At Left: Klaus Schulze appeared on this show, from the tremendous album "Irrlicht". I basically just wanted to have any excuse to use this photo; it has to be one of the best Kosmische images ever. Check the TSR-80 in the background; that's 128k of pure computing power there, folks; no wonder Klaus sounded so good.
DJ Timothy has resolved to do several things in the coming months: One, begin the annoying habit of speaking in the Third Person (singular) in order to torment my detractors, and, Two, be more and more lazy in the putting together of shows. The reasons are two-fold: One, I really have been busy and simply don't have the energy to spend ten hours a week planning for a show that then takes a further four hours to do, and, Two, I've been getting so much positive feedback on these last two weeks' of shows that I'm thinking a serendipitous discovery in RA programming has been engendered by my indolent and languid slide into Prog Rock torpor. We'll see, but for these two shows...I had a lot of fun.
Thus, Saturday night's broadcast was, again, a mish-mosh or gallimaufry, if you will (a real word, I want to emphasize- click the link), of exciting sounds and circumstances, genres and beats, from Anatolian Psych to underground DC Funk to some stuff I'm pretty sure I'm the only person in the world who is playing it on the Internets (which, of course, is the sole reason why RA exists in the first place; there's no need for RA in the market place of ideas if I just go do the same boring shit you can find on your FM radio dial). That long-winded and excessively-run-on-sentence bit of throat clearing aside, there are a few things that you might find interesting in Saturday's playlist; and certainly there were some interesting bands and musicians who were on the show.
Moscow DJ Ilya Richter's Dream Mechanics started the show with a trance-inducing bit of Electronica from the really quite excellent Screensaver album. "A Dream" is typical of an album that is in no way typical; I don't do a lot of "modern" Electronic music, but along with the brilliant Alexander Sobolev (who appeared later in the show with "Gidrophobia", my neighbor's favorite song from the RA archives) there does seem to be a burgeoning Russian Electro scene that I hope continues for a long time to come. The Dream Mechanics are unsigned, which I don't think matters all that much anymore, so long as people find out about their independent work through the magic of the Internets; so get the word out already, would you?
Now that I think of it, there were numerous bands of unique pedigree on RA#17. We heard from Witold Szczurek, from the absolutely beautiful album Basspace, and the sublime modern Jazz track "Fifteen Questions". He's another one I am making a project of; although it seems as if he has given in to the eternal American fear of consonant-loaded names and is now known as Vitold Rek; so if you're looking for his stuff, I suppose that's where you need to go now. Later, serious underground Funk from Richard Simms, a.k.a. Wicked Witch, made an appearance, along the spatial causeways of Funkadelic-by-way-of-Space-cocaine mix, with the super badass track "Fancy Dancer". Apparently, Simms- playing with an ongoing series of musicians live, but most of the music being strictly his own work- virtually owned Washington D.C. in the late 70's and early 80's; what happened to him next I have no idea. But it seems he took serious Cosmic Funk with him into gloaming obscurity; they just don't make music like this anymore, which is a crying fucking shame.
We also heard from what is fast becoming one of my favorite bands- the awesome Anatolian Psych sounds of the brothers Hurel, otherwise known as 3 Hur-El. This video from Turkish television from 1974 is where you want to start with these guys; I've been playing this over and over again for the past two weeks since I found it one insomnia-plagued night, and think it is just the cat's meow, baby. Guitarist Ferdinun Hurel- in addition to having an awesome beard- plays one of the meanest wah-guitars ever on his custom-built combination double-neck guitar and sez; I didn't even know what a sez was until I saw these guys, but I do now, and I love it. My friends Anthony Passonno and Dean Blake- who have a project together that they call Bird Flew- then brought a bit of pure malevolence to the proceedings with the daunting "Life Taking Life", a fourteen-minute dirge of violent and grim noise that I think is just great. Again, an unsigned band who do it all- recording, producing, you name it- and one that I just can't get over how professional sounding their music is. Other highlights of the show included another appearance from Slovak guitarist Radim Hladik's Blue Effect, playing first with Prague avant-Jazz group Jazz Q and then later with the epic track "New Synthesis 2" with the Czechoslovak Radio Jazz Orchestra. The former is just noise at its best; a cacophony that at times almost goes off the rails, the track "Conjuctio Part 1" from the Conjuctio album really is a show stopper; a serious epic at over nineteen minutes, when I first found this record I just was playing it over and over again, so blown away by all of these amazing musicians getting together for an album and somehow making it work. Sometimes too much talent is not a good thing; here though, the egos were subsumed and this particular album is definitely due for a place on the revised "Top Progressive Rock Albums Of All-Time", which partisans of RA should look for sometime early next year.
All right, enough of this endless ranting. Check those links and support those bands; they have the RA seal of approval, which no one probably cares about but is still the most exacting reward handed out by the music press. Because as anyone can tell you, I don't like anything. Except stuff that is good. See you Saturday, and Cheers, - TKR
Setlist For Radio Anthrocide#17 Beyond The Valley Of Free Form
1) Dream Mechanics- "A Dream"
2) Nekropolis (Peter Frohmader)- "Inquanok"
3) Peter Frohmader- "Ecstasy"
4) Picchio dal Pozzo- "Seppia"
5) Witold Szczurek- "Fifteen Questions"
6) Modry Efekt and Jazz Q- "Conjuctio Part 1"
7) Third Ear Band- "Egyptian Book of the Dead"
8) Brian Eno- "Backwater"
9) Peter Hammill- "Film Noir"
10) Guapo- "Black Oni V"
11) Bird Flew- "Life Taking Life"
12) Wicked Witch- "Fancy Dancer"
13) 3 Hur-El- "Gonul Sabreyleye Sabreyleye"
14) Janko Nilovic- "Hippocampus"
15) Mecki Mark Men- "Future On The Road"
16) Klaus Schulze- "Satz Ebene"
17) Fushitsusha- "Omae Kotchi"
18) Korekojinn- "Pathos"
19) Necromandus- "Homicidal Psychopath"
20) Audience- "Priestess"
21) Patto- "Red Glow"
22) Alexander Sobolev- "Gidrophobia"
23) Czechoslovak Radio Jazz Orchestra and The Blue Effect Group :) - "New Synthesis 2"
No comments:
Post a Comment