Can- Monster Movie (1969) Remaster (SACD) MP3 & FLAC

Spoon ~ 2004/1969

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Monster Movie (Remastered SACD Edition)

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Mark Lanegan Series, #3: Mark Lanegan Band- Here Comes That Weird Chill EP (2003) MP3 & FLAC

Beggars Banquet ~ 2003

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Here Comes That Weird Chill EP

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Additional Mark Lanegan Series Posts & Related

Cindytalk- Wappinschaw (1994) MP3 & FLAC -For Ol' Foggy-

"It is becoming more difficult day by day to sustain this level of magic."

On Camouflage Heart, Cindytalk's 1984 debut, Gordon Sharp created a hopelessly dark, yet starkly beautiful, proto-industrial descent into psychic despair that made so-called "Goth" albums of the time sound like little more than cartoonish attempts to paint facile forms of despair in shades of cheap black paint. Central to the effect of this truly singular album is Sharp's harrowing vocal performance, ranging from the despondent to the cathartic, sometimes within the same song. A decade later, Cindytalk released its second masterpiece, Wappinschaw, which seems, on the surface, to emanate from emotional regions far calmer than that of its heady predecessor, but on repeated listens reveals itself as constructed from the same emotionally wrenching cloth. Wappinschaw was to be the last album Cindytalk would release for 15 years, and as such, it can be seen as both a culmination and integration of the various elements comprising Sharp's first three albums. Wappinschaw starts with a song as surprising as it is stunning: Sharp's beautifully sung a capella cover of Ewan MacColl's "The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face." Elegant, raw, austere, and sounding like a fallen angel, Sharp masterfully sets the tone for the album's dynamic exploration of the extremities of emotion, a tone which moves into more familiar Cindytalk territory on the second track, "A Song of Changes." Mournfully melodic while eschewing anything resembling traditional song structure, Sharp creates a strange dirge-like atmosphere for another of his beautifully-wrecked vocal performances. Perhaps the biggest highlight is "Return to Pain," which features Sharp's heavily reverbed voice backed by some wonderfully moody experimental guitar noodling. Wappinschaw is easily one of the most under-appreciated albums of the nineties, and though it is not a comforting listening experience, it is an exquisitely dark corner offering its own kind of recompense.

Paisley Underground Series, #16: Lime Spiders- The Cave Comes Alive (1987) / S/T Live Promo (1987) MP3 & FLAC

"I like your heart but there's no room in it for me."

The various music scenes dealing in neo-psychedelia that mushroomed (pun intended) during the late seventies and early eighties in the U.S., U.K., Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere were all as equally influenced by Punk as they were by the psychedelic sixties. So while the influence of bands such as The Byrds, The Doors, and The Velvet Underground was ubiquitous throughout the various scenes, Nuggets-era Garage-Rock was just as influential, as its rawer sound and D.I.Y. ethos suggested an obvious parallel with (and perhaps original influence on) Punk. One of the most admired of these Garage-Rock revivalists were The Lime Spiders. Allegedly named after an Australian tropical drink, the band was formed in Sydney by Mick Blood and Darryl Mather, and their sound was equal parts Punk aggression and Nuggets-style psych-pop. The Lime Spiders spent the first six years of their existence undergoing sporadic line-up changes while occasionally issuing brilliantly unhinged singles, and they did not get around to recording an album until 1987's The Cave Comes Alive!, which has, over the decades, become a full-fledged cult-classic. While the sound of the album was once described in Rolling Stone as "The Sex Pistols on acid," when placed in the larger context of The Lime Spiders' discography, their debut LP indicates a band transitioning away from some of the Garage-Rock elements of their earlier work by integrating subtle pop and conventional hard-rock touches into the arrangements (this would become much more pronounced on their final two albums, Volatile and Beethoven's Fist). Nevertheless, The Cave Comes Alive! still demonstrates plenty of Punk attitude and psychedelic overtones, and includes covers of garage-psych legends The Electric Prunes and The Litter. What is most striking about the album is its wealth of great original songs, such as lead track and single "My Favorite Room," which begins inauspiciously with a progression of overly polished, almost-metal sounding guitar chords but quickly moves in a more familiar Garage-Rock direction when Mick Blood's vocals enter the mix. The wonderfully anarchic cover of The Litter's "Action Woman" is much more reminiscent of The Lime Spiders' earlier work, as it features one of Blood's best graveled vocal turns on the album and a more dynamic, Punk-based arrangement; in doing so, it arguably bests the original. The Cave Comes Alive! suggested that great things lay ahead for The Lime Spiders, but similar to the band they toured with in 1987, The Cult, with each successive album, they lapsed into a more conventional, and thus faceless, hard rock approach; nevertheless, their debut is a Garage-Rock classic and well-deserving of its hallowed status.

