34 minutes, 9 seconds

Ringtailed Snorter
Revealing Obstacles

More Ringtailed Snorter! Only this time, it's their first EP, a.k.a. the one with the less embarrassing title. All instrumental too, so no awkward lyrics that may or may not be about child abuse (see yesterday's post). Bit of a relief, to tell you the truth. Don't get me wrong; I enjoy music that traffics in ambiguity, but politically dodgy songs are way less ooky than songs about pedophilia, even if they're songs against pedophilia. Which I think they are. Aren't they?

Also today:

34:07 Hocico, Aquí y Ahora en el Silencio
34:03 Parzival, Anathema Maranatha
33:52 Code Industry, Method of Assembly
33:50 TWZ, B-Sides 0
33:49 Maelifell, Eternité
33:42 Covenant, Ritual Noise
New arrival! 44:30 Phragments, The Burning World
33:38 Amduscia, Mùsica de Ambientaciòn Demencial
33:33 Rising Shadows, Falling Deep Within
33:30 Grendel, Soilbleed
33:26 Dresden, Codex
33:25 Cranes, La Tragédie d'Oreste et Électre
33:25 Elijah's Mantle & Ozymandias, The Soul of Romanticism

35 minutes, 19 seconds

Ringtailed Snorter
Sexual Child Abuse

Ringtailed Snorter was a side project of André Schmechta's main band, X Marks the Pedwalk, and released only two EPs, this one (from 1993) being the most recent. Difficult subject matter to cover, as you can judge from the title alone--even for a dark electronic band. Making matters murkier is the lack of a lyric sheet in the CD insert, not to mention the fact that about half the songs are minimalist instrumental soundscapes.

The only lyrics I can really make out are those from part of the last song, "I Come to You," in which Sevren Ni-Arb (Schmechta's nom de musique) sings the phrase "And I love your small body." I can only assume (hope?) he's attempting to sing from the fucked-up perspective of a pedophile.

Interesting and--I desperately want to believe--brave stuff.

Also today:

35:10 In Strict Confidence, Engelsstaub
35:06 Autumn's Grey Solace, Within the Depths of a Darkened Forest
35:05 Hocico, Cursed Land
35:00 Dryft, Mytotyc Exyt
34:57 Cold Fusion, Elisabeth Bukez
34:46 Hexentanz, Nekrocrafte
34:44 In Strict Confidence, Babylon (CD 1 of 2)
34:42 Front Line Assembly, Vanished
34:41 Hocico, El Día de la Ira
New arrival! 56:26 Manufactura, Regression
New arrival! 51:09 Arbeit, Zum Einem Neuen Licht
34:34 Dive & Diskonnekted, Frozen
34:29 Storm of Capricorn, A Secret to Share
34:22 Estraya, The Time Has Come and Gone
34:22 Various artists, Scontrum, Act IV

35 minutes, 32 seconds

Lucus
Cantiones Filicatae

More fun with the anniversary of the CD. (And, yes, I'm shamelessly trying to wring out as many posts as I can from this topic.) Yesterday's New York Times arts section featured a blurb titled "Happy Birthday, CD" in which it stated (citing the BBC as its source) that the first CD to be pressed was not, in fact, Billy Joel's 52nd Street but rather Abba's The Visitors. And that it was manufactured at the Philips plant near Hanover, Germany, on August 17, 1982.

This jibes with Wikipedia's entry on the history of the CD, However, it doesn't match what Philips states on its own Web site, which is that the first CD to be pressed was a recording of Herbert von Karajan conducting Richard Strauss's Alpine Symphony.

So where does Sony get off citing 52nd Street as the first CD? Maybe it was the first one the company released on its CBS/Sony label, but not necessarily the first CD pressed. And maybe Sony merely elides over that fact in an effort to puff its chest over rival Philips.

In any case, I'm not about to get all Encyclopedia Brown on you. Suffice it to say that one of these three recordings was the first CD pressed. And I promise this is the last post on the subject. Tomorrow, back to writing about obscure recordings that neither Sony nor Philips would ever have allowed on their factory floors, much less pressed into CDs.

