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

Duobetic Homunkulus - Cásti a Mechanismy Stroju (2006)

Here's a demo from a totally strange Czech death metal outfit. This band is ex-!T.O.O.H!, an excellent death/grind band whose albums I used to own until I lent them to some thieving idiot friend of mine. Anyway, this band is really weird and they fucking destroy. I don't know what else to say. This will fuck with your head. Eat some drugs and download it.

http://sharebee.com/f1204c44

By the way, these tracks were made available for free by the band because they're such nice guys, so buy their full length when it comes out soon!

Gong - Pre-Modernist Wireless: Peel Sessions 1971-74

First off, thanks to postcooksey for shame-kicking my lazy ass into restarting this once-stagnant blog. I have a slew of to-be-posted albums on my desktop, and it is time for me to get to work on them. Here's goes.

This album, which is actually not an album at all, compiles the appearances of trans-continental prog champions Gong on the legendary John Peel show on BBC Radio. Gong, a band of tripped-out fuckheads that is almost as famous for its bizarre mythology as for the idiosyncratic music it produced, show themselves here as a capable live act, with the songs losing none of their charm whatsoever without the playground of a studio (a common trait of late-60's sike, where production techniques often masked boring, by-the-book pop numbers as bold and experimental). In fact, what this set accomplishes is to demonstrate that for all the conceptual wonder-pinnings of their long-form concept albums, Gong wrote fucking great self-contained songs that hold up even without spoken-word interludes about 'pot-head pixies' and the like (not that there's anything wrong with that!). From acid-folk ('Magick Brother') to irreverent ska ('Clarence in Wonderland') and of course the cosmic anthem "You Can't Kill Me," Gong provides one of those rare listening experiences that feel like one has been temporarily transported into the mind of a lunatic, only to discover that it's actually a lot more fun than the so-called 'real world' (a dull waste of time, this author can assure you).

For those of you unfamiliar with Gong's studio output, you can find their essential first five albums over at Black Acid; as a hint, the band generally followed the era's transition from psychedelic to progressive rock, with their early works resembling an especially spaced-out take on late-60s psych, exploding into full-blown prog with the infamous "Radio Gnome Trilogy."

It seems to be out of print but you can find "Pre-Modernist Wireless" as a $45 import on Amazon, or opt for sheer musical piracy here.

Naked City - Torture Garden

Here's another old school Earache release. Fans of total mindfucking music are hopefully familiar with avant-garde multi-instrumentalist John Zorn, but if not here's an album of some of the most fucked up jazz(?) you will ever come across.

This pretty much defies classification. If I had to pin it down I'd call it jazz grind, but there's surf, country, and punk in here too. Also featuring horrific screams from Boredoms member Yamatsuka Eye, this is the perfect album to put on at a party after you've taken too many drugs and you want all the squares to leave.

1. Blood Is Thin - 1:00
2. Demon Sanctuary - 0:38
3. Thrash Jazz Assassin - 0:45
4. Dead Spot - 0:31
5. Bonehead - 0:51
6. Speedball - 0:37
7. Blood Duster - 0:13
8. Pile Driver - 0:33
9. Shangkuan Ling-Feng - 1:14
10. Numbskull - 0:29
11. Perfume of a Critic's Burning Flesh - 0:24
12. Jazz Snot Eat Shit - 0:24
13. The Prestigitator - 0:43
14. No Reason to Believe - 0:26
15. Hellraiser - 0:39
16. Torture Garden - 0:35
17. Slan - 0:23
18. Hammerhead - 0:08
19. The Ways of Pain - 0:31
20. The Noose - 0:10
21. Sack of Shit - 0:43
22. Blunt Instrument - 0:53
23. Osaka Bondage - 1:14
24. Igneous Ejaculation - 0:20
25. Shallow Grave - 0:40
26. Ujaku - 0:27
27. Kaoru - 0:50
28. Dead Dread - 0:45
29. Billy Liar - 0:10
30. Victims of Torture - 0:22
31. Speedfreaks - 0:29
32. New Jersey Scum Swamp - 0:41
33. S & M Sniper - 0:14
34. Pigfucker - 0:23
35. Cairo Chop Shop - 0:22
36. Fuck the Facts - 0:11
37. Obeah Man - 0:17
38. Facelifter - 0:34
39. N.Y. Flat Top Box - 0:43
40. Whiplash - 0:19
41. The Blade - 0:36
42. Gob of Spit - 0:18

This came out in like 1989 or 1991 or something... who gives a shit, I'm drunk.

EDIT: LINK FIXED
http://www.mediafire.com/?mfnd6s2yxps

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.

boomp3.com

boomp3.com

Get it here

Hans Arp, Raoul Hausmann, Kurt Schwitters - "Dada Antidada Merz" (2005)

When I came across it in Amoeba Records in Los Angeles, this compilation of poetry and spoken word pieces from three major contributors to the Dada movement was an offer I simply could not refuse. Although it was far more sparse than I had originally envisioned, I found myself entranced by their warped, brain-twisting take on verbal delivery and the recording medium itself. While I don't speak German or French, the two 'real' languages most often featured/referenced here, that didn't much detract from my experience of the works, which are focused as much on tonality and off-kilter timing as the semantic content to which they apparently correspond. To the these linguistically-naive ears, the result is like some kind of vocal free-jazz, a challenging and intruiging document of some incredibly challenging and intruiging 'artists.' Honestly, written description isn't going to do it here; you just gotta go with it.

Buy it

download here