The Shape of Jazz to Come

Ornette Coleman stands alongside Thelonius Monk, Eric Dolphy, and Charles Mingus as a rare genius that helped to change the landscape of Jazz. This is best exemplified by his 1959 album The Shape of Jazz To Come. The album was one of the first to incorporate modal Jazz structures and straight improvisation. For this unique session, Ornette employed the talents of Don Cherry, Billy Higgins, and Charlie Haden. The result was astounding, and instrumental in launching the avant garde Jazz scene, making The Shape of Jazz To Come perhaps the most appropriately titled record of all time. The album's vast influence can be seen and heard in everything from the work of John Zorn to the title of a certain esteemed album from a certain overrated Swedish hardcore band from the '90s.

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Dawn of Possession

Immolation have reliably cranked out solid Death Metal for over two decades, and what better way to celebrate such an illustrious career in evil than to post their debut full length from way back in 1991. The unflappable Dawn of Possession is confident and accomplished brutality from some nice kids from Yonkers, not Stockholm or Tampa. If you don't like this album, then you simply do not like Death Metal and should form a band that sounds like Deerhoof.

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Garbage

White Lung, from Vancouver B.C. are my new favorite band, so fuck you. Their album It's The Evil was definitely one of my favorite releases of 2010. Here's there very first record from way back in 2007, an EP called Local Garbage. Since then the band has endured a few lineup changes, perhaps for the better. This record, while great, only hints at the excellence to come. Get on board here, buy It's The Evil, and then, in a year, when they are huge, complain that you were into them when they were still underground. Being cool is hard, but I try to make it easier.

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Invoke The Dark Age

We're going all the way back to the dark ages of 1994 with Abigor's debut full-length album Verwüstung - Invoke the Dark Age. Abigor are the elite of Austrian Black Metal and this record proved that furious Black Metal in the early '90s wasn't solely the charge of the Norwegian kids. This also marks a time when Napalm Records released interesting records, and not just goofy folk metal and symphonic crap with chicks on the cover. Absolutely essential.

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Birth & Death

Hels were another lost Swedish Heavy Metal act that released one fantastic 7" and then disappeared in to faint memory shortly afterin 1985. Hels hailed from the bullshit town of Oxelösund, a town best known for iron works and trains. The A-side, "Life," is a pretty standard fist banging Metal anthem, but the B-side, "Death," exhibits some classic doom tendencies. I can't get enough of these Swedish bands from the '80s.

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None of the Above

Hardcore from the '80s and Tulsa Oklahoma. These guys had to contend with skinheads AND Socs. One night N.O.T.A. were leaving a movie theater and got jumped by a bunch of Socs, but fortunately they were saved by Darry and Sodapop. Then there was a fire and Johnny died or some shit. Stay gold, N.OT.A., stay gold.

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Oxiplegatz

Oxiplegatz was the work of Alf Svensson upon his defection from At The Gates in 1993. Alf set out to make avant-futurist black/death metal concept albums chronicling the struggles of alien races and pan-galactic warriors. In 1994 Alf self-released the first Oxiplegatz album, Fairytales, a quality hour of oddball metal, visionary and exciting from stem to stern.

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Soulville

Ben Webster was a great big man who was probably called "The Frog" as much for his deep croaking saxophone, as he was for his rather amphibian features. His 1957 album Soulville is about some luscious ice clinking in a glass, as cigarette smoke spirals to the ceiling, kind of shit. Maybe you're down 'cause some skirt got your spinach, and some bent coppers played a little chin music on you down at the clubhouse, but all that flim flam is behind you now, pal. Relax with some hooch and maybe even a juju, and the smooth moan of Ben Webster's horn.

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Charged For Glory

Here's a brief, but utterly charming, single from Turbo, another unsung NWOBHM band that wallowed in obscurity and pubs. Turbo kind of remind me of a less doomy Witchfinder General, especially on the b-side "Race For The Dawn," which may be the coolest NWOBHM song ever.