Also today:

35:31 Pimentola & Dead Man's Hill, Pimentola & Dead Man's Hill
35:23 Vomito Negro, Shock
35:22 Lycia, Wake
35:19 Cocteau Twins, Blue Bell Knoll
35:19 Kill Memory Crash, When the Blood Turns Black

New arrival! 43 minutes, 43 seconds

Revolution State & Noizekatt
Revolution State Vs. Noizekatt

Yesterday I mentioned that a Wikipedia entry on the history of the compact disc cast doubt on the legend that when the CD was originally invented, Sony and Philips decided it should be just large enough to fit Beethoven's 9th Symphony. That is to say, 74 minutes. This morning I went to the Philips Web site, which offers its own detailed account of the invention of the CD, and it affirms the story, attributing the length request to Sony's then-vice president (and Beethoven fan) Norio Ohga.

According to Philips's history, the CD was originally meant to hold a maximum of 60 minutes' worth of music, a few minutes more than a double-sided LP could contain. That meant the disc could indeed be "compact," at 11.5 centimeters in diameter. But accommodating Ohga's request meant expanding to 12 cm. Still pretty compact, if you ask me.

Unfortunately, Sony's history of the CD is much thinner on these sorts of details, preferring instead to focus on the dawn of the CD player, rather than the disc itself. However, it does note that the first CD release was Billy Joel's 52nd Street. Blecchh. Some choice. Imagine if the first book that rolled off Gutenberg's press had been The Da Vinci Code.

Also today:

35:35 Der Blutharsch, The Moment of Truth
35:34 Maelifell, The Summerlands
New arrival! 73:16 Slow Six, Private Times in Public Places

36 minutes, 5 seconds

C/A/T
ATF

So it turns out that today is the 25th anniversary of the compact disc, according to this article, filed by the Associated Press. Hard to believe it's been around that long already, and harder still to believe it remains the top-selling music format, even in this age of iTunes and illegal MP3 downloads. Not for long, though, as the article hammers home. Pieter Kramer, a retired engineer from the Dutch electronics company Philips (which, along with Sony, created the CD format in the '70s) says, "The MP3 and all the little things that the boys and girls have in their pockets...can replace [the CD], absolutely."

The article also tackles an age-old question, at least for this blogger: Why does the CD have an 80-minute maximum length? Details are sketchy, with some rumors pointing to the size of the disc (was it designed to be as large as a Dutch beer coaster?) and others alluding to one Sony executive who wanted the disc to be just long enough to accommodate Beethoven's 9th Symphony.

A Wikipedia entry on the compact disc throws some cold water on these rumors, pointing to competitive business maneuvering between Sony and Philips as the real reason for the ultimate length of the CD. It also mentions that "non-standard" CDs can contain up to 99 minutes' worth of music, but the compression needed to burn these kinds of discs makes for poor sound quality upon playback.

Fun stuff. Uh, at least to those of us for whom CD total time is an unhealthy obsession.

Also today:

36:02 Empty, Open Aeon
36:00 Current 93, Faust
35:56 Delerium, Euphoric
35:55 Current 93, I Am Black Ship
35:54 In the Nursery, Monumentum II
35:45 Corvus Corax, Congregatio
35:44 Chirleison, A Whisper
35:42 Unter Null, Sacrament
35:40 Darkly Pale, Darkly Pale
New arrival! 71:27 Von Thronstahl, Sacrificare
New arrival! 51:55 Marsen Jules, Les Fleurs

36 minutes, 45 seconds

Schattenschlag
Flashback

Getting down to EPs and singles territory, although many of these were officially released as full-length albums. Fair? Unfair? I posted about this topic a while back, so I won't repeat myself. Suffice it to say that even though I'm generally of the opinion that more music is better music, good things come in smaller packages: Most of my favorite CDs are clustered at the shorter end of the total-time spectrum.

I just wish I didn't have to shell out quite so much dough for them. [Grumble.]

Also today:

36:35 Dominion, Lost
36:31 Menticide, NME
36:29 Of the Wand and the Moon, Midnight Will
36:27 God Module, Victims Among Friends
36:27 Oxygen Law, Arbeit
36:18 Dead Can Dance, The Serpent's Egg
36:13 Dead Can Dance, Aion
36:09 The Smiths, Strangeways, Here We Come
New arrival! 58:48 Accessory, Holy Machine

37 minutes, 40 seconds

Horologium
A Handful of Dust

I tend to think of Horologium as a kind of Polish version of Autopsia. More experimental, but with the same sad view of history and a distinct avant-garde bent that can make for difficult, but rewarding, listening. It's all atonal piano, looping strings, chiming organ, and chattering samples, wrapped in a mysterious package with few, if any, clues as to what it's all about. At least with Autopsia you could frame the incredibly sad music against the backdrop of the brutal war that tore their native Yugoslavia apart. With Horologium, it's not so easy to assign themes or moods.

