Behold! The Wheelharp

I love the creepy, creaky sound of the Wheelharp, a newly invented instrument developed and sold thru L.A.'s Antiquity Music company. But rummaging thru the sofa cushions for spare change will probably still leave me a bit short of the $10,000 needed to buy one.

It would be great to own one, tho - playing it's keyboard (a very strange-looking round keyboard) rubs the strings like a violin bow, so it's like having a string quartet at your fingertips. A scant 3 1/2 minutes of music on Wheelharp has all that's been recorded so far, but it is very nice indeed:

https://soundcloud.com/antiquitymusic/sets/wheelharp-audio-samples

Apparently it was used in the soundtrack for a recent film called "Devil May Call," but there does not appear to be a recording available.

Old Friends in the Zither Sound

Yeah, yeah, I know: everybody plays air-zither along with their favorite 'zither heroes,' they even play the Zither Hero video game, the zither-bass-drum lineup has been the standard for decades, and yet here we are again, posting another zither album.  We're so damn trendy. I apologize, because I realize that our culture's obsessions with the zither has made so many other stringed instruments unfairly obscure. Perhaps other instruments have potential, but no-one knows because they're considered uncool? Like the "guitar," a six-stringed instrument of Spanish origin, whose strings are strummed or plucked by hand. Since it's held in the hands instead laid out on a table like a zither, it's sure to draw guffaws from the too-hip. Who knows, maybe in some bizarro-world alternate universe, it's the guitar that's the most popular. Nevertheless, this album of fun, peppy, all-instrumental Euro-cheese is another example of why all peoples of the world hail the zither as the King of All Instruments. Zesty percussion, accordion, sleazy electric organ and cool vibraphones add to the belated Oktoberfest (Decemberfest?) festivities.

Peter Schwarz - "Alte Bekannte im Zither-Klang"

A1 Ramona
A2 Down By the Riverside - the familiar hand-clappin' American gospel song
A3 Schöner Gigolo - hey, it's that Louis Prima song, "Just A Gigolo"
A4 Tanze mit mir in den Morgen - love this Latin-a-gogo groover
A5 Bye Bye Blues - one of my fave ol' Tin Pan Alley standards
A6 Estrellita
A7 Wochenend und Sonnenschein
B1 Winke winke
B2 In einer Nacht im Mai
B3 La Paloma
B4 Kann denn Liebe Sünde sein
B5 Das machen nur die Beine von Dolores - Great hotel lounge psuedo-calypso
B6 Das alte Spinnrad
B7 Du schwarzer Zigeuner
B8 Good Night, Ladies

Danke to herr Gene M!

 

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!

AJNA: A Giant, Strange Mechanical-Music Contraption

From Sweden comes some fantastic new videos of AJNA, a large musical robot that looks like Dr. Who's police box tricked out with drums, sound-making thingies, and visual artworks. The first video is a minute-and-a-half intro to the beasts' wonders, but the second video sports a full band - a contemporary chamber group, really - getting down to business with AJNA to produce some truly striking, lovely sounds and sights that are rich in dark, esoteric atmosphere.

The song "Karlak" was written by Jens Peterson-Berger of the great band Originalljudet, and features the harmonium, one of my favorite obscure musical instruments. Known mainly for its use in Sufi music (e.g. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan) and Nico's post-Velvets solo albums, it sounds somewhat like a goth, droney cousin to the accordion.

I Will NOT Be Appearing On Radio Misterioso...

...this Sunday nite. Two hours of radio hijinks will be postponed to a later date. But the good news is, thanks to super-swell maniac Phil C., "The Lavender Jungle" comp is back up. 

And there's some great stuff up on the youtubes. Another valued tipster, Niels, hepped me to this clip of "Flying robot quadrotors perform the James Bond Theme by playing various instruments including the keyboard, drums and maracas," a spectacular example of the ever-evolving genre of mechanical music.

HERE is a 16-minute explanation for you techies.

