Sho'nuff Grooves Vol.2

I recently put together another mixtape for the night me and my good friend Macky are responsible for. Its basically us playing all the stuff we like while drinking cocktails and showing a whole host of awesome cinematic treats on a big screen. People get drunk, play air bass and dance in front of images of women being hacked up and dudes being dudes. Its pretty fun.

Sho'nuff Grooves Vol.2

The mix features a pretty good cross section of everything we touch upon, Kiss, Oingo Boingo, The Time, Joe Tex, Stevie Wonder, NWA and loads more. There is also a Sho'nuff Grooves Vol.1 available here.

Nihilist - Demo Collection (2005)

Not the actual Nihilist

The actual Nihilist

Before Entombed and Unleashed, there was Nihilist. These guys never recorded anything other than a few demos and a 7" single before calling it quits in 89 ( or they disbanded and reformed under the name Entombed due to not liking Johnny Hedlund, leaving him to form Unleashed). Thankfully someone decided to knock this compilation out in 2005 which compiles all the demos and recordings the band managed to produce. Included within is a Repulsion cover as well as Entombed's original demo. Bathe in the sweet, rough hewn, barbaric, late 80's death metal storm.

Nihilist - Demo Collection

Koreisch - This Decaying Schizophrenic Christ Complex (1999)

I once listened to this album four times in a row. It was the only tape I had on me during a particular stressful and long winded public transport nightmare back from Sheffield after a Nile gig. Being the days when I had a Walkman, the batteries started going near the start of the fourth play, this album sounded even more horrific at half speed.
Koreisch sounded horrific to start with. A piercing wall of feedback, droned samples ( little girls reciting holocaust figures, extracts from Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes and Naked) and then the ragged blasting and sudden tempo shifts into distorted dirges of ringing noise punctuated by the harsh screaming. This album is more a ritual or trial to listen to, something to better yourself with.
Originally this surfaced out of the north of England on Screams Of Salvation, I do have an original copy around somewhere, and got a repressing and remastering by Calculated Risk back in 2004. Neither pressing ever sold very well from what I gather and Koreisch disbanded and moved onto In The Clear and The Kervorkian Solution. The download below is the remastered 2004 edition.
In a similar way that Today Is The Day make horrific noise as a way of dealing with life and to reflect there world view, so do Koreisch. Its a world view of complete failure and misanthropy.

Koreisch - This Decaying Schizophrenic Christ Complex

Mutant Video - Head Scan (2011)

MUTANT VIDEO - PARKING LOT from john lukeman on Vimeo.

Been digging this lots recently. Lo-fi, dark synth sounds for a film that John Carpenter needs to make. Pretty sure its some people involved with the mighty Iron Lung that are also involved in this. Information is pretty scarce but I like that. This has been soundtracking my dark, early morning rides to work.

Mutant Video - Head Scan

I acquired this at the always awesome Terminal Escape. Its a treasure trove of awesome underground rumblings and well worth a browse.

Fabio Frizzi - City Of The Living Dead/The Beyond Soundtrack mixtape (1980/81)

Everyone knows Goblin. Of course you do. Goblin are awesome. They are generally the first name when you think of 70's/80's Italian cinema's defining composers. Just behind Goblin ( and in no way inferior) though was the one man genius of Fabio Frizzi.

As a frequent collaborator of Lucio Fulci he is responsible, in my opinion, for a lot of the atmosphere Fulci had in his films. The theme from Zombie Flesh Eaters set to the shot of the undead shambling across the bridge into Manhattan was a pretty important image from my youth. From there, I began investigating the world of Italian cinema and horror. The first call, via the patronage of Necrophagia, was The Beyond. Closely followed by The City Of The Dead. I can safely say I have never looked back since. So to celebrate the awesomeness of Frizzi's work here are both these soundtracks zipped up. I would highly recommend the films themselves. Alongside other Fulci gems like Manhattan Baby and the afar mentioned Zombie Flesh Eaters.

Fabio Frizzi - The Beyond/City Of The Living Dead OST Mix

Queen - Flash OST (1980)

I had a nice long post written about how awesome Queen are and how this movie was one of those that I always ended up watching when I was kid after taping it off TV. But I decided against all that because its obvious Queen are awesome isn't it? Its obvious Flash Gordon is a sweet movie? So those two elements combined would be awesome? Case in point below.....

