HOMEMADE LOFI PSYCH --- WHERE TO START?





"There is so much great music here..." WHERE TO START???

I recommend to
start with the HLFP-Samplers (especially HLFP 04).
Here you will come to know many of the bands/musicians featured in this blog. If you like what you hear, you may check out more of their music later on.
(You may also click on the picture on the sidebar and you will find the original post with download links.)

There is also a "FOCUS ON..." section. Here you will find albums that imo are absolutely great (***** = "five-stars-recordings") and that are essential listening and strongly recommended for download.


I TRY to RE-UP some stuff that has been down from time to

time, but I still don't have enough time to

listen to/post much new stuff.

Sorry!

IMPRESSUM: see here!

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

RE-POST: Szbutä Soröh - Om Shiva (BZ 2007)



SZBUTÄ SORÖH is a Brazilian one-man experimental/noise music project. So guys please notice: THIS ISN'T ROCK MUSIC!
The man behind these amazing recordings from 2007 is SAMUEL MACEDO from Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Samuel uses a variety of different instruments and many different sources for his music, ranging from bamboo flutes, acoustic and electric guitars to field recordings, that afterwards are manipulated through computer processings.
The music generated that way is quite a rewarding adventure, taking the suprised listener through all kinds of different moods and atmospheres. Listening on headphones is recommended!
If you like the music, please support the artist! Visit Samuel's site:

SZBUTÄ SORÖH: Om Shiva
(BZ 2007)
(mp3 zip, 56,8 MB, 5 tracks, 57 min, art incl.)
Get it here or here or here!

Monday, February 21, 2011

RE-UP: Szbutä Soröh - I Will Give You A Magic Herb (BZ 2008)

"You'll never be able to get past all the dangerous animals in the forest unless you know their language", said the witch. "But I will give you a magic herb..."

An exiting, heavily disturbing musical journey by SZBUTÄ SORÖH (Samuel Macedo), who is based in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Probably even more experimental than his works from 2007 (see here).
Those three untitled tracks here are true homemade recordings from 03 till 07-2008. What exactly is going on is obscure and hard to realize, because Samuel creates a sense of uneasiness and distance by abstracting his source material beyond recognition. This surely isn't easy listening!
Enjoy and visit Samuel's MySpace site

SZBUTÄ SORÖH - "... I Will Give You a Magic Herb..." (BZ 2008)
(mp3-zip, 3 tracks, 63,3 MB, 34 min)
Get it here!

Catasto Elettrico - Ian Carr Requiem (IT 2010)


The latest – again excellent – release from my favourite Italian prog band, CATASTO ELETTRICO: A Requiem for Ian Carr (NUCLEUS).


CATASTO ELETTRICO: Ian Carr Requiem (2010)
(mp3-zip, 4 tracks, 20 min, 44,7 MB, artwork incl.)
Get it here or here or here!

RE-UP: Catasto Elettrico - Gas (IT 2007?)

CATASTO ELETTRICO is an improvisational Italian band, that retired from playing live to concentrate on recording improvised sessions very much in a jazzy progressive style (with some indie influences). This session here, "GAS", reminds me a little bit of TORTOISE in some aspects and very much of the early SOFT MACHINE (just listen to that fuzz bass!), which is meant as a BIG compliment of course.

If you like their sound, you can go and visit their blog, where they offer some of their great music to download for free. Enjoy!
Or check out some of their other releases here on HLFP!

By the way: Don't let the cover fool you – this isn't beer drinkers' music!


CATASTO ELETTRICO - GAS (IT. 2007?)
(mp3 zip, 35,7 MB)
Get it here or here or here!

