Airway - Live At Lace

Airway was a music group based within the Los Angeles Free Music Society. They started off as a solo project of Le Forte Four member Joe Potts. The first release was the Airway 7”, which featured subliminal messages to coincide with an art exhibition in Tokyo. In August 1978 Airway made their live debut at the Lace Gallery. This lineup featured Potts and Chip Chapman on electronics, Vetza on vocals, Rick Potts on mandolin, Dennis Duck on saxophone, Juan Gomez on bass, and Tom Recchion on drums. They attempted to create subliminal messages beneath a wall of noise by using tape delay. Recordings from the performance were released as Live At Lace by the Los Angeles Free Music Association.

Live At Lace is an interesting album. It reminds me of Boris's collaborations with Merzbow, only with less vocals, combined with elements of improvised Krautrock and Psychedelica. It's certainly innovative and whilst it can drone on at times as with a lot of improvised music it seems to have been influential on many modern acts today, if not directly, such as the two I mentioned. I know japanoise legends Hijokaidan are fans. Definitely worth a few listens and another enjoyable gem on the Nurse With Wound list.

Bitrate: 192 kbps

Tolerance - Anonym

When I first listened to this I was under the impression this was recorded after the Tolerance album Divin (which can be found here). It seems like an easy enough mistake to me because Anonym appears to be more interesting, and generally seems to have more going on. Divin was mostly made up of weird lo-fi electronics. However, Anonym has that, and (what sounds like) vocal samples, and most interestingly of all, piano. It also has a more mysterious and eerie slant. An overall excellent NWW list entry. Highly recommended.

Bitrate: 192 kbps

Boyd Rice - The Black Album

If you have seen any other posts on this blog you might be asking yourself, "Why is the picture I'm looking at not an album cover, but rather a man standing over a large pile of broken records?". Well the man is Boyd Rice. Also, you may have noticed that the album is called "The Black Album" (sometimes just titled "Boyd Rice"). This is because the album cover itself is entirely black with no text. This presents problems when combined with the black background of the blog, but moving on. The album itself is made up of loops. That's it. Each track is just a loop(s) that drone on and on. I imagine it will be of interest to Boyd Rice fans, and uhhh... I'm actually not sure of anyone else who would want to hear this. It is pretty annoying as background music, and its painfully boring besides that. Did I mention all the songs are untitled? So if you want to find your favorite loops you'll have to remember the track number. Don't lose all hope in Mr. Rice though, but he is an interesting, innovative and great musician generally speaking, it's just this album that is a complete waste of time. Click the unibrowed man above if you really want this.

Tolerance - Divin

Divin by Tolerance seems to me like an electronic equivalent of Nurse With Wound (albeit not quite as crazed and abrasive). Divin is different from any electronic music that I heard previously. Instead of using the same bland electronics used by every other band, it employs the most archaic and lo-fi equipment imaginable. However, this most definitely works out in their favor, because they created what seems to me to be the most atmospheric and dark music of its kind. It is very obvious why they are on the NWW list. This is electronic music for people who hate electronic music. Click the weird album art above for a download.

Bitrate: 192 kbps

Dadazuzu - Lehrlinge halten zusammen (Compilation)

Only one of the artists (Lerryn & Dadazuzu AKA Dadazuzu) on this compilation appears on the Nurse With Wound list, but I felt I should upload this entire compilation since it features their only known recorded track. Anyway, this album is a collection of late 60s Krautrock with a supposedly socialist political slant. Lyrically, all that was lost on me as I don't speak any German but I found the music rather enjoyable if disposable and typical Krautrock. I've listened to this a few times and it doesn't really hold much replay value (well maybe lyrics wise, though I wouldn't know) but is definitely a pleasant enough release to warrant one listen. The Dadazuzu track is unsurprisingly the standout, the rest being rather poppy, cheery but sadly forgettable Krautrock. Click the album cover above to download.

Average bitrate: 192 kbps