And I didn't have a March Fourth post this past March 4th re: alternative marching bands, because I didn't have any material.  Well, I got one now: this swell vid about a band I wrote about HERE, a 5 minute documentary on the mysterious, highly experimental Itchy-O Marching Band, revealing their home/custom-made instruments.

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?

JUNK ORCHESTRAS Pt 2: A Child's Garden Of Junk

(Now back up: Capt. Beefheart "Clear Spot" instrumental tracks, and the Caribbeana Esoterica of Elmore Stout, and The Lashing Dogs.)

"The flipflopaphon – the tromballoony – the springy tuby thingy – the gardenhoseatoot": such are the tools of Saul Eisenberg aka Mr. Junk Man, who not only travels around his native England performing on his home-made junk instruments, but also works with kids to help them build and perform on (and dance with) their own recycled sounds. He seems to be the kind of "cool teacher" that I wish I had when I was a wee lad. 

He has a resource page for other teachers that features and instrument-building demo video. Teachers, heck, I want to make these!  And he will build for your park/recreation area a "soundgarden," which has nothing to do with any old Seattle grunge bands, but are rather children's play areas with instruments built into them. Just fantastic.

There are free streaming/download songs on his site:

http://www.thejunkorchestra.co.uk/

Wonderful stuff, but I have one complaint - some of the tracks are too short, some lasting barely a minute. C'mon, Mr. Junk Man, why so chintzy? We want a proper album!

JUNK ORCHESTRAS Pt 1: The Gas Tank Orchestra

I haven't been posting anything new lately, cuz I've been trying to re-up albums that were victims of the Great Mediafire/Rapidshare Takedown of 2013 by request. Which I'm happy to do, but I wasn't able to find: The Full Life All-Stars, The Lavender Jungle, "Ya No Hay Beatles," The Musical Betts, March Fourth 2012. 'Til then, dig these crazy sounds made not by guitars, not by keyboards, not by trap-drum kits - man, that old-fashioned stuff is for squares - but by stuff. Junk. 'Found objects,' and what-have-you.

The Gas Tank Orchestra does what it says on the tin, making their instruments out of discarded auto parts. The now-defunct New Orleans combo has an excellent posthumous free download album now available that does wander around somewhat aimlessly at times, as improv groups are wont to do, but really hits the gas (sorry) on nifty toe-tappers like "Making Way," "Bunnys Bolero" and "Desire Project." The GTO don't make the kind of racket that groups like Einstürzende Neubauten used to make - their sound is subtle, atmospheric even, with a keener sense of rhythm. They are from one of the world's funkiest cities, after all.

The Gas Tank Orchestra - "Homeshed"

Another album of theirs is available for streaming/purchase that features a more sampled/cut-n-paste production at times. Pick to Click: "Oilspeak."

The Gas Tank Orchestra - soundclick album

More junk orchestras to come in future posts.

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"

I'm Pretty Sure This Blog Posts More Zither Music Than Most...

Gene M., one of our super-swell readers who contributed the lost files of Ruth Welcome's "Zither Magic" album recently, has gifted us with another album called "Zither Magic" that couldn't be more different. In contrast to Welcome's minimal one-(wo)man-band arrangements, old-world folkiness and classy '50s cocktail lounge feel, Karl Swoboda's "Zither Magic" is a big, brassy, fully orchestrated, swingin' Sixties album that reduces the role of the zither to a kind of almost surf-y lead guitar over twist/swim/frug-able versions of hit pop songs.


Don't dread yet another version of "Yesterday" - this one swings like a rusty gate, dad, played at a breakneck tempo that Mr. McCartney probably never envisioned. "Theme From A Summer Place" could be a Dean Martin backing track. A beautifully dreamy "Ebb Tide" takes a break from the craziness to take us on a stroll down a lonely beach. "The In-Crowd" is wild enough to get Twiggy workin' that mini-skirt. Outta sight!

Karl Swoboda - "Zither Magic"

Thanks Gene!

HI-FI ZITHER!

