HOMEMADE LOFI PSYCH --- WHERE TO START?





"There is so much great music here..." WHERE TO START???

I recommend to
start with the HLFP-Samplers (especially HLFP 04).
Here you will come to know many of the bands/musicians featured in this blog. If you like what you hear, you may check out more of their music later on.
(You may also click on the picture on the sidebar and you will find the original post with download links.)

There is also a "FOCUS ON..." section. Here you will find albums that imo are absolutely great (***** = "five-stars-recordings") and that are essential listening and strongly recommended for download.


I TRY to RE-UP some stuff that has been down from time to

time, but I still don't have enough time to

listen to/post much new stuff.

Sorry!

IMPRESSUM: see here!

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

KRAUTOPIA PRESENTS: atelierTheremin live in Berlin


KRAUTOPIA presents ZODIAC @ WAU,
Hallesches Ufer 32/ Grossbeerenstr., 10963 Berlin-Kreuzberg
(close to U-Möckernbrücke)

BERLIN, april 21 2010 - start: 8:00pm

Live at the rooms of legendary end-60s ZODIAC Free Arts Lab at Hallesches Ufer in Kreuzberg:
atelierTheremin - the Berlin Masters Of Neo-Krautrock - meet Michi Wehmeyer at his electronic quarter-tone organ (! long-time member of EMBRYO & co-founder of the now-legendary Dissidenten, also playing with Lothar Stahl's Stahlband)... http://www.embryo.de,
Special feature: Before the concert, the cult movie "EMBRYO’s Reise" ("EMBRYO’s Journey") will be shown at 8pm sharp!


ADMISSION FREE - DON'T MISS!

The ZODIAC free arts lab (a.k.a. Zodiak) was the birthplace of the Berlin underground music and political scene in the late 1960s, where artists such as Klaus Schulze, Agitation Free, Manuel Göttsching and Ash Ra Tempel, Peter Brötzmann, Tangerine Dream, Kluster/Cluster as well as others all started their international careers - at that time, it was a hip underground location where music, art and politics merged and where the so-called Berlin School of electronic KRAUTROCK was established.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Altan Basharan - Plucking Feather (UK 2009)

"i met Altan, like Patrick, at my job at the Assisi House Project, he has severe schizophrenia & lives in sheltered housing with the Mind mental health charity in bradford uk... these recording were done over a period of about a year whenever he was well enough... he was very specific about how the songs went & sounded, everything is played by him & in the most part played live in one take, i did get him to track a guitar a few times but he was always reluctant... although, the results are amazing... he was very difficult to record as he sang so very quietly... the sound of his pick on the strings can be heard often as bleed through the vocal mic... & i think adds much charm... he is an absolute treasure to work with..."

(michaelDUSTdevil)


Amazing record! ALTAN BASHARAN's singing voice and guitar playing as well as his witty, whimsical compositions truly bring to mind SYD BARRETT in his post PINK FLOYD phase.

Strongly recommended!


Thanks a lot to michaelDUSTdevil!


Altan Basharan - Plucking Feather (UK 2009)

(mp3-zip, 8 tracks, 33 min, 74,1 MB)

Get it here or here or here!

Monday, April 12, 2010

a couple of free promo tracks

Here are a couple of promo tracks of forthcoming or recently released albums, that were sent to me by some (mostly small) record companies to post on HLFP and make some promo for them.

Not bad, I'd say. In fact there are some pretty good songs to be found here. Not extremly psychedelic or experimental though. Most of them are indie rock style.
So have a listen and go and check out (= buy!) the complete records, if you like what you hear!

Starting with a fine label called PIGEON ROW (http://pigeonrow.com/):


- THE ROBOTS: I Didn't Know What I Was Saying
A band from Canada, THE ROBOTS released their album Hey Buddy, Dummy on Night Danger, April 06. Sounds like a mix of RADIOHEAD and INTERPOL.
"From minimal first steps to echoing climaxes, the album layers diverse elements and styles into a unique vision and sound." (promo info)

- MILKS & RECTANGLES: Troubleshooters (free EP): Wink and a Gun (The Jury's Hung) - Unring a Bell - Cakewalk - Don't Fall into Wrong Hands - Long Haired Hater
Quite enjoyable indie rock.
"The EP finds the group infusing their songs with a distinctly rock n' roll sound while still managing to deliver the moody atmospheres that made their debut so memorable." (promo info)