It can be martial, but not in the way, say, Arditi is. It can be folk, but not like Forseti. And it can be classical, but not like Regard Extrême. To Horologium's credit, by being all and none of those things, they've managed to carve out a unique space in a crowded genre. The music they create is sometimes harsh, sometimes pleasing to the ear. Challenging and listenable, which is harder to pull off than we might think.

Also today:

37:38 Advanced Art, Force
37:38 Angels & Agony, Forever
37:31 Leæther Strip, Suicide Bombers
37:27 The Retrosic, Messa da Requiem
37:26 Harold Budd, Simon Raymonde, Robin Guthrie & Elizabeth Fraser, The Moon and the Melodies
37:26 Ronan Quays, The Ebbing Wings of Wisdom
37:26 VNV Nation, Solitary
37:25 Max Richter, Songs from Before
37:15 Arcana, Dark Age of Reason
37:06 The Smiths, The Queen Is Dead
37:06 32Crash, Humanity
36:56 Project Pitchfork, Souls & Island
36:55 Gaytron, Phase I
36:46 xArkanex, Arcane Elitism

38 minutes, 15 seconds

Księżyc
Księżyc

Interesting experimental music from Poland, but I wonder whether I like it mostly for the CD packaging. Handmade, seemingly out of some sort of recycled paper mashed together with some other type of fiber, with images and photographs printed directly on the "paper" in ghostly fashion. It's got a curious texture, almost hairy. "Księżyc" apparently means "moon" in Polish, but that's all I can tell you about this mysterious band. Now if you'll excuse me, I must resume fondling the CD packaging.

Also today:

38:14 Wappenbund, Kinder des Lichtes
38:12 Sophia, Herbstwerk
38:10 Agonoize, Ultraviolent Six
38:10 Dead Can Dance, Spleen and Ideal
38:04 Gaë Bolg and the Church of Fand, L'Appel de l'Ankou
38:03 Arcana, Inner Pale Sun
37:58 Dominion, The Oracle
37:57 The Moon and the Nightspirit, Of Dreams Forgotten and Fables Untold
37:56 Compound, Compound
37:56 Selaxon Lutberg, Total Control in the Heart of the Sun
37:50 Lamia, Carnival of Lust
37:49 Karjalan Sissit, Miserere
37:47 Informätik, Direct Memory Access
37:47 Stoa, Porta VIII
37:46 Cocteau Twins, Heaven or Las Vegas
37:46 Einstürzende Neubauten, Berlin Babylon

38 minutes, 38 seconds

Der Blutharsch
Der Blutharsch

Albin Julius has always struck me as the neofolk movement's answer to Moby. Moby's innovation was to raid the Alan Lomax library of original American roots music (folk, country, gospel, blues) of the '20s, '30s, and '40s and weave it into his electronic tapestry of beats and synths and all manner of studio trickery. In the best tradition of a lot of techno DJs, the songs were more about the creator's record collection than about original composition. They were testaments to the power of pastiche. The supremacy of sampling. The conquest of collage. OK, I'll stop now.

In Der Blutharsch's case, Julius's frame of reference is obscure European classical and popular recordings of the '20s, '30s, and '40s. But the technique is similar, if a good deal less polished than Moby's hit-making approach. These old recordings form the basis--if not the entirety--of a lot of Julius's songs, making them not so much compositions as montages. But as with Moby, the source material is often so obscure that it sounds original. After all, this isn't like Vanilla Ice sampling the bass line from "Under Pressure."

In any case, Julius (who began to experiment with this approach in his previous band, The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath a Cloud) brought something new to the neofolk genre, something that hasn't been successfully imitated, though many have seemed to be trying. Lately he seems to be moving away from this method of making music, favoring more varied (and more "organic") instrumentation and a more song-like approach. But the early Der Blutharsch recordings on this album have an exhilarating lo-fi experimentalism to them, as if Julius knew that he had discovered something interesting but hadn't quite figured out what to do with it yet.

