walking in the shadows.

recorded in 1985 in holland, it was produced by fullman rubbing rosined fingers on 70 foot long strings creating a hauntingly beautiful drone. amazing, can not recommend this one enough.

end of year & what not.

so i hate these fucking things, but i figured a whole buncha assholes are doing these as well, so yeah. all new, no reissues.

1. bill basinski ~ cascade
if you at all follow this blog or know me irl, then you'll know how big this fella looms in my life. hands down most listened to album this year.

2. panabrite ~ disintegrating landscape / norm chambers ~ cede
yeah, i know technically cheating, but this cat used to live in my house, so i'm allowed to be biased. i have seen dude probably twelve or thirteen times now over the last almost four years, & the progression has been astounding. i think cede might be my favorite thing he has done, but i jammed my panabrite tape a whole bunch this summer.

3. prurient ~ frozen niagara falls
i've been following him since 2001, & this is by far my favorite thing he has ever done. bummer that he's such a conceited dick.

4. tisdass ~ yamedan
uh if you haven't heard this go out & buy it now. if like me you had yr mind split open by bombino, then this is for you. hasn't left my deck since getting this.

5. cfcf ~ the colours of life
my other most listened to album this year. perfect smoking on yr porch while the sun is setting jams., hats off to this dude for making the most listenable imaginary windham hill cassette.

6. mt. eerie ~ sauna
phil elverum is one of my heroes, & has been for a long time. his songs fit the pnw perfectly... it all clicks once you start walking around cascadia. raged to this one real hard during the summer months.

7. knife pleats ~ hat. bark. beach.
another pnw alum that i have loved forever, rose melberg has the sweetest voice & the songs sound like prime era tiger trap. absolutely lovely.

8. qualchan ~ pools of light // pools of shadow
not to be that guy, but i spent the majority of the year making this tape, so yeah, imma throw this up here.

2k15 was a total shit year for music. couldn't think of any other new things that captivated me. hit me with yr list bruno!

~seymour glass

ps at the behest of my companheiro we will be getting sc back up to it's former glory in the new year. till then smoke weed & listen to thou. catch ya on the flip.

qualchan ~ pools of light tape available!

two things happened over the weekend... yr boy turned 33, & my latest album, pools of light // pools of shadow came out on magical garage taste, a lovely cassette label out of quebec run by a dreamboat of a human being. i hate being that guy, but i guess if yr into robert turman, dj screw, william basinski, croiners or the dreamdate with boyd rice tape comp / tape loop fuckery, then this would be right up yr alley. chopped&screwed tape loops of exotica, minimal synth, soundtrack, jpop, etc. edition of 35, grab one while ya can!

ps spent most of 2k15 on this, so glad this labor of love will be getting into yr hands!

pps talking about labors of love, my main squeeze old flash strap just put out a beautiful, amazing & mind warping book of his collage work. just pleased as punch that this cat is my friend & of course in perpetual awe at his talents. help a brother out here

purchase my tape

ages upon ages upon you.

i'm feeling nostalgic for old seattle, so i'm sharing this. comp from a few years ago compiled by a local space featuring some heady blissers & shredders from around these parts. perfect for this time of the year.

heart of stillness.

just when you think you know ennio. saloon girls is up there in favorite morricone songs. fun & upbeat to combat that seattle fall weather. see ya in the clouds.

in lieu of the moon.

really really lovely private press pastorale psyche twee from 1969. from the dudes who did this & this. they made this as a soundtrack so a coupla songs are a little silly out of context, but worth the price of admission for the first two alone.

Gloomy-sounding instruments

Hello amigos. To honour this year's Dia de Los Muertos, I rise from the dead to re-share this gorgeous compilation of death-themed Mexican folk music straight from the Mexican Anthropology Museum archives.

Unfortunately my plans of ripping vinyl have been indefinably postponed. I'll try to post more often, tho.

bonus:

Don't know about you guys, but I can't think of Dia de los muertos without recalling this great game. The remake and the HQ soundtrack are both available on Vapor. 

smoggy mountain high.

hey. yeah. it's been a minute. but. here i am sharing this gem with ya so yr welcome. so masahiko sato wrote this fucking masterpiece of heady psyche giallo jazz in italy with some top notch session players for a japanese anime from the early seventies made with watercolors. there are only clips on youtube, buuut it just got remastered & premiered in austin at fantastic fest, so hopefully should be seeing a larger release soon. just get this. you won't regret it. sounding nice while i smoke weed on my porch right now.

ps sorry for absence, have been busy. maybe will come back, who knows. i have a tape dropping next month, will keep y'all updated on that.

pps not my rip, so all thanks to og.

freedom club ~ smoke signals vol 1.

before i recede into the shadows of summer, i want to leave you with this mix i made for smoking weed on my porch on lazy hot afternoons. chopped&screwed indie rock, shoegaze, j pop, balearic disco, etc. enjoy y'alls summer. catch ya on the flip.

don't think twice it's alright.

cambodian freedom psych rock from 76.

dying under a woman's sword.

private press pastorale psych folk rock from 73. a twee the piper at the gates of dawn if you will. from the same dudes who did agincourt & alice through the looking glass. this is the expanded version.

