Meet the Beatless from September 28, 2012

James Blackshaw - The Cloud of Unknowing
Julianna Barwick - Flown
Brian McBride - Supposed Essay On The Piano (B Major Piano Adagietto)
johnny_ripper - House
VGA Host - Hatch
Pauline Oliveros - Horse Sings from Cloud
Anthony Braxton - Dedicated to Ann and Peter Allen
Julius Eastman - Evil Nigger
Kaki King - Frame
Arvo Pärt - Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten
Carl Stone - Banteay Srey
Aerial M - Always Farewell

LISTEN / DOWNLOAD

Track 1 from The Cloud of Unknowing (Tompkins Square, 2012)
Track 2 from The Magic Place (Asthmatic Kitty, 2011)
Track 3 from The Effective Disconnect (Kranky, 2010)
Track 4 from soundtrack for a film that doesn't exist (s/r, 2011)
Track 5 from Copper Lemon Zinc (direct download; ilkae, 2005). RIP Walter Carpenter. You are missed.
Track 6 from Accordion and Voice (Important, 2007)
Track 7 from For Alto (Delmark, 1970)
Track 8 from Unjust Malaise (New World, 2005). Read more of Eastman's extraordinary story on fellow composer Mary Jane Leach's website and in Kyle Gann's liner notes to this near-exhaustive compilation.
Track 9 from Legs to Make Us Longer (Red Ink, 2004)
Track 10 from Tabula Rasa (EMI, 1998). Played by the Bournemouth Sinfonietta.
Track 11 from Mom's (New Albion, 1992). Also seek out the album, if only to read this great piece on the title track and to marvel at the fact that it was made in 1992.
Track 12 from As Performed by... (Domino, 1997)

The Chicken Man Returns from September 21, 2012

Do Make Say Think - When Day Chokes the Night
Frearson Howe - You Will Be Mine, Mr Frankenstein
Fake Limbs - Balding But Angry
Full Toilet - Keys, Wallet, Phone, Gun
Sax Ruins - Zurna Taksim
Men's Recovery Project - E-Mail Is A Men's Room
Georgia Fife & Drum Band - Why Sorrow Done Passed Me Around
Madison County Senior Center Singers - Wasn't That A Mystery
Glen Francis - All My Days Are Numbered
Warcloud - Ghost Pirates (Old Los Angeles) feat. Skarekrow
Blockhead - Tools of the Industry
Screaming Females - It All Means Nothing
Petra Haden - Cuckoo Clock
Mika Vainio - Magnetosense
Bruce Springsteen - Atlantic City
A Silver Mt Zion - For Wanda

LISTEN / DOWNLOAD

Track 1 from Goodbye Enemy Airship The Landlord Is Dead (Constellation, 2000)
Track 2 from Bad Brain Call. lyrics by Annabel Frearson, from the work of Mary Shelley; music by Joe Howe; vocals by Julia Scott
Track 3 from Man Feelings (2012)
Track 4 from Full Toilet (Sub Pop, 2011)
Track 5 from Yawiquo (Ipecac, 2009)
Track 6 from The Golden Triumph of Naked Hostility (Vermiform, 1998)
Tracks 7 and 8 from Fire in My Bones (Tompkins Square, 2009)
Track 9 from Jamaican gospel compilation Noah Found Grace (Social Music Records, 2010)
Track 10 from Nightmares That Surface from Shallow Sleep (Skarekrow Music, 2002)
Track 11 from Interludes After Midnight (Ninja Tune, 2012)
Track 12 from Ugly (Don Giovanni, 2012)
Track 13 from Imaginaryland (WIN, 1999)
Track 14 from Fe₃O₄ - Magnetite (Touch, 2012)
Track 15 from Nebraska (Columbia, 1982)
Track 16 from the album He Has Left Us Alone but Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace the Corner of Our Rooms... (Constellation, 2000)

