Electronic

Land Of The Loops “Bundle Of Joy” (Up, 1996)

Seattle-based indie label Up Records put out some overlooked gems during its 1994-2008 run. One of the finest and quirkiest is Bundle Of Joy by Land Of The Loops (aka East Coast musician/producer Alan Sutherland). Deploying beats, bass lines, and synthy FX as well as guest singers and an array of samples, Land Of The Loops created a wonderful hybrid of bedroom indie-pop and hip-hop. Bundle Of Joy is probably Sutherland’s peak.

The aptly titled “Welcome” starts as a kooky collage, before some of the fattest, funkiest beats ever to appear on an Up release (is that Billy Squier’s “The Big Beat”?) enter the fray. These beats engage the delayed, dulcet vocals of Simone Ashby in a cagey duel in a cut as minimal as early Run-D.M.C. Ashby resurfaces on the phantasmal, disorienting “Burning Clutch (five-speed dub),” her vocals recalling the dreamy tenor of Dorothy Moskowitz of the United States Of America. What a heady trip.

Speaking of guest vocalists, Beat Happening’s Heather Lewis appears on “Growing Concern,” delivering her trademark child-like vocals over an easygoing funk charmer, bestowing a distinctly PNW innocence to the album. She also adds darling singing to the sparkling, stuttering funk of “My Head (leaks)” and to “Cruisin’ For Sentient Beings,” which is powered by a classic, urgent break (close to Skull Snaps’ “It’s A New Day,” but not it) that you’ve heard on at least a dozen hip-hop tracks. Nevertheless, the results are fresh.

More evidence of Sutherland’s kaleidoscopic vocal sampling trickery occurs on “Mass Ave. And Beyond,” on which he sprinkles enchanting bleeps and bloops over a starkly funky foundation, and “I Dream Of Ghosts,” which evokes the eerie, spacey dub of early Seefeel, thanks to the sampled angelic sighs. Perhaps LOTL’s best-known track, “Multi-Family Garage Sale (bargain-bin mix),” presents ludicrously bubbly and loping suburban funk with a staccato female vocal sample, snippets of children talking (“Don’t leave me”; Where are we anyway?” etc.), and beats not unlike those in George Clinton’s “Atomic Dog.” No wonder Miller licensed the track for a beer commercial. I bet Sutherland significantly upgraded his studio after this transaction.

Other highlights include “Help For Your Aching Back,” a swirling, psychedelic workout that might should be playing in hipper chiropractors’ offices, and “Day Late & A Dollar Short,” a fantastic sampladelic agglomeration of Buddhist monk chants, children jauntily singing, twangy guitar from the James Bond theme, archetypal sci-fi analog synth emissions, and very rugged, funky beats. Play this in a DJ set and watch people lose their shit—while looking befuddled.

Discogs prices for Bundle Of Joy have jumped up in recent years. It seems odd that no label’s reissued this wonky wonder since its first issue 23 years ago, but perhaps this review will nudge somebody into doing that. (Gotta dream big!) -Buckley Mayfield

Dick Hyman “The Age Of Electronicus” (Command, 1969)

Even some of the best Moog albums have a fair amount of cheesy camp elements littering them, and Dick Hyman’s The Age Of Electronicus is no different. While Robert Moog’s invention tends to time-stamp music with as much finality as Auto-Tune has done in this century’s first two decades, some of the former material has endured beyond cheap nostalgia thrills. And that includes this cover-heavy opus.

Now a spry 92, Hyman was 42 when Electronicus came out, and he’d established himself as a jazz pianist who once played with Charlie Parker. Dick also was the in-studio organist for the stunt game show Beat The Clock, which sounds like a very fun gig. So, dude has chops. He applied his dexterity and ingenuity to the then-novel Moog synthesizer with both virtuosity and opportunistic glee.

Electronicus boasts the obligatory Beatles covers (“Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” and “Blackbird”), two Booker T. & The M.G.’s cuts (“Time Is Tight” and “Green Onions”), Hair show-stopper “Aquarius,” an interpretation of James Brown’s “Give It Up Or Turn It Loose,” a rendition of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now,” and merely one original. Sure, Electronicus smacks of Moog-hysteria cash-in, but Hyman’s inventiveness with this familiar and relatively eclectic material raises the record high above most of its counterparts now moldering in bargain bins.

