Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto music community, a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have five days to record and upload a track in response to the project instructions. Membership in the Junto is open: just join and participate. (A SoundCloud account is helpful but not required.) There’s no pressure to do every project. The Junto is weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when your time and interest align. Tracks are added to…

Lots of RPGs describes themselves as heavy metal. Today I will dare the task known to be impossible, but which every metalhead is drawn inexorably to do: I will decree what is and is not truly metal. Who am I to speak? I’ve never read a biography of Dave Mustaine, I’ve never seen the Big Four live, and I wasn’t born yet when a bat was orally decapitated in Des Moines. I don’t listen exclusively to metal; my musical tastes are diverse. Here is what I have done. I’ve spent a lot of late weekday…

Anthony Baldino’s music seems to emerge from two adjoining rooms whose shared wall has become susceptible to the mold of determination. In one, he designs sound and programs synthesizers for Ludwig Göransson on projects including Venom, Tenet, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. In the other, he sits alone among modular systems and vintage machines, teaching private grief to speak through oscillators. Each practice contaminates the other productively.…

❚ MANY PEOPLE RECKON Manchester-born Johnny Marr to be one of the finest guitarists in the world. Not only did he spend 40 years buying the 73 guitars going for sale today at Christie’s the London auctioneer. He also provided … Continue reading →

“With A Heartbeat” is a kind of concept LP. It has a central idea at its core. It finds legendary bassist / producer Bill Laswell operating on his preferred border of dub, jazz and non-Western musics, with a circle of friends, who also happen to be celebrated virtuoso performers: saxophonist Pharoah Sanders, cornet player Graham Hayes, guitarist Nicky Skopelitis, with Jeff Bova on keys and Trilok Gurtu on voice and tabla. None of this is out of the ordinary for the perpetually prolific Laswell,…

# On this day last year, I announced "Acid Sucka" 1 in which I recreated the beat from Sucker MCs by Run DMC. At the time, I stated: 'This could be the start of something...' I've never followed up on that. I've thought about it from time to time, wondering what other classic hip hop // electro beats I could give an acid twist to. So far, I've only come up with a few: One for the treble (Fresh) — Davy DMX Surgery — World Class Wreckin' Cru Al Naayfish (The Soul) — Hashim Let the music play —…

Two cats that make it count. View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize Superb combo of Dolphy and McIntyre here on this splendid album, recorded in 1960 and released the following year. Both players were multi-instrumentalists and they display their chops on alto sax and flute. Dolphy also plays the bass clarinet. As for the rhythm section; we have Walter Bishop Jr. on…

There’s a new music DAW in town and it’s for the PS Vita of all things. It’s called the DS-8 Drumstream and it comes with a sampling groovebox, multichannel audio, BPM-syncing, pattern arranging, and a ton more. It’s amazing that you can get so much out of a handheld, especially a Vita which isn’t at the top of the list of most coveted handhelds right now (and sadly wasn’t for most of its life when it was new). But on a wider scale, its yet another showcase of what you can do with older…

Best Album of 2001: Third-Place Match Clips Show

For a discography as long and deep as The Cure’s, there’s surely going to be some missed gems but I’m quite surprised I’d never heard their 2001 single, “Cut Here” before it showed up in my algorithm recently. Okay, maybe not that shocking – I can’t say that I was paying much attention to The […] The post The Cure – “Cut Here” appeared first on Space Echo.

Women of Music Volume 18 As noted by an anonymous keen follower of my blog the Volume 18 is the only one still missing to complete the series of Women Of Music. Planned a few months ago, I kept putting off its publication mainly because of the mediocrity of the performances—except, perhaps, the one by Riley Reid, despite the risqué lyrics. So, here it is today, a special release because all the singers have something in common (and it’s not their vocal talent, but rather their on-camera…

Hey, it’s a weekly-Wednesday-Boston-area shows post on an actual Wednesday. Been awhile. I’ve gotten myself correct enough to pull this off in a timely manner, though I should really be organizing the cluttered mess that surrounds me here in my Lower Allston nerd-cave. It’s starting to resemble the inside of my skull. After the whirlwind […]

Blue Velvet/Blue Star Montage - Isabella Rossillini and Angel Badalamenti [1986]Speaking of Blue Velvet which is still kinda my favourite all time movie like The Pixies' Doolittle is my all time favourite record because I experienced these at the age of 16 and 17 and they were my favourites then and apparently this is how brains work...Perhaps everything Lynch did after this was better but this was the seed from whereth it all groweth. Here we have the deliciously aberrant nightclub singer…

After a long, slow bounce from north to south and back again (wonderful children's collaborative song writing session in the afternoon!), I was glad to see The Waiting Room waiting for its evening concert. Katy Carr was doing her soundcheck as I arrived, with Tamara the superstar sound engineer who can get a sound out of a carrot and make it beautiful. The idea of shouldering two guitars had beaten me and the nylon-strung guitar was multitasking. Alas, its internal amplifier failed and Tamara…

My music collection is ever-growing and I have a habit of listening to the same stuff on repeat. Mostly, it’s overwhelm-related because as you can see by this album covers view, there’s a lot to choose from. I thought RSS could be useful here, so I wrote a little feed that picks a random album, each day, then serves that as the single RSS item. This works great because my RSS reader, Feedbin will happily build those up if I don’t get around to checking. Try it for yourself. You might discover…

Share a song that makes you want to dance every time. Smashing across the pop, funk, soul genres, with some smooth disco beats, I love this track. Over played? Yes. Over hyped? Possibly. Catchy as all get out? ABSOLUTELY. “Uptown Funk (feat. Bruno Mars)” by Mark Ronson Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Listen to Gordon McLean's Apple Music playlist View original post on Crucial Tracks Thanks for reading and keeping RSS alive. Visit my site for more.

