Monday, August 30, 2010

Jabladav - Primland

When times are weird man, it's time to get weird man. That is a shark that suffocated a few days ago. In China. It got caught in a net. That's fucking bullshit! A whale shark! Everyone knows its super koyaanisqatsi to mess with whale sharks. One of my childhood dreams was to see a whale shark and I never have yet. I've been in the territory, though... as when I lived in the Caymans I've been told they tend to creep inside the reef while you are sleeping. But, they're all going to die pretty soon. Nautica is fading far into oblivion. Nobody sails in salt lakes.


0.

0. Behold the Yoke upon the neck of the Oxen! Is it not thereby that the Field shall be ploughed? The Yoke is heavy, but joineth together them that are separate --- Glory to Nuit and to Hadit, and to Him that hath given us the Symbol of the Rosy Cross!

Glory unto the Lord of the Word Abrahadabra, and Glory unto Him that hath given us the Symbol of the Ankh, and of the Cross within the Circle!

1. Three are the Beasts wherewith thou must plough the Field; the Unicorn, the Horse, and the Ox. And these shalt thou yoke in a triple yoke that is governed by One Whip.

2. Now these Beasts run wildly upon the earths and are not easily obedient to the Man.

3. Nothing shall be said here of Cerberus, the great Beast of Hell that is every one of these and all of these, even as Athanasius hath foreshadowed.



Enter Jabladav. One person involved, the album here is two and a half hours long. Sharply degrading, slicing, sluicing, and dicing, and then jarring and shelving. It is released in a handmade wooden box consisting of two discs. The only thing I've really been able to find out is that this dude's from North Carolina, he used to have a full band but no longer does. Among his influences are The Simpsons, talk radio, Mick Karn, and "life." "Life." "Life." "Life." The tongue, like a sharp knife, kills without drawing blood.

"Hunger is insolent,
(part I)
and will be fed."
(part II)





Thursday, May 27, 2010

KHUDA - STRATOSPHERICS

“An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted." The word "Khuda" means God in Persian, as in "Khuda Hafiz." But this band is from Leeds. It is a two-person thing. No poety today. "Spirit" is a little bit of a momentous track, despite its brevity.

EMANCIPATED SURRENDER

But here is something interesting, too: a list proving that the conditions of psychotherapy patients examined should not discount classifiable "positive" conditions as well. But in the end I still can't tell what's worse: being exorbitantly happy or being depressed as shit. Well a lot of these are right on but some of them are absolutely fucking retarded and extremely idiosyncratic.

* ACUTE FLUENCY. Happily immersed in artistic creation or scientific exploration; lost in a trance-like state of inventiveness that's both blissful and taxing; surrendered to a state of grace in which you're fully engaged in a productive, compelling, and delightful activity. The joy of this demanding, rewarding state is intensified by a sense that time has been suspended, and is rounder and deeper than usual. (Suggested by H. H. Holiday, who reports that extensive studies in this state have been done by Mihaly Cziscenmihaliy in his book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.)

* AESTHETIC BLISS. Vividly experiencing the colors, textures, tones, scents, and rhythms of the world around you, creating a symbiotic intimacy that dissolves the psychological barriers between you and what you observe. (Suggested by Jeanne Grossetti.)

* AGGRESSIVE SENSITIVITY. Animated by a strong determination to be receptive and empathetic.

* ALIGNMENT WITH THE INFINITY OF THE MOMENT. Reveling in the liberating realization that we are all exactly where we need to be at all times, even if some of us are temporarily in the midst of trial or tribulation, and that human evolution is proceeding exactly as it should, even if we can't see the big picture of the puzzle that would clarify how all the pieces fit together perfectly. (Suggested by Meredith Jones.)

* AUTONOMOUS NURTURING. Not waiting for someone to give you what you can give yourself. (Suggested by Shannen Davis.)

* BASKING IN ELDER WISDOM. A state of expansive ripeness achieved through listening to the stories of elders. (Suggested by Annabelle Aavard.)

* BIBLIOBLISS. Transported into states of transcendent pleasure while immersed in reading a favorite book. (Suggested by Catherine Kaikowska.)