Rufous-bellied lovethrushes

I got a hold on this one for a while but hadn't ripped because I intended to strip off the interviews -- the album belongs to the same collection as this one --, in respect to all non-Portuguese speakers. I even started to crop the tracks until realise it would destroy the purpose and charm of it. What I forgot to tell in the aforementioned Dominguinhos' post is that this collection is from an excellent TV music program on which the artists were recorded and interviewed inside an empty studio. It's kinda odd since you can't actually hear nor see the interviewer. It feels like a late chat on a porch, with a warm spirit to be sipped along (thinking of cachaça, of course).

Cascatinha & Inhana belong to a true Brazilian tradition that is Sertanejo music, which borrows from many Brazilian styles, like baião, forró, as well as Latin American ones, such as bolero and, particularly in this case, the Paraguayan Guarania. The duo practically introduced the Guarania into the genre, making it one of its most distinctive characteristics. It worth mentioning the couple (married 'til the end) sung in impossibly perfect harmony, often regarded as the most beautiful voices in Brazilian popular music. Not that many folks actually remember them nowadays, tho.


pw: spooked

smoggy mountain high.

another one dan brought home the other day. holy fuck dudes, this is so good. maybe my favorite hancock album. this came out right after manchild, so full of beautiful lush jazz funk. & ray parker on geetar. just look at that fucking cover... cool as a goddamn cucumber. this is meant to be played loud on sunny days.

days move into years.

private press record from 1970 of a beautiful british folk rock band. sounds as if stuart murdoch fronted the free design in new mexico. haunted pastorale pop perfect for midnight drives down deserted highways.

yr on my mind.

so my hausmate brought this home the other night & we got stoned & jammed it for a while, just having our minds blown by the heady jams. then i found out that one of the brothers passed away on sunday, the same day we played it. in memory, i wanted to share this gem with y'all. arranged & produced by quincy jones, so full of lush orchestral funk. & of course y'all have heard strawberry letter 23 before. rip dude.

don't call this a comeback.

just keeping this real casual, nothing too serious. i bought this tape yesterday & knew i had share this gem with y'all. this is the fucking bees knees. tomita plays holst's the planets on all of these beautiful synths. just absolutely gorgeous.

Let my people stay

Hey fellas. Before start ripping my vinyl -- been trying to figure out how isolate my set from radio interference, it's driving me nuts --, I'll share some CD rips I've found scattered around my HDD and the webverse.

Ripped by my yoga instructor's request (lol), this album is a collection of songs passed on and sung by members of the Guarani people, probably the largest indigenous group in Brazil (also extending to other countries). While I'm not exactly up to date with USA's politics on native people, I can guarantee Brazil's probably way worse. Recent examples are the construction of a giant hydro plant complex inside an Indian reserve and the perpetual slaughter of indigenous leaders by big farmers and such. Depressing shit, really.

Well, about the album, is entirely sung by the Guarani (it's also the language's name) children of many different tribes; kinda akin to the Wulu Bunun record I've posted some time ago, though as not as sophisticated in production. Very nice tunes with minimum instrumentation, and another important glimpse of an endangered culture.


pw: spooked


ps.: this is the 1st CD. If anyone wants part 2, just message me. Or better yet, get it at iTunes

Kurosawa's Dreams funeral in the village

Hey friends. Like most of you, I was taken aback with jefe's departure -- even though we remain in touch every now and then --, but it was nice seeing many new hidden supporters. Even if doesn't look so, I'm still devoted in keeping the blog warm for his return (counting on it).

And the good news is I've finally been able to set up a minimal vinyl rip rig, thus also encouraging me to buy more. There are still some details to take care of, though. Meanwhile, here's a gem from the great Zipagu's defunct archive.

Miya Masaoka is one of those crazy Japanese gals with a taste for avant -- eg laser kotos, skin-crawling insects, etc. This album, however, while conservative in shape (a bass / drums / koto trio playing some Monk), is a deep exploration in subtlety and constraint.