Shazam but for blurry image of surface of vinyl album in old photo of bedroom. Shazam but for nest of unwound cassette tape found on side of highway. Shazam but for data on cracked CD used as coaster. Shazam but for sonic residue residing in needle of turntable playing behind bar for decades. Shazam but for riff your neighbor’s kid has been practicing on trombone for the past month.

Scribed by Sandre the Giant Released: 1st August 1996 Swedish kings of misery and gloom Katatonia started off back in 1993 a bit more death metal focused with ‘Dance of December Souls’, but it was on 1996’s imperious ‘Brave Murder Day’ that we would finally see the flourishing greatness of their songwriting and their music. Roping in Opeth’s Mikael Åkerfeldt to provide a harsh counterpart to Jonas Renkse’s cleans, opening with a ten minute plus title(ish) track, clothing this album in the stark…

Tracing my musical journey. Months ago, Jason Dettbarn, creator of music community Crucial Tracks, kindly asked if I would be up to participate in the Crucial Interview series. There are some great people in there, some I'm familiar with from the indie web, but most notably, my first exposure to it was reading Zach Barocas' interview. Barocas is most known to me as the drummer of Jawbox, a band I love a lot, and one I finally got to see on their reunion tour in 2019. Crucial Tracks is a lovely…

Mo Kolours makes his debut on Bristol’s Waggle Dance Records, collaborating with label founder Eeyun Purkins and his band The Co-Operators. Their “Fruits Of The Diaspora” is an album that aims to capture an authentic roots reggae sound. Setting its sights on something decidedly organic, employing traditional instruments, such as the maroon pipe, sakara, marovanne, ravanne and other handcrafted drums, alongside funky, electric fretwork and bright, upbeat, bubbling, Jackie Mittoo-esque Hammond…

We Can Work It. Vol. 7, No. 2 Featuring: Lady Parts, Tinariwen, The Bobby Lees, Kira Roessler, Heavy Lungs, Mike D, Two-Man Giant Squid, The Sonics, The Gun Club, Sylvan Esso, Jalen Ngonda, Alex Little, Harriette, Ultra Lights, Plastic Pinks, Library Card, The Kinks, The Avalanches w/ Karen O, Anna McClellan, and The White Stripes. Cassette via TapeDeck.org.

Green Gartside, speaking to Smash Hits, in 1982

Music by Daphne Oram - it is actually a varispeeded version of Sandy Nelson's "Teen Beat"So she invented Plunderphonics ahead of schedule - i.e. John Oswald's approach where your work is based entirely on and out of a single other work. Indeed before he got hold of a sampler he used a variable speed turntable on Dolly Parton's version of "The Great Pretender"Earlier Siberia post - based on the best thing I have seen on TV all year, and like "Snow", it's from 1963 - a report on the Big Freeze…

For reasons I can’t explain, the song Hound Dog was on my mind, and I went to look up the lyrics to see whether there was anything more to them than I remembered (there wasn’t). But that led me down a rabbit-hole, and I ended up listening to five versions. Here they are. The song is the work of the classic rock and roll songwriting team Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller (Jailhouse Rock, Yakkety Yak, Stand By Me), writing specifically for Big Mama Thornton. She recorded it on 13 August 1952, and it…

"Cinderella" by Remi Wolf Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. I’ve been meaning to bring up this song. FutureBird was talking about how funk is making a come back. Some would say it never left, I feel that in light of all the algorithmically generated music, people are appreciating what a band can do. View Mandaris's Crucial Tracks profile Listen to my Apple Music playlist

Garcia, Mandel and Miller - The Matrix (?), San Francisco, California, August 26, 1970One thing you could never accuse Jerry Garcia of is laziness — at least at the dawn of the 1970s. To take just one day as an example, on August 26, 1970, Jerry (likely) recorded some basic tracks for American Beauty at Wally Heider Studio on 245 Hyde Street. Then, he apparently hightailed it over to the Matrix in Cow Hollow for a jam session with Canned Heat guitarist Harvey Mandel. A couple days later he’d be…

It's been a very busy few days, and I will post about it all possibly tomorrow. Today, however, there are myriad things to do- firstly to post about the next gig on Sunday October 11th at The Betsey Trotwood at 2 p.m.Robert Rotifer will be playing sofas from his album Radical Friendship Theory, and I'll be playing a brand new set of songs from my forthcoming (and as yet, homeless) album The Darkside Truth, which is an account of the early Brighton punk scene from a very personal…

Meleetah All That I Break Based in Brisbane, Australia, electronic artist, producer, and multimedia artist Meleetah works with music and audiovisual mediums. Focused on a combination of electronic pop, future bass, and electronica, the artist is focused on creating immersive worlds with a strong sense of emotionally driven storytelling. Here on All That I Break, Meleetah reflects on the possible reality that the things that fall apart in our lives don’t just happen to us — they are themselves a…

What was the first album you ever bought? Pick your favorite song off that album. John Menzies was in the high street of my hometown. An L-shaped store on the corner of the street and the pedestrian part of the Artizan Centre. Make your way to the back of the store, turn a corner and head upstairs. Four racks of LPs, and a wall of singles, greet you. The latest albums, the top 10, are displayed near the counter at the back. From it I zero’d in and plucked Friend or Foe by Adam Ant from the…