37. Auralgraphic Entertainment -- Dreamies

Mojo Says: "52 minute psychedelic odyssey: the '60s aren't over yet."

Album: Auralgraphic Entertainment
Artist: Dreamies
Year: 1973
Length: 52'25"

Track Listing:

1. Program Ten
2. Program Eleven

Favorite Tracks:

1. Program Ten
2. Program Eleven

Worst Tracks:
I guess Program Eleven, if we wanna be technical. But I don't wanna be technical.

Is it weird?:
Nah.

Review:

There seems to be a concept that the writers and assemblers of this list don't seem to have a particular grasp on. Putting a bunch of noises and audio clips over your music doesn't automatically make it weird. It just makes it dense.

That doesn't mean that an album is bad, however. This album, for example, I quite liked. The very somber and hypnotizing music, along with the quintessentially-60s voice of Bill Holt is pretty good in and of itself, but what makes this album unique is the total lack of sunshine and optimism that permeated the psychedelic music of the previous decade. This album could only have been made by someone looking back on the 60s from a distance.

So, it doesn't really belong on a list like this, since Bill Holt does commit one of the cardinal sins of weird album-making by assuming he can get away with being "experimental" by adding random noises to his songs (much like Faust try to do on Faust IV), but it's still an enjoyable and pretty trippy listen. Try it.

Grade:

8/10

Listen:

38. Starsailor -- Tim Buckley

Mojo Says: "Folk singer as screaming mood instrument. Starsailor fans need not apply."

Album: Starsailor
Artist: Tim Buckley
Year: 1970
Length: 35'54"

Track Listing:

1. Come Here Woman
2. I Woke Up
3. Monterey
4. Moulin Rouge
5. Song To The Siren
6. Jungle Fire
7. Star Sailor
8. Healing Festival
9. Down By The Borderline

Favorite Tracks:

1. Monterey
2. Moulin Rouge

Worst Tracks:
Buckley's voice ruins basically every other song, though Jungle Fire and Star Sailor are especially grating.

Is it weird?:
Yes, but not in a good way.

Review:

I am tolerant of bad singers.
Captain Beefheart. Johnny Rotten. Les Claypool. Frank Zappa. 60's Bob Dylan. David Thomas. I love all of them, either despite or because of their bad voices.
But, even I, apparently, have a limit.

Tim Buckley, father of golden-throated music legend Jeff, is past my limit.
From the yodeling, to the shrieks, the whining, and the "impassioned" singing, it's all truly unbearable.

This album would've been mildly interesting if it were instrumental, but nothing is really worthy of praise. Innovative, maybe, but beyond being slightly challenging, there is little to enjoy about the music on any level. It's too weird for its own sake and doesn't manage to make anything legitimately entertaining.

And let me reiterate, these vocals are probably the worst I've ever heard. I was going to give this a 5, but I figured I couldn't really give it higher than a 4 when an album is actually physically painful to listen to. Maybe I'll give some of Tim Buckley's less experimental works a try at some point, but this was just really, really bad.

Grade:

4/10

Listen:

39. Boces -- Mercury Rev

Mojo Says: "Kosmic Katskills kombo unlearn the rules of rock music. Flutes are involved."

Album: Boces
Artist: Mercury Rev
Year: 1993
Length: 53'55"

Track Listing:

1. Meth Of A Rockette's Kick
2. Trickle Down
3. Bronx Cheer
4. Boys Peel Out
5. Downs Are Feminine Balloons
6. Something For Joey
7. Snorry Mouth
8. Hi-Speed Boats
9. Continuous Drunks And Blunders
10. Girlfren

Favorite Tracks:

1. Snorry Mouth
2. Boys Peel Out
3. Meth Of A Rockette's Kick
4. Hi-Speed Boats

Worst Tracks:
I'll cheat and say Continuous Drunks And Blunders.

Is it weird?:
Maybe it's the shock of this being the same band that recorded Deserter's Songs, but it's still pretty out-there.

Review:

6 years before Mercury Rev released the sublime pop perfection of Deserter's Songs, they put out this. I'm still trying to figure out how that's even possible. This somehow manages to be both noisy and beautiful (though it is not as good at this as, say, Loveless).

Many of these songs start out as sort of weird before ever-so-gradually sinking into the deep end. The best way I can describe this album is that it sounds like a more psychedelic and even denser version of Jesus & Mary Chain, especially Psychocandy.

This really is the perfect balance of music and noise, and it creates something that's challenging but that can also be catchy. In fact, the only major problem I have with the album is that the production leaves several songs sounding the same.

So yeah. Boces is cool.

Grade:

8/10

Listen:

40. The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn -- Pink Floyd

Mojo Says: "Underground goes overground in womb-spaceship to the stars."

