2024 Electronic Journal Vol. 1 - Complete

Robert Rich / Steve Roach - Strata. 1990 Hearts of Space (MC). Thrift shop find (Aug). No surprises from two veterans of the ambient scene. Rich brings the percussive elements while Stearns is the master of sleepy electronics. Hit play and doze into dreamland. I can see where cassettes are a good format for this kind of music. Flipping the cassette is the effort needed to get through it all.

x - Jo Anna Burns-Miller - Snow Flower. 1990 Little Pond (MC). From the same thrift shop, but a year ago (Jul). From Portland, Oregon all-about-me Burns-Miller proves to be boring as hell and sleep inducing. Same music on both sides for "maximum relaxation". Snore. This kind of saccharine fluff is exactly why new age music fell out of favor. 

*Suzanne Ciani - Seven Waves. 1982 Finnadar (MC). From the same thrift shop as the Roth tape (Jul). As noted on The Velocity of Love review, I was curious how her debut sounded. And I wasn't disappointed. While very much a product of the early 80's, Ciani loads up on the analog gear anyway  and creates a wonderful soothing album with emulations of "Waves". Keeping this and, as a bonus, it's going for good money these days.

Gabrielle Roth and the Mirrors - Waves. 1991 Raven (MC). Thrift shop pickup (Jul). Here's the other title I bought along with Dancing Toward the One. My suspicion of that album being an "accidental" great work appears to be correct. Here Roth goes all in Tribal, and it's annoying as hell. She seems to know her audience and is far more self-conscious of her image, none of which interests me. Gone are the psychedelic edges. She's trying real hard to be "native American" and it sounds ridiculous. You're better off buying real Native field recordings from the 1950's/1960's on Folkways.

Throbbing Gristle - 20 Jazz Funk Greats + Live. 2011 Industrial (1979) (CD). Of course this is neither jazz nor funk, and the cover is purposely misleading. Complete dadaist styled music, where the band admits they're not even musicians. It's abstract experimental, minimal synth, industrial type music. There was a lot of this kind of music in the 80s, but Throbbing Gristle were doing this as far back as 1976, so they were indeed groundbreakers. It's musically interesting though not overly compelling for repeated listens. Going to earn you a sideways glance if playing for coworkers. From an antique mall in Hutchinson, Kansas (Oct 2023) (May)

Reuter / Boddy – Pure. 2004 DiN (CD). Collection revisit (Jan). Ian Boddy plays modern synths with sampled mellotron. Markus Reuter is a German “touch” guitarist. Each track is different from the other and all are unique in their own way. Elements of Ash Ra, spacey Schulze, electronica, and Berlin School can be found. But mostly it sounds like nothing I’ve heard. DiN’s mission statement is to provide electronic music between old analog and modern digital. They succeed here. 

Bernard Szajner – Some Deaths Take Forever. 1999 Spalax (1980) (CD). Collection revisit (Jan). Zeuhlish electronic piece. The album is often described as Magma meets Heldon, which is fair, with members from both. However it's more experimental, cold, and predicts the 80s style of electronic. To be discovered, as Musea used to say in their old catalogs. 

* - Keeping for the collection; x - not in RYM

2023 Electronic Journal Vol. 1 - Complete

Cluster & Eno. 1978 Sky (1977). I'd never heard this album before, but I've never been a huge Cluster fan beyond a couple of glaring exceptions (especially Cluster II). I didn't get near as much out of this as Eno's collab with Fripp on the No Pussyfooting album. Kind of a drifting ambient album with no obvious highs. Probably would be better on CD, as the vinyl was a bit distracting for me here. I'll check it out again in that medium if the opportunity affords itself. (Dec)

