Berlin Part Deux: your Halloween scary moments of the year are the excerpts from a recent Suede concert that I watched on MTV Germany (which I mistakenly referred to as MTV Europe during the summer. The MTV Europe Music Awards are being pimped HARD on the station, and with the impressive list of guests and performers I'm grabbing the bait, big time. A performance by Kraftwerk? What universe is this?). Brett cannot, no way, no how, hit the high notes anymore. One can't be sure what did him in, but history has shown that a combination of age and drug use usually does the trick. Suddenly, I'm kind of happy that Suede haven't toured Canada in six years. This kind of disappointment would be a lot to bear.

And after one half of one episode, I'm totally sold on "Deutschland Sucht den Superstar", which is Germany's version of "Pop Idol". The format is vastly different from what we've seen in the US and Canada. Here, the contestants are in a lounge area backstage, along with the hosts and select friends and family. They converse in this room, and then go out one by one to face the judges alone. It comes off more like a job interview than a teen idol competition. No screaming junior high girls, no audacious ensemble numbers. Whatever format you prefer, it's nice to see the idea done differently. It makes the Canadian version look that much more pathetic by simply xeroxing the American show rather than adding a few twists of their own.

I saw Spiritualized for the eighth time last week. Makes me think about the first times I saw a band once, twice, three times ....

ONE. First concert : Depeche Mode 22/06/90, Exhibition Stadium, Toronto. Openers were Nitzer Ebb and Jesus and Mary Chain. Talk about a stacked bill. I HATED the Mary Chain. What a racket. I wish I could see their set again, knowing what I know now.

TWO. Sunscreem : 22/07/93, Kingswood Music Theatre, Toronto. Yes, the first band I ever saw twice is a band that nobody likely remembers. Both times they were openers, first for Inspiral Carpets and this time for New Order. Sunscreem weren't a great band by any means, but if they'd come along four years later than they did, they'd have been Republica in place of Republica. Not that it would have helped, because you don't see any of the electronica class of 1997 around these days. But they would have sold a lot more records.

THREE. Orbital : 04/07/96, Opera House, Toronto. This was Orbital at the peak of their powers, playing the most high profile gigs of their career in support of "In Sides", bringing indie kids and ravers together (back when both of those distinct groups existed and rarely came together for anything) to dance to protest songs about oil spills and the Bosnian conflict.

FOUR. Suede : 10/05/97, Barrymore Music Hall, Ottawa. This was the day after I saw them for the third time (in Toronto). For their first visit (June 1993), Suede played the now-defunct Palladium on Danforth and the scene was one of total madness. It was the closest I will ever come to experiencing a 90's version of those 60's Beatles concerts that our parents are always talking about (except, perhaps, Depeche Mode June 1994, which I've already written about on these pages). I have the bootleg, but all I can remember about the gig is lots of screaming and getting crushed. And asking my friend Ernie what he thought about the gig -- his answer, "I had to take a crap the whole time".

In two subsequent interviews during the next year (that I know of), Brett Anderson referred to that June 1993 concert as his favourite Suede concert ever, and Toronto as his favourite city to play in. Their next visit (Feb 1995) resulted in similar carnage and hysteria, so of course both band and city were jacked up good for visit number three. Except that 50 % of the formula didn't equate, the band came out, giving it everything they had, milking the opening bars of "She", and the crowd responded with ... nothing. No screaming, no pushing, no nothing. To this day, I have no idea how this happened. It seems implausible that every Suede fan in the city grew up all at once, but in any case, the band melted away right in front of my eyes, the disappointment on their faces was obvious. I was embarrassed for my city, too embarrassed to even sing along and single myself out. All around me, people stood politely and silently. The band played "Europe is Our Playground" and it was deathly boring. They just wanted to get all six of its swirling minutes over with.

In Ottawa the next night, they came out very blase, probably still let down from the night before and wondering why they had to stop in this nondescript city instead of heading straight to Montreal. But they were met by a crowd that went completely bonkers for them. It was the Palladium gig all over again. And their reactions were fascinating -- half-assing it initially because they expected nothing from Ottawa, but gradually becoming re-sold on themselves via the energy of the crowd. "Europe" was damned fine on this night. The strange thing is, many of the fans in attendance weren't even hardcore Suede fans. The fact is, so many (foreign) bands play only T.O. and Montreal without stopping in Ottawa, so that Ottawa music fans seldom see notable gigs in their own city. Thus, anytime a significant band does play there, everyone gets really excited and shows up ready to have a great time. This was my favourite of the four Suede gigs, not so much for the music as it was for the uniqueness of the experience.

