Monday 25 May 2020

UPDATE PLEASE READ


Hi readers I have noticed during the long absence before the reeboot that a lot of spam has been turning up in comments I am working to remove it all but it's a LONG laborious job but hopefully it will all be gone soon.

Secondly I have repeatedly stated this but i shall repeat it again, if you have any problems with passwords for extracting files or corrupt fdiles then please do report corrupt files but... 

THERE IS NO PASSWORD PROTECTION ON ANY OF MY UPLOADS

I used WINRAR to compress these files into RAR it's one of the best and it is free to download if you can't extract my files when you download or there is some password requested...

DOWNLOADING WINRAR SHOULD SOLVE THIS!

Here is the link to where you can download it safe and virus free


this is what it looks like on your desktop once installed and what my files should look like when you download them
                                     
Hope that solves any problems anyone might have.

Thanks

Dave

NIRVANA DEMOS AND PEEL SESSIONS 1989 - 1991


Yeah I would have never expected Nirvana to turn up on this blog either! I was around for the original explosion of what would later be termed "Grunge" bands from Seattle. Back in the late 80's I used to trade records with a guy from Portland Oregon and when we would send each other packages we would always stick something in that wasn't requested, something new or good that we had come across and thought the other person might like. One package I received from him contained Nirvana's "Bleach" album along with the first couple of Mudhoney singles he said this was a new scene that was coming out of Seattle and maybe I would like these? At the time I was just starting to lose interest in all the Death Metal and brutal hardcore I was listening to at the time and when I put the needle to "Bleach" I was blown away I had never heard anything close to this and I couldn't stop listening to it! Subsequently he furnished me with more records by Tad and Soundgarden but that's another story.

I just recently finished reading the Kurt Cobain Biography "Heavier Than Heaven" I had originally picked it up because there was supposed to be some good stuff about the other bands from the Seattle scene of the time but there wasn't, however what was interesting was that he detailed many studio sessions Nirvana had done right up to Dave Grohl joining the band and the subsequent mass hysteria of "Nevermind" For example I had no idea that there had been 7 songs recorded during The sessions for their debut 7" "Love Buzz" or 5 songs during the session for the 2 B-side tracks for the "Blew " EP. This really piqued my interest as, while like everyone else I fell under the spell of "Nevermind" (an album i can no longer listen to due to over saturation) I still love the era preceding it when Nirvana were less polished and well, a lot heavier & noisier! SO I spent a morning researching and hunting down various tunes and decided that I'd put them up here.

 I'm not gonna lie, 90% of this stuff is commercially available, but is spread over many compilations and the infamous "With The Lights Out" Box set, but using both the book and an excellent extremely detailed website called Live Nirvana (Find it HERE for detailed Information on everything I present here) I managed to source and order all the demos in their correct order and separated them into files. I stated that 90% of this stuff is readily available there is quite a few tracks that I had to do some serious work to try and find which is why I decided to do this post!

I feel going into any kind of History about Nirvana is futile there is no stone left unturned or bone left unpicked about this band so I'm gonna get straight to the links here.I'm also gonna give you a link to the page for each session so you can get the detailed information there if you are curious)

1st Demo - In 1988 After Nirvana's original drummer Aaron Burckhard left the band they enlisted Dale Crover of the Melvins to fill the drum stool, but whilst he took the position, despite Kurt's pleading he would not leave the Melvins to take the position full time, however he did play on this first demo. 2 of the tracks would subsequently be remixed and appear on the debut album "Bleach" of the remaining 8 tracks 7 have been issued over the "Incesticide" & "With The Lights Out" I have sourced these from there, however the original rawer versions of "Floyd The Barber" & "Paper Cuts" which were remixed for "Bleach" have never been commercially available and the version of "Spank Thru" has also never been released I sourced these from downloads. There is a bit of difference in quality between the released and unreleased tracks but if they were unlistenable as per usual I would not have shared this. (More Info HERE)

