Oh look, more Vivian Girls

Vivian Girls - Everything Goes Wrong

Less than a year after their 23-minute-long debut, the girls have released their followup. It's twice as long, twice as fun, and a lot sadder. They continue to pump out speedy, simple, 60s-girl-group-inspired melodies and lovelorn lyrics, in a wall of craftless shoegaze noise. Everything Goes Wrong picks up where their S/T ended, heartbroken, with occasional exceptions. It's hard to pick favorites on this one, because every song's terrific. But as usual, I asterisk my personal favorites.

01 Walking Alone at Night
02 I Have No Fun*
03 Can't Get Over You
04 Desert
05 Tension
06 Survival*
07 The End*
08 When I'm Gone
09 Out for the Sun*
10 I'm Not Asleep
11 Double Vision*
12 You're My Guy
13 Before I Start to Cry

Yello - Live At The Roxy N.Y. Dec 83

Grab in MP3 on Mediafire (-V0 VBR).

This is an official maxi-single of Yello's appearance at the Roxy in New York City. It's a long medley consisting of snippets from their early works including "Bostitch." The performance is surreal and hypnotic.


Track:

1. Live At The Roxy N.Y. Dec '83 (15:00)

The performance can be seen on YouTube too. Watch as the mustaches lull you in a trance...
Part 1 and Part 2

Yello is best known for their song "Oh Yeah" in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. If you enjoy Kraftwerk-like instrumentation with song lyrics that fit perfectly in film noir soundtracks, Yello hits that spot.

Minimal Compact - Returning Wheel (Classics) [2003]

Get the MP3 album (-V2 VBR) at Mediafire.

Minimal Compact were one of those new wave/post-punk/experimental bands that nearly touched mainstream success. Unfortunately, due to internal struggles inside the band, coupled with their absence from a couple of crucial venues for promotion kept them from the top. The band members fled Israel for Amsterdam and Brussels due the mounting tensions from war. Nonetheless, they are still regarded as one of the most successful contemporary rock groups from Israel.

What you find here is self-described non-musicians (with the exception of Berry Sakharof, who was a professional guitarist) creating refreshingly honest dark and experimental music. You can read more about them at Trouserpress, Wikipedia, and SwimHQ.

The album featured here is Disc 1 (Classics) of their retrospective anthology called Returning Wheel. Most of their albums are hard-to-find, but this release is relatively easy to find. The rest of the box set contains remixes and rare demos. The remixes are considerably different from the original songs, so it's definitely a different animal compared to the first disc of the set. Read more and purchase the set in various formats at Crammed Discs.

Discogs Info

Tracks:

01. Dedicated (unreleased) (5:03) [YouTube clip]
02. Statik Dancin' (3:42)
03. Babylonian Tower (3:33)
04. Creation Is Perfect (I Am A Camera) (4:21)
05. Next One Is Real (3:47) [Disc O' Dell extended remix on YouTube]
06. Not Knowing (4:06)
07. New Clear Twist (4:49) [YouTube clip]
08. The Howling Hole (3:19)
09. Burnt-Out Hotel (3:56)
10. I Imagine (4:10)
11. Autumn Leaves (4:25) [YouTube clip]
12. Returning Wheel (4:30)
13. Disguise (4:44)
14. When I Go (3:16)
15. Piece Of Green (5:18)