Album: The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
Artist: Pink Floyd
Year: 1967
Length: 41'52"

Track Listing:

1. Astronomy Domine
2. Lucifer Sam
3. Matilda Mother
4. Flaming
5. Pow R. Toc H.
6. Take Up Thy Stethoscope And Walk
7. Interstellar Overdrive
8. The Gnome
9. Chapter 24
10. Scarecrow
11. Bike

Favorite Tracks:

1. Bike
2. Take Up Thy Stethoscope And Walk
3. The Gnome
4. Interstellar Overdrive

Worst Tracks:
Chapter 24 is mediocre.

Is it weird?:
Yep.

Review:

It's easy to forget how weird of a band Pink Floyd were. They had 14 albums, and they didn't have their breakthrough moment until Dark Side Of The Moon, album #8. Their first seven unjustly forgotten albums (though this one is probably an exception) range from almost satisfactory (More) to great (Atom Heart Mother, Meddle, and this record). While I would say that Ummagumma was much more experimental, this album ends up being much weirder.

Syd Barrett's personality shines through in all aspects of this record. He flips a switch from childlike whimsical songs about gnomes and scarecrows and sitting on unicorns to perhaps one of the most influential and iconic guitar freak outs in rock history so abrasive and abstract that it becomes numbing. This is not only the true birth of space rock, but the dense layers of sound on even the lighter tracks make this almost a precursor to the busy and dizzying mood changes found on new age and prog-rock.

So, if you only know Pink Floyd for their excellent later albums, definitely give a listen to Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. It may not be quite as excellent as Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, or The Wall (though that's basically comparing diamonds), none of those records really have the ability to alter minds quite like this one does.

Grade:

9/10

Listen:

41. The Second Annual Report -- Throbbing Gristle

Mojo Says: "Punk preached chaos and anarchy, but only TG truly achieved it."

Album: The Second Annual Report
Artist: Throbbing Gristle
Year: 1977
Length: 40'02"

Track Listing:

1. Industrial Introduction
2. Slug Bait - ICA
3. Slug Bait - Live At Southampton
4. Slug Bait - Live At Brighton
5. Maggot Death - Live At Rat Club
6. Maggot Death - Studio
7. Maggot Death - Southampton
8. Maggot Death - Brighton
9. After Cease To Exist - The Original Soundtrack Of The Coum Transmissions Film

Favorite Tracks:

1. Maggot Death - Brighton, and that's only because you can hear a short clip of the Stooges' Down On The Street playing at the end of the track.

Worst Tracks:
Slug Bait - ICA tries too hard to be shocking and disturbing, and fails.

Is it weird?:
Weird, yes. Important, yes. Remotely entertaining? No.

Review:

This is actually another near-birthday review, as TG's Cosey Fanni Tutti's birthday was yesterday, November 4th. That irrelevence aside, I can safely say that I will not be celebrating her birthday like I will be Wild Man Fischer's, and that is because I think that while Throbbing Gristle's contribution to music is important, the music itself is almost totally useless.

The record is too blunt to be creepy, too formless to be haunting, and too concerned with being weird for the sake of being weird that it really can't be enjoyed on any level. It's not scary, pleasant, and is too dense to be analyzed, so it can't be paid attention to. The next time someone tries to tell you about how this record was incredibly groundbreaking for the time, just take their word for it (they'd definitely be right), because you sure don't want to waste your time listening to it.

Grade:

6/10

Listen:

42. An Evening With Wild Man Fischer -- Wild Man Fischer

Mojo Says: "Frank Zappa unleashes the outsider artist's outsider artist on an unsuspecting world."

Album: An Evening With Wild Man Fischer
Artist: Wild Man Fischer
Year: 1968
Length: 82'36"

Track Listing:

1. Merry-Go-Round (This Is Larry's Theme Song, Sort Of)
2. New Kind Of Songs For Sale (Live On The Strip)
3. "I'm Not Shy Anymore!" (Larry Relives The Past In The Studio)
4. "Are You From Clovis?"
5. The Madness And The Ecstacy (Kim Fowley & Rodney Bingenheimer Provide An Introduction To, And Make Prophesies About The Future Of Wild Man Fischer)
6. Which Way Did The Freaks Go?
7. I'm Working For The Federal Bureau Of Narcotics
8. The Leaves Are Falling
9. 85 Times
10. Cops & Robbers
11. Monkeys Versus Donkeys
12. Start Life Over Again
13. The Mope
14. Life Brand New
15. Who Did It Johnny?
16. Think Of Me When Your Clothes Are Off
17. Taggy Lee
18. Rhonda
19. I Looked Around You
20. Jennifer Jones
21. The Taster (Fancy Version)
22. The Story Of The Taster
23. The Rocket Rock
24. The Rocket Rock Explanation & Dialog
25. Dream Girl
26. Dream Girl Explanation
27. Serrano (Sorrento?) Beach
28. Success Will Not Make Me Happy
29. Wild Man On The Strip Again
30. Why I Am Normal
31. The Wild Man Fischer Story
32. Balling Isn't Everything
33. Ugly Beautiful Girl
34. Larry & His Guitar
35. Circle
36. Larry Under Pressure

Favorite Tracks:

1. The Wild Man Fischer Story
2. Circle
3. Merry-Go-Round
4. Jennifer Jones

Worst Tracks:
Wild Man On The Strip Again doesn't do anything that New Kind Of Songs For Sale didn't already do.

