Loren Mazzacane-Connors & Alan Licht - Hoffman Estates (1998)

Previously on OPIUM HUM:
Loren Mazzacane & Kath Bloom - Sing the Children Over (1982)

By request, here's this excellent collection of woozy, avant-jazz-psych-etc. In addition to the two musicians listed on the tin, you get contributions from a bunch of great Chicago musicians, not the least of which are from Jim O'Rourke, who played on the initial sessions, then edited them down and added overdubs.

Track listing:

1. Slowly, Slowly, Slowly

2. Block That Nixon

3. Sad at Times

4. Wisdom Day

5. Peace Scare

6. Turner's Murder

7. And Everyone 'Neath Their Vine and Fig Tree Shall Live in Peace

Moonlight walk of the soothsayer

You should also listen to:

Savant - The Neo-Realist (At Risk) (1983)

Anthony Pateras - Chasms (2007)

Dragon - Universal Radio (1974)

After a little over a week spent either poolside or oceanside in a small Mexican tourist town, life has called me back to rainy, chilly Portland, OR, where I am currently intermittently working on a team accounting project for my capstone course. That's fun, right? Here's a great, pretty chill prog rock record that I put on late one night last week while we were sitting out on our back patio overlooking the ocean, because everyone likes old-school prog when they're drunk on vacation somewhere warm.

The tiny bit I know about this band: They were originally from New Zealand, which is where they were located when they released their first two records, this and the also-great Scented Gardens for the Blind. They then moved to Australia, where they were based from then on, and became a more straightforward pop/hard rock band.

Track listing:

1. Universal Radio

2. Going Slow

3. Patina

4. Weetbix

5. Graves

6. Avalanche

Made my entrance through the darkened door

Smoke and vapor round my head

Standing on the cliff, the bell struck four

All the clouds were black and red

If you like this, you should hear:

Jane - Fire, Water, Earth, & Air (1975)

Streetmark - Eileen (1977)

DEAR_SPIRIT Tells You About 5 New Records That He Likes

I'm getting ready to flee to a Real Housewives-style house in Mexico with a bunch of friends, and between sunbathing, floating in a pool, swimming in the ocean, eating fresh-caught grouper, and taking tequila shots, I don't expect to have much time for nerdy music blogging. However, I do know that legions of rabid fans are hanging on to my every word, unsure what to listen to, when to listen to it, and generally how to live without my impeccable taste, acerbic wit, and timeless wisdom to guide them. So to tide you over, here, in no particular order, are 5 of my favorite records of 2023 so far. Go support some artists who are trying to make it work in the here and now.

Hamish Hawk - Angel Numbers

I'm not wasting time. This is my current AOTY. Arch, clever songwriting with a wide emotional breadth that both celebrates and takes the piss out of our dumb human endeavors. It's sarcastic and cutting, but warm and sweet at its core -- check out the mid-paced, "Dead Flowers"-esque "Rest and Veneers" for a taste of that sweetness. Fills the Morrissey- and Pulp-sized holes in my heart.

Listen/buy.

Exhibition - The Last Laugh

NYC hardcore/crossover of the highest caliber. My current favorite of an already extremely strong crop of hardcore records to be released this year. If you're not crowd-killing, head-banging, or crushing your PRs: I'm sorry but you're a lost soul and I can't save you.

Listen/buy.

ICECOLD BISHOP - Generational Curse

A heartbreaking exploration of generational trauma and institutional inequity that goes hard as fuck. ICECOLD BISHOP has an extremely versatile voice that effortlessly jumps from a B-Real-sounding yelp to a smooth sing-flow to a distorted scream, and he's fond of running it through filters and effects, so he ends up sounding like he's single-handedly embodying an entire, multi-generational community of voices.

Listen.

Lisa O'Neill - All of This Is Chance

All of This Is Chance starts off on an almost aggressively Irish note: first, we hear O'Neill's thick Irish accent, then she's mentioning potatoes in the second line. But All of This Is Chance quickly reveals itself as a deeply engrossing album full of droning, earthy instrumentation and haunting songs of love, famine, and resurrection. And birds.

Listen/buy.

Hammock - Love in the Void

My favorite pretty-sad post-rock album I've heard in years. It's hard to quantify what makes Hammock and Love in the Void stand out among the countless hordes of bands who move in the same lane, so I'll just say that, from its huge, immersive atmosphere to its patient, breathtakingly beautiful songs, Love in the Void is the most perfect version of itself imaginable.

Listen/buy.

Proem - Negativ (2001)

I'm up too early on a Wednesday morning, felt like a perfect time for some IDM. If you've listened to a lot of IDM, you kinda know the drill here -- gauzy, melancholic synths vs. static-y, glitchy beats -- but Negativ is an excellent distillation of this style.