* BLASPHEMOUS REVERENCE. Acting on the knowledge that the most efficacious form of devotion to the Divine Wow is tinctured with playful or mischievous behavior that prevents the buildup of fanaticism.

* BOO-DUH NATURE. Dwelling in the blithe understanding of the fact that worry is useless because most of what we worry about never happens. (Suggested by Timothy S. Wallace.)

* COMIC INTROSPECTION. Being fully aware of your own foibles while still loving yourself tenderly and maintaining confidence in your ability to give your specific genius to the world. To paraphrase Alan Jones, Dean of Grace Cathedral: following the Byzantine ploys of your ego with compassion and humor as it tries to make itself the center of everything, even of its own suffering and struggle.

* COMPASSIONATE DISCRIMINATION. Having astute judgment without being scornfully judgmental; seeing difficult truths about a situation or person without closing your heart or feeling superior. In the words of Alan Jones: having the ability "to smell a rat without allowing your ability to discern deception sour your vision of the glory and joy that is everyone's birthright."

* CRAZED KINDNESS. Having frequent, overpowering urges to bestow gifts, disseminate inspiration, and perpetrate random acts of benevolence.

* ECSTATIC GRATITUDE. Feeling genuine thankfulness with such resplendent intensity that you generate a surge of endorphins in your body and slip into a full-scale outbreak of euphoria.

* EMANCIPATED SURRENDER. Letting go of an attachment without harboring resentment toward the stimuli that led to the necessity of letting go. (Suggested by Timothy S. Wallace.)

* FRIENDLY SHOCK. Welcoming a surprise that will ultimately have benevolent effects.

* HIGHWAY EQUANIMITY. Feeling serene, polite, and benevolent while driving in heavy traffic. (Suggested by Shannen Davis.)

* HOLY LISTENING. Hearing the words of another human being as if they were a direct communication from the Divine Wow to you.

* IMAGINATIVE TRUTH-TELLING. Conveying the truth of any specific situation from multiple angles, thereby mitigating the distortions that result from assuming the truth can be told from a single viewpoint.

* IMPULSIVE LOVE SPREADING. Characterized by a fierce determination to never withhold well-deserved praise, inspirational encouragement, positive feedback, or loving thoughts; often includes a tendency to write love letters on the spur of the moment and on any medium, including napkins, grocery bags, and skin. (Suggested by Laurie Burton.)

* INADVERTENT NATURE WORSHIP. Experiencing the rapture that comes from being outside for extended periods of time. (Suggested by Sue Carol Robinson.)

* INGENIOUS INTIMACY. Having an ability to consistently create deep connections with other human beings, and to use the lush, reverential excitement stimulated by such exchanges to further deepen the connections. A well-crafted talent for dissolving your sense of separateness and enjoying the innocent exultation that erupts in the wake of the dissolution. (Suggested by Sue Carol Robinson.)

* JOYFUL POIGNANCE. Feeling buoyantly joyful about the beauty and mystery of life while remaining aware of the sadness, injustices, wounds, and future fears that form the challenges in an examined life. (Suggested by Alka Bhargava.)

* LATE LATE-BLOOMING. Having a capacity for growth spurts well into old age, long past the time that conventional wisdom says they're possible.

* LEARNING DELIGHT. Experiencing the brain-reeling pleasure that comes from learning something new. (Suggested by Sue Carol Robinson.)

* LUCID DREAM PATRIOTISM. A love of country rooted in the fact that it provides the ideal conditions for learning lucid dreaming. (Suggested by Kenneth Kelzer, aithor of The Sun and the Shadow: My Experiment With Lucid Dreaming.)

* LYRICAL CONSONANCE. Experiencing the visceral yet also cerebral excitement that comes from listening to live music played impeccably by skilled musicians. (Suggested by Susan E. Nace.)

* MODULATED RAPTURISM. Welcoming miracles and peak experiences in full awareness that the growth they initiate will require sober commitment and disciplined work to complete. (Suggested by Timothy S. Wallace.)

* NONRESENTMENT SYNDROME. Having an ability to be friendly, open, and helpful to people with whom you disagree.