Regardless, the band likely harboured bad feelings from the tour, because they haven't played North America since.

FIVE. Orbital: 15/10/01, Opera House, Toronto. This, on the other hand, was not the peak of the band's powers. They were more concerned with dancing and waving their hands like little kids (for both themselves and the audience). That pretty much sums up their post-"In Sides" recorded output as well. Good, but disappointing, considering the lofty standards they've set. I'll have no complaints if I never hear "Chime" played live again.

SIX. Spiritualized: 26/04/02, Opera House, Toronto. Not quite as good as their gig from the previous November that featured a 583-member horn section, but it was still the usual excellence. The "Let it Come Down" tours were the only SPZ gigs to regularly feature encores. Jason must have figured the rearranged and updated version of "Lord Can You Hear Me" was a natural fit as a nightly encore. I've never seen them encore before or since.

7*. I didn't think it was fair to include local bands on this list, because of the far greater oppurtunity to see them. Otherwise, 27/03/03 would mark the inclusion of Polmo Polpo. Furthermore, I have never seen a PP headlining gig (do any exist?), he was always opening for another band or sharing a bill with one or more bands. Plus, if you add up the total time of all seven performances I've seen, they wouldn't crack the three hour mark. So it goes with PP, 15 or 20 minutes of magnificence and then nothing.

SEVEN. Mogwai: 22/09/03, Fillmore, San Francisco. An astounding gig, my second favourite Mogwai show behind the May 2001 gig at the Phoenix with Bardo Pond. Fully recovered from the illnesses which plagued them during their swing through Toronto two weeks previous, the volume was cranked back up and the set times extended. Plus *dancing* in many areas of the crowd. I love SF.

EIGHT. Spiritualized: 20/10/03, Opera House, Toronto. It's strange how one venue appears four times on this list. This gig is notable for being about 10 X better than their concert in the same venue 24 hours earlier, played to about half as many people. My guess is the day off from travel gave the band a bit more energy. It's refreshing that they've gotten out of their "Shine a Light"/"Electric Mainline"/"Electricity" rut, and are promoting their new album by playing the new songs for a change. That said, I hope that Jason Pierce isn't believing the revisionist press and is convinced that "Let It Come Down" was a poor record. In the live sets, that album has been erased from history, and I really don't want to imagine a world where "Don't Just Do Something" is never played live again.

NINE. ????

More on Sonic : his contributions to the S3 swansong, "Recurring", are leaps and bounds better than those of Jason His Nemesis. The "minimalism is maximalism" mantle is picked up from "Playing With Fire", incorporating dance rhythms on the way. Plus some mighty fine lyrics on self-doubt and love's neccessary second-guessing ("Why Couldn't I See?", and even though it was only on the US release, it gets mentioned because it was the best thing on it), urban disillusionment ("Big City"), and plain old love ("I Love You"). After listening to "Recurring", it's Sonic's work that you're humming afterward.

Jason's songs barely have tunes, they're meandering, sloppy, mumbling blues-y, and dirge-like (not in a good way). I always forget how the songs go and have to listen to the album to remind myself, but sure enough, a couple of weeks later I can't remember them again. Save "Feel So Sad", none of these songs have any place on a Spiritualized record lest they be drawn and quartered by the infinitely better songs that Jason went on to write. They were fixtures in the sets at early Spiritualized gigs before they were all banished by the "Lazer Guided Melodies" gems, never to return again.

Based on "Recurring", Sonic is the ex-S3 member slated to have the far brighter future.

---------

Sonic has always been a A-list manufacturer of Proper Drug Music. This goes beyond the "Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs To" catchphrase, although I'm certainly not questioning the truth of that phrase as it relates to Sonic's music. S3 in particular, do indeed deliver on that promise with nearly every recording. I'm making a point about the *kinds* of drugs involved. You see, any moron can smoke, sniff, or inject something and then go make music. Countless morons do it every day. My central thesis is that the best drug music is based on the hardest drugs. As it pertains to the artist in question, heroin music is almost always better than pot music.