The album starts with one of the Beatles’ most insufferable tunes, “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” and Hyman squirts chintzy Moog sauce all over the gratingly ingratiating dud. Thankfully, this poor start’s obliterated by the über-funky “Give It Up Or Turn It Loose,” which has more freaky libidinousness than you’d expect from suit-and-tie-wearing, middle-aged white guy who likes to twiddle nobs. Yeah, I’ll still drop this heater into DJ sets. “Blackbird”’s solemn beauty survives Hyman’s wonky timbres and insistent, synthetic pulsations—barely. I bet McCartney dug it.

“Aquarius” is “Aquarius”; it’s hard not to smirk when any version of it is playing. Hair-raising it isn’t. However, “Time Is Tight” and “Green Onions” strut with alpha-male bravado while flaunting extremely flute-y tonalities. Hyman finds a quite annoying setting on the Moog for the folk standard “Both Sides Now,” so I usually skip over it. The sentimental Bacharach-David movie theme “Alfie” fares a bit better, but is still inconsequential. However, the lone Hyman composition, “Kolumbo,” is an epic excursion into complex, swarming oscillations and delayed percussion. It’s by far Electronicus‘ most serious and psychedelic effort. I wish Hyman would’ve unknotted his tie and frolicked in this direction more often.

One good thing about Electronicus: It hasn’t become a hipster totem nor received a fashionable deluxe reissue, so you can still find used vinyl copies for under $10… for now. -Buckley Mayfield

Cabaret Voltaire “Eight Crepuscule Tracks” (Interior, 1987)

If you’re looking for a relatively easy, affordable way to get into Cabaret Voltaire, you should check out the Eight Crepuscule Tracks compilation. Gathering cuts from the English electronic group’s fecund 1981-1983 phase, this collection spotlights Cab Volt’s inventive industrial electro excursions. Think Throbbing Gristle, but with more danceable grooves and a greater propensity to sample American evangelists and menacing authority figures.

Composed of Richard H Kirk (who went on to a prolific solo career as a techno maverick), Stephen Mallinder (creator of the excellent 1982 LP Pow-Wow), and Chris Watson (who became a renowned field recordist), Sheffield’s Cabaret Voltaire began in the mid ’70s as experimental synthesists and collagists whose esoteric explorations you can hear on the 3xCD Methodology box set. By the time we get to the material on Eight Crepuscule Tracks, Cab Volt had morphed into a sinister outfit who want to make you twitch on the dance floor even as they’re inducing serious paranoia in listeners. They would go on to get even funkier and more techno- and house-oriented in the late ’80s and ’90s. But for my money, the early ’80s remain Cabaret Voltaire’s peak era.

The “Sluggin’ Fer Jesus” trilogy that opens Eight Crepuscule Tracks sets an ominous tone that epitomized Cab Volt’s enigmatically unsettling sound at that time. The first part’s an urgent, desolate shuffle that could be considered dance music, but it’s actually more of a soundtrack for a panic-stricken search for escape from a sinister plot. Part two’s a throbbing industrial nightmare scenario that would segue well into Throbbing Gristle’s “Hamburger Lady” or “Discipline.” “Fool’s Game – Sluggin’ Fer Jesus (Part Three)” features a slurred, ill rap by Mallinder over a malignant strain of electro-funk laced with queasy synth horns. Electro-funk is typically party music, but in Cabaret Voltaire’s hands, it’s a soundtrack for running through back alleys in terror. They loop a white American man shouting, “We’re sick and tired of hearing about all the radicals and the perverts and the liberals,” as Mallinder’s bass methodically describes a tight, head-nodding groove that works on a subliminal level.

“Yashar” is a galloping slice of Middle Eastern-inflected dystopian disco that will appeal to Severed Heads fans. The track’s innate paranoia intensifies every time the movie-dialogue sample, “There are 70 billion people over there.” “Where are they hiding?” surfaces. “Your Agent Man” pits unnerving, warped funk with automaton vocals, as it reflects the recurring CV theme of surveillance and espionage. Think Throbbing Gristle’s “20 Jazz Funk Greats” melded with Gil Mellé’s pestilential Andromeda Strain soundtrack.

