I Found A Star On The Ground

So the Flaming Lips made a 6 hour song.

As a longtime fan I am horrified, annoyed, and yet..  far too curious not to listen.  I’m over halfway through the first hour and thinking this hasn’t been any more a waste of time than any other new music from a great band I could be hearing.  In other words, I’m glad I dove in.  In all likelihood you will be too.  It’s the only sort of trippy space adventure you’d expect to last so long.  Listen below.

The Flaming Lips – I Found A Star On The Ground

Part 1 / 3

Part 2 / 3

Part 3 / 3

The story goes that band leader Wayne Coyne was playing with some psychedelic toy and thought, if this one device can provide hours of entertainment, why can’t a song?  Hence the astounding, ridiculous length of this piece.  For the increasingly preposterous band – already known for their gummy skulls, fetuses, and assorted collaborative gimmicks this year – it’s not such a leap toward releasing a quarter-day song.  Let’s face it, if you’re already on their weird train, you’re psyched about this.

The USB stick containing the music is in there somewhere.

Having heard almost a third of this I can report that it’s basically a version of their Embryonic-era dirty ambient krautrock jams, stretching ever deeper into a black hole.  It stretches as it goes on and folds in a few new wrinkles along the way.  I won’t speculate as to where it goes in the next two segments but I can imagine if you enjoy the first 10 minutes, consider it a keeper.  Fucked up way to get our attention aside, this is actually fun.  Let me know if any of you have purchased the hallucinogen accessory kit pictured above.

The Psychic Paramount – II

So I know I’ve been sluggish this year with Optimistic Underground.  I relish being able to share the music enriching my life with you.  I hope to rectify this laziness starting now, with The Psychic Paramount and their (hopeful) breakthrough album II.

I had this whole through-line about jet engines and surgical instruments and LSD and This Heat and Les Rallizes Dénudés and Miles Davis and cathartic volume levels…  but I got caught up, slack-jawed and blasting this album again.  It’s almost like a psychedelic brillo pad, carving clear my thought channels and surrendering my body to oblivion.  A therapeutic breakdown of cogent narrative, this thing blasts away the outside world and disconnects me, sets me free in a way only the most blissed out Lovesliescrushing or hard droning Boris album can.  It strikes an unknown sweet spot, defying gravity while splaying my brain with crushing heft.  Crucial to this power is the flawless production, zooming in on every microscopic detail yet capturing the panoramic magnitude these songs inhabit.  A dizzying high wire act of wide-eyed clarity, this album satisfied me in places only a fellow Swans or John Coltrane or Fennesz fan would recognize.

Second track DDB, opening with one of the more gentle passages on II, grows like marshmallows in the microwave, devouring 9 minutes in a wild-fire.

While I’m dropping names, I should mention that if you like Boredoms, Eternal Tapestry, Lightning Bolt, Fushitsusha, or anything within orbit of those bands, you will find yourself punch drunk and melting to this album.

[Released by No Quarter, the album is available at the label's page for only $11 on cd or vinyl.  So get it there.  Listen to the free stream while you wait.]

Best of the Rest of 2010

My Best of 2010 was basically an attempt to carve my musical experience of the past year down to its most essential, most ingrained elements.  An attempt to sum up the music I feel had the largest impact on my listening, on my life.

I left out a lot of great albums.  Thankfully, they were drawn from a text file kept on my desktop throughout the year, chronicling each album I decide, at a given moment, is awesome.  Yes, it’s that simple.  As time passes I remove the fleeting infatuations, anything not holding up.  So I’m left with a solid list I can refer to in search of everything I really, truly enjoyed this year.  This is it, in order I heard them.