Hemisphere - Inversion. 2000 Groove Unlimited (CD). Collection revisit (Dec). This is the earliest album I've owned from Hemisphere, but this was already their 7th work. Unfortunately one of the duo, Ralf Knappe-Heinbockelt, passed away in 2005 and that was the end of Hemisphere. I kept the album after this (Now) but let go of the next one (Attachment X). I bought this at a time when I was loading up heavily on Berlin School Electronic albums in the mid 2000s. But I don't recall anything about it. Let's see where it takes me. On Inversion, Hemisphere demonstrate a patient, spacious album. The first beats and sequences don't enter in until 3). Darker shades encompass 4). Thorsten Reinhardt's guitar makes its first appearance on 5) but in a subtle manner. The music never really breaks free from there. Overall, Inversion is a moody, oppressive, and somber affair. It's a fine effort, though nothing to distinguish it for shelf space.

Ian Boddy : Markus Reuter : Nigel Mullaney - Triptych. 2001 DiN (CD). Collection revisit (Sep). I think I mentioned before that in 2005 I went a bit crazy on obtaining progressive electronic titles. In some cases I'm glad I did as they are going for small fortunes today (at least in CD terms). This isn't one of the rare ones - but a few on Boddy's imprint are. Nonetheless this is an album I haven't heard since first obtaining it. My scratch off notes from May 2005 say: "I was expecting a more sequencer based affair, but this is an intriguing blend of E-musik sounds. Need more time with it, but a solid effort." So much for giving it more time. Here I am absorbing the album for a second visit. I'm not overly keen on the first two tracks totaling close to 33 minutes. 'Mystertronic' is a sort of electronic jazz fusion mix that doesn't sound very pleasant to my ears. The next 25 minutes are the Triptych triptych lol. These trio of songs are much trippier, and it's easy to get into the groove of 'Second Transmission'. Finale 'Ionosphere' is similar to the Triptych. Gosh if I just didn't already have sooo much music like this already. No nostalgia points either, as it's just one of hundreds buried in the collection that I have little recall of. Going to let it go - hopefully to some buyer who will appreciate it more than I have.

Michael Garrison - Prisms. 1981 Windspell. Bend, Oregon's most famous electronic music. He was there when the town had about 100 people. Haha, not really, but the city has experienced 1,000% growth since he started. Along with Steve Roach and Michael Stearns, Garrison was at the forefront of the American electronic movement of the late 70s / early 80s. This is another album I found for a dollar at the Austin Record Show. Nothing you haven't heard before, with a fine mix of melody and sequencers, all very much from the Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze Berlin School, one that Garrison clearly attended. Maybe a bit cutesy at times, it could have benefitted from a darker atmosphere. Despite being a private press on his own label, Garrison must have sold gobs of copy, as supply remains plentiful. Interestingly, cassette tapes of this same album are far more in demand. (Aug)

*Michael Shrieve / Steve Roach - The Leaving Time. 1988 Novus. Picked this one up for a dollar at the Austin Record Show. Anything on vinyl with Steve Roach is worth grabbing, though surprisingly this one doesn't have much monetary value. The sterilized sound from the beginning is a bit off-putting. However it gets more interesting as it goes, and David Torn's guitar is perfect for recordings such as this. Plenty of sequencers as well. Michael Shrieve was on the world tour of joining famous synthesists in the 80s apparently. Holding onto this one. (Aug)

MAL - Compendium Maleficarum. 1981 Physiocrat. This was part of that box of free records I inherited at the last Colorado Springs show (May). There were a couple in there that I'm sure he had no intention of giving away, but lucky me. There were a lot of these privately released oddball dark albums from the 80s that would show up here and there. Especially as the decade lingered on. Today names like Minimal Synth or Minimal Wave are used. And there's an undercurrent of Goth here too. MAL stands for Michael A. Lucas, a musician from San Francisco. He brings no less than 10 guests to join in for this venture. The music is as dark as the cover and track titles suggest (which are similar to black metal bands like Bathory). With narration/semi-singing throughout. Doomy primitive synths are the primary instrumental sounds, though all those guests add much needed color. It's an interesting listen, but not necessarily compelling. I could see a parallel life where I entered into the underground via albums like this versus heavy metal, and being all-in for these kind of sounds. I know a couple of local guys who will flip when I show this to them. Somewhere between Jean-Baptiste Barriere and SPK is where you'll find MAL. Specialists could pinpoint the sound much better than I. But I can't really relate to albums like this. BTW - I had to look up what a physiocrat is: "A member of an 18th-century group of French economists who believed that agriculture was the source of all wealth and that agricultural products should be highly priced." Who knew?

