Month: August 2011

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Weed Temple: Review: Vas Deferens Organization & Brad Laner – Transcontinental Conspiracy (Niklas Records, 2011): “The reissue of the classic album by one of the most overlooked and underrated bands of the 1990’s on the Polish label Niklas Records brings not only the remastered material but also bonus tracks unheard on the original recording. In fact, every track on the album is so multi-styled, multi-layered and hard to describe it would take a paragraph for each track to even briefly describe the variety of sounds on the CD.             The opening “First Plane Not to Plummet Seaward Dallas” stars with a bang: a bitchin’ old school hip-hop beat perfectly suited for a horrorcore rapper paves a way for the amphetamine tribal madness that comes after the distinctly “urban” intro. Everything in VDO’s music is soaked with a specific, surreal sense of humor – the distorted melody among the tribal madness seems to signify that it’s more of a parody of all the “tribal” psychedelic records than the actual “serious” ritualistic psychedelia. In case you didn’t realize the album was released in 1996, there are some mad jungle (or drum’n’bass, if you will) loops replacing the tribal drumming. After a short, quieter interlude the high point of the track (if not the whole album) comes: an electronic, glitchy madness set to a dancefloor-ready, post-punk beat, like the funkiest moments of late 70’s NYC scene meeting the dark experimentalism of This Heat.             The nearly 4-minute “Monk Fish Liver Transplant Plate” might seem small and insignificant in contrast to the massive compositions before and after the track, but it’s still packing a nice punch of Oriental/synthesizer weirdness, seamlessly blending the tribal loops playing “normally” and reversed. The following 20-minute monster of “Last Few Days in a Land of Happy Dreams” summons surreal demons with distorted dreamy vocal loops somewhat in the style of Amon Tobin’s “Nightlife” (even though Amon Tobin’s Permutation will be released two years later). The explosions of low-frequency bass are set against almost unpenetrable walls of frying synthesizers, like the hyper-amplified sound of an egg frying or the sound of a tape completely melting from the endless sped-up processing on reel-to-reel. Again, the Amon Tobin implications appear (I wonder if Tobin ever heard Vas Deferens Organization?), with a looped jazz sample co-existing with bend glitches and bursts of noise. The jazzy interlude then reaches a low point, retiring to relative quiet with sparse drumming and finally it ends with a mangled and truly Dadaist sound collage of speech samples.             Named simply “T”, the penultimate track on Transcontinental Conspiracy can be considered the “heaviest” track on the entire album, if by “heavy” we consider the sheer psychedelic power and ability to disorientate the listener. Beginning almost too “traditionally” to be considered Vas Deferens Organization material, the track unfolds like an extended psychedelic rock jam taking extensive cues from krautrock weirdness (I think I can hear a snippet of some kraut classic in the mix, possibly Guru Guru?), blending processed electric guitar carnage with field recordings (sounds of water pouring into a vessel) and towering, cavernous bass textures.             The finishing bonus track “Scheming Foils” is almost “poppy” by Vas Deferens Organization standards: the vaguely oriental synth-driven jam goes into a whimsical transformation and finally becomes a soothing, ambientalized math rock jam featuring almost jazz fusion-like synth structures. The very end of the track is the last roar of the album, with a wild, distorted guitar solo piercing through the ambience.             Transcontinental Conspiracy is a must-have for all fans of 1990’s experimentalism. Truly a band of open-headed professionals intended for truly open-headed listeners. The 2011 reissue gives a chance to open VDO for a new generation of listeners to whom the work of this Dallas (whose members are responsible for the mesmerizing Mutant Sounds blog) unit was completely unknown and whose music was, until now (hopefully?), known only to a close circle of hardcore weirdo psych enthusiasts.

The CD is available from Niklas Records. Buy it!!!”

