the of mirror eye

* Cat Power & Loren Mazzacane Connors: To Be A Good Woman (12.5 mb) | Satisfaction (6.5 mb) | (unknown) (7.5 mb) | Troubled Water (10.0 mb)
From Live At Tonic : New York City, New York : Oct 7th, 1999

Speaking of Loren Mazzacane Connors (who collaborated with Jandek, here), here’s another masterful collaboration featuring chanteuse, Cat Power (look here) at the late, great Tonic in New York City.

Recently, Cat Power has gone through an interesting transformation. Early on in her career, she was the fragile, singer songwriter with massive stage fright and an incredible voice. Lately, she’s become a dancing, show boating singer, recording with classic soul musicians. While I am a fan of both versions of Cat Power, simply because her voice is so powerful, I’d have to give the nod to her earlier incarnation.

Loren Mazzacane Connors (look here and here) on the other hand, hasn’t changed one bit. Which isn’t to say that he hasn’t evolved, but his basic vision of the blues and guitar playing has definitely stayed to same.

For whatever reason, I totally dropped the ball in 1999 and had no idea that this collaboration even happened. And after hearing the results, I’m kicking myself for not going to this. What an amazing and inspired idea to have these two musicians get together and play. Cat Power’s fragile vocals and repetitive guitar playing is bolstered greatly by Loren’s incredible blues playing. All in all, a most successful and fruitful venture.

Since this show is just that good, I’m going to post the entirety in two parts. Be forewarned though, that while the performance is phenomenal, the recording quality leaves a little bit to be desired and I’m not exactly sure if the track titles are correct.

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* Jandek: Afternoon Of Insensitivity: Part Seven (28.0 mb)
From Manhattan Tuesday : Corwood Industries : 0788

Even though Jandek (look here and here), aka “The representative from Corwood Industries”, is based out of Houston, Texas, I feel like he knows the pain and loneliness that we in the upper Midwest feel during the winter times. His music, full of anguish, alienation, pain and suffering, work perfectly with the recent spate of cold and snow.

For those who don’t know, Jandek is a musical enigma who, 30 years ago, decided to start releasing his brand of twisted blues at an incredible rate, on his own label. With little to no promotions and no live shows (until a few years ago), Jandek remained a complete mystery to everyone. With people trying to decipher his life from his music. And then, for who knows what reason, Jandek decided to start playing live in 2004. Since then, he’s played a handful of shows, somehow managing to play with a who’s who of the avant-garde scene (like Richard Youngs, Alan Licht, Heather Leigh Murray, Mick Flower, etc).

When I heard about this concert, Manhattan Monday, I almost didn’t believe the line-up. We’ve got Chris Corsano (free jazz/death metal master) on drums, Matt Heyner (free jazz/psychedelic ramblings master) on bass and, most intriguing to me, Loren Connors (blues guitar master) on guitar. Needless to say, this is an absolutely incredible concert, with Jandek’s collaborators meshing perfectly with his musical stylings.

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* Boredoms: POP KISS (1.5 mb) | Pitch at Butch on Itch (1.0 mb) | Monster Rex & S*und’A'R*undus (3.0 mb) | 96 Teenage Bonage (3.5 mb)
From Super Roots : Vice Records

Before the Boredoms became a shamanic drum circle with EYE as the leader (look here), they were a spastic, noise/distortion filled, sound art band from Osaka, Japan.

1993’s Super Roots just might be strangest of the group’s entire catalogue. It comes off assaultive but playful; a well-executed hit carried out by infant assassins with toy musical weapons. These mostly percussive, acoustic tracks rely almost solely on the performers’ heads, hands, and mouths to generate a restless, clanging racket. All over the record you’ll hear snatches of bodily functions, metal percussion, Eye screaming as if he’s being flogged, various band members beating the tar out of electric guitar and rock drums, mile-a-minute auctioneer vocalisms and barbaric percussive assaults, alien-nerd daisy chain chants, and the sound of getting electrically sick in the bathroom. It’s easily the most entertainingly difficult music they ever made. (Vice Records)

To a certain extent, my fascination with this band is because of how crazy EYE is: from releasing a limited edition album of 1 that included one of his teeth, to rumors of him driving a backhoe into a rock club as part of his “performance”. But even beyond that, the noises, squiggles, music and energy are utterly compelling to me. Those of you who are only familiar with their later works will definitely be in for a surprise by this album. And hopefully you’ll like it as much as I do.