Love Buzz Sessions/Blew Sessions - After Sub Pop agreed they would like to release a single by Nirvana they strongly urged the band to record their version of Shocking Blue's "Love Buzz" Kurt Cobain wanted to put 2 originals on the 7" rather than their debut release be a cover version but conceded to Jonathon Poneman of Sub Pop and they entered the studio for several sessions between June and September 1988 and subsequently recorded 11 tracks 3 versions of "Love Buzz" , 2 Versions of "Big Cheese" as well as 6 further originals Here I present 7 of those tracks as the various takes of "Love Buzz" and "Big Cheese" were unavailable so what you get here is "Love Buzz" & "Big Cheese" The former contains the sound collages that were removed for the album version and a different version of "Big Cheese" from the "Bleach" Version. these are both ripped from the original 7" "Blandest" is taken from the "With The Lights Out" Box set "Spank Thru" was sourced from the Sub Pop 200 compilation the other 3 tracks "Mr Moustache" , "Blew" & "Sifting"  were sourced from the internet and are NOT the "Bleach" Versions. "Blew" Sessions" This was the session where they recorded tracks for the B-sides of the "Blew" 12" "Been A Son" & "Stain" appeared on the B-side of the 12" I sourced these from the CDEP but a further 3 tracks were recorded "Even In His Youth" (not the version that turned up on the B-side of the Teen Spirit Single) as well as an early version of "Polly" And "Token Eastern Song" These 3 Appeared on the "With The Lights Out" Box and were sourced from there. More Info on Love Buzz HERE and Blew HERE)

Smart Studio Sessions - This was the last session to feature Chad Channing on drums before Dan Peters of Mudhoney took the seat briefly for "Sliver" and was then unceremoniously booted from the band for Dave Grohl and subsequent Nirvana super stardom. This session was originally meant to be an attempt at recording the second Nirvana album but did not work out, it's a long story you can read about at the link below. of the 8 songs recorded 6 would be re-recorded for "Nevermind" of the other 2 you get another version of "Sappy" and the Velvet Underground cover "Here She Comes Now" which would appear on a split VU tribute  7" with Melvins. This session was released on the bonus disc of the 20th Anniversarry 2 Disc edition of "Nevermind" I separated it here because this is the last (excluding "Sliver" ) session before Nirvana were propelled to stardom and also I prefer these versions of the later far more polished versions that turned up on Nevermind"
(More Info HERE)

Hard To Believe Kiss Covers Comp Session/Sappy Session/Sliver 7" - I won't go into too much detail as I put these all in one folder due to them being three short sessions. The Kiss covers session was done in Spring 1989 they recorded "Do You Love Me" by kiss as well as 4 takes of "Dive" the final version of "Dive" is the only one completed at this session so here I present you with only these 2 tracks The Kiss cover was sourced from the orioginal compilatioon CD and the demo of "Dive" from the "With The Lights Out" Box Sappy Session - Nirvana excessively dedicated 10 hrs of studio time here to basically record this one song "Sappy" this was taken from the "Sliver Best of the Box" compilation. Lastly we have "Sliver" 7" I have put this in here because at the end of the song "Sliver" on the original 7" had a 40 second phone call to Kurt at the end that was ommited from every other version of the 7" and also because it was the only song recorded at that session and features Dan peters Of Mudhoney on Drums The B-side "Dive" is taken from the Smart Sessions (see below)
 Info On Kiss Session HERE Sappy Session HERE Sliver Session HERE)

Peel Sessions - I have put this in here simply because I love Peel Sessions and for some reason, of the 3 sessions only tracks from the 2nd 1990 session have ever been released comercially and it seems ridiculous to me that despite the money to be made that these 3 sessions have never been compiled for an album! There are 3 Sessions, one from 1989 featuring Chad Channing on drums, and one from 1990 and one from 1991 these feature Dave Grohl on drums and were just on the cusp of their breakthrough. I have sourced these from various bootlegs and present the best quality versions available I present them here simply because they remain unreleased in their entirety and there are some great versions of songs that would be recorded for albums and b-sides later. (More Info on all 3  Sessions HERE)

There you have it, as I said at the beginning I would never have expected to blog a band as huge as Nirvana became but, I think in the wake of their global mass acceptance people tend to forget that between 1988 & 1990 Nirvana were one of the best new underground guitar bands out there and I can tell you, I was around then, they were really only known and loved by people who followed the underground scene, you didn't see them on music video channels or hear them often on radio and you were lucky if you could even find a T-shirt. I can also state unequivocally that they made some fantastic twisted, noisy and heavy music that was utterly compelling and still is to this day! I remember once after being blown away by "Bleach" that someone sent me a tape of a bootleg 7" called "Beauty & Power" that contained 3 songs from their first demo "Downer" "Hairspray Queen" and "If You Must" (all of which came out years later on "Incesticide") I could not believe how twisted and fucked up these songs even compared to "Bleach" Kurt Cobain's vocals were utterly insane and deranged there's little resemblance between these recordings and the band that later became what they were/are and I urge you to look past that massive fame and give these a chance, especially as instead of being haphazardly thrown onto various compilations with no real love or attention to detail, here they are presented as they should have been, together in their right order (I took the running order for the first demo from a picture of Jack Endino's original BASF cassette of the session which is in your folder here) So go blast these out and try to forget what Teen Spirit smells like!