Lime Spiders- "The Other Side of You" Video (1988)

There's an infestation of Lime Spiders on the horizon...

The Pop Group- Y (1979) / How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder? (1980) MP3 & FLAC

"No sequence to follow, no fear of tomorrow."

When mentioning the movers and shakers of the early days of Post-Punk, bands such as Gang of Four, Wire, and Siouxsie and The Banshees (for whom the term "Post-Punk" was coined) are usually the first mentioned; however, there were a number of other bands who were just as instrumental in the rise of this innovative and exceedingly influential movement though they ended up with much smaller, and consequently lesser known, discographies. The Pop Group, an ironically-named outfit of Agit-Funk-Punk provocateurs from Bristol, were just such a band. Much like Gang of Four, The Pop Group were interested in ideology critique from a decidedly radical leftist perspective; however, unlike their Leeds-based cousins, theirs is a much more fractured and varied approach, often pushing the discord and abrasiveness to aesthetic extremes while integrating Funk, Dub, Jazz, and Punk influences. On their striking debut, Y, The Pop Group find a perfect balance between political didacticism and sonic adventurousness. For example, on the brilliant "She Is Beyond Good and Evil," lead singer Mark Stewart sounds something like Ian McCulloch channeling Birthday Party-era Nick Cave while fronting The Clash. Drenched in Dub-style reverb that lends the song an increasing sense of claustrophobia, it is one of the most memorable and creepy songs of the early Post-Punk milieu. The remainder of the album is full of unforeseen twists and turns; from the Aladdin Sane-style lounge piano turned upside down and inside out on "Snowgirl" to the cannibalistic Funk of "Don't Call Me Pain," Y makes a strong case for being one of the most demanding and fascinating albums of its era. While The Pop Group's follow-up LP For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder? maintains the Funk-inspired approach of the debut, it is far less experimental in nature; as a result, the lyrics, and thus the political rants, are pushed to the foreground, which actually works to the detriment of the band's purpose. Nevertheless, there are some worthy moments, including "Feed the Hungry," a straight-up Funk song with some deliciously abrasive guitar work. While not as accomplished as some of their more famous contemporaries, The Pop Group were masters of a Punk and Dub influenced brand of Agit-Rock that still retains its chaotic and unconventional qualities to this day.

The Pop Group- "She Is Beyond Good and Evil" Video (1979)

Imagine members of Gang of Four and The Birthday Party doing a dub-reggae album; it might sound something like The Pop Group...

The Birthday Party- Hee-Haw (1988) MP3 & FLAC -For Pieter-

"I put on my coat of trumpets. Will she be there? Is my piccolo on straight?"

Hee-Haw virtually defines the term "transitional," as it pairs the earliest releases by The Birthday Party with some of the final recordings Cave & co. made as The Boys Next Door. Five of these latter songs originally comprised The Boys Next Door's final release: the Hee-Haw EP, which, with its jagged rhythms and strangled melodies, has far more in common with the exceedingly dark aesthetic of The Birthday Party than with the band's earlier work on Door, Door. While The Birthday Party's initial recordings show a new-found abandon both in terms of instrumentation and Nick Cave's vocals, several songs such as "Happy Birthday" and "Waving My Arms" only occasionally wed this new approach to a memorable melody; however, there are some gems to be found on this compilation, such as "The Friend Catcher," which bear a much closer resemblance to the legendary trashcan Goth meets Appalachia sound that the band would perfect over the course of the next few years. In theory, this "odds and sods" collection shouldn't work as well as it does, but it provides an invaluable glance into the band's transformation after leaving Australia for greener commercial and artistic pastures in London.