Also today:

38:38 Les Joyaux de la Princesse, Aux Petits Enfants de France
38:38 Skinny Puppy, Too Dark Park
38:37 The Sundays, Reading, Writing and Arithmetic
38:35 Placebo Effect, Manipulated Mind Control
38:34 Dive, True Lies
38:33 Kriegsfall-U, Kriegsfall-U
38:30 Accessory, Deadline
38:27 Necro Facility, The Room
New arrival! 57:58 HexRx, X
New arrival! 53:27 Liar's Rosebush, Circle the Squares
38:23 Robin Guthrie & Harold Budd, After the Night Falls
38:21 Various artists, Scontrum, Act II
38:15 Garmarna, Garmarna

New arrival! 50 minutes, 40 seconds

Amiina
Kurr

Drank a wee bit too much last night, so getting a late start today, and struggling with an upset stomach to boot. So Amiina's gentle Icelandic gurgling and twinkling is oddly apt--it sounds like my tummy. Ugh. See you tomorrow...

Also today:

New arrival! 40:06 Krill.minima, Zwischen Zwei und Einer Sekunde
38:38 Akron, Origins of the 7 Deadly Sins

38 minutes, 59 seconds

Paracont
Zoom

Who knew this was such a rare CD? How rare is it? I had a tough time finding an image of the cover online to help prettify this blog entry. That's how rare it is. But it's a testament to my dedication to you, dear readers (reader? Web-crawling bot?) that I ventured out into the wilds of the information superhighway to schlep back this album cover for your enjoyment. Actually, I just went to Discogs.com.

So anyway, Paracont: This is squarely European mid-'90s electro/EBM. It's the kind of thing you wouldn't be surprised to hear on the old Celtic Circle label. Paracont released two full-lengths, this one and a (lousy) follow-up called Xtra-1, plus a split EP with Klinik. And then they went away and haven't been seen again. Were they kidnapped? Eaten by sharks? Or worse, did they get jobs and wives and...kids? The horror. The horror.

Also today:

38:59 This Morn' Omina, Le Serpent Rouge
38:54 Arditi, Standards of Triumph
38:50 Death in June, Rose Clouds of Holocaust
38:50 Un Défi d'Honneur, Aurore de Gloire
38:49 Various artists, Scontrum, Act I
38:47 Dead Can Dance, Within the Realm of a Dying Sun
38:44 Darkwood, Heimat & Jugend
New arrival! 62:06 Cesium 137, Proof of Life

39 minutes, 15 seconds

:Wumpscut:
Dried Blood of Gomorrha

I woke up listening to this disc today. And, let me tell you, nothing gets your eyes open and your ass out of bed quite like the opener, "Black Death." As I got dressed, I was trying to recall whether these were the first recordings I'd ever heard from Rudy Ratzinger. Of course, these songs were originally released as two EPs, Dried Blood and Gomorra. (Not sure where the "h" came from when they were reissued in the U.S. as one disc.) But they were preceded by the Music for a Slaughtering Tribe album, which I might have bought first. Like I said, can't remember.

Regardless, what I do remember is my reaction when I first heard the music, and it wasn't unlike my reaction to first hearing Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in a record store in New York when I was home from college on winter or spring break or whenever it was (1991?). Nirvana was rock and roll, but they just did it better than other bands. And you could hear it immediately--they took the music several levels above what other bands were doing at the time. The lyrics were personal and vulnerable, but the music was hard. You could identify with Kurt Cobain's alienation, even if, like me, you weren't necessarily a grunge-music fan.

:Wumpscut: was similar: Who was this weird, mysterious guy singing about his mother? And yet there was nothing "emo" or wimpy about it; the music was unimpeachably aggressive and propulsive. "In the Night," a song about drugs, moves at a breakneck pace, but Ratzinger sings with so much raw feeling that you can't help being pulled in. It sticks in your head, despite having no real melody to speak of. "Crucified Division," another :Wumpscut: classic, accomplishes the same thing: Ratzinger uses his vocal phrasing and power to draw you in, just as Cobain did. And in some ways, as Current 93's David Tibet does, albeit in the service of a very different style of music.

