João Gilberto - João Gilberto (1961)

I've been in kind of a "chord progression" mood recently, which means lots of Bossa Nova has been clogging up my ear canals. I've been learning quite a bit about extended chords and, as such, I've been working on creating chord melodies through voice leading. However, putting theory into practice is a different story altogether. As much as I kind of understand all of this wonderful crazy beautiful bullshit, I'm still terrible at it.

It's good for me to listen to real dudes like João Gilberto and think "someday I suppose" about my own musical abilities. It's also good for me to try to focus my raging jealousy of João's brain wrinkles into concerted efforts to add more wrinkles to my own brain. But really, the snug green tones of this record warm even my cold soul, and I click for it every time I need a thaw.

"A Primeira Vez" tickles the minimalist you all know that I am. With just a guitar and voice, it is very easy to hear the chord melodies that I'm talking about. Notice the way that the guitar playfully dances around under the somewhat somber, drawn out melody. This juxtaposition of subtle sadness with ostensibly bouncy and happy chording short circuits my analytical nature with tepid saltwater and a I float away in a logic deprivation tank.

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I will be on tour with Weekend Nachos for the next two weeks, so no updates until I come back. If you live east of Chicago, check the dates and enjoy a punishing audiovisual experience. Also I'm looking to win new friends and influence them, so e-mail me todd.nief at gmail.com if you're coming to any of the gigs and you want to talk about records most civilians don't care about.

Camp Lo - Uptown Saturday Night (1997)

I've been listening to "Pot Casts" of my brother Stephen C. Kane's radio show recently, which has been a really good experience for me. Motherfucker had a 90's hip-hop "Cast," which is as directly up my alley as one can really be. So come into this alley with me. I'm not lonely, but I do want some company.

On said "Cast," Joel played Camp Lo's Luchini and it really got me thinking. As a youth into rap music, I really only liked the super dark, raw production of RZA, Mobb Deep, Boot Camp Clik, etc. I was familiar with Camp Lo, but, like a true countercultural teen, I found them boring & mainstream. However, since I'm now a much more eclectic consumer of music, I was surprised by how much I really really liked that dang Camp Lo song.

This is a different type of post for me, since I'm posting about something that is relatively new to me. I haven't listened to this record dozens/scores/baker's dozens of times. In fact, I'm listening to it for the second time as I type this, and I'll probably have played it a total of three times when this post "goes live." As such, I can't really isolate my favorite moments of the record and dissect what's happening because, man, I don't even know what my favorite parts of the record are! This shit is new to me, dogg! I will say that the production is phenomenal, and at least a few lines made me smile. Listen to this BIG BANGER, love it, download the record, live my life for me.

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Goran Bregović - Underground OST (1995)

Here is the soundtrack to one of my favorite movies. Periodically, I try to get into "film" or whatever, and I watch a lot of movies from my Netflix queue. Invariably, I find myself quickly losing patience with each movie I watch, and, as such, losing patience with "film" as a whole. It turns out that I am not well-wired for sitting passively taking in information. Anyway, Underground is one of the few movies that really struck a chord with me, in that I didn't at all feel like "why the fuck am I watching this I should really be doing something else." Not only that, but it nailed my skewed worldview, in which I find things that are not funny to anyone else beyond hilarious. Social tics and absurdist humor abound; if you ever want to know what kind of bizarro filter through which I view my interactions with other humans, Underground is a great place to start looking.

I feel associations with my memories of the film when I listen to this, which is how I think many people process music: in relation to significant memories in their lives. Usually, music is a very abstract "music for music's" sake with me, but, in this case, something is different, and the music is unequivocally tied to plotlines and scenes and characters. I am becoming a real boy after all.

I don't know a goddamn thing about Balkan brass music, but this shit is completely chaotic and awesome. A real sensory overload of nonsensical social dynamics, plotting, and deception. You're really gonna want to give this a try.

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Like Rats - Like Rats (2009)

So, I have this platform on the internet where people are interested in my opinion on music. As such, I've got to take this opportunity to tell you to listen to my own recordings. Besides, I wouldn't post it if I didn't think you'd like it. Half-hearted apologies to all of my friends on Twitter/F-book who've already been informed of this a few times. You'll be fine.