“Gut Level” and “Invocation” make excellent diptych of eerie, percolating funk, with the former full of urban-aggro movie dialogue and the latter augmented by solemn monk chants looped into a liturgical drone. The comp climaxes with “Theme From ‘Shaft’” as CV convert the 1971 blaxploitation-funk smash hit into a hazy, cold-sweat chiller-thriller score. With the vocals pitched down to a creepy mutter, it’s practically Residents-like. I wonder what Isaac Hayes thought of it… if indeed he ever heard it. -Buckley Mayfield

The Normal “T.V.O.D./Warm Leatherette” (Mute, 1978)

English cultural catalyst Daniel Miller used some Korg 700 synths and a TEAC 4-track tape recorder to cut a single in 1978 that was so riveting and fulfilling, he didn’t need to follow it up. Plus, he put the better track on the B-side, like the perverse mofo he is. He formed his own label, Mute Records, to releases, thinking it would be a one-off, but the single unexpectedly caught on with the punters, capturing Europe’s disaffected demeanor of the burgeoning minimal-wave movement. While Miller basically ceased operating as a recording artist after this 7-inch dropped, he embarked in earnest as a record-company mogul, and Mute is still going strong more than four decades later.

“T.V.O.D.” is a throbbing synth ditty whose main chipper motif radically contrasts with the foundational low-end oscillations and swift, spluttering Velcro-rip beats. It’s the epitome of a kind of robotic synth-pop that was gaining traction in the new-wave/post-punk era. Miller recites his lines in an unnerving, panicky monotone: “I don’t need no TV screen/I just stick the aerial into my skin/And let the signal run through my veins.” Sick stuff, on all levels.

A song about the erotic possibilities of vehicular carnage, “Warm Leatherette” is a paragon of monomaniacal, minimal, anhedonistic synth-pop. Irony! Granted, you can dance to the track’s fleet, lopsided drum-machine beats, but the emergency-room Korg ripples and dentist-drill-drone counterpoint seem intended to zap the joy out of such movement. Still, there’s no denying the hypnotic power of the synth headfuckery and inhumane rhythm Miller generates here. Inspired by J.G. Ballard’s 1973 novel Crash, Miller’s lyrics condense the climactic scene into a morbid fantasy of auto(mobile)-erotic pain. The words deserve to be reprinted in their entirety.

“See the breaking glass
In the underpass
See the breaking glass
In the underpass

Warm leatherette

Hear the crushing steal

Feel the steering wheel

Hear the crushing steel
Feel the steering wheel

Warm leatherette

Warm leatherette

Warm leatherette
Melts on your burning flesh
You can see your reflection
In the luminescent dash

Warm leatherette
A tear of petrol
Is in your eye
The hand brake
Penetrates your thigh
Quick – Let’s make love
Before you die

On warm leatherette
Warm leatherette
Warm leatherette
Warm leatherette

Join the car crash set”

With this one track, Daniel Miller spawned dozens of covers, nearly all of them worth hearing—especially those by Grace Jones [see the Jive Time review of the album on which it appears here], Trent Reznor/Peter Murphy/Atticus Ross/Jeordie White, Suzi Quatro, J.G. Thirlwell, and Boyd Rice. This is how you do a one-and-done music career, people (not counting his joint 1980 live release with Robert Rental). -Buckley Mayfield

Edgar Froese “Aqua” (Brain, 1974)

Edgar Froese was on fire in the mid ’70s, both as leader of Tangerine Dream and as a solo artist. For the former, he helmed the super-deep kosmische space-outs of Phaedra and Rubycon, while under his own name he released the ambient classics Aqua and Epsilon In Malaysian Pale. For many people, Aqua was the best work out of all of those classics.

Herr Froese sure knows how to start an album. The 17-minute title track begins with the sound of burbling water, aptly enough, followed soon by a rippling, chirping synth that sounds like a bird panicking in a submarine engine. Right from the get-go it becomes apparent that Aqua is one of those archetypal headphone albums. You need the cans to capture every frosty, frothy detail Froese generates with his keyboard arsenal. (As a bonus, Günther Brunschen applies effects through the “artificial head system.” I don’t know what that is exactly, but it sounds cool as fuck.) As “Aqua” progresses, it really does feel as if you’re floating in gently turbulent waters. Are there planetariums, but for oceans? Well, if there are, “Aqua” needs to be in heavy rotation there. The effect is simultaneously tranquil and troubling—a rare feat.