"Zombie Jamboree" has been re-upped, by request. And speaking of requests: I hate to keep asking, but does anyone have the Ruth Welcome "Zither Magic" album I posted here a few years ago? Frequent contributor windy sent me another of her albums, and my review for "Zither Magic" can pretty much be repeated here: 

"Did you know that it was once possible to be a pop star without having to play the guitar? Or with electronic production? You could get a major label deal by playing, say, a zither. Exhibit A: Ruth Welcome, whose 1950s zither albums for Capital Records display remarkable virtuosity...there are no other instruments. She's a one-(wo)man band.

On this album, the bended notes suggest Hawaiian guitars or exotica without actually being exotica or Hawaiian music. But there is a foreign, if not other-worldly feel to these instros."

This was her first album, and it reflects her then-current status as a hotel lounge performer, essentially making background music.  Not as dynamic as "Zither Magic," but it's still quite lovely, boasting some ace tunes (always liked "Moulin Rouge"), and, in any case, it's an entire album of zither music. A hi-fi zither album, at that. And when was the last time you listened to one of those, eh, eh?! 

Ruth Welcome "HI-FI ZITHER!"


(Thanks to the zither-iffic windy!)

Llyn Foulkes, King of The One-Man-Bands

I went to see a free performance by Llyn Foulkes last week (a day after I saw The Residents - can this year get any weirder?) and even tho I was a half-hour early, there was a shockingly long line around the UCLA Hammer Museum courtyard, and I couldn't get in to the show - I had to watch it on video in another room. Gol darn it!  I'd seen him twice before and there was a crowd of maybe...30? What are all these people doing here at a show by a 78-year-old eccentric singing about old L.A. whilst performing on a crazy one-man-band contraption of honk horns and tuned cowbells?  That's my department! 

Hey, I get to be an old punk-rocker now: (snearing) "I was into Llyn Foulkes before anyone.  All his fans now are poseurs."

I guess the fact that the prestigious Hammer Museum is in the midst of a career retrospective of Foulkes' paintings had something to do with it.  Or the awesome tremendous influence of this blog, as I've written about him before.  Yeah, that's probably it. So while much verbiage is being spilled about his visual art, his music only gets mentioned in passing.  Okay, this is my department: he's crazy brilliant, starting with his instrument building - his 'Machine' is huge and heavy, not the usual guitar w/harmonica holder/cymbals on the legs kinda one-man-band. He's a tremendous performer, skillfully honking out the 'horn charts,' grabbing drumsticks and playing melodies on cowbells and a xylophone, blowing free-jazz on a hose, rubbing his foot along a bass guitar on the floor as his other foot hits various drums and cymbals.

And he's a good songwriter.  Original tunes are a rarity in this gimmicky field, and Foulkes' memories and observations of Los Angeles (and his own foibles) are a perfect match for his swingin' tunes, inspired by the big-band and Spike Jones records of his youth. The Jones influence is prevalent not just in the tuned cowbells, but in the funny sound effects that punctuate the songs, lightening up the sometimes morose nature of the lyrics. His singing's okay, but has a rough charm.

It looks like his sole release from 2004 has vanished, so I'm giving you-all not only its original contents, but 5 more recent performances, audio recorded off various videos. All origs, except for a cover of Hank William's "Your Cheating Heart."

Llyn Foulkes and his Machine - Live!

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."

ROBOTS PLAY EXOTICA

- You got robots in my gamelan!

- You got gamelan in my robots!

Two great tastes that go great together: Gamelan Galak Tika (pronounced 'Galactica'?) & Ensemble Robot, from Boston's MIT and UMass, respectively, combine forces for 19 minutes of free awesomeness that you can download here:

Gamelan Galak Tika & Ensemble Robot: Heavy Metal

A few other instruments like violin and electric guitars join the machines and the Indonesian bells 'n' gongs for a thoroughly mysterious and wonderful sandwich spread of rock 'n' roll, island exotica, and avant-garde. Now, with added chunks of sci-fi futurism! A combo this bizarre shouldn't exist. And yet it does:

And speaking of robots playing heavy metal...

Compressorhead

are a metal band - literally - whose videos show them jammin' on Motorhead, The Ramones, and AC/DC. They do live shows, and apparently an album is in the works.

