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Brothers of Briar

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Else Marie Pade & Jacob Kirkegaard - Svævninger 2013 - if you've ever been interested in minimalism, but have had little success getting into it, maybe try this album. This is tonal minimalism, while most often you'll run into harmonic minimalism. That's how I differentiate it anyway, and maybe I'm guilty of splitting hairs. When you have work like you'll find with JLIAT, Charlemagne Palestine, La Monte Young, Hermann Nitsch, Phill Niblock et al; you run into drones that either actually shift harmonically or trick the mind into feeling shifts. This kind of album doesn't strike me like that. There's some mind-altering stuff here, but I don't think it finds its success through harmonics. The tones are rich and composed in a way that your mind locks into them. Really, it's the same result as with harmonics, but the path is different. The final track, only found on the CD, ventures off into a sci-fi feel. This album is new to me, and it already feels like a standout and eventual classic.

King Crimson - Discipline 1981 - two things: 1) my goodness do I ever dislike that stick thingy that guy plays, and I would love to have heard these songs with just a regular old bass and no stick 2) within the first 60 seconds, you pretty much get most of the makings of Les Claypool.

King Crimson - Beat 1982 - I understand Fripp would disagree with this, but I like this better than Discipline - this album is rhythm heavy, and I like it.

King Crimson - Three of a Perfect Pair 1984 - by the time I was here, this iteration of KC made a 3-minute song seem REALLY long - I do like the mostly instrumental side B though, and the two Industrial Zone bonus tracks on the 2001 reissue are also interesting.

*I don't know if it is that I don't like Belew's voice or the combination of his voice with the period's production. I definitely don't like the production, but his voice and the stick and the production. It's a trilogy of irritations.

King Crimson - Red 1974 - I've never been a fan of this like so many are, so I haven't listened to it that many times over the years, yet instantly recall every note. I guess that says A LOT about an album when it can set in your mind so quickly. Not that I don't think it is a good or deny its revolutionary impact. This is one of those albums that if you criticize it, some people lose their marbles, as if you killed their dog, maimed their child, and spit in their parents' faces.
 
OTR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over_the_Rhine_(band) have been pottering on the work bench today for a few hours and actually cleaned some pipes and other stuff and listened to OTR playlist as recommended from you guys and really enjoyed it (y) Also put on some dire straits and Lenard skynyrd brought back some good memories and vibes (y)



 
OTR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over_the_Rhine_(band) have been pottering on the work bench today for a few hours and actually cleaned some pipes and other stuff and listened to OTR playlist as recommended from you guys and really enjoyed it (y) Also put on some dire straits and Lenard skynyrd brought back some good memories and vibes (y)




Ah good ole Southern Rock, it stands the test of time.
 
Conrad Schnitzler - Con 1978, aka Ballet Statique 2014 - I'm not finding it anywhere, but this had to be, at least in part, responsible for techno. I know how haphazardly krautrock, and early electronics, are labeled as proto music of various styles and genres, but this has to be in the technosphere somewhere? Admittedly, I know little about techno, so maybe that's why I'm not finding any chatter about the connection. And don't let that dissuade you from giving this album a shot. It's not techno. But I didn't listen to this because of any of that. The Red Cassette was released in 1973, the same year as his classic first album Rot, and other than a tape reissue in 2015, this particular edition of Con/Ballet Statique is the only way to get it. To make it more complicated, it didn't actually come on the CD. You got a code to download it (it's common now, but I'm not sure how common it was in 2014). Buying the CD gave you access to the Red Cassette if you wanted it. Red Cassette is two 30-minute tracks of minimalism and repetition. When you downloaded it, you got those two tracks and another track with one side in the left channel and the other side in the right channel. It's weird that this tape has never been reissued on CD, or even some bad edit on vinyl, but then for it to be accompanied with the tracks combined like that? I don't know if Schnitzler just doesn't like it or what. This guy is prolific and doesn't have the greatest of batting averages, but when he was on, he was ON. He's fascinating. Every time I listen to the tape, I end up writing some nonsense like this about it. It's a mindbender.

* "Zug" from Con is a variation on the first track on Red Cassette

**by prolific, he had a private series of nearly 900 CDRs and/or cassettes (only available from him). I don't know if he dedicated himself, as a challenge, to sit down every day to record something or what. Whatever the exercise, was it self-imposed challenge? Was it purely an experiment? Was it to give himself something to sell to pay the bills and nothing more? I have no idea about the motivation or why he did this. I've heard tens of these, and not one of them was all that great. Nonetheless, they do give insight into an artistic mind. They are interesting insofar as following along with an artist doing their thing.

*** I was wrong above. I forgot about the album titled Zug, which was an edited version of Red Cassette to fit onto a picture disc LP. "Zug" the track, from Con (Ballet Statique) is still another matter. So, there's an album called Zug and a track called "Zug", which is Train when translated from German, and if you listen to this track, you know exactly why it is titled that.
 
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