "jucomeba comebi chi", "wasashi tono cupora."

Name-your-price/listen/purchase here:

Le Enfant Terrible: daeli cane

(Apologies if this blog is getting a bit neglected: trying to catch up on work, summer holidays, etc. Many more silly/naughty/filthy old 78s coming soon!)

RE-POST RE-QUESTS REDUX...AND DELIGHTFUL XYLOPHONE NOVELTIES

The New Age pseudo-Hindu bluegrass album Hindu Kush Mountain Boys is back up, by request. I say! Does anyone have: The Full Life All-Stars, "Ya No Hay Beatles," The Musical Betts, March Fourth 2012. They were requested and I cannot find them - they sank with both my hard drive crash and the heavy-handed Mediafire/Rapidshare take-downs. Muchos grassy-ass! And now let's listen to a dazzlingly talented Australian boy/girl team who play "music from 'the golden age of the xylophone,' classic jazz and pop standards from the 1930s and 40s and novelty hits from all time periods!":

STICKS AND TONES

The 78rpm roots of the Sticks and Tones sound can be found in the intimidatingly vast archives of the US government Library of Congress' National Jukebox project: dozens of sides by xylophone legend George Hamilton Green, Master of the Marimba (aka the 'mellorimba'), streaming for free under his various guises, to whit:

Green Brothers Novelty Band

or over 60 (!) recordings with various groups, mostly the All Star Trio:

George Hamilton Green

Many more antique oddities and novelties coming your way soon, courtesy of Yours Truly, and a fine Maniac with a large assortment of bizarre vintage recordings. Am still organizing our collections, but hopefully in the coming weeks the 'Silly 78s' project will get under way. It should be simply ripping!

"Percussion: Playful And Pretty"

is now back up, by request:

http://musicformaniacs.blogspot.com/2012/02/rip-phil-krauss.html 

And I'll be guest dj-ing once again THIS Sunday, June 2nd, 8pm PST on Spacebrother Greg's "Radio Misterioso," (sorry for the earlier erroneous announcement) for another two hours of wild sounds that have mostly not been featured here. Listen live at http://killradio.org/ so you can call in and/or go on Greg's facebook page and leave comments 'n' stuff. It's always a treat to visit the killradio studios in an extremely sketchy part of L.A. Will once again Greg drop a mic out the second-story window to eavesdrop on homeless guys fighting down on the street? Tune in to find out!

JUNK ORCHESTRAS Pt 3

I'll be guest dj-ing once again this Sunday, 8pm PST on Spacebrother Greg's "Radio Misterioso," bringing up another batch of wild sounds that have mostly not been featured here. Listen live at http://killradio.org/ so you can call in and/or go on Greg's facebook page and leave comments 'n' stuff.

And now...on with the show:

My recent posts about musicians who build their instruments out of junk reminded me of similiar artists I'd written about, whose songs posted ages had long since gone off-line.  I was also reminded of a recent single re-release, and miscellaneous records I'd had for years.

Junkyard Bands

The Junkman - 'Beat The Can' [both from his album 'The Junkman 2," available from his site - the liner notes break down exactly what objects are used for each song]
The Junkman - 'Drug Puppet' [bit of a Residents kinda thing going on here]
Electric Junkyard Gamelan - 'Bigbarp' [pictured above]
Car Music Project - 'Noodles'
Gamelan Son of Lion - 'Bang on a Tin Can'
Electric Junkyard Gamelan - 'Nutbutter Challenge'
The LA Drivers Union Por Por Group - 'Por Por Horn-To-Horn Fireworks'
Electric Junkyard Gamelan - 'Space Kitty' (excerpt)
Staff Benda Bilili - 'Sala Mosala'
Wendy Chambers - 'Star Spangled Banner' [on the legendary car-horn organ, pictured right]
Wendy Chambers - 'The Kitchen' [not only are kitchen implements used as instruments, but an actual meal is supposed to be prepared during the performance of this piece!]
The Junk Yard Band - 'The Word' [killer Def Jam single from the '80s - a group of children playing gogo funk from DC; that lead singer rivals the young Michael Jackson]
The Watts Little Angel Band - 'Nik Nak Paddy Wack' [same concept as The Junkyard Band, but from a decade prior; this must-have single, whose b-side is an oldies medley 'New Orleans/Land Of A 1000 Dances,' has recently been re-issued]

All of this had me thinking about Test Dept (none of whose music I can recall off the top of my head) and Einstürzende Neubauten (think I did like some of their stuff), two '80s bands whose use of found percussion was popular with the industrial crowd, as it was seen not only as a way to be real noisy, but to seem shocking and rebellious and what-not.  