I Might Have A Whole New Life Next Time You See Me from September 14, 2012

Jesco White - This First Dance
earthtone9 - Wolverine Blues
Death Grips - @deathgripz
Brown Bag AllStars - The League Of Intoxicated Gentlemen
KEEPBULLFIGHTING - Finally Decide
Y La Bamba - Juniper
Marine Research - Parallel Horizontal
Laura Rivers - That's Alright (Since My Soul Has Got A Seat Up In The Kingdom)
Divorce - Horseheads
Can't - Too Shy
Arthur Collins - The Preacher And The Bear
Screaming Females - Something Ugly
Lois Maffeo - Davey
Satellite High - 1-800 Suicide
Weird Paul Petroskey - Pay For Your Tacos Quickly And Securely
Rev Lonnie Farris - Peace In The Valley
Anna Fermin & The Trigger Gospel - The Box It Came In
Jesco White - Whole New Life Interlude
Pharoah Sanders - The Gathering

LISTEN / DOWNLOAD

Intro and Track 18 from the PBS documentary Dancing Outlaw (1991)
Track 2 is an Entombed cover available when you pledged to et9's new album campaign on Pledgemusic
Track 3 from Adult Swim's singles series
Track 4 i really wish i remember where this was from.
Track 5 from the album Summer '08
Track 6 from the album Lupon (Tender Loving Empire)
Track 7 from the album Sounds from the Gulf Stream (K)
Track 8 and Track 16 from the great 3CD rare gospel set Fire in My Bones (Tompkins Square)
Track 9 from the "Horseheads/Whiskey Shoes" 7"
Track 10 from Jessica "Can't" Rylan's early blown-out easy listening CD Can't Vs. The World. More on the great story behind this disc at the WFMU blog
Track 11 from Mac's 2012 WFMU premium Hits of the Acoustic Era. Probably still available for a station donation.
Track 12 from Ugly (Don Giovanni). i've got a lot of love for Marissa Paternoster's voice
Track 13 from Butterfly Kiss (K)
Track 14 from sort-of covers record Sing Along With Satellite High, "the exact opposite of... dorks on youtube play[ing] rap songs on acoustic guitar"
Track 15 from Medically Necessary and also Weird Paul's greatest hits record 25 Lo-Fi Years
Track 17 from the Wanda Jackson tribute comp Hard Headed Woman
Track 19 from Elevation (Impulse!)

 See you next time!

Hosking's Consisto from September 7, 2012

i haven't blogged for hundreds of thousands of years, and so in the next few weeks i will attempt to share a bunch of old stuff that i have done and not written about in that time. Starting in reverse order, here's some notes about a new mix.

---

i haven't got a regular radio gig at the moment, so i've started uploading weekly mixes with Mixcloud.

Because Mixcloud has a useless 1,000-character description limit, i can't provide the proper notes that i want to, so i'm going to post them here. Here's the first, for Hosking's Consisto. Download it here.

"Hosking's Consisto" was an amazing phrase thrown up by Captcha.

Track 1 from Fire EP.
Track 2 from Humansuit.
Track 3 from Flame Griller.
Track 4 from BRICKHOUSE.
Track 6 from ...Invade Poland
Track 7 from the pretty creepy, given how the story played out, but musically pretty good LP He's Able.
Tracks 10, 11, 16, 17 from Bill Mac's 2012 WFMU premium A Cappella Is Not An Ice Cream Flavor
Tracks 12, 13, 23 from Irwin's 2012 WFMU premium I Want to Be a Singer.
Track 13 is astonishing for a song written by a 10- and an 11-year-old. The full album is well worth checking out. i dare say both of those WFMU premiums are probably still available for a donation to the station.
Track 14 from Riots Not Diets Why Diet When You Can Riot? riot grrrl/queercore/etc. compilation
Track 18 is part of a longer track recorded live at The Old Hairdresser's in Glasgow in May 2012.
Track 20 from Chrome Lips.
Track 21 from Beagle Powered mixtape.
Track 22 is a Velvelettes cover from 555 Recordings' You Gotta Get More Alive compilation.