Ride- Nowhere (1990) 20th Anniversary Edition (Bonus Disc) MP3 & FLAC -For iggy1-

"And the train rushes past like a day gone too fast."

While My Bloody Valentine's Loveless is considered, in most quarters, as the holy grail of the original UK Shoegaze movement, a strong case can be made that Ride's debut long-player, Nowhere, is just as good if not better (though vastly different). Previous to Nowhere, Ride had released several EPs that positioned them as a band on the cusp of brilliance; these early releases all revealed a sound forged out of antecedents such as The Jesus and Mary Chain and the aforementioned My Bloody Valentine, but in addition, Ride sounded like a band who had spent some time listening to Nuggets -era psychedelia. While the foundation for Nowhere is clearly discernible in these EPs, the album itself sees the band transform these influences into something abrasively vibrant and recognizably their own, and if this isn't enough, beneath all the jangle, distortion, and reverb are some pretty fine pop songs for those with ears to hear. On the superb opening track "Seagull," Ride is at its psychedelic best, complete with backward-masked guitars, duo vocals by Mark Gardener and Andy Bell, and a killer hook buried beneath the guitar squall. Another standout is "Vapour Trail," a track featuring some lovely guitar jangle and a more solemn tone while still retaining the power of the more intense songs. While Nowhere is rightly labeled a Shoegaze album, throughout the proceedings, Ride seem intent on playing with some of the conventions of the genre, which might be the reason the album hasn't aged a day in 20 years.  Guitar-based pop simply doesn't get any better than this.

Ride- Smile (1990) MP3 & FLAC

"And when I see you sliding past, I make my plans, and then my plans slip through my fingers just like sand."

While My Bloody Valentine is often cited as the pinnacle of the Shoegaze movement of the late eighties and early nineties, Ride's first smattering of EPs and their debut full-length, Nowhere, are nearly as good, with the added bonus of pushing the "wall of sound" approach into regions more visceral and less fussed-over than their contemporaries. On Smile, a compilation of the band's first two EPs for Creation, the influence of Psychocandy is palpable, and like The Jesus and Mary Chain, Ride are careful to wrap their layers of distortion around sugar-sweet garage-pop gems. For example, on one of the album's obvious highlights, "Chelsea Girl," Ride tap into a mid-sixties garage-psych sound but take it somewhere new with heavily distorted guitar squalls and Loz Colbert's manic drumming. While "Silver" heads into darker neo-psychedelic territory, "Furthest Sense" nods in the direction of My Bloody Valentine, but whereas that band buries melody in layers of guitar refraction, Ride pushes the song's pop structure to the foreground. Though Ride's debut album (and masterpiece) is more fully-formed and better recorded, the EPs comprising Smile should by no means be overlooked.

Swell Maps- Jane from Occupied Europe (1980) MP3 & FLAC

"And the door's been bricked up, and the room is a mess, and we'd exchanged salvos even before we met."

In many ways, the early Post-Punk movement was a reaction to the overly simplified aesthetic (as well as ideology) of a UK Punk scene that had quickly become a caricature of itself by the end of the seventies. While the term "Post-Punk" has, over the years, become synonymous with the moody, scratchy, cerebral approach of bands such as Gang of Four, the movement was/is actually quite diverse. This is best exemplified by Swell Maps, who integrated the original Punk D.Y.I. aggression with more "arty" influences such as Can, and did so while casting a thick layer of cheeky irony over everything. While their debut, A Trip to Marineville, wasn't always able to integrate these different sonic palettes together seamlessly, their follow-up and swansong, Jane from Occupied Europe, stands as one of the most singular-sounding albums of "The New Wave." From the first few seconds of "Robot Factory," the lead track, it is clear that we have entered uncharted territory. With eerie psych organ, strange clicking effects, and distant mumbled voices, the song sets the tone for what's to come. Standout track "Cake Shop Girl," with its combination of guitar crunch and Kraftwerk-style synth-lines practically writes the book on integrating Punk and pop, a book bands like The Meat Puppets would be memorizing soon enough. Jane from Occupied Europe is, without a doubt, an essential document of Post-Punk's first wave.