Track listing:

1. Below Me Reds

2. Cold Water (Flat)

3. Running with Scissors

4. Long Distance Tiara

5. Protobella

6. Pretty Song for Alyssa

7. Take Your Pants Off

8. Bolt Action Aardvark

9. Pears in Evening Wearz

10. Access Mike (Failure to Connect)

11. Negativ Reinforcements

12. Skylup

13. Bolt Action Aardvark (Brothomstates Remix)

Go to sleep you little creeps

If you like this, you'd like:

Arovane - Atol Scrap (2000)

Funckarama - Solid State (2001)

Gluecifer - Ridin' the Tiger (1997)

Absurd, debaucherous, full-tilt Norwegian punk rock and roll. As far as I'm concerned, they never made a better record. Pure, raw, coked-up chaotic energy to fuel your next bender. 

Track listing:

1. Leather Chair

2. Rock'n'Roll Asshole

3. Bounced Checks

4. Evil Matcher

5. Rockthrone

6. Burnin' White

7. Titanium Sunset

8. We're Out Loud

9. Obi Damned Kenobi

10. Under My Hood

11. Prime Mover

I'm the eye of the oily hurricane, baby

I'm the slayer of the dorks

Also listen to:

Rocky & the Sweden - Total Hard Core (1998)

Barebones - Ground (2001)

Prolapse - Ghosts of Dead Aeroplanes (1999)

Psychedelic, abstract indie drawing from post-punk, post-rock, shoegaze, and Sonic Youth-ish noise rock. Easily the most experimental and my favorite of what I've heard of this band’s catalogue. One of this band's defining characteristics is the push-and-pull between their two vastly different vocalists; on one hand, Linda Steelyard has the kind of angelic, weightless voice that makes you think 4AD or Slowdive or something, while Mick Derrick pretty much just shouts in a thick Scottish accent. On previous Prolapse records, I've honestly found it kinda off-putting -- to be fair, it's probably supposed to be -- whereas here, both vocalists take on a more dreamlike, atmospheric quality.

Track listing:

1. Essence of Cessna

2. Fob.com

3. Adiabatic

4. Cylinders V12 Beats Cylinders 8

5. One Illness

6. After After

7. Government of Spain

8. Planned Obsolescence

What did the letter say?

You should also listen to:

Paradise Motel - Left Over Life to Kill (1996)

dEUS - The Ideal Crash (1999)

Jon Appleton & Don Cherry - Human Music (1970)

Got a request for this deeply strange collaborative work from electro-acoustic innovator Jon Appleton and free jazz legend Don Cherry. Sparse, discordant, sonically manipulated sound pieces composed of synth, trumpet, flute, hand drums, and distinctly un-musical mouth noises.

Track listing:

1. BOA

2. OBA

3. ABO

4. BAO

This is Earth Radio, and now, here's human music.

If you like this, listen to:

Tony Scott - Music for Voodoo Meditation (1972)

Hal Russell & Mars Williams - EFTSOONS (1984)

Disclose - The Aspects of War (1997)

A chaotic, careening 4-track practice space recording from the great Disclose. As noise-fucked and raw as they ever sounded.

Track listing:

1. Volkssturm (National Storming Party)

2. Courage

3. The Cause of War

4. The Aspects of War

5. Why Isn't There War?

6. Heartless

7. In Fact

8. The Grief

9. Smell of the Rotten Corpse

10. After an Air-Attack

Futility and lawlessness

More like this:

Gloom - 撲殺精神破綻者 (2003)

D-Clone - Creation and Destroy (2013)

Forensics - On a Bridge Atop the Heap of Friends Who Jumped (2003)

Related:

pg.99 - Document #5 (2000)

Great 3-song EP from a band that, for me, never quite lived up to their potential from here. I saw them right after this came out with an old friend and bandmate (who sold me on them as a pg.99 side-project, which is kind of a stretch in retrospect -- sure, one of their guitarists is in there, but it's essentially the brainchild of Brent Eyestone, founding member of Waifle [and a bunch of other bands] as well as owner of Magic Bullet) and they blew me away. See, this was back before post-rock had been absorbed into virtually every genre of music, and it was still novel, even a bit confrontational for a hardcore band to open their set with a long, pretty, slow-building instrumental. And their style was pretty unique, taking cues from the melodic end of skramz, riff-y metalcore, and sludge/post-metal. But their full-length just didn't quite land -- the recording was awkward, the song titles were even more obnoxious -- and my interest fizzled. I still rock this one, though.

Track listing:

1. Boat Day at the Marina

2. So There's This Movie "Corvette Summer"

3. Pulling Rank

If we were raised as vultures

I'd torch my wings to light up the sky

If you like this, try:

Majority Rule - Interviews with David Frost (2001)

Envy - Insomniac Doze (2006)

Ghost - Hypnotic Underworld (2004)

Previously on OPIUM HUM:

Ghost - Ghost (1991)

You know what I absolutely love? Albums that start with their longest, least accessible track. As opposed to the prevailing idea that you have to immediately grab a listener's attention or you'll lose them, it says: "This is our house. You're absolutely welcome here, but we're not gonna put on airs." Such a baller move. Other examples that spring to mind: Get Up with It by Miles Davis, ...Is Eternal Life by William Hooker, and Northsuite by Velvet Cacoon.