• Bullion – Say Goodbye To What EP

• Four Tet – There Is Love In You

• Arrington De Dionyso – Malaikat Dan Singa

• Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra – Kollaps Tradixionales

• Autechre – Oversteps

• Gorillaz – Plastic Beach

• Erykah Badu – New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh

• Ikonika – Contact Want Love Have

• Take – Only Mountain

• LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening

• Boris – Heavy Rock Hits Vol. 3
  

• Connect_icut – Fourier’s Algorithm

• Janelle Monae – The ArchAndroid

• Rollo – 3

• Yellow Swans – Going Places

• Sightings – City of Straw

• Guido – Anidea

• Lorn – Nothing Else

• Teebs & Jackhigh – Tropics EP

• Infinite Body – Carve Out The Face Of My God

• The-Dream – Love King
  

• The Sight Below – It All Falls Apart

• Deepchord Presents Echospace – Liumin

• TOKiMONSTA – Midnight Menu

• Oneohtrix Point Never – Returnal 7″

• Scuba – Triangulation

• Sepalcure – Love Pressure EP

• Imbogodom – The Metallic Year

• Singing Statues – Outtakes EP

• Flying Lotus – Patter + Grid World EP

• Seefeel – Faults EP

• Mark McGuire – Living With Yourself

• Efdemin – Chicago

• T++ – Wireless

• Gold Panda – Lucky Shiner

• Deerhunter – Halcyon Digest

• Balam Acab – See Birds EP

• Gonjasufi – The Caliph’s Tea Party

• VHS Head – Trademark Ribbons of Gold

• Marcus Fjellström – Schattenspieler

• Zach Hill – Face Tat

• Games – That We Can Play

• Zs – New Slaves

• Fenn O’Berg – In Stereo

• Richard Skelton – Landings

• James Blake – Klavierwerke EP
  

• Fursaxa – Mycorrhizae Realm

• Dimlite – My Human Wears Acedia Shreds EP

• Kurt Weisman – Orange

• Clubroot – II MMX
  

So there it is.  Something to remember is that any one of these albums may end up defining the year as much as the ‘true’ list – and that something I haven’t even heard yet may best them all.  It’s happened before.  This is why Optimistic Underground will soon post its first Music From Before 2010 But Discovered This Year list.  This will cover the much wider range of music I was into this year, since there is already much more music out there than is being released at any given time.

[This post is subject to change.  Like I'll probably add one or two more by January.]

Boredoms – Voaltz/Relerer

Boredoms are one of the greatest living bands on the planet.  Here is an obscure, tangential testament to that unavoidable fact.

This highly evolved tribal psychedelic rock juggernaut exists on their own terms, in their own world, above and beyond the perceptions and ambitions of mere mortals.  Frontman Yamantaka eYe is reported to be at least 200 years old and fueled entirely by advanced nuclear photosynthesis – not to mention a mould-shattering, epoch-defining musical genius.  Birthed in the chaos-as-art nebula of 1980′s Osaka, Japan, Boredoms grew from noise-assault pranksters with more than a hint of potential to the Weird Kings of the original Lollapalooza with a little help from American fans Nirvana and Sonic Youth in merely half a decade.  Eternally restless, they next entered the experimental cocoon of Super Roots, emerging at the tail end of the 1990′s as a sun-worshipping tribal-drone-trance monolith, devouring lesser bands and bridging the gap between primal violence and avant garde jazz like an acid-frenzied Colossus of Rhodes.  Throughout the current decade, the band has danced extensively with electronic manipulation and outright reconstruction through eYe’s increasing flirtation with DJ culture, and Voaltz/Relerer is one of the many joyous, dance-floor ready permutations they’ve birthed lately.  Consisting of percussion-centered tranced out remixes of two tracks included with the Live At Sunflancisco DVD, this 12″ rarity is essential listening for anyone with even a passing interest in the band; or anyone still reading for that matter.  Give it a spin (via the album artwork above) and try resisting the sorta exorbitantly priced copies available below.

(Special thanks to Ackibear for bringing this to my ears!)

 

[highly sought after and extremely rare, this 12" can be procured on the discogs marketplace and few other sources]

Between My Head and the Sky

Yoko Ono.  Divisive to many, divine to few.  And a patron saint of confident weirdness to certain odd souls, myself included.

Somewhere between the end of The Beatles and the death of John Lennon, Ms. Ono transcended her famous personal life with a now-signature form of artistic expression which has burrowed its way into the collective psyche of the art world at large through the past four decades.  Spinning off from the demented twin Plastic Ono Band albums her and John made in 1970, Ono’s velocity tore through krautrock, noise, and primal scream histrionics on the towering double album Fly, cementing her royal status among experimental music circles.  Since that landmark she’s made everything from underground club hits to sappy world peace ballads, outsider art projects and off-Broadway musicals, and on to 2007′s collaborative disc Yes, I’m A Witch, in which her work was reinterpeted by a menagerie of modern artists including The Flaming Lips, DJ Spooky, and Porcupine Tree.

As it turns out, her infectious single Walking On Thin Ice, an amazing slice of disco-motorik swagger from 1981, and the monstrous, willfully difficult (though highly rewarding) Fly are the greatest touchstones for this new album.  Reclaiming the Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band moniker for the first time since John was around, and enlisting not only the help of their son Sean but also Japanese electronic chameleon Cornelius and Yuka Honda (formerly of Cibo Matto along with Sean), Yoko Ono has unleashed her best work in decades, if not ever.  And I’m beginning to lean towards “ever.”

