the Greater Vehicle

The Flatlanders - More a Legend than a Band

2009-03-28T17:07:00.000-07:00

the flatlanders ... country done right, you gotta hear it. "more a legend than a band" is a rounder reissue of their 1972 debut that wasn't pressed until 1980 on vinyl and 1990 on cd...the title is fitting, and one song into this album you'll see why these guys are legendary. people like to say they invented alt-country ... i think they just wrote (and played) really good songs. if you're not into country, then i don't know what the hells wrong with your ears, but you should check this out for the musical saw cuts on alot of these tracks anyway.

the flatlanders are jimmie dale gilmore, joe ely, and butch hancock. they're from texas and if you're a fan of hank williams or syd barrett then jam this shit.

01 - Dallas
02 - Tonight I'm Gonna Go Downtown
03 - You've Never Seen Me Cry
04 - She Had Everything
05 - Rose From The Mountain
06 - One Day At A Time
07 - Jole Blon
08 - Down In My Hometown
09 - Bhagavan Decreed
10 - The Heart You Left Behind
11 - Keeper Of The Mountain
12 - Stars In My Life
13 - One Road More

William Elliot Whitmore live on KEXP

2009-03-19T18:56:00.000-07:00

diggin the shit out this station. cruisin around their live performance archive i found this nugget...a william elliot whitmore solo acoustic set. he plays excellent versions of several songs from his latest album, animals in the dark. this dude has the earthiest blues voice you could ever hear and is an unreal songwriter. the interview is awesome too, he and the dj talk about everything from the economy to his growing up on a farm in southeast iowa to ww2. if youve never given this guy a listen, change that now. if you're a fan, this radio set is a must have.

1. Hell or High Water
2. Old Devils, Hard Times
3. A Good Day to Die
4. Lifetime Underground

School of Seven Bells live on KEXP

2009-03-19T14:08:00.000-07:00

school of seven bells (SVIIB) is named after a south american school for pickpockets and consists of ben curtis from secret machines and twin sisters alejandra and claudia deheza. their debut album is thick, layered, and fairly modernistic shoegazey material while their acoustic perfomance here is stripped down to dual guitars and keyboard. this setting puts the ethereal vocals up front and the simplicity of the instrumentation only adds to the beauty of the songs. lookin for somethin fresh, here it is.

(right-click > save as...)

1.Wired for Light

2.Caldo
-Interview between 8:00 and 15:00 minute marks
3.White Elephant Coat
4.My Cabal

*here also is a more recent electric radio set from minneapolis...

Zoroaster - The Voice of Saturn

2009-03-04T12:36:00.000-08:00

Summary:
This album is bad fuckin ass.

This is the third full-length from Georgia psych-sludge trio Zoroaster, and boy have they done it this time. Put this album on and you're in for an hour of some powerful vibrations. They have this cd available at zoroastergear.com and if you buy it for ten bucks, you get their previous one, Dog Magic, for five. That deal is a steal and that album is no joke. Unlike its predecessor, which was furiously bare-bones sludge, Voice of Saturn takes that heavy base and liberates it to its intended cosmic pathway. From the kicker track "Spirit Molecule" these guys demonstrate that being outer-limits spacey doesnt mean you have to sacrifice the ball-breaking menace of the music.

Did I mention that Brent Hinds of Mastodon lays down a headie solo on "White Dwarf" that leaves you wonderin what millenium it is?

If I were to try and pin down these guy's influences, I'd probably have to leave it at Black Sabbath and the Milky Way Galaxy. This record draws from so many influences ... tribal drums, noise, vocal arrangements ... that you really just have to listen to it to get a feel for what these guys are doing. Don't miss the hidden track at the end that takes a jam into diverse dimensions... or is it immense divisions? demented diversions?

With this album, Kylesa's Static Tensions, and a new Sunn record due out in May, 2009 looks like it will be a killer year for metal. I'm not gonna upload this album because its all over the internet right now, and $15 for two amazing albums is a hell of a deal anyway. Check it.

