Clónicos is a Spanish experimental jazz-rock group that was active mainly between 1984 and 1994. Markus Breuss, a conservatory musician, formed the group in 1984 with Pelayo Arrizabalaga and soon after, Justo Bagüeste joined, taking as references artists/groups such as Cassiber, Material, Elliott Sharp, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Edgar Varese, Fred Frith, John Zorn and Art Ensemble of Chicago. Breuss was the group's leader and principal composer. During the ten years of the group's life, it incorporated several collaborators.
Clónicos was the first Spanish group to play at the prestigious mœrs festival (Germany). In 1991, together with Finis Africae and the Swiss painter Daniel Garbade, they presented the performance “Cláusulas” to celebrate the 700 years of the Swiss Confederation, in Madrid in 1991.
The music of Clónicos coincides in time with the groups of the so-called "Movida Madrileña", with which it has some contact (Víctor Polanski, leader of Polanski y el Ardor), but it is closer to the proposals of European and American avant-garde music (no-wave, free-rock, punk-jazz, etc.), with a combination of traditional percussion instruments, synthesizers and self-made instruments. [SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA]
This is not your father's harp. Zeena Parkins had been a valuable player on the downtown New York scene as well as an integral member of the fascinating band Skeleton Crew (with Tom Cora and Fred Frith) for several years before releasing this, her first album as a leader. The selections are a series of solos, duos, and trios with various likeminded musicians, including Cora, Wayne Horvitz, and turntablist Christian Marclay. The general approach is consistent with the grab-bag, postmodern stance in vogue at the time, roughly based in a rockish improv aesthetic and moving outward from there. Parkins' harp has an aggressive, sometimes stinging quality; in a sense, she plays it as though it's an electric guitar, making few concessions to its more delicate ancestry. Fans of Elliott Sharp's work from around the same period will find a likeminded stance here, with a similarly dark, percussive feel. She more than holds her own here, even dominating the affairs with forceful, imaginative playing. The pieces with Marclay work especially well, his vinyl selections blending seamlessly with her rich plucking. The duo with percussionist Samm Bennett is also very successful, coming within a few miles of sounding -almost- like some warped attempt at pop. The songs are all on the short side and one eventually has the desire to hear Parkins stretch out more and even to play in more structured surroundings. But on its own merits, 'Something Out There' is an enjoyable debut and gives a good early picture of this all too undervalued member of the contemporary improvising field. [SOURCE: ALLMUSIC]
Label: No Man's Land – NML 8712
Format:
Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: Germany
Released: 1987
Style: Avantgarde, Free Improvisation, Avant-Prog
Tracklist:
A1 Firebrat
2:58
A2 Night Light
2:57
A3 Without Words
2:19
A4 Little Hip Haw 2:36
A5 Mother Tongue
2:08
A6 Cornered
3:32
A7 Southern Exposure
3:51
B1 Incident In A Department Store
3:00
B2 Flavor Of Green Tea Over Rice 3:54
B3 Left-Handed Walk
2:24
B4 The World As I Found It
3:03
B5 Fly Loo
2:09
B6 Sidereal Messenger
3:11
B7 Appointment In Samarkind
3:03
Notes:
Recorded and mixed February 1986 to January 1987 at Noise New York, except tracks A3 & B3 recorded live at Roulette.
Submastering at Synesthetics.
No Safety was a New York based progressive rock band formed by harpist, pianist, and accordionist Zeena Parkins, formally of Skeleton Crew and News From Babel and featuring avant-rock great Tim Hodgkinson. The band also included guitarists Chris Cochrane and Doug Seidel, bassist Ann Rupel, and drummer Pippin Branett. They released this first album, 'This Lost Leg', in 1989 before being joined by DJ David Shea for their second album, 'Spill' in 1992. The band also released a split with The Flying Luttenbachers in 1994 before disbanding. With their intricate drum-heavy sound and catchy vocals they are a band not to be missed, with a sound most similar to that of the also great Dog Faced Hermans. [SOURCE: PROG ARCHIVES]
Label: RecRec Music – RecRec 25
Format:
Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: Switzerland
Released: 1989
Style: Avantgarde, Post-Punk, Avant-Prog, Art Punk, Brutal Prog
La 1919 (aka La 1919 Spontaneo) are a Milanese avant-progressive band that first started life in September 1980. The brainchild of Luciano Margorani (born 19th July 1961, in Milano) and his friend Piero Chianura, the band have released five albums to date. Their sound is electronic-based, but still consists of traditional rock-band instruments, such as electric and bass guitar (with assistance by clarinets and saxophones on later releases). Mostly though, the band uses keyboard effects and tape looping, combined with a Fripp-ian and Frith-ian guitar sound, supplied by Margorani (much more evident on their second and third releases), with overlying electronic drums, culminating in a unique sound that flirts with jazz, no-wave, post-punk and electronica, yet is remarkably progressive rock in its basic state. From 1982 to 1983, La 1919 were part of the "Coopertiva L'Orchestra" of Milan and they eventually released their debut album 'L'Enorme Tragedia' on cassette only in 1985.