Also from the '80s: the L.A. band Savage Republic used things like an oil drum and a railroad tie - anyone else use junk percussion mixed with conventional instruments, in the service of actual songs? Think I read David Byrne saying that he and Eno played junk on "My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts."

And did the Bang On A Can group ever actually bang on cans?

More From The Boston Typewriter Orchestra

We've written about The Boston Typewriter Orchestra a couple of times before, but it's been a few years since we last checked in with them, and, as there is some crazy shit going down in Boss-Town right now, it seemed like a good time to think good things about that city and dig the BTO's latest free download single...which is already two years old (sorry, I'm not always right on the beam.) Again, this quartet amazes me with their propulsive percussion performed entirely on obsolete office equipment. Get it here:

The Boston Typewriter Orchestra: "Entropy Begins At The Office"

WELCOME TO THE TERROR-DRONE

New releases currently sending me off to dream-land:

Ambient-Hypno-Drone mix, containing bits of:

Nac/Hut Report's new album "Angel​-​like Contraction Reverse" is a swell follow-up to their debut we reviewed here a few years ago, and these Europeans continue to do the impossible: make noise sexy.  Brigitte Roussel's husky vocals add both melody and sensuality to the drum-less industrial sound-layering (and I use the phrase "industrial music" in it's original sense, not meaning funkless-disco-for-goths). Pick hit: "Greetings Blue, Summer 98," a fantastic mélange of electronic pulsing percussion noises, sharp shards of guitar, and languid vocals. They've made available two free songs, one off the album, and a b-side: 

Nac/Hut Report  “Junkstarrr/Bright Future” (streaming)
Nac/Hut Report “Junkstarrr/Bright Future” (download)

Avant composer Michael Gordon of New York's popular Bang On A Can ensemble has a spectacular album that consists of nothing but drumming on wooden planks. Yep, no other instruments, just the six-man Dutch percussion group SlagwerK Den Haag going to town on 2x4s cut to different lengths. Minimalism so spellbinding that nothing else is needed. AND the CD comes in a snazzy wooden box. Buy/listen: "Timber" 

Andrew McPherson's new album "Secrets of Antikythera" is a (mostly) solo piano album for people who don't like solo piano - the piano is "prepared," not in the Cage sense, but by using magnets.  "Sound is produced without loudspeakers using electromagnetic actuators to directly manipulate the piano strings". I don't know exactly what that means, but damn it Jim, I'm a doctor, not an experimental instrument technology explainer guy! (Check the video below for all that.) I can tell you that, following a couple violin pieces that didn't do much for me, it is some blissed-out  instrumental loveliness, commencing with the ghostly drone tones of "Prologue: Mystery", giving way to tracks like "Creation3" that sound increasingly piano-y.

Hanetration, a London artist I've written about before (I really liked his previous EP 'Tenth Oar') has a free 22 minute slice of sublime ambient drone now available. "Nae Troth" consists of nothing but looong sounds that start off chilled, but gradually intertwine, growing more complex and ominous. Electronic sounds build until, finally, they start to relax and drift off into the mist. I can imagine Brian Eno listening to this, nodding his head, saying: "Niiiice..." 

Hanetration "Nae Troth"

Gel Nails is an intriguing Canadian project whose Bandcamp tags pretty much tell the story: "experimental ambient electronic noise weird Edmonton." Yes, but subtle vocals also enter the picture at times. Their tumblr page has a number of free download releases that I quite liked once I asked how to download them: "if you put your cursor on the image, say the h.n.w. album cover, you will see 4 little icons appear in the top right corner. Click on the icon that looks like 2 links of a chain. Scroll to the bottom of the new page and there you will see a mediafire link." (But you knew that.) Or dig this name-your-price EP:

Gel Nails "H.N.W."

Music For Saw Blades, Wood Planks, and Rolling BBs Around in a Dish

 I am woefully behind in heppin' you-all to the latest and greatest releases awaiting your cold cash. I have so many samples of new releases that I'm splitting them into the avant-classical/experimental/electronic/weird-instruments genres (today's batch) and the novelty/outsider/wacko pop/rock end of things (next post). From the sublime to the ridiculous.