Pot music is wimpy. It's a wimpy drug. It's so popular because it's so wimpy. It's a cheap, friendly, harmless drug, and thus, it churns out cheap, friendly, harmless music (with the occasional artist such as Tricky being the exception to this and all that follows). It takes no resolve or dedication to get involved with it, which is why it's so dead easy for so many people to use it liberally or occasionally.

Pot music is about jamming and chilling out. These are both fun and enjoyable activities. Thus, the drugs reflect positively on the music and vice versa. That is, jamming and chilling out are fun things, smoking pot while listening to them is a fun thing, ergo, smoking pot is a fun thing. In this way, pot music communicates the message that pot is a cheerful and desirable drug.

Heroin music is not for the weak of heart. It is a drug of steely-eyed determination. It's not a massively popular drug because it is viciously addictive and it tends to ruin lives. It churns out paranoid, hardened (and hardcore, in whatever sense of the word), uncomfortable and uninviting music. There is nothing fun about heroin music. The drugs do NOT reflect positively on the music, that is, heroin music does not implant you with the idea that drugs are fun. There is nothing enticing about S3's "OD Catastrophe", it is a vicious and scary song, with it's one chord being strummed literally thousands of times within its nine minutes, delivering it's sobering message with harrowing repetition. The obvious irony is how the music says "drugs are bad" while Sonic himself was saying "drugs are good". It's as if there's an advertised advance warning behind the task of responsible drug use, such as "drugs can be good, but this is the kind of stuff you're in for if you choose to take the plunge. It may eventually be rewarding, but we'll have to give you a trial by fire first, to prove that you really want it. We have to intimidate people this way because otherwise there'd be a lot of idiots jumping into this stuff without having thought it through".

Post Spacemen 3, Sonic gave up heroin and chilled out with his music (I'm not sure in what order), but this was no floaty fluffy cloud chillout music a la The Orb. His was drone music, and drone music is hardly joyous. The drug lifestyle of early droners such as Conrad, Cale, and the others in La Monte Young's stable is well documented. Drone music doesn't conjure images of relaxing on a porch, getting stoned while a gentle breeze ruffles your hair. A more likely image is passed out on a bed, limbs outstretched at awkward angles, spit dribbling from a chin into a pool on the pillow, and the poor victim too messed up to do anything about it (or anything at all, for that matter). That's the precise effect of the first EAR album, most appropriately titled "Mesmerised".

Hard drug music is riveting stuff. There are many prominent examples. Nirvana made a whole generation of kids and musicians get serious (the Kurt + heroin tales have been often told). On "This is Hardcore", Pulp got super serious and introspective, shirked fame and retreated from the spotlight, threw irony out the window, darkened up their videos, and made arguably their best album (they were heavily rumoured to have been into heroin at the time). The late Elliot Smith's finest work was his stripped down self-titled album, unadorned except for mainly guitar and voice, and some of the finest songs ("The White Lady Loves You", "Needle in the Hay") were about drugs -- most likely his heroin addiction. I hope I'm not trivializing his death my painting him as yet another drug casualty of our times, but it *was* his best work and I've felt that way for years. I didn't come to that conclusion just in the last few days as a way to make sense of his tragic death.

It's not always about heroin. You could also add the Feelies (the sound of speed), The Stooges (the sound of being fucked up all the time), Joy Division (the sound of sensitive souls not taking their epilepsy meds), and a whole lot more.

One last point: it doesn't have to be about heroin, but it should NOT be about cocaine. Cocaine + arrogance + music is a bad combination. The artist gets an inflated opinion of themselves, tries to put it on the record, and it comes across as conceited and indulgent. It's the musical equivalent of fawning over Bennifer's "we don't want the press at our wedding but we want it to be all over the press anyway just to rub it in their faces" wedding. Oasis' "Be Here Now" is the most notable recent example of this. Note that the entire trifecta is a neccessary condition for the crappy music. Cocaine + music is not a recipe for disaster by itself, which has been shown through brilliant records like "Rumours". A great record can be made with cocaine, as long as it doesn't *sound like* cocaine.

This interview excerpt (from 1988) is from a Spacemen 3 web site:

------------------------ Gerard: OK, I'm sorry. Tell me about drugs.

Sonic Boom: Ahhh, I find drugs to be very inspiring. All of our songs are about drugs our about experiences while on drugs. Seriously, without drugs I don't think I would be here today.

