German Army “Guinea Strong Arm”
Papua Mass CS (
Night-People)
B. R. Garm “My Mind Is Gone and I’ll Never Get It Back”
The 78th Morning Tide LP (
Dontrustheruin)
Big Blood “Little Lungs”
Night Terrors In the Isle of Louis Hardin CD-R (
Dontrustheruin)
Post-Materialists “I Love You / Smoke Face and Chew Gum / Think”
Love CS (
Eggy)
Richard Youngs “Hopeless Warriors”
Amaranthine LP* (
Mie Music)
Graham Lambkin “Amateur Doubles” (Side B excerpt)
Amateur Doubles LP (
KYE)
Decimus “Untitled” (Side B excerpt)
Decimus 3 LP (
Kelippah)
Hot & Cold “Uighur Pop”
Conclusion/Introduction CS (
Night-People)
Call Back the Giants “Stranger Worlds”
The Rising LP (
KYE)
A Full Cosmic Sound “Hippis En Alerta, Estrategia En Rediseno”
S/T CS (
Fabrica)
RM Francis “Omniated”
Microtophies CS (
Draft)
Now that the body has stabilized after excessive holiday sugar and alcohol consumption, and we can all focus on something other than year-end recaps, it seems like the right time to roll out the first podcast show of 2012. Some great new sounds have arrived in the past few weeks, which already has me excited about what's in store for the year ahead. For starters, this new LP of psychedelic folk weirdness from
B. R. Garm titled
"The 78th Morning Tide" has been getting some heavy play here in the FFF bunker.
Garm (a.k.a.
Brendan Evans of the group
Visitations) assembled a collection of fuzzed-out, country-fried, idiosyncratic, campfire ditties that are as accessible as they are "outsider"; there's even a head-scratcher of a take on
Gordan Lightfoot's classic,
"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". I can still picture Mr. Reid, my gravel-voiced junior high shop teacher, playing the original and reciting the lyrics to our class as some sort of mini history lesson on iron ore mining in our state. I'm reminded of him, along with the smell of soldering irons and melted plastics, as I listen to
Garm's version. It's a new year so, of course, that means we can expect more adventurous new sounds from the always reliable
Richard Youngs. His forthcoming album
"Amaranthine", that
Mie Music will be releasing in the coming weeks, shows him again pushing out into new sonic territory, here composing four lengthier pieces that feature a more prominent percussive feel. The melodic beauty of, say,
"Beyond the Valley of Ultrahits" is still intact, but there's a free-wheeling, improvised energy, much like his
"Inceptor" release, that send his vocals, electric guitar, synth, and shakuhachi accompaniment off in a fresh direction. Another seeker of new sounds is
Ernesto Diaz-Infante. His latest release
"Emilio" on
Kendra Steiner Editions is a thirty-two minute composition made up of short sound sketches that explore various textures and techniques using the bajo sexto and electronic tanpura and singing bowl. Taken as a whole, it's quite a moving piece of work that, according to the liner notes, is a "yoik" to his late uncle that struggled with mental illness throughout his life. Lastly, I've noticed a lot more song-oriented material creeping into my listening of late, which I'll chalk up to the unseasonably warm conditions we've been experiencing here all winter. But I should mention that the last batch of tapes that
Night-People put out in the Fall, which sort of flew under our radar at the time, is filled with some incredible skewed synth and guitar-based pop: the German Army and Hot & Cold tapes are a few favorites at this time. I'll definitely be spinning more from this batch in the weeks ahead. Until then . . .