So is Rudy Ratzinger the Kurt Cobain of industrial music? More people would probably argue that Skinny Puppy's Nivek Ogre is the Kurt Cobain of industrial music, but even at the height of Puppy's creative and commercial success, Ogre never sang with quite as much force as Ratzinger. Sure, Ogre and Cobain shared drug addictions, but there was often a layer of detached irony to Ogre's vocals. I didn't sense that from Cobain, and I don't sense it from Ratzinger. With Rudy, what you hear is what you get.

Also today:

39:14 Slave's Mask, Faustian Electronics & Bruise Poetry
39:12 Cephalgy, Moment der Stille
39:05 Harold Budd, La Bella Vista
39:05 Data-Bank-A, Spiritus Sanctus
39:02 This Morn' Omina, Les Passages Jumeaux: Le 33ième Degré
39:01 Grendel, Harsh Generation
New arrival! 54:34 Sigma Octantis, Invocations
39:01 Of the Wand and the Moon, Lucifer
39:00 Vomito Negro, Wake Up
38:59 Desiderii Marginis, The Ever Green Tree

New arrival! 75 minutes, 52 seconds

Diverje
The Distortion Chamber

Catching up with Diverje, the main project of DSBP label head Thomas T. Rapisardi, better known as simply Tommy T. Diverje was always on the periphery of my radar, but I thought their music was more guitar-oriented industrial. Not true, as it turns out. The more recent work, anyway, is EBM tending toward the "hellektro" that all the kids seem to like nowadays. Not bad. Not exactly envelope-pushing, and not dissimilar to what you might have heard from other American industrial bands such as Pygmy Children, THD, and Velvet Acid Christ. But tuneful and more thoughtful than some of the paint-by-numbers bands in Europe.

But what's with the Andrew "Dice" Clay samples?

Also today:

New arrival! 73:21 Diverje, On Skin
39:28 Selaxon Lutberg, Think
39:27 Fata Morgana, Fata Morgana
39:20 Dive, Behind the Sun
39:19 Dead Man's Hill, Legion
39:18 Dominion, Where Muses Dwell
39:17 Death in June, All Pigs Must Die
39:16 Love Is Colder Than Death, Oxeia
New arrival! 74:08 Homicide Division, No Tears to War

39 minutes, 36 seconds

Morrissey
Your Arsenal

I remember there being a bit of a lull between the previous Morrissey solo album, Kill Uncle, and this one. As it turns out, it was only a year, but it felt longer. And it's worth remembering that Kill Uncle wasn't terribly well-received when it first came out, either by critics or many fans. And then the first single from Your Arsenal was issued: "We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful." With its loopy chorus of "Ha ha ha-ha-ha ha," Morrissey seemed to be, in the words of one reviewer at the time, laughing at his fans.

But we needn't have worried. Your Arsenal is probably the best solo album he's ever put together. And, yes, "We Hate It When..." was a strange choice for a first single, because it was readily apparent that it wasn't even close to being the strongest track on the album. He'd go on to release three more singles from Your Arsenal, each of which, well, kicked the arse 'n' all of "We Hate It When..."

I've always had a soft spot for "You're the One for Me, Fatty." A trifle of a song, really, but fatally catchy and yet still tinged with Morrissey's trademark ironic mirth. There's also "The National Front Disco," which earned him a bit of controversy for its lyrics and his propensity to drape himself in the Union Jack when playing the song live. Are people that literal? Or have I been listening to Laibach so long that I can barely take anything literally?

Also today:

39:36 Ulrich Schnauss, Far Away Trains Passing By (CD 2 of 2)
39:34 Arditi, Spirit of Sacrifice
39:33 Sylvain Chauveau, Des Plumes dans la Tête
39:30 Single Gun Theory, Flow, River of My Soul
New arrival! 77:09 Diverje, Stitched

40 minutes, 1 second

Harold Budd & Brian Eno
The Plateaux of Mirror

Supposedly, a man landed on the moon in 1969. A tremendous and much-celebrated accomplishment. Yet human beings haven't been back to the moon since. Why not? And in the early 1980s, ambient musicians Harold Budd and Brian Eno recorded two albums together, The Plateaux of Mirror (1980) and The Pearl (1984). Both tremendous and critically acclaimed accomplishments. Yet they've done nothing together since. Why not?

It's a conspiracy, I tell you.