Combining the skittering, nervous percussion and extended minimalist stomp of propulsive freakouts like Mind Train with a concise ear for pacing and texture, these tracks tickle pleasure centers in opposite parts of the brain simultaneously:  the vigorous thrill of flying off the rails with a mad scientist of noisy pop and the soothing coo of a mother’s lullaby approaching some previously unknown singularity.  Equally esoteric and life-affirmingly prosaic, she spreads vibes of goodwill and peace as effortlessly as a storm dropping rain.  At 76 years old I believe the grand matron of avant garde pop has earned the right to express elegantly simple platitudes about life in whichever manner she sees fit.

Apparently what she sees is a rollercoaster journey from tribal percussion through minimal dance grooves toward parting clouds and the sunshine of a resigned, reserved, and sighing happy heaven where she views her lifelong love awaiting.  John (insert your own idea of love, bliss, etc) is out there, she seems to be happy to share, and letting go is a step toward attaining true peace and becoming one with this idea.  But as asserted in the final 20 seconds of the album, I’m Alive! – she’s not finished with her time here.  The fact that a satisfying end is within reach, and death is no longer a fear, doesn’t change her defiant nature.  Standing up to legions of naysayers for decades has certainly not dulled her edge, and this declaration following the string- and piano-laden final stretch of the album serves as a jolting reminder.  There are few artists in the world so polarizing, but for those on the right side of the fence, there are few so rewarding to both the head and the heart.  And the sky.

[pick this up at insound, amazon, or the Lennon-Ono family run chimera music store, on CD or vinyl]

Zach Hill – Astrological Straits

Zach Hill, one of the most prolific and varied modern drummers, has been involved with bands ranging from Hella, Nervous Cop and more,  to collaborations with Rob Crow and even left-field electronic artist Prefuse 73 on their combined Diamond Watch Wrists project.  In 2008 he finally unleashed his own solo debut – and to the surprise of many, it’s much more than the masturbatory percussion fetish expected when drummers go solo.  Instead we’ve got a progressive psychedelic mind-warp of a journey from fractured hard trance grooves to massive Black Sabbath-style epics to splintery noise jams, all wrapped up in a free-jazz melange that keeps shifting underfoot, subverting expectations as the ride moves along.

Starting with what sounds like an air raid siren filtered through a vocoder, Astrological Straits is forthcoming about the pressurized sonic onslaught being unleashed.  Despite avoiding the obvious perceived pitfalls about a percussionist’s album, the skins are beat mercilessly right out of the gate:  pummeling, shredding, and outright assaulting his set is what the man’s become known for, and he doesn’t disappoint.  The surprising element is the very arrangements themselves – sometimes moving in expectedly grandiose directions, sometimes twisting into a weird techno-jazz-crunch where the drums submit to the gathering maelstrom and become one with the mix.

Speaking of that mix:  for this album Hill enlisted the help of Tyler Pope (!!! and LCD Soundsystem), Marnie Stern, No Age, his own Hella bandmates, Les Claypool and many more interesting players.  This may give a hint as to the breadth and scope of the album, but certainly not its direction.  Growing from a jumbled, crushing stop-start tentative seed to Boredoms-inspired tribal hypno-grooves, through noise-pop freak-outs, then straight off the planet into a prog-funk-metal-fusion jam that ends the album over 9 breathless minutes.  It’s this restless enthusiasm for change and the ebb and flow of energy which clearly displays Mr. Hill’s jazz underpinnings.  He may be oft compared with high energy percussionists like Brian Chippendale of Lightning Bolt but his head (and prodigious ability) lies in another realm entirely.  This is so much more than impressive musicianship; it’s a new world being ripped open by an intellectually primal beat explorer.  I’ll leave you with a quote from the man himself:

Q: What’s in the future for you? Where are you headed?

A: I want to change the world of my instrument in a large way.  I want to get to the highest place with my instrument that I can possibly get and change the instrument for the better.  I want to innovate.  That ‘s what I set out to do and that’s what I’m going to do, whether anybody’s paying attention or not.”

- Modern Drummer, August 2006

[get your hands on this overlooked gem at boomkat, insound, and of course amazon]

Black Dice – Broken Ear Record

Black Dice are one of the most interesting noise fetishists of this decade, crafting everything from burned out near-ambient soundscapes to rumbling sample-melting inverted party anthems – all with a jagged outré sensibility about how songs are crafted.

Imagine aliens descending on the earth eons after humans abandoned it.  The cities are crumbled and in an attempt to understand us, they rebuild everything – not as originally intended, but the way they imagine it to be.  The bits and pieces are placed together via extraterrestrial logic, ignorant of the traditions and established methodology of physical construction on this planet.  The result is something utterly fascinating and strange, with underlying familiarity in its makeup but complete disregard for the way this long-gone race decided things should be.