Roscoe Holcomb - March 26th, 1971

2009-03-03T15:25:00.000-08:00

1. Swannanoa Mountain

6. Black Bottom Blues

7. Hook and String

8. Graveyard Blues

9. Across the Rocky Mountains

10. On Top of Old Smokey

So here is some rare shit. Not even OOP, this reel was NIP (never in print). This is a recording made in 1971 by Lee Knight at Holcomb's home in Daisy, Perry County, Kentucky that sits as a reel-to-reel in Berea College's archives. Thanks to the Digital Library of Appalachia for making this available. While the files are of decent quality (what can you expect from an informal field recording?) the music is amazing and feature's Holcomb's haunting vocals along with incredible self- accompaniment, mostly on banjo. There is some talk between tunes (whered you learn that?...etc) that I always love with these recordings.

If you've never listened to Roscoe Holcomb, start here but be sure and check out his extensive recordings on Folkways to get a clearer image of the man that embodied the high, lonesome sound. In describing the man's music, Ralph Stanley may have said it best : "you could feel the smell of woodsmoke in that voice."

Drudkh - Forgotten Legends

2009-03-02T14:45:00.000-08:00

Here is the debut album from a band that shows you how it should be done. Ukrainian black metal band Drudkh (ex-Hate Forest) put this out in 2003. These are three of the heaviest songs to ever be laid to vinyl in my opinion (and one track of rainstorm sounds...)

Drudkh throw out some raw, brutal shit, but also explore elements of melody hidden deep within the wall of droning guitars and unrelenting blast beats. The band would go on to incorporate more folk and progressive elements in later releases but this is them at their dirtiest and in my opinion best. The lyrics to this album have never been released.

"False Dawn" – 15:57
"Forests in Fire and Gold" – 8:55
"Eternal Turn of the Wheel" – 11:44
"Smell of Rain" – 2:46

Scion Rock Fest in Atlanta was this weekend. We threw down and saw some killer sets by Neurosis, Boris, Baroness, and tons of other insane bands. My ears are still ringing.

Kayo Dot live on WMBR

2009-02-24T11:57:00.000-08:00

Here is a gem - a Kayo Dot bootleg from the "choirs of the eye" era (march 2004 specifically.) They perform beautiful renditions from their debut album, which is totally on its own sonic plane. Music of this nature had never been recorded until these individuals got together, dropped a groove and went with it. Choirs of the Eye is available on CD at Tzadik Records. Do everyone within earshot of your speakers a favor and download this.

1. The Antique
2.Marathon
3.Wayfarer

live on 88.1 WMBR

Josephine Foster - Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead You

2009-02-23T23:18:00.000-08:00

In 2005 I happened to be at a show where Josephine Foster was playing, and from the moment she picked up a guitar I was totally captivated. People call this stuff the "new weird america" but I just see a remergence of themes that have been with humanity from the onset. As long as there are people, there will be folk music.

That said this is Foster's first solo album and a departure from her earlier work with Born Heller and the Supposed, two entirely different avenues that are worth exploring. These are ballads from a sonic place most of us forgot we knew about, songs with a bizarre familiarity that I believe comes from the deep-seated conciousness manifested in this music.

From a Dusted review:

"Accompanying herself with all manner of (literal) bells and whistles, as well as guitar, harp, sitar, tambourine, ukulele, and homemade percussion, Foster slides her voice around tinny irregular plucks, minor key-clawing, trembling flute notes, and wooden clicks and clacks...There’s a disconcerting stillness to much of Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead You, a privileging of inertia that succumbs here and there to the swarm of strings, but returns always to a resting state. Foster resists order. Her voice flickers like pale flame around lyrics you’d expect to find in the ballads("I fell down among the splinters / Of a rose of the tree / My true lover planted thee"), constantly wandering and rarely returning twice over the same ground. "

The vinyl is long out of print as far as i know but the CD is available at http://www.locustmusic.com. Her latest album The Coming Gladness is out on Bo'Weavil Recordings. This is some special stuff.