This is basically an example of me writing music that I want to hear, and what I want to hear is chromatic riffs at mid-paced tempos, but sometimes fast and sometimes slow. I love Tom G Warrior's signature riff composition style, and I tried to write riffs that evoke similar feelings without actually copying his techniques. There are a few self-imposed stylistic restrictions in order to keep the overall aesthetic within certain boundaries: no palm-muting, no double bass drum. Special attention was paid to the way that two primitive riffs compliment each other and create a relationship that makes each one significantly more interesting than if it were to exist on its own.

With love from me to you:

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While I'm talking about heavy Chicago bands, I also have to mention The Muzzler (Voivod, Morbid Angel, etc.) and Hate (newer Converge, except higher, more metal, and more pissed), both of whom recently put out new releases. The thing about these bands is that I would like them and listen to them even if I didn't even know them as people.

Z-Ro - Look What You Did to Me (1998)

If you couldn't tell from the title, this record is fucking hostile. Dedicated Primitive Future readers will already have good feelings towards Z-Ro from my Guerilla Maab post, or maybe you're already into the Screwed Up Click and depressed, angry rappers. (Please download that Guerilla Maab album if you didn't the first time. It is important. Thank you.) So yeah, throw in my UGK post, and you've got a few of the finest cuts and slices that Texas has to offer. And you're already listening to the Geto Boys and Scarface, right? Right?

Just so you understand what kind of cool guys we're talking about here, check out this insane story about the lifestyle of the DJ Screw and affiliates from one of the best blogs on the internet, Twankle and Glisten: "Once we get to the ground the doors open and we were all asleep in the elevator standing up."

Z-Ro raps really, really fast about one of my favorite emotions: melancholy. Death is embraced as a starting point for existence, with a nod to Biggie: I'm ready to kill, and I'm ready to die. Even as a suburban white growing up in safety and affluence, this concept was crucial to my maturation. Human notions of purpose have no relevance outside of our own minds, but the impetus to act still exists and must be embraced with the same fervor with which we fear our own impending demise. Todd Niefzsche.

Nobody loves me, but I prefer to keep it like that:

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Merauder - Master Killer (1996)

My friend Friel has never heard Merauder, so I made a promise to send Master Killer to him. Then, I figured I'd just send it to the rest of the internet as well.

This is death metal recontextualized as syncopated rock music. Nu-metal showed the world how guys with braids can do this in the worst possible way; Merauder showed the world how guys with braids can do this in a way that I like so much.

Merauder understands that the best way to make their listeners frown uncontrollably is to play at a steady, mid-paced tempo. There is some sort of evolutionary short circuit about heavy guitars with a backbeat at ~150 bpm that causes a severe frown reflex. Major thirds are prevalent, texturing riffs with a distinct flavor: Merauder's most recognizable moment, the big mosher at 1:57 in "Master Killer," makes use of this sound.*

You know, it's interesting that I like this record as much as I do, as the evolution of death metal and hardcore into stoogish w's downtuning their guitars and putting the kick drum on the "and" bums me the fuck out. However, sometimes it's just done really, really well. I am an adult, and this record regularly makes me see red and mosh in my bedroom.

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*Please watch this whole video. Thank you have a nice day.

Christodoulos Halaris - Tropikos Tis Parthenou (1973)

This guy attempts to recreate the music of Ancient Greece, which is extremely interesting. However, the internet search boxes of my life don't really turn up with too much when I try to find out more. I thought we were past these days of not being able to find everything instantaneously with a little bit of basic search engine know-how - information wants to be syndicated.

I did find that people are listing this record as psych-folk on Bay, and also expecting to get several hundred dollars for it. Whoa! I guess the third track has some cacophonous violins that could call up images of Warholian bananas for all the weird-beards spending their paychecks on every fuzzed out guitar solo ever put to wax. The really important part of this record is the impossibly catchy verse of the first song, which exists over a minimally strumming guitar. The chorus of the first song is also really rad, as microtones are used as embellishment on the line. I'd write more, but I'm going camping in order to get in touch with my own primitive roots. See ya never!