The way to describe the sound of the first side of this tape at first listen is a mixture of Throbbing Gristle, This Heat, and Canterbury-prog music. The first track, "Questo Caldo", with the seeming androgyny of the drums (meaning they sound both electronic and acoustic, creating a neutrality in its binary of sound), goes a good job to introducing the sound of the album. "Molto Azzardato" could be described as dark ambient mixed with a bastardization of Frippertronics. Nevertheless, it creates an interesting environment. The last part of the track, which gives us a duo of synthesizer and guitar, paints a dreary picture with the nearly-unsettling distortion of synthesizer. The third track, "Senza Tregua", has a sound that could be noted as proto-IDM. There's really nothing left to say, other than it's a great track. The beginning of "Dornier Cordaianthus" sounds Eno-esque. To the untrained ear, one would say that it would be devoid of influence, but a good example of a more accessible version of this would be Gang Of Four.
The B-side starts off with "L'Enorme Tragedia", with both band members' voices playing a big role for once. They eventually give way to the avant-rock style that this album seems to do so well. The tracks on this album in general feel like they're feeding off the one trick they can pull (a mixture of industrial and prog). However, the third track, "Metzengerstein", feels a little fresher as it mainly focuses on the percussion rather than guitar. Mechanic rhythm comes to mind when listening. The fourth track, "8'35", while lying about the supposed track time, gives us a more indie rock setting, something that if cleaned up would probably be on a college radio. "La Caduta" begins with a lo-lo-lo-fi cymbal playing behind a droning synthesizer. The album had a This Heat influence from it, and hearing the vocals from this track, one can definitely hear it coming through. The muffled narration, which is the formation of a short sound collage, definitely gives a new perspective to the sound. [SOURCE: RATE YOUR MUSIC]
This forgotten album from 1983 started with "Master/Slave", a vibrant and delightful art-punk-funk-jazz exercise that had one foot in the work of the Art Bears, and the other in the work of Captain Beefheart, and without forgetting no-wavers such as Blurt. Ditto for the minimal spastic discordance of "Feet First", which also maintained a degree of elegance. Then, the rhythmic chaos of "New Condition" veered even more into no-wave, into the kind of perverse groove that Teenage Jesus & The Jerks or DNA manage to get across. In the meantime, tracks such as "Pollyanna" and "Mysteries Of The Organism" returned to a kind of disjointed but measured elegance, whereas the amateurish sabotage of "Placebo #1" and "Fast-Acting Placebo" revisited the spirit of early Half Japanese. Side two followed along these lines, with highlights such as "Boyce Life" and "They Can't Get It" approaching an ever more severe sound. [SOURCE: RATE YOUR MUSIC]
Label: Rift – RIFT 6
Format:
Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: US
Released: 1983
Style: Free Jazz, No Wave, Avantgarde, Avant-Prog, Zolo
Tracklist:
A1 Master / Slave
A2 Battle Of Algiers
A3 Feet First
A4 New Condition
A5 Placebo #1
A6 Alley Oops
A7 Pollyanna
A8 Mysteries Of The Organism
A9 Fast-Acting Placebo
B1 Lavaplatos
B2 A Tree Grows In Managua
B3 Boyce Life
B4 Wheat
B5 New Song (Old Story)
B6 Must Go
B7 They Can't Get It
B8 Placebo #3
Notes:
Tracks A1, A2, A6, A7, B3 & B4 recorded at OAO Studio, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Tracks A3, A8, B1, B2, B5 & B7 recorded at Sunrise Studio, Kirchberg, Switzerland.