"The Siren's Admonition" – 4:24
"Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead You" – 3:26
"By the Shape of Your Pearls" – 1:22
"Stones Throw from Heaven" – 3:18
"Where There Are Trees" – 1:22
"The Golden Wooden Tone" – 3:01
"There Are Eyes Above" – 3:50
"Celebrant's Song" – 3:41
"Good News" – 3:07
"Trees Lay By" – 2:59
"The Pruner's Pair" – 3:10
"Crackerjack Fool" – 2:40
"The Way Is Sweetly Mown" – 4:44
"Hominy Grits" – 2:21

Mushroom Ceremony of the Mazatec Indians of Mexico

2009-02-23T12:36:00.000-08:00

Here is an example of why Folkways is one of my favorite labels to ever publish music. This is a field recording from the long strange trip of our main man Gordon Wasson, who left Wall Street for Northern Mexico after his Russian bride turned him onto some mushrooms.

He went on to "discover" several species of psychoactive mushrooms as well as an interesting plant he called Salvia divinorum. What he managed to record here is a full shamanistic ceremony on record, and some heavy material to say the least. From the bio:

"DR WASSON, A PIONEER IN THE STUDY OF THE ROLE OF MUSHROOMS IN RELIGIOUS RITUAL, GIVES US A TRANSCRIPTION OF AN AUTHENTIC "CONSULTATION" OF THE SACRED MUSHROOM, IN SOUND. THE OCCASION WAS THE ILLNESS OF A YOUTH. THE MUSHROOM, THROUGH THE MOUTH OF MARIA SABINA, A FEMALE SHAMAN, DECREED THAT THE BOY MUST DIE. HE HEARD THE BAD NEWS AND DIED DAYS LATER. DR. WASSON TAPED THE ENTIRE VELADA. DR. WASSON IS ABLE TO PROVE THAT THE WORDS AND UNDOUBTEDLY THE CHANT ARE PRE-CORTES, GOING BACK FOR MANY CENTURIES. NOTHING LIKE THIS RECORD HAS BEEN DONE FOR THE NEW WORLD; IT IS RIVALED IN THE OLD WORLD ONLY BY THE VEDIC CHANTS OF INDIA".

Recorded by V. P. & R. G. Wasson in Huautla de Jiménez, in the Mazatec Mountains in the northern corner of the State of Oaxaca, July 21, 1956.

1. Chjon Nka
2. Chjon Nka Catsin
3. Santo...nana
4. Papa Papai
5. Na Ai - Ni Tso
6. Santo...Ji nai...na
7. Jan Jesu Cristo
8. Ji Nai
9. San Pedro
10. Soso Soso
11. Name of Plants
12. Pedro Martinez
13. Don't Be Concerned, Old One
14. Birds
15. Humming, etc.
16. Soft Singing
17. Finale

Wino - Punctuated Equilibrium

2009-02-18T15:20:00.000-08:00

kickin it off right;

Punctuated Equilibrium, WINO's solo album fresh out on Southern Lord, this shit rages like only Wino can. there isn't a bad song on this album. get the mp3s while you wait on the sweet LP release comin soon.

01. Release Me
02. Punctuated Equilibrium
03. The Woman In The Orange Pants
04. Smilin Road
05. Eyes of The Flesh
06. Wild Blue Yonder
07. Secret Realm Devotion
08. Water Crane
09. Gods, Frauds, Neo-Cons and Demagogues
10. Silver Lining

by the way, google "punctuated equilibrium" (not the album) and if you can tell me whats up with that shit i'd really appreciate it.

look for :

2009-02-18T15:11:00.000-08:00

appalachian issues, album uploads, news from the Front.

what ever's up.