Gerard: Oh come on, I would've still come down here with you.

Sonic Boom: (visibly annoyed) No, that's not what I mean! Without drugs, I think I would've committed suicide! At one point, without drugs I had nothing left to live for. I can.t imagine going thru a single day without getting high. All of us in the band smoke every day. The bass player sells dope. I don.t ever drink but the rest of the group do. I'm very into hypnotic drugs, not just acid. Opiums are very nice, and there's lots of magic mushrooms out where we live. .Sound Of Confusion. was written about taking speed. I've stayed away from it for 2 or 3 years now, but that doesn't mean I've stopped anything else. I've probably tried every drug that's ever been available in this country at one time or another. I've got a very good friend who's a professional chemist, so I've access to virtually any prescription drug I want, which is very nice. It's for relaxation and recreation, really. I can't see how you could possibly be against it.

Gerard: I think you are going to burn in hell.

-------------------------

Yeah, the interviewer was being a prick throughout the entire interview, but the patterns were generally the same: Sonic would say "legalise everything, drugs are great, but use them responsibly" and journos thought he was a terrible person for saying those things. This was before the E-generation hit (pardon the pun) in England. Sonic turned out to be ahead of his time, because post-E, speaking for the responsible use of drugs became far more common. Sonic's bragging probably took the message a bit too far. He used to be way overboard with the glamourization, which is particularly disturbing considering the types of dangerous substances he was using. In this respect, Sonic eventually grew up -- in a 1994 interview, he claimed he regretted his heroin use, but stood behind his main theme of responsible drug use.

This is one example of how Pete "Sonic Boom" Kember was (and is) an unheralded pioneer. Sonic gets a bad rap these days -- he's considered to be the Marty Jannetty of Spacemen 3 -- but he's made some fantastic music in his own right. His opinions on drugs were way ahead of their time. He beat Jason Pierce to the punch by combining his trademark minimal drones with soul music on 1994's "Highs, Lows and Heavenly Blows". That album has more soul than just about anything Spiritualized recorded in the 1990's. It drips emotion, bleeds heartache, and didn't require an orchestra to do so. HL&HB and Inspiral Carpets "The Beast Inside" are, in my opinion, the foremost "lost classic" albums of the last decade. They have been criminally ignored.

While most guitar bands turned to heavy-handed grunge in the early 90's, Sonic got more and more chilled out. He used heavily treated guitar tones to create blissful ambience long before anyone spoke of "post-rock". With his EAR collective, he collaborated with techno giant Thomas Koner (one of his many forays into electronic music long before it ordained fashionable by every Tom, Dick, and Radiohead to do so), and also with Kevin Shields, dragging him out of mothballs for his first post-MBV recordings.

Can you tell I've been listening to a lot of Spacemen 3 this week?

Tindersticks have done several duets with female singers, but "Sometimes It Hurts", featuring Lhasa de Sela, finally hit the home run they've been looking for over the last decade. "Travelling Light" didn't really stick out among an album of maudlin uniformity. "Marriage Made in Heaven", with Isabella Rossellini, came really close to a round-tripper, but was a bit too playful and thus leaned away from 'Sticks greatest strength -- really really sad music. The "Simple Pleasure" album was full of female backing vocals, no duets per se, and no standout vocal contributions, but the focus on 60's soul was a fascinating departure from a band that had very nearly pigeonholed itself. So we can let them off the hook there.

Nonetheless, Tindersticks peaked with their debut, and hadn't made a truly great album since "Curtains" in 1997. The last thing I'd expected from them in 2003 was an Album of the Year Candidate and their best duet to date (good, because I'd hate to be the band who'd foretold their own irrelevance by naming their last great album "Curtains", wouldn't you?). "Sometimes It Hurts" is funny, wistful, introspective, and far and away the most charming thing they've ever done. It's a fun listen, with it's jaunty tune and the gentle interplay between the voices, and thus it makes you want to hear it again as soon as it's over. But it's also dripping with sadness, which makes you think twice about hearing it again.

Each song on "Waiting for the Moon", taken separately, sounds like the finale of an album. It's just that epic, just that moving. My faith in Tindersticks has been roundly restored over the past year.

Ah, now where to start with this one ?

I think the whole article comes off as ultra-conservative, near-censorious Tipper Gore-worthy paranoia.