1st Demo Mediafire

Love Buzz & Blew SessionsMediafire

Smart Studio SessionMediafire

Kiss Covers/Sappy Sessions & Sliver 7"Mediafire

Peel Sessions -  Mediafire











Tuesday 12 May 2020

PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS


PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS (who shall be referred to as Pigs x 7 for the rest of this blurb) are a 5 piece band hailing from Newcastle Upon Tyne, I have heard them being described as psychedelic, motorik beats, Noise, Heavy Rock etc etc for my money they are a lot like Henge (see post HERE) one of those bands operating withing the "Heavy Riffs" spectrum of music but without falling into the derivative trap of pilfering Sabbath riffs and crooning vocals from the Kyuss school of rock!

I came across these guys when they did a split 12" with The Cosmic Dead back in 2013 I was really impressed by their 21 minute epic "The Wizard and the Seven Swines" But the name was ridiculous and I thought maybe they would be one of these bands with weird names that disappear into obscurity as it was a further 4 years before anything was heard of them again. I have no idea what was going on in the interim, touring, writitng? Who knows but since 2017 they have managed an album a year so maybe they were "woodshedding" enough material for the 3 albums? I don't know a great deal about this band I have not followed them avidly I love their music but really there's not a lot of net presence I did some searches for this article and could only find an interview preceding their debut album in 2017 (HERE)  SO I can't tell you much about them and that's after following the band through their 3 albums since 2016! So instead let's talk about what's on offer here

First up we have the Split 12" with The Cosmic Dead! This only contains 1 track by each band (I have only given you the Pigs x 7 side here as a post on The Cosmic Dead maybe done in the future) But at a hefty 21 mins Pigs x 7 have packed a near albums worth of material into one track .one of the main motif riffs is so catchy it automatically has my head bobbing like a demented chicken with a huge smile on my face! This track is pure riff heaven keeping the pace mostly at a foot tapping tempo throughout, the drummer provides a great beat and the backbone for this epic, whilst the guitarists stick with a motif that is pure 70's rock meet's Can or NEU! but this is no repetitive cycle while the main riff is ever present the interplay between the 2 guitarists ensures that the song dips and peaks in all the right places but also rocks out enough to keep you interested throughout not only that but there's plenty of parts where they just soar the song into the psychedelic stratosphere but also descending deep into BIG heavy riff territory too that just makes you go UGH where did that come from? Leaving you thoroughly satisfied that this is one hellavu Band!

In the interim between The split 12" and debut album Pigsx7 released a very limited  (50 Copies) cassette featuring the full length 21 minute version of "Psychopomp" (A truncated 16 minute version would appear on debut album "Feed The Rats") I have not long found this out as I say info is lacking on these guys, but upon listening to the 21 minute version of "Psychopomp" I didn't notice a great deal of difference between the 2 versions, except the cassette version is longer! The flipside of the cassette contains a remix by Joseph Curven who like Pigsx7 I can find little info on it's a 16 minute almost ambient take on the song and is kinda interesting but didn't really move me that much.

Onto the albums, When I bought debut album "Feed The Rats" and put it into media player it says EP I suppose at 3 songs but clocking in at 36 minutes it's a grey area. Opening with the aforementioned shorter (though at 16 minutes not short) version of "Psychopomp" this is a great tune with a bombastic heavy riff and some neat guitar harmonics that pierce the main riff to great effect. What I have noticed about these guys is as they progress the music has become more riff based and less of the psychedelic/kraut touches, which is no bad thing as they are head and shoulders above their contemporaries in this style and make music that is far more compelling than your average doom/stoner type stuff. Their riffs, whilst good and heavy don't follow your typical riff patterns and whilst lessened, that psychedelic edge is still there. You can definitely feel this in second track "Sweet Relief" and again in closing 17 minute epic "Icon"

I could go in depth on these guys next 2 albums as well but I fear I would be repeating myself. Pigsx7 are a great riff based band their albums have got better and better as they go on, the band have progressed throughout in both songcraft and sound, opting for less extended pieces to more regular lengths of songs and more conventional grooves, they always seem to have this ability to write a tune that immediately gets your head nodding, this is a formula taken to perfection on both 2018's "King Of Cowards" and current album "Viscerals" also they seem to make their sound "bigger" with each successive album where the sounds just really leap out of the speakers with a nice rich fullness but never sacrificing the dirty, grimy sound of those great guitars!