Pete Bardens - Seen One Earth. 1987 Cinema/Capitol. I first bought this when it came out at Sound Warehouse in Dallas... ...along with Exodus' Pleasures of the Flesh. I remember the girl at the counter commenting on what an interesting pair of albums to buy together. I was already that way in 1987, only 22 years old. I didn't like it back then, and it doesn't do much for me now either. It's just too close to smooth jazz and glossy new age music, though I did find myself appreciating this to a +1 level. But it's still 2 points from a keeper. Found this one for $1 on the last day of the Austin show. (May)

* - Keeping for the collection

Steve Roach - Empetus. 1986 USA-Arizona

Arguably this is Steve Roach's definitive Berlin School album before moving on to more ambient realms. There are plenty of inventive sequences that owe some debt to Schmoelling-era Tangerine Dream, but for the most part he retains a completely original sound. Focus is on structure rather than solos. I have way too many Berlin School albums as it is, but this one remains.

Ownership: CD: 1986 Fortuna (Germany)

Mike's List of Criminally Out of Print CDs

OK so now the Top 30 unreissued CDs are out of the way, I think it's time to tackle some CDs that I'd like to see again. This won't be as comprehensive, as if I own some really out of print CD already I won't post it here, as that would take some research to figure out what's gone or not. This is a list of discs I'd really like to see again as I missed them or sold them or whatever. 

1. Edgar Froese - Epsilon in Malaysian Pale Edgar's got a serious penchant for adding graffiti to his old art that's extremely frustrating to his fans and to date I haven't seen a single positive review of the redos of albums like Epsilon and Aqua, which apparently have been techno-fied and modernized and well, just about everything a classic fan doesn't want. I thought I'd read this has to do with conflict with Virgin, but nonetheless I can't think of much worse than dressing up old recordings (although perhaps we'd have to put one point in the Froese column for Green Desert). Anyway unlike Aqua, Epsilon's been out of print for ages and is prohibitively rare and not only that but the Virgin CDs were utterly abysmal sounding. In fact I actually owned this once and then got rid of it for that very reason, keeping a copy of the Brain LP but as these things go, I never listen to it and would do so had I had it on a CD or CD-R. But anyway this is one I don't expect to see despite it being the top one on my list. It's one of the best mellotron and electronics albums ever created, like the soundtrack to a prehistoric vista. 

2. Hatfield & The North - Hatwise Choice This is already out of print apparently but the small boutique outlet who distributed it pushed it outside the realm of viability for overseas customers by adding exorbitant postage and insurance charges (that is it would cost about $30 in the end for one disc). I have no idea if it would have any viability via a US reissue but I'd love to see it as it's a ripping collection of a band who was extraordinary live. Of course, what I'd really like to see is the full shows (for instance the bootleg of 3 BBC sessions that nearly everyone has is really one of the finest live comps of all time), but hey we're getting to fractions of fractions. Maybe I'd be the only left buying a 6 CD anthology of live Hatfield albums but then again maybe that would make paying for insurance reasonable. 

3. Kaipa - Stockholm Symphonie Released in very small quantities in Japan this is not only the best document of Swedish prog band Kaipa but includes some of the best Allmans-inspired guitarwork from Roine Stolt, slightly stretching out some of the comps and giving it all an amazing atmosphere. Just writing about this makes me wanna hear it but I bet 90% of the owners have a boot copy of some sort. I say make it a double if there's some more unreleased live material from the band and get it out there again. This is the main argument why they were Sweden's answer to Yes. 