The author appears to wish the musical world were impervious to change, in that it should remain rooted in sounds and images that she deems likeable. Indeed, no credibility is placed on those who listen to or perform rap and R&B, despite the clearly stated fact that millions of people do indeed manage to find some enjoyment in said listening and performing. After reading this, I'd feel obligated to disinfect myself every time I watched a music video -- as opposed to when the boy bands rules the air and video waves, since we all know that no boy band EVER used sex in a song or video with the intent of pushing more product. As if the cougars were fans only because they got a kick out of innocently reminiscing about their pre-pubescent school days.

A world where popular artistic tastes were not in constant flux would be a boring world.

But I really shouldn't say anything bad about this piece. After all, the author is my sister.

[update 31/12/04, link to the Star is now broken]

Last night I caught the second half of "Behind the Music : 1987" and felt somewhere between annoyed and appalled at the musical revisionism it contained. All of VH1's similarly structured mini-docs have this flaw. They have been made recently (2001 in this case), and therefore are made with many years of perspective. The interviewees are all too often aware of this, and try to retell the tale with the benefit of the obvious 20/20 hindsight, often with the intention of making themselves look more important. Poison's C.C. Deville claiming that "Talk Dirty to Me" is "one of the greatest garage punk songs ever written" was the most ludicrous example from last night's program.

In the VH1 era, with music being regurgitated on such a regular basis, the time is perfect for a book on 21st century musical revisionism. If anyone is reading this and wishes to take up the gauntlet, please do and make sure to put my name in the acknowledgements. Otherwise, I just may do it myself someday (right after my book on vinyl culture, I suppose). Hint: the TV special commemorating Elvis and his #1's collection would make a fine introductory chapter.

If you were to believe BTM:1987, you would accept the following arguments:

1. The successes of REM and U2 were cases of the underground finally peeking overground. 2. Hair metal was on the decline. 3. Bruce Springsteen and Michael Jackson followed up their mid-decade uber-successes with disappointing albums.

Let's start with #3. If not for "Thriller", "Bad" may well have been considered the biggest album ever to that point. It sold about 25 million copies worldwide, spawned six hit singles, was nominated for loads of Grammys, the videos were talked about everywhere and were in equally heavy rotation as the "Thriller" ones, and entrenched Michael as the most successful popstar in the world for another three years. That's hardly a disappointment, nor is it fair to characterize these successes as an artist treading water. Compared to "Thriller", almost anything would be viewed a monumental failure. That comparison just isn't fair.

Bruce's "Tunnel of Love" was never meant to be "Born in the USA II". It was a conscious attempt to shift gears in his career, symbolized by the abscence of the E Street Band from his records for the first time. This latter point was completely ignored by BTM. It sold less than "BitUSA", but again, that's not really a fair comparison. How many artists make more than one epoch-defining record? It still sold millions, and the follow-ups, 1992's "Lucky Town" and "Human Touch", debuted at numbers 1 and 2. I don't think Bruce disappointed anybody.

Now for the major malfeasances. It's all well and good to put fourteen years of hindsight to good use, but let's not use it to make patently false statements. First, let's get the following things straight.

1. Kurt was the single biggest force behind bringing the underground into the overground.

2. Kurt was the single biggest force behind the death of hair metal.

With all due respect to Dave and Krist, I said "Kurt" rather than "Nirvana" because Kurt, like it or not (and he certainly didn't during his lifetime), was the icon of the band and the times. Similarly, we now speak of Hendrix as the icon and forget about The Experience. Anyhow, neither of these points, IMO, can be intelligently disputed.

It's arguable whether U2 were underground in any way come 1987. "The Unforgettable Fire" and "War" had already been big hits. Not superstar sized hits, but hits nonetheless. Hell, if Samantha Micelli went to a U2 concert on a 1984 episode of "Who's the Boss?" then they couldn't have been too unknown. REM were certainly a cult phenomenon in 1987, but the main point is that the breakthroughs of both bands were singular and isolated. They did almost nothing to spur an upward movement of the underground. Stated differently, I can't think of a single band that made it on the backs of either U2 or REM's success. On the other hand, Nirvana dragged countless bands into the charts with them, so much so that the Billboard 200 before and after "Nevermind" were notedly different.