GUNS TURNED INTO MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

Here's an idea who's time has truly come: a project called "Imagine" in which Mexican artist Pedro Reyes leads a team that takes guns donated from citizens of a county particularly wracked by violence and transforms them into musical instruments. Pistols form a guitar's body, gun barrels have holes drilled into them and made into flutes, or are arranged according to size into a xylophone, etc. The remarkable lyre pictured above is as much a triumph of visual design as musical. Go

HERE

to read/see the pics/watch the making-of vids. The video below is a 6-minute "Imagine Concierto" featuring the instruments. Yes, the music is based on the Lennon song, but even if you're sick of that tune, you must admit to how good these instruments sound, how well they're played, and just the general awesomness of the project. The percussion in particular gets increasingly sorta funky as the song progresses.

And I'm outta here til sometime in January. Much thanks to the many of you who have contributed to this-here web-log this year. Peace on Earth, goodwill towards men, and all that jazz.

ALBUM DU JOUR #8: ...To The Ridiculous

There's just no way you can dismiss today's music scene as not being as good as that of some mythical golden-age. I have so many new releases to cover, I split them up into last months' "From The Sublime..." and today's "...To The Ridiculous." The first batch was largly instrumental avant-gardsey-ness, but this batch, tho just as experimental, is more in the whacked-out weirdo spazzy song-form end of things. Most of these albums are not downloads, but are for sale - makes great gifts! 

M4M...To The Ridiculous

1. F.K. Dreyer & Mark Recording Co. "Intro/Aries":  from the album - and, yes, there's a whole album of this - "Your Dogs Horoscope"
2. Michael McDaeth "Happy Just To Be Happy": a few tracks here from Seattle's McDaeth, and his 7-count 'em-SEVEN disk album, "The Socket Set." It's ramshackle one-man-band rock, sometimes a little too loose, sometimes dead-on in a Half-Japanese-for-the-Nirvana-generation kinda way.
3. Looping Jaw Harp Orchestra "Tuba for Klaus (Tribute to Klaus Nomi)": Vienna, Austria unleashed this mad crew of jews harps as the lead instruments, joined by the likes of steel drum, marimba, kalimba, accordion, etc.  No normal Instruments! The entirety of their latest album "Universal Language" is great. Just the fact that they dedicate a song to Klaus Nomi proves their awesomeness.
4. The Chewers "Burn It Down": Another fantastic album- I reviewed their first one, and the new one "Chuckle Change And Also" is even better; low-key Beefheart/Residents influences filtered thru a Southern low-life sensibility, with lyrics examining a side-show's worth of human grotesqueries. Get it.
5. The Toilet Bowl Cleaners "I Forgot to Wipe My Bum": one of 2 tracks off their album "Songs About Poop, Puke & Pee." The fact that such an album even exists is amazing; the fact that the Toilet Bowl Cleaners have many albums, all focused on the subject of human waste, and that some of the songs are actually good, is nothing short of mind-boggling. The main toilet-bowl cleaner sez that he's released 8000 songs in the last 4 years.  That's kinda prolific. Wanna hear 86 songs about dead animals?
6. Kitschstortion "Cutie Honey" - Another returning guest. The Kitschstortion release featured on these pages last year used the bizarre vocal synth gizmo the Vocaloid to dazzling effect. This is from the new EP "How To Have Boring Dreams"
7. Michael McDaeth "She's Just A Torso"
8. Flossie and the Unicorns "Jr. Troopers Are Go": 37-seconds of the album "LMNOP."
9. People Like Us "Seven Degrees": Another super bit of sound-collage pop from this British master (mistress?) of the form; the new one is "This Is Light Music." Sawing sound-effects (not musical saw) adds percussive zeal to samples of cheeseball '60s EZ instros, Morricone themes, and girl groups. I could leave this one on repeat for very long times.
10. 'Church On The Move' - Dad Life: I once knew a guy whose parents lived down the street from Snoop Dog in a thoroughly suburban neighborhood, far, far away from South Central LA. They'd see the infamous 'gangsta' shopping, taking his kids to the park, etc. This funny rap song about everyday domesticity really is 'keeping it real.'
11. Michael McDaeth "From the Midwest" 
12. The Electric Grandmother "Mr Clyde": Not sure if a 'sitcom-core' band is really something the world needs, but this alleged ode to Bill Cosby's character is an agreeable bit of bizarre pop.
13. The Chewers "The Fat Man"
14. Looping Jaw Harp Orchestra "Wabba Dubu"
15. Toilet Bowl Cleaners "Gotta Poop, Puke & Pee (Simultaneously)"
16. Bobby & Paul "DMT9": these guys are from the late great electronic noise band Margaret Raven.  They sent me this a year or two ago and I forgot about it.  Sorry, guys, it's good stuff!