* NOT HAVING TO BE RIGHT. Fostering an ability, even a willingness, to be proven wrong about one of your initial perceptions or pet theories; having an eagerness to gather information that may change your mind about something you have fervently believed; cultivating a tendency to enjoy being corrected, especially about ideas that are negative or hostile. (Suggested by Sheila Kollasch.)

* ORGIASTIC LUCIDITY. Experiencing an expansive and intricate state of clarity while in the midst of extreme sensual pleasure.

* PERMANENT DIVINE INFATUATION. Having not the abstract understanding but rather a direction perception that the Divine Intelligence, who recreates the universe fresh every moment, is deeply in love with you, even as you are in love with the Divine Intelligence.

* RADICAL CURIOSITY. Characterized by the following traits: an enthusiasm for the mystery embedded in the mundane; a preference for questions over answers; an aversion to stereotyping, generalizations, and jumping to conclusions; a belief that people are unsolvable puzzles; an inclination to be unafraid of both change and absence of change; a strong drive to avoid boredom; a lack of interest in possessing or dominating what you are curious about. (Suggested by Laurie Burton.)

* RELENTLESS UNPRETENTIOUSNESS. Possessing a strong determination to not take yourself too seriously, not take your cherished beliefs too literally, and not take other people's ideas about you too personally.

* RIPE INTELLECTION. The understanding that a predilection to notice and analyze pathology is itself pathological. (Suggested by Timothy S. Wallace.)

* ROOTED IN ETERNITY. The state of knowing that your true identity is deeper than the constant chatter of thoughts, images, and feelings that swirls through your mind. (Suggested by Crispin R.)

* SACRED PERCEPTIVENESS. Seeing others for who they really are, in both their immaturity and genius, and articulating your insights to them with care.

* SCARY-THUNDER-IN-THE-DARK HAPPINESS. Feeling deliciously safe in a well-protected sanctuary during a severe storm. (Suggested by Sue Carol Robinson.)

* SCHIZOFRIENDIA. Hearing voices in your head that are constantly supportive, encouraging, and keen to offer advice that helps you make the most of every experience. (Suggested by Lewis.)

* SELF-ACCEPTANCE UNDER PRESSURE. The state achieved upon leaving a room filled with people who know you, and not worrying about what anyone will say about you. (Suggested by Shannen Davis.)

* SELF-HONORING. Having an unwillingness to disparage, belittle, or hurt yourself; includes a taboo against speaking phrases like, "I'm such an idiot!" and "What's wrong with me?" (Suggested by Julie Levin.)

* SLY TRUST. Having a discerning faith that the integrity of your efforts will inevitably lead to a result that's exactly what you need; being skillful in the art of never trying too hard. (Suggested by Rhonda Christmas.)

* SONGBIRD-IN-A-TREE. The cultivated awareness that daily life presents countless opportunities to be buoyed by moments of ordinary extraordinary beauty, and that these moments are most available if you perceive with your senses and not with your internal turmoil. (Suggested by Lisa Chabot.)

* TENDER RAGE. Maintaining a strong sense of love and protectiveness towards a person or creature or institution you're angry at.

* TRANSCONSUMERISM. An absence of tendencies to predicate
happiness on acquiring material possessions. (Suggested by Timothy S. Wallace.)

* TRIUMPHANT NURTURING. Feeling contented expansiveness while nursing a baby. (Suggested by Susan E. Nace.)

* UNSELFCONSCIOUSNESS. Doing what you're doing and being who you're being without thinking about it at all. Being happy by virtue of not worrying about whether or not you're happy; enjoying a unified state in which you are not split between the you who acts and the you who observes. (Suggested by Valerie Keller.)

* UNTWEAKABILITY. Having a composed, blame-free readiness to correct false impressions when your actions have been misunderstood and have led to awkward consequences.

* VIRTUOSO INTEGRATION. Consistently walking your talk; effectively translating your ideals into the specific actions; creating results that are congruous with your intentions; being free of hypocrisy.

* VISIONS OF THRILLING EXPLOITS. Experiencing an eruption of intuition that clearly reveals you will attempt a certain adventure in the future, as when you spy a particular mountain for the first time and know you'll climb it one day. (Suggested by Sue Carol Robinson.)

