Themed Mix - Bellydancing-ish

Ohh...it's been quite awhile since I last posted something to Substix. Or made a mix of any sort for that matter, so today I bring you Bellydancing-ish, which is a mix with the objective of bringing together tracks which could potentially be suitable for the purpose of bellydancing - many could be said to be 'arabesque' or Indian-tinged, while there are also tracks which simply have a somewhat avant-garde rhythm and beat which coincide with the theme. Dead Can Dance and Siouxsie are often considered staples for "gothic belly dance", while Ofra Haza is probably the closest to legit bellydance music - everything else I was going on my own intuition and possibly practice. Onwards!

Cover art is taken from Josefina - Nico Nelson on Flickr (a Creative Commons image).

Various Artists - Bellydancing-ish

---Tracklisting---
1. Siouxsie and the Banshees - "Follow the Sun"
2. Shocking Blue - "Love Buzz"
3. Nine Inch Nails - "14 Ghosts II"
4. Damon Albarn - "Reedz"
5. Danielle Dax - "Timber Tongue"
6. Beastie Boys - "Eugene's Lament"
7. Ratatat - "Mumtaz Khan"
8. David Bowie - "Yassassin"
9. The Who - "Disguises"
10. The Fall - "Theme From Error-Orror!"
11. Koji Kondo - "Marina Research Laboratory"
12. Danielle Dax - "Ostrich"
13. Ananda Shankar - "Dance Indra"
14. Siouxsie and the Banshees - "Silly Thing"
15. Ofra Haza - "Im Nin Alu"
16. Dead Can Dance - "Indus"
17. Nico - "Into the Arena"
18. Siouxsie and the Banshees - "Lunar Camel"
19. Koji Kondo - "Lethal Lava Land"
20. Dead Can Dance - "The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove"

V/A - The Beginner's Guide to Thrash Metal

Presented here for your pleasure is a sterling and succinct introduction to the original thrash metal movement, by one of my favourite music fans on the web and stalwart/sugar daddy/patriarch of the Musicbanter forum. Thrash was initially a California-centric scene but was quickly indebted to the East Coast and Western Europe in particular; with bands surfacing worldwide like Brazil's influential Sepultura. This compilation not only covers the greatest bands of thrash that are perhaps lesser-known to casual listeners (i.e. not the Big Four), but it carries great import as the root of just about all the metal that would come in the ensuing decades.
Here's a thorough documentary-retrospective of the whole thing (stream works as of 24/01/10).

What follows is the comp as it was presented on the forum in June '09.


This is more of an introduction to a genre and hopefully some of the younger members might like it and see where the multitudes of metal sub genres came from initially. Thrash was a massive shot in the arm for metal as the NWOBHM was burning out along came Thrash with it's Metal roots influenced by Punk and Hardcore. All the tracks on here are pre 1990 and I have purposely excluded the big 4 here ( Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer,Anthrax). I have also seen 7 of the bands live although that is just me showing off! enjoy please!