Our universities are still producing music majors who move into composing, teaching, conducting, etc. and labels like Innova and Ravello are still promoting them. I have no academic music background, but this collection of the latest works from composers far beyond the classical mainstream sounds great to me. Not exactly chilled/ambient, but, as it's mostly instrumental and often atmospheric and emotional, great stuff for waking to in the morning, or for evening's contemplation with a cocktail. Tho we start off with  a bit of a bang:

1. David Kechley "Design And Construction - III. Cross Cuts": Percussion!  The aptly-named "Colliding Objects" album features not only pitched percussives, but just about anything else that can be struck with a stick.  The title track "requires marimba, cymbals, large drums, tam tam, pitched gongs, crotales, woodblocks and exotic bells." The piece featured here utilizes circular saw blades, and wooden planks cut to different lengths.

2. Andrew Violette's "Sonatas For Cello and Clarinet" is as moody as it's cover - tracks with names like "Mournful Bells" offer truth in advertising. The piece also boasts such non-standard classical music oddities as a cha-cha, but what really grabbed me was the dreamy piano that came in at 1:30 of "Grazioso leggiero." It's what I imagine Alice's trip to Wonderland must have sounded like.

3. McCormick Percussion Group "With Intensity": Awright, more percussion! The title piece of the McCormick's new album, "Concerti for Piano with Percussion Orchestra" is 15 minutes of variations on an oddly sentimental, but gorgeous melody. It's as old-fashioned as you can get for a piece for piano and nine percussionists. Part one is included here, but all three movements are, well, sublime.

4. Jeffrey Weisner's album "Neomonology" is bass-ically just upright acoustic bass. "The compositional process for Armando Bayolo’s 'Mix Tape' began with Weisner sending a mix of his favorite tunes to Bayolo, who then reworked them with pop and rock favorites of his own." I can't tell what the original sources are (maybe they were changed due to copyright issues?) but I dig this. It could have been the bass part to something out of Glass' "Einstein On the Beach."  Elsewhere on the album, Weisner delves into micro-tonal territory.

5, 7. We now move completely out of any recognizable musical traditions with two short excerpts from Ulrich Mertin & Erdem Helvacioglu's "Planet X." Were this the '70s, the concept album about the arrival of a mysterious planet of hostile aliens would have been told with corny lyrics and a histrionic singer. Fortunately, today we get pure abstract electronica, along with something called a GuitarViol.

6. The title track of Yvonne Troxler's "Brouhaha" album, features violin, cello, and ball bearings being rolled around in three glass bowls. Cool! Elsewhere, Troxler and the 11-person Glass Farm Ensemble work their strings, horns, electric guitar and, again, plenty percussion into a variety of pleasingly dissonant (possible micro-tonal) shapes, inspired by the noise of New York City, and, on another track, meteorites. The meteorite piece is a good 'un, sounding like it's performed entirely on pitched plastic cups. Lots of variety and invention - one of my fave albums of this bunch.

7. Barry Schrader's "The Barnum Museum" is, like "Planet X," an electronic concept album, and this concept is so rad that the booklet that comes with the CD is at least as interesting as the music - a phantasmagorical visit to PT Barnum's 1800s "museum," where every room in the enormous mysterious building contains another enigma, or seemingly real-life myth, from mermaids to flying carpets, to things best left unexperienced. Behold! The Chinese Kaleidoscope.

8. Harry Partch's "Bitter Music" is one of my Albums Of The Year - a 3-disk collection of the legendary gay/ homeless/ hobo/ micro-tonal musical instrument inventor/ writer/ outsider /genius (phew!) It's mostly spoken-word, but hey, it's the journals of a Depression-era hobo "riding the rails" - illegally hopping on freight trains criss-crossing the country in search of work, all the while virtually re-inventing music. Reading from his journals is KPFK radio presenter, and founder of the Micro-Fest annual music festival John Schneider, who also plays some mean guitar, custom-made to Partch's bizarre specifics. This is one of the more musical, as opposed to text-heavy tracks: Just in time for winter, it's "December, 1935 - Night. Four black walls."

M4M Sampler: From The Sublime...

