April 23, 2011

Calle Örnemark pt 2 (previous post update)

A fellow blogger alerted me to the fact that Mr. Ornemark has just uploaded some videos of himself and his art (and his music) to youtube, so thank you kindly for the heads up and here is the link to the video that incorporates the first track of Glooscap that I previously posted. Also, so of his other videos have some pretty interesting music on them, I wonder if he has other vinyl releases? LINK TO GLOOSCAP: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaYXlLsAxlk&feature=related

April 9, 2011

Sounds of Salvation - S/T (Custom Records 1971)


Another unknown Xian record for your listening pleasure. This is a really interesting piece from Tyler Texas that is completely unknown, I sold it on Ebay a while back so if there's anything on the net its from my auction etc. I found a lot of these christian records at a thrift store in Round Rock that is no longer open, they had about 10 scarce and awesome christian records of all kinds, and they were a quarter each, I havent landed that kinda deal in a long time now. Anyway, I dont know much about this little group except that the A side is basically a church group from Tyler doing traditional hymns in a choir setting and its absolutely horrible, but the B side is a small group of teens, presumably from the same church, who started a little band called The Sounds of Salvation. It's basically like The Last Days but a lot less hip and a lot less overtly psychedelic. Also if this was an entire record of The Sounds of Salvation with a few more original compositions instead of covers I really think it'd be a 500 dollar record, but because there is only a few original songs, which are the best tracks on the record and are quite good, and even more because the Aside is a totally different thing, it sits in the obscurist only section of the record universe, which is a shame because it has a couple really amazing songs on it. Its still worth about a hundred bucks I'd say. I did not include the A side in the .rar, for good reason. I realize this wasnt the most enticing or positive review, but I wanted to get all the ugly facts out of the way first, I mean basically theres two songs on here that are really excellent LoFi loner folk with reverb drenched production and good song writing, and the real intriguing thing is that i'd say only a handful of people have heard this record, because its truly a ghost level piece, I should have probably made a xian folk comp instead of putting up all these albums and part-albums but I figured you'd rather have more than less, I hope I'm right.

The Sounds of Salvation - S/T (1971 Tyler Texas Unknown Teen Christian Folk Rock)

April 6, 2011

The Spectrum Singers - Young Life Songs (Unknown Christian Youth Group Sing Along Jam Session LP from 1969)


Christmas must have come early this year! Another interesting find I happened upon a while back, utterly unknown and truly bizarre, a real ghost record. Out of Colorado Springs 1969. A youth minister from the Young Life group, when they first began (theyre now a world wide organization!) decided to round up some of his members and record an LP that would appeal to the younger crowds in Young Life, his mission was to create a kind of library lp to play during the meetings and he produced this record, half instrumentals, half vocals only, so that you could learn the songs and then sing to the instrumental side and jam out together. He also recorded three standard tracks with the vocals in (one of which has 2 versions), and they are probably the best tracks on the record, especially the psychout version of 'I am the resurrection' but then again the fuzzed out psych instrumental of 'It's almost too good' is really awesome too, especially for 1969, pretty early in the private press xian psych game. Yes its more novelty than musical brilliance, but it still kicks ass. Also, just fyi, I sold this on ebay a while back, I have not seen one surface since, it was a VG grade and sold for $160.00 if I remember correctly. Also I did not include the vocal only tracks. You do not want them.

Get fuzzy!

Reggie Andrews and The Fellowship - Mystic Beauty LP

Because I have been loading you guys up with sound clips, singles, and partial albums I feel it necessary to share a couple full length, high quality rips of great albums for your enjoyment. This was available on the net for a little while from a record store in New York but at some point it disappeared and now the only place I can find it is some website 'for trade' so I felt it only right to dispel that nonsense and share this terrific album by Reggie Andrews. I wish I had his other LP, the Locke Saints Band from Fremont High School, because it is harder to find and more interesting, but this is better musicianship as it is not a high school doing the work. Pretty laid back afro-cuban influenced spiritual jazz with a real nice groove to it. Rough around the edges at some points but that kinda adds to the flavor. Neither Reggie album is reissued yet, seems like an obvious thing to do as I'm sure he has a ton of unreleased tracks in addition to these two lps. Not sure when it was recorded, privately pressed on HME, from Los Angeles. "n recent years, Reggie Andrews has taught, mentored, and/or produced many talented musicians including Patrice Rushen, Terrace Martin, Ndugu Chancler, and the Dazz Band.

Get mystical y'all.

