linkjockey

Today I want to share a last year highligh: English band Amplifier live as a 2 piece combo.

I know there has been a lot of live sets during the past few years deservedly reaching global attention, from the somewhat controversial Tiny Desk by Catriel & Paco Amoroso to the surrealist Angine de Poitrine fever. The most recent being QOTSA at KEXP, posted last week (and highly recommended!). But this blog is not about the trendy stuff the algorythm will run you over with, I want to keep it about music that is not that popular. Ok, I know, I posted Pink Floyd just a few months back... but you can't call them trendy, right?

I'll try my best to share unknown or forgotten gems so you can escape the giant rolling boulder coming down the infinite scroll.

Hypnos69 is a prog rock band from Belgium. I don't know much about them, this album was released more than 15 years ago and is their last studio album so far. I hope they come back at it, cuz boy, they are gooood.

One of their fans (SalDiOr) wrote this on their bandcamp page:

Some times we are aware some bands can reach stardom and beyond... And there is Hypnos 69. This guys represent space, progressive rock in a high level but for some reason didn't get worldwide recognition. They deserve it, they earned it

So now you know them, go to their BC, listen, and if you like it buy it! I already did :)

last week I reposted a Richard Dawkins quote, taken from a sample used in the song For el Ahraira to cry, by the English band Fall of Efrafa.

I knew of Dawkins before discovering this band, because he coined the term Meme in his book "The Selfish Gene", but I didn't know about his atheistic side. His atheistic speeches are quite popular, he even got a divulgative TV show. Is quite funny that the same band also uses Alan Watts samples on other songs. Watts was one of the responsibles of disseminating Zen buddhism and other oriental beliefs on the west, along with Joseph Cambell or Daisets Suzuki.

Anyways, Fall Of Efrafa: English Atmospheric Crust Punk I guess. Thet existed only for a few years (2005-2009) releasing 3 albums, all of them excellent. They based their project on Richard Adams' Watership Down, and took the lore of their rabbit protagonists to a new level of social and political commentary. Though the book already shares this approach, it was originally just a childrens story that Adams created to entertain his own daughters. I like to call it The Lord of the Rings but with rabbits.

I recently got the "Art and Lyrics of Fall of Efrafa" book by Alex CF (the singer of the band), and it's an amazing piece of art. I have not fully read it yet, its mostly the artwork, sketches and lyrics, but it also contains some thoughs by Alex himself, about the process and memories he has.

Sorry for the long post. TL:DR listen to Fall of Efrafa \m/

Don't know much about this band. They were a japanese rock band that released a single self-titled album in 1971.

not Neil Gayman's. I'm talking about Mark Sandman, the missed frontman of Morphine.

Their sound is so unmatched, combining blues and jazz with rock structures in a very 90s fashion. The line-up consisted of Sandman at the 2 string bass (usually playing it with a slide), Dana Colley at sax (baritone, tenor and more) and Jerome Deupree first, then Billy Conway on drums (and again Deupree for a while, then Conway again...).

The band developed a unique style, with their mockery of a power trio without a guitar, creating what they coined as "low rock". Although the band officially existed for a decade between 1989 and 1999, as Sandman died on stage in Italy during the summer european leg of the tour from a heart attack, their music has had few copycats, or at least none which are relevant or remembered.

In spite of that, the figure of Sandman as a bass player and songwritter has trascended his death and is revered by staples of alternative rock like Les Claypool.

Appropriately, a decade has passed since I last posted here regularly, a decade addicted to Morphine (sorry for the obvius pun).

Enjoy the beat inspired, eery poetry of The Night selftitled and opening track.

Wow, 10 years have passed by... I completely forgot about this project, can't even remember what might have happened back then... I guess I was too busy designing boardgames and I let this little blog die. I can't promise I won't do the same again.

Since then I've done many things, but not as much as I would like to. Among other stuff, I travelled 3 times to Japan, wrote an unpublished novelette and became a King Gizzard fan. That last one was predictable.

Todays song is the classic Time, by Pink Floyd. Mainly because the lyrics say "10 years have got behind you, no one told you when to run..." but also, in my novelette, the main character wakes up from a nap to this song. He can't help but to sing along, shouting out of tune, crying even, and can't understand why he is doing it... he just feels the music pumping in, he becomes the song, the song becomes him.

I feel like, even after all this time, I can't scape the Dark Side of the Moon. It is and will always be my favourite album of all time, because it talks about life, about time, about losing yourself... and I guess it hits harder the older you become.

“Warm earth music for plants and the people who love them”

That man!