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Underground > Radio & Music >

Effed-up music for hybrids and mutants.

09:44 / 02.06.04

I'm thinking Skacid (Ska/Acid), Cowpunk, Trip-hop (Moloko), Pussycore Operapunk (Phoebe Legere), Psychobilly Swamp Rock (The Cramps), and of course, who could forget Melody Rap (Milli Vanilli)? You know, like rap with a tune? Most people call it SINGING.
Anyone got more?

Math is for suckers!

02:32 / 03.06.04

Nintendo-core, played with extreme brilliance by Horse the Band. Forward thinking hardcore meets vintage nintendo theme songs. Not to mention the fact that a good half of their songs are love songs, and they sample Mulholland Dr. And they have an entire song about the Megaman villain Cutsman.

04:09 / 03.06.04

Who could forget Melody Rap? You know, like rap with a tune?

I'm going to go get some popcorn and a comfortable chair.

04:49 / 03.06.04

I knew a couple of guys who made "Scudge". It's a mixture of scat (the "skippity-bop" kind, not the poop kind) and sludge metal. They were named Rosenort, after the town.

07:29 / 03.06.04

I once went to see former Neutral Milk Hotel drummer Jeremy Barnes do a performance of what can only be described as "accordian-based one man band post-rock".

He also plays in the group Bablicon, who sound utterly, utterly unclassifiable.. like creatures from a distant alien culture given a selection of brass band instruments and told to do as they see fit.

In fact, few of the artists on Leicester's Pickled Egg records fall easily into any of your puny human genres..

07:32 / 03.06.04

For a brief time in the late eighties, the only music to be listened to was Hip House.

09:17 / 03.06.04

I used to teach martial arts to Naoko Matsumoto, lead warbler for Funky Terrorist, and inventor of "Poo Pop"- recycling shitty pop songs.

Regrettable Juvenilia

10:12 / 03.06.04

I do not believe that Moloko are/were the only band to ever make 'trip hop' music (if that description is even accurate for Moloko, seeing as their range is a lot broader and they're best known for a different type of music, 'Sing It Back' anyone?). I think you may find that that term has been applied (arguably more accurately) to well-known artists such as Tricky, Massive Attack, Portishead, Sneaker Pimps, etc, and so can't really be said to qualify as obscure at all.

10:26 / 04.06.04

Yeah, yeah, I know, but I just like to say trip-hop.

Trip-hop.

Trip-hop.

Red Cross Iodized Salt

22:23 / 04.06.04

I don't think I've heard any bands that sound quite like Space Streakings (who have kind of a Big Black meets Boredoms meets free jazz thing going on). Also, did anyone else make music like Ozric Tentacles (who had kind of a shit meets sandwich thing going on)?

02:18 / 05.06.04

But they need a FUNNY NAME for it.

07:08 / 05.06.04

Hmm, a band by the name of Titwrench comes to mind. I don't know what it would be called, but it's kinda' like garage band meets industrial meets electronica. Kinda' like later Ministry, but without all the production value, and not taking itself as seriously.

One thing is for sure, there is no other band that sounds like Titwrench!

08:55 / 05.06.04

No, excuse me, not really like later ministry, but more like mid-ministry: like the live album, but not really. This doesn't help at all does it? Nevermind.

.

16:24 / 05.06.04

I love Space Streakings, but they don't sound that unique - compare to The Boredoms or Acid Mothers Temple.

Some obscure genres - gabba concept albums (Johnny Violent/ Ultraviolence), cyber-surf music (Man or Astroman), avant garde bossa nova (Arto Lindsey), glitch gabba bootleg dancehall (Kid 606)...

Or what about post-glitch, drill'n'bass, breakbeat-folk, blip-pop, avant-hop, popcore, quiet noise, etc? Only one of which is made up.

Seriously though, I don't think there's much that ever fits nicely into one genre (except stuff that sets out to sound like one thing and one thing only for whatever commercial reasons), so it's all a bit of a silly thing anyway.

10:10 / 01.07.04

Hey, found another one- "No Wave". A reaction to the plasticky excesses of New Wave- sort of a hard-to-nail-down anti-genre movement. Lydia Lunch's old band Teenage Jesus and the Jerks were No Wave.

10:55 / 01.07.04

Ill, remember this one:

I'm known as the DJ f a s t e double d i e ya see ya saw I'm about to get raw, more raw than ya ever seen before

Hip House. Loved it, me.

17:22 / 01.07.04

No Wave was also very into noise for noise's sake, along with a kind of grey, proto-industrial aesthetic. Sonic Youth came out of the No Wave scene.

21:03 / 01.07.04

Yeah, No Wave isn't at all 'hard to nail down', and neither is it all that obscure these days.. in fact it's pretty impossible to escape if you've read many muswic reviews in the past few years..

I'm afraid I'm far too wasted to really be typing at the moment though, so if you'll excuse me... I'll be back to make my point.. later.

No star here laces

02:23 / 02.07.04

So many gross factual inaccuracies, so little time...

No star here laces

02:34 / 02.07.04

Nobody has given the smackdown yet=Barbelith music forum has MELLOWED. The moshpit of yesteryear has given way to the ambient chill-out room of 2004. We all embrace one anothers inadequacies in a spirit of stoned lurve.

"My name is T Y R E E and it sounds so fresh in the place to be"

No star here laces

02:34 / 02.07.04

Nobody has given the smackdown yet=Barbelith music forum has MELLOWED. The moshpit of yesteryear has given way to the ambient chill-out room of 2004. We all embrace one anothers inadequacies in a spirit of stoned lurve.

"My name is T Y R E E and it sounds so fresh in the place to be"

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

16:07 / 02.07.04

Industrial Klezmer- as practised by Firewater and no-one else I've yet found.

Myself and a friend still have high hopes of pioneering "Digital Hardklezmer".

You must excuse me- I'm currently on a klezmer kick.

03:33 / 04.07.04

On mp3.com, there was a reggae klezmer band. Lemme see if I have their name on the only mp3 I saved from them... Klezska. I think they were in Israel, but I'm not sure. Very cheesy synths, but other than that, surprising how well the two styles could be fused.

At an Orthodox wedding in Miami Beach, I had the great privilege of seeing a salsa klezmer band. Or klezmer salsa band. They had a clarinetist (doubled on sax) and a conga player in their lineup. Some amazing switchups that night. Can't remember the name, but hey, they do weddings.

I have a deep and abiding love for klezmer in all its odd configurations.

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Just because I just found it tonight, and because "weird little music" is how the abstract starts, here's an amazing database:
http://www.ubu.com/outsiders/365/index.html.
It's a collection of 365 mp3s that are really one of a kind. Right now, I'm listening to an Eckankar hymn. Before that, a Barbie & Ken song that Mattel commissioned the same guy who wrote "Love Me Tender" to write. And before that, a kinda catchy calpyso song about a transsexual written and recorded by Louis Farrakhan before his conversion to Islam. Apparently, he had quite the musical career first. Ooo -- now, radio evangelists are reading Prince lyrics aloud. "Blood rushes to my private spots." Oh, yes.