(192kbps, sorry!)

pw: spooked

goodbye.

oh this song & dance again from this guy? didn't he promise to quit two years ago, & then he came back? yes. & yes, i'm leaving again. this time for good i think. it's been real fun over the last three years sharing music, & i hope some of you discovered some gems. millions of thanks to the lifers (shout out to my hero & all around champ feqwah, miss ya buddy! also to my main squeeze mike, get yrself back up to seattle real soon!) & the newcomers alike, & for everyone that commented or shared something in return. a special thank you to my brother in arms bruno, i love you man. thank you for all that you have done for me & for this blog.

for my last post, i present to you a young person's guide to mountaineering vol II. it originally started life as a split mix with ole dreamboat flash strap, & that fell through (it would have been so dope, maybe sometime in the future amigo:). so i lost most of the songs & started afresh. chopped&screwed mix of cosmic disco, funk, dubbed out bombay jams, israeli minimal synth, blah blah blah.

thank you & good night.

love letters straight from yr heart.

affectionately known as the malaysian elvis, this is a funky psyche folk rock record full of gorgeous melodies, flute solos, wah'd out scuzzy geetar solos & really smooth vocals released in 76.

let the good times roll.

i know i don't post much music like this, & not very many people download my posts that aren't some obscure album from some imaginary country, but fuck that. this album has been out of print for a while now, which is a shame. scrappy punk featuring cindy crabb from doris zine, & the greatest living american author on drums, aaron cometbus. this reminds me a lot of the criminals & aaron's other band from this time period, cleveland bound death sentence, which is an amazing thing. fast short songs with alternating female/male vocals. & how do you go wrong with anything that cometbus has touched? seriously, do yrself a favor & pick up the latest cometbus zine, a bestiary of booksellers. his writing just continues to get better & better. the weather is warming up, & this has been the soundtrack to my days lately. don't sleep on this.

under the palms.

picked this cassette up the other day & just had to share it here with y'all. so so so good you guys. weird krauty post punky minimal wave shit from australia released in 1976. this is the reish, remastered & sounding crisp with an additional track thrown on at the end. if you didn't grab the other cybotron album i posted, don't be a dummy.

rhapsody in green.

morning meditation musique... a sort of not really greatest hits from paul horn, one of the godfathers of new age. i've been listening to this while reading bradbury, & it's been really pleasant.

sphere of sublime dances.

another gnostic trio album. if you didn't grab the first one, then do it now. not to sound like a broken record, but john zorn should stop playing & just write music for bill frisell to gussy up. hauntingly beautiful album of vibes, guitar & harp.

welcome back fam.

my favorite composer fucking killing it. ennio is the goddamn bees knees.

in yr wake.

this is the reissue from lion productions of this cornerstone of weird german hippie kraut shit featuring the cosmic jokers (klaus schulze anyone?). pretty good, get if you don't have already, or if you need an upgrade amigos.

eternal spring.

holy fuck dudes. so so good. never before heard industrial cues by that inimitable dream boat alessandro alessandroni. mind warping synths collide head on with musique concrete flourishes. y'all can thank me later for this one.

Kawabata & Yoshida & Umezu

A quick re-share from our defunct private club. And you read it right: that's "doc" Umezu (hello, Lucky) with Acid Mothers Temple SWR, the most recent Kawabata's project which includes none other than Tatsuya Yoshida (Ruins, Koenjihyakkei, dozens of others). I must say, however, this album still haven't "stick" in me, despite having listened to it a few times. To me it sounds more like a private conversation to which you were not exactly invited (you wonder how this album passed so unnoticed). Nevertheless, it's a fantastic collab from Japanese avant masters.

forget the hype.

not really a john zorn fan (gasp!hiss!boo! fuck off) but this is really really good. i think because it doesn't feature him, they're just songs written by him. this is warm vibes, bill frisell's impeccable geetar squiggles & some very nice harp. highly recommend this one.

casino on rose street.

holy fuck. if john carpenter was scoring a giallo, then this would be somewhere close to that. scored by brian may (not the dude from queen!) who also did the soundtrack for mad max, this is definitely one to get! haven't seen this australian horror film, but i love anything cheesy from the late seventies/early eighties, so definitely will be renting soon.

heavy feelings in my mind.

wow. coming out in the early 70's kanada, what a bizarre album... the internet says he's influenced by cage, eno, stravinsky, & charles ives. dunno about that, but i do hear wisps of woo, mort garson, broadcast, iasos, harry forbes, ariel kalma & k leimer. if any of those names do anything for you, you NEED to download this. beautiful synth augmented by strings & woodwinds. this is a 320 of the lion reissue, so yeah. yr welcome.

in this circle of time.