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* Les Rallizes Denudes: The Last One (25.0 mb)
From Blind Baby Has Its Mother Eyes

One of the problems with having a favorite band that doesn’t release “proper” recordings, is that, well, their recordings are incredibly hard to come by. And when you can find them, they’re incredibly shoddy bootlegs with little to no information, super limited and incredibly expensive. Unfortunately, Les Rallizes Denudes (look here and here) is one such band.

Also unfortunate is that I just can’t get enough of them. I think Mr. Julian Cope describes their appeal best with this passage

Seemingly endless sonic flame-throwers of phased white noise streak across your inner landscape, as stupidly loud and overly-backlit lead guitar emissions perpetrated by a perpetually be-shaded longhair pummel the similarly be-shaded but barely adequate musical backing that sags and creaks under the wattage. Occasionally, lead vocals of a singular variety are provided by said be-shaded mad axeman, whose paranoid personality ensures all songs are delivered in a voice of querulous subterranean gargling from beyond the valley of Alan Vega. (Julian Cope)

With my current situation (being that I’ve bet someone that I won’t buy music for the whole year) what it was also very unfortunate that I found out about a quintet of releases on a Japanese label about three weeks too late. It nearly broke my heart to see these listed and I almost lost the bet right then and there. But luckily, with the magic of the internet, I’ve managed to track down some other bootlegs to slightly quench my thirst for all things Les Rallizes Denudes.

This track, the appropriately named “The Last One” was a popular closing song for this band and is wonderful in its caveman-like simplicity of the rhythm section (which the bassist still manages to screw up somehow) over which the guitarist practices his feedback skills to great effect. Enjoy!

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* Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Dolly Parton: The Pain Of Loving You (3.5 mb) | Wildflowers (5.5 mb) | Rosewood Casket (4.5 mb)
From Trio : Warner Bros Records

I can’t believe, just a week and a half ago, me and a friend were roadtrippin’ through the Smokies and the Appalachians, going to visit a friend in Asheville, NC (which by the way, is a pretty hip little city). I’d been in the city so long that I almost forgot what natural beauty, mountains and stars looked like. One of the highlights of the trip definitely had to be a New Years Eve hike up a mountain (which totally kicked my ass) to see the sun set over the blue ridge mountains. Of course, the two southern belles leading us up the mountain probably had something to do with that. Other highlights included visiting Cincinnati, OH for the first time, seeing a water tower with a sign that had originally read “Florence Mall”, changed to “Florence Y’all”, visiting one of the few live bear pits left in the country (which was, at the same time, very sad), meeting Cooper, a boiled peanuts vendor on the side of the road and of course, reconnecting with a friend I hadn’t seen in ages.

One of the biggest highlights was pulling into Sevierville, TN to hang out with a statue of Dolly Parton. A long time musical hero/delight for me, it was a magical moment to see where she came from. And one of my favorite albums, one which never fails to lift my spirits, is Trio, featuring the voices of Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt. There’s something absolutely magical about the way their voices intertwine and harmonize with each other. This album is, in every way, a true delight and I hope everyone gets the chance to experience it in the way it was meant to be, blasting over the stereo while driving through the Smokies and the Appalachians.

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* Prurient: Prurient / II-I (35.0 mb)
From Terminal Cases : Archive Recordings : Archive 32.5/33

Well, I stupidly (or maybe drunkenly) made a New Year’s resolution/bet with a friend that I wouldn’t buy new music for 365 days. And this song expresses just how I feel about that.

Prurient, helmed by one Dominick Fernow, is absolutely amazing to see live. I went to a show without knowing anything about this fellow and I felt like the top of my head got cut off and exposed my brains to the elements. Prurient came on and attacked a stack of amplifiers with a couple of microphones, carefully modulating the feedback to make the most amazing sounds ever. This release, put out by the ever amazing Archive Recordings as a split, double 3″, was recorded live at the Tonic in 2006.

Also, if you’re in NYC, Dominick Fernow has an incredible record label/Noise shop called Hospital Productions. By all means, you should go there and spend your hard earned dollars, he’s got great/rare stuff there that’s totally worth getting.

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Hope everyone got to celebrate the New Year in style.