Solstice Cloudcast

1. The Christmas Revels - Abbots Bromley Horn Dance This is (traditionally) the opening of the second half of the Christmas Revels show in Cambridge MA.  Lights low, antlers knocking, it is a beautiful invocation of pop-intelligentsia solstice paganism.
2. The Residents - My Window This is a live recording from a phenomenal show (Somerville Theatre, March 30, 2011).  I wasn't a Residents fan until I was dragged to the show.  Completely changed my mind about them.
3. The Resource Centre - Circle Time I can't find too much information about this band online.  A solid EP in the "hauntological" vein.
4. ADR - Jupiter Rising Again, I don't have much info on this band.  I initially hit the page when this album was announced, but there wasn't much content.  It appears that the label (RTFKT) has been busy since then.
5. Barn Owl - Midnight Tide A great live band, combining the desert plod of Earth with the drone of Sunn 0))).  Plus they made a record with Ellen Fullman.
6. Ellen Fullman - Memory Of A Big Room (For Matthew) Inventor and player of the Long String Instrument.
7. Coil - Christmas Is Now Drawing Near One of the best bands ever.  This comes from the Moon's Milk (In Four Phases) series of EP's.
8. The Advisory Circle - Lair Of The Grolfax A great track by Ghost Box's Advisory Circle off of 2009's A Psychedelic Guide to Monsterism Island compilation assembled by the marvelous Pete Fowler who is also half of the yacht-tastic Seahawks.
9. Seahawks - Hot Tub Flying the flag high for yacht-rock.
10. Harmonia - Ahoi! From the first Harmonia album (Musik Von Harmonia), which is what it advertises: Cluster plus half of Neu!

December 2011

1. The S.I.M.O.N.S.O.U.N.D. - Stairs 2 From the VCS3/tapeloop ringtone compilation on The Simonsound website.  Load them onto your phone and annoy your coworkers.
2. Talk Talk - After The Flood (Alternate Take)  I dug this out of the CD pile after reading this article and realizing that Talk Talk were five years ahead of their time.
3. The S.I.M.O.N.S.O.U.N.D. - Tour De Mars A great tune from the synthtastic Reverse Engineering album.  Also check out their great Tone Generation podcast (iTunes link) for a (fairly) complete history of 20th century experimental electronic music.
4. Electric Flag - Flash, Bang, Pow Off of the soundtrack for The Trip.  I'm not sure how this ended up in my mp3 vault, or why I haven't seen this movie yet.  I will have to rectify the latter.
5. Colin Stetson - Judges I hate taking musical advice from NPR, but I have to admit that this story turned me on to Colin Stetson's album.  There's some great footage of him performing here.
6. Francis Bebey - Bissau I found this on the always-interesting Acousmata blog.  These are some seriously blown-out lamellophone jams made two decades before Bjork got her hands on Konono No1.
7. Delia Derbyshire - John Peel's Voice If you are unfamiliar with Saint Delia, the internet is littered with sites praising her brilliance.  You can grab this track and a couple of others here.
8. The Bug - Catch A Fire Kevin Martin's massive dub project with Kiki Hitomi from the also-massive King Midas Sound.  Great video here.
9. Jigoku - Jigoku: A Visual Mixtape DVD (Trailer) I ripped the audio from this video, which doesn't appear to be available any longer.  DJ Cherrystones (warning: mySpace) did a great podcast series with Pete Fowler which seems to still be available here.
10. The Gaslamp Killer - When I'm In Awe Lo-fi goodness from the Gaslamp Killer with Gonjasufi on vocals.  Gonjasufi's A Sufi And A Killer also features the Gaslamp Killer.
11. Cassis Cornuta - Ddadtaddadta (Voorbeschouwing Voor Optreden, 2007) I think I found this on Raven Sings The Blues.
12. The S.I.M.O.N.S.O.U.N.D. - VCS3 12 Another ringtone from the Simonsound ringtone collection.
13. Kid Koala - Moon River I think this is from the Ninja Tune XX series.  According to Wikipedia, it is "legendary."  I think it's quite nice.

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