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Icecross - Icecross (1973)

This album is a total blogger wet dream. Whoa, underappreciated, anti-religious, fuzzed out psych rock From Iceland! Download and archive away!

But honestly, this record has a pretty great proto-metal vibe, as well as riffs, and, fortunately, the one song about being a sad guy is followed up with a song making fun of Christianity, which somehow still exists 36 years later despite the best efforts of Icecross.

Weird almost fusionesque riffing starts off 1999. Flirting with several different modes leading into a choppy, undulating verse. Also note the drummer's exuberant over-playing: crashing like crazy and making more than ample use of his toms. Works out quite well for the herky-jerky vibe of the song, if you ask me. Similarly, Scared makes excellent use of a plodding riff made up of fourths, which gives a nicely pseudo-dissonant sound to lead into another segment with very strange rhythmic emphasis.

Fans of Flower Travellin Band, Black Sabbath and/or Mountain, point your internet here:

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Celtic Frost - To Mega Therion (1985)

I wrote some music reviews for exciting current webzine Jettison Quarterly; click through for a rad interface, a really interesting Fischerspooner interview, and some of my inimitable writing. While you're at it, why not subscribe and have the next issue hand-emailed to your inbox, and also subscribe to my feed too because my numbers have been climbing recently and I'd like to keep it that way. Here's an outtake that just happens to be about one of my all time favorite albums:

There was a time when punk and metal were churning in a filthy, viscous primordial ooze with this lithe behemoth of a record lurking just beneath the surface. Celtic Frost took the chromatic, syncopated riffing of Discharge, dragged it down to the depths in their earlier incarnation as Hellhammer, and rose again with their own sliding power chord method that stands out immediately on all of their releases.

Melodies move through half-steps, syncopating emphasis in an intuition-defying rhythmic framework. Each phrase has its own conflicts and resolutions, as narratives are relentlessly pushed forward by a dizzying command of atonal melody and rhythmic intuition. Themes are created, then endlessly varied in the classical tradition. Sprawling song structures alternate between the near-ambient D-beat and the plodding Black Sabbath dirge, until all forces inevitably focus on a single theme as Tom G Warrior delivers his unparalleled primal prayers.

Slower tempos allow Celtic Frost to utilize longer phrases that move through chords like geologic eras. Planets collide and new forms of life evolve as each riff lives and dies on a scale that dwarfs individual human experience.

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Prince - Dirty Mind (1980)

It's time for the best album from one of my musical heroes. I decided the other day that I'm going to get into hanging out with celebrities. I mean, my friends are cool, but there are probably way cooler people out there, such as Prince, Ben Affleck, and Heather Graham (bombers). So yeah, attention all celebrities, why don't you come over and listen to records.

Prince's absurdly prolific output from the early 80s is unbearably, appallingly consistently great - a real monsoon of musical creativity and weird-ass grooves. I don't even know what to say about this other than if you don't like it, come over and I'll gladly cut your ears off for you. Idiot.

Underneath the layers of synth tones and guitar embellishments, these songs embody a stark "less is more" philosophy. Notice that Uptown is based upon the same chord progression for the entire song, broken only briefly for a pre-chorus, and structuring changes are brought about by changing instrumentation. As in the construction of human language, a collection of basic rules gives rise to infinite variations in meaning through recursive groove structuring and adolescent incest fantasies.

I usually hate the lyrics to just about everything, but I truly envy the voracious, animalistic sexuality represented here. Prince wants to bang more than I've ever wanted anything in my life, and that is something that rules. Another cool thing about these lyrics is that they are very offensive to those with morals and values. Here is a funny video of Zappa and other whites on Crossfire discussing censorship in the 80s. Sister features prominently in the discussion, which is actually one of Prince's best choruses, home to one of the catchiest, non-diatonic notes of all time.

Also I back Prince singing in falsetto almost the whole time. Really good move; totally maxes out the androgyny.

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Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Concerto for Flute, Strings & Continuo in D minor (1747)

Here's my boy CPEB, whose name I can never spell correctly - two 'p's at the end of "Philipp" and one 'm' in "Emanuel?" What was the ol' Johann Sebastian thinking?