I have just done your holiday shopping for you. You're welcome. Coming soon: 'M4M Sampler: ...To The Ridiculous'

Music For An Avant-Garde Cruise Ship

Here's a collection of new (or new-ish) pieces of sonic loveliness excerpted from albums now out for you to spend money on, most of it fairly low-key abstract ambient/hypno/drone instrumentals by composers of...what? "Avant garde"? That implies that they are at the forefront and everyone will follow them. Maybe that will happen. Or maybe they're off in their own little universe, too singular and odd to ever influence anyone. "New Music"? Well, that one's just plain silly. Is it still 'new' in a year, or ten, or fifty? Then what do you call it? "Alternative classical"? I like this one, since most of these folks came out of the musical academy. But when you're composing for a cymbal, or electronics, or microtonal guitars, or junk percussion (as all the folks featured today do) it hardly sounds very 'classical.'  We'll probably never settle this one, so let's just listen to some beautiful music, shall we?

Music For An Avant-Garde Cruise Ship

(Due to circumstances beyond my control, I can't use mediafire now.  After clicking the above link, scroll down for a choice of downloading options. You may have to wait a few secs.  We apologize for the inconvenience.)

1-2. Eleanor Hovda: "Centerflow/Trail II," and "Coastal Traces Tidepools 2." This 4-disk set (sold for the price of a 2-disker) is a revelation. The late Ms. Hovda wrote music that puzzled me at first - it's sometimes glacially paced, with long silences. The music doesn't seem "composed' as much as something that just naturally drifts along. I kept expecting ambient, drone, minimalism or chamber music - it is all and none of those. The first piece is for bowed cymbals, the second finds Hovda playing "piano innards." Not included here because it's 30 minutes long is an improvised piece played inside an enormous empty underground town water tank. My most listened-to album of the year so far, even at 4 disks.

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3. Philip Blackburn: "Ghostly Psalms: Scratch I Ching" - Blackburn is the man behind Innova Records, from whence many of these tracks come. Like Hovda, he's an American Midwesterner (yah, hey dere!), which he salutes on "Duluth Harbor Serenade," scored for actual Minnesota harbor boats, and landlubbers, recorded in the field. Or rather, on the shore of the harbor. That's a pretty neat trick, but the centerpiece of the album is "Ghostly Psalms," inspired by old ruined monasteries, and scored for all manner of unusual soundmakers, including, on this track, something called the 'human rhythmicon."

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4. Oscar Bettison: "Junk" - Wake up!  Amidst all these haunted atmospherics, here's a rocker.  I just saw this guy at Disney Hall, for the premier of a new piece of his that uses junk "found" percussion instruments, performed by the LA Philharmonic New Music group. Hasn't been recorded yet, but here's one from a few years ago by this Brit (now in the US) that also skillfully combines things like coffee cups, metal bars and wrenches with traditional instruments. Kinda long, so you may wanna skip to last third or so if you're pressed for time - it builds up to a fairly explosive finale.

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5. Andy Akiho: "Karakurenai (Crimson)" - This debut by a Japanese-American writing for Caribbean steel drum touches on jazz, classical, and avant-garde - everything but calypso.  Effortlessly enjoyable. I guess it's just not possible to make "difficult music" on happy, sunny steel drums. If any experimental music could get play on cruise ships, this would be it. Album: "No One to Know One"

6. Christopher Campbell: "Sleepless Nights" - Like Eleanor Hovda's music, this album unpredictably wanders around with no particular direction.  Unlike Hovda, Campbell's debut doesn't feature long drones and silences, but a kaleidescope of colorful sounds, including, on one of the 'Interludes,' a minute-and-a-half field recording of birds.  This is the most 'song-y' track, a thoroughly eccentric mix of fake old-timey gospel, accordion waltzes, and abstract sounds. Album: "Sound the All-Clear"

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7. Neil Haverstick: "The Spider" - Sometimes I think the old 7 tone "do re mi" Western scale is exhausted and music really needs to get into microtonal scales. However, when I  listen to contemporary microtonal music, I realize that the composers are not doing much to make it very accessible, hence keeping it in the tiny experimental music ghetto. (Sure, I like it, but I would, wouldn't I?)  But some of guitarist Haverstick's stuff is so cool I don't see how anyone could find it too objectionable - I mean, this piece is inspired by old sci-fi movies, and who can't get behind that?