Also today:

40:01 IC 434, Dogondance
40:00 His Name Is Alive, Livonia
39:54 Morrissey, Vauxhall and I
39:53 Autopsia, Palladium
39:52 Modulate, Skullfuck
39:49 Infamis, Upiór
39:46 In Slaughter Natives, The Fifth
39:45 Bel Canto, White-Out Conditions
39:42 Run Level Zero, And Thus We Walked...
39:41 The Last Fall, Unknown Treasures
39:40 Caustic, Booze Up and Riot (CD 2 of 2)
39:40 Claustrum & Traur Zot, Return to the Past by Silence
39:40 Skinny Puppy, Remission
39:39 Mortiis, Ånden som Gjorde Opprør
39:37 Marsen Jules, Herbstlaub

40 minutes, 19 seconds

Artesia
Hilvern

Should a CD that runs only 40 minutes sell for the same price as one that runs 70 minutes? It's 30 minutes less music. I mean, often visual artists sell their smaller paintings for less than their larger works. Ditto for sculptors. And, yes, you could argue that painters and sculptors spend more on materials when they create a larger-scale work, whereas a CD is a CD--costs the same to manufacture whether it's 70 minutes or 40 minutes long.

But surely songwriting time, rehearsal time, and studio time cost more for 70 minutes' worth of music than for 40 minutes' worth. Yet that cost isn't reflected anywhere in the price of the CD.

I'm just saying.

Also today:

40:19 Dead Man's Hill, We Will Live for Eternity
40:19 Pinknruby, Garden
40:15 Arcana, The New Light
40:14 Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, Children of Nature
40:13 Various artists, Scontrum, Act VI
40:12 Einstürzende Neubauten, Strategies Against Architecture II (CD 1 of 2)
40:12 Pinknruby, The Vast Astonishment
40:11 Mediæval Bæbes, Worldes Blysse
40:10 Cocteau Twins, The Pink Opaque
40:09 Fortdax, Divers
40:08 Speaking Silence, Speaking in Silence
40:06 Splatter Squall, The Spell
40:04 Tor Lundvall, Empty City

40 minutes, 42 seconds

Sturm
Le Prix du Sang et des Larmes

With a title that translates to "The Price of Blood and Tears," this album is a bit of a letdown. For one thing, it sounds nothing like the violence promised by the group's name, and while there might be some tears to be found in the sad neoclassical arrangements of piano, strings, light snare, and tympani, there's no blood. In fact, there are times the disc sounds an awful lot like Regard Extrême riffing with a morose Dave Brubeck.

So, yes, it's a little...quiet. Low-key, if you will. Despite appearances, Wappenbund this is not. But neither is it boring. Sturm achieve a kind of simmering tension just below the surface that never quite explodes. There's a feeling of vague dread, and then the song ends. If you've ever seen a film by Michael Haneke, you have some idea of what I'm talking about.

In any case, it's yet another ear-catching release from the Polish label War Office Propaganda (which has apparently now changed its name to Rage in Eden). Poland: Where the pierogi are fat and the music is militaristic.

Also today:

40:41 Grendel, End of Ages
40:38 Max Richter, The Blue Notebooks
40:36 Toroidh, Segervittring
40:35 Sava, Aire
40:34 Reaper, Angst
40:30 Dive, Snakedressed
40:25 Tsunematsu Matsui & Anneli Marian Drecker, Song of Joy
40:22 Autour de Lucie, Autour de Lucie
40:20 Encryption, Secrecy

40 minutes, 47 seconds

Predella Avant
Carbon Figures

The other day when I was describing this blog to some friends, I was lamenting how the advent of the MP3, iTunes, and song-based (as opposed to album-based) downloading and listening has hastened the demise of the CD. And hence will eventually make the whole concept of "total time" irrelevant. So I called this blog, in part, "a requiem for the compact disc." Sheesh. Has listening to pretentious music made me pretentious, or do I like pretentious music because I am pretentious? You can't see it, but I'm wincing.

Also today:

40:46 Current 93, Music for the Horse Hospital
40:44 Cranes, Population Four
New arrival! 63:36 The Glimmer Room, Now We Are Six

41 minutes, 10 seconds

Strength Through Joy
Salute to Light (CD 1 of 2)

You may know Strength Through Joy a bit better under its current moniker, Ostara. But that's not to make it seem as if the band merely changed names. In fact, one of the members of STJ, Timothy Jenn, left the band, and now Ostara's sound more closely resembles a sort of fractured alternative rock. It's a far cry--too far a cry for me--from the Death in June-inspired neofolk of their releases as STJ.

