Axis Mundi "Dharmic Visions in the Aurora Borealis" CS
Grouper "Cover the Window and the Walls" LP
Disco Inferno "D.I. Go Pop" mp3s
AC/DC "Back in Black" mp3s
AC/DC "Highway to Hell" mp3s
Nico "Desertshore" CD
Labradford "Mi Media Naranja" Maxell dub
Alice in Chains "Jar of Flies" CD
Pink Floyd "Meddle" LP

Axis Mundi is a new group from the Manchester, UK Hearing Aid label collective, a trio of Barry Dean, Pascal Nichols, and Kelly-Jayne Jones. The first two are in Stuckometer (et al), and Ms. Jones is in the great Cooper Jones (you've gotta check out their cassette on Hearing Aid). I have no idea if any of these names mean much to anyone, but for a couple years now the Hearing Aid folks, in various permutations, have been recording and releasing a lot of mostly improvised music in an ESP-Disk-meets-jagged-avant-rock style. It's all pretty good and sometimes great. This tape sits in the pretty good zone. A lot of weird vocals and trippy flute playing get into otherworldly territory, but overall the voyage is a little bumpy and slow. If you're predisposed and patient, you'll enjoy it. Pretty sweet damaged colorful artwork on the sewn pouch this comes in, kind of in a Le Dernier Cri style.... ah, the Grouper album....this thing sold out in about 3 minutes and has been getting plenty of praise and it's all justified. All the sonic promise of her earlier stuff and she's really starting to come into her own as a songwriter.... Disco Inferno is a totally weird British avant-pop-something band that I know very little about -- heard this on vinyl at a friend's place one particularly green night and was kind of baffled/dazzled by it -- hearing an mp3 version at work today, I barely noticed it but it still sounded totally weird. Talk to me in a few months and I might have some idea what's going on with this band... Any and all AC/DC is always a warehouse favorite....okay, maybe nothing after For Those About To Rock...even that album gets a little ponderous....Back in Black is a classic album but it's got about 1/10th the swagger of Highway to Hell. While I'm thinking of it: there was an urban legend at my high school (actually I guess a rural legend, the town population was barely 1000) that when Back in Black came out, the high school basketball team would play "Hell's Bells" over the gymnasium PA for warmups. The ominous bells would toll, and as the first guitar arpeggios started the team would run out from the locker room and do their layup drills and whatnot as the song developed. The Nico and Labradford are also worktime intense/chill standards... and so is Jar of Flies. Such a perfect EP. If only it were longer. If I ever get started on grunge era favorites you'd better look out.... in a Floyd mood back home. I wanted to throw on Animals, but it looks like I don't have that on vinyl anymore, so I shrug and put on Meddle instead. This album bugs me -- it has three awesome songs but the rest are really not good at all. See if you can guess what the three awesome ones are. I'll give you a hint, they're not "A Pillow of Winds," "San Tropez," or "Seamus."