Moping Around

Another fun night at The Mopery last night, at this show. Great to see a Graveyards set after quite a long time. I was totally into Ben's timpani style. Peaking Lights came back through and Indra and Aaron sounded excellent. Crystal clear and really tight. Magic Missile overloaded on both sound and vision. Cool set. United Steelworkers Union played as a trio, setting up in three positions around the room -- and it was really cool to walk around during the performance to hear the different "mixes," depending upon where one stood. David Russell and Ben Billington started it all off in fine, hyperblasting form. Big crowd, great atmosphere...

S8L eBay

Not so much about the auction itself, since this tape is still available of course, but this listing provided a rare, brief commentary on the Super Eight Loop style... kind of interesting to read. The seller has a couple of other rare tapes of note...

"Super 8 Loop is Mark Solotroff of Bloodyminded in full-on synth mode. This is a modular wall of sound whose movements are rare but perceptible. Like watching a glacier melt, this is beautiful, peaceful and more than a little melancholy. If you like this check out Greh Holger's tape on Hanson, same kind of slow-moving beauty. Anyways, he has recorded 100 of these bad boys, but this is the first. See where the madness began, and see where a lot of the new 'progressive synth' kids got their spark."

Aquarius on Redrot

Nice words from the latest Aquarius Records update:

Oh man, does this hit the spot. Total old school, abject, cold and clinical, noise drenched industrial, a symphony of rusty old machines, the cranks and levers operated by rotting corpses, this crumbling sound factory situated upon a blackened expanse of charred remains and ruined cities, the voice a reverb drenched howl, a totally hypnotic rhythmic clatter creates the skeletal framework, while all around, clouds of hiss and buzz are woven into slow shifting almost-riffs, lumbering, stumbling, dark and dour, shot through with barely there streaks of melody, a brief bit of cinematic apocalyptica, the flip side, features another lurching steam punked Skinny Puppied rhythm track, this time pelted by bits of glitch and fuzzed out sine waves, a female voice speaks over the top, telling tales of violence and mayhem, in a calm measured tone, a strange contrast to the looped decaying sprawl of Redrot's harrowing soundscapery. Deep processed vocals are morphed into thick undulating tones, fragmented electronics wrapped around a frizzled underwater pulse, a swirling backdrop of creak and crunch and whir, the motorik lo-fi robotic beat in lockstep with a growling alien commentary. Awesome stuff for sure. So awesome in fact, that we just listened to this like 3 times in a row, and we're only really stopping now because we have other reviews to write...

Pre-Run Rotations

Slomo "The Bog" CD (Important)
Slomo "The Creep" CD (Important)
Hair Police "Totaled and Stranded" 12-inch (Hundebiss)
Josh Hydeman "Brainsickness"/"Phantasmagoria" 7-inch (Entropic Tarot Records)

Palm Technique

Watching "Irina Palm" tonight reminded me of a very intimate Marianne Faithfull concert that I stumbled upon at Sin-e -- at their original Saint Mark's Place location -- shortly after moving to New York in 1992. The film is a bit too cute at moments and it is quite predictable, but it sort of centers around Soho glory holes, so cut it some slack. Fuck, I also saw two amazing Simon Bonney shows at Sin-e, shortly after he ended Crime and the City Solution and as his first solo album was coming out on Mute.

Office Listening

Worms "Pelican Songs" (Tumult)
Tombs "Winter Hours" (Relapse)
Mastodon "Crack the Skye" (Relapse)
Wrath of the Weak "Alogon" (Profound Lore)
The Golden Sores "A Peaceable Kingdom" (demo)
Michael Peck "Dysmha" (Waiting World)
Maggotapplewonderland "Shards of Subtle Being" (Waiting World)

New eBay stuff - Metal+

New stuff up:

GENERAL SURGERY Necrology 7'' Relapse 1991 CARCASS

VARATHRON ''One Step Beyond Dreams'' Black Vomit Greece

ROTTING CHRIST '' Apokathelosis'' 7'' Osmose 1993 Rare!

ANATHEMA 'We Are The Bible' Peaceville Collectors Club

ANATHEMA 'They Die' + 'Crestfallen' Witchhunt 1992 DOOM

SLAYER + T.S.O.L. - Sub Pop single 1996 Thrash / Punk

PSYWARFARE 'Process of Elimination' INTEGRITY Dwid

In Rotation

Abandoner + Angel of Decay "Ghostspeak" (Humanless)
Lustmord "The Dark Places of the Earth" (Vaultworks)
Envenomist "The Helix" (Killer Pimp)
v.a. "The Static Hymnal"
Peacemaker / Iron Molar split (Fucking Clinica)

eBay - Rare Metal Singles

DISSECTION ''Into Infinite Obscurity'' Corpse Grinder

OLD FUNERAL ''Devoured Carcass'' BURZUM Varg Ultra Rare

MORTEM ''Slow Death'' Thrash + Putrefaction ARCTURUS 89

More to come...

Thanks for looking!
Mark

Locrian on AZM

More insight into the minds of T&A:
http://azm-magazine.blogspot.com/2009/03/locrian-interview.html

Rare Trevor Brown books + zine on eBay

I just posted a bunch of Trevor Brown rarities on eBay:

TREVOR BROWN - Medical Fun - RUBBER COVER - 2001

TREVOR BROWN - self-titled - 1997 - Hard Cover SIGNED! SOLD

TREVOR BROWN - My Alphabet - 1999 - Hard Cover SIGNED!

TREVOR BROWN - EVIL - 1996 - Hard Cover SIGNED! #960 SOLD

TREVOR BROWN - TABOO - #2 - 97-98 ULTRA-RARE Whitehouse SOLD

Semi-Automatic Carnation

Still sort of waking up after a long day/night at the Double Door... I had a great time playing with Brutal Truth last night! Bruce Lamont and I started with a transitional piece between Yakuza and B.T. that ended up becoming a nearly 20-minute (I think) synth and sax improvisation, which the band slowly joined in on (the first of two versions of "Semi-Automatic Carnation"???), and then the two of us kept jumping back in to add our sound to various songs during the first half of the B.T.'s set, which was the (complete) debut of their new album, "Evolution Through Revolution." My synth work (which was not too far off from what I did with Consumer Electronics last year - and which was pretty cool to hear over the Double Door's big PA) ended at the conclusion of the album, with what is still my favorite track, thus far: "Grind Fidelity." Then I got to enjoy the second half, which was an excellent selection of "career spanning" songs. And by the time they were wrapping things up with their cover of the YDI song, "I Killed My Family," I was savoring the show too much to jump back up to do backing vocals. That should not have been too hard of a song to remember, but you know me and lyrics... Ha ha.. oh well... Major thanks to Kevin, Danny, Rich, and Erik, for having me join in the fun!