8. Id Loom: "Sublation" - Mysterious ambient project apparently years in the making and only now coming to light. This track starts off with dense, rolling clouds of sound that part to reveal almost Gregorian-like singers. Strange and wonderul.  From the free download album "To: Atlantis."

9. David Lang / Sentieri Selvaggi: "Sweet Air (excerpt)"-  Lang's from acclaimed New York radicals Bang On A Can; Sentieri Selvaggi are the Italian group performing this lovely bit of minimalism for flute, clarinet, piano, violin and cello.  Sweet, indeed. Album: "Child."

R.I.P.: PHIL KRAUSS

Today we pay tribute to a recently deceased legend, a true musical master...Whitney who...? No, of course I'm referring to the percussionist Phil Kraus, who just died at the ripe old age of 94. Kraus played countless sessions for everyone from Sinatra to Ben E. King - yep, that's his scratching sound on "Stand By Me."

But strange music fans know and love him for his huge assortment of exotic/oddball instruments deployed on numerous albums teamed with his partner in percussives, Bobby Rosengarden. Apart from appearing together on Enoch Light's popular series of Light Brigade albums, Rosengarden and Kraus also made a number of instrumental albums their own selves, like this nutty number from 1965. "Percussion: Playful And Pretty" may indeed have it's playful and pretty moments, but it's also an exercise in Space Age stereophonic panning, and strange exotic moods. Songs like "Satan Takes A Holiday" were odd to begin with, but even more so after these two and their crew of fellow top session cats got a hold of 'em - the song "Goofus" alone features such instruments as that old circus music maker, the calliope, and something called a "buzzimba: "...a Rube Goldberg-ish contraption made up of wooden resonators that buzz daintily like a choir of horseflies when struck with a mallet. You might call it a kind of percussive kazoo." (Sounds like an African balafon, actually.) And the totally bonkers "The Comedians" really lives up to it's title - it could be a soundtrack to a classic Mexican silent slapstick.

Rosengarden and Kraus "Percussion: Playful And Pretty"

For Want of a Star
Mr. Ghost Goes to Town
Johnny One Note
Chloe
All Through the Night
Satan Takes a Holiday
Sophisticated Swing
The Comedians
Speak Low
The Continental
Carnival
Goofus

Dig the liners:

"Spruced-up Mood Music"

Remember when you pulled down all the pots and pans in your mother's kitchen and made an "orchestra" out of them? Some kids never grow out of it. They become percussionists. One thing is sure about percussion: you're bound to get a bang out of it. But don't think percussion is nothing but a noise test. This album proves the contrary. It shows that in the hands of top-rank musicians, percussive instruments have a special kind of melodic charm and subtlety, sweetness and spice. Favorite old ballads emerge with new tonal gloss - a kind of spruced-up mood music. And rhythm numbers glint with tonal laughter - the sheer fun of clinking, clopping, tingling and tapping.

Bob Rosengarden, one of America's leading percussionists, along with equally ingenious Phil Kraus, pulled together for this session perhaps the most varied and sophisticated array of percussion instruments ever assembled before a mike. If you think percussion is just drums, then listen to the vibraharp, the xylophone, marimba, bell-tree, tom-tom, maracas, gourds, scratchers, chimes, cow-bells and temple bells.

"We even rounded up a whole set of Chinese wood blocks - some 30 or 40 of them," says Bob. "Old ones, from mainland China! You just can't get those any more. And for the last number - Goofus - we've really got something rare: a buzzimba!"

A buzzimba, it turns out, is a Rube Goldberg-ish contraption made up of wooden resonators that buzz daintily like a choir of horseflies when struck with a mallet. "You might call it a kind of percussive kazoo," Bob suggested.
The rest of the orchestra (clarinets, flutes, saxes, trumpet, trombone, bass, guitar, and piano) is made up of fairly conventional instruments. Except one. Arranger Sid Cooper had found a calliope - one of those outboard organs they used to play on the old Mississippi showboats. He just had to work that in, somehow, and trundled it into the studio on a serving cart. No steamboat boiler was handy, so a small air compressor was used instead to blow the pipes.

Soon the music was clopping along, softly and tenderly like a brook with syncopated rocks in its bed. Or suddenly it sounded as if the building were under attack from a flock or rapid-action woodpeckers. For Bob and his crew, all the banging, tickling and tapping on their strange instruments was audibly a labor of love. It's also a fine stint of sheer musicianship.

