Gospelfolk - Prodigal (1969)

I bought this for £2.50 up in Glasgow and it's apparently worth about 50 times that, so GERRITUPYE! Chilled Xian psych from Scotland with a bit of organ and fuzz, and some folky moments, but mainly in a solid 67-68 Byrdsy vein. Allegedly only 99 copies pressed, but I've heard that might be false. Some (presumably unintentional) Velvetsy vibes on this, and typical naive Christian hippy lyrics. Sorry for the crackle on my copy, but I think I'm the first to rip this so quit complaining.

HERE

Stanford Folk - Presenting Stanford Folk (1977)

Custom (?) 7" of square xian folk courtesy of two married couples. "Put Your Hand in the Hand" is a tad twee, but endearing, and as much as I enjoy the performance of "I Don't Know How To Love Him", I could do without having "Rice/Webber" credited on any record I own. However, the middle 2 songs, "Sing Halleluya" and "Babylon" are gorgeous slices of earnest christfolk, with the pure female vocals being a particular treat, especially on the latter. This was worth the 50p I paid for it.

PEACE BE WITH YOU

Shitbastard - S/T 7" (1994)

Of all the random cheap hardcore records I bought over the years cause of cool bandnames/covers, this is one of the most brain-damaged. Basement-level sloppy hardcore with weird grunt-sing vocals that veer into Eric Cartman territory. They play it fast and loose like early Meat Puppets, with the clear guitar tone showing every missed note and twisted change in all its glory. Definite shit-fi potential.

LISTEN UP

Blessed End - Movin' On (1971)

I know I've been away for a while, walk it off you crybabies.
To make assistance for crybaby walking, here is downer organ psych gem. This record came out around about the time Jim Morrison died, and I'd say The Doors + the cold embrace of the grave is a pretty good formula for describing this record. Far less pretentious and flamboyant than Morrison and co, this has a gritty real people vibe and direct downer lyrics (this is PA not LA). Powerful vocal performance that reminds me of Sinatra's most downcast moments. No distortion or fuzz here but plenty of doomed, quasi-proto-goth atmospheres.

GET ON IT

Paternoster - Paternoster (1972)

Nightmarish, organ-led heavy prog/proto-proto-proto-funeral doom from early 70s Austria. Lengthy instrumental passages dominated by eldritch pipe organ and fuzzed-out, near-black metal guitar are interspersed with harrowed, mock-operatic vocals hymning frustration and despair. Standout track "Stop These Lines" goes from almost ludicrous descriptions of mundanity ("Lunchtime snackbar eating chips, ketchup dripping down your lips") into the repeated, impassioned plea to "stop these lines". Elsewhere, "Paternoster" and "The Pope is Wrong" turn the formal liturgies of the catholic church into bitter hymns of cynicism. The closing "Mammoth Opus O" sees fragments of oompah melodies drawn into the quagmire. Original copies of this gem will set you back at least a grand, so thank the lord for piracy!

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Whore - Suicide Massacre (2005)

Satisfyingly abrasive UKBM from the nightmarish Ballardian sprawl of Essex. Long tracks of unrelenting VON-influenced black metal, drenched in white noise and underpinned by the monolithic monotony of a distorted drum machine. The vocals are heavily effected, rising like ghosts from the acrid miasma and screaming incomprehensible invective. Cover of VON's "Satanic Blood" is better than most.

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P.S. Sorry, I only have this ripped as a 128kbps WMA file and can't find the CD, but with music this lo-fi it's really not that important.

Smokin' Willie - Smokin' Willie

Reverb-choked 'lude-rockers sing the barbiturate blues. The fuzz solos on the heavy tracks scyth through the murk and go straight for the back of your brain, struggling up from the leaden mire of the rhythm section, which pounds monolithically (this is of course a good thing). The lighter songs, covers of "Whiter Shade of Pale" and "House of the Rising Sun", while still maintaining the downer vibes, disrupt the flow of the sludgier pieces somewhat, and break up the album in a mildly frustrating way. Well above the biker rock/heavy psych average though.

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Abstract Satan - Demo 7512 (2004)

Insane black metal from the wilds of Russia. Unlike the vast majority of Eastern European BM, this is bestial, ritualistic BM in the vein of VON and Havohej, rather than Burzum-indebted or folk-influenced. The production is a bass-heavy chthonic rumble, but everything is fairly audible. The vocals are heavily VON-influenced, but the liberal amounts of reverb make them sound even more inhuman. Programmed drums don't sound overly artificial, and keep a steady hypnotic grind (these short songs feel much longer than they are). This came out in 2004 in an appropriately obscurist edition of 66 copies, so I hope they don't mind me making it more widely available.

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Svaty Vincent - S/T LP (1990)

From the Savant Metal article:

One of the oddest records to come from the nascent second wave of Black Metal, and a personal vinyl collecting holy grail. Loosely aligned with the Iron Curtain-era Czech scene (Root, Master's Hammer, Tudor), this is the frankly baffling work of one Vincent Venera, plus whoever he got to abuse various instruments as backing to his unique utterances. Perhaps one of the greatest vocal performances ever committed to tape, Mr. Venera grunts and shrieks his (presumably Czech) lyrics about Satan and Marijuana, over the kind of musical backing that, if presented on an American Tapes lathe LP in an edition of 16, would get David Keenan ejaculating from here until passover. As it is, this record sounds like the riotous speedevil of Venom and the first Bathory LP, choked with paint thinner until they descend/ascend into the brilliant sphere of pure musical torture. Like a far less intentional form of the "black noise" peddled by Abruptum etc., it veers between sheer comedy and sheer nightmare-inducing tragedy. Perhaps most disturbing of all is the applause that follows a few of the live cuts, suggesting something very troubling about the immediate post-revolution Czech mindset...

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(not my upload)

Semen of Satan/Evoked Doom

Uploaded this for Chris of Tenhornedbeast and his related blog, after a discussion of inept German metal (POISON). Semen of Satan are a band of legendary stature to me and about 6 other people, and it took me ages to even find mp3s of the demo.

I was expecting some inept, barely-audible proto-proto-black metal, so I was surprised at the amount of sheer ability on offer here. After a charmingly cheesy intro, we get a violent slab of proto-death doom crawl, which soon erupts into soloing that reminds me of vintage Pentagram. Listen through the tape hiss and you realise that this is actually an accomplished METAL band, rather than the quasi-noise I was expecting.

Semen of Satan later devolved into Evoked Doom, who are a lot closer to the sludgy hell I always search for. I'm pretty sure they use a drum machine, and seem a lot more chaotically-minded than Semen of Satan. Still, there's some great guitarwork buried in the slime, and the vocals are insane. If anyone can shed any further light on the history and circumstances of these bands, or has any recommendations for other 80s obscurities, let me know.

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