Amon Düül II - Phallus Dei (1969)

This one here is a Krautrock classic. It came out in 1969 at the same time that bands like Faust, Can, and Neu! were recording their first albums, and it has won a place between the genre's classics. 

Amon Düül II is a band created after lots of musicians met at the Art Commune for the post-war era Munich based artists, a place that during the late 60's and early 70's hold a big part of the new and experimental music scene. Is important to mention the existence of another band named Amon Düül I, formed by musicians of the same artistic commune that shared similarities with Amon Düül II and Amon Düül UK. These three bands had a big impact on what later would be the style and sound of the Krautrock genre.

Phallus Dei ("God's penis" in english) is an album mined with long instrumental parts, free improvisation, and strange vocal interpretations, showing the "instant composition" spirit of Krautrock. Compared to another early releases such as Neu! - s/t and Can - Monster Movie this album may seem a little bit more diverse and not so centered on the "rhytmic" aspect of the classic motorik drum beat and the extense and quick atmospheres preferred by those bands. The instrumentalization is also a little bit more complex, given that the artists use a wide array of instruments (mostly percusion kits) to create the arrangements for each song.

Amon Düül II - Phallus Dei Tracklist:

1. Kanaan – 4:02
2. Dem Guten, Schönen, Wahren – 6:12
3. Luzifer's Ghilom – 8:34
4. Henriette Krötenschwanz – 2:03
5. Phallus Dei – 20:48

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Chihei Hatakeyama - Minima Moralia (2006)

Chihei Hatakeyama is a Japanese artist that has dedicated most of his work to create ambient, post ambient, and electronic music. Minima Moralia is his debut album, a post ambient conceptual work where each track is composed with the idea of representing a situation, or a different scene, therefore the names of the songs, such as "Bonfire on the field", often resulting in slow paced, very relaxed melodies. It's good to keep in mind the names of the tracks while listening to them, because most songs match the scenery proposed by the title.

In my opinion, this album is very different from other ambients works because of two factors. First, the instrumentation utilized by the artist is more vast and complex than most classical composers of the genre (Hatakeyama plays piano, guitar, vibraphones and synths on a laptop, and features some beautiful violin arrangements). Secondly, the carefull mix of different styles like dronning chords, with the mellow melodies characteristic of the genre, throwing in some bits of old fashioned noise static, creating dynamic songs that guide the listener through a calm and imaginary soundscape of vibrating sounds. Totally worth to give it a listen, and certainly this essential of the ambient genre.

Chihei Hatakeyama - Minima Moralia  Tracklist:

1. Bonfire On The Field - 8:13 

2. Swaying Curtain In The Window - 8:25

3. Starlight Reflecting On The Surface Of The River - 7:00

4. Towards A Tranquil Marsh (Violin – Masahiro Kobayashi) - 4:46

5. Granular Haze - 7:21 

6. Inside Of The Pocket (Violin – Masahiro Kobayashi) - 4:31 

7. Beside A Well - 11.30

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Japanese Music - Mouse on the Keys (2009)

A while ago I read an article writen by Andreas Fredrik Larsen call "Strategies of authentication in Japanese experimental music". In that article he describe two kind of artist: the first one is the kind of artist that elebarote his music trying to authenticate it from its roots; his music is the result of a tree with a really strong root and the music created from it is a branch in that big tree. Any folk music can be seen with that point of view, but jazz is a really good example.

But something awesome happended with japanese experimental music: when they opened their frontiers during the Meiji era, they start absorbing all the cultures brought by the europeans. All that music was for them just information: no emotional, traditional or any kind of root could be traced, but they started using it for their own creations. And not only music, also a lot of instruments came from europe. The result is the second tipe of artist described in the article: a musician that can make collide atoms-sounds in a way that the first kind of artist can't, creating surprising stuffs: the roots force the first kind of artist to give the atoms-sounds particle a progesion well defined by the tradition. This kind of creation could be call vertical creation: since the roots are there the growing will start in the direction of the light. The second type of artist dont have a vertical direction. They have created in the oposite way: they never had roots to start creating and the direction of the atom-sounds particles are unpredicble. its not vertical... it does not even have a direction.

With this toughts i will put the album An Anxious Objetc created by Mouse on the Keys. its a japanese jazz album and a good example about what i have been saying: its black music played by japanese people but it does not sound like black jazz at all. you can hear the influence of the oriental tones in their music.
They are three and the three of them are great, but drummers always caught my attention and the one of this band is awesome. He gives intensities and create really good atmospheres for the pianos but he can also hit the drums really hard. The keyboardist are also really good and they create really nice tunes with good melodies. From time to time a sax player and a trumpeter appear in the songs, also great musicians.

and now the fucking album

Mouse on the Keys - An Anxious Object

Alex Mauer - Blast I, II (2013)

Sometimes horrible things happen to some music genres: it's visible how some bands create a sound that gets labeled by some music critic, and then lots of people create music trying to sound like the first group that got labeled. To me, the first bands have some spontaneity that the second bands lacks.

And how could Alex Mauer have that lack, if he was imagining, as a child, the sound track of an imaginary video game? and the rework of that soundtrack as a child with his father is blast I, II.

One of my favorite chiptune albums. really nice tunes with beuty melodies.

I only upload this one because is one of my favorite but you can download the hole Alex Mauer discography in his bandcamp for free, or, if you want, you can give him some money too.

Alex Mauer - Blast I, II

The Physics House Band - Horizon / Rapture (2013)

Horizon / Rapture is the debut album of the trio Physics House Band, an experimental/progresive band from England. In this instrumental work, the musicians play a mix of FX-heavy guitars riffs, catchy bass lines, and powerful drum kicks wich often leads the group. I also have to mention that both the guitar and bass players are in charge of playing the synths too, often forcing themselves to play each instrument with only one hand, which can be seen in the video footage of this album (highly recomended, too!)