FRANCIS TRAUN


© 1965, Radio Corporation of America"

Orbitones, Spoon Harps & Bellowphones

This splendid sampler of eccentric madmen/geniuses and their homemade instruments is the 1998 sequel to an album we featured here a couple years ago, "Gravikords Whirlies & Pyrophones," both compiled by Bart Hopkins, who published a magazine dedicated to experimental musical instruments. As with "Gravikords", you don't get the big, color-illustrated book that came with it, or Bob Moog's intro, but I have endeavored to link to each featured artists' site (except for Tom Waits, you know him.)

Some are well known like Waits or Aphex Twin (oh, and those 'Stomp' guys, remember them?), and some so obscure I really couldn't find much info on 'em. It all sounds good, tho - industrial percussion, ceramic woodwinds, prepared piano, frazzled electronics, beautiful-looking audio sculptures, Ellen Fullman's room-size Long String Instrument, Uakti's PVC pipe Brasiliana...there is nothing wrong with this album.

Orbitones, Spoon Harps & Bellowphones
 
1. Back To The East -ZGA
2. Heavenly Flower [Excerpt] - Colin Offord
3. Babbachichuija - Tom Waits
4. Jhala III [From Suite for Violin & American Gamelan] - William Colvig
5. Pentatonic - Arthea
6. Bucephalus Bouncing Ball - Aphex Twin
7. Dance des Fourmis [Excerpt]/Megalithe - Les Phônes
8. Tunnel of Love/Dear 3 - Peter Whitehead
9. Cosmogenesis [Excerpt] - Ela Lamblin
10. Sonata XIV [From Suites & Interludes for Prepared Piano] - Maro Ajemian
11. Waterphonics [Excerpt] - Stomp
12. Elegy for the Missing - Alan Tower
13. MotivationalMusic forPedestrians- Bradford Reed
14. Change of Direction [Excerpt] - Ellen Fullman
15. Arrumacao - Uakti
16. Grand Gallope - Leonard Solomon

MUSIC FROM AN IMAGINARY ISLAND pt. 2: "The Stolen Stars"

Music For Maniacs proudly co-present with the North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island a second spellbinding, uniquely exotic album from microtonal composer Kraig Grady.

"The Stolen Stars: An Anaphorian Dance Drama" is an altogether different beast from the "Music From The Island of Anaphoria" album we presented here a couple of weeks back. "Music From The Island" was a variety show, every track a new direction. But "The Stolen Stars," tho it's divided into different tracks, is all of a piece. The music, designed to accompany a puppet shadow play dramatizing ancient Anaphorian myths, begins with "The Bees Awaken" - the thick string drones do indeed resemble buzzing insects. Gradually these give way to vibraphone-like metallophones until finally the strings fades out and gently chiming gamelan-like percussion melodies take over. The microtonal scales (no 'do-re-mi' here, folks) performed by a crew ten people strong create shimmering resonances that trick the ear into hearing notes not played. I took pics of the liner notes (included in the zip file) that describe the myth.

Kraig Grady "The Stolen Stars: An Anaphorian Dance Drama"

Grady's latest album "Beyond The Windows Perhaps Among The Podcorn" is an original piece not utilizing any of the musics of the mysterious island of Anaphoria, but it certainly is inspired by them. The 6-person group, now including sax, cello, trumpet, bassoon, and the wordless vocals of popular L.A. singer Mia Doi Todd is even more drone-laden, like Eno's "Music For Airports" minus any interruptions, stretched out to induce a remarkably hypnotic state - a veritable audio yoga class. I'm not posting it, tho - it's one of the few Grady releases still in print, so buy it HERE.

But - hey, cheapskates! - some new free Grady action is now available. Whirlpool, the duo of Grady and Chris Abrahams (of The Necks), recently performed an outstanding radio concert for micro-tuned harmonium and vibes that you can listen to if you scroll down HERE to Feb. 12, 2011. It's another lengthy piece, but I was never less than completely captivated by it.