Things get really deep and ominous with “Panorphelia,” with its bassy synth oscillations pulsing like the vein on a blue whale’s head throughout the whole track, topped by a swirling, Mellotron-like motif that recalls the dramatic tenor of the Rolling Stones’ “2000 Light Years From Home,” of all things. (Did you know that a blue whale’s veins are big enough to allow a small child to pass through them? Just don’t let your kids near them, okay?) Where were we? Oh, yeah, “Panorphelia”: If you want to get the crowd moving (toward the exits, in fear), play this killer jam.

For the 15-minute “NGC 891,” Tangerine Dream member Chris Franke provides Moog accompaniment on this weird, imaginary sci-fi soundtrack that’s somewhere between Tonto’s Expanding Head Band’s “Jetsex” and Gil Mellé’s Andromeda Strain OST. Album-closer “Upland” is a liturgical spasm, sacred music besieged by fibrillating synths that sound like the emissions of grotesque sea life. It’s at once grandiose and unsettling—a hell of a way to peace out of an album.

Unlike a lot of spacey, beatless music, Froese’s flaunts extremely interesting dynamics and timbral fluctuations. On Aqua and many other entries in his catalog, this mensch really takes the listener on a proverbial journey, and it certainly isn’t to anywhere mundane. -Buckley Mayfield

Cecil Leuter “Pop Electronique” (Neuilly, 1969)

Pop Electronique represents some kind of zenith of effusive, beat-heavy, Moogsploitation-leaning library music. The mad handiwork of French musician Roger Roger (1911-1995; that apparently was his real name), this record is a playground for Moog fanatics and electronic-music and hip-hop producers looking for outrageous samples. The 14 tracks here, each titled “Pop Electronique,” all running in the 1:30-2:40 range, have no vocals to get in the way of your Akai MPC pilferings. Leuter’s concision and precision pay huge dividends. There’s not one dull second on Pop Electronique.

The album begins with some a quirky, lopsided funk nugget that could be a ’90s track by Beck, Cibo Matto, or Money Mark. The next track spits out a spasmodic, rippling panoply of what sound like robot bird belches over hypnotically strummed guitars—groovy in a most peculiar way. A triumvirate of mod, go-go dance tracks that sound like they could score the most decadent, dexedrined orgy in cinematic history ensues. Leuter was getting into 101 Strings territory here, embellishing things with splenetic Morse code Moog cheeps and squeaks.

Whereas the LP’s first side abounds with hyper-kinetic party jams that are almost too fun, the flipside will make you flip in an entirely different manner. Pop Electronique gets stranger and more abstract as it goes, ending in a claustrophobic funhouse automaton nightmare of obsessive-compulsive zaps and spasms and repetitive conga hits. On track 10, the drums drop out and Leuter just lets loose with a wonderfully demented arpeggio splurge. On the 11th cut, he manifests a more abstract bleep and woob infestation similar to the hallucinatory work of Nik Raicevic, whose Head LP I reviewed on this blog last year. Cecil followed that one with a very discombobulated and stripped-down cha cha. It’s crazy to think the man was in his late 50s when he concocted these nutty tunes. I don’t know what Monsieur Leuter was on during the recording of Pop Electronique, but I want whatever it was.

(Dare-Dare reissued Pop Electronique in 2000, while Fifth Dimension unofficially re-released it in 2016. Read more about library music on Jive Time’s blog here.) -Buckley Mayfield

Takehisa Kosugi “Catch-Wave” (CBS/Sony, 1975)

It was only five months ago when I reviewed Taj Mahal Travellers’ August 1974 in this space, and sadly, on October 12, that group’s leader, Takehisa Kosugi, passed away at age 80. So, this seems like an opportune time to review the violinist/composer’s best-known solo work, Catch-Wave.

Consisting of two sidelong tracks, Catch-Wave is not a million kilometers from what Taj Mahal Travellers were doing. To recap: In my review, I wrote, “These Travellers sacralize your mind with an array of string instruments, mystical chants, bell-tree shakes, and Doppler-effected electronics that are as disorienting as they are transcendent.” Here, Kosugi improvises solo on violin and electronics to similar trance-inducing effect.