Tracks A4, A5, A8, B6 & B8 recorded live in New York, West Germany, Switzerland and Czechoslovakia.
Confronted by an unjustly neglected work of vinyl involving young New York musicians in the '80s, working in a highly collaborative manner and relegated to releasing their music on an obscure German label that operates out of a man's dresser closet, expectations will be high. Details at Eleven composed pieces either as a group, or accepted works from members Lin Culbertson and David Humphrey, written either singly or in pair, and the range of styles and sounds is impressive. During the beginning sections of "Attention," comments could be made about the lameness of the major labels and how what seems like perfectly acceptable commercial rock became indie fodder, part of an underground scene that in past times had been reserved for the truly weird. Other sections of the record are indeed much too far out for the majors, despite the fact that Frank Zappa did have some success placing similar instrumental passages into the teenage market. Since this is a New York band of the late '80s, it is no surprise either that there are passages of sheer, stark, and aggressive noise, as well as cleverly built-in escape valves from the very same. At times, ponderously dull rhythmic patterns settle over the proceedings as if an effort were being made to attract the clientele of the frat bar down the street. Liberated from actual commercial considerations and spurred on by the jumpy creativity of the scene around them, this band comes up with some intriguing scenarios: it's rock music, but hardly limited or handicapped by the genres' limitations -indeed, the previously mentioned rhythmic handicaps beg the question of whether this band is actually more uptight about such things then a so-called normal rock band would be. It might be the amount of concentration that is required by the sometimes-complex arrangements, allowing tunes such as the clever "Marketplace" to flirt with pop before bringing in what sounds like orchestrated air raid sirens. The dominant singing voice is Culbertson's, bringing up wanted or unwanted references to groups such as Jefferson Starship when in tune and well-recorded, and the punk swagger of Frightwig when out of tune and/or distorted. One of the best things that can be said about the group is that the vocal and instrumental numbers, though quite different in context, are equally interesting, in each case making one look forward to the other. [SOURCE: ALLMUSIC]
Label:
Dossier – ST 7522
Format:
Vinyl, LP, Album
Country:
UK, Europe & US
Released:
1986
Style:
Avantgarde, Experimental, Experimental Rock, Avant-Prog, No Wave
Look De Bouk formed out of the ashes of renowned French RIO act Hellebore headed by Denis Tagu. In 1985 Look De Bouk released their first album entitled 'Lacrimae Rerum' on the AYAA label. Trending different avenues to their predecessors Look De Bouk embraces a playful almost childish outlook to the sound they craft sounding like a cunning mix between 80's Residents, Pascal Comelade (thanks to their usage of toys), Aksak Maboul's first and ZNR. The combination results in an overly enjoyable experience (undeniably French) putting an affable face on these weird but charming RIO-esque experimentations. [SOURCE: PROG ARCHIVES]
Label:
Ayaa – DT. 0885, Ayaa – dt 0885
Format:
Vinyl, LP, Album
Country:
France
Released:
1985
Style:
New Wave, Art Rock, Avant-Prog, Minimal Wave, Zolo
Tracklist:
A1 Ferdinand Cheval (Détail Sur Une Roue De Brouette) 0:38
A2 Tracte-Moi Bien 2:57
A3 Un Écrin De Fer-Blanc Pour Le Noir De Tes Cils, En Général... 9:04
A4 À Ma Soeur Pour Ses Chevaux De Basse-Saxe 4:33
A5 Saint-Lõ-Les-Vélos!?! 0:45
A6 Ferdinand Cheval (À Dormir Debout) 0:36
B1 Lacrimae Rerum (Incluant L'Hymne À La Noix) 4:46
For its brief running time, 'Sound Every Day' is a rewarding and complex run through the fertile grounds of the Recommended Records' school of Experimental/Post-Progressive music. Unrest Work & Play are obvious acolytes of Faust and This Heat, which is evident in the fuzz-drenched guitars and marimba-backed rhythms of "Change" and the deep, bizarre, English Folk-style choral vocals throughout. It goes without saying that anyone who's interested in the aforementioned artists would do well to seek this out. [SOURCE: RATE YOUR MUSIC]
Label:
Political Underground Records – PU3
Format:
Vinyl, 12", 45 RPM, Remastered
Country:
UK
Released:
1983
Style:
Avantgarde, Experimental, Experimental Rock, Zolo, Art Punk, Avant-Prog, Post-Punk