- APOLLO GHOSTS: Things You Go Through
From Mount Beson, May 04 release. Also from Canada, they play a mix of Wave, Punk and College Rock. Great song!
"An ode to the hard-scrabble city of Nanaimo, BC, Mount Benson divulges the dark secrets of this luckless Vancouver Island town, a demystification on par with revealing the Masonic Handshake." (from promo info)

- STEVE POLTZ: Digging For Icicles
From Dreamhouse; May 04 release, produced by Joel Plaskett.
More in a singer-songwriter, new folk style

"Starting with the stark and haunting title-track, as it progresses, the album’s scope develops to include beautiful melodies and lush, quirky arrangements." (promo info)


Then we have SARATHAN records (http://www.sarathan.com/), another fine indie label, that already gave us WAR TAPES some time ago:

- THUNDER BUFFALO: Gloomy In Us All
From the band's self-titled album. Pretty cool psych rock. This song here is not too far away from NICK CAVE (if he took more psychedelic drugs...)

Sadly I can't post another song - in fact my favourite one of those promo tracks - Losing You by BLUE BEARD - a true psychedelic gem, taken from the compilation album Looking Towards the Sky, released by Fantastic Voyage. (It wasn't meant to be posted, just to be listened to...) Grab it if you can!

Enjoy!

A Couple of PROMO Tracks
(mp3-zip, 9 tracks, some artwork, 57,2 MB)
Get 'em here or here or here!

Kennedy Skinny - some appetizer tracks from EP (CAN 2010)

Andrew J from KENNEDY SKINNY sent me some mp3's from their new ep to share with you and asked me to feature a widget that plays the entire ep (6 tracks) and shows some picts from live shows. Hope it will work for you...

KENNEDY SKINNY are from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and they play a mixture of indie rock with electronica. Some elements in their music remind me of the ARCTIC MONKEYS and/or ARCADE FIRE (listen to Good Things are Cut Short and maybe you'll hear what I mean).

"We've got a surf/rock/electro/lofi kind of sound."
(Andrew J)



The complete ep is now available on itunes and amazon etc. Check out their Myspace site for more info and direct links.

IF YOU LIKE WHAT YOU HEAR, PLEASE SUPPORT THE ARTISTS!!!


KENNEDY SKINNY: 2 appetizer tracks from ep:
(mp3 zip, 9,7 MB)
Back to the Future (2.23 min; 5,5 MB)
Good Things are Cut Short (1.41 min; 3,9 MB)
Get 'em here or here or here!

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Jacques de Villiers - sleepsongs (SOUTH AFRICA 2009)

Q: Where exactly are you from?
A: I was born and have spent my whole life in Cape Town, South Africa.
Q: What is your real name?
A: I spent a long time trying out a variety of monikers and project names, and just sort of got exhausted by the whole exercise of disguising who I really was with some sort of fake literary projection that would hopefully entice potentially listeners into following what I was putting out. That just seems fake and unnecessary to me. So Jacques de Villiers is and has always been my real name.
Q: How recorded?
A: The recording process comes out of recorded piano improvisations as well as some composed and though-out motifs, which are then severely digitally altered and layered. There is an element of chance, in that the final song only reveals itself near the end of a heavy process of manipulation and rolling the dice. I'm not a professional sound engineer, so many of the tools I use are beyond my complete comprehension. However, I find this works in my favour, as I'm forced to be open and listen to a huge range of sounds and manipulations. Most of it is discarded, until I find something I like, which I then pursue and mold until I am happy with the finished work. So there is a happy process of chance and guiding that chance towards something I consider aesthetically and compositionally pleasing. Even though I work alone, I feel like there is a strong element of collaboration with the digital tools at my disposal.
Q: When recorded?
A: The songs here were put together over the course of about two or three years. There is a lot of other material, but most of it is still in the early stages. I have a bad habit of half-completing a lot of stuff.
Q: Any more releases?
A: This is currently the only album I have made widely available. I hope to have another album out by the end of this year, which will pursue a different direction and be more song-based, though with a relatively similar sonic aesthetic to sleepsongs. My overall aim is to try release an album a year for as long as my heart keeps beating.
Q: Who involved?
A: Everything was done myself, though one or two tracks use heavily manipulated samples from other work (Satie's Gymnopodie no 1 being probably the only recognisable example). You can also hear a baby screaming in Shine a Light on Every Room. Unfortunately I forget her name now, but that was totally her contribution. I didn't give her any direction.
Q: Since when does this band/project exist?
A: From the time I started making music, obviously. About three or four years. I guess it will exist as long as I decide to make music, which will hopefully be for a very long time.
Q: How'd you "label" your music?
A: I wouldn't. I could find vague comparisons, but they would be so vague as to be useless.
Q: Influences?
A: Many. Most of them tend to be because of a certain attitude or determination, and less due to any musically similarities. People like John Coltrane or Miles Davis. Allen Ginsberg, J.M. Coetzee, Gustav Mahler, Claude Debussy. Friends I have met, known and still know: Amy, Joachim, Sonya, Laura...
Q: Website, Myspace?
A:

A very gentle and relaxing album of electronic ambient music, perfect for late night listening! 'sleepsongs' is the perfect title for this work. Soothing and great to listen to if you're in the right mood.
Check it out!

