Noise for Zeros

Jumping Out The World / Instinct / Teach Death A Lesson CD
Alternative Tentacles, 1991

When you think of Jello Biafra, his antagonistic spoken word tirades and cult status as the brain behind the Dead Kennedys are the first thing to come to mind. However, it should also be noted that the man is a fanatically obsessed and rabid collector of music. I once witnessed him tear through the beloved stacks of wax at Love Garden Sounds with the deftness of a librarian on crank, nabbing an armful of choice selections all while bullshitting with the starstruck locals. And if you’ve ever read the second volume of the fantastic RE/Search Incredibly Strange Music books, you’d know exactly how hardcore a vinyl hound he is. So it should come as no surprise that this area of expertise has resulted in some of the more interesting documents of “punk” music from his Alternative Tentacles label, resulting in absolute classics from the Butthole Surfers, Flipper, The Crucifucks, Alice Donut, Victim’s Family, Phantom Limbs, and many more. Yet among all those well-known groups lurk some overlooked monsters. I found this CD reissue of this Hungarian band’s 1988 and 1990 LPs for a measly dollar in a cutout bin years ago and it’s easily one of my favorite records from the entire AT catalog. With over an hour of wild, tranced-out heavy psych glazed with shamanistic howls echoing at High Rise/Mainliner levels in the blissed out format of krautrock disciples like Wooden Shjips, this disc continues to get better—and weirder—with age. Although the Neurot label had the good sense to put out Dancing with the Sun in 2000, these early records have yet to garner the praise they deserve and have remained out of print for quite some time.

DOWNLOAD:
Galloping Coroners – Jumping Out The World+ CD (94.1MB Zip file)

LINKS:
Galloping Coroners website
Galloping Coroners on MySpace
Galloping Coroners page at Neurot Recordings

Mr. Devil CD
Third Gear, 1998

Have a taste for dark, atmospheric, spaced-out trance rock? Then you need to aquaint yourself with the out-of-this-world tunes of Detroit’s Keir McDonald, aka Medusa Cylone. This relatively unheard classic from the late ’90s is essential listening, with a slight krautrock influence, warm analog electronics, and layers of ethereal effects-laden guitar. And where many similar-minded groups tend to get a bit monotonous from setting up a nice repetitive groove, Mr. Devil never gets boring as its songs are masterfully constructed to expand and contract and pull the listener in with an unending palette of pulsating exotic guitar, heavily-processed samples, and other sinister aural oddities. If your iPod is full of tracks from Loop, Hawkwind, Spacemen 3, F/i, Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, or even the sample-happy urban sonic decay of Illusion of Safety or tense clang of Sonic Youth’s quieter moments, chances are this album will be of interest to you.

DOWNLOAD:

Medusa Cyclone – “The Smith Can”
Medusa Cyclone – “Invisible World”

LINKS:

Medusa Cyclone on MySpace