Below I present their entire discography to date I have packaged the Split 12" with the Cosmic Dead inside the file for debut album "Feed The Rats" below and as an addition after I started this post I found out that the LP version of their "Viscerals" album came with a mail order exclusive 6 Track "Live" CD "Off-Cuts". This is not strictly speaking a live CD, it's a selection of tracks from their albums played live in the studio and contains a run through 1 track from "Feed The Rats" 2 from "Viscerals" and 3 from "King Of Cowards".To be honest though as there's no crowd, no mistakes or feedback or chance occurrences and also as they are pretty consistent in their sound there's not a great deal of difference to these ears between the versions on "Off-Cuts" and the album versions but as it's a hard to find thing I decided I'd put it here so the discography is complete!

So there you go one of the UK's best and most interesting riff monsters collected! An absolutely stellar band with a ridiculous name and some amazing songs! You should be downloading these already!


PSYCHOPOMP CASSETTEMediafire

FEED THE RATS + COSMIC DEAD SPLITMediafire

KING OF COWARDSMediafire

VISCERALSMediafire

OFF-CUTSMediafire



RELOAD & GLOBAL COMMUNICATION


Mark Pritchard & Tom Middleton have been responsible for some of the most important electronic music to come out of the UK. Both having been immersed in the dance scene since 1991. Both of these guys together and separately have a mind boggling amount of aliases for their music and swinging from old school electro to drum'n'bass to house music and all points inbetween! You name an electronic genre these guys have done it and have an alias to cover it. Here however I am gonna concentrate on 2 of their best known projects that have meant the most to me, Reload & Global Communication.

I have often stated my love for early/mid 90's electronic music, at that time I was in a transitional period moving away from the brutal music of my youth and well I guess maturing, I was also smoking a lot of weed and what better music is there to "chill out" with than what was coming out of the then emerging electronic (or "Ambient" as we called it) scene. With no internet you just had to piece together what you could, take chances, join the dots etc. You'd look at a cover and think yeah that looks ambient and take a chance, mistakes were made and. some terrible records were purchased but when you struck gold it was a BIG event one of those was Reload "Auto-Reload Vol.2" 12"

Back in the early 90's there were a couple of label's that were a guarantee of quality the obvious one being Warp records who were in the middle of their "Artificial Intelligence" series releasing the debut by Autechre and projects by Aphex Twin and Richie Hawtin (Plastikman) among a load of others. The other much smaller operation was a subsidiary of indie giant Creation Records named Infonet. Infonet whilst mainly sticking to more dance orientated tunes did put out a couple of blinding electronica releases one of them being "Auto Reload" Vol.2 by Reload and later their only album "A Collection Of Short Stories" I'm going to be a bit lazy again and give you some discogs blurb....

"Reload was originally a Mark Pritchard solo project. Later Tom Middleton joined Mark on some of his Reload releases, As Tom became more heavily involved on the Reload "A Collection of Short Stories" album, Reload came to mean both Mark Pritchard and Tom Middleton.
All Reload Remixes were done by both Mark and Tom together"

Well not exactly helpful! I find myself in a bind with these posts, whilst I really want to share these electronic goodies with you as it's something I own and listen to a lot of , coming from a mostly traditional "rock format" type background in music (guitar,bass,drums) I really have little idea how to describe this kind of music do I say"ooh it's got some great swooshy bits and a nice clang to it here and there"? Who knows? I have to assume that the reader of these posts is unfamiliar with the music because otherwise I could make comparisons to other artists in this genre. So here goes anyway!

SO Reload differ greatly from Global Communication in the fact that over the course of a handful of EP's and one album they have a more scattershot beat based sound more compatible to artists like Aphex Twin (See posts HERE & HERE) or Gescom (See post HERE) Their Early 12" EP's have a much more dancefloor orientated sound than later releases verging on abrasive techno and in some cases house music. However around 1993 when as stated above Tom Middleton joined the Reload name things started to become more lush. Reload definitely shade their music in dark and light some pieces are so beautiful with soaring strings and waves they just melt you into your seat and some are quite dark and definitely leave you with a chill up your spine this exactly what I love about this artist!

So onto your links I have compiled Both Reload's Infonet releases the "Collection Of Short Stories" album and "Auto Reload Vol. 2" EP in one file. Both are taken from my own CD's at 320KBPS and the "Auto Reload" CDEP contains 2 bonus tracks not on the 12" vinyl.