MUSIC FROM AN IMAGINARY ISLAND pt. 1

Anaphoria is a mysterious, obscure island that Los Angeles microtonal composer Kraig Grady has been exploring for years. His addictive 1994 album "Music From The Island of Anaphoria" is richly exotic, but it's not exotica. No Martin Denny-type Polynesian pop here. Tho the music is sometimes reminiscent of Indonesian/gamelon music, the island's 73 different ethnic groups ensure that no one style predominates. It all sounds like nothing I've heard before. Why so much of this wonderful stuff is out-of-print and not as famous as Radiohead is something I'll never understand.
Pump organs, chants, hammered dulcimer, all manner of clanging, chiming, and thumping percussion are heard here, as well as the strange sounds of native Anaphorian instruments unknown to the uninitiated. Shadow plays are sometimes performed along with the music at Grady's concerts. Hypnotic drones and atmospheric sounds (acoustic? electronic? both?) suggest esoteric rituals and ancient ceremonies. If Harry Partch wrote the music for Disneyland's "Enchanted Tiki Room," it might sound like this.

Also on hand here is L.A. experimental music legend Brad Laner, a guy I first knew of from his notorious noise band Debt of Nature - I saw 'em get booed opening for Wall of Voodoo way back when. He has since gone on to play with Savage Republic, Medicine, Brian Eno, Yoko Ono, and many others.

Kraig Grady "Music From The Island of Anaphoria" [UPDATE 2-4-11: Back on line! Music For Maniacs and the North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island proudly co-present this album.]

01 Ecstasy of Exiles
02 Wedding Song (with Petra Haden)
03 Duet With Fogbound Oars
04 Ceremony At Airports Edge
05 Ritual Offering
06 A Sacred Feast
07 Banaphshu Remembers her Father the Clock Maker
08 Shadow Play - The Birds Rout The Demon Of Swords
09 A Farewell Ring

More Kraig Grady and the music of Anaphoria to come in future posts...

A CALYPSO CHRISTMAS IS LIKE SO

Ah, durn, Christmas really got away from me this year. For one thing, Captain Beefheart's death threw me for a loop. I could spend a LOT of time talking about his genius, I could break his albums down one by one, etc., but I don't have to, do I? His legacy has been pretty well examined. Because, believe me, I could yammer on like an Asperger's kid talking about "Star Wars." It would have to wait until the new year, in any case.

And so I have lots of sick, outsider, novelty and whatnot Christmas records sitting by my turntable unrecorded. Wait 'til next year. At least Our Man In Salt Lake, windbag, came thru with:

Esso Trinidad Steelband "Calypso Christmas"

It ranges from mellow tracks for an irie Christmas, to absolutely pulverizing, loud, clangorous rockers. All instrumental, all percussion played on re-purposed oil drums (now this is real metal music, har har!) And with that, I'll see y'all next year after the holiday. The dust blows forward and the dust blows back...

1. SILVER BELLS
2. WINTER WONDERLAND 3. JOY TO THE WORLD
4. COME ALL YE FAITHFUL
5. GLORIA IN EXCELSIS (Angels We Have Heard On High)
6. O HOLY NIGHT 7. MARY'S BOY CHILD
8. HARK! THE HERALD ANGELS SING
9. CHRISTIANS AWAKE

Thanks again, windy!

AVANT MARCH: Infernal Noise Brigade

Last December, I wrote about a new crop of experimental marching bands. No Sousa cliches from these guys, but pop covers, free jazz, ethnic influences, and humor abound. And Seattle's Infernal Noise Brigade seems to have been way ahead of the curve, forming back in 1999. The now-defunct band released a few albums in their day.

This is their debut, and it certainly lives up to it's name - none of the usual brass band sounds here. No brass at all, in fact, just percussion and vocals. And odd vocals at that, sometimes seemingly sung in foreign tongues, real or imagined, but so distorted (as marching band p.a. vox often are) that it's hard to tell. Occasional stray sounds and abstract video-game-ish electronic effects pop up as well.

Pick hit: "Gas? No Gas," a mad riot of tribal drumming in an unusual tempo, large crowd chanting, and techno/dub-ish production, all smothered in weird sound effects. Awesome.

Infernal Noise Brigade - Insurgent Selections for Battery and Voice

The song "Goat Eyes" expands on the usual marching band drum corp by incorporating what sounds like traditional Moroccan percussion - I forget what they're called, but they're like giant metal castanets. Two "PSAs" are humorous mock radio commercials for the band. And "Fulminate" features what sounds like vuvuzelas. Very obscure.
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GAMELAN AND ON...