"Strength Through Joy," you may or may not know, was the name of the government leisure organization in Germany during the Nazi years. Couple the band's name with its early association with Death in June, and whammo! Instant controversy. Protests by anti-fascist groups at their shows, constant "are you or aren't you?" questions from the press, and all sorts of other scrutiny. This despite the fact that Richard Leviathan (né Richard Levy), one of the band's founders, is part Jewish.

But such are the wages of trafficking in fascist and Nazi-era symbolism, as many other bands working in the neofolk genre have discovered. Play with fire, and...well, you get the idea. In fact, it always strikes me as funny when these bands whine so much about people's misinterpretations of their music, their clothes, their demeanor. I mean, what did they think would happen when they dressed up as Gestapo officers on stage, singing oblique lyrics about heroism and war? These are the same people who'd likely cross the street to avoid a group of black kids in baggy jeans and tilted baseball caps. So to say that appearances don't matter is disingenuous at best.

Still--and I've posted about this numerous times--I think it's the ambiguity that attracts me to this music. Are these bands truly fascist? I doubt it, at least in most cases. But unlike, say, Laibach, STJ, DIJ, and others aren't mocking fascism either. They're doing something subtler and more confusing. More fraught with danger and open to misinterpretation. It's either very brave or incredibly irresponsible.

Also today:

41:09 Laibach, NATO
41:07 Supreme Court, Hypocrites & Saints (CD 2 of 2)
41:06 Brian Eno, Music for Films
41:00 Arcana, Le Serpent Rouge
41:00 Miasto Nie Spało, Pieśni Żałobne
New arrival! 75:26 OTX, The World in Red
40:56 Hedningarna, Karelia Visa
40:56 His Divine Grace, Eurydice
40:56 Plastic Noise Experience, Transmitted Memory (CD 1 of 2)
40:55 Haven, Naos
40:51 Sophia, Sophia

41 minutes, 20 seconds

Angeltheory
Transmission

Last night I was out with a group of friends, and talk turned to blogging--who's doing it, why they're doing it, and how much of a pain in the ass it is to do it. Now, I'm a little shy about my blog, especially around friends. I mean, many of them know I have one, but I haven't sent them the link to it or really even talked about its content with them. Partly because we don't share the same musical interests and I think they'd find the contents dull, but also because I'm not entirely sure I even want friends reading this. It's not that I get personal here or anything--although on rare occasions I suppose I do--but that I'm just not sure this blog is worth anyone's time, perhaps not even my own. Let's face it: I'm not exactly writing literature here.

And yet I persist. Part of it is the whole obsessive-compulsive thing. Maybe instead of curing my compulsion to listen to my CDs in descending order of total time, this blog has merely added another compulsion to the pile: the need to blog every day and meticulously catalog what I listen to. It's a variation on replacing one addiction with another--for example, the phenomenon of alcoholics replacing their need for alcohol with a need to go to AA meetings. Or the heroin addict's replacing his need for heroin with a need for methadone. In my case, I've replaced nothing. I've simply accumulated more. I'm an addiction pack rat. Good thing I have a fear of needles.

At any rate, last night I described this blog in detail to friends for the first time, and I think it's only a matter of time before they find it. I'm making that out to be a bigger deal than it probably is, but there was some felt value on my part to writing this more or less anonymously, to some unknown (and mostly imagined) audience out there. (A little like Robert De Niro's character in The King of Comedy.)

One friend in particular seems fascinated by the idea behind this blog, but I can't help thinking he'll be massively disappointed in what he actually finds here. Like a lot of creative endeavors (if that's what this is), the idea is way better than the execution.

But the idea's--and the execution's--days are (literally) numbered. Forty-one minutes, twenty seconds. Probably a little more than a month to go.

Also today:

41:20 Cocteau Twins, Treasure
41:19 Autopsia, The Berlin Requiem
41:19 Einstürzende Neubauten, Strategies Against Architecture
41:18 Suicide Commando, Love Breeds Suicide
41:17 Rukkanor, Requiem for K-141 Kursk
41:16 Dominion, Battleground
41:14 Autumn's Grey Solace, Shades of Grey
41:12 Calva y Nada, El Peste Perverso Lleva Mi Peluca
41:12 Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson & Sigur Rós, Englar Alheimsins
41:12 Stark, Wield