John Maus , Songs, 2006

 'SONGS'

Don't Be A Body | Just Wait Til Next Year

UTR003 | CD | 16 tracks, 54 mins | 20 Mar 2006 | Buy

'Songs' is Maus' debut, his life work, which was written and recorded at home over the course of five years. It's a twisted baroque pop record that brings to mind early 80's hits and coming-of-age movie soundtracks. Almost entirely electronic, the Maus sound is created from synthesisers, drum machine, bass and his remarkable vocals, which are pitched somewhere between Ian Curtis, Calvin Johnson and David Bowie

The record is a manic lo-fi masterpiece, which blurs addictive melodies, emotive lyrics and dreamy soundscapes to memorable effect. Permeated by feelings of intense nostalgia, with this album Maus has created a testimony to lost romance and to longing. These combine in such a way to make the listener feel as through they have stumbled across a lost classic. Ambitious in his musical and thematic scope, Maus touches upon timeless subjects such as the conflict between the mind and body, unrequited love, death and eternity.

John Maus  myspace
“We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves” (due April 2011)
Maus is undoubtedly an artist one would admire and any musician aspire to be. Besides having worked on is music project for years, Maus teaches at The University of Hawaii and went to Cal Arts.  he’s worked with Panda Bear and Ariel Pink and has garnered tons of respect from both of them and the DIY music community at large.  He releases his own stuff via Upset The Rhythm.  Below is one track off his upcoming release and some old ones:


mp3s ::
JOHN MAUS - ‘And The Rain’ (new single)
—
JOHN MAUS - ‘Do Your Best’

Publish Post

JOHN MAUS - ‘My Whole World Is Coming Apart’
JOHN MAUS - ‘Don’t Be A Body’
JOHN MAUS - ‘Just Wait ‘Til Next Year’
(via weekly tape deck)


above photo © Mark Blower

Source: http://www.upsettherhythm.co.uk/johnmaus.shtml

Anna Domino, L'Amour Fou Compilation, 1991

When Anna Domino left the Ottawa that was her adolescent home, she left for good. Of course, she was just Anne Taylor back in 1975, a kid getting out of high school and suburbia in the same shot, being dragged around the world by an itinerant mother who had given her birth in Japan, a childhood in Florence, and finally some turbulent high-school years in the second coldest capital city on the planet.

"I think I'm one of those people who just isn't at home," says Domino from her loft in New York, her base since the late '70s. "Because I moved around a lot as a kid there isn't any place that I can really go back to. This is a place that I've landed in, and it's as at-home as it's ever going to be."But even after she had fallen in love with New York, Europe and Crépuscule called. Her career was launched from Belgium in 1983 with a single called "Trust In Love," followed by the EP East And West, then a self-titled album in '86. They begged a bigger audience, but over the years in Crépuscule's "willingly negligent world," as one British weekly called it, Domino became best known for who she should have been: the next Sade, the next Suzanne Vega, the next Julee Cruise...

Still, if Anna Domino is the great lost '80s songstress, she still has an active career that's gearing up for phase two. After an imposed break since 1990's Mysteries Of America, as Crépuscule slowly dissolved, Domino came back late last year with a gorgeous collection of her hits, or rather, Favorite Songs from the Twilight Years: 1984-1990. The retrospective was released by Cargo's Janken Pon label, and Domino credits local imprint boss Kevin Komoda with kickstarting the project. She's also got an album of new material ready to go, and then there's her new band Snakefarm--essentially her same electroacoustic aesthetic applied to "traditional North American songs of murder, trains and she-won't-sleep-with-you-so-you-beat-her-up-and-throw-her-in-the-river."

Canada is getting Domino going again. She will perform in this country for the first time this week. "It feels so strange to be going up there to play now," says Anna. "I'm so happy about it, but at the same it seems like it should have happened a decade ago."

An interesting  electronic album for those who prefer sound, etheral eightees pop.

Tracklisting:
01 Home
02 Pandora
03 Paris
04 Bonds Of Love
05 Isn't That So
06 Tamper With Time
07 Bead
08 "Oh Beautiful..."
09 Dust

RAPIDSHARE:
http://rapidshare.com/files/105384741/l_amour_fou.rar.html

(http://www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/1997/032797/music2.html)

Ariel Pink - Gray Sunset

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gB65ENKm4AM

Ariel Pink (born Ariel Marcus Rosenberg; June 24, 1978) is a Los Angeles-based recording artist who is sometimes associated with the freak folk and nostalgia pop scenes.