Is it weird?:
There is no way that there are 41 albums on this planet that are weirder than this.

Review:

Can spoken word be music? I would normally say no, but in the case of this album, I'd actually say yes, mainly because the only way I can describe the majority of this album is "spoken music." Wild Man Fischer performs the original songs that he will sing while busking around L.A., and many are entirely a capella. There are even two tracks that are recordings of him singing these songs out in public. Even weirder than that, there are several tracks where Wild Man Fischer will just talk to the microphone, though it is surprisingly never boring.

That's really the best way I can describe this album: surprisingly interesting. I was skeptical as to how much I would be able to enjoy 80 minutes of a homeless paranoid-schizophrenic man singing mostly without accompaniment. But, I managed. I'm actually glad that Fischer's songs weren't tampered with by having him sing over instruments, as I think that would've totally ruined the mood of the record. It's a morbidly fascinating glimpse into the mind of a true outsider artist; one who is not only separate from mainstream music but society as a whole. At the end of the day though, this record does end up being more interesting than enjoyable or pleasant, and I doubt I will be listening to this regularly. But, I'm still glad that I did. None of the artists that Frank Zappa supported or produced for have disappointed me so far.

At first I thought I should wait and listen to this album tomorrow, since Wild Man Fisher's birthday is November 6th. But, I changed my mind, figuring that if I end up loving the album I'll be able to celebrate his birthday properly, since I would already be a fan. What ended up happening is that while I'm pretty sure that I'm never going to listen to this again, I'm so fascinated by it that I will celebrate Wild Man Fischer's birthday anyway.

Grade:

7/10

Listen:

43. Circles -- William S. Fischer

Mojo Says: "Mutant R&B from New York City's answer to David Axelrod."

Album: Circles
Artist: William S. Fischer
Year: 1970
Length: 36'12"

Track Listing:

1. Patience Is Virtue
2. Saigon
3. Electrix
4. Chains
5. There's A Light That Shines
6. Circle
7. Green Forever
8. Capsule

Favorite Tracks:

1. Patience Is Virtue
2. There's A Light That Shines
3. Circle

Worst Tracks:
Probably Chains, but it's not bad.

Is it weird?
Half of it (Electrix, Chains, Green Forever, and Capsule) is, and the other half really isn't. But it is really good.

Review:

Boy, am I a sucker for juxtaposition. There's just something about an artist or band not being afraid to make an album where one half is comprised of semi-regular R&B tunes and the other half is some of the most intense electronic experimentation this side of Kraftwerk (who had just barely formed when this was released).

This really shouldn't work on paper. There are so many different minds and visions put into the final product, and while this is obvious, this only works in the albums favor. I doubt there were many albums back in 1970 that could scratch as many musical itches as this album does: funk, R&B, chamber music, and experimental electronics; all in the space of 36 minutes.

I know it's kind of counterintuitive for such a weird album to be so immediately enjoyable, but it is. It's just a solid album all around, and I don't have a whole lot of negative things to say about it.

I took awhile, but I've reached an album I can see myself listening to for pleasure again. Finally!

Grade:

9/10

(Did I just review 4 albums in one day?)
(I did, didn't I.)

Listen:

44. Echo -- A.R. & Machines

Mojo Says: "German guitar guru's crazed journey to the centre of the instrument."

Album: Echo
Artist: A.R. & Machines
Year: 1972
Length: 81'55"

Track Listing:

1. Invitations
2. The Echo of the Present
3. The Echo of Time
4. The Echo of the Future
5. The Echo of the Past

Favorite Tracks:

1. None, really.

Worst Tracks:
There's nothing interesting enough about any particular track for me to point out a particularly flawed one.

Is it weird?
Eh, parts of it. But this album is too long for me to care about them. Plus, despite what Mojo would have you believe, none of the weird parts involve any guitar.