EP's #1 contains their debut "Reload" EP "Auto Reload" & "Biosphere" EP's the former 2 are what I mentioned earlier about more abrasive techno sounds but the "Biosphere" EP is where you find the band starting to develop the more lush electronica sound I described These 3 EP's were remastered for a vinyl compilation release this file here is taken from a CD promo of this released by the band
EP's #2 contains the "Amenity" EP from 1996 and "Archives" EP from 1997 these are from what I can gather taken from vinyl rips. Also enclosed is a set of remixes done by µ-Ziq that were never used and only released on Mike Paradinas (µ-Ziq) soundcloud page. For me this was as match made in heaven as i have wanted to do a µ-Ziq post but his discography is almost as bad as Aphex Twin!!! These remixes are great and unavailable elsewhere as I think Mike Paradinas took them down from his soundcloud page.

So there you have a full discography of this great artist all their releases are out of print and I had to pay near £20 to replace my Reload "A Collection Of Short Stories" LP with a CD the vinyl goes for nearer £100 I have saved you a lot of money here!

This Write up is getting a bit long now and I'm sure confusing as dealing with these multi faceted/endless sub project artists are so I shall try to be brief here!

Global Communication for a brief shining moment were an artist who really did gain a lot of attention for their debut album I am going to be even lazier again and give you the internet version of events.

"Global Communication was a project begun in 1991 by Mark Pritchard and Tom Middleton. Middleton had previously worked with Aphex Twin (appearing under the name of Schizophrenia on Analogue Bubblebath by AFX); Pritchard was a one-time guitarist and DJ. Following a series of singles and EPs on their own Evolution label, their first proper album together was A Collection of Short Stories under the name Reload in 1993. Soon after this they released the Incidental Harmony / Sublime Creation EP, considered to be their manifesto. In the same year they produced the album 76:14, now widely considered to be a landmark ambient album. Tracks were titled by their duration, with the intention of not wanting to colour the experience of the listener. However, when a track was later issued as a single it was given the more marketable title of "Maiden Voyage".
In 1995 a compilation of their remixes of other artists' work was issued as Remotion, followed in 1998 by the reissue of Pentamerous Metamorphosis - an album of remixes, or "retranslations", of tracks from Chapterhouse's Blood Music dating from 1993 (and previously only available with initial copies of that album).
Later releases by the duo saw them moving away from the ambient template of 76:14 to produce funky house and dance music until they went their separate ways in 1998. Currently they work separately: Middleton under the name of Cosmos; and Pritchard mainly as Trouble Man and Harmonic 33.
In 2005 The Guardian newspaper named 76:14 as "the best ambient album of the nineties," and this was followed by a reissue of the album with a bonus CD of non-album tracks."

SO that pretty much covers Global Communications for you.In the links below you have the Expanded 2 disc remastered version of their INCREDIBLE debut album "76:14" which as it says above comes with a bonus disc which features most of the non album singles and other tracks which is nearly another albums worth of material in itself and makes this a near discography oif their recorded works.This is ripped from my own CD at 320KBPS I have also given you "Remotion - A Global Communications remixes album" This collection of remixes for artists such as Jon Anderson & Chapterhouse as well as more traditional electronic artists such as Warp 69 & The Grid is just fantastic it really does leave little of the originals and basically to my ears sounds like a further album of Global Communications originals!

So to wrap all this up your last link is "The Theory Of Evolution" this is a compilation album of Tom Middleton & Mark Pritchard's  Evolution records who have released many of the various aliases of these guys it's sorta a mix CD but also a compilation you get full tracks mixed into snippets of others and for me it's a great introduction to these guys works, it does not contain any Global Communications tracks I assume this is probably due to GC being on another label but it is a great listen though far more uptempo and dancefloor orientated than anything else i have presented by these guys here.

So that's that another electronica post where I have waffled for many paragraphs yet possibly failed utterly to describe the music. For me these posts are archives of a time long gone when electronica/IDM/Ambient music was fresh and new and it's a period very close to my heart and I like to hope that either old middle aged guys like me or young un's looking for some history will come across these posts and find easy to digest chunks of this amazing music! Also the albums contained here are collectable on both vinyl and CD and also out of print not that they would be hard to find but htey are NOT cheap. So here you have it free of charge get in your favourite armchair hit play and melt away!


RELOAD

A COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES & AUTORELOAD VOL 2 CDEPMediafire

EP'S #1Mediafire

EP'S #2Mediafire


GLOBAL COMMUNICATION

76:14 (Remastered 2 Disc Edition)Mediafire

REMOTIONMediafire

EVOLUTION RECORDS

THEORY OF EVOLUTION COMP
 - Mediafire