In December 2010, Pitchfork named "Round and Round" the number 1 song on their list of The Top 100 Tracks of 2010. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti have been chosen by Animal Collective to perform at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival that they will curate in May 2011.

Source: Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_Pink

John Maus, We Must Become The Pitiless censors Of Ourselves, 2011

   

FREE mp3 available NOW for "Quantum Leap":
http://bit.ly/quantumleapmp3

John Maus - Quantum Leap (Upset The Rhythm / Ribbon Music)

We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves track listing:

01. Streetlight

02. Quantum Leap

03. ...And The Rain

04. Hey Moon

05. Keep Pushing On

06. The Crucifix

07. Head for the Country

08. Cop Killer

09. Matter of Fact

10. We Can Breakthrough

11. Believer

Love is Real by John Maus was an understated gem from 2007, which reflected his love for gloomy lo-fi pop with a distinctly melancholy hue to it. It’s taken four years, but Maus finally has a follow-up record ready bearing the excellent title We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves.

The album will be released on the Ribbon Music label, which is a subsidiary of Domino, on June 28, and it’s being previewed by the track “Quantum Leap,” which you can hear in the Sound cloud clip below. Check out the full track listing below the audio file—can’t wait to hear the song “Cop Killer.” 

JOHN MAUS lives in his birthplace of Austin, Minnesota. Whilst working towards his PhD in Political Science he also composes music that taps into melancholic fantasy and affirms that we are all truly alive. Questing synthesisers, tensely strung bass lines and chasing drum machines providing the perfect backdrop for John's deeply resonant reverb-drenched vocal. Born in the decade of synth pop and sharing his birthday with George Frideric Handel, John started making music when Nirvana posters went up on every teenager’s wall. It’s this curious conflux of influences that partially helps to describe John’s music. It’s a world where the Germs jam with Jerry Goldsmith, Cabaret Voltaire relocate to Eternia and Josquin des Prez writes a new score for RoboCop. The confrontation of punk, the fleeting poignancy of 80’s movie soundtracks, the insistent pulse of Moroder and the spirituality of Medieval and Baroque music all find salvation in John Maus.

John Maus’ debut album proper entitled ‘Songs’ was released in 2006. It was a record permeated with aching memories; a perfect testimony to lost romance and longing. It’s awe-inspired follow-up ‘Love Is Real’ (released on UTR, 2007) proved a more cohesive listen in terms of focus and emotional depth. Maus finally returned last year to the heavy snows of the Midwest to finish album number three, ‘We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves’, set for release this June.

This is the artwork for free track Quantum Leap which also appears on iTunes.

‘We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves’ breaks new ground for Maus. The shirt pulling and air punching of his impassioned live performance is finally captured in all its frenzied appeal alongside a tender inner space. ‘Pitiless Censors’ looks towards the future in all its absurdity. It’s a record where promise takes the lead for the first time, providing a counterpoint to John’s default existential calling. This is perhaps best shown with new track ‘Quantum Leap’ available through the link above and via iTunes as of now. ‘Quantum Leap’, a song full of dead zones, glancing slaps and oscillating solos. “Heart to heart, mind to mind, we are the ones who seem to travel through time,” intones Maus resolutely through the mist. John’s lyrics are as likely to touch upon themes of Cronenberg gore just as much as the musings of Jacques Rancière. It’s this no-brow approach that makes things interesting, casting Maus as a savant and allowing his music to startle us in ways whereby we open up to the unimaginable.

If that's wet your interest here's a list of John's impending live performances too at SXSW and throughout darkest Europe.

Check out info on this album and John Maus' LIVE Schedule:http://upsettherhythm.blogspot.com/2011/03/john-maus-we-must-become-pitiless.html
 

Throbbing Gristle, 20 Jazz Funk Greats, 1979

  

Throbbing Gristle is a British industrial music and visual arts group that evolved from the performance art group COUM Transmissions. The band consists of Genesis P-Orridge (bass, violin, vocals, vibraphone), Cosey Fanni Tutti (guitars, cornet, vocals), Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson (tapes, found sounds, horns, vibraphone, synthesizer), and Chris Carter (synthesizers, tapes, electronics).

Throbbing Gristle's confrontational live performances and use of often disturbing imagery, including pornography and photographs of Nazi concentration camps, gave the group a notorious reputation. However the group always maintained that their mission was to challenge and explore the darker and obsessive sides of the human condition rather than to make attractive music.