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Dead Person

Another ripping Japanese hardcore flexi. You know the drill: fuzzy guitars, speed, angry vocals, guitar solos, and strange titles like "No Mercy Surviving." Dead Person hailed from the bullshit town of Sendai, and this fucked up EP was their only statement. Also, the cover has three skulls and a skateboard on it, not sure how you could pass this by based on that alone.

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Tatir

Tatir were a classically Greek Black Metal band that eked out two great demos before falling into shadow in 1995. Here is the first (and better) of the two, it is titled Dark Autumn Nights, and if you are fond of the traditional Greek sounds of old Rotting Christ this will not disappoint.

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Larry Wallis is a Police Car

So on top of his impressive resume as a member of The Pink Fairies, Motorhead, Blodwyn Pig, UFO, and as the in house producer for Stiff Records, Larry Wallis is also some sort of police car as evidenced by his 1978 single. This is a pretty dated, but utterly cool little record. You'll wish you were a police car.

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Awakening

Releases like this are Cosmic Hearse's Raison d'Etre. Swimming Through The Past was the only official release from Downer Dutch death/doom delinquents, Awakening, Just two primitive, and rather teenage sounding cuts from a band obviously trying to figure out what they want to be. There were a million bands like this in the early '90s, so they tended to get ignored, now in 2011 people work very hard (and often fail) to capture this sort of ancient spirit and atmosphere.

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Dinner Time

Here's another great Swankys album with a cover that will probably get a warning put on this blog.If you have been paying attention you know that The Swankys were the more straight 77 style punk alter ego of Japanoise Hardcore gods, GAI.

EAT!!!

Sorrows

Sorrows are an exceptional Black Metal band that hail from somewhere in the U.S. The band prefers to keep it's profile mysterious, which is fine by me. Sometimes the less I know the better when it comes to new bands. Sorrows just offers up two songs on their debut demo, but they pack a lot of classic Black Metalisms into the scant thrteen minutes of material. There are wispy keys, acoustic guitars as well as buzzing electric ones, there is blast beats, and pained shrieks, there is atmosphere, there is mystery. Sorrows are a band to watch for, great stuff.

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Creepy Penis

Okay, if I am to understand correctly, John Thomas is some sort of outmoded Brit slang for a dick. With that out of the way, let me introduce you to the gritty bikerdelic sounds of Creepy John Thomas and their 1969 self-titled album. If you can't get behind a band that has a song called "Trippin' Like a Dog and Rocking Like a Bitch" then I can't help you, my friend. These motherfuckers were wild.

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Out To Lunch

Alright so thar Mingus post went over extremely well so in light of that here's another avant-jazz classic, Eric Dolphy's revolutionary Out To Lunch album. The arrangements are littered with oddball skronks and squeaks, and the band features top notch players Freddie Hubbard, Bobby Hutcherson, and a young kid named Tony Williams on the drums. Shortly after Out To Lunch was recorded, Dolphy headed to Europe to gig with his pal Mingus. After the the dates, Eric stayed behind in Germany, and picked up a few extra shows. One evening in Berlin, Dolphy collapsed and died later that night in the hospital. Why one of the greatest musical minds on earth died suddenly in a foreign hospital is still hotly debated, but some form of das negligence robbed us all of hearing what may have come next from this brilliant man. Dolphy didn't live to see his masterpiece released, or see it's long-standing significance. Oddly enough, A.B. Spellman's original liner notes make no mention of Dolphy's death, as if Spellman and the rest of the world were just not ready to accept it, especially considering how alive Out To Lunch sounds.

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DEAD

Depending on how your ears work, Musical Abortions is either the worst Death Metal demo, or the best power electronics tape of all time. This was the project of Jim Coker of Brutality, Ulcer, Nasty Savage, and every noteworthy band in the Tampa Bay Area. Operating under the name Mucus Shitslime and joined by Belching Snotsucker, Vomit Puslicker, and Diarrhea Maggot, Mr. Coker created a torturous twenty minutes of white noise, demonic gurgles and over-the-top guitar soloing. Clearly this was a joke, but this is nastiness that will sate fans of Whitehouse AND Mortician.

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