You can Google anything else for yrself. Thanks to all the artists for being gr8

An important thought

"What i'm enjoying lately, and i only remember one of them off-hand, but i keep coming across aphorisms that you hear all the time and then you find you loathe when you really think about them. One of them is the Benjamin Disraeli¹ quote – "anyone who is not a liberal when he is young has no heart, and anyone who is not a conservative when he is old has no head." And my thought is, when you start creating pithy little aphorisms to justify heartlessness, you already know you've wandered off the path of righteousness."

– Dylan Brody, in WTF Episode 78

¹ More often attributed to Churchill, but actually a misattribution in both cases.

Dissonance Corp. 2011 Annual Report

in 2011 i:

helped drove a rock band around Germany. went to America. made peace with London, went to Leeds a lot.

signed on way too many times. got A Proper Job. moved out, moved on, moved city.

saw my cousin marry her high school sweetheart. saw my awesome sister graduate uni [hi Fee]. lost a grandma.

reconnected with some amazing old friends, met some excellent new friends both IRL and OTI.
met some rad internet people IRL [hi Jesse, Ruby Kid].

graduated journalism school seemingly just as the industry caves in on itself [hi Newsies].
went to a series of excruciating job interviews [ask me about the one where i ended up talking about Skrewdriver].

continued to learn and unlearn a load of important stuff.
didn't protest awful shit enough.

developed flash crushes on way too many beautiful & awesome women both IRL and OTI [hi... no, not telling you].

started a new radio show. released two fantastic records by three artists [hi Liam, hi Arran [+Dicks]] and reached a year-end Top 50 list in a music magazine i really like [tho Not Here was robbed imho].

read some books, watched films & TV, saw some art. listened to a shitload of fantastic music, didn't actually hear that much bad music at all. saw some amazing live shows, including someone i've been waiting about 13 years to see. embraced poptimism.

didn't play enough [any given musical instrument]. bought a trumpet. started writing a rap album. helped film a music video. formed a band [hi El].

ate some great food, ate prolly way more really shitty food, drank enough coffee to poison a town's water supply.
continued to be pretty unhealthy. discovered i actually really like olives.

engaged in too many Herculean struggles with my own mood swings.

didn't blog enough. tracked the amazing rise of the Horse_ebooks phenom. did my bit to make a washed-up '90s alt-rock singer eat 2 dozen eggs on YouTube. went mildly viral tweeting about a Beefheart/Bono kerfuffle.

ran up the back of a minibus in traffic.

found a stray dog, returned the dog. sat next to a dog in church. saw some great fish and other marine life.

wore various enjoyable hats [favourites: ushanka; Yankees cap; mushroom]

plans for 2012: stop being quite so desperately unhealthy; rejuvenate this blog and get back into writing about music more; release about 5 more records; hopefully meet a load more rad people; generally get my weight up in all ways except literally.

shout out to everyone i love and everyone who loves me.
and if 2012 doesn't bring about that much-vaunted Mayan apocalypse i'ma start the shit myself.

"I wish a rock guy would cover an R&B song. That way I could learn that underneath
all that popularity and blackness there's something great." ~ Jesse Thorn

Ahahahaha

Nice one, Leona. A+ trolling of all those metal/punk/rock groups and fans that still think pop/R'n'B covers are hilarious and novel i.t.y.o.o.l. 2011.

Anyway, this version doesn't sound any worse to me than Reznor's painfully teenage original (he was nearly 30 years old when The Downward Spiral came out) or Johnny Cash's curiously-revered-but-nonetheless-drab-by-his-high-standards take. Actually, if you're gonna do a song this laughably bombastic and self-regarding, it strikes me that big stadium-pop production, clunking cardboard-box snares, melodramatic vocal dive-bombing, and artificial string sections are by far the most honest ways of approaching it.