Queen - Flash OST

Busta Rhymes - When Disaster Strikes..... (1997)

So while I was left reeling by the announcement that Busta Rhymes wouldn't be playing Shonuff in the upcoming remake of Berry Gordy's, 1985, cinematic milestone The Last Dragon ( the part is taken by Samuel L Jackson! Why? Of all people?), I got listening to his albums for the first time in years as a way to console myself over this blow. Busta always had a different angle to most of the other turkeys in the mainstream rap game. Up until the early 2000's you could always rely on him for something odd and slightly left of the game. The album below, When Disaster Strikes.... and its follow up Extinction Level Event were the soundtrack to a full year of my misspent college adventures when I was younger. The version below is the repress that removes the slightly lumpen Survival Hungry track and replaces it with the Knightrider sampling, floor filler Fire It Up. In turn, a reworking of the album track Turn It Up.

Busta Rhymes - When Disaster Strikes.....

more RAM - S/T (1996)

A brief but beautiful little burst of noise. Post-Hammerhead, Paul S knocked out this 7" with fellow noise traveller Matt Entsminger. The four tracks contained revel in their stripped down. clanging, noise rock glory. Its basically a given that if you like any of the guys previous bands ( once again I don't trust anyone who doesn't like Hammerhead or Janitor Joe) you will dig this long lost treat.

more RAM - S/T

Power Glove - EP1 (2010)

Perfect for sound tracking a rain swept, smoke filled, neon blasted drive through a future city sometime in the 1980's or fighting vampires/zombies in the club from Terminator while attack helicopters strafe your ass.

The Australian duo responsible for this ( who may or may not be lawyers from the future) have this EP and the second one available for free download online. They also had the track "Hunters" remixed by another electro duo, Lazerhawke, and included in the movie Hobo With A Shotgun. The scene when the Plague rampage through the hospital, that's Power Glove ( not to be confused with 8-bit covering metal band Powerglove).

Power Glove - EP1

Bonus high five for who can recognise which film they sample at the beginning of "Night Force"!

Ron Grainer - The Omega Man OST (1971)

A fine piece of original scoring for you today. The full soundtrack to the second ( and my personal favourite) film version of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, the Charlton Heston starring The Omega Man.
Grainer worked on a lot of TV and film music, even helping compose the famous theme to Doctor Who, and was very progressive in the use of strange sounds and electronic musical instruments. The Omega Man uses these odd effects but also balances them with uptempo, almost psychedelic rock, glimmers of folk and some very stirring orchestration to soundtrack Chuck Heston's running fight with "The Family". I won't recap the film as its been adapted four times for the big screen, my favourite posted here, the 1964 The Last Man On Earth, 2007's I Am Legend and those cheeky devils at Asylum Films knocked out their own adaptation in the same year, I Am Omega. So here you have it, one of my favourite 70's scores, a very hard to find one at that. It never got a proper release until a 3000 copy pressing in 2002 and then a general release in 2008.

Ron Grainer - The Omega Man OST

Siege - Drop Dead (1984)

Another RIP post. Sad news when it reached me. Kevin Mahony passed on recently. Kevin, along with his band mates in Siege basically defined the parameters and direction of hardcore punk back in the 80's.

If it wasn't for Kevin and Siege I wouldn't be doing what I do now. Here is the only release they ever managed. Drop Dead compromises the 6 track demo recorded back in '84 and 3 more tracks that came to light on Pushead's Cleanse The Bacteria compilation in 1985.
Basically the foundations of any band, musically and lyrically, that parades under the banner of fastcore/grindcore/power violence/hardcore whether your aware of it or not.

Siege - Drop Dead

Some pretty awesome, public TV footage as well.

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David Hess - The Last House On The Left (1972)

RIP David Alexander Hess 1942 - 2011, a very dark and intense actor responsible for many villanous roles, his most important and commonly recognised one was for the 1972, Wes Craven classic, The Last House On The Left. Not only did he turn in a suitably nasty turn as the psychopathic Krug Stillo but he also composed and recorded the psychedelic, folk inspired soundtrack. Which is here......

