End of the year!

Hello and welcome to the end of the year! This will be the last post of 2012 on this blog and it will include several things that might and might not be of your interest. I made little sections for easier management through my bullshit.

General overview of 2012:

This year was not very kind both to me and to this blog. Luckily the blog managed to stay afloat after the mediafire cleansing, copyright claims and so on. But because of all these problems this year Flying Teapot had the least posts in its whole lifetime. Sadly these problems are only half of the story. I'm having some troubles outside of this place as well. But there's no use to complain about it, we all have troubles. A lot of blogs got closed down and a lot of people left. This year certainly was the ending of the golden age of music blogs. This saddens me greatly and I hope things will get better or that we move on to something better.

What will the future (2013) bring?

2013 will be (I think, I predict) perhaps the most decisive year for this blog. Hopefully if all goes well I will be done with college (first three years, bachelor degree or something like that) in mid spring or sometime around then. After that I might move to Zagreb for two years to finish my studies. If that happens Flying Teapot might close down for good because I won't have the time or the internet connection to post even on a monthly basis. The second option is that I will stay where I am now and finish my studies. That means I'll be able to post but on a slower basis. The third option is that I get a job and post as much as work allows me to and I will then finally have the money to open up my own label.

New blogs and what about Terror Noise Audio?

In late august I opened up a tumblr blog. Its purpose is to have photos of musicians and nothing else. I just use it to collect nice photographs that I find on last.fm or google. You may follow it if you're interested in such things.

Flac and Roll Gas Station - I wanted to use this as a side blog where I would post flac rips of my own CD collection. It would just be links on it, no reviews or anything like that. Now that mediafire has imposed its limitations to split files I'm not sure if I ever will start this blog up.

Terror Noise Audio - I'm not sure what to do with it. It seems dead and every other author on it stopped posting. I might revive it depending on how much free time I end up having. Apparently it still has +500 followers so people might be still interested in it. TNA was a lot of fun but over time it became a lot of work and very little fun. I have mixed feelings about getting back to it.

Gratitude and thanking!

That's it for this year folks! I hope everyone had a much better year than I did and I wish everyone everything good in the year to come.

Thank you for all the lovely comments of support, critique and general happiness that you left in this place and a big thanks to everyone who helped with fixing what was missing during the reuploading of the blog!

See you very soon and here's to a much brighter 2013!

Herbie Hancock - Sextant

This is something that's widely known (at least when it comes to jazz) so I decided to offer this release in flac for those who are either into archiving or are fans of lossless formats.

When it comes to modern jazz (bebop and further on) you could say that Herbie Hancock was one of those guys who had seen it all and tried it all. He played with a lot of greats, he made some marvelous albums of his own and he made some nice commercial hits. He started, like most of his generation, with bebop and hard bop releasing a dozen of interesting albums. Later on after he met Miles Davis and dabbled into electric things thus he moved on to fusion. During his fusion years he released a lot of hit albums like Headhunters and what not.

Sextant is important and interesting because it fits somewhere in the middle. It fits in what we call the Mwandishi period. This period came after he discovered fusion but it was still not all that friendly yet. This was because he was just getting into more complex and more demanding jazz (The Prisoner, Maiden Voyage). So naturally when he moved to a more fusion sounding music it was chaotic, experimental and complex

Freshly singed to a new label after being on Warner Brothers for a few years Herbie went completely batshit insane and made this album. It's very far ahead of its time so it wasn't liked very much at the time. I guess the nearest comparison to this album would be the interstellar works of Sun Ra (maybe that's why I like this so much) but there is so much more to this album. It's strange, it's cosmic and it demands a lot of attention.

If you are willing to give it the attention it deserves you will get in return a beautifully composed chaos of electronic sounds mixed with acoustic instruments. It will take you somewhere far away to a distant planet.

Part one, two and three.

Saywhy? - splits with Bastardass and D.H.I.B.A.C.

Ah grindcore, you gotta love it. I love it and I love it when it's especially lightning fast. Fast, short and punching. People at Czech Republic seem to know where it's at because there are a lot of bands from there that just love fast grindcore (fastcore if you prefer the microgenre terminology) and Saywhy? is a perfect example of this type of music.

I included two splits because they are really short and I often fin myself repeating them a couple of times. They don't get old fast and that's perhaps the most important thing with music like this. In contrast to Saywhy? we have D.H.I.B.A.C. from France and Bastardass from California. Both are good in their own respective sounds but I mainly listen to these splits for the Saywhy? sides.

Get it if you're into some good grind.

Link.

Onibaba

Director: Kaneto Shindo
Country: Japan
Date: 1964
Runtime: 1h 42min
Format: .avi with .srt subtitles

Here's a movie that's a bit hard to define and it's not exactly Christmas material but whatever. Some say it's a period drama, some say it's a horror movie and some say it's an erotic horror. I'd say it's a period drama first and a subtle horror flick second.

The movie is set during the Nanboku-cho period (which is like mid medieval times in ol' Europa) but this is no movie of samurai bravery or acts of just vengeance. The movie is about two women who live by sneakily killing soldiers and looting their equipment (as you would in any normal RPG). Their lives are very basic and they are very poor so it's something that the movie displays really well through character interactions and sets. This is where the "horror" part comes because there is no supernatural force here, the people are the horror and their deeds are atrocious no matter what they do. In contrast to human ugliness the scenes of nature (the whole movie is in a dense tall grass field) are beautiful to behold. Beautiful and sort of menacing or even indifferent to humans that run around it.