Swell Maps- A Trip to Marineville (1979) MP3 & FLAC

"This is just another song; I guess it's rather long. This is just another song, and now it's gonna stop."

Even though brothers Nikki Sudden and Epic Soundtracks (not their real names in case you were wondering) had been tinkering in a band together for several years under the name Sacred Mushroom, it was not until the rise of the British D.Y.I. Punk scene of 1976-1977 that they began gigging and eventually found their way into a studio. When they finally got around to recording a full-length, the result was A Trip to Marineville, a mad scatter-shot of an album that manages to offer some of the best Punk of the era, but be warned: for the most part, this is not Punk of the simple three-chord-thrash variety. Mixing in surf guitars, Kraut-Rock flourishes and some glammy touches, there is simply nothing else from the original (Post) Punk era that sounds quite like Swell Maps. A Trip to Marineville is, among other things, the fruit of two distinct sonic approaches, the first being comprised of glam guitar crunch, Punk-Rock vocals, and quirky twists that always push the proceedings beyond the limits of Punk conventions. The second approach, as evidenced by songs such as "Gunboats" and "Adventuring in Basketry," indulges the band's obsession with Kraut-Rock legends Can, creating a unique mash-up of sonic textures that Swell Maps would explore to even greater affect on their next album, Jane from Occupied Europe.

Women- S/T (2008) / Public Strain (2010) MP3 & FLAC

"Grey balloons set toward the sun, fighting words underneath your tongue."

Wiry, metallic, clanging, unapologetically dissonant and still somehow sweetly melodic in a trebly, spiky Post-Punk sort of way, Women, a Canadian noise quartet with experimental tendencies, produces a sound caught in the gap between claustrophobic avant squalls and hooky pop confections. Nowhere do these poles come together more dramatically than on "Black Dice," a standout track from their eponymously titled debut. At first the song sounds like a classic nugget of mid-sixties lo-fi garage-pop, until the melody slowly and subtly starts to warp as if being played on a broken record player. And this is the curious conceit of the debut: pop songs flicker in the light before being whisked away into caverns of impenetrable (and sometimes irritating) noise. The album cover for the band's second album, Public Strain, couldn't be more apropos of the music contained within: a stark, dark-lit snowstorm punctuated by the burning glow of poetic beauty. This time, the pop songs no longer descend into the caverns of noise; rather, they provide the blurry outlines that give vestiges of form to the spectral dissonance. Simultaneously beautiful and exceedingly bleak, it's hard to shake the feeling that Women are really on to something original when listening to a song like "Venice Lockjaw," with vocals sounding as off kilter as they do haunting- imagine The Clientele cross-bred with The Velvet Underground. Women produce a singular sound well worth multiple spins for those with ears to hear.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds- "Tupelo" Video (1985)

Speaking of Nick...

Cindytalk- Camouflage Heart (1984) / In This World (1988) MP3 & FLAC

"You have the twisted head of fate my love."

Exceedingly dark, cathartic, and at times, seemingly unhinged, Gordon Sharp's Cindytalk was a dazzlingly self-indulgent gloom-fest that anticipated the Industrial-Rock movement years before the genre even had a name. Best known for his fine contributions to the first This Mortal Coil project, It'll End in Tears, Sharp's work in Cindytalk is far more visceral and far less ethereal than what was emanating from 4AD at the time. While Gothic in mood, Camouflage Heart, Cindytalk's debut, has a dirty, gritty undertow that makes it sound something like Peter Murphy at his most dramatic fronting The Birthday Party (in fact, Mick Harvey appears on "Under Glass"). On the standout track,"The Ghost Never Smiles," Sharp's eerie, wailing vocals sound like they are emanating from the bottom of a well as a dull tribal beat and guitar feedback carry the song toward what feels like a free-fall into the abyss. Truly harrowing stuff.

The Jesus and Mary Chain- Psychocandy (1985) MP3 & FLAC -For oh hi there-

"It's so hard not to feel ashamed of the loving living games we play each day."

