Sarax "Events at KOP (Mother Spider)"

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Sarax
570.Kythera
CD
(Mylodon Records, 2003)

Yet another cool discovery thanks to the excellent folks at Wayside Music, who stocked the first Sarax album, 1997's Fécula Bicorpórea, many years ago.

570.Kythera was the third Sarax album, and also the third part of a prog metal, sci-fi trilogy. I suppose you could think of them as Chile's answer to Canada's Voïvod, if you like. I certainly can't stop you. Nor would I try, really.

Anyhow, 570.Kythera is an asteroid inhabited by the Makronas, who were journeying to Iarkos. I think. The KOP is the Kytheras Organic Pentagram. Two Earthlings, Juan Pirrón and Zirok, have somehow ended up on 570.Kythera and, in this piece, try to jam the controls of the KOP to prevent attaining Iarkos. I think. It's all rather confusing. Regardless, the music is great, and that's what matters, in my opinion.

Per the inside back page of the booklet, the three Sarax albums tell the story as follows:

• Fécula Bicorpórea
  • Ancient Makronas chants recopilation
• Ejecución
  • Juan Pirrón's last night on Earth before taking off to Kythera
• 570.Kythera
  • The story in the asteroid where the Makronas lived by the time Pirrón y Zirok arrived

UR KAOS "The Poor Man's Grace"

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UR KAOS
Bad Alchemy Nr 12
compilation cassette
(Bad Alchemy, 1989)

Bad Alchemy is both a record label and a long-running music magazine. The first twenty-seven issues of the magazine each came with a compilation cassette featuring artists covered in the current issue. I think the first issue I bought was Nr 3, as there is a Half Japanese song on it, and I will buy anything featuring them; they being, of course, the greatest band in the history of music. That is beside the point, however.

The cassette accompanying Nr 12 devoted a good deal of its air time to artists from Sweden, many with releases on the Bauta Records label. One of them was UR KAOS (yes, spelt in all caps because they are YELLING at you). Both pieces were cool and dark, and exclusive to the cassette, so I snagged their eponymous debut album (the one with a wolf, or is it a fox?, in a fur coat on the cover) from Wayside Music not long after hearing them. Its contents are much like the piece featured today on the jukebox: short, almost fragmentary, songs with a very dark, foreboding edge. Good times!

Their next album, A Terrible Beauty Is Born, was just as dark, if not darker. The cover certainly upped the creepiness ante, with its depiction of multiple corpses dangling from a desolate gallows. Again, it was full of short, almost fragmentary, songs with a very dark, foreboding edge. I love copy'n'paste.

Nearly a decade later, they released their third album, Av sprucket ut är valt ett inuti. The mood is a bit lighter, but the songs are still mostly short, almost fragmentary. I've been told by Swedes that the title cannot be translated properly into English (too idiomatic or something). Google Translate, however, says it means By Cracking the Selected One Inside. Yahoo Babel Fish, on the other hand, can't handle Swedish, or any other Scandinavian/Nordic language! Oooh, they make me so mad! Poor Douglas Adams is probably spinning in his grave.

NOTA BENE: That's UR KAOS on the cover of the magazine. It is the only picture I have ever seen of them (not counting one of them wearing masks), and it was taken by Anton H. Leclercq, according to the credits in the back of the mag.

大山脈Ｘ 「バルカン山脈」

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大山脈Ｘ
『組曲大山脈』
CDR
(Magaibutsu Limited, 1997)

One of the many million projects of drummer, vocalist, composer, insane genius Yoshida Tatsuya, 大山脈Ｘ were seemingly a one-off kinda thing, though they did make one compilation appearance in addition to this CDR. This release is one long piece of music, broken down into ten sections, each named for a specific mountain or mountain range. You see, 大山脈Ｘ means something like Massive Mountain X. The compilation track I mentioned above, by the way, is entitled Vesuvius, which is a mountain but also a volcano.

The line-up for this one is definitely on the slightly unique side. In addition to Yoshida on drums, voice, and keyboards (he can do all three simultaneously, and I've seen him do it live), there are two bass players (Jin Harada and Yokai Takahashi), a violinist (Yuji Katsui), and another vocalist (Mihashi Mikako).