A gamelan (pictured left) is an Indonesian orchestra of tuned bells and gongs. And a music box is...well, you know what that is. On the latest (2 disk!) album by veteran New Yorkers Gamelan Son of Lion, John Morton's electronically-processed music box plays a tinkly version of the Beatles' "Yesterday" along with the gamelan. It is, like much of this album, absolutely enchanting. It's unlike anything you've ever heard before, but strangely easy on the ears. The trance-like quality of gamelan music is kinda soothing, even when played at high energy levels.

Gamelan Son of Lion: "She (Really) Had To Go" - This is an excerpt from a 9 minute piece.

The album "Sonogram," on the ever-awesome Innova label, does not feature any traditional music from Bali or Java - these are all new pieces written by the band members that often combine gamelan with Western instruments and styles, which is a bit tricky since gamelan instruments are not tuned to the Western scale. But that's not a problem when your Western "instruments" are found junk percussion objects:

Gamelan Son of Lion: "Bang On A Tin Can"

Other tracks feature Miguel Frasconi's invented glass instruments, clarinet-driven klezmer, an Afro-Cuban-inspired jam, and Llsa Karrer's "River Kotekan" - 2 pianos and 2 voices mixed with the usual shifting gamelan tempos make for some persuasive polyrhythms.

Some parts of their 9/11 tribute had me wincing, and the attempt to mix Scottish/Irish vocals was a bit too "Celtic Woman" for me, but with almost two hours-worth of music here, I'm not complaining. My favorite new album.

POTS AND PANS PERCUSSION (AND PONG)

Would you like to join a percussion group that is equally at home with experimental instruments, traditional Africana and theater? You can! Anyone can join the Temporal Mechanics Union...but there's a catch. They're based in the unlikely town of Arkansas City, Kansas.

But they do cool stuff like accompany silent sci-fi films, build and play on microtonal instruments, and have a song called "Cookin'" that's played on kitchen utensils. Their album "All Hands" really kills when they get down to African business, performing on a variety of ethnic percussives. Some of the tracks have a loose, drum-circle-in-the-park feel, but then they go way out to left field, like on this track, which features a variety of industrial objects and a "vintage video game":

Temporal Mechanics Union "Technocacaphanon"

If you're wondering what all these implements look like, there's a slew of videos on their site.
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The Boston Typewriter Orchestra

Does what it says on the tin: polyrhythmic percussion music with no other instruments, almost no singing, music tracks interspersed with intentionally banal office chatter ("How was your weekend?") for "Office Space"-like satirical effect. They even redact the Surfari's "Wipe Out" into "Whiteout." Funny, but with compelling rhythms.

Non-musical objects turned into musical instruments is a fascinating phenomenon. This got me thinking: when was the last time I used a typewriter? Does anyone (besides 80-year-olds?) Which makes this another fine example of artists recycling industrial society's waste.

Boston Typewriter Orchestra - "Pyramid Scheme"

HARRY PARTCH VS LLYN FOULKES

Yes folks, this weekend in Los Angeles it's a steel-cage death-match between two California prize eccentrics whose idiosyncratic music is performed on theatrical home-made instruments.

In this corner: Harry Partch, dead, former hobo who spent the '30s and '40s hopping trains, traveling around the country in pursuit of a buck and a meal, composer of songs that sometimes reflected this background, creator of fantastical micro-tonal instruments, the subject of a concert this Fri and Sat downtown at the REDCAT performed on said instruments, lovingly restored.

Harry Partch: "Barstow: Eight Hitchiker Inscriptions"

from the out-of-print '60s classic "The World of Harry Partch," tho a remake from 1982 by his ensemble can be found on "The Harry Partch Collection, Vol 2."

And in this corner, Llyn Foulkes, alive, one of the "Visionary Artists From L.A." featured at the Hammer Museum in Westwood whose non-conformist attitudes have kept the art-world from embracing them, who will be performing original songs inspired by his Spike Jones and swing-infused youth this Friday night on his "Machine," a one-man band riot of honk-horns, percussion, organ pipes, and a bass string.

Llyn Foulkes: "Top of Topanga"
from the mini-album "Lyn Foulkes and his Machine Live!"

"Barstow" is a classic gateway-drug to strange music: catchy melodies, fascinating lyrics and back-story. Play it for your Top 40-brainwashed loved ones.

So, now you know where I'll be this weekend. Who will be the winner? You!
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