4. Can - The Peel Sessions I expect one day we'll see another round through the Peel Sessions vaults so this is one I'm not terribly worried about, even if it's second only to the magnificent Tago Mago in terms of great Can. Although perhaps someone would have to license it out now such as what we've seen with Soft Machine's Peel Sessions. Would like to see the Gong sessions out again as well and I'm sure there are more I can't think of off hand. 

5. Dan Ar Bras - Douar Nevez, Terre Nouvelle Perhaps the closest the French folk scene ever got to progressive rock and featuring stalwart Magma (and I think Fairport) related musicians in the back up bands, this Hexagone release was always lost in distribution outside of Europe, usually only showing up in catalogs for $25 to $30 when you could find it, in fact it was quite a bit rarer than the Malicorne CDs were. With an LP and rip in hand, it's not terribly crucial, but I like it enough to want an original. His best album by far. 

6. Gwerz - Au Dela The very best work from the short lived French folk band Gwerz, this had a really epic feel I always found that transcended what can be a painfully hard to listen to genre (bombardes aren't to everyone's tastes and certainly not mine). But there's something lyrical, majestic and almost Dylanesque about this at times and I find it mesmerizing. But once I'd heard it it was already too late to find a hard copy. Musea even reissued their first and inferior release so I was hoping this would follow, but alas good Musea releases of any sort seem far and few between these days. 

7. Steve Roach / Vidna Obmana - Circles and Artifacts When doing an ebay sweep a couple years I went one or two items too deep and this was one of them, in fact I have absolutely no idea what I was doing unloading this, I think I wanted to thin up on a massive Steve Roach collection (mostly the first few albums, the guitar releases etc). Anyway I miss it, it was certainly right in line with the drony stuff they were doing around the black box era IIRC. Perhaps too, having it as part of a photo exhibition (nicely done but not really something I ever have time to sit down with) was partly the reason for letting it go, but now it seems to go for about $40 to $50, so I hope one day it gets its own CD release without the frills. 

8. Ragnar Grippe - Sand Bought this when it was released in small quantities only to realize, perhaps later that the CD was defective and a whole spot in the middle of the CD had peeled off killing half the CD. So I suppose I could sit with the original packaging and plop a CD-R inside knowing I paid my dues, but you know that really annoying collector thing just gnaws at you. Cuz this is a really cool pingy, weird synth album that's really like no other, it just has a unique one of a kind atmosphere. But I suppose a stopgap will have to do as I was not only surprised it ever got a CD release, but would be even more so to see it get a second one. 

9. George Harrison - Wonderwall Music With Beatlemania in full fling, this early Harrison instrumental album is one I'm not particularly worried about, I've seen it go in and out of print all the time, it's just that it's always been a bit pricy. But I've always found it so charming and surprisingly good for an album that gets little chat. Who knows maybe a search on Amazon right now would turn this up for a good price, it's included here based on my last search which showed a minimum $50 for a copy. 

10. Motoi Sakuraba - Shining the Holy Ark This is a step down from the first 9 on the list but I wanted to make it an even 10 and it gives me a chance to whine about how hard it is to get Sakuraba CDs outside of Japan. In the video game industry the man's a soundtrack titan but just when you think prog rock is a niche, pair it with video game music and it's like a niche in a niche. Sure, Motoi can get a bit too epic and corny at times, just a little syrupy for my taste, but I love it when he's high energy and spitting out incredible organ riffs over mellotrons and synths (and this comes from a guy who barely can stand most ELP and generally gets bored with keyboard trios). And I think it's just amazing that even to this day his video game soundtracks are prog through and through (such as Star Ocean: The Last Hope). Seriously there's nothing like battling evil with a Hammond B3 playing. Anyway I think Shining was his second released CD and it's not the only one I'd like to see, now that his debut Gikyokuonsou is also OOP as is Beyond the Beyond and maybe a dozen I don't even know.