This album's tracks will get the listener through a series of fast rhythm changes, unexpected melodic turns in every song, and beautifull synth arrangements, setting a particular, clear and defined style all through only six tracks. All in all, a great release (even more for a debut album), that got me hooked up as soon as I listened it. I advise that people into experimental and prog rock give this a listen, since I'm sure almost noone will regret it.

The Physics House Band - Horizon / Rapture Tracklist:

1. ObeliskMonolith - 05:12
2. Abraxical Solapse - 04:19
3. Hollow Mountain - 03:47
4. Teratology - 06:25
5. The Spectral Beyond - 01:32
6. Titan - 03:06

DOWNLOAD HERE

Electronic Music History I: Luigi Russolo and the futurist movement

I will try to make an electronic music history. For what I know, I can go back to 1913, when the futurist composer Luigi Russolo was performing with his intonarumori in Italy. Luigi Russolo is an interesting music composer having in mind the fact that he was breaking with the classical aesthetics at the same time that Schoenberg was creating his dodecafonic system.

The influence of Russolo in experimental music is huge: his intonarumori can be consider the precesor of any synth of this time, and his ideas started a force that strike people from all arround the world in different times: in France, as in Japan and Egypt too, musique concrete emerged in the 50`s and during the 60`s, in his bitrthland, Luciano Berio experimented with tape machines producing noise in his symphonies.Thirty years later the noise artist, Merzbow were releasing his first tapes albums.  But that force can be recognize in many artist of this time to: Nils Frahm, for example, use tapes machines with his grand piano.

Russolo's music its full of rough atmospheres and noises without any kind of tune, melody or rhythm; sometimes a few instruments appears trying to recalling those concepts but with some intonarumori interferences.

That being said, a compilation of Russolo made in 2000 and a compilation from various futurist artist can be downloaded below. Sorry about the bad quality but I couldnt find anything better.

Luigi Russolo - Die Kunst Der Geräusche (2000)

V.A. - Futurist Music - The Art of Noises 1909-1935

Bartholomäus Traubeck - Years (2011)

If you ever wonder how a tree sounds, you may want to hear this album. The best way to explain this work may be quoting the artist himself. Straight from Traubeck's page:

"A tree’s year rings are analysed for their strength, thickness and rate of growth. This data serves as basis for a generative process that outputs piano music. It is mapped to a scale which is again defined by the overall appearance of the wood (ranging from dark to light and from strong texture to light texture). The foundation for the music is certainly found in the defined ruleset of programming and hardware setup, but the data acquired from every tree interprets this ruleset very differently."

In this new approach to experimental music, even though the tracks from Years are generated based on wood pieces, the songs somehow remain strangely coherent, with a defined style between every track, resulting in a particular, relaxed and atmospheric record. Besides the interesting concept of this, the music itself may result appealing to some ambient, classical, and experimental music listeners. Totally worth to give it a try in my opinion.

Bartholomäus Traubeck - Years Tracklist (every song features a different kind of tree)

1. Picea (Spruce) - 04:54

2. Fraxinus (Ash) - 05:21

3. Quercus (Oak) - 04:53

4. Acer (Maple) - 04:52

5. Alnus (Alder) - 05:16

6. Juglans (Walnut) - 05:10
7. Fagus (Beech) - 04:22

DISCLAIMER: Since I had to rip the files directly from Traubeck's bandcamp, the tracks are featured in 280kbps, considered by some people as bad audio quality. However, there's no other free download mirror on the internet (that I could find, at least), so I think this is an OK option if you want to download this album.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Brian Eno - Ambient 4 On Land (1982)

This one caught my attention the last couple of days: the 4th volume from the Brian Eno's "Ambient" works. The presence of more drone-like, dynamic songs; instead of the tranquil & repetitive melodies of previous works, such as "Discreet Music" and "Ambient 1: Music for Airports", makes this in my opinion the most outstanding work from the series.

Even though the overall sound of the album changes (from previous ones), there's still a lot of elements and characteristics of his early work. Most tracks might be more drone-ish,  but at the same time they preserve the mellow soundscape and the relaxed atmospheres that made some of his older albums classics of the genre.

Brian Eno - Ambient 4 Tracklist:

1. Lizard Point – 4:34
2. The Lost Day – 9:13
3. Tal Coat – 5:30
4. Shadow – 3:00
5. Lantern Marsh – 5:33
6. Unfamiliar Wind (Leeks Hills) – 5:23
7. A Clearing – 4:09
8. Dunwich Beach, Autumn, 1960 – 7:13

DOWNLOAD HERE

Nils Frahm - The Bells (2009)

Nils Frahms is a German pianist, prolific in both solo and group projects. Through his career he has been able to bring together the style of some old compossers, and the fresh sounds of modern ones.

In this album, the artist develops a particular sound characterized by mixing both low intensity-slow paced melodies, and intense and fast rhythm changes, creating a high number of diverse athmospheres.

All in all, this is a clear and well rounded album, where every song is up to the expectectation of the listener. Mellow and and exciting at the same time

Nils Frahms - The Bells Tracklist

1. In The Sky And On The Ground
2. I Would Like To Think
3. Said And Done
4. Dedication, Loyalty
5. Down Down
6. Over There, It's Raining
7. Small Me
8. My Things
9. Peter Is Dead In The Piano
10. It Was Really, Really Grey
11. Somewhere Nearby

DOWNLOAD HERE