* WEATHER SENSITIVITY. Having a high degree of awareness about your sensitivity to changes in the weather, and having a skill for managing your responses to those shifts so as to consistently bring out the best in yourself. (Suggested by Julie Caves.)

* WHOLEHEARTEDNESS. Having the capacity to give, on a moment's notice, your complete attention, empathy, and playful intelligence to any person or circumstance you choose. (Suggested by Susan Coleman.)

* WILD DISCIPLINE. Possessing a talent for creating a kind of organization that's liberating; knowing how to introduce limitations into a situation in such a way that everyone involved is empowered to express his or her unique genius; having an ability to discern hidden order within a seemingly chaotic mess.

* WHEEEE. A serenely boisterous intensely focused chaos of communion with streaming fountains of liquid light hurtling softly through the giggly upbeat tender assurance that all is well and a mysterious unimaginable intelligence is magnetizing us forward into ever-more wonderful throbs of naked truth that bestow the humble happy sight of life as a river of fantastically lucky artful change flowing through us forever. (Suggested by Sarah Alexander and Jon Kohl Drucker.)

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

SpAcEmEn 3 - DrEaMwEaPoN: aN eVeNiNg Of CoNtEmPoRaRy SiTaR mUsIc

Of course we will not kill the oil supply... before it kills us. The world is ending. Like, this is really it. The oil is creeping up on us as we have tried for so long to initiate it as our own infinite brother. The organism destroys! First it will cover our plains, and then rise up beyond our mountaintops! Hurrah!

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Le Orme - Ad Gloriam

Akin to inner musings of grandiose deprecations, Le Orme's "Ad Gloriam" rings to our subconscious reminders of sub ordinance. Le Orme joins us here tonight from the softly reputed but bass thumping seventies and the flooded fairways of Venice. Apparently they were at first to be named "Le Ombre," literally "the shadows," but they settled on Le Orme, something that I don't think means much, at least not as much as THE SHADOWS. According to allmusic.com, Le Orme used "distorted lead guitar solos and song intended to evoke the variant states of mind associated with certain recreational drug use." So that's what that sound is... or something.
"It is your faith in me that has healed you."



Monday, May 10, 2010

JOOOONSIAND ALEX - riceboy sleeps


"It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop." Well I don't know how uncool this album is. But it includes footsteps in the snow and chanting schoolgirls. Some seriously spatial boreal tendencies, provoking repeatedly. Everything about Jonsi seems terrifyingly sentimental, an ox-tailed wreath garnished with lightness. PEOPLE SUCK.

"Well, you know, like, I don't really give a fuck what the general public think."

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

KARYSUN / YEAR OF NO LIGHT SPLIT

"Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so." Dude, seriously. Both of these bands remind me of falling on sidewalks and standing up with an endorphin rush, brought to you wholeheartedly by delinquent spirits. It's as if man and woman became one and started pushing you around. It is your father's toolshed in bushy Arkansas. It is giraffes punching elephants, for all due retribution and undenounced tribulations. It's YOU, and you stand alone! It is a lot like this infact:

Monday, April 19, 2010

and then there were two


And holy shit. This band is from Italy. But not the Italy we know, we love, or we hate. This is no Italy you could ever have even begun to fathom, to prepare to embrace or to leave derelict and neglected. We all know that the path itself is insignificant, that silence never reigns. Split asunder lies the cliche, dearthly nailed to us all. We have significantly contributed to the cultural and social development of the entire Mediterranean area. We have existed there since prehistoric times.

IGNARUS

"No arms, no havoc in my place!" Taint was the first known settlement which arrived probably via a land bridge. They have played with Avail... and Spirit Caravan. Or Spirit Caravan... and Avail. No, there will BE no open casket or time for visitation. All right, sweethearts, what are you waiting for? Breakfast in bed? Another glorious day in the Corps! A day in the Marine Corps is like a day on the farm. Every meal's a banquet! Every paycheck a fortune! Every formation a parade! I LOVE the Corps! Search the hearts of the unconsecrated in the sheepfold!

sporadic reformation