1. Death Angel-Evil Priest
Recorded in '86 and released in '87 this bay area band are one of the most influential bands in the Thrash scene and not bad for a drummer who was only 14 at the time! lyrically this is bloody awful cliched crap but that bass line in the middle and the subsequent accelerating guitar riff is nothing short of stellar.
2. Vio-lence-Phobophobia
If you are wondering it's fear of fear! Vio-lence never really got the attention that they deserved probably due to Sean Killians vocal style which many found ill fitting amidst their razor sharp riffs. This track has plenty of riffs jostling for attention yet it is still streamlined and tight as! Guitarist robb flynn went on to front a little band called Machine Head!
3. Testament-Burnt Offerings
Outside of the big 4, Testament were always the fans favourite and it could be argued that theirs is the quintessential Thrash sound. Again lyrically terrible, it makes up for that in the twin guitar muscular riffs and it remains a Thrash classic.
4. Sepultura-To The Wall
For many the band never recaptured the raw power of their second album Schizophrenia from which this track is taken and this awesome track backs that up. Brilliant raw production and the stupendous drum work of Igor Cavalera make this another absolute classic and not nearly heralded enough amidst the bands later success's.
5.Kreator-Stream Of Consciousness
Always one of the rawer bands in the Thrash fraternity and a band that's live power has never been captured well on vinyl at all which was a shame as the efficient riffing and vocal power of Mille Petrozza has always given Kreator a unique sound. Love the openeing riff that bounces off the bass drum pattern.
6.Sabbat-The Best Of Enemies
How I love that intro with the bass guitar and double bass drum punctuated with that guitar riff. Sabbat where always a band not quite of their time and if they were around in the 70's i swear that they would have been a Prog band! Musically they were very different from the usual sound and employed lots of time changes and unusual vocal techniques. Dreamweaver is another album that needs reappraising.
7.Mortal Sin-Mayhemic Destruction
Mortal Sin were unusual due to the fact that they were from Australia (hardly a mecca for Thrash) and the fact that they were unashamedly old school thrash. The same titled debut album suffered from bad production and the band fell into many cliches on the album. However this track showed their potential and really cements it's place here with it's change of pace and awesome riff that kicks in at 2:50. It remains one of my favourite Thrash riffs ever.
8.Dark Angel-No One Answers
The main stop start riff on this track is still absolutely fucking mental and still sounds heavy as hell even today. Dark Angel began life as a cliched speed/Thrash band dabbling in the usual Satanic/morbid lyrics but they changed tack with this album. Lyrically very powerful. It dealt with child abuse and it's devastaing effects on the young. It's a shame about the faster parts as the production cannot quite keep up with the band and it sounds a little murky. That riff is still worth it. Amazing.
9.Meliah Rage-Impending Doom
A bit of a cheat here as Meliah Rage were essentially a power metal band that jumped on the Thrash bandwagon and occasionally on their debut (from which this is taken) reached some great heights. The track is built around a number of excellent riffs and changes in pace that warrant it's inclusion.
10.Nuclear Assault-Brain Death
Epic.Epic.Epic. Although Nuclear Assault took their influences from Punk and Hardcore, the first 3 albums are beloved in Thrash scene and the bands ability to keep that raw edge coupled with Dan Lilkers ridiculously fast bass work made them a live favourite ( I managed to catch the band twice in 4 days in different cities and I managed to hang with them on the later date). This track is worth it for the brilliant middle section that begins at the 3:40 mark and is a perfect send off for my intro to ya all!

Megadeth 'Rust In Peace' (1990)

Well, this has been a long time coming. You can find this on a thousand blogs with the click of the mouse, but if I'm to share my favourites then it would be dishonest to omit Rust In Peace.

RIP is considered to be the album where Dave Mustaine truly got his revenge on ex-bandmates Metallica, by producing an album that was faster, more complex and more political than anything they could ever manage. It is also inarguably the apex of thrash metal (a California-born meeting of punk rock and heavy metal of the early 80s) and contender for the greatest metal album of all time, in any subgenre.
To the uninitiated - i.e. those who have no interest in 'The Metal' - this may well just be the same old noise, but I defy you to test it and not appreciate the musicianship and compositional skill involved.
I've never been a metalhead per se, but I find extreme metal subgenres therapeutic, thrash metal in particular has the speed and density, and is the primary language of the headbanger. In the 80s this was the perfect antithesis to dumb/hedonistic, poodle-haired AM metal... although as you can see above, painful trousers and effeminate coiffures remained.
Neither have I ever been one for instrumental virtuosity and guitar histrionics for the sake of it, which makes my appreciation of this album all the more special.
The thick-and-fast solos of dual guitarists Marty Friedman and songwriter/frontman Mustaine on Rust are never tedious; it's as if they agonised over every note. It's incredibly progressive, with time and key changes that leave you reeling - for a classic example see what happens around 2:48 on 'Hangar 18'. 'Holy Wars' is a breakneck suite and two-pronged reflection on religious fanaticism and crusades - the sort of track that may have happened had old prog guard been born in time for the hardcore punk movement and the First Gulf War!

... And I will hold up my hands and admit that some of the lyrics here are f*cking awesome. There are the occasional, obligatory/corny ones about wizards or Satanism; but this is thrash metal so the main points of order are grinning fascists, government wars, obliteration, conspiracy, social control, religion - nothing that far removed from reality, really.
I always thought the intentions of the 'Big Four' bands of thrash (Anthrax, Megadeth, Metallica and Slayer) were sound; taking a firm anti-war stance and calling out hypocrisy and corruption - albeit in a ham-fisted manner - and often extending this into the realms of farce for our tongue-in-cheek enjoyment.

MERCY KILLINGS
Classic interview

Death 'For The Whole World To See' (1975)

Recorded by the three brothers Hackney in 1975 but bafflingly left unreleased until last year, Death (not to be confused with the equally trailblazing death/technical metal pioneers of the 80s) left us a mere 7 songs, but what epic and prescient statements they were!