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

This Love Is Deadly - Misery (EP) (GER. 2010)

THIS LOVE IS DEADLY is a much promising band from Berlin, Germany, that is heavily influenced by shoegazing gods MY BLOODY VALENTINE (aswell as, say DINOSAUR JR.) and also reminds me – especially regarding Lisa's vocals – of PATTI SMITH and PJ HARVEY.
Misery is their first EP. And it is excellent!
Grab this monster!
Q: Do you want your real names mentioned? If so: What are your real names?
Louis: Sure! Our names are Lisa & Louis. Our drummer wants to be called H.D.
Q: Who involved? Who played what?
Louis: Lisa on bass and vocals, me on guitar and vocals and H.D. on drums.
Q: Where exactly are you from?
Lisa: I was born in Seoul, Korea and grew up all over the world.
Louis: I originate from Italy. H.D. grew up on a farm near the border to Holland.
Q: Since when are you into recording music?
Lisa : I guess, like probably every ambitous young musician, who starts to write own songs, we all had our first dilettante tries at recording music in our teen years on old-school cassette players. I remember, at one point having this really shitty and defect head phone set that my father'd given to me because he had no use for it, and it came together with this computer program to record voice samples and stuff like that. I recall how excited I was about its overdub option, which allowed you to record over your first take. That's how I did my vocal harmonies, after having recorded the guitar together with the lead vocals. The program even had a special effects section, enabling you to reverse a take...it felt like heaven to me back then! However, about five years ago Louis and I started to build up a home studio where the first tlid recordings were recorded. Everything was still very amateurish and low-fi, it still is actually! We sort of made a virtue out of necessity and have adopted this style to our overall band sound. But it was a great way to gain experience and since then especially Louis has become quite skilled at the art of recording, mixing and producing.
Q: Any previous bands/side projects that you've been involved in worth mentioning?
Louis: I played with a band called the amber light before, H.D. played with EL*KE and Lisa's currently got a solo project under the name Amour Fou.
Q: How'd you "label" your music?
Louis: I dunno, maybe Alternative, Psychedelic, Pop, Punk, Grunge...
Lisa: I always find it difficult to categorize ones own music... Motor.de recently wrote a review about us describing our music with german words such as "Edelgrunge" and "Rauschrock", which sort of appealed to us.
Q: What's your favourite track on this ep? Why?
Louis: We love 'em all equally. I think Midiverb stands out for it's uniqueness in terms of sound.
Q: How do you write your songs? What comes first, words or music?
Louis: Music always comes first then we write the lyrics. We write mostly on acoustic guitars.
Lisa: Yeah, when the music and the idea of a song is there, we play around with a melody...sometimes the melody inspires the lyrics...certainly the feeling of the song does. Rarely do we have a distinct idea of what exactly the lyrics should express... it's more a mood, a general feeling. The first idea of lyrics are mostly improvised and we often experiment with the phonetics of words, the sound of a word can be very inspiring. It's sort of an unconscious process, a stream-of-consciousness kind of thing. We might not understand it while in the process of creation, and often it only makes sense after completion.
Q: What’s the best song you’ve ever written?
Louis: I believe it's Wasting Time.
Q: Favourite line from a song you've written?
Lisa: Hm...I don't know. Our lyrics can be quite trivial and insignificant. If a song of ours carries a message, I believe it's more of an emotional than an intellectual nature. Perhaps that is the reason why our vocals are more often than not very low in the mix. Due to the fact that we mostly utilize the voices as instruments, it's more important to us that the melody or the way something is sung carries a certain feeling and thus contributes to the whole atmosphere of a song.
Q: How do you record your albums?
Louis: Mostly we record demos at home first on which the final recordings are based upon. Then we go into a studio and overdub the drums, preferably on tape.. We end up using a lot of tracks from the demos because of their feel. It's always a mix between lo-fi and hi-end.
Q: Any plans for live gigs?
Louis: We wanna play live as much as possible.
Q: What are your main musical influences? Do I hear a MY BLOODY VALENTINE influence or is that by chance?
Louis: Sure, MBV is a key-influence. But so is much of the music I think they were also influenced by, like sonic youth, dinosaur jr. the velvet underground, ramones, stooges, jesus and mary chain, hendrix, neil young...etc.
Q: Favourite band at the moment?
Lisa: Scott Walker is much adored at present.
Louis: I agree, I might have said Neil Young a few weeks ago. His latest record is a masterpiece.
Q: What was the first record that really blew your mind?
Louis: In Utero, Nirvana
Lisa: Nirvana, In Utero
Q: The last five records you bought/downloaded?
1. Neil Young - Le Noise
2. Tocotronic - Schall und Wahn
3. Air - Love 2
4. Portishead - Third
5. PJ Harvey - White Chalk
Q: Anything that you think is interesting, that you'd like to inform the blog readers about...
Lisa: Our MISERY EP is now available as a FREE DOWNLOAD! Via this link: http://www.thisloveisdeadly.com/ThisLoveIsDeadly-MiseryEP.zip
(or you may - of course - use the links below (m-f))
Favourite track: Wasting Time, but every track is a winner!
 