 

The Associated Press: Funeral for man entombed for 27 years in chimney: “Funeral for man entombed for 27 years in chimney By MARY FOSTER, Associated Press – 6 days ago  ABBEVILLE, La. (AP) — The narrow, brick chimney of a Louisiana bank became his tomb for 27 years and now Joseph Schexnider will be laid to rest Sunday in a proper grave with a proper farewell by his family. Still, his brother Robert wonders, how did he wind up in that chimney? Didn’t anyone hear any cries for help? Was it a robbery attempt gone awry, an accident or something more sinister? “At least we know where he is now,” Schexnider, 48, said, tears welling in his eyes ahead of his brother’s weekend funeral and burial. “At least he’s home.” Nearly three decades after he disappeared, much mystery lingers about the case of Joseph Schexnider and involving a small town bank in the southern Louisiana city of Abbeville. Police say Schexnider became trapped and apparently died in the bank’s chimney in 1984. But beyond that, they know little more. “Everybody has an opinion,” said Lt. David Hardy, chief of investigations for the Abbeville Police Department. “But no one has evidence to say one way or another.” If Joseph Schexnider did cry out for help, no one heard his pleas. The stench of death was never detected. The decades rolled on until last May when a construction worker helping turn the bank’s vacant second floor into offices tugged some fabric out of the chimney and was showered with old clothes and human bones.”

Jodie Foster helps keep SETI’s search for aliens alive | The Raw Story: “LOS ANGELES — “Contact” star Jodie Foster was among donors helping to revive the 42 radio telescope dishes at a key California institute searching for extraterrestrial life, the group said Tuesday.

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute in California, which got a direct hit from federal and California budget cuts, had to halt operations in April for its telescopes pointed toward outer space.

But after a public campaign launched on its website, SETI said it had received $223,000 — exceeding its $200,000 goal — from 2,557 donors, Foster among them.”

 

Anti-gay Indiana state rep solicited 18-year-old boy on Craigslist | The Raw Story: “Indiana state Rep. Phillip Hinkle (R) is embroiled in controversy after The Indianapolis Star discovered emails appearing to solicit the paid company of a young man, sent from Hinkle’s publicly listed email address.

In response to a M4M forum Craigslist post, Hinkle emailed the man, named Kameryn Gibson, and offered him $80 cash, with a tip of $50 or $60 “for a really good time” in the hours he proposed spending together at a local Marriott.

Gibson, whose ad lists him as 20 years old but is actually 18, said he met Hinkle at the hotel, and tried to leave when Hinkle said he was a state politician.”

 

Dangerous Minds | German experimental music pioneer Conrad Schnitzler has died: “Sad to hear that prolific German experimental music pioneer, Conrad Schnitzler, one-time student of Joseph Beuys, early member of Tangerine Dream and founder of Kluster, has died.

Via Ric Leichtung at Altered Zones:

On August 4th, Conrad Schnitzler passed away from stomach cancer. Member of Kluster and Tangerine Dream, Schnitzler played in an invaluable role in the shaping of kraut and electronic music. Having studied under Stockhausen, Conrad composed more than 90 albums of solo material, and completed his final work, “00/830,” just four days before his death. In preparation for his departure, Schnitzler sent strands of his hair to be buried around the world and created the Global Living Project. In his words:

Since some time, I globalize me. Why just living in one country, why just sleeping in one country, why just being buried only in one country, now that we think and live globally.

I would like to be at beautiful places in the world, without to move me from my place here. I send my DNA (my hair) to different places in the world. This means I’m all over the world. I’m everywhere, even when I’ll be dead. Nobody must come to my grave in Berlin. My friends can visit me in the whole world now.

So if friends want to give me a place…., welcome. I’ll send a DNA sample to bury me. I am in the whole world at home now. I love this feeling.

Friends, family, and fans can pay their respects to Conrad at 9 different sites, including the Green Lagoon in Spain, Norway’s Lysefjord, and Mt. Fuji.

Below, Schnitzler’s “Magic Party”:”

 

6 Creepy New Weapons the Police and Military Use To Subdue Unarmed People | World | AlterNet: “1. The Invisible Pain Ray: The ‘Holy Grail of Crowd Control’

 

Source: Pasadena Star News It sounds like a weapon out of Star Wars. The Active Denial System, or ADS, works like an open-air microwave oven, projecting a focused beam of electromagnetic radiation to heat the skin of its targets to 130 degrees. This creates an intolerable burning sensation forcing those in its path to instinctively flee (a response the Air Force dubs the “goodbye effect”).

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