In the 26-minute “Mano-Dharma ’74,” Kosugi manifests a fantastically desolate and gently fried sound that falls somewhere among rarefied realms of Terry Riley’s “Poppy Nogoods All Night Flight,” Fripp/Eno’s “Swastika Girls,” and Bernard Herrmann’s Psycho soundtrack. The fibrillations and oscillations wax and wane with hallucinogenic force and logic while a steadfast drone woo-whoas in the middle distance. After a while, you begin to think of this track not so much as music as it is the alien babbling of a mysterious organism that’s eluded scientific study. This is very bizarre psychedelic minimalism, and I love it.

“Wave Code #E-1” clocks in at a mere 22 minutes, and features Kosugi’s deep, ominous voicings, in addition to a modulating drone that almost sounds like Tuvan throat-singing. Heard from one angle, it may seem like Kosugi is merely fucking around with the cavern of his thorax, like a child in front of the rotating blades of an air-conditioner. Heard from another angle, though, this piece comes off like the Doppler Effected groans of a woozy and weaving deity hell-bent on scaring the bejesus out of you. Somehow, this cut is even stranger than the very weird A-side… and I love it.

Besides helming Taj Mahal Travellers, Kosugi played in Group Ongaku, was part of the Fluxus movement, and acted as music director for Merce Cunningham Dance Company from 1995-2011. He was one out-there cat, and he created some timeless music, of which Catch-Wave is a prime example. Rest easy, master musician.

[Note: The excellent Superior Viaduct label is reissuing Catch-Wave on Nov. 9] -Buckley Mayfield

Gershon Kingsley “Music To Moog By” (Audio Fidelity, 1969)

It’s 91 degrees outside as I write this. Ain’t no way I’m going to tackle something heavy in these conditions. So, with a sigh of relief, let’s turn to Music To Moog By, one of the gems of the Moogsploitation subgenre, by one of its masters, the German-American composer Gershon Kingsley (who is now 95, fact fans).

Famous for his collabs with French Moog master Jean-Jacques Perrey (The In Sound From Way Out! and Kaleidoscope Vibrations; the former a big influence on the Beastie Boys), Kingsley here shows he could succeed on his own. “Hey Hey” is one of the most fantastic album-openers ever. It was sampled by producer RJD2 for “The Horror,” and you can hear why: That opening drum break is serious hip-hop fire, and the rest of the track explodes in space-opera/sci-fi drama, like an alternate-reality theme for Star Trek. Holy shit, is this track exciting. If you’re a DJ who wants to grab the crowd’s attention from the jump, “Hey Hey” is a stellar choice.

Kingsley then takes things way down into contemplative, melancholy pastorality with the traditional English folk ballad “Scarborough Fair,” and it’s deeply affecting. He follows that with “For Alisse Beethoven,” a pastiche of the German composer’s “Für Elise,” but done with more modern urgency and skittering beats that almost foreshadow drum & bass and some of Luke Vibert’s ’90s output.

There are a few pieces on Music To Moog By that seem a bit too geared for TV movie scenes where the protagonist’s life suddenly takes a turn for the positive. “Sheila,” “Sunset Sound,” and “Trumansburgh Whistle” all traffic in pretty and precious, MOR melodicism—albeit too heavy on cutesiness to merit deep listening. And then there’s “Twinkle Twinkle,” the children’s song, but embellished with rococo, lush Moog flourishes. Don’t let your friends catch you listening to this trifle.

Because every record released in the late ’60s and early ’70s by law had to have Beatles covers, Music To Moog By contains a couple: “Nowhere Man” and “Paperback Writer.” The former version really brings the maudlin nature of the Beatles song into clearer relief. Frankly, I don’t ever need to hear it again. However, Kingsley’s “Paperback Writer” builds serious drama through augmenting the main riff with resonant bass and accelerating the tempo at unexpected moments… and then adding a guitar solo that sounds as if it were beamed in from a Moby Grape or Fever Tree record. Saving the freakout for the fadeout lends the album that coveted “leave ’em wanting more” feeling. Thus, Music To Moog By ends as powerfully as it started.

(Note: The Wah Wah, Dagored, and Tam-Tam labels have reissued this album over the last two decades. It shouldn’t be too hard to find.) -Buckley Mayfield

The Human League “The Dignity Of Labour” (Fast Product, 1979)

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I think the Human League peaked with this EP. At this early juncture in their career, the band consisted of primary composers Ian Craig Marsh and Phil Oakey and keyboardist Philip Adrian Wright. Oakey didn’t sing a note on these four tracks, and that’s fine with me. Without his stentorian, romantic emoting, the Human League had more room to flaunt their excellent ear for strange textures and alienating atmospheres—you know, the stuff that makes life worth living.

