I just found this record and wanted to point it out to anyone and everyone who hasn’t heard of it (read: most of you). I haven’t been able to really find out that much about this strange trip of a record/coloring book (PDF). I can truthfully say that it is one of the more bizarre yet remarkably interesting things I’ve heard in a while. Lucia Pamela’s Into Outer Space appears to be her only recording, and from my internet travels I’ve learned next to nothing about her –except that apparently she actually did travel to the moon and around the universe to record this record. Which is a remarkable feat to say the least.
I’m still sitting in awe here though… I can’t explain most of what is happening on this record. The track, “Indian Alphabet Chant” which starts with the lines, “Here we are still on the moon, oh there’s an Indian village, I see Indian’s dancing and singing, it’s a wedding ceremony! There’s the bride and there’s the groom!” Is one of the weirdest beginnings ever. But the point here isn’t the fact that this record is strange. The point is that records like this USED TO EXIST. This vibrant and weird experimentalism used to be okay, it used to happen all the time, and it was accepted as being new and unusual. Into Outer Space existed in the same world as Bruce Haack’sElectric Lucifer, Silver Apples‘ Contact, Aphrodite’s Child’s666, it sat side by side in record shops with The Temple City Kazoostra, The Unites States of America, Pierre Henry & Michel Columbier. It was a world where fun was fun and music was a show (and hell, was featured on a number of shows, remember Bruce Haack on Mr. Rogers?). Music wasn’t made for money, it wasn’t made to impress friends, hell, this music wasn’t even made to express feeling. It was made so everyone involved could have some fun, it was recorded not for money but to share that fun with everyone. Cheers to Lucia Pamela.
It’s coming up on December, which means, well, it means that its time to take a look at all the cool things that came out in the year of 2007. For fetishistic list makers like myself, this is our favorite time of year. Time to display our cool, our ingenuity, are told you so’s and ha’s. It’s what makes writing about gadgets and music and games and all that crap worthwhile. When you do it early like this, you might miss some December hits, but you don’t have to be worried about people accusing you of stealing the list or being influenced by some other jerkoffs list. This is off the cuff bitches. So to kick it off, let’s start with the ground rules, five picks in each genre, and, well, I guess that’s the only rule. 1, 2, 3, GO!Today, music. Tomorrow, books or video games, or stuff, or gadgets, or news stories, blog posts, who knows!?!
Black Moth Super Rainbow – Dandelion Gum-This is not only the best release this year, its one of the best releases in the last decade. BMSR fuses the stoned 60s and 70s haze of groups like Silver Apples andKraftwerk into a tight sound that still breathes life from its electronic musings. This isn’t going to revolutionize electronic music, but it does humanize it. It changes beat and tempo and time, it shakes and rattles, it rolls. It clean and dirty. It’s music, solid, real music. If you ever thought to yourself that, “yeah, I can put in a bunch of filters and make electronic music, easy,” then you need to hear Dandelion Gum.
Battles – Mirrored Who would have thought that the son of Anthony Braxtonwould be a part of one of the greatest rock bands this side of 1990? Well, okay, when you say it that way it makes sense especially when you add on members from Helmet, Don Caballero and Lynx. Mirrored is one of those records that you can put on at any time, in any setting, in any mood, with any lighting and will still sound fucking fantastic. Pure rock ‘n roll that might be able to slide into the instrumental category since Braxton’s vocals are shifted through enough effects to be classified as an instrument itself.
Wilco – Sky Blue Sky Yeah, okay, this is going to be on everyone fromPitchfork to Time Magazine’s list, but with good reason. Wilco’s return to the basics proved to be a solid record with a great sound. I appreciate everything about Sky Blue Sky, even the Volkswagen commercials.
Yeasayer – All Hour Cymbals This is the sort of record that opens up for you. It doesn’t’ really reveal its true intentions until a few listens. What you begin to realize as the record goes on is that All Hour Cymbals is a bizarre combination of Gabriel era Genesis, modern indie-pop and a slight nod to some weird type of electroniccalypso. In the end its a great record that warrants a lot of listens to really delve into the entire idea of it.