They started as an R'n'B outfit before changing tack - embracing hard rock and the proto-punk of other Motor City originals like the Stooges and MC5 - whilst, to my ears at least, retaining the soul and social conscience of early 70s African-American music.
The result resembles a sound at once like Bad Brains and hardcore punk five years before the fact, with an unmistakable Detroit groove barely contained in a strait jacket of outrage: that of social outcasts trying to comprehend the senseless prejudice and apathy of the world around them. If this all sounds a bit too angsty and sincere to you then you'd do well to remember that this is rock music and getthehelloffamypage.
Now, the Bad Brains comparison isn't just some handy euphimism for all-black (so-called Afro-punk) groups of the 1970s, but one for the political approach and wide range of moods that both bands evoked over the majority of their peers within a raw punk framework. The album begins like any other Detroit garage group, presaging the Dirtbombs et al. Track 2 is spookily H.R, or even the 'black New York Dolls' Pure Hell. However the songs hereafter become lengthier, incorporating time changes and introspective lyrics; there are echoes of Curtis Mayfield's funk, the soul and rhythmic gospel seemingly compulsory for Detroit and even the jaded 1970s psychedelic hangover.

Ahead-of-their-time cuts like 'Let the World Turn', 'You're a Prisoner' and 'Politicians In My Eyes' ought to have reached the nascent punk subculture and become bonafide classics, but they didn't. Death self-released one 7'' single - these recordings having been funded by Columbia Records - and were swiftly dropped after refusing to compromise with a friendlier band name. Now is your chance to hear what a generation missed out on.

Alb'm
Afro-punk doque

Various Artists 'Paket aranžman' (1980)

I love the energy of this album - it's taut and (I think it's safe to say) political like a lot of post-punk, but all the more worthwhile for the harsh social conditions under which it was produced. For all the gloom of the Eastern bloc, these groups sound like they were having fun, and the short but flawless career of Šarlo akrobata (of whom I am a big fan) exemplifies this: occasionally ska-inflected bursts of punk-inspired expression that would make for an interesting socio-historical study.
Šarlo clearly share their art school sensibilities with English contemporaries like Gang of Four, Wire et al; but if you had grown up in an environment shrouded behind the Iron Curtain, I think you might have more immediate priorities than artists in the 'free' world - who more often than not are met with a wall of conditioned ignorance or apathy. There is a sense that this is music that is truly reflecting a heavily oppressed generation that, having been spurred by the anarchic freedom of the punk movement, is struggling to not only free but to find itself and its role in this strange limbo-world.

This urgency in the music, occasionally tempered by bleak resignation, invokes all the usual Cold War imagery I somewhat romanticize in my head, so this little summary could only be positive coming from that perspective... And Paket aranžman is as perfect a snapshot of a time and place as one could hope for. However I think for the post-punk connoisseur and Europhile there is more to be had here. Only the three foremost Yugo Rock groups are featured, but they cover a lot of ground and only leave you dying to know what the lyrics are saying, particularly in Idoli's passive 'Amerika' (are they cynical, reverential?). The New Wave/Two Tone movements had obviously taken hold in Serbian record shops, the kids were doing the jerk to Costello, XTC, the Specials and producing music with the same tight rhythm sections and jagged guitars.

Here are some sample videos to help give you some idea of what these guys thought about life under leaders who were little more than Soviet puppets... note the mocking of Sov social realism in Idoli's Maljčiki video. SHOW PAPERS AT CHECKPOINT.

Sound wise, it's not 'lo-fi' in the conventional sense, some songs are endearingly ramshackle but no worse than a typical penniless Western group making do with a cheap studio. The difference here is that the music mattered. It mattered to a youth mired in the conflict and prejudices of their parent's/grandparent's generation - both Soviet and internal. It is scant comfort to know that things were only going to get worse - events of the ensuing decades would claim the lives of a few of the musicians featured on this record, including the drummer and frontman of Šarlo Akrobata.

Wiki:
'Paket aranžman is a New Wave music compilation album released in 1980 by Jugoton and is one of the most important and influential records ever made in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It features the eminent Belgrade artists: Šarlo akrobata, Električni orgazam and Idoli. Along with Novi Punk Val and Artistička radna akcija it is considered a symbol of the Yugoslav New Wave era and still has cult status in the countries that emerged after the breakup of Yugoslavia. The album was voted the second best Yugoslav rock album of all time by the critics. It is second only to Odbrana i poslednji dani by Idoli.'

LINK: http://www.mediafire.com/?2k2jzyyegur

Янка Дягилева 'Стыд и срам' (1991)

Link

The definition of a 'lost' classic. Russian 'punk poet' Yanka Dyagileva's sorrow is beautiful and heartbreaking. The dissonant rumblings of cheap electric guitar introduced here on some tracks makes this, like all 'final statements', prophetically unhinged and disturbing. The foreknowledge of her spiralling depression, alcoholism and the increasing bleakness of her lyrics haunt the listener throughout.