『組曲大山脈』 was one of four CDRs that Yoshida released on Magaibutsu Limited, his own label. The others were a disc of improvisations by his drums and bass duo Ruins, and two solo discs.

The aforementioned compilation consists of nineteen tracks by twelve groups either featuring or lead by Yoshida, plus one solo piece.

Translations:

• 大山脈Ｘ = Daisanmyaku X = Massive Mountain X
• 組曲大山脈 = Massive Mountains Suite
• バルカン山脈 = Balkan Mountains

Be·Bop Deluxe "Teenage Archangel"

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Be·Bop Deluxe
Teenage Archangel
7" single
(Smile Records, 1973)

Be-Bop Deluxe jumped out at me through the FM radio waves back in 1978. I'd heard of them, having seen their records in stores, but had never actually heard them. Their new album at the time was Drastic Plastic, and its hard, new wave sound turned out to be delectable ear candy to 14-year-old me (still is, too), even though I mostly listened to metal at the time (and thought punk rock sucked because Johnny Ramone didn't play any guitar solos when the Ramones were on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert).

The singles Panic in the World and Electrical Language got regular airplay where I lived, and I loved them so much I had to buy the album. It wasn't too long before I snapped up the rest of what was out there on LP, and was a happy, happy camper, despite the earlier albums being quite different: more prog rock than new wave and gobs and gobs and gobs of fantastic guitar.

At some point, I learned that Be·Bop Deluxe had released a single on their own label back in 1973, before signing with Harvest Records, home of Kevin Ayers, Syd Barrett, and other assorted weirdo geniuses. Luckily, in mid-1978 my family moved from northern Louisiana to the Washington, D.C. area, which had much better record stores. I tracked down a copy of the single at Yesterday & Today Records,which was the store in town if you were looking for obscurish punk, new wave, oddball, and/or heavy metal records. There were lots of other good stores, mind you, but Y&T was the epicenter, so to speak. The owner, Skip Groff, was incredibly supportive of the local underground scene. He produced sessions for local bands, had his own label, Limp Records (as opposed to the UK's Stiff Records, you see), and employed many of the local punk rockers of note at the store.

This single wasn't released with a picture sleeve, to the best of my knowledge, so that's my protective plastic sleeve holding it in the pic. I supposed I could've scanned it sans-sleeve, but I didn't want to risk damaging the record. I know the sound is a bit muddy, but that's the way it's sounded since the day I bought it. The song on the b-side, Jets at Dawn, was re-recorded for their first album, Axe Victim, but Teenage Archangel never made it beyond this little slab o' black wax.

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NOTA BENE: Your eyes are not deceiving you; the band name above is written both as Be·Bop Deluxe and Be-Bop Deluxe; it changed from release-to-release. It was also written Be+Bop Deluxe, BE BOP deluxe, Be Bop Deluxe, and Funky Phaser and His Unearthly Merchandise (seriously! but just for the song Shine on the b-side of the Kiss of Light single).

Ruins + 梅津和時 "B.U.G."

Ruins + 梅津和時
『Ruins + 梅津和時』
cassette
(F.M.N. Sound Factory, 1994)

Today's jukebox entry is from a live cassette released by the Japanese prog punk duo powerhouse Ruins in-between their third and forth albums, Graviyaunosch and Hyderomastgroningem. 梅津和時 is saxophonist Kazutoki Umezu, but I must confess I know nothing about him other than his bio is impressive, and his playing on this release is ferocious.

The studio version of B.U.G. originally appeared on Ruins III, the first full-length Ruins record. It's available as a bonus track (remixed, however) on the Shimmy-Disc release of the second Ruins album, Stonehenge. It's a little over one third as long as the version presented here, however, as they really stretched their improv muscles on this date with 梅津和時.

Funny aside: When we first got Stonehenge at my college radio station, on LP, I thought B.U.G. was skipping, and actually got up from my desk to check the record player.