Divided into four parts, The Dignity Of Labour begins with a slice of dark, quasi-industrial electronic music that’s not quite in Throbbing Gristle’s diabolical domain, but it’s certainly more morbid than what would follow in the Human League’s catalog. Marsh and Oakey work up a slightly upbeat death-disco lather, but it doesn’t match the club-friendliness of other late-’70s League releases such as “Being Boiled” or “Empire State Human.”

Parts 2 and 3 enter some deep Teutonic territory. The former is the EP’s peak, its stark, foreboding maschine musik recalling the innovations of German geniuses such as Conrad Schnitzler and Seesselberg. The crystalline timbres the League summon on this track are just incredible. “Pt. 3” is a dizzying whirl of high-pitched, Theremin-like synth and vibrant arpeggios reminiscent of some of Harald Grosskopf’s and Tangerine Dream member Peter Baumann’s work. “Pt. 4” ends things on an eerie note of BBC Radiophonic Workshop-like atmospheres, a sound miles away from what the League would be doing on 1981’s Dare or even 1980’s Travelogue.

As with a lot of things reviewed in this space, The Dignity Of Labour could use a reissue, as it hasn’t seen a repress since the year of its initial release. Seems like a no-brainer for a label like Minimal Wave, Dark Entries, or Medical to re-release it—although there could be thorny legal hurdles. Anyway, I’m just putting that idea out there… -Buckley Mayfield

Moebius & Plank “Rastakraut Pasta” (Sky, 1980)

The late Dieter Moebius could do no wrong. A crucial member of Cluster, Harmonia, and Liliental, and a collaborator with Brian Eno, Max Beerbohm, Mani Neumeier, Asmus Tietchnes, Red Krayola’s Mayo Thompson, and many other mavericks, Moebius always brought a peculiar tonal vocabulary to any studio situation He never stopped trying new things and maintained high quality control to the very end of this life—a true rarity.

One of his key conspirators was the renowned krautrock producer/engineer Conny Plank. Along with Guru Guru drummer Neumeier, both German geniuses recorded the mind-boggling Zero Set, which was way ahead of its time (and which I hope to review eventually). In the meantime, let’s examine Moebius and Plank’s first full-length, Rastakraut Pasta, which thankfully isn’t quite as goofy as its title.

Moebius met Plank when the latter served as engineer for Cluster 1971. They hit it off and meshed their peculiar sensibilities on Rastakraut, which reveals the more whimsical side of the two musicians’ talents. (CAN’s Holger Czukay plays bass on three tracks here.) The LP title reveals the underlying sonic theme: a bizarre melding of Jamaican and Teutonic musical elements. “News,” the title track, and “Miss Cacadou” dabble with drunken dub and reggae structures, their woozy skank always threatening to capsize into a Caribbean Sea filled with molasses rather than water.

On “Two Oldtimers,” which features Czukay, Dieter and Conny finesse a lollygagging electro-pop that’s as dreamy as these sagacious Germans ever got—until it unexpectedly turns all solemnly neo-classical. “Solar Plexus” is the album’s strangest piece; it seemingly consists of a tuning fork and synth murmurs Doppler effected into a weird splaying of tones and warped mumbles. The main motivation behind it appears to be to fuck with your reality while you’re tripping. Face it: We all could use some tracks like this in our lives.

The album’s anomaly and peak occurs on “Feedback 66” (which also includes Czukay). This is surf-rock submerged in tar, its rhythm seemingly clipped from that monotonously funky kickdrum from Sly & The Family Stone’s “Dance To The Music,” and then slowed way down. Again, it’s produced to mess with your mind in an insidious manner, which is why I love to drop it in DJ sets. “Feedback 66” is one of Moebius and Plank’s greatest achievements of their storied careers—and it’s worth the price of admission alone.

