the of mirror eye

* Muslimgauze: Ravishnu Again (5.0 mb) | Deceive For Yourself (8.5 mb) | Kaffeen (7.0 mb) | Divotee, Lie With Dogs (6.5 mb)
From Box Of Silk And Dogs : Staalplaat Recordings : MUSLIMLIM 013

For some reason I’m having a really difficult time writing about Mr. Bryn Jones, the man behind Muslimgauze. Since 1982 until his untimely passing in 1999 (of a rare fungal blood disease), Mr. Jones recorded and released music at a furious pace. With his discography totalling around 100 original albums, he sometimes released more than four or five albums a year. Even now, 7 years after his passing, there’s still new music being released by his labels. He was an incredible percussionist who was outraged by the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and was thus inspired to create music about their situation. And what distinctive music it is.

With a strong rhythmic base, his music is very propulsive and driving. He recorded multiple percussion and Middle Eastern instrumental tracks on old analogue equipment in his bedroom and then edited and mixed the music later. And then on top of that, he would layer various sounds and vocals from old Middle Eastern tapes. His music was often distorted and noisy, filled with jarring edits and intense volume changes. While some accuse all Muslimgauze releases of sounding the same, this is most definitely not true.

It’s interesting to note that while Bryn Jones made all of the music, he didn’t concern himself with the artwork or disc packaging. The frequently over-the-top Although most of his releases contain beautiful imagery depicting Middle Eastern scenes, some of the albums contained politially inflammatory images that were chosen by whichever record company was releasing his album.

These tracks come from a now way out-of-print 9-cd box set of various full lengths and EPs, just one of about 20 albums released in 1999 alone!

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* Jack Van Poll Tree-Oh: Passage To Prerov (8.5 mb)
* The Free: Soul Party (3.0 mb)
* Swinging Soul Machine: It’s An Ill Wind That Blows Nobody Good (4.5 mb)
From Dutch Rare Grooves : Supertracks Records : ST-1032

Well, this release definitely changes all my preconceptions of the Dutch peoples. I’ll admit to being totally Ameri-centric and not really knowing too much about the Dutch, so it came as a surprise when I first read about this album. I mean, Dutch and “groove” don’t really seem to synonymous in my book. But then again, when I’m wrong I’m more than happy to admit it. And this time, I’m most definitely wrong. When I first put this disc in, I was pretty blown away at the quality of the music. The music presented here on this compilation are more than groove worthy. As a bonus, there’s an extra disc included that includes some remixes of the originals. Definitely not necessary, but a nice addition to an already “filled to the brim with funkyness” release.

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* Sly & The Family Stone: Stand! (8.0 mb) | Dance To The Music (7.5 mb) | Music Lover (2.5 mb) | I Want To Take You Higher (reprise) (cuts) (5.0 mb)
From Live At VPRO : Sep 10, 1970 : Amsterdam, Holland

As promised, here’s the second half of the Sly & The Family Stone concert that I posted earlier (look here).

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* The Books: The Lemon Of Pink Pt 1 (7.5 mb) | The Lemon Of Pink Pt 2 (2.5 mb)
From The Lemon Of Pink : TomLab : tom32

I’ve been hearing about this band, The Books, for awhile now in various magazines and internet arenas, but never really paid attention to the hype. But I finally decided to take the plunge and get some of their music. And from the first note I was captivated. The duo, Paul de Jong and Nick Zammuto, have created an extremely engaging soundworld. Collaborating via snail mail and the interweb, strings are played and then cut up and reassembled and samples and vocals filter in and out of consciousness.

If you emptied 50 jigsaw puzzles onto your kitchen table, blindfolded yourself and put all of the pieces together by faith and instinct, sweating over the smoothness of each connection, working at it and working at it until finally you were finished, confident that each piece was precisely where it was meant to be, and after all that effort, you took a deep breath, removed your blindfold, looked at your work and saw something new, something inexplicable and strange and overwhelmingly comforting, something that felt exactly, impossibly, right, then you would have The Books.

(Jorge Just)

I feel like this music existed in my subconscious long before I actually heard it.

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* The Magnetic Fields: A Chicken With Its Head Cut Off (4.0 mb) | The Luckiest Guy On The Lower East Side (4.0 mb) | Washington, D.C. (3.0 mb) | Papa Was A Rodeo (8.0 mb) | Busby Berkeley Dreams (5.0 mb) | Meaningless (3.0 mb)
From 69 Love Songs Vol 1, 2, 3 : Merge Records : MRG169

Way back in March of 2005, I posted a couple of tracks from the new release by The Magnetic Fields, i (look here). So, I decided to revisit this fantastic band and post some songs from their magnum opus, 69 Love Songs. Released in late 1999, this album blew my mind. I know that I probably say that a lot, but this time it’s true. Me and my old roommate would spend hours listening to these albums. I couldn’t believe the consistently great songwriting that came pouring out of mainman Stephin Merritt. I mean, out of 3 discs, there’re maybe two or three songs that I don’t like.

And then they decided to tour this album in 2000. At first I thought they were just rumors. But then details started leaking out. They, including guest vocalists, were going to tour theaters and play two night stands. Me and some friends managed to get some tickets to their Somerville, MA show where we were treated to two nights of incredible music. Those concerts definitely rank in the top ten of all time greatest concerts. At any rate, I’ve included a couple of songs from each volume. Hope you enjoy.

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* Tortoise & Bonnie Prince Billy: Thunder Road (Bruce Springsteen) (7.5 mb) | Daniel (Elton John) (5.5 mb)
From The Brave And The Bold : Overcoat Recordings

Well, this one is definitely a surprise. When I first heard rumours about this collaboration between Tortoise and Bonnie Prince Billy, I just chalked them up to the interweb rumour factory. I mean, it didn’t really seem possible that post-rock pioneers and alt-country superstars would be able to find enough common ground to record an album together, right? Well, apparently I was wrong, and here’s the proof. We’ve got Tortoise and Bonnie Prince Billy flexin’ their muscles on ten covers that range from the distorted/cracked Daniel (Elton John) to the slowed down, not quite recognizable, Thunder Road (The Boss). It’s strange to hear these two very different artists together, but somehow it works. I can’t wait to see if they work together on developing original material.

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