Conrad Schnitzler - Ballet Statique (1992 Reissue of 1978 Con)

ARTIST`````Conrad Schnitzler

ALBUM`````Ballet Statique

GENRE`````Electronic, Experimental, Progressive, Ambient

YEAR````````1992 / 1978

Review

This is truly one of the greatest electronic albums ever made and definitely the best place to start exploring the wonderful world of Conrad Schnitzler. Electric Garden is a masterpiece of atmospherics, reverberating drips in the canyons of your mind . Overloaded harmonisers and delays build to an orgasmic rush of nitrous oxide clangs that can seriously warp your mind.

M=Minimal continues their collaboration with electronic music legend Conrad Schnitzler, and presents after 30 years, the re-release of one of the key works from Conrad's large, adventurous back catalog. Ballet Statique is not only a musical milestone but also a highlight of music production. It was recorded in 1978 at the legendary Paragon Studio, Berlin by Tangerine Dream's Peter Baumann in the same period when other masterworks like Cluster's Großes Wasser and solo recordings by Roedelius and Asmus Tietchens were recorded. Ballet Statique was first released on the German Paragon label, under the original title Con (also issued on legendary French label Egg). This album is a must-have, and not only for fans of Emeralds and Oneohtrix Point Never.

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The Mumps - Fatal Charm (1994)

ARTIST`````The Mumps

ALBUM`````Fatal Charm

GENRE`````Campy Glam New York Underground Punk / New Wave

YEAR````````1994

I ain't dead yet - I just had a little nap:)

Biography:

The Mumps were one of the most obscure, but distinctive, New York bands of the late '70s, performing an absurdly theatrical fusion of pop, punk, and glam rock. Led by vocalist Lance Loud, the group's music was an affectionate satire of '70s kitsch culture, predating the similar obsessions of the B-52's by a number of years. The Mumps rocked as hard as the New York Dolls, while writing clever pop hooks that updated trashy garage and bubblegum singles of the '70s. Although they never even earned a large underground following, the group was a favorite of many punk rockers of the era (including the Ramones, Blondie, the New York Dolls, X, Television, the Cramps, Devo, and the Go-Go's), as well as '80s alternative rockers like R.E.M., Game Theory, and Sparks.

Check their shitty website.

About the album/compilation:

Fatal Charm compiles essentially the complete recorded works of the quirky New York band, including the simply wonderful "Crocodile Tears," as well as some equally spirited outtakes and live rehearsals. Though very little of the Mumps' music was released during their five years together as a band, their live shows were legendary, influencing many of the next generation of new wave and alternative rockers; Fatal Charm helps explain why bands continue to namedrop them 20 years later.

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Bill Hicks - Rant In E-Minor (1997)

ARTIST`````Bill Hicks

ALBUM`````Rant In E-Minor

GENRE`````Stand-up comedy, Genius, Character assassination

YEAR````````1997

Why?

Recently I watched American: The Bill Hicks Story documentary (very bleak & shitty fan-made effort if you ask me) and later discovered that I missed the best and rather famous Bill Hicks material ever recorded - Rant In E-Minor. Some bits from this album are just stunning pieces of character assassinations. It doesn't matter if you heard this before - hear it again and again because recordings like these remind us that it is healthy to occasionally express our anger in the most direct way possible.

Review from allmusic

Rant in E-Minor is the comedy equivalent of an Ingmar Bergman film. This posthumously released CD is so brutal, bitter, pessimistic, and honest that it is a very difficult task indeed to listen to it. Recorded most likely while he was going through chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer in 1993, Bill Hicks must have sensed the end was near for him. Like John Coltrane's wailing saxophone on "Interstellar Space," Rant in E-Minor seems to exorcise the burden of life from Hicks' body, while simultaneously reaching a level of passionate intensity rarely matched.

