the of mirror eye

* Peter Brotzmann Octet: Machine Gun (second take) (20.0 mb)
From Machine Gun : FMP : FMP CD 24

Born in 1941, Herr Peter Brotzmann has been blowing tops off heads for forty years now. Inspired by the high energy playing of Albert Ayler and John Coltrane, Peter Brotzmann picked up the saxophone and clarinet, unleashing his version of jazz in 1967 and hasn’t stopped since. Even at the beginning of his game, he evinces a signature sound of unrivaled intensity that has rarely been exceeded or even matched. This release, his second one, is a total doozy.

For intensity, I’ve heard nothing that has quite the impact of the title track’s opening moments, the saxophone of Brötzmann, Parker, and Breuker levelled at a common target and firing off round after round. It could be claimed that intensity was all that Brötzmann had in this period. If so, he certainly knew how to use it; his forcefulness pulls Parker and Breuker into his orbit and a sense of tension ensues when the other instruments take over as-we await the awesome re-entry of the saxophones. A little diversion for the two bowed basses - call-and-response stuff, clichéd probably even then - becomes almost unbearably nerve-racking as the horns begin to growl and nudge their way in and we wait for it to take over, that gargantuan bloody noise, that landslide of sound… (from the liner notes)

The amazing this is that the sound descriptions in the liner notes are hardly hyperbole. Instead, Steve Lake merely speaks the truth. This is really the most intense music that I’ve ever heard (notice the lack of qualifiers in that last statement). So, if you’ve never heard this music before, make sure you’re sitting, as its gonna knock you flat on your back. Also, make sure to check out the rest of his releases, I seriously haven’t heard a bad one yet.

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Hello all.

No music for today. I just spent this past weekend doing a much needed complete reinstall on my aging and ailing laptop, getting everything set up and updated, only to screw things up and have to do another complete reinstall the next day. So, I’m still getting things set up.

But, I would like to direct everyone’s attention to the sidebar, where I’ve cleaned things up a bit and added some new links to other mp3 blogs. In going through everything, I realized that there were many sites that hadn’t updated their blog in 2007, so I took those off, but otherwise, the rest of them are all humming along quite nicely.

As always, thanks for reading and listening and please, please, please support the artists in every which way you can.

Fear not, we will be returning to regular posts shortly.

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* Charles Gocher: Speak Easy And Forever Hold Your Piece (10.5 mb) | A Constructive Illusion (4.5 mb) | Johnny “The Brain” Torrio : Attorney At Law (8.5 mb) | Dissappearing In A Sea Of Unbridled Personification (7.0 mb)
From Present: Pint Sized Spartacus : Gravelvoice : GVR-0014

Whoa. I was in the process of cleaning up my links on the sidebar when I found out that Mr. Charles Gocher (middle one in the picture up top) of the mighty Sun City Girls just recently passed.

With deep regret, we must announce that Charles Gocher passed away yesterday in Seattle due to a long battle with cancer at the age of 54. He is survived by the two of us who adopted him as a brother 25 years ago and his many friends around the world. He will be missed more than most could ever know. Our thanks to everyone for their support and encouragement during the past three, very difficult years. Many of you were not aware that Charles was ill and that’s because he wanted it that way. Details of a memorial in his honor will be announced soon.

—Alan and Richard Bishop

Even in a group of weirdo genius musicians (look here and here), it seemed like Charles Gocher distinguished himself as the weirdest of them all. Officially, he played the drums in the group, but he was also largely responsible for some way-out-there spoken word/musical albums, including Dante’s Disneyland Inferno and this one, Pint Sized Spartacus. These tracks pick up in the middle of his supremely surrealist take on Spartacus. It’s very strange, but maybe because I’ve spent so much time with their music, hearing about his passing really floored me.

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* John Zorn: The album Spillane was released on Nonesuch (5.5 mb) | They asked me to write a string quartet (3.0 mb) | The idea of change - somehow - is hooked up in my head with value (2.5 mb) | I used to go to this record store, the Soho Music Gallery (3.0 mb) | One of the things I remember thinking in my own brain (4.5 mb) | Closing (0.5 mb)
From Documentary (Part 2) : BBC Radio 3 : London, England

So, as promised here’s the second part of part 2 of the Documentary concerning John Zorn (whoo! that’s a really awkward sentence). Glad y’all are liking this so much. Mr. Zorn is a totally engrossing musical figure and it’s great that someone decided to produce this documentary. If people are even more interested, there’s a video documentary entitled A Bookshelf On Top Of The Sky: 12 Stories About John Zorn that’s available on the Tzadik site. I’ve heard many mixed things about it (apparently the director interjects herself into the documentary in really annoying ways), but it could potentially be very interesting. At any rate, enjoy this part and look for the rest in due time.

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And again, here’s archived version (look here) for those with the knowhow and for those annoyed by downloading so many files.

And, after some thought, I decided to repost both sections of part 1 of the documentary. I’m not normally in the habit of doing this as the transitory nature of the mp3blog is kind of the point. But I guess I must be going soft in my old age. So, for section 1 of part 1 (look here) and for section 2 of part 1 (look here).

* John Zorn: Intro (0.5 mb) | Thelonious Monk’s tune Shuffle Boil reimagined by Zorn (4.5 mb) | The idea of trying to give back to a tradition that you had taken from (1.0 mb) | The Morricone record was somethig I did not wanted do (3.5 mb) | He started using me for my particular understanding (2.5 mb) | It was a natural step for me to then say ‘hey’ (6.5 mb) | On Spillane, the ensemble consisted of ten players (4.0 mb)
From Documentary (Part 2) : BBC Radio 3 : London, England

As promised, here’s part two (I suppose the title of the post is a bit misleading) of the BBC Radio 3 documentary on downtown NYC avantgardist, John Zorn. They go into more detail on this one about his reasons for doing the Morricone album and for his other film based works. Enjoy!

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As before, this (look here) is an archived version of the above tracks for easier downloading.

* Hank Snow: Brand On My Heart (3.5 mb) | I’m Movin’ On (3.0 mb) | The End Of The World (3.5 mb) | The Last Letter (3.5 mb)
From Thesaurus Transcriptions : Bear Family Records : BCD 15488

What I’m trying to figure out is how this born and bred Canadian so perfectly captured the soul and music of the country cowboy. Starting at the young age of 16, Mr. Hank Snow was playing concerts and capturing ears everywhere he went. In 1950, invited by Ernest Tubb, he played the Grand Old Opry and quickly became a regular on the show. He would go on to play there almost 50 years, even going so far as to give a certain Mr. Elvis Presley his first shot at the Opry.

While the genre of country music seems to be much maligned amongst the people that I’ve met, there’s something about the more traditional, old school country music that I really love.

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