David Hess - The Last House On The Left OST

For further David Hess viewings I would highly recommend Hitch Hike (1977), House on The Edge of The Park (1980) and despite its patchwork editing and plot, Swamp Thing (1982) for Hess pulling, a pretty much spot on comic book villain, out the bag.

RIP Krug

Cult Ritual - S/T LP (2009)

 

Despite the meagre number of followers on here, I can pretty much garuantee that most of you have a pretty good knowledge of music and know something good when you hear it. Of those I pesonally know, sorry, I can pretty much wager that you are going to like this post.
I missed this album first time round, not suprising really, part of the Youth Attack Records stable, limited vinyl release, talked up across the boards and copies fetching upto 200 sheets on Ebay ( Christ!). Despite all this, its done the rounds online and across the blog networks and reached quite a few more people than anyone (including the band) probably intended.
To cut a long story short, Cult Ritual have pretty much found the perfect middle ground between AmRep noise rock, Sub Pop whistle and screech and good old hardcore punk and fashioned an immensly noisy and enthralling album that doesn't hold back in its screaming feedback and broken glass guitar sound while never compromising dynamics or forward thinking. Essental doesn't really do this justice but its far more venomous and angry than a million identikit chugging hardcore bands and posseses more energy and chaos than any number of so called punk rock clones. Cult Ritual are a pretty good definition of genuine hardcore thinking.

Cult Ritual - S/T LP

Basil Poledouris - Conan The Barbarian (1982)

A true classic of cinema scoring. In fact, in my opinion, the best orchestral score to any film ever. Mr Poledouris is responsible for quite a few great film scores but I always come back to his awe inspiring composition for Conan The Barbarian. Utilizing a 90 piece orchestra and 24 member choir alongside the unheard of the, then new, Musync editing software. A truly majestic and triumphant body of music and the last ever film score to be recorded in mono for a major motion picture. Its a manly listen for sure.

 

Basil Poledouris - Conan The Barbarian

The Time - Ice Cream Castle (1984)

A prime slice of 80's pop infused funk rock. The Time, assembled by Prince due to some legal billing in his contract and fronted by his long time friend Morris Day, had a string of minor hits in the 80's and made appearances in the movie's Purple Rain and Graffiti Bridge.
Pretty sweet eh? The long hidden truth was that The Time never played any of the recorded songs whatsoever. Prince recorded all the music himself, bar the vocals, but Morris Day had to follow Prince's note by note guide. This often caused much friction between the two acts. The Time would then attempt to upstage Prince every night on tour in a similar situation to how Prince and his band used to try and upstage Rick James when they acted as his opening/backing band.
Anyway, enough chatter, what time is it?

Morris Day & The Time - Ice Cream Castle

Dial - S/T EP (2010)

Noise rock.  As much as I hate genre classification and pigeon holing ( despite my some what convoluted way of describing some of the bands featured on this blog), the term noise rock does a wonderful job I think, of describing to people aware of this awesome area of music just what to expect.

New Zealand's Dial are what I would call noise rock. Big, dirty, distorted guitar noise, wild screaming and huge pounding drums. I didn't realise its all just one guitar making this racket. This is a demo they put out themselves ( or they didn't) and the quality control board at Robotic Empire decided it was more than worth banging out on a CD. So go there to buy an actual copy, if I had Paypal myself I would.

Dial - S/T EP

Just listen to this song below while it downloads. You won't regret it.

War - Total War (1997)

Bank holiday blasphemy. All out, hate filled, bestial black metal war machine War, and the first EP "Total War" released back in the hazy late 90's on Necropolis Records.

Settle down Tony..I mean IT.

War was the result of a drunken night deep within the Abyss studios, home of Peter Tagtgren. His friends from Abruptum and Dark Funeral spent the night ranting about how they should pay to have Varg killed. They would make a album of primitive, hateful Black Metal with any profits going to The True Satanic Horde ( a hobby of IT's) and to finance the murder of Vikernes.
So if you like hateful, angry BM with lyrics about Satan, war and Satan ( plus some questionable, PC baiting lyrics in the track "I Am Elite") then this should be right up your alley. I like it for its single minded hatred and refusal to slow down. I think that's a fair reason.

War - Total War