the bleeding horse, avenged: May 2016

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

PIECING TOGETHER MY PAST

So, my basement was flooded about 10 years ago now. Came home from work one afternoon to 3 feet of water in it, it was pretty nuts. Luckily, it was unfinished, used mostly for storage, the only irreplaceable stuff I lost was my entire (up to that point) collection of zines/journals/broadsides/lit posters etc etc. Basically, all of my writings that had ever been published, plus a large collection of chapbooks sent to me by other writers. Fucking sucked. So, it's always interesting finding pieces published on the internet from around that time. I keep forgetting how long this infernal device has been around.

Drifter's Oasis, 2004:

http://www.driftersoasis.com/poetry/insilence.html

Sunday, May 29, 2016

LMNOP

Outsider art?

A huge, cosmic joke?

Who knows.

Excellent tunes, got these CDs through

mail order from the man himself

back in the 90s.

http://www.lmnop.com/LMNOP.html

is one way to go.

http://www.babysue.com/contents.html

is a fine collection of disturbingly funny comics.

Juvenile, yet cerebral.

Enter at your own risk.

EarlyNOP The First Two LMNOP Albums LMNOP CD cover

Sunday, May 22, 2016

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

AS I RACED AROUND FROM ROOM TO ROOM

Back about 15 years ago, some publisher/editor asked me to list my influences for her website. I listed a bunch of artists, of course, some musical genres and Henry Frayne. Awesome guitarist, unequaled in the delay and reverb. Spooky, spooky shit.

I corresponded with him briefly about 20-25 years ago, still have some M7X promo posters that he sent me tucked away in my boxes of vinyl.

Area was good, sort of a gothy/drum machine/4AD thing going on but Lynn has an amazing voice and Henry did something different for just about every song. I think the band did one album after he left, I never bothered checking it out.

Lynn and Henry got back together for The Moon Seven Times, plus a real drummer and much fuller bottom end to their sound. The first album is a classic. I see it get lumped in the dreampop or ethereal wave genres all the time, but it transcends them. Stellar music. 2^nd album is almost as good. I’m not sure, but it seems to me that Henry may have begun to lose interest on the 3^rd album, as there are big chunks of it that are missing his effects pedals. Without him, the band sounds like your basic mid-90s alterna-folk group, maybe some jazz and country thrown in. Nothing horrible, but a huge comedown after the first two albums.

Henry made his side project, Lanterna, his full-time project after M7X packed it in. Just his guitar, an ARP synth and a steady ricochet between real drummers, programmed drums and no drums at all. The first album, again, is a classic. An insane variety of sounds and moods. The 3^rd album, SANDS, is another massive career highlight. the 5^th album came out in 2006 and then the next one wasn’t released until 2015, so he’s not insanely prolific.

The sound seems to move around in a no-man’s land between post-punk and ambient. Remember the earliest stuff by Durutti Column? That’s one reference point. He goes in a thousand different directions from there. Awesome graphics from M&X on also. Lanterna, in particular, has excellent packaging design and photography.

Good stuff.