Furthermore, it's stupid to suggest that people were tiring of hair metal in 1987 because they'd realised how shallow it was and that you couldn't tell the bands apart with a magnifying glass. Or that consumers were bored of the string of dumbass songs about chicks and cars and girls and parties and babes. Hair metal stayed huge through the end of the decade. Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Motley Crue, Poison, Tesla, and Extreme's biggest successes were still to come. The pop charts of 1988-9 were stuffed full of hair metal bands and their indistinguishable power ballads, the same way the charts of the early and mid 90's were stuffed full of R&B vocal groups and their indistinguishable soul ballads. The truth is that post-Kurt, serious music was in and hedonist music was not. Bands who cut their hair and modified their message were able to continue their career. Those that didn't, mercifully vanished and are now appearing on a reunion tour triple bill at an amphitheatre near you.

Every issue of Grooves magazine is an essential purchase for me. It's easily the best electronic music magazine out there (and one of the best mags, period). It's not so much for the writing (which is solid, if nothing special) but for it's breadth of focus, attractive layout, and gigantic review sections (covering music, DVD, live, and software critiques each issue).

With four months between issues, a lot tends to change. Slowly, the content has been shifting away from pure laptop music, with the bubble finally breaking with the present issue. It's about time. Artists embracing live instrumentation, electroacoustic sounds, or vocals (to go with their laptops) are no longer cult rebels, they're becoming the norm. Even established artists like Mu-ziq, whose latest work borrows heavily from UK garage, are making a point of radically altering their styles and wriggling free of the niches they've established for themselves in the last several years.

Bravo to Grooves for continuing to flex with the times as well as putting out their usual excellent product.

The finale ...

40. Adam X - On the One and Two. I already own an Adam X mix album and I wasn't clamouring for another. But the story on the back cover was just so inspiring. He talks about wanting to put together a mix album that accurately summed up his life and the kind of person he is, so he spent days deciding which twenty or so of his several thousand records would make the cut and help to tell the story he wanted to tell ... it's a list/compilation story that hit close to the heart. Oh yeah, the track selection is nothing to complain about either. How's the mixing, the EQ work, you ask? Mind your manners! How inappropriate -- it's a man's life we're talking about here, those details are (relatively) unimportant. B, $3.95, M.

41. Various Artists - Soundstyle compilation. It was a beautiful white CD cover, a digipak with a slightly glossy finish. The artwork was plain, but far from ordinary. Just three small crosses (plus signs, +, actually) centred on the cover, one red, one white and one blue. Three crosses, tiny amongst the vast expanse of CD cover whiteness, like three small fawns lost in a cavernous meadow underneath a cloudless blue sky. And the spine depicted these same three crosses and nothing more -- still so gentle in their stoic tranquility, still lost and lonely underneath the expansive heavens. Deep in my guts, I felt, I knew, I was certain that fine music was contained within. So I gave this disc a home amongst all the others, in a basket among many. Not to become an anonymous piece of art among hundreds of other discs, but part of a CD family that would nurture it and ensure that it would never be lonely again, for now, and forevermore.

There was just one thing. I had NO IDEA what music was on it. This was a first -- buying a CD even though I didn't know what it was.

I have chosen many a cool techno record based on design alone (but I listened before buying, which is impossible in Amoeba). Generally, I look for simple artwork without bells and whistles. In this case, the price was certainly right for taking a chance. It turned out to be a perfectly decent downtempo house compo. There were full credits for the tracks themselves, but basically nothing about who compiled it besides the name "soundstyle". Whoever did compile it wrote about the tracks representing a journey through a 24 hour day. Uh, OK. But overall, with the minimal everything (credits, packaging, liner notes) they've let the music speak for itself, which is a perfectly sound strategy. A, $1.43, M.

42. Mount Florida - Arrived Phoenix. The first time through, I completely missed it. It's indietronic, then it's dub, then there's some vocals, then some ambient bits; I must have forgotten what I was listening to. On the second time through, I pieced it together. "Yes, I remember this part now ... damn, I didn't realize this was all part of the same CD". Nothing too special, but certainly unpredictable and definitely not boring. Obviously, it makes for good background music too. A, $1.43, M.