Read the whole review here

Review by NICK TAVARES

The images are as graphic as any nightly newscast. Pro-life warriors murdering doctors. Cops storming trailer parks. Jesse Helms and Jay Leno killing themselves. Ronald Reagan, George Bush and Dan Quayle urinating into Rush Limbaugh’s mouth. Federal officers blowing fire into a Waco compound. It’s likely more explicit than any NC-17 movie released in the past decade. But at no time is it obscene. Sure, it’s not appetizing, but it’s funny as anything,and it’s all geared towards proving his ultimate point: that we are all one and we have to live with each other.

Read the whole review here

Review by ALAN RANTA

Till that point, I thought Denis Leary's No Cure For Cancer was hilarious. Then I found out Leary lifted many of the ideas for his breakout CD from the material Bill had been developing since the early eighties for this album, watered them down, of course, to cater to the beer swilling, soap opera and wrestling watching pop fans Hicks stood against. Bill didn't really hate the people too lazy or ignorant to understand. His ultimate message, revealed to those who could see past his foul language and unapologetic delivery, was one of love, compassion, and understanding.

Read the whole review here

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Prison Songs Vol.1 - Murderous Home (Historical Recordings From Parchman Farm 1947-48) / Alan Lomax - Reissued in 1997

ARTIST`````Various Prisoners

ALBUM`````Prison Songs Vol.1 - Murderous Home (Historical Recordings From Parchman Farm 1947-48)

GENRE`````Folk, World, Blues, Country, Non-Music

YEAR````````1997

What?

[This album] is a reissue of [Alan] Lomax's original Negro Prison Songs.... Volume one is a masterpiece, the best single document of the African American work song and field holler tradition.... The group work songs, while excellent examples of the style, are by their nature less distinctive than the extraordinary solo performances. Nonetheless, they are uniformly strong and include many of the most common of such pieces.

“These songs belong to the musical tradition which Africans brought to the New World, but they are also as American as the Mississippi River. They were born out of the very rock and earth of this country, as black hands broke the soil, moved, reformed it, and rivers of stinging sweat poured upon the land under the blazing heat of Southern skies, and are mounted upon the passion that this struggle with nature brought forth. They tell us the story of the slave gang, the sharecropper system, the lawless work camp, the chain gang, the pen.” – Alan Lomax

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First released 1957 as 'Negro Prison Songs', Tradition Records TLP-1020. Recorded 1947 Mississippi State Penitentiary, Parchman, MS.

Michael Giacchino - Maui Mallard In Cold Shadow Soundtrack (1996) + Game ROM

ARTIST`````Michael Giacchino

ALBUM`````Maui Mallard In Cold Shadow Soundtrack

GENRE`````Soundtrack, Tropical, Exotica, Kitsch, Video Games

YEAR````````1996

What?

...You are Maui Mallard, a hard-boiled, aloha-shirt-clad private dick...er...duck. You have been summoned to a tropical island to help the Muddrakes retrieve their stolen mojo idol, Shabuhm Shabuhm...

I am posting this for personal nostalgic reasons and because I found out today that many people are looking for it - all torrents died a long time ago. I couldn't find a single working link where the whole soundtrack is in one .rar file so I decided to post this little nerdy piece of video game soundtrack history. In short, this game is actually one of the best examples of classic, fetish 1990's detailed, high quality platform games with a few innovative twists. If you are into reading reviews of vintage games read this gamespot review. Also here is a youtube review with gameplay footage.

Besides the very detailed, moody graphics, smooth animation and catchy sounds the biggest highlight of the game was a perfect childish tropical, jazzy, kitschy, detective soundtrack composed by Michael Giacchino and orchestrated by Steve Duckworth. It was so memorable that people who played the game as kids in 1996 now clap in joy just by hearing the first drum rolls from the main menu.

It is interesting that this Donald Duck based detective-blindfolded-ninja tropical character and the entire eclectic aesthetic were created from scratch but it was all used just in this game - it is sad that Disney never turned this unique world into a TV series for kids *as they supposedly planned).

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This .rar file contains the whole mp3 soundtrack + the Snes9x emulator + the Maui Mallard ROM with a simple "How To Play" explanation if you don't know how to open ROMs. Enjoy.