John B

I don't think I've heard a bad album with Dyani on it. Highest recommendations to Song for Biko, Witchdoctor's Son and Good News from Africa. I would recommend getting a copy of every album he played on, starting with these.

Do yourself a favor and grab Nation Time and listen to "Shakey Jake" immediately.

That is saying a lot, as Closed Mountains is a fantastic disc. Chaney, let us know if you are able to track down a copy.

pianist Sunna Gunnlaugs singer Fontella Bass singer June Tyson

drums / laptop - Ikue Mori I'm shocked that no one has mentioned Ma Rainey yet

some of my favorites: pianist Myra Melford pianist Irene Schweitzer basoonist Karen Borca

pm sent.

Or we could all just leave people selling things in the Offering & Looking For forum alone, regardless of how many posts they have. As long as they aren't spamming every forum, I see nothing wrong with the seller, in this case. I do see something wrong with the poster being "attacked" as Chaney put it.

Yes, I was thinking of the OJCs when I made my comment about the quality depending on what the label provided. I have quite a few of those here, too. I'm guessing you are grabbing that set from Leo now. If so, let us know what you think of each disc, as you have time to listen to them. I'll start adding them to my emusic queue.

I've never sampled OGG files either, but they supposedly sound very good. The bitrate varies at emusic, depending on what each label supplies them. Some older tracks are encoded at lower rates. Mostr tracks (and I believe all of the Leo tracks are done this way) are encoded using VBR (Variable Bit Rate) at an average of 192k.

Discs received! I'll start listening to disc 1 this weekend.

Or, as you will be downloading mp3s either way, emusic has this set. $10 for 40 tracks. There are 44 tracks spread over the 8 discs, so you could get the first 7 discs for $10 and get discs 8 as part of your second month's allotment of tracks or you could get the 65 tracks for $15 package and get the entire set plus 21 other tracks.

too good to be true? Based on some of the customer comments on the ePublicEye site they link to I'll be avoiding this one. I'd be curious to hear if anyone takes the plunge and actually can get these sets for $11 plus shipping.

Back in the day I saw all of these bands live, many a time but, man, did I burn out on ska. Too much of the same beat over and over again, I guess. Other bands I really dug at the time were the Pietasters, Skavoovie & the Epitones, the Skunks, the Allstonians, etc... I still have a live Toasters boot on disc if you are interested in a copy. Let me know.

Motorhead - Orgasmatron 1986

I agree with Jon here. From personal experience it took repeated listens and what I assume to be a change in the way I thought about what I was hearing for me to really start appreciating the first discs I picked up on Erstwhile. The Hands of Caravaggio is a great example of this. The first few times I heard it I found it to be extremely forbidding and abstract. I now find much warmth and accessibility in the same sounds that once put me off. The only change was with my perceptions. For me, the Tokyo crew is taking a lot more time to come to terms with, most likely due to the differences, both cultural and experiential, that Jon alluded to. For most people coming from this board, and the comments I have read by people in the Funny Rat thread in particular, the "Vienna" discs would make for a much better starting point. Of course, that isn't to say that any one of the people I just referenced couldn't pick up Bar Sachiko and love it immediately.

It is a link to a french radio broadcast of Jandek.

I have no problems with any of the discs on that list but I am baffled that Back at the Chicken Shack has still not been RVG'd.

You can drown yourself in this: what is that? The Merzbox?

with all due respect, I don't think that the Funny Rat thread gets much into "raucous noise", if at all, which is an entirely different genre. it seems to stick mostly to Euro free improv (as a style, not a geographic location). if you're curious about noise, try a Prurient CD, or Kevin Drumm's Sheer Hellish Miasma at high volume, or most Merzbow, just a few examples... Not to speak for Chaney, but I believe his definition of "raucous noise" is something along the lines of the Brotzmann Tentet at full blast. Sheer Hellish Miasma, despite the title, is an absolutely beautiful record. Not for the faint of heart, however. I have Land of Lurches on deck to listen to later on tonight. I'm hoping it approaches the achievement of SHM. There is a poster over on I Hate Music, sevenarts, who is self-releasing his own ambient and noise laptop releases. I listened to one last night and was very impressed. If it wasn't for Gerry Hemingway's wok, I never would have gotten started listeing to eai in the first place. That and his skillet the drums.

I would agree with that. The Rowe/Beins set is fairly short, it is not, for the genre, too abstract or "out there," and it is a lot of fun. Other Ersts I would choose for someone coming into the field from a free jazz/free improv background would be: EL003: Burkhard Stangl/Christof Kurzmann schnee_live As it is, again, relatively short and focused and very accesible. I am still trying to figure out what I think of this set but, at a minimum, it would be a great place for someone to start. 004-2 (double CD): Thomas Lehn/Gerry Hemingway Tom and Gerry Gerry Hemingway's wok on this one provides a nice bridge from free jazz to eai. 005: Keith Rowe/Günter Müller/Taku Sugimoto The World Turned Upside Down 031: Martin Siewert/Martin Brandlmayr Too Beautiful To Burn These two discs are just beautiful. I find both of them to be among the most accessible discs of eai I have heard and they are both still, after many listens, among my favorites. I could go on and on, but I'll stop there.

Jon, Good to hear! I've already told my sister, who lives in Brooklyn, that I might be staying with her for a night or two in November. She said she would go to the show with me but, as she has never heard any of the musicians in question, I'm going to make sure she has a chance to hear some of their work before buying a ticket.

That must have been priceless. I had the pleasure of meeting him at a Keith Rowe / Fennesz show at MIT. I'm hoping to make it down to NYC later on this year if Amplify 2005 is finalized.

You can't go wrong if you read only my posts. Any opinions of this one?: I can't say that I'm currently a fan of EAI but I do love the Hat label. Anyone? I have that one sitting here but have not gotten around to listening to it yet. I'll let you know my thoughts once I do. Read Funny Rat a few pages at a time when you are bored. There is a lot fo great info tucked away in there, as well as some silliness from posters with Erstwhile avatars.

You know, that can be read in two very different ways.