43. The Rip-Off Artist - Pump. The Rip-Off Artist spent many months of his life on an offshore oil rig, and this album is a tribute/remembrance/momument to healing the pyschological scars regarding those difficult times. The sounds on this album were taken from that environment. I can only assume that "Pump" is to offshore oil rigs what Akufen's "My Way" is to the radio. Both microsampled albums were released around the same time, which makes me wonder why this one got so much less attention. Where Akufen relies mainly on the 4/4 beat to make his point, the Rip-Off Artist strays into far more abstract territory, closer to Autechre's LP5 than anything playing at a microhouse club night near you. Well, I guess I just answered the question I posed two sentences ago. You also have to pay attention to keep up over the course of its 69 tracks.

That number is no coincidence, for the liner notes explain the sexual tension inside people essentially stranded so far from their mates. "[Pump] is a story of love, petroleum, and sex. A world in which hard iron meets soft earth, and deep pressures are relieved". Think about that before you use both "Make Love Not War" and "No War for Oil" at your next outdoor protest. D, $1.62, M.

44. Dave Tarrida - Paranoid. It's on Tresor. Therefore it is good. That's all you need to know.

OK, I liked it better than the Subhead disc. It's way more cranium-busting. D, $1.52, M.

SUMMARY: An amazing 10 E, 30 M, and only 4 L. Only two discs cost more than eight bucks, only seven cost more than five bucks, and fifteen cost less than TWO bucks. Now I've got to find a place to put all this stuff ...

Wait, there's more.

34. Max Ernst - Click. Soul Center was Brinkmann having good, clean fun. Max Ernst is Brinkmann having nasty, malicious fun. The thumps and hiccups of the sliced up vinyl give rise to timbres that we don't have names for yet. B, $7.95, M.

35. Hardfloor - TB Resuscitation. Hardfloor were instrumental in re-popularising the famous Roland TB303 bass machine that infected 158 billion house and techno records in the late 1980's. Whether that was a positive or a detrimental contribution is a matter of personal taste. I was never big into acid, which is why I carefully kept stuff like this at arm's length, as well as the German hardtrance which it helped to spawn. As with trance, I enjoy Hardfloor very much in small doses. Parts of this album shine their early 90's mega-rave colours a bit too brightly, but if you can still get a rise from "Acperience" and "Lost in the Silver Box" ten years on, then Hardfloor must have done something right. A, $1.43, M.

36. Appliance - Manual. Mute Records doesn't release crap. With this in mind, I took a chance last year on a Mute CD by an artist I'd never heard of -- the bombastic 2nd Gen -- and it paid off. As for Appliance, well, it's markedly ironic how I wrote just yesterday about the dancepunks and challenged them to go as dark as Joy Division, only to have the challenge answered hours later by a CD already in my collection. This album joins the death disco jaunt of Joy Division with the repetitive playfulness of mid-90's Stereolab. It's already four years old -- hey dancepunks, top THIS. C, $3.95, E.

37. Ekkehard Ehlers -- Politik Braucht Keinen Feind. The title ("Politics Requires no Enemy/Hate" (don't blindly trust my knowledge of German, check it yourself as well)) belies the cover art, which is a series of black and white photos of a college house party. Maybe it's the grayscale influencing me here, but nobody looks like they're having fun at this party. It's all shots of people making nasty gestures to the camera and pseudo-punk shots of haggard people in front of messily spray painted walls. The music isn't something you'd want to play at your next bash either. The electroacoustic first half is eerie and unsettling in a "I don't understand what I am listening to, and I'm not sure if I will understand by listening closer" kind of way. But the endlessly droning string ensembles in the second half are the album's biggest highlights. Somewhere right now, Tony Conrad is having multiple orgasms listening to this. D, $13.98, M.

38. Paul D. Miller - Viral Sonata. Besides the hand-drumming, there are no beats on this album. Does DJ Spooky release his more experimental material under his own name? This is one ongoing, shape-shifting ethno-ambient vibe. It's really similar to the stuff on Em:t label, a label that I miss dearly. Maybe the writings in the CD booklet will explain more, although I never have been able to decipher Miller's writings ... D, $1.52, M.

39. Armando - One World One Future. This was a long overdue purchase for me. Most of the house music I listened to in my teens sounded exactly like the "100% of Dissin' U" blueprint drawn up by Armando. He's also been credited with inventing acid house (although he's not the only one). And he was only 26 when he died of leukemia in 1996. The music he left behind is 100% classic. And much of this material could rock just about any club even today, thanks to the tough beats and jazz flourishes that still characterize a lot of modern day house. A, $4.95, M.