This short album is bookended by painful exorcisms, 'Выше ноги от земли' and 'Придет вода'; both are lengthy songs with more than one passage, and both transmit an indescribable angst (especially if you don't speak Russian), although these titles should give you some idea: 'The Water Is Coming', 'Higher Than My Feet Above the Ground', 'Of Devils'...
Cracked lullabies, a recurring broken music box and an endearingly shambolic delivery reflect an innocence lost, never to be regained, and the sort of fatalistic, self-destructive philosophy that permeates the art of those under the Mighty Red Boot. We are even treated to a minute or so of Yanka's *swoon* spoken word and *gasp* an organ solo!

The title translates as Styd i Sram, or Shame and Reproach, and is Yanka's final self-released record before her suicide in Siberia, in 1991, within months of recording these songs.
In Soviet Russia you were simply not allowed access to studio facilities unless you were bland, state-authorised un-music. Yanka's vagrant lifestyle, travelling around Russia in collectives playing to the counterculture crowd, was the only means by which a dissenting artist could make themselves heard - at grassroots level. As such the Russian political folk underground was largely inspired by Bob Dylan and other Western minstrels, as well as rock 'n' roll and other impassioned forms of music that were frowned upon. Indeed, many of Yanka's contemporaries faced arrest without trial (and in some cases even torture) for their stance.

To those in the know, Стыд и срам is a punk-folk classic, although parallels could be drawn with the concurrent grunge and lo-fi scenes emerging in America. However none of those artists knew anything of the true tyranny, cultural suppression and hardship that Yanka did; and the melodies bear no resemblence to anything Western.

It's such a shame there has been no comprehensive translation of this bohemian heroine's lyricbook, as the folk-poet element is lost on non-Russian speakers... But if you are interested there are dribs and drabs of information, and all her home-recorded albums and bootlegs are free to download here: http://store.yanka.lenin.ru/mp3/Prodano!_89/

Shout to Proskynesis for introducing me to this a while ago.

The POWDERED COWS AND THE TOY THROAT ALARM CLOCK - s/t (2009)

Right, a bit of a break from the norm here as this is not an album share; but I've included a few streams for you to peruse whilst you deliberate on taking the monumental risk of actually paying FIVE POUNDS for an excellent record by a lovely person whom, in all certainty, deserves the money.

Powdered Cows is the solo alias of multi-instrumentalist songwriter Martin Roberts, resident of the rolling hills and sweaty crevices of Dorset (this is an important factor as we shall find out).

Compared to the playful noise-jazz chaos of one of Martin's many group projects, Skitanja, the Powdered Cows output is predominantly of the introverted, reflective indie-folk variety. I'm crap at hearing lyrics, but based on the artwork and song titles this album is inspired by very late nights and the 'blissed-out' (as a friend recently put it) atmosphere of the countryside in the South West. It's my belief that the closer to nature you are, the closer you are to the essence of life, and this is reflected in the Powdered Cows listening experience, which is quite ethereal. 'Descent From Animals'.

From track to track the permeating sound is hushed and reverential, even when things take a darker turn it's as if Martin were staked out at 3am with Bill Oddie, waiting for a badger to emerge from its burrow. These references to nature shouldn't be misread as New Age philosophy either - think more along the lines of British Sea Power, a pastoral Englishness and celebration of peaceful life, with a dash of spirituality.

A lot of work has gone into the production, and each track is layered with instruments, synths and samples of all kinds: woodwind, strings, trumpet, drum machine, accordion, toybox, to name but a few. It's the sound of a musical collector bringing his toys out of the loft to play.
But what really ties this record together for me are the sound samples and the hissy gramophone-like effect on many of the tracks. We hear birds crowing, what sounds like pattering rain throughout 'Eyes of Knives', radio static, a kick-drum that almost recreates the sound of a record skipping on 'Little Red Lilly Beetle', and a denouement that, appropriately, reminds one of the 'Lonely Man' theme...

Every song is legitimately catchy, but it's easy to overlook this amidst the homespun, secretive ambience of the album, which is only punctuated in the first half by Angus Rudd's driving drumwork featured on such tracks as 'Hidden Tapes'. This actually rocks in a subdued, post-punk way and is one of my favourites on here; with an intro that sounds like a processed organ feeding back, and a highly satisfying Doctor Who tone in the chorus.
The Doctor Who tangent might also take us, by way of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop (also featured here) to the 21st century's Ghost Box label and its esoterical manifesto of mysticism and the paranormal; a thread that I feel Powdered Cows picks up on, at least in spirit.

Hear some tunes, and possibly purchase them. http://www.myspace.com/powderedcows
Last.fm, free downloads. http://www.last.fm/music/The+POWDERED+COWS+AND+THE+TOY+THROAT+ALARM+CLOCK