Shub-Niggurath "Variation"

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Shub-Niggurath
Live
cassette
(Auricle, 1989)

My friend Greg burnt me a copy of Shub-Niggurath's 1986 debut album, Les morts vont vite, several years ago. They came across to me as a mixture of the darkest elements of King Crimson (ca. mid-1970s) and Univers Zero, who were pretty much 100% dark in their early career. It was (and still is) great stuff. Naturally, I immediately began to search out a hard copy for myself.

In the meantime, since Les morts vont vite was currently out of print, I picked up their second and third albums: C'étaient de très grands vents and Shub~Niggurath. The latter of those is usually referred to as Testament, but that word appears precisely nowhere on my copy.

At some point, I discovered there was a live cassette release, recorded inbetween Les morts vont vite and C'étaient de très grands vents, on Friday the 13th (of January, 1989). The title was a bit more reserved than the albums betwixt which it appeared, but at least Live is descriptive, yes? Of the five pieces included on the tape (four, if you count Phineos 1 and Phineos 2 as a single piece), two later appeared in studio form on C'étaient de très grands vents, but the remainder remain exclusive to it. Today's selection is the final track. Enjoy!

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NOTE: Since the name Shub-Niggurath comes from the pen of H.P. Lovecraft, there are, naturally, at least two heavy metal bands also using it. One is from Mexico and the other from Italy.

Canis Lupus "G.T.O"

Canis Lupus
II
LP
(Alter Deep Connect, 1989)

As with the previously-featured Phonogenix, I picked this up because I'm a big fan of Masashi Kitamura, best known for leading the band YBO². After they split, he started Canis Lupus. Now, YBO² had always mixed proggish tendencies with their punk and post punk influences, but Canis Lupus upped the ante and went full-on, hard prog. Today's song is the lead track from their second album, the brilliantly named II. Yes, that was sarcasm. On the other hand, their first was named 1. Their third and final album, however, was entitled Aqua Perspective, and was the only one to appear on longplaying CD rather than longplaying vinyl.

After the demise of Canis Lupus, Kitamura fired up Differance (yes, they misspelled it), who released two full-length CDs, a CD EP, and a CDR of live tracks and various other odds-and-ends, all on Kitamura's own SSE Communications label. They dialed back the prog a bit plus introduced some drone and folk elements (they covered the Third Ear Band on the EP!). You can be assured they will be featured here at some point.

After Dinner "Glass Tube"

After Dinner
Souvenir Cassette
cassette
(RēR Megacorp, 1988)

My longest-running roommate back in my college days, Brian, bought the eponymous After Dinner LP released by Recommended Records when we were on a record buying trip once, most likely with our friend Mike. The local stores were OK, but one generally had to drive to Richmond, VA or Washington, D.C. to get the good stuff, and to Manhattan and Hoboken for the even better stuff. Brian thought the packaging for the album was really cool, and I agree. Unfortunately, he decided after a while that he just didn't much care for the music, so he passed the LP along to me. I wasn't sure what I thought at first, but it quickly grew on me. Very quickly.

This Heat "Health and Efficiency"

This Heat
Live
cassette
(IndepenDance, 1986)

write-up to come soon

GoodThunder "Barking at the Ants"

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GoodThunder
GoodThunder
LP
(Elektra Records, 1972)

I found this in the stacks at my college radio station ages ago; the rather colorful cover lept right out at me and clawed out my eyes. I know I played something from it at least once or twice on the air, and I never forgot the title of this little ditty. The fact that someone wrote on the cover that it was getting played too much probably helped. ^_^

Albert Marcœur «Deux lions au soleil» Extraits de la musique du film de Claude Faraldoenregistrée à Hérouville (novembre et décembre 1979) par Laurent Thibault

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Albert Marcœur
This Heat/Marcœur
split cassette release with This Heat
(Tago Mago, 1982)

I bought this tape because I had This Heat's album Deceit and thought it was really great. After a number of listens, I decided I liked Marcœur's side of the tape more, but had no idea where to get anything else by him. Eventually, in the mid-90s, I found a dbl-CD, Albert Marcœur présente, that compiled his first four albums: Albert Marcœur Album à colorier Armes & Cycles Celui où y'a Joseph I've been a big fan ever since.