Praise Jah that that price of admission won’t be exorbitant, as the excellent Bureau B label reissued Rastakraut Pasta on vinyl in 2010 and again in 2017. -Buckley Mayfield

Taj Mahal Travellers “August 1974” (Columbia Japan, 1975)

When talk turns to ultimate space-out albums, as it inevitably must if you’re living life to the fullest, you have to include this sprawling double album by Japan’s Taj Mahal Travellers in the conversation. Recorded live almost 44 years ago, the four sidelong tracks on August 1974 will test most people’s patience, as the album’s 88 minutes dilate time and alter space with no conventional vocals, beats, bass, or even structure, really. Instead, violinist Takehisa Kosugi and his stoic ensemble improvise drones that meander through the cosmos in a state of rigorous wonder. These Travellers sacralize your mind with an array of string instruments, mystical chants, bell-tree shakes, and Doppler-effected electronics that are as disorienting as they are transcendent.

The variations that occur in each of August 1974‘s four untitled tracks are subtle. The pieces toggle between tranquility and chaos with gradual and unpredictable shifts in intensity. The second one for, example, features what seems like some unidentifiable beast’s growl synthesized into an unsettling lament while a mandolin fibrillates with emergency-room adrenaline, before things slide into a bleak vista of woebegone moans, metallic percussion, sporadic timpani hits, and bizarre, electronically treated vocals. The organic and the synthetic elements blend indistinguishably—probably because everything seems as if it’s running through processors that leave an otherworldly sheen on all the elements.

The final cut is an amazing agglomeration of ominous synth pulsations, strafing electric-violin motifs, and a menagerie of strange percussive timbres. It’s here where August 1974 achieves its psychedelic zenith. If you suffer from ADHD and can only handle about a third of an hour of music at a time, go straight for track 4, which packs the most excitement per minute.

Let’s be clear about Taj Mahal Travellers: They’re not for everybody; this may be the biggest understatement I’ve ever made. They may only be for a few thousand people in the entire world. (The YouTube video of August 1974 stands at 1,501 views as I type.) Nevertheless, the impact that their enigmatic sonic streams of consciousness have made on those folks who do get it is profound. And under the right circumstances—out in nature, in a darkened room while under the influence of your favorite hallucinogen, in a vehicle moving through a mountain range, etc.—this record will put your mind through some uniquely rewarding contortions.

(Good news: Belgium’s Aguirre Records reissued August 1974 on vinyl in 2018.) -Buckley Mayfield

Les Vampyrettes, “Les Vampyrettes” (not on label, 1980)

The two tracks that comprise this ultra-obscure EP by Les Vampyrettes (revered krautrock studio wizard Conny Plank and the late, great Holger Czukay of CAN) represent some of the most sinister music ever laid to tape. For decades, however, Les Vampyrettes was strictly the province of the world’s most elite collectors. Thankfully, in 2013 the great Grönland label reissued the record. (You can also find these cuts on Czukay’s just-released 5xLP Cinema box set.)

Pulling off sinister music is more difficult than it may seem, as it’s easy to topple into hokeyness or ham-fisted Hollywood tropes when venturing into hellish sonic miasmas. As you would expect from two masters of sound sorcery such as Plank and Czukay, Les Vampyrettes avoid those pitfalls. Holger proposed to Conny a series of singles with the theme of “horror with comfort,” and Les Vampyrettes resulted. They infuse the music here with a gravity and oppressiveness that are truly remarkable.

“Biomutanten” is a four-minute collage of seemingly random noises, but the way Les Vampyrettes arrange and produce them is chilling. Ominous pulsations and panicky ticking sounds, doom-laden twangs, alarm bells, emergency warning signals, Doppler-effected wails, myriad noises hinting at things going awry, a pitched-down-to-hell (literally, it seems) male voice speaking in German—all of these elements induce a serious dread and a feeling of a tenuous grasp of sanity gradually slipping. Do not listen on hallucinogens… unless you really want to lose your marbles.

“Menetekel” is a slightly shorter minimalist creepscape haunted by insectoid chirps, warped warbles, dripping and splashing water, and those guttural, lower-than-low/slower-than-slow German guy intonations. It’s not quite the mindfuck that “Biomutanten” is, but it’s still the antithesis of party music.

As fantastic and phantasmagorical asConny Plank and Holger Czukay’s discographies are, they may have conjured their most outlandish vibe with this one-off project. At certain times of the night, Les Vampyrettes might be regarded as both geniuses’ peak work. -Buckley Mayfield