This might be a bit too slow for everyone to watch. It is kinda samey but I like the feeling and the atmosphere that the movie delivers. There's something in here that I really like but I can't really put my finger on it. I guess I just like this sort of thing for its macabre theme and feel.

You can read a more comprehensible review here.

Or you can download it and see for yourself: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.

Paul Chambers - Bass On Top

I always considered bassists in jazz to be the unsung heroes of the genre. Sure you have Mingus and Jaco Pastorius but that's the only people somebody would actually know about in more detail. The others were just kinda there despite contributing a lot to the music itself.

Paul Chamber definitely sits among the top of the unsung heroes. He, like many others in his craft, did a lot of albums. He was a long time companion of Coltrane, Miles, Lee Morgan, Hank Mobley and a lot of other people. In contrast to that he did very few of his own albums.

Bass on Top is, in my opinion, his best output. This is where Chambers shines the most and has the most freedom to explore his own ideas of playing. There is only rhythm section on this album (so to speak) featuring most notably Kenny Burrell on guitar with who Chambers does a lot of interplay. That is perhaps the most interesting aspect of this album. The guitar and bass follow each other all the time, catching each others riffs and solos. Running along in between the steady drum patterns and piano chords that echo somewhere in the back. Each artist gets their moment to shine but like I said, it was Chambers time to shine and he did shine brightly.

Oh and please take note that the album is in flac:

Part: one, two and three.

Wishbone Ash - Argus

Different albums evoke different feelings. Some are sad, some are merry and some are deep and thoughtful. This one for me always brings back the feeling of summer and fantasy novels.

Wishbone Ash, as far as I can tell, never really did anything revolutionary in their respective genre. I mean, they're good musicians and all but their music was kinda on the safe side (from what I heard at least). Because of that very fact Wishbone Ash is always nice to have around. It has plenty of nice songs and instrumentals that are always enjoyable to hear and never much cheesy. Since the songs themselves lean on a more poppier sound (which isn't really that bad at all) you'll hear a lot of melodic solos and chorus singing. You know, the usual cliches of prog rock from those days. I always like this album to have in the back while I'm reading some lengthy fantasy novel. For some reason these two things always fit together nicely.

It's trapped in time, somewhere in the endless summers of the 70s. Back when the world was a much slower place. When you could just sit on your porch and listen to some fine tunes.

Have fun!

Vio-lence - Eternal Nightmare

Honestly I have no idea why I didn't post this before. It's one of the most biggest classics of thrash metal and metal in general. The stars were perfectly aligned when this record was made.

From the production to the riffs everything fits together so nicely and well that I can't imagine how could this record be made any better. Praise aside this album generally is well known among the thrash crowd but maybe not so among other fans of music. Vio-lence were around for a while but they never really made it big during their time despite making really solid albums throughout their career. Maybe because the sound kinda leaned more to the punk side of things?

If I really had to choose an album as my favorite amongst their discography this would be it. It's fun, fast-paced and excellently composed with some really great hooks and "crowd choruses". The only thing that takes some time to get used to are the vocals. A lot of people tend to have problems with the vocals on this album mainly because they sound a bit out of place. I can't really explain how the dude sounds but I guess he sounds like an exaggerated version of a standard clean thrash vocalist. It's kinda weird but I like it and have no problem with it. So you might not have any problems with it as well.

Check this out if you haven't and you're into metal.

Enjoy.

Fav. track.

Boris - A Bao A Qu

Boris are have been kicking around for a very long time now and they're also one of my favorite bands. Because they are so well known I didn't bother to post their stuff (I did post their discog early on but all those links are dead and gone) but I think this is worth sharing because of two reasons: the first reason is my favorite song by them and the second reason is that this is a bit more obscure release so maybe not all of you Boris enthusiasts have it.

A Bao A Qu has several versions, reworks and live versions. I managed to find seven of them and this is the longest one clocking at just a bit over 10 minutes. The song itself is set into two parts. The first part is a very laid back drone-y intro that reminds me a lot of Gymnopédies, 1. Lent et douloureux by Erik Satie (without the feedback of course). I don't know if this a tribute or a rip off but the notes seem very similar. Nevertheless this is probably the better half of the song. After about 4 or so minutes of drone Boris shift into high gear and lay out some really fine doom/sludge thing they usually do (or did). Big open guitar riffs, echoes vocals and all the good stuff they do best and this part transitions quite well from the quiet one.

What they achieve the most with this certain song is laying out a feeling of some happy solitude. One of those feelings that you get when you stare out of some tall building on a quiet sunday evening. Watching last rays of Sun disappear.

Download.

Music video.

Jooklo Duo - The Warrior

I was planning to write a few posts today but I got trashed so hard with whiskey yesterday that I can't even write or think. I'll write this short one because I'm so edgy.

This little seven inch record was released back in 2010 and it was made by an Italian duo consisting of a saxophone player and a drummer. Let the shortness of this record fool you not for they are so intense that they will leave you flattened after the first listen. The sound itself can be accurately described as skinning something alive. At least the saxophone can be described like that. It sometimes gets so high that I wonder why their reeds haven't snapped yet.

Basically it's one of those free jazz records that you either like or not. You get raw power here and if you're not into that kind of stuff avoid this record.

Get.