April 5, 2011

The Last Days - S/T (Irving, TX 1972)


Before you get too excited, this is only the 5 best tracks from this Collector's behemoth of a Xian album. Pretty much has everything you want from the genre. Dark, soul searching lyrics that are quite good, a quiet folky male lead with a good voice, a gentle female back up sometimes, tons of reverb and lofi mystique, great acoustic moments with fluorishes of electric guitar throughout, good song composition, and most importantly, it is near impossible to find and virtually nothing is known about the band. I find this a lot when a group is from a small town in one state and has their album pressed up somewhere else, usually in that scenario a small number of pressings to begin with turns into a minute remainder of whats left. I'm not sure how it reached the insane amount of money it gets, close to 1200 bucks, which puts it in the same class of xian folk psych as Search Party, Fraction, Azitis, Harbinger, and John Villemonte among others, especially when this album was known to sell for 300-400 bucks for a NM copy in 2004, but when a record sits atop the wanted lists of the major collectors long enough and there are none to be found, it's price grows exponentially. Anyway, like I said I only have 5 tracks from the album, I think they are the best 5 though. Enjoy what there is because I doubt there will ever be more.

Here is the .rar of the 5 tracks in 192k

University of Tulsa Jazz Ensemble 1973


Trying something a little different with this recent find. Normally I find something, record it, then either Ebay it or file it away in the collection. After that I post it. This time I am going to post the soundclips on my blog first, let it sit around a bit, then Ebay it later, to give people a chance to buy it if they are interested, because this one isn't well known and I don't think there are any results on the internet or auction sales that I can find. It has quite a few good songs on it, but the obvious winner is the original composition 'Gallery', which is a 14 minute Bob James-esque track with incredible arrangement, and the layered solos of guitar, alto, trumpet, xylophone, piano, and drums are just killer, best of all is the continuous throbbing bassline that really takes the track to the next level. There are many college/high school records that have some great moments in big band format, big drums with loud punchy horns and intermittent slicing guitar, sax, and drum solos, but 90% of those are still just unfocused exhibitions of the best players in a funky format. (Northills High School Jazz Band for instance, which I also just found. Quite good but nothing transcendent.) What separates the real heavy hitters, ala Douglas High School, TSU Jazz ensemble, Kashmere Stage Band, etc; is the quality of the compositions, originality, and style, and of course big ass drum breaks and tight musicianship doesnt hurt either.
So anyway, here is some of the Tulsa University Jazz Ensemble 1973 before I put it up on Ebay. The track featured is Gallery. Yes I will have then entire album for you eventually, and I have 4 more high school jazz band LPs coming soon in addition.


Excerpts from Gallery, including the first 5 minutes uninterupted and then I threw in another brief selection that follows.

April 4, 2011

Jackie Ross and South Side Movement - You Are The One That I Need (from the Self-titled LP on Golden Ear 1981)




A beautiful slice of Jazzy Modern Soul from the under-rated soul singer Jackie Ross, who made quite a few great records in the late 60s and 70s, like her LP 'Full Bloom' on Chess records, which was really great, and a number of other 7" singles that charted a couple times and that was about the extent of it. Then sometime in the early 80s she decided to record a sort of come back album, like many other 60s soul artists did, and in 1981 she cut this pretty fantastic album for the private label Golden Ear, sadly it never got past the test pressing/promotional phase and was pretty much scrapped, aside from a few copies given out here and there, I don't know how many or if it got any real radio play ever. I'm not sure if "South Side Movement," who is the backing band on LP, is the same band as the SSM from the early 70s on Wand who released one album of the same name, which is a pretty dope album btw, but either way they're a very good band and Jackie is a fantastic singer as always. I really think the strongest track is 'You Are the One That I Need', and even though there are a few other quality pieces on the record, it's that track that makes it, and without it the record wouldn't fetch the 500 dollar price tag it sells for. So anyway I am only going to upload that track because it's all I have done at the moment and it's what everybody wants anyway. Enjoy.

Sonic Explosion - We Belong Together / I'm a Believer (Big City Sounds 1976)


Really solid, highly collectible and stupidly rare modern soul 45 out of Tuscaloosa Alabama, not much info on the band or the label other than being pressed in 1976 and being written by Hayward McKanstry. Honestly this is kind of the 'Trace of Smoke' of Alabama. (You can still get the trace 45 from an earlier posting) Not much else to say really, other than its a fantastic little slice of uptempo disco/soul that never shows up anywhere. Enjoy.

We Belong Together


I'm a Believer