Burning Minds presents...GAY SCIENTIST RECORDINGS

First, apologies for the defunct state of this blog, hoping to get it started back up when I return to Oakland after a summer working on farms.

In any case, I am posting today to announce that myself and a friend have started a diy recording label, Gay Scientist Recordings. In line with the Burning Minds ethos, we plan to release works in a variety of media by artists pushing the boundaries of what has come before them, but here you can expect a particular focus in the realm of doom, powerviolence, black metal, hardcore, and noise.

I won't harp too long cuz you can here more about what we are doing at the website, but I will take just a moment to hype our first release. After back-cataloging the at-times infamous Kentucky Fried Doom/Sea Legs split cassette Gorekraken Bongdirge as GSR #000, we are ever-so-siked to be releasing the U.S. version of Urarctica Begins, the debut release from Montreal's crusty doomsters Ensorcelor. You can stream the entire EP on the GSR site but since I know some of you are lazy fucks I've posted the first track in its entirety below. Enjoy, my beloveds.

01 A Crown of Smoke on the Brow of the Earth

Nocturnus - The Key

For my first contribution to this blog (swill has been on me to post for a while but I'm a lazy stoner), here's one of the most insane and atypical death metal albums ever released. Does this album belong on Burning Minds? Not sure, but theres no doubt it completely fucks my brain.

Anyway, Florida band Nocturnus released The Key in 1990 on Earache. Vocalist, drummer, and main songwriter (!!) Mike Browning had played earlier in Morbid Angel, a far more well-known Florida death metal band. DM from this region was exploding in popularity during this time, but Nocturnus never quite got the exposure of peers like Obituary, Death, or Morbid Angel. It certainly isn't due to inferior musicianship, so I suspect that it has more to do with the fact that this album is fucking weird.

First of all, Nocturnus was basically the first death metal band to use keyboards - this may not seem terribly novel eighteen years later, but it was definitely new and innovative in 1990. The song structures on here are more complex than your typical DM release and there is an absurd amount of soloing everywhere that's pretty much guaranteed to shred your head. This disc also has very unconventional lyrical content. While Satanist themes remain, the band has an unheard of sci-fi angle to their blasphemy - The Key is a concept album of sorts about a cyborg sent back to year zero via time machine in order to kill baby jesus and head off the rise of Christianity. Pretty hilarious and cool if you ask me... and just look at the fucking badass cover art. I love it.

01 - Lake Of Fire 05:04
02 - Standing In Blood 04:20
03 - Visions From Beyond The Grave 04:09
04 - Neolithic 04:51
05 - Undead Journey 04:16
06 - BC/AD (Before Christ/After Death) 04:57
07 - Andromeda Strain 03:42
08 - Droid Sector 04:21
09 - Destroying The Manger 06:09
10 - Empire Of The Sands 06:27

You can pay 50 bucks for it on amazon or download it free here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=DP0YD28I

Various Artists - Extreme Music from Africa (2001)

A mixed bag of harsh noise and other electronic wierdness compiled by William Bennet of seminal noise posse Whitehouse. While the anonymous nature of these songs along with the extreme obscurity of their performers makes such claims almost impossible to confirm or deny, I've heard accusations that these pieces were actually produced by Bennet himself and dolled up as 'African' in a crass marketing ploy. If so, kudos to Mr. Bennet for his sharp (if evil) mind as well as his prolific talent, but the variety of styles explored within would seem to suggest otherwise. Either way, the music(?) here is pretty excellent across the board, and manages to keep momentum even across a number of relatively-similar drone pieces. If you think this compilation embodies the imperialist tendencies of 'world music,' you'll love its follow up, the equally tokenizing Extreme Music from Women.

Available via PayPal from Susan Lawly.

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Electric Wizard - Come My Fanatics... (1996)

The album that took doom metal out of the caverns and into the stratosphere, Electric Wizard's Come My Fanatics is an absolute shit-storm, rumbling through one's bones with enough force in a single riff to induce multiple unplanned trips to the bathroom. If you thought you'd heard an overdriven bass guitar before coming across this album, think again; EW draw from subsonic influences including supernovae, continental drift, and the tortured cries of the imprisoned god Loki to produce a toxic rumble so heavy it will move your subwoofer several feet across the floor. Fusing impossibly fat, smoked-out blues with a Satanic take on the kosmiche style pioneered by bands such as Amon Düül II and Can, Electric Wizard occupy a metalliverse all their own, often copied but never equaled.

For more E-Wiz, including 2000's excellent Dopethrone, check out Anthem of the Space's collection here

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allmusic

Buy it

Try it

Boris and Sunn O))) - Altar: Complete Edition (2006)

A collaboration to end all heaviness, 2006's Altar sees the wedding of two of metal's most hallowed names, American drone/doomers Sunn O))) (for the uninitiated, yes, it's just pronounced 'Sun') and Japanese sludge psychos Boris (who awesomely derive their own name from a song off the Melvins' 1991 album Bullhead). Another exploration in the pseudo-genre of 'power ambient' neologized by Sunn-sters Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley, the set here merges the former band's moody doomscapes with the latter's awesome sense of tonality and texture to produce some of the prettiest and most trying heavy music you're ever likely to come across. The 'complete edition' I've put together here includes every track from the Southern Lord and Inoxia Records versions for a whopping nine songs clocking in at over 90 minutes. A record to be listened to at high volumes and in low light.

allmusic

Awesome photos from a live performance of Altar

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Buy here (direct from Southern Lord)

D/l link here

Aural Fit - Livestock (Tokyo, 2004)

Another lucky internet find for yours truly, Aural Fit embody just about everything I seek in music, an insanely heavy, sludgedout headfest meant strictly for fucking minds. On this live album from 2004, the blues are lit aflame and then shredded through layers of bellowing squeal, descending into harsh, psychedelic noise before being twisted back into AMT Cosmic Inferno-like jams. Not for the faint of heart.

myspace

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Melvins - Lysol (1992) + Houdini (1993)

Two classic slabs of steaming riffage from WA grunge godfathers The Melvins, Lysol and Houdini stand as two especially high points in an all-around stellar career, the former representing the band's heavy, sludgey excess while the latter (partially produced by, and featuring, none other than Kurt Cobain himself) shows the groups twisted pop sensibilities. Since making these albums, the two main Melvins (drummer Dale Crover and guitarist/singer King Buzzo) have cycled through a number of bassists, and the currently consists of a four-piece with the addition of Karp's Jared Warren and and drummer Coady Willis (formerly of the Murder City Devils). I'll be seeing the Melvs for the third time in about as many months on Dec. 30th, and if they come to your town you probably should too; the tandem drumming alone makes them one of the best acts around right now.

allmusic: Lysol // Houdini
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