Optical 8 - Bug

Artist: Optical 8
Album: Bug
Released: 1994

Optical*8
Hoppy Kamiyama: vocal (1, 5, 9, 10), synthesizers, samples, neuz violin, gram-pot
Reck: guitar (9), metal cavasa (3, 11), bass
Yoshihide Otomo: guitar, turntables, backing vocal
Masafumi Minato: metal cavasa (9), backing vocal, drums

Guests
Gerald Muirhead: bagpipe (7)
Emi Eleonola: talking (6)

All music by Optical*8
Words by Hoppy Kamiyama (1, 5, 9, 10) and Reck (3, 4, 6, 11)


Grrreat!

p.s. use pando it's fast, easy and free.

Melt Banana - 2003 - Cell Scape

Artist: Melt Banana
Album: Cell Scape
Label: A-Zap Records
Catalogue#: 5
Released: 2003

Melt-Banana play the same way that Repulsion, Naked City, The Ruins or The Boredoms all make you want to scream and dance and kill your neighbors.




02 - Shield For Your Eyes, A Beast - pursuit music for the movie that i will never make

Junji Hirose & Otomo Yoshihide - Silanganan Ingay

Artist: Junji Hirose & Otomo Yoshihide
Album: Silanganan Ingay
Label: Tanga-Tanga
Released: 1989
Country: Japan
Bit Rate: 212 kbps

Junji Hirose: self-made instrument, toy rhythm box, toy voice changer, auto harp, toys, tenor sax (B1)
Otomo Yoshihide: turntables with hand-made mixer, cassette tapes, hand-made guitar (B1), small instruments, toys.

MUST listen. Try to connect tracks with it's names. Its the most interesting part.

download from rapidshare (~62Mb [*.zip])

Wesley Willis - The Greatest Hits

Wesley Willis (May 31, 1963 – August 21, 2003) was an African-American musician and artist from Chicago, Illinois as well as a diagnosed schizophrenic.

He gained a sizeable cult following in the 1990s after releasing several hundred songs of unique and simple music which became an internet phenomenon during the early days of P2P file sharing.

In 1989, Willis began hearing what he called "demon voices" and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He often mentioned that his demons were named "Heartbreaker," "Nervewrecker," and "Meansucker". He called his psychotic episodes "hell rides". Alternatively, he declared rock and roll to be "the joy ride music" and Willis often indicated that listening to and performing music helped him battle the voices.

In the early 1990s, Willis became creatively active, selling magic marker drawings of the Chicago cityscape on the street. Some of the drawings would later appear on the covers of his albums.
Some of his drawings you can find here.

As a solo artist, Willis created more than 50 albums, each with nearly 30 tracks, full of bizarre, excited, and often obscene rants about crime, fast food, cultural trends, bus routes, violent confrontations with superheroes, commands for his "demons" to engage in bestiality, and praise for his favorite actors, best friends, politicians, and hip-hop and rock artists.

Willis's songs have a very specific form and style which is virtually always followed, leading most listeners to complain that it all sounds the same. Wesley never actually played the notes on his keyboard; he simply used the one-note autochord feature, with preprogrammed rhythms and harmonies. Typically one chord is used for the verses, and a pattern for the choruses and "solo" sections.

On August 21, 2003, at the age of 40, Willis died due to complications from chronic myelogenous leukemia. At the time of his death, he had recorded over 1,000 songs but his total life savings were less than $300.

If you are still interesting in his music, even after reading this post, then you can download his Greatest Hits album.

download from RapidShare (~68,5 Mb [*.zip])

P.S. The Dust Brothers have up a small page devoted to their time spent with Wesley. They even include a scan of Wesley's lyrics. "Both of you are on my side at last."

Robyn Archer - "Dicks Don't Grow on Trees"

Robyn Archer has been a cabaret and pop artist for over thirty years, performing in an eclectic variety of genres, and in more recent years distinguishing herself as an artistic director or board member of various Australian arts festivals.

The Ladies Choice is an album famous for two things, it was the first Australian record album produced by women ( Robyn Archer and Diana Manson) and it contained outrageous lyrics for the time. Released in 1977 and featuring the feminist and fighting classics Dicks Don't Grow on Trees, The Old Soft Screw and Menstruation Blues (sic!), (the last one can be listened and downloaded on Robyn Archer's official site) the band features Adelaide session musicians led by piano man Peter Head.

but my favourite is "Dicks Don't Grow on Trees" [2,12 Mb *.mp3]

Otomo Yoshihide's New Jazz Ensemble - Dreams

Artist: Otomo Yoshihide's New Jazz Ensemble
Album: Dreams
Label: Tzadik
Catalogue#: 7238
Released: Mar 2002
Bit Rate: 128 kbps

One of my favourite recordings.

The first release outside of Japan featuring two of Japan's quirkiest underground pop stars. From the high fragile sonorities of Togawa Jun to the velvet, sultry tones of Phew, Dreams runs the gamut from moody
love songs, driving groove to screaming noise. Otomo's exciting New Jazz Ensemble and creative arrangements perfectly set up the diverse vocal stylings of these two legendary divas out of the Tokyo indies
scene.

download from rapidshare (~47Mb [*.zip])

P.S. Sachiko M is also there ;)

Syzygys - Complete Studio Recordings

Artist: Syzygys
Album: Complete Studio Recordings
Label: Tzadik
Catalogue#: 7240
Released: Jan 2003
Bit Rate: 256 kbps

A right review by Jason Ferguson:
The idea of a Japanese "female duo who plays microtonal pop music" should justly send shivers of terror down your Pizzicato Five-battered spine. But when you notice that Syzygys' complete recorded works are released on the label that brought you post-apocalyptic Japanese treats like the Ruins and Otomo Yoshihide, you in turn steel yourself for a paint-peeling screech-fest of epic proportions. Yet the music of Hitomi Shimizu and Hiromi Nishida fits into neither of those categories. In fact, these 19 songs must be some of the most delicately uplifiting "progressive" music to emerge from Japan in quite some time. Limited neither by cuteness nor by rage, Syzygys creates music on an organ modified to avant-classical vagabond Harry Partch's 43-tone model. Shimizu plays said organ (which, apparently, is a bitch to tune), while Nishida accompanies on violin. Both ladies handle vocal duties, while other musicians are occasionally called in to flesh out the sound with percussion or other instruments. The merging of the microtonal organ's intrinsic oddness with the lush familiarity of the violin builds a base upon which the two harmonize like choir girls. The result is music that -- not unlike Partch's -- is somehow possessed of an intrinsically Arabic feel, accentuated by some lovely vocal flourishes. Definitely unique, but not in the way you expect it to be.

download from rapidshare (~124Mb [*.zip])

And don't forget to visit their website!