Most critics tend to describe Psychocandy as something of a mash-up of Beach Boys-style harmonies and Velvet Underground-inspired dissonance, and while these are unquestionably major elements helping to sculpt its overall sound, such descriptions tend to overlook just how singular this landmark album actually is. At the time of its release, Psychocandy was notorious for its piercing squalls of feedback, but looming just beneath this Noise-Rock veneer are some of the most achingly beautiful songs you're likely to hear. For example, on "Just Like Honey," the Reid brothers' naively laconic vocal harmonies coupled with the reverb-soaked production create an unlikely, and somehow perfect, marriage of Motown and Pych-Rock. To call Psychocandy "influential" does it no justice at all; the truth is, much of what followed in its wake, including everything from Shoegaze to Lo-Fi, owes a deep debt of gratitude to this album. If you've never heard Pscychocandy, I'm supremely envious; I would give anything to hear this album for the first time again.

Deerhunter- Turn It Up, Faggot! (2005) MP3 & FLAC

"Born of concrete, born out of chemistry, comes out of chaos, blooms into infinity."

Named after a taunt the band regularly heard at early shows, Deerhunter's debut, though more or less disowned by frontman Bradford Cox, stating the band was "just really desperate to put something out," is a beautiful mess that rewards the listener if given half a chance. While Turn It Up, Faggot! is often described as an impenetrable noise-fest, nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, the vocals are virtually indiscernible and the heavy wash of reverb drowning everything creates an atmosphere of impenetrability, yet the melodies somehow surface, allowing songs such as "N. Animal," "Adorno" and "Oceans" to transcend the noisy undertow of the album. More than just an interesting glimpse of a great band at a formative moment, Deerhunter's debut is a great slice of noisy, tuneful fragmentation.

The Jesus and Mary Chain- "Just Like Honey" Video (1985)

Does feedback sound any sweeter than this?

The Birthday Party- Mutiny EP/The Bad Seed EP (1983) MP3 & FLAC

"Deep in the woods, a funeral is swinging."

This collection, comprised of two EPs released in 1983 by The Birthday Party on the eve of their acrimonious, drug-fueled dissolution, begins unforgettably with Nick Cave's backwoods-preacher exhortation, "Hands up! Who wants to die!?!," and only gets more apocalyptic from there. While offering, once again, their sleazy Post-Punk take on the Country-Blues mixed with a liberal dose of The Stooges, The Birthday Party's swan-song bears some marks of a transitional work. For example, while Cave's vocals still exude his familiar over-the-top morbidity, there seems to be a greater quotient of seriousness on these EPs, which contrasts with earlier recordings, where Cave, Rowland & co. often served up their blood-soaked sermons with a subtle wink of the eye. This and the more polished production cause songs such as "Deep in the Woods" and "Sonny's Burning" to sound like something of a blueprint for Cave's next venture, The Bad Seeds, a name nicked, incidentally, from the title of one of these EPs. In fact, many of these songs sound like an early precursor to Murder Ballads, which, come to think of it, isn't a bad thing at all.

Wire- Pink Flag (1977) 1995 Japanese Ed. (17 Bonus Tracks) MP3 & FLAC

"His atoms were excited, and he glowed in the dark. The boiling boy was a picture of confusion, but he had the advantage of a cold start heart."

Wire's debut, Pink Flag, is a brilliant reminder of how vibrant and diverse the Punk movement of the late 1970s really was. While this movement is often characterized in terms of bands such as The Ramones and The Sex Pistols, both of whom never strayed far from a bare-bones Garage-Rock template, other bands pursued a more innovative sound by using this template as a foundation to be deconstructed and re-imagined. On Pink Flag, it is clear from the very first song, "Reuters," that Wire is of the latter camp. Taking the Punk ethos several steps further than most of their peers, Wire consistently reject traditional song structure on their debut by stubbornly refusing to deliver the verse/chorus movements and repeated measures that have come to virtually define "Rock" music. While the songs are brief and often abrupt, Wire's minimalist approach allows the album a depth and complexity quite unprecedented in Punk recordings of the period. By turning listener expectations inside out, Wire's debut album not only rejects the tired tropes of mainstream Rock, but also challenges the Punk movement to reject its own assumptions about itself.