JACQUES DE VILLIERS: sleepsongs
(mp3-zip, 5 tracks, 33 min, 44,8 MB)
Get it here or here or here!

Thursday, April 8, 2010

ephemeroL - live in Offenbach April 10th and in Darmstadt May 4th

ePHEMEROL will be performing two live gigs in the next weeks in Germany, near Frankfurt am Main.

The first one will be in Offenbach, Der Waggon, Mainufer (vor dem = nearby Isenburger Schloß) on April 10th at 9 pm.

http://waggon.blogsport.de/


Read more about the experimental-noise-improv band ePHEMEROL here!


The second gig will be in Darmstadt, Oetinger Villa, Kranichsteiner Str. 81, on May the 4th, opening for the MASTER MUSICIANS OF BUKAKKE.

Admission 8 €.


Pterodactyl Plains - Raven (USA 2009)

Q: Where exactly are you from?
A: We are from a small town Trego in Montana, just south of Canada and West of Glacier Park.
Q: Who involved? Who played what?
A: Pterodactyl Plains is Jessica Kilroy and Kier Atherton with guests Bethany Joyce on cello and Chance Cole on drums
Q: How recorded?
A: The album was recorded at friends homes and our parents house during the holidays. We recorded on a Macbook Pro with Motu hardware and Digital Performer. The album was all recorded with Art tube preamps and primarily with a Blue Bluebird and EV RE-20 microphone.
Q: When recorded?
A:. Recorded in 2009. Originally this was going to be Jessica Kilroy's new album, but it became so much of a departure from her previous material that we decided it should be its own project.
Q: Any more releases?
A: This is our first album, but Jessica Kilroy has released two self-released solo albums and Kier Atherton has produced and performed with Pillar Saints and Travis Sehorn.
Q: How'd you "label" your music?
A: We still identify our music as folk, because we intend for the songs to all be able to exist comfortably as acoustic music on the strength of their lyrics and melody. We like to experiment with sound and rhythm too though which I guess would make us electro acoustic, or whatever the current label is for that type of music.
Q: Influences?
A: We are influenced as much by our environment as the music we listen to, but some of Kier's favorite music that sets a standard we would like to attain includes Califone, Clann Zu, The National, and Exuma.
Q: Website, Myspace?
A:
(info by Kier Atherton via email)

Outstanding beautiful female vocals over electronic soundscapes and rhythms mixed with a more acoustic backing. A remarkable strong album that could best be described as experimental folk.

Check out their European concert dates in April and May at their Myspace site (dates in the Czech Republic, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK)!

Favourite tracks: Straitjacket and Right Here and Strangers

If you like what you hear, please support the artists!
CDs available for sale here:

PTERODACTYL PLAINS: Raven (USA 2009)
(mp3-zip, 11 tracks, 64,2 MB, 42 min)
Get it here or here or here!

Monday, April 5, 2010

Northern Light Saves Permission - Mountains Made Out Of Green Plastic Fur (2010)

From Salzburg, Austria, comes NORTHERN LIGHT SAVES PERMISSION, an experimental psychedelic rock/post rock music project. 'Mountains made out of green plastic fur' is their first release.

"northern light saves permission ist ein drone.noise.ambiente.psych projekt mit keiner einschränkung und es besteht aus einer person. einer tasse tee.einem diktiergerät.einem lollipop aus vinyl und einem nassen Schuh!"

meaning:

"northern light saves permission is a drone.noise.ambient.psych project without restriction of any kind and it consists of one person. a cup of tea. one Dictaphone. one lollipop made out of vinyl and a wet shoe!"
(info via email)

Don't have much info on this one. Is this TAD SONIC under a different name? Could be, at least some guitar parts remind me of him and his guitar sound. Anyway: This is a great record with (mostly) instrumental psychedelic soundscapes, some dreamy, some noisy. Every track's a winner. I like this stuff a lot!
Recommended to every psych head!