Then imagine the aliens are the members of Black Dice, and the cities are a thousand shattered records lying on their studio floor.

Broken Ear Record starts off with a deep brass thump, nearly the last recognizable instrument, and proceeds along through a wiggly, pulsating river; occasionally jarring, the overall effect is trance-inducing.  Smiling Off continues this with a more rhythmic pounding and crescendoing structure thoughout its 9 minutes.  The rest of the album springs from the opening duo’s template, adding percussion, subtracting the drift, and working itself into an occasional frenzied burst of cathartic melody.  Oh, and it’s dancey too, in a sorta flailing-seizure-in-a-metal-body-cast way.  There is something truly hypnotizing about this particular beast; it’s like a full giant computer full of instruments rolling downhill until all the crunching and bending and chaotic crashing coalesces into a consistent beat that becomes a straightforwardly pleasant listen.  One only has to surrender to its will and give it some time.  By the end of the second track, its claws will dig in.  By the end of the finale, Motorcycle, they’ll be down to the bone.  Understanding and bewilderment attained in the same wild instant.

Believe me, I was a doubter at first.  Now I can’t stop the momentum.

[get this album, with its attendant awesome cover art, at amazon or boomkat or for vinyl also boomkat or (oddly enough) cdmarket]

A.R. Rahman – Dil Se

A.R. Rahman is, simply put, one of the most thrillingly inventive, widely adored, and extremely prolific composers of this generation.  His fortuitous partnering with director Mani Ratnam birthed numerous undeniably addicting musical gems, my favorite of which is shared here:  the throbbing, kinetic masterpiece Dil Se.

Bursting out the gates with the indomitable pounding of Chaiyya Chaiyya, we’re barreling through a jungle of sweltering beats and woozy strings on an unstoppable freight train of rhythm.  Angelic vocals swoop through the mix on every track, a skyward rush of male and female dancing in perfect interplay – so evocative that even without knowing the lyrics, the feeling is transmitted directly to the pleasure centers of the mind and heart alike.  Every one of these six pieces is a celebration unto itself, a massively choreographed and exotically passionate extravaganza.  When this record crests its apex with the near-title track Dil Se Re, prepare for liftoff and hang on.  From the first massively echoed drum stab through the final climax of gravitational percussion, soaring vocals, Michael Jackson-esque handclaps and herky-jerky basslines, cloudbursting keys and swooning string section – honestly, excitement is a pale imitation of the words needed to conjure the overwhelming feel.  Bouncing from one peak to the next, the album relentlessly works to please, and succeeds on all fronts.  It simply must be heard.  And that’s why we’re here.

Clocking in under 40 minutes, Dil Se is a rush of emotion and movement, passion and power.  When the final notes of Satrangi Re fade out we’re left breathless and dazed, and ready to start the journey anew.  Join the fun.  Get on the train.

[grab this sweet glass of paradise and drink it in at amazon]

ROVO – Pyramid

ROVO.  Readers of my previous post about this galaxy-shattering band, the gravitationally powerful Mon, know that I’m beyond crazy for them.  It’s more of a physical and spiritual impulse at this point.

The “man-drive trance” outfit has evolved from what was (mistakenly) believed to be a side project for Boredoms guitarist Seiichi Yamamoto into a pre-eminent percussive juggernaut with a genre all its own and a die hard fan base ever eager for further permutations of their uniquely pulsing energy signature.

Pyramid, released in 2000, is a single 43 minute track situated neatly between the more obviously electronically enhanced early sound and the more sophisticated, minimal, and directly hands-on appoach ROVO has flowered into.  As expected, the incandescent electric violin of Yuji Katsui rides the tidal groove with astonishingly fluid precision while Yamamoto’s six string mastery prods and propels his bandmates while providing crucial textural detail.  It’s uniquely jovial in a gentle free-jazz manner for a good portion of its running time, with meandering horns and  keys dancing unfettered until the rhythmic force pulls every building block inevitably toward a torrential avalanche of tribal motorik ecstasy.  The arc may be predictable, though never any less than thrilling when the band hits their warp drive lock-groove stride and rides the ensuing momentum into a rapturous eargasm.  It’s a space ship jumping to light speed, the stars stretching forward eternally, minute after blissful minute.

Surrender  full attention and be rewarded accordingly.  And then some.  And thank them personally while you’re at it.

[difficult to track down due to its original rarity and out-of-print status, i've found this album at jpophelp, or used copies at amazon (for an exhorbitant minimal price of $61) and amazon.jp (for ￥3,730 - under $40)]