THIS LOVE IS DEADLY: Misery (GER 2010)
(mp3-zip, 4 tracks, 13 min, 18 MB)
Wasting Time
Everything Is Nothing
Misery To You
Midiverb
Get it here!
 


Wednesday, February 9, 2011

ephemeroL - live in Offenbach April 10th 2010

Noise/experimental/drone band EPHEMEROL from Frankfurt, GER, should be no stranger to you blog readers, since I already posted quite some of their stuff on HLFP (see link below).

Interview with Maxim Engl via email:

Q: How was it like to play the Waggon?

A: Playing at the Waggon was really an experience: The place is not only called Waggon, it IS an old waggon. The room is small and completely made out of wood. - The atmosphere on this evening was truly magic, more a journey than a rock concert. The people were so much into the music, they forgot to buy drinks! Not good for the purse, but good for the biography! It reminds me on what rock history tells about early VANILLA FUDGE concerts, so it was quite an honour to go home with empty pockets.

Q: Who involved? Who played what?

A: Peter Prochir: Drums

Roger Eckhardt: Bass

Me (= Maxim Engl): Guitar

Q: Where exactly are you from?

A: Frankfurt, Germany.

Q: Since when are you into recording music?

A: The band was founded in the end of 2003 and started recording in early 2005.

Q: Any previous bands/side projects that you've been involved in worth mentioning?

A: Time for namedropping! – Our most famous band member is Peter. In the early 80ies he played with Heiner Goebbels, Alfred Harth and Christoph Anders in the avant/jazz/punk band CASSIBER. When he decided to leave because of other musical aims, he was replaced by former HENRY COW drummer Chris Cutler. – In 1989 Peter formed the industrial band SIELWOLF who worked with Mick Harris (NAPALM DEATH, SCORN, PAINKILLER) and with Carlos Peron (YELLO). – Roger played in the 90ies with house DJ C-Rock and jazz singer Claire Dietrich in DIET. – Me, myself & I played with THE JANITORS OF LUNACY, ORANGE, and PAN AMP. Music of these later bands aswell as more information about them you'll find on this blog here.

Q: How'd you "label" your music?

A: Noise/Drone/Experimental. – Fact is, I am responsible for the sound design and the musical direction of ephemeroL. ephemeroL came out of the ashes of PAN AMP. The sound design was the same: heavy guitar, heavy bass, heavy drums, but I was not longer interested in writing MOTORPSYCHO-influenced indie rock songs. I thought that the band should have more strange and psychedelic elements that should not be based on 60ies and 70ies rock. – When Peter joined the band, we had two band members with an industrial background. So I thought it was more interesting to have an open, modern concept that combines post rock, avantgarde, noise and drone. I liked the idea of writing tracks, but we didn't want to become one of the thousands of MOGWAI clones that drown in all-too-sweet melodies. The balance of melody and harshness is an important factor in our music.

Q: How do you "write" your songs? How much is arranged, how much improvised?

A: For ephemeroL there are two ways to structure music:

1) A tune comes out of an idea or an improvisation during practice. In a second step we try to find out how much arrangement the material needs to satisfy the band.

2) I come up with complete tunes and guitar arrangements. Then we arrange the rest (bass, drums, maybe soundscapes and samples).