Anyway, this one's another request, and as long as y'all keep asking for great shit that I'm stoked to revisit, I'm happy to deliver. Ghost truly is one of the greatest psych bands to have ever graced this wretched planet, and from its amorphous, free-jazz-leaning opener to uptempo psych rock to its haunting psych-folk closer, Hypnotic Underworld is for sure one of their best.

Track listing:

1. Hypnotic Underworld: God Took a Picture of His Illness on This Ground

2. Hypnotic Underworld: Escaped and Lost Down in Medina

3. Hypnotic Underworld: Aramaic Barbarous Dawn

4. Hypnotic Underworld: Leave the World!

5. Hazy Paradise

6. Kiseichukan Nite

7. Piper

8. Ganagmanag

9. Feed

10. Holy High

11. Dominoes - Celebration for the Gray Days

Pastures who used to be green

Perish in white seas

That even embrace

The slumbering trees like border marks

You should also listen to:

Osamu Kitajima - Benzaiten (1976)

Six Organs of Admittance - RTZ (2009)

Grimlock - Crusher (2003)

Starting my week by blasting out a bunch of pushups to some groove-heavy Boston metalcore/beatdown. If you want a record full of irresponsibly hard breakdowns precipitated by a yoaked-out Masshole saying stuff like "I'm a brand new man" or "I'm king of the fucking jungle" or "I will rise forever", you can't do much better than Crusher. But, statistically speaking, you probably don't.

Track listing:

1. Ritual of Steel

2. Mad Titan

3. Crusher

4. The Last Holy Fool

5. End of the Dream

6. Revolution (Return of the Power)

Yeah, I can feel it pumping in my veins

More like this:

Turmoil - The Process Of (1999)

Empire of Rats - Empire of Rats (2013)

Laughing Clowns - Mr Uddich-Schmuddich Goes to Town (1982)

Related:

The Saints - Prehistoric Sounds (1978)

Laughing Clowns - Ghosts of an Ideal Wife (1985)

Got a request for more Laughing Clowns, and I'll take any reason to listen to this amazing band. Here's their first album. Australian experimental punk/post-punk/whatever-you-wanna-call-it with the added layer of a small but cacophonous horn section.

Track listing:

1. In Front of Your Eyes

2. Come One, Come All

3. Laughter Around the Table

4. A Knife in the Head

5. Theme From 'Mad Flies, Mad Flies'

6. A Song of Joy

7. Mr Uddich-Schmuddich Goes to Town

8. When What You See

This that put-the-kids-to-bed

You should also listen to:

Japan - Adolescent Sex (1978)

Ballet Mécanique - The Icecold Waters of the Egocentric Calculation (1981)

Hunstville - For the Middle Class (2006)

Abstract, instrumental folk-jazz/post-rock from a Norwegian trio. Dreamy, droning, but bubbling over with life, For the Middle Class sounds both improvisational and expertly composed, and is probably a mix of the two. A favorite of mine ever since the golden age of the mp3 blog.

Track listing:

1. The Appearance of a Wise Child

2. Serious Like a Pope

3. Add a Key of Humanity

4. Melon

Presence in absence

You might also like:

Masabumi Kikuchi - Poo-Sun (1970)

Gastre del Sol - Camoufleur (1998)

Wayne Shorter - Odyssey of Iska (1970)

Previously on OPIUM HUM:

Wayne Shorter - Super Nova (1969)

I'm a little late but: R.I.P. to one of the greatest jazz musicians to have ever lived. A brilliant piece of amorphous, simmering avant-garde jazz, Odyssey of Iska capped off a positively ridiculous 8-album run that rivals pretty much any other in music history. (Not that the albums before or after are bad by any means, but Night Music through Odyssey is, to me, just about as good as it gets.)

Track listing:

1. Wind

2. Storm

3. Calm

4. De Pois do Amor, O Vazio (After Love, Emptiness)

5. Joy

Old is magic growing

If you like this, listen to:

The Art Ensemble of Chicago - Fanfare for the Warriors (1974)

Miles Davis - Get Up with It (1974)

Scott McGill - The Hand Farm (1997)

Dissonant, noodle-y fusion/jazz-rock by American guitarist Scott McGill. The Hand Farm is all knotty, herky-jerky time signatures and manic, fluid fretwork, but there's something woozy and atmospheric at work that helps to elevate it above your standard fusion wank-fest.

Track listing:

1. The Great Unwashed

2. The Secret Linen Service

3. Pools

4. Death by D.M.V.

5. 2000 Allen Called

6. Uncle Zippy

7. Luggage

8. Ignoramus Rex

9. Calvinist Pancakes

10. Labyrinth

11. Alaskan Brick

Don't just do something, stand there

If you like this, listen to:

Percy Jones - Cape Catastrophe (1990)

Bruford Levin Upper Extremities - Bruford Levin Upper Extremities (1998)