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French Prog Rock from 1979. Are you naked yet? Very little is written about this extremely weird and cool record. I randomly got this on vinyl a long time ago, not knowing what it was, and it has become impossible to find anywhere except of course— someone loaded it onto YouTube a while ago. The magic comes from the DIY nerd-flow of melodic ideas, the bedroom-album ambition, the tactile energy of the tones, and BONUS: there is limited Muso-Overplaying that so much Prog Music gets defined by. It sounds like 1779 had sex with 1979 on a bed of Parisian cassettes.
May 30, 2023
Related Recs
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French Prog Rock from 1979. Are you naked yet? Very little is written about this extremely weird and cool record. I randomly got this on vinyl a long time ago, not knowing what it was, and it has become impossible to find anywhere except of course— someone loaded it onto YouTube a while ago. The magic comes from the DIY nerd-flow of melodic ideas, the bedroom-album ambition, the tactile energy of the tones, and BONUS: there is limited Muso-Overplaying that so much Prog Music gets defined by. It sounds like 1779 had sex with 1979 on a bed of Parisian cassettes.
May 30, 2023
British proggy Psych! 1970! Both OG members of King Crimson who went on to make their own album! Steve Winwood guest appearance! If you like prog, King Crimson, Canterbury sound, BritPsych stuff—check it!
(The disc on the turntable is not this record, this was not on Atlantic)
Feb 26, 2024
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This is one of the greatest proto-psych rock albums of all time. 1971. Bunch of 1st generation black British dudes from former colonies. Crazy album and crazy story. They disappeared as the album was nearing completion. There was no follow up album, no nothing, they never reappeared. The name of the album comes from the fact that the label decided to put the music out after not being able to find them for a while because it was so good that “We Had To Let You Have It”. I know this because I have an original copy on vinyl and there is a handwritten note printed on a piece of paper inside the sleeve.
The track “Rain” is for my money one of the best songs written in this genre from that era. If they had been a popular band, I think it would be considered a classic.
Also, I dare you to listen to the song “The System” and tell me Lynyrd Skynyrd didn’t lift the main lick of the Free Bird solo from it. Yeah, I said it.
Jan 23, 2024
Top Recs from @jake-bercovici
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This trilogy is one of the most interesting and ambitious things I’ve ever read. The scale of the story consistently expands, and there is unique profundity to the concepts that the author introduces. It leaves you contemplating the depth of our place in the universe, and the philosophies upon which we entrust ourselves to evolve further into the unknown. It's going to be a Netflix series soon, so read it before it gets ruined by Corporate Money Goblins!
May 30, 2023
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I’ve grown so fucking sick of DAWs and computers— yes I know what’s great about them. After 20 years of sitting in front of a computer to record music, I’ve decided to go back to my roots. Making music without the rancid glow of a massive screen, without Safari lurking in the dock, without the gnarly centerpiece energy of a huge Apple product, has been liberating. I’m done with Tetrissing ideas, done frame fucking waveforms, done dragging 1s and 0s with a mouse. So now I’m focused on making sequences on the MPC one, building my own kits, and sampling audio from an array of synths or records or life— and it all goes stereo-out into the Tascam 446 that Beardo gave me. The vulnerability & humanity I’m interested in experiencing through music gets watered down by the digital horseshit we readily accept as software convenience.
May 30, 2023