Anyway, this is a great concerto for your mind. The introductory theme from Allegro is regularly trapped in my head, and Allegro di molto features some virtuoso playing that can't help but conjure up images of black stallions sprinting through snow-strewn forests, or something equally fast and full of implied conflict.

Counterpoint composition is not based upon the harmonic structuring typical of blues/jazz/rock music, but rather, is based upon independent voices and the relationship between the melodies that they create. I would like to understand how this relates to the scale-based models through which our brains interpret music, as, although compositions are often ostensibly in either minor or major, certain passages imply a variable tonic in a very interesting way. Let's see if I can nail an example. In Allegro, the piece starts out in minor, then the melody ascends through a variety of variations that all seem to imply a new tonic, before descending back into the original minor key for the next theme at 40 seconds. Someone give me a lot of money and I'll isolate specific 'riffs' and have people identify what key they are in. Then I will publish a paper in a peer-reviewed journal detailing the results.

Also interesting is how the strings and the continuo serve as timekeepers and keep the Allegro movement chugging along. Chug-a-lug, CPEB.

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PS The new Beherit record, entitled Engram, is great.

Barbecue Bob - Chocolate to the Bone

This is not the cold haunting of Skip James. This is motherfucking Barbecue Bob, motherfuckers, and he too is a guitar freak. Chords are practically eliminated on many of these recordings, and we are instead treated with BBQ's slide trickery. Check out Mississippi Blues, where he mostly follows the vocal melody before concluding the phrase with his trademark VI V VI I (also prevalent in Chocolate to the Bone that reappears in Jacksonville Blues).

I love the idea of having a catchphrase-style lick: Michael Jackson's "hee hee hee", Unleashed's first bar of all of their mosh parts. What a cool thing - if you can think of more share that shit in the comments.

Atlanta Moan is another great example of this tangy bastard following his voice with his guitar and inserting sparse chording as a driving backbeat - then jumping quickly into leads to transition from chord to chord in the 12 bar structure. Super secret family recipe lookin-ass.

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Sun Ra - The Nubians of Plutonia (1959)

My favorite music captures my fantasies and taps into mind worlds created by my subconscious, filling in the details on experiences never fully lived. Sun Ra, being one of my favorite locksmiths, has kindly opened many of these perceptual doors for me.

The Nubians of Plutonia, like many of Ra's works, is extremely percussive for jazz, bringing unsubtle, yet deceptively nimble rhythms to the forefront. Notice the bells and hard-hitting toms in Watusa - also notice the similarity to Brubeck's Take Five except in 6/8 rather than the notorious, infamous 5/8.

Africa is a great example of a real transporter of a track. I don't know if it's possible to listen to this song without dissociating from reality and having Ra's thoughts plastered all over your retinas. Once again, percussive hard-hitting toms provide the framework for textural, rather than melodic, improvisation.

The discord of Aiethopia and Africa, in contrast with the upbeat progressive big band sound of Plutonian Nights, shows Ra's all encompassing genius, as all of these songs unquestionably bear his mark. I am disappointed in everyone I know for not being as interesting as Sun Ra.

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Note: This is ripped from the CD reissue, which pairs The Nubians of Plutonia and Angels & Demons at Play. The track numbers don't start at one since I only posted the Nubians tracks.

Phuture - Acid Trax (1987)

I've been hitting these late 80's recently, which is pretty cool. Really good era during which to be barely alive. Man I had a tricycle and a wrap-around porch when this shit came out, now imagine all three combined. Got the life, my doggs, got the life. However, I was not yet a Chicago resident. No, I lived at the base of the Catskills, and I was a blue-eyed blonde with an ugly-ass New York accent. Lagwadia.

I usually think of 'psychedelic music' as a term with undeniably organic connotations, so experiences with acid house where samplers are used to hack into the hallucination centers of my mind and coat them with a bubbling, chirping effluvium are pretty great. I can't tell if Phuture is a good trip or a bad trip. Sort of a third way outside of the dystopia of Nekropolis and the pulsing bliss of Ash Ra Tempel. This is a new paradigm in which to experience the horrors and beauties of technology, and also in which to get naked with girls for a bit of the ol' in-out in-out!

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