ALBUM DU JOUR #6: The Toy-Pop Sounds of Carton Sonore

The French invasion of wonderful naive/toy-pop continues with the loveable Carton Sonore (Sound Card). The three all-too-brief "Petit Themes" albums available for download are well worth the few euros/pounds/dollars/clams purchase price. Mr. Sonore sez: "It's mainly acoustic and instrumental music with various instruments, like: charango, ukulele, guitar, melodica, saw, saz, glockenspiel..."  Yes! to more musical saw.  Xylophones, ocarinas, kazoos and toys are also present. But as much as I'm drawn to unusual instruments, as usual, it's the top-notch songwriting that sucks me in - there's a dreamy, innocent-but-not-corny quality to these tunes. 

I've included a couple tracks from each album, as well as a few tracks he's made available for free in this sampler:

Carton Sonore - 9 songs

Behold! The Kaleidocosmicorgrig - The Strangest Instrument EVER?!

I don't usually pay $10 for obscure old records - that's like real money - but how could I resist this description from the back cover: "This is a recording of The Kaleidocosmicorgrig... it is 35' in length, 12' tall, weighs approximately 2 tons... a contrivance of pedals, keyboards, pulleys, mousetraps, electrical wires, wind machines, magnets, bellows, fishing weights, stovepipes and bicycle wheels, arranged so as to control a parlor piano, 30 tuned bottles, 13 10-foot tuba pipes, a fine bass drum, 2 tambourines, a mariachi marimba, a wooden xylophone, Swiss glockenspiel, castanets, maracas, wood block, cymbals, bonkers, zonkers, and taxihorn."

Sounds too good to be true? Many eye/ear-witnesses have testified to its one-time existence, in a Shakey's Pizza Parlor near Disneyland, California. This 1970 album, recorded live, consists largely of frantically energetic instrumentals (with a lot of Greek influences for some reason); great versions of two Latin classics, "Tico Tico" and "Malagueña;" a few originals; some silly lyrics (from what I could make out - the vocals are not well recorded, but it hardly matters); and a final group sing-along that does not feature the giant whatsit. The album is on red vinyl, and originally came with a strawberry-scented incense stick (did I mention this was 1970?)

Orchestrions - mechanical music orchestras - were popular a century ago, before recordings became hi-fi. I have other albums of this sort, but this beast is clearly the granddaddy of 'em all. Featured here are the old-fashioned tunes you'd expect, but also recent soundtracks hits like "Zorba The Greek" and "Never On Sunday" (see what I mean about the Greek influence?) that suggests that Nick O'Lodeon (aka Nick Cornwell) was actively programming his machine by punching new piano rolls, creating new music boxes, and building the robots necessary to play contemporary music. Unless it was all theatrics, and Nick was playing live, but I don't think so - sure, he was playing and singing some live, but the rapid-fire piano and xylophone sound like they're playing too fast for human hands.

So what's it sound like? Pretty much like what you'd think it would sound like - berserk circus music filtered thru a '70s California hippie sensibility. It's a lot of fun, upbeat, and to say the least, unique. Who knew such things existed in our universe? Far out, man!

Nick O'Lodeon Plays Actual Music On His Kaleidocosmicorgrig