Review:

Rather than a normal review, I'm just going to make a top 10 list of the thoughts I had while listening to this album that best describe and encapsulate my listening experience:

TOP 10 LIST OF THE THOUGHTS I HAD WHILE LISTENING TO THIS ALBUM THAT BEST DESCRIBE AND ENCAPSULATE MY LISTENING EXPERIENCE

10.       "This is still going?"
9.         "There. It could've been stopped right there."
8.         "This is nice. I wonder when it's going to change."
7.         "Oh, it's just going to stay the same throughout? No key change, nothing? Wow. Ok."
6.         "DO SOMETHING ELSE."
5.         "No, no, no, not random mouth noises! Music!"
4.         "what could i possibly gain by listening to this"
3.         "This. Did. Not. Need. To. Be. 80. Minutes. Long."
2.         "Who is listening to this and says to themself, 'This is a masterpiece. Everyone must hear this'?"

and #1 is...

1.         "I hope this A.R. guy crawls out from his own ass and makes something interesting soon."

But he never did.

I normally would give a 6 if an album is boring but still musically competent, but this gets knocked down a peg below that because every track is about twice as long as it needs to be.

Grade:

5/10

Listen:

45. Naked City -- John Zorn

Mojo Says: "Genre-slashing 'compositional workshop' led by NYC jazz heretic Zorn."

Album: Naked City
Artist: John Zorn
Year: 1990
Length: 55'14"

Track Listing:

1. Batman
2. The Sicillian Clan
3. You Will Be Shot
4. Latin Quarter
5. A Shot In The Dark
6. Reanimator
7. Snagglepuss
8. I Want To Live
9. Lonely Woman
10. Igneous Ejaculation
11. Blood Duster
12. Hamerhead
13. Demon Sanctuary
14. Obeah Man
15. Ujaku
16. Fuck The Facts
17. Speedball
18. Chinatown
19. Punk China Doll
20. N.Y. Flat Top Box
21. Saigon Pickup
22. The James Bond Theme
23. Den Of Sins
24. Contempt
25. Graveyard Shift
26. Inside Straight

Favorite Tracks:

1. You Will Be Shot
2. Demon Sanctuary
3. The James Bond Theme

Worst Tracks:
None really stick out as bad, though the keyboards on The Sicilian Clan irritate me.

Is it weird?
It's Free-Jazz/Grindcore fusion. You tell me.

Review:

Free-Jazz/Grindcore fusion.

It sounds totally unfeasible, but if you think about it, these two genres have plenty in common (especially Ornette Coleman-style free jazz, who John Zorn actually made a cover album of). They are both fast, aggressive, and make the intensity of the music more important than the listenability. The extreme nature of both make them seem to be kind of looking at their source genres (jazz and metal, respectfully) from a distance. This album, however, is pretty far removed from even those styles.

The entire record isn't as aggressive as tracks 10-17, but it is equally insane. It's produced in a way that you can appreciate the noisiness of John Zorn's saxophone without it being piercing, and it can still be chaotic without it being as bewildering and impenetrable as Zorn's Ornette Coleman cover album that he released the year prior.

While there isn't a whole lot that this album does wrong; it doesn't get lost in its own pretention, it stays moderately listenable even when it goes totally off the deep end, and the musicians involved sound very tight and together despite the chaotic nature of the music. However, at the end of the day, there aren't too many instances where I'm in the mood for free-jazz/grindcore fusion.

Grade:

8/10

Listen:

46. Escalation -- Ennio Morricone

Mojo Says: "Wildly psychedelic opus to peculiar painted lady film."

Album: Escalation

Artist: Ennio Morricone

Year: 1968

Length: 29'43"

Track Listing:

1. Escalation
2. Dies Irae Psichedelico
3. Collage N. 1
4. Luca's Sound
5. Senza Respiro
6. Luca, Casa Londra
7. Matrimonio
8. Collage N. 2
9. Carillon Erotico
10. Primo Rito
11. Secondo Rito
12. Funerale Nero

Favorite Tracks:

1. Escalation
2. Collage N. 1
3. Funerale Nero
4. Dies Irae Psichedelico

Worst Tracks:
Luca, Casa Londra just has nothing going for it.

Is it weird?
If my understanding of Ennio Morricone is correct, then definitely.

Review:

I don't know too much about Ennio Morricone, other than he wrote film scores. A LOT of film scores. His Spotify page is so cluttered it's hard to find anything, it just has so much stuff on it. So, if this is his weirdest soundtrack, then well done Mr. Morricone, as this could easily be one of the weirdest soundtracks ever, at least for the time period.

It says something that even the relatively accessible stuff on this album I have a hard time imagining being played during film, maybe with the exception of the last track. The songs range from the seemingly innocuous but slightly off title track to 5-minute-plus guitar drones to tracks of someone making noises with their mouth, and the whole thing is just really bizzare. However, the more experimental tracks don't add to the enjoyability of the album, as they seem formless and dull.

Still, this was an entertaining listen, and though I imagine that this would work much better playing over a film, it still works on its own as a pretty good and decently off-putting in its weirdness.

Grade:

7/10

Listen: