INFLUENTIAL ALBUM - LED ZEPPELIN, PRESENCE

While we're on the subject of influential albums and their covers, I wanted to talk about one of my favorites from one of the most important design houses of the 1970s, Hipgnosis. Hipgnosis was stared in 1968 by friends Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell. The duo was later joined in the mid 1970s by a young Peter Christopherson, who would go on to gain acclaim and recognition making his own music as a member of Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV, Coil and Soisong, as well as releasing solo work as Threshold Houseboys Choir.

Hipgnosis was responsible for many of the most iconic covers of the decade, working with the likes of Pink Floyd, Peter Gabriel and Led Zeppelin, just to name a few. It's their 1976 cover for Led Zeppelin's Presence which I want to bring to your attention today. 

 

One of the common traits of Hipgnosis covers, which always drew me to them, was that they usually had some sort of subversive "twist" to them. They were generally photo-real artworks that often relied on in-camera effects to create their surreal auras, though they would also use collage cut-&-paste techniques, something common with Photoshop these days, but much more demanding back then when it was done with physical photographs, blades and glue.

The "hook" with the Presence LP cover was the "object". Designed by Christopherson, it was an enigmatic looking black twisting obelisk type form that appeared to defy normal geometry. Its shape and proportions looked to be at odds with physical space and the cover depicted it in a variety of seemingly benign, mundane contexts of superficial, idyllic mid-century, middle class life. Yet its presence in these scenes lends each of them a nebulously sinister edge. It's obtuse, but it sinks in, almost subliminally, suggesting some kind of conspiratorial plot is taking place. Like some sort of "invasion of the body snatchers" scenario, normality is being subverted here. 

 

I recall seeing this in the shops and being constantly drawn to it. I'd stare at the photos and try to imagine what could be going on. Why was this thing in all these pictures? What was it? What did it do? Its blackness and confounding shape only implied something nefarious. A truly ingenious concoction for an album cover. The record itself wasn't Zeppelin's best, though I find it often unfairly criticized as I quite like most of it, but it's a cover that stays with me after all these years contemplating that "object" and its mysterious purpose...

FORGOTTEN FILM - RIDERS OF THE STORM

Here's a forgotten movie from the 1980s that should get more attention.  I watched this one several times after my first viewing because it was so unexpected and subversive.  It's about a crew of former vets who fly around in an old B-52 bomber fitted out with a mobile pirate TV station and they go around the US jamming local broadcasts and inserting their own counterculture programming.  The captain of this airship is played brilliantly by Dennis Hopper and they go up against a nasty Republican, proto Sarah Palin type presidential candidate.  It's a fantastic stoner movie as the scenes where they jam out local TV shows (like evangelical shows suddenly being interrupted by some Satanic dude with rats crawling all over him) are pretty psychedelic.  The anarchic message of this movie couldn't be more timely, so if you ever come across it, don't miss out!

FORGOTTEN FILM - RETURN TO OZ

I've always had a thing for kids films that aren't really appropriate for kids.  Willy Wonka always appealed to me like that.  When Disney released Return to Oz in 1985, it was pretty quickly savaged by critics and audiences ran the other way.  It was something of a sacrilege in most people's minds, especially if they were fans of the 1939 Wizard of Oz movie, of which they assumed "Return" was meant to be a sequel. 

I remember seeing this on the bottom shelf or the kids section in the video store for some time and every time I walked by it, I heard this little voice, much like the chicken in the movie, beckoning me to pick it up and rent it.  I finally convinced some friends to give it a shot and we went back to the viewing pad and proceeded to get stupidly high before putting it on.  No one knew what to expect, but I was nestled up against my oversized pillow on the floor, gooned to the gills and ready for anything.  I was not disappointed! 

It didn't take long for the eeriness of this film to kick in and I was also immediately struck by the performance of Vancouver native, Fairuza Balk, in her big screen debut.  She was only 10 years old at the time, but there was a maturity and wisdom in her performance that took her out of any kind of childishness.  She wasn't a "dumb kid" in any sense and that made me love her character right off the bat. 

Then the antagonists of the story start to show themselves and they bring this dark brooding quality along with them.  There is no singing and dancing in this movie either, but there is a real sense of menace and malevolence.  However, this is all balanced by the arrival of Dorothy's traveling companions, none of whom were familiar characters.  There is the talking chicken, the mechanical soldier, the pumpkin head and the moose with a sofa body.  Each one distinctive and with an appealing nature that makes you care about them. 

The film is bursting throughout with wonderful visuals and amazing clay animations of the villainous rock gnomes.  The Wheelers, while absurd, are also psychotically terrifying and the maleficent Mombi, with her rotating cabinet of stolen heads, offers one of the most unsettling Disney villains ever.

In all, it's got nothing to do with the beloved classic film and must be considered entirely in its own right as a separate creation with its own merits.   It's a film I own on DVD and can (and have) watch over and over and I get goosebumps whenever I see it.  If you don't know it and you appreciate "fantasy" that falls between the cracks of what's considered adult vs children's entertainment, you can't go wrong with this classic.

FORGOTTEN FILM - THE SADDEST MUSIC IN THE WORLD

Guy Madden is Canada's answer to David Lynch and has created an often brilliant, though just as often, baffling filmography.  One of his films which has stood out for me the most over the years is his wonderful 2004 feature, The Saddest Music in the World.  It's a surreal, faded memory of a depression era contest organized by a beer baroness in Winnipeg to find the "saddest music in the world".  The contest is organized In honor of Winnipeg being named the "sorrow capital of the world" for the Depression era for the fourth year running by the London Times.  The competition and its $25,000 prize draw contestants from all over the world who enter into an Olympics style set of elimination rounds to inflict the most morose melodies upon their audience.  The film stars the fabulous Isabella Rossellini as the glass-legged baroness and Kids in the Hall alumnus, Mark McKinney, as her nefarious love interest.  The film is shot to look like a period piece of the 1930s, grainy and worn and the musical machinations which run afoul during the contest lead to great conflict and controversy.  It's all incredibly strange and run through with a morose sense of humor.

FORGOTTEN FILM - THE COMPANY OF WOLVES

Long before Inception broke people's brains with its nesting of recursive realities, an odd little twisting of the Little Red Riding Hood fable did very much the same thing.  This fairy tale works its magic by telling its story as a dream within a dream within a dream. 

The Company of Wolves was director Neil Jordan's 1984 fantasy examination of the taboos around sexuality and the coming of age, cleverly woven around the Red Riding Hood fairy tale of a young girl, a missing granny and a voracious wolf.  The film features the legendary Angela Lansbury as the mono-brow admonishing grandmother, warning her granddaughter to "Never trust a man who's eyebrows meet in the middle". 

The film is notable for some fairly advanced special effects for the time, with some transition sequences only rivaled by American Werewolf in London.  It also has some brain twisting scenes of decadence, such as the banquet where all the upper class guests morph into savage, ravenous beasts.

If you're looking to "stray from the path" and enjoy a mind warping interpretation of a classic genre film, you can't go wrong here, but don't mistake this for a family movie.  Its themes reach very much into adult oriented content.

FORGOTTEN FILM - ORGAZMO

In 1997, the same year South Park debuted, creator, Matt Stone, also put out an odd little comedy feature film about a hapless Mormon bible student who gets swept up in the seedy world of pornographic films and ends up bringing his on screen character to life as an honest to goodness sexual superhero.  Along with his diminutive, but scientifically potent sidekick, ChodaBoy, this dynamic duo thwart the criminal aspirations of their nefarious film producers behind the camera of their salacious cinema.

I've seen this a few times and own it on DVD and, from the very first viewing, I was hooked on all the outrageous stunts Parker manages to pull off with his limited budget.  This is one of those films that deserves cult status and endless airings a midnight movie houses.  There are quotable lines, costumes to covet and characters to emulate all over the place.  This really would make a great Rocky Horror style revival if the right crowds could get behind it. 

Parker, as well as writing and directing, stars as the lead and does his duty as the diligent straight man throughout.  He's reserved and righteous in just the right amounts and I am certain there are elements of this that he kept cribbed for recycling years later in Book of Mormon.  And it all holds up well over time and with repeat viewings.  Throw in a few cameos from porn legend, Ron Jeremy (for sheet cred.) and you've got everything you need for a proper cult classic.

INFLUENTIAL ALBUMS - JAH WOBBLE'S BEDROOM ALBUM

In the 40 years I've been recording my own music, I've NEVER worked in a professional recording studio.  The only time I ever did anything in one was to help with some production on some demos for a friend's band.  My own music has always been recorded at some kind of facility in my home or the home of someone else. 

Released in 1983, Jah Wobble's Bedroom Album was a complete validation of that DIY aesthetic and set of creative values.  Recorded on basic 4 channel gear, literally in the bedroom of Wobble's flat, the album demonstrates that someone with pretty much the exact same setup as I had at the time, could create and release an album on their own record label.  It's a powerful statement of intent and ability by a creative force who's spent his entire career successfully paving his own road.

INFLUENTIAL ALBUM - DNA, A TASTE OF DNA

Clocking in at barely 9 minutes across six songs, DNA's 1981 EP/mini LP, A Taste of DNA, fascinated me as one of the shortest albums in my collection.  I had thought the Ramones were concise, but DNA took the idea of abbreviated to a whole other level.  Across the 12" surface of the EP, you could literally count the grooves on the record as they were so far apart. 

DNA was fronted by guitarist/vocalist Arto Lindsay (who also appeared on the first Golden Palominos LP), and they were at the forefront of the more avant-garde end of the spectrum of the New York "No Wave" scene.  The biggest influence here was discovering that having a guitar in tune was entirely optional and the necessity of articulating actual words was also up for debate.  Against the loping, stumbling bursts of Ikue Mori's drums and Tim Wright's bass, Lindsay snarled out guitar string stretching knots while blathering vocals like a psychotic in the middle of a breakdown.  It was pure expressionism as music, splattered across the recording tape like a Pollock painting.

INFLUENTIAL ALBUM - BOYD RICE

It was some time in 1985 when I first had a chance to flip through a copy of RE/Search's groundbreaking book, The Industrial Culture Handbook.  I was very much a TG fan, so the lead chapter on them drew me immediately to the book, but it also introduced me to some other names I had yet to encounter.  One of the most intriguing and enigmatic personalities showcased in this publication was an American by the name of Boyd Rice.  His approach and techniques seemed to be entirely outside the realm of any sort of standard music making I'd ever encountered.  Whereas TG had still engaged with recognizable "instruments" (guitar, bass, cornet, keyboards), Rice, within the context of his NON project, was generating sounds in ways which seemed completely alien.  He was using machines or broken records or, if he did use a guitar, he'd have an electric fan mounted to it to thrash the strings mechanically.  His whole aesthetic seemed to be coming from someplace entirely different than any traditional musician I'd encountered, no matter how "avant-garde" they may have appeared. 

The first album by Boyd that I came across was his 1977 debut, simply titled, Boyd Rice, but often referred to as "The Black Album".  Encased in a plain black sleeve with only the name, Boyd Rice, embossed on the front, it had no song titles or credits save for the record label which advised the LP was "playable at any speed" and that it was recorded between 1975-1976.  Years before Spinal Tap, this record really seemed like there was "none more black".  Based on the article/interview in RE/Search, I was braced for something entirely unlistenable.  In fact, I must confess my motivation for buying the album was rather as a novelty, something to put on to shock people or piss them off.  What I wasn't expecting was how enjoyable the record would turn out to be!   It wasn't all blaring, jarring noise at all.  Sure, there were some sections which were more intense than others, but there were movements which were quite soft and dreamy sounding.  The extreme use of repetition and looping was the biggest takeaway for me in that it demonstrated the effects of such techniques as a viable compositional tactic.  It also opened me up to the idea that sound sources could come from virtually anyplace and be used for making music. 

In the years since I first listened to his records, Boyd has released a wide variety of music, even a cover album of pop standards from the 1960s (Spell) and he's become a controversial figure for his views and associations.  I tend to take it all with a grain of salt, and find myself occasionally having to qualify my opinion, but the influence and impact of his work over the years cannot be discounted or dismissed.

INFLUENTIAL ALBUMS - THE B-52'S

Walking into Records on Wheels in Thunder Bay back in 1979 and seeing the debut LP from The B-52's on the wall was an easy sell for me.  I don't think I'd ever heard of them or seen anything about them in the music magazines I was reading at the time, but the look of this band immediately struck me as fab and kinky!  Once the record was home and spinning on my turntable, it definitely did not disappoint, though it did surprise because it took me back to so many forgotten childhood memories.  The B-52's were the first band of the era who really understood kitsch nostalgia at a deep, visceral level, enough that they managed to embody certain sonic and visual signifiers so perfectly as to conjure those memories with flawless clarity.  Delving into the album, my brain suddenly filled with images of aliens, monsters from the deep, go-go girls, lava lamps, dance crazes and impossible, gravity defying hairdos!  The triple threat front line of Fred Schneider, flanked by bouffant babes Cindy Wilson & Kate Pierson, was a retro-style assault beyond defense.  Backed up by the one-two-punch of Ricky Wilson's surfed up twang guitar and Keith Strickland's meter perfect, snappy drumming, they were a party in a can, guaranteed to leave any dance floor messed around.  It's one of those rarest of debut LPs which presents the band, fully formed, with a near flawless selection of irresistible songs.  This was the record that truly opened the floodgates for me to reconsider the past and look for those forgotten, neglected relics that still had the power to engage and transform.

INFLUENTIAL BOOK - Douglas Hofstadter, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

I read Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, in 1986 when it was given to me by a friend.  Optimistically, I might claim to have understood two thirds of it, but realistically, that might shrink down to merely half, but the parts I DID understand had a profound effect on how I conceive the concept of knowledge and the systems humans create in order to acquire, analyze and understand it. 

Originally published in 1979, author Douglas Hofstadter utilizes theoretical similes between the works of logician Kurt Gödel, artist M. C. Escher, and composer Johann Sebastian Bach, to delve into the abstract world of theoretical systems, how they function, their limitations and ways to construct them.  I know it all sounds very academic, but Hofstadter does ground the book in numerous very engaging and entertaining allegories which illustrate his points and alternate between the more abstruse theoretical jargon. 

I'll confess the more mathematically grounded aspects of Gödel were the most difficult to fathom, but the musical theories around Bach and the perceptual concepts inherent in the work of Escher did manage to find their way into my comprehension.  Ultimately, the book helped me to understand the limitations of logical systems, not in the sense of invalidating or disparaging them, but in terms of being able to comprehend that, while they are exceedingly useful, there are always limits where consciousness must go beyond them into more intangible realms. 

One of my favorite allegories involved a stereo system capable of reproducing sound so accurately, that it created a self destructive feedback loop which, ultimately, resulted in the collapse of the system.  It's illustrations like that which captured my imagination and made it clear that one must be cautious about becoming too attached to any particular system as there is no such thing as a perfect theory.  There are always areas of the the unknown yet to be discovered and there are always possibilities of recursions and feedback loops which can destabilize even the most apparently comprehensive systems.

INFLUENTIAL ALBUM - NURSE WITH WOUND, SYLVIE & BABS

The first times I encountered the entity known as Nurse With Wound were late in 1984 and throughout 1985 as contributors to various "Industrial" compilation albums. Various tracks would pop up on collections such as The Elephant Table, Rising from the Red Sands, The Fight Is On, and numerous others. I found those first exposures pretty baffling. I didn't quite know what to make of this stuff and I didn't actually understand what NWW was. Were they a band? What I heard didn't sound like anyone playing instruments. It seemed like mostly collages of weird sounds and found recordings. I'd be hanging out at various parties, goon'd to the gills, and a NWW piece would come on, out of the blue, and put me in a bad mood. Some of these pieces, like The Dance of Fools, just sounded ugly and unpleasant and made me feel like I'd accidentally been dosed with the "brown acid". It was a "bad trip", man! As such, I tended to dismiss it/them.

It wasn't until an autumn evening in 1986 that I was in just the right place at just the right time with just the right record to open my ears to the genius of Steven Stapleton. I was hanging out with some friends one evening, taking a magic carpet ride on some decent blotter, and going through a stack of LPs my friend had brought over. I came across this album that looked like some thrift store vintage oddity with these torpedo tit'd mid-century maidens on the cover called "Sylvie and Babs". I thought my friend was being funny bringing this record over, slipping it in the stack for a laugh. Then he pointed out the spine of the cover and I saw the name Nurse With Wound on it. Opening up the gate-fold, the inside of the cover was plastered with this collage of bizarre images of drag queens and debauchery and revealed the subversive soul hiding behind the seemingly innocuous outer cover.

Once we'd hit the appropriate altitude on our crazy carpet, we put on Sylvie & Babs and I spent the next 40 minutes in fits of laughter so intense, I was sure I was going to burst a blood vessel. Over the course of the album's two, side long constructs, I was taken on a sonic adventure through landscapes both familiar and alien, ridiculous and sublime. In that state, what Stapleton and cohorts were doing suddenly became clear to me. His sense of timing, of dynamics, of when to go soft and when to beat the fuck out of your head, was all spot-on. Discovering later on that he'd spent years working with dozens of collaborators on this project made perfect sense when considering the complexity of the layering and sequencing involved in it. It was a magnum opus of cut-up collage magnificence from the very first, dreamy sounds to the last.

After this, I became a dedicated aficionado of all things NWW and collected anything I could get my hands on. It taught me to think of composition as a process of sculpting and not just how many times you repeat a sequence or what order to put a verse and chorus. It showed me how sound design was a narrative process, where one can create a cinematic story arc with the way sounds were placed and edited and combined. Rigid mathematical considerations like numbers of bars or beats or tempo were not the only considerations in this process. There were intuitive, instinctual, non-linear factors which could be brought to bare on the compositional process as well.

INFLUENTIAL ALBUM - THE HAFLER TRIO, SEVEN HOURS SLEEP

The first time I encountered The Hafler Trio was in 1985 on the L.A.Y.L.A.H. Records compilation album, The Fight Is On, a record which deserves its own acknowledgement for its influence.  The track, "Blanket" Level Approach, was really no more than the sounds of waves on the shore with some strange electronic tones mixed in, but there was something so compelling and enigmatic about it.  The credits on the inner sleeve included Chris Watson, whom I knew from his involvement with Cabaret Voltaire.  The other two in the "trio", Andrew M. McKenzie & Dr. Edward Moolenbeek, were unfamiliar to me.   As it was, the track was interesting enough that I started to look for H3O releases to pick up, the first being Seven Hours Sleep.

The double disc LP consists of various field recordings, edited, processed and augmented with unidentifiable electronic sounds and drones.  Bits of conversation, nature sounds, people playing sports in reverberating auditoriums, all mixed together into something which purported to be "scientifically" motivated research.  You see, there was an unusual dimension to all these works as was indicated from the compilation appearance, through this release and their previous LP release, Bang!  An Open Letter, which my roommate had picked up. 

During these inaugural years of the project, it was all framed in the context of having been inspired by the work of the late, mysterious scientist, Robert Spridgeon, as preserved and documented via the Robol Sound Laboratories facility.  Releases included booklets and texts regarding these experiments, which involved looking at practical applications for sound, some of which could be considered of military value.  There were reports of government interference and secrecy and a whole mythology around Spridgeon's career and fate.  Dr. Moolenbeek, an older gentleman, was purported to be a former associate of Spridgeon, thus providing the link to the present with the past.  One of my friends even wrote to their PO box and received additional printed materials detailing the history of Robol and its theories and the controversies surrounding them and the people involved. 

Of course, we all ate these conspiracy theories up as they were a fascinating conception and lent all these products an air of the "forbidden" and "dangerous".  It wasn't until much later that the whole angle was revealed to be a complete fabrication.  Dr. Moolenbeek never existed, neither did Spridgeon or Robol.  It was all ingeniously crafted and concocted by McKenzie and Watson as an experiment in misinformation and misdirection.  Once I got over the initial indignation of having bought into this ruse, I had to admit that the completeness and attention to detail in manufacturing it all was remarkable and it was an object lesson in the power of persuasion and plausible distraction.  It illustrated the ability of artists to conjure their own realities. 

In 1988, Chris Watson left H3O for a lauded career as a natural sound recordist for the BBC and, later, released many acclaimed solo albums of his field recordings.  McKenzie continued on with H3O until 2006, releasing dozens of challenging and thought provoking products until he changed tactics and withdrew from the mass media arena.

INFLUENTIAL ALBUM - DEVO, Q: ARE WE NOT MEN? A: WE ARE DEVO!

I was spending the night with my brother and cousin at my great grandma's house the weekend DEVO appeared on SNL in 1978 and performed Satisfaction and Jocko Homo.  I had just started to dip my toe into the waters of "punk" and "new wave" music with the likes of The Ramones, Elvis Costello and The Clash, but DEVO took my brain into a whole other realm of strangeness. 

Like The Ramones, DEVO offered up a pretty bullet proof concept.  They had every angle covered and every nut and bolt was rock solid tight.  I didn't know anything about the band's history or inspirations back then.  All I knew was this group was coming out of the gate with their shit tight as fuck and, as odd and goofy as they were, you also got the sense that they meant business. 

After seeing the SNL performances, it became an immediate mission for me to get out to the record shop and snap up a copy of their debut album.  Once I did and got it home, what spun out of those grooves was a continuation of the flawless execution I'd seen on TV.  Every track was spot-on with it's composition and lyrics.  This was stuff you wanted to quote from the get-go.  It was so compelling that I took to putting DEVO graffiti all over the high school boys washroom.  I also was dumb enough to wear a home made DEVO badge, so the janitor called me out on it, but cut me some slack, saying he didn't think anyone would be dumb enough to put up all that graffiti and then walk around with a badge like that.  Needless to say, I felt guilty and ceased my felt tipped assaults on the facilities.

INFLUENTIAL ALBUM - L.A.Y.L.A.H. ANTIRECORDS, THE FIGHT IS ON

Compilation albums can be a bit like buffets in that there's usually a few things you really like, but a lot of stuff you just gotta pass by.  But the advent of the independent label culture in the wake of the punk/industrial/new wave movements of the late 1970s energized the concept of the compilation album as a critical means of exposing new talent and artists who may have otherwise had too much niche appeal to justify their own dedicated releases to start. 

During an era of abundant notable experimental music compilations, one of the most influential for me remains the 1985 release from L.A.Y.L.A.H. Antirecords, The Fight Is On.  L.A.Y.L.A.H. were a Belgian boutique indie label ran by Marc Monin from 1983 until 1989.  The label was responsible for the initial promotion of a number of renowned experimental artists including Nurse With Wound, Coil, Current 93, The Hafler Trio, Organum, Robert Haigh and and others.  The Fight Is On gave me some of my first exposure to several of those artists, nearly all of which subsequently became collecting obsessions. 

L.A.Y.L.A.H. releases always presented themselves with extremely high production values and refined design aesthetics.  Seeing that imprint on any piece of vinyl or CD was generally a guarantee that you'd be getting your hands on something unusual and distinctive for collectors with the most discerning tastes. 

The Fight Is On, as a collection, has never seen a reissue of significance since its initial release, which is unfortunate as it does offer an invaluable cross section of the prime movers of the post industrial experimental music scene at that time.  The intersection of "noise" music with Neo-classicism and Neo-folk's early tendrils provides an essential foundation for comprehending the roots of where these genres would develop in the ensuing decades.

INFLUENTIAL ALBUM - LUSTMORD, HERESY

On February 18, 1980, about 20 people tucked into a compact basement studio in the the Hackney borough of London to spend an hour watching Throbbing Gristle invent an album.  One of those lucky few was a fellow by the name of Brian Williams.  After this event, he went on to work with SPK for a bit and then created Lustmord.  The first LP he did under this moniker in 1981 was decent enough industrial noise, but Brian had something more insidious brewing in the depths.  It wasn't until his appearance on The Fight Is On compilation in 1985 that this new direction would start to reveal itself, followed up and more fully fleshed out on his 1986 sophomore release, Paradise Disowned.  But it was his third album in 1990, Heresy, which would put into practice the potential he'd been building towards.

The fundamentals of ambient music had been lingering in the alternative music scene for nearly two decades with the likes of Eno and some of the German bands of the 1970s.  The KLF brought it into the "rave" scene's emerging "chill rooms" with their 1990 Chill Out album.  Lustmord took this moody, spacious aesthetic someplace else, however.  He took it into the netherworld, someplace dark and deep and resonating with subsonic looming and dooming frequencies that could conjure the most ancient Mephistophelian deities. 

Heresy wasn't so much released as it emerged from the darkness and the deep.  It barely contains anything even identifiable as "musical".  It's mostly a sensation of moving air and vibrations so low and deep, they're almost imperceptible while making you feel like the ground is swelling beneath you.  You can feel the hot, slow breath of Satan himself exhaling from these depths.  This is a soundtrack for lost souls, forever doomed to wander the catacombs of eternity.  In other words, it's fucking HEAVY shit, but it doesn't need distortion or thundering drums to pull you down into itself.  You can just let go and fall into the infinite abyss. 

Heresy set the pace for pretty much every Lustmord album that came after it.  Brian would go on to refine his approach to give it even greater breadth and scope in releases like my personal favorite, The Place Where the Black Stars Hang.  But it was Heresy that staked out that territory first and deserves the credit for inspiring so many of us to grab a torch and go spelunking into these caverns of sounds for ourselves.