seventies stoned biker funk. yeah, this is fucking rad. whole thing is a goddamn gem, but first two songs will melt yr face.

procession on the horizon.

a blind master musician of the oud, hassan erraji is the john fahey of morocco. elevating the craft to an otherworldy affair by mixing multiple styles of music, this is one not to miss amigos.

ps rip edgar froese, what a heavy blow. stuntman is the cat's pajamas.

her eyes are closed.

loungy private press jazz fusion from early seventies vegas. if yr a fan of herbie hancock or electrick miles davis, then this is right up yr alley.

postcard from brilliant orange.

great great great funky soul from texas circa late sixties~mid seventies. iron leg is pvre fyre. get both parts.

one  /  two

you'll know when you get there.

not even sure how to describe this one. otherworldly, haunting... jin hi kim plays the geomungo, which is a korean bass zither. she's played with cage & studied under riley & rosenboom if that gives you any idea of the headspace this swims in. weird & beautiful.

amps drugs harmonium.

figured since i shared the richard pinhas a coupla days ago, why not share something by his earlier band, heldon? this is ridiculously amazing weirdo psych prog with early electronics layered on top. if you listened to chronolyse & were blown away, wait till you hear this.

ps this is the expanded japanese version, forgot to write that last night.

chase me now.

morton subotnick's wife fucking kills it on this. weird cage~esque vocal acrobatics, avant garde mind blowing shit. if yr a fan of riley, glass, reich, grm, etc blahblahblah, just download this. a kajillion thanks to og ripper whoever ye be.

three bridges.

i know a classique amongst the blogerati, this is for those who didn't catch this the first time around. great collection of indonesian blissed out psyque rock & fuzzy stoned biker jams from the seventies. essential.

year of the wooden horse.

listening to this right now & thought i'd share it with y'all. this is one of the dudes who runs numero. like a pastoral prefuse 73, or maybe a more beat oriented bibio. also reminds me of jel/anticon productions from the late 00's. very nice on this beautiful sunny afternoon with the windows open.

you can make the sun shine.

really really great album by robbie basho. another guitar wizard.

jessica finds the beach.

a new favorite of mine by prime era herbie hancock.

night is still there.

my main man morricone killing it on this one. as you can tell from the cover it's all warm woodwinds & beguiling strings. absolute gem of a jam.

here come the dogs.

at the intersection of kraut histrionics, classic rock wizadry & proggish tendencies lies the fourth album from sensations' fix. took me a while to get into this, not quite as immediate as fragments of light. definitely a grower, but hey, any sensations' fix album is %95 better than most shit out there. not to sound overly verbose here, franco falsini is a guitar genius.

Stars ever-dimming

This was supposed to be a inspirational gift for our friend and host Ryan, but the latest happenings made me want to extend this blessing to whoever needs it

David Darling isn't a ethnomusicologist per se, and I'm sure this record doesn't quite qualify as true Ethno due to his arrangements and cello additions. However, the polyphonic chants of the Bunun, a Taiwanese tribe, echo magnificently. If there's hope yet to be found in this ever rotting world, ceiled by ever dimming stars, it creeps around woods, deserts, mountains and islands untouched, sovereign reign of animist gods.

If you fancy buying

pw: spooked

yeah well, oyster shells.

richard pinhas' debut album. if yr not familiar, he played in heldon, with pascal comelade (that reissue in 2k14 was the fucking cat's pajamas!), & on this jean phillipe goude album i posted a while ago. the first eight songs are beautiful solo synth gems where he is channeling philip glass filtered through tangerine dream. the last song is a fripp inspired epic with pinhas with a full band jamming on the one.

flying through the skies over caracas.

i posted an album of theirs before, & got a great response, so almost two years later, here is the follow up. amazing baroque pop channeling free design with a latin american flair, this is so fucking good you guys. sorry for the 192, all i have. if someone has an upgrade, please share with the rest of us.

kick in the eye.

great compilation of iranian psyche garage musique from the golden era. the flowers' meekshi manoo is one of my absolute faves.

dear anonymous. (edit)

whoa huh? it's frustrating because i spend my time & money on this blog so i can share what i think are gems, & then most of the time no thanks from anyone & now i have this asshole harassing me. why man? it's free music. don't like mine, start yr own blog & show me up. i feel burnt out from doing this for so long guys. where's jerry orbach when ya need him? miss you bb!

we would be building.

in the spirit of cleaning out, here is one of my favorites. not sure where i got this from, maybe bruno? anywho, great summery breezy hanging out on the beach drinking an ultimate hurricane & flying through the clouds vibes abound on this gem. perfect nostrum to this miserable gray weather we're having today in seattle.