Q: How do you record your albums?

A: For the first album, we had complete tunes that we recorded in Ike Anger's practice room in Frankfurt. Vocals, overdubs, mix and mastering happened at his studio. – The second album "Plenk!" was recorded only by me. I came with nothing to Ike's studio and went out 7 weeks later with lots of guitar and organ tracks. I needed two weeks more for sorting out and for edit instructions, then Ike mixed and mastered the album. – The third album, which will be released in 2011, was recorded at Klanghaus studio in Frankfurt by Andi Kunze, but will be mixed and mastered at Aleph studio in Seattle by Randall Dunn and Mell Dettmer, a dream team in sound (SUNN O))), EARTH, ASVA, SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE, GRAILS, EAGLE TWIN etc.).

Q: What are the future plans for ephemeroL?

A: The master plan is to find a proper record label for our new album.

Q: What are your main musical influences?

A: The real influences lead back to the basics, the past of us three. They don't reflect directly what we're doing now. – Peter is influenced by: Mark Stewart/Swans/Brian Eno/Steve Reich/Black Sabbath – Roger is influenced by: Abba/Beatles/Black Sabbath – I am Influenced by: Black Flag/Hüsker Dü/Black Sabbath/Motorpsycho/Robert Fripp/Keith Levene (PIL)/Derek Bailey/Wolfgang Spelmans (DAF)/Denis D'Amour (Voivod)/Charlemagne Palestine.

Q: Favourite band at the moment?

A: My favourite band for the last years is BORIS from Tokyo, although I don't like any of their 2010 releases.

Q: What was the first record that really blew your mind?

A: Peter: BLACK SABBATH "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath"

Roger: GENESIS "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway"

Me: JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE: "Electric Ladyland"

Q: The last five records you bought/downloaded?

A: SUNN O))) "MONOLITHS & DIMENSIONS"

BORIS "AMPLIFIER WORSHIP"

HARVEY MILK "LIVE AT THE SUPERSONIC 2008"

MASTER MUSICIANS OF BUKKAKE "TOTEM ONE"

MASTER MUSICIANS OF BUKKAKE "TOTEM TWO"

M-f: Thanks!


EPHEMEROL - Live, Waggon, Offenbach, GER, 04-10-2010
(mp3-zip, 1 track, 77 min, 174,9 MB)

H Remains

Every Man's Albatross

Bad Eastern

Zero Hole

asleeP

Get it here or here!

More here!

Trish Keenan (Broadcast) R.I.P. Jan. 14 2011

Found this on the http://youcangetwithdiss.blogspot.com blog:

"Saddest news of the year so far has got to be the passing of Trish Keenan, the singer from BROADCAST, who died earlier today (= January 14 2011, m-f) after a two-week bout with pneumonia... An official statement was released by her bandmates on the WARP RECORDS website and word spread fast over the internet, as music blogs and entertainment news sites alike, all acknowledged what a talented singer this woman was and how very much her unique style would be missed...

I first fell in love with this woman's voice back in 1997, after hearing the impressive debut release by BROADCAST entitled WORK AND NON WORK... Around that time, there were great bands likeSTEREOLAB and KOMEDA doing the space-age pop thing and quite successfully I might add... But it would be the charming storybook sounds of childlike wonderment inhabiting this particular album by BROADCAST, that ultimately sealed the deal for me and Keenan's vocals were primarily to blame... Their song "We've Got Time" has always been a favorite of mine and it's really a heartbreaking shame that Trish Keenan's "time" had to end so suddenly...

This is truly a monumental loss for the world of music... R.I.P. my dear..." (UncleDiss)



Couldn't have said it any better ...
Truly a great loss.

Broadcast were one of my favourite bands in the last years, and I was lucky enough to see the band perform live once – it was unbelievable great. I even had a chance to talk with the band after the performance and they seemed to be really beautiful people.

HLFP is back!

Sorry for the lack of posts in the last weeks.
There'll be more coming soon (though probably due to some private issues and a slow internet connection less than before).