Throbbing Gristle pioneered the use of pre-recorded tape-based 'samples', and made extensive use of special effects to produce a distinctive, highly distorted background, usually accompanied by lyrics or spoken-word performances by Cosey Fanni Tutti or Genesis P-Orridge. Though they asserted they wanted to provoke their audience into thinking for themselves rather than pushing any specific agenda (as evidenced by the song "Don't Do As You're Told, Do As You Think" on Heathen Earth), Throbbing Gristle also frequently associated with the anarchist punk scene. They even appeared on the infamous Crass pamphlet Toxic Grafity, with a condensation of their own propaganda parody series, Industrial News.

In 1977 they released their debut single United/Zyklon B Zombie, followed by an album, Second Annual Report. Although pressed in a limited initial run of 786 copies on the band's own Industrial Records label, it was later re-released due to high demand on Mute records, however this later release was reversed with all tracks playing backwards and in reverse order. This was followed by a series of albums, singles and live performances over a four year period.

20 Jazz Funk Greats is the third full-length album by Throbbing Gristle.

Source: http://elestuporsehizomarmol.blogspot.com/2009/09/throbbing-gristle-20-jazz-funk-greats.html




    20 Jazz Funk Greats
    Released     1979
   1. "20 Jazz Funk Greats" – 2:51
   2. "Beachy Head" – 3:42
   3. "Still Walking" – 4:56
   4. "Tanith" – 2:20
   5. "Convincing People" – 4:54
   6. "Exotica" – 2:53
   7. "Hot on the Heels of Love" – 4:24
   8. "Persuasion" – 6:36
   9. "Walkabout" – 3:04
  10. "What a Day!" – 4:38
  11. "Six Six Sixties" – 2:07
  12. "Discipline (Berlin)" – 10:45
  13. "Discipline (Manchester)" – 8:06


 Download:
http://flameupload.com/files/1GSLHL4X/Throbbing_Gristle---20_Jazz_Funk_Greats.rar

The Areola Treat fan video

I had once blogged about the Areola Treat ep. This is one female-fronted band I do like. Not simply because it is indeed female-fronted but because they come across as genuinely honest, not pretentious or trying too hard to replicate other 'in' artists you hear of nowadays, and have a genuine sensibility and technique I can relate to with respect to other types of music I have in my collection. And surprisingly underground! Sure hope they plan on keeping it that way. They're what I would call a no-fancy-nonsense, no-lacy-polish act, just meaningful, yet playful.

I am posting a live gig video that was taken by a fan, presumably. Whoever took it should really have got them from the front though, however,but no complaints seeing this is a better quality video of theirs I could find. On first listening,  the vocals on the Areola Treat ep reminded me a hell of a lot of Siousxie and the Banshees, Patti Smith, Malaria, Hagen, Nico, sometimes hints of  karen O, (although not really a fan) as well as some other interesting female artists I'd heard and loved. A band to watch out for and see live.

Jacqueline Taieb, Complete Masterworks of French Mademoiselle, 2004

 Label : Rca

Jacqueline Taieb was born in Tunisia but raised in France. As a very young teen in the mid 60's, she recorded singles during the ultra-cool YeYe scene. Her biggest hit was "7 Hueres du Matin" which she also recorded in English as "7:00 AM". Garage Rock fans enjoy her because of the edgy use of guitar on this song and her hip cultural references to Paul McCartney, Elvis, Little Richard, and The Who. Here's a tribute I made homaging her, as well as Mod clothing designer Mary Quant and the Swinging London era.   

The above information was taken off Blue Beat in My Soul

Visit this blogger's website: http://bluebeatinmysoul.blogspot.com/2010/05/jacqueline-taieb-complete-masterworks.html

This album was one of the very first French, YeYe albums to thrust me wide-eyed into the beautiful, imaginary and yet so real Mod world. Not only is Jacqueline truly one of France's 1960's leading ladies of Ye Ye, she has been widely copied elsewhere in French spheres up until the present day, but also covered by other artists alike as well as appreciators of 60s French pop. Such artists include French model - turned singer Mareva Galanter.

 

Tracklisting:

01. 7 Heures Du Matin
02. Le Coeur Au Bout Des Doigts
03. La 1ère À Gauche
04. La Fac De Lettres
05. Bientot Tu L'oublieras
06. Juste Un Peu D'amour
07. Bienvenue Au Pays
08. Le Printemps A Paris
09. Maman Jusqu'ou Tu M'aimes
10. La Plus Belle Chanson
11. Petite Fille D'amour
12. On Roule À 160
13. Ce Soir Je M'en Vais
14. Bravo
15. 7am

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