Earth - 070796 Live (2001)

This is a live recording from the Vienna Hyperstrings Festival whose date compromises the album title.  This is the last material Earth was playing before Dylan Carlson took a long leave of absence and disappeared for a few years into drug rehab.  And by the sound of these song he was probably at the peak of his addiction.  I personally think this is some of their best work.  It's kind of like the link between the sound of the old Earth to the new.  It's really the last of the thick drone that Earth is most known for before returning years later to the cleaner sound that they are today.  This record had a bit of controversy behind it which you can read about here and is quite rare with a pressing of only 500 copies.

Download

Seawhores - Opus Magnanimous (2007)

I grew up in Minneapolis and lived there most of my life.  I just loved the music scene there.  Aside from the obvious bands like Husker Du or the Replacements there was also The Bastards, TVBC, Rifle Sport, Babes In Toyland, Cows, Halo Of Flies, Hammerhead, Guzzard, Janitor Joe and a bunch of other great bands that to me was just as good or better than anything coming out of NYC or Seattle at the time.  Most of our readers are already familiar with Amphetamine Reptile Records but there were some other small Minneapolis labels like Treehouse Records and Reflex Records that were putting out good records as well.  I moved away about 15 years ago and haven't really heard a whole lot from Minneapolis that has excited me much since then.  I moved to Chicago and was just kind of engulfed in the music going on there at that time and have been a little detached from the Minneapolis scene ever since.  Which brings me to Seawhores.  They take a lot of what I like about the aforementioned noise rock bands of the 90's but don't really take themselves all that seriously either.  Opus Magnanimous is one song that, as the album title suggests, has this epic structure to it.  Much like Tusk's The Resisting Dreamer (see below) it's broken up into different movements.  Starting with a xylophone (or maybe it's a toy piano, I'm not sure) then rock to drone and back again.  So Seawhores have piqued my interest in Minneapolis again.  Does anyone have recommendations for any other current bands from Minneapolis?

Download

Hovercraft - Experiment Below (1998)

Hovercraft and Magnog (see below) both formed out of the break-up of a band called Space Helmet which I've never heard and never had any recorded material that I'm aware of.  The guitar player of Hovercraft and the drummer of Magnog are brothers apparently.  Hovercraft are much in the same vein as Magnog but not quite as lush. They are generally more chaotic than Magnog and became more well known (for better or worse) because of their association with Eddie Vedder.  Eddie was married to bassist Beth Liebling (AKA Sadie 7) and played drums on their first single under the pseudonym Jerome230.  So the band would tour with Pearl Jam and were exposed to a huge crowd that normally wouldn't even consider the band.  I personally think the Vedder connection really taints the work of this great experimental improv band.  I say this only because they really have no real similarities to Pearl Jam musically and got grouped into a scene they never belonged to in the first place.  So if you're a fan of space-rock of the Pacific Northwest (Jessamine, Kinski, Subarachnoid Space etc.) this album is what I would consider a classic.

Download

Wreckers Of Civilisation (2000)

Maybe this isn't the best place to write a book review but since it's music related it may be appropriate.  Actually it isn't even really a review especially considering I'm only about half way into the book.  But so far I'm just really intrigued by the story of these truly fucked up people.  Many of you are already familiar with Throbbing Gristle but that's only half the story.  The birth of TG evolved out of a performace art group called COUM Transmissions founded by Genesis P. Orridge (Psychic TV) and Cosey Fanni Tutti.  I'd never even heard of COUM until I was paging through this book at my local book store.  Their idea of "art" consisted of self-mutilation, ingesting bodily fluids, and group sex.  COUM would eventually enlist Peter Christopherson (Coil) and Chris Carter and would become TG.  Do I consider them particularly talented as artists or musicians?  Not really.  I know that much of COUM/TG's work was meant for shock value and whether it's really much deeper than that could be questionable, but it makes for a hell of an interesting read.  I'm not even that big of a TG fan to be honest, but what they were creating had never been done before and it's a interesting look into the the birth of Industrial music.  So maybe I'll come back to this and add more once I actually finish the book, but I thought I'd mention it to anyone who's interested in this sort of thing.  

Buy 

The Bark Haze - The Bark Haze (2007)

The Bark Haze is a side project of Thurston Moore's along with Andrew MacGregor (AKA Gown).  I guess it's fairly typical of Moore's more noise based side projects.  Just long improvised guitar freakouts.  I guess you either like this kind of thing or you don't.

Download

Teith - Oak City (2006)

Teith is a side project of Pelican guitarist Trevor de Brauw.  Teith are much more experimental and abstract than Pelican.  They're like a mix between The Dead C and Throbbing Gristle but with a little lighter touch.

Download

Final - 1 (1993), 2 (1996) & 3 (2006) (By Request)

Justin Broadrick's (Jesu, Godflesh) power electronics/drone/ambient project.  Technically this is his first band with the original demo tape made when he was only 11 years old.  For fans of Whitehouse or Throbbing Gristle.

Download

J. Spaceman - Guitar Loops (2006)

Guitar Loops is a solo album from Jason Spaceman of Spacemen 3/Spiritualized.  It's kind of a experimental guitar exercise more than actual songs.  It's one 35 minute track can go from an almost silent hum to a thrashing freakout with all kinds of weird shit in between.  It could maybe fall into the John Zorn/Tzadik kind of scene I guess.  This is for Jason what Colossus Of Destiny was for the Melvins.  I think a lot of people that like Spiritualized may hate this where as a lot of people that may not like Spiritualized might like it.  Or they could be like me who likes everything he does.  Just don't write it off after the first few minutes, I think it really needs to be listen to through it's entirety.  Then delete it if you don't like it.

Download

Gate - Lounge (1995)

Gate is Michael Morley of The Dead C's solo project.  It's even more loosely structured noise than most Dead C albums if you can imagine that.  So if freeform improvised feedback is your thing, this is for you.  If it's not, this may annoy the crap out of you.

Download