INFLUENTIAL ALBUM - COIL, HOW TO DESROY ANGELS

Among the many groundbreaking releases put out by Belgian lable, L.A.Y.L.A.H. Antirecords, one of the most unusual and controversial was the debut release by the Psychic TV offshoot project, Coil.  Originally conceived as the inaugural release for the newly established Temple Ov Psychick Youth label, Temple Records, plans for its release via that outlet were scuttled when relationships between Genesis P-Orridge​ & Coil founders, John Balance (Geoff Rushton) and Peter Christopherson soured when the pair became increasingly concerned that TOPY was becoming too much of a "cult of personality" around P-Orridge.  Amid a somewhat acrimonious parting of ways, John & "Sleazy" decided to pursue Coil as their main creative outlet and took the recording of How to Destroy Angels with them. 

Intended to further the work begun with the PTV release, Themes, which was intended as practical accompaniment for ritual practices, How to Destroy Angels was recorded under a very strict set of guidelines to abet very specific intents.   Conceived around the symbolism relative to the Martian element, it was designed to facilitate the accumulation of masculine sexual energies.  To this end, all care during the recording process was taken to ensure these energies were intensified, even so far as to ensure the entire building was cleared of any conflicting elements or energies.  Those who do not understand basic principals of ritual may not comprehend the value of such acts and may interpret them as potentially sexist, but this is not in any way meant to disparage or denigrate other types of energies.  It is merely and experiment in focusing on a particular type of force. 

The result of this effort was a 17 minute abstract tonal piece consisting of various gongs, bells, cymbals and certain other acoustic sources.  The B-side of the album was left, ostensibly, blank, though there are several pressing variants, one with a constant tone throughout, another with the side appearing to have been sanded down to destroy whatever sound was pressed there (which I had), another had some layered tones and another had a series of locked grooves.  One pressing had completely blank grooves, which was the original intent.  All variations on this were called Absolute Elsewhere. 

I picked this up shortly after the first Coil full LP, Scatology, in 1985.  Personally, it has always been and remains one of my all time favorite releases by this project.  It's a clear example of how music can be created for practical application, beyond mere "entertainment", with abilities to aid certain processes.  I've had several practical experiences of using it which were extremely efficacious.  On the other hand, I've played this for people who were completely unable to comprehend it as anything but a bunch of rattling noises with no intent or purpose.  It certainly doesn't exist for "easy listening".

INFLUENTIAL ALBUM - Señor Coconut Y Su Conjunto, El Baile Alemán

On this day where we mourn the loss of the inimitable Florian V2 Schneider, it only seems fitting that I look back at an album which celebrated the genius of Kraftwerk and showed how truly timeless and classic their songs are.  The album was created by German musician & producer, Uwe Schmidt, in 1999.  After relocating to Santiago, Chile, Schmidt conceived of the alter-ego, Señor Coconut, and began creating Latin infused reinterpretations of classic songs.  His stroke of genius was to make his second outing a complete dedication to the music of Kraftwerk.

I first heard the album shortly after its release when it was played to me by a friend.  El Baile Alemán, at first glance, seemed like an absurd idea.  Doing classic Kraftwerk as Cha-Cha and Merengue music felt completely contradictory, until you heard it.  Once the disc started to spin and you heard those first notes, it became immediately apparent how beautifully these songs adapted to these interpretations.  Song after song sends you on another journey you never expected these compositions could take you.  Autobahn, for example, morphs from being a slip-stream cruise on modern pavement into a loping clip-clop donkey ride as the car refuses to start and you have to saddle up instead.  The movement and the sense of traveling are still there, but the pace is just so much more leisurely, perfect for enjoying the scenery.

Listening to this album gave me an entirely new appreciation for the songwriting craft of the "Man Machine".  It illustrates the precision and elegance of their compositions and how each element is vital to the picture the song paints.  It shows how each sound can be translated into an analog which retains the conceptual integrity of the original while transforming it into a new shape.  After hearing Señor Coconut, my view of Kraftwerk as song writers was more akin to how I see classical composers vs "pop" musicians.  But I shouldn't have been surprised by this, given Ralph & Florian's background. 

But let's not heap all the praise on the source material alone.  Schmidt's work here is genius in itself.  The way he's arranged these songs and performed them is so flawless, he manages to create his own space while at the same time paying tribute to its origins.  Though the tools he's using are decidedly electronic in nature, the feel of the album is totally organic and natural, even when he slips in the odd breakbeat trill. 

After 20 years in my music library, it's an album I can go to any time and find it just as fresh and fun as the first time I played it.  It's a celebration of many things on many levels, and a sincere, genuine love letter to both Kraftwerk and Latin music.