NORTHERN LIGHT SAVES PERMISSION: Mountains made out of
green plastic fur (Austria 2010)
(mp3-zip, 6 tracks, 34 min, artwork incl., 76,9 MB, @320kBits/s)
Get it here or here or here!

Friday, April 2, 2010

Makeshivt Kity - Los Angeles + The Holy Implant (USA 2007+2009)

MAKESHIVT KITY was a psychedelic/experimental anti folk music project that existed from 2005 until 2009. First of all it was the beautiful, fantastic voice of Jordannah Elizabeth who also wrote all the lyrics; she was supported by Christopher Bullock (TALL CITY) doing the instrumentation and production work.
Jordannah stopped using the name MAKESHIVT KITY in 2009 and now is going by her given name JORDANNAH ELIZABETH.

Q: Do you want your real names mentioned? If so: What are your real names?
A: My name is Jordannah Elizabeth. The producer goes by Tall City but you can credit the work to Christopher Bullock... in parenthesis.
Q: Where exactly are you from?
A: Both albums were recorded in Colorado Springs, CO... but I live in Los Angeles now. Chris resides in CO Springs still.
Q: How recorded?
A: We recorded the album in Chris' home studio in his attic space.
Q: When recorded?
A: Los Angeles EP: July 2007
The Holy Implant: June 2009
Q: Who involved? Who played what?
A: I sang and wrote all the lyrics. - Chris played most instruments, I helped with percussion and stuff. The main instrument is an auto harp which is what Chris plays... he's a great producer/instrumentalist.
Q: Any more releases? Any "official" releases?
A: I have several releases...
Los Angeles EP and The Holy Implant, plus a single called Again v2.0 (which was produced by Bryan Lee) is on a net label called Trastienda.org
For all my releases (Makeshivt Kity and Jordannah Elizabeth solo stuff), go here:
Q: Since when does this band/project exist?
A: Makeshivt Kity was my music alias... but I've stopped using the tag and am going by Jordannah Elizabeth. - Makeshivt Kity started out an acoustic singer/songwriter project, until I hooked up with Tall City for two albums, but I recorded with different producers.
Makeshivt Kity (2005-2009)
Q: Any previous bands worth mentioning?
The Dream Supreme
Tall City
The Salesman
were bands I merged with a bit... I'm affiliated with lots of famous indie bands, but they are personal connections.
Q: How'd you "label" your music?
A: Avant Folk/Anti Folk/Alternative/experimental/psychedelic... whatever.
Q: Influences?
A: Nina Simone, Dionysos, Dark Dark Dark, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Dead Meadow, The Warlocks, The Dream Supreme, Tall City, Creating a Newsense, Kat Holiday, Fiona Apple, Erykah Badu...
Q: Website, Myspace?
all my links are on the blog above.
http://www.myspace.com/makeshivtkityonline (doesn't seem to work - m-f)
Q: Anything that you think is interesting, that you'd like to inform the blog readers about...
A: My name is Jordannah and I'd like to encourage people to listen to my music and get inspired to create something from soul. - I love you.
(J. E. via email)

Additional links:

Excellent work of high originality. Fantastic voice, great instrumentation / arrangements, impressive song writing.
Do yourself a favour and check this music out. It's simply beautiful - very atmospheric.
Strongly recommended! Especially the 2nd album The Holy Implant is excellent.
Enjoy!

MAKESHIVT KITY: Los Angeles (USA 2007)
(mp3-zip, 7 tracks, 26 min, 27,7 MB, vbr-mp3)
1. Distance
2. Los Angeles
3. 60 Days
4. Static
5. On and On
6. A Course in Miracles
7. God Save the Scene (Bonus track)

MAKESHIVT KITY: The Holy Implant (USA 2009)
(mp3-zip, 10 tracks, 43 min, 38,9 MB)
1. Sonar
2. Think Darkly
3. Move
4. Forever
5. I’d Like Too…
6. I’m Nothing Without You
7. Take Me With You
8. I Wish
9. 7th Heaven
10. I Win

MAKESHIVT KITY: Los Angeles + The Holy Implant
+ Again (single)
(18 tracks, 68,3 MB)
Get 'em here or here or here!
Hmm, seems that tr.9 "7th heaven" is corrupt, please replace it:
Get it here or here!

(I put all the songs into 1 folder since I found out, that some people have trouble to unzip a zip-file when a folder is placed in another folder - so please have a look to the info text to see which track belongs to which recording and to find out the correct song running order - thanks!)

Comments are always welcome!