#l.i.e.s. records

[disease]

LEGOWELT // CHEVALIER ÉLECTRIQUE [LIKE A SONG FROM YOUR DREAM, MAY 2024]

[javiar]

L.I.E.S. Records

[burlveneer-music]

Manisdron - Body of Void

Full length double lp from drummer, Takafumi Okada of GOAT, straight from the depths of Japan delivering nine tracks of mutant technoid nowave teeth grinding body music. Fast paced, tense and focused motoric metallic drumming fueled by manic vocals which treads the line between the sonic equivalent of futuristic sci-fi nightmares or the remains of post apocalyptic metropolis' in flux. Full on intensity a bad trip in a seedy rock club, spiked drink stumbling, face hits ground glued to muck ridden floor boards, spinning out of control... eyes to the ceiling.. lights flashing as the music pounds you into an oblivion. This is "BODY OF VOID"!

[sagichus]

(L.I.E.S.)

[grrlmusic]

MANISDRON - Formalin

[vergaarbak]

Cienfuegos – A Los Mártires - A Los Mártires

Oldie Goldie.

[still-single]

Records I Am Glad to Have Found in 2023: Part 1

Instead of rufflin' whatever (feather) maybe it's better that there's just a place where I can tell you that my life is better for having found these records and having them within reach. Maybe you might wanna reach for them as well. Up to you! Maybe feel fortunate that I want to engage with Tumblr at all, but the 16 or so accounts who said (anonymously) that they miss my review content may get a kick out of all this, and see where my head's at now.

New records, not-new records, things I bought, things that were sent to me, things I bartered for. Fair play.

First up, this Beau Wanzer record that I wrote up a while back. I feel exactly the same about it. It's new as of January and there aren't many releases out there like it at the moment. Undead, shufflin' Beau hours. One of my favorite DJs and electronic musicians in Chicago, he really does not seem to walk any path other than his own.

Al B. Sure! - In Effect Mode LP (Uptown/Warner Bros., 1988)

Growing up in my early teens, two songs from Al B. Sure!'s debut album were more or less inescapable: the masterful slow jam "Nite and Day," and the more uptempo quasi-diss track "Off On Your Own (Girl)." I never owned the record (why would I, this always seemed like a "why buy the cow" situation), and it never seemed to turn up used, something I better understand now.

This thing is great! It's short, mindful of our time and Al's. Side 1 contains four slow jams (the Nite! side), kicking off with the classic "Nite and Day" (so much rooftop glare and World Trade Center fixation in the vid) and cascading down into the whisper/falsetto/snap percussion ballad "Oooh This Love Is So" (kinda like an older brother NKOTB slow jam, really well arranged, FM synths cresting over top with some tasteful guitar buried underneath). His take on Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly" is doctor's office soft, but works where the Fugees' take doesn't, as Al seems to know there's no improving on the original, and he's lucky just to put it in his framework. "Naturally Mine" is like the shadowy flipside to the majesty of the opener, and doesn't come close, but also doesn't need to; the Teddy Riley guitar work does a lot on its own.

Side 2 (the Day! side) turns on the lights for some more uptempo New Jack Swing template jams. Opener "Rescue Me" sounds like two songs that were somehow merged into one, but that may just be the tonal difference between the intro and verse structure.

"Off On Your Own (Girl)" is neatly, nearly perfect, with quiet, pressurized syncopation, Al's bellyache storytellin' (sits by the phone a lot, it seems), and a delivery, particularly in the chorus, which says so much more than the title states. I'm particularly enamored of his switching between judgmental sing-speak/orchestra hit stress and his bracing falsetto. On the stremf! He even throws us a Slick Rick impression in a bridge. Last two tracks seem interchangeable but that's fine; you don't serve surf after the turf, even if you're coming in hot with bass pounds.

Uptown is generally a welcome sign of quality for this time and place; from Al to Heavy D., Guy to Jodeci. Andre knew what was up. Cool cat logo too.

Honestly there are probably other Al jams worth seeking out, and of course his performance in New Jack City when he fingers Ice-T as a narc with those Bert eyebrows of his. Most people don't hit this sort of success right out of the gate, and that's the needle he threads so effortlessly here.

Ron Morelli – Heart Stopper 2xLP (L.I.E.S., 2023)

Ron was one of the first people I met when I moved to NYC in 2000, and for a while I was regularly having lunch with him, Steve Roche, Adam Paterson, and Matt Smith at the Uptown Juice Bar in lower Manhattan, when we were all working in some sort of office and/or dot-com capacity, going to ABC No Rio and the like. I'd fall in and out of that orbit for a while over the next 6-7 years, as bands formed and broke up, people worked up their DJ chops, etc. At some point Ron moved down to Philly and was grinding in a more formal club DJ capacity before coming back to NYC and starting L.I.E.S., living in the trap, and working at A-1 in the East Village. It wasn't easy, even in that orbit, to find the L.I.E.S. releases, but the quality was always there.

I fell off a bit due to life and the like, missed a lot of Ron's Hospital output (as well as a lot of later L.I.E.S., again due to life stuff; the last one I gripped from the initial run was Florian Kupfer's Lifetrax), and last I knew he had relocated to Paris. Living in Chicago has given me more of an opportunity to interface with house music as it happened, with proximity to the records and DJs in clubs, to where it started to click with me. Heart Stopper retains this same sort of focus, drilling down on the repetition and stress/release of the foundational cuts of the initial era. My fave here is "Tangled Trap of Love," a big nod to Master C & J's "Face It," but I've found myself putting this record on and letting it roll to the close more often than most I've favored this year. Didn't make it to the Podlasie Club back in May, but I did appreciate this (paywalled) interview in the First Floor Substack, the guy I remember so well playing stoically to the bozos up front, dialing down style to the horizon where it meets substance and accepting nothing less.

(Doug Mosurock)

[radiophd]

silent servant -- solitude illuminated

[disease]

BREAKING THE FLESH BROKEN ENGLISH CLUB [THE ENGLISH BEACH, 2017]

[mixamorphosis]

Blog post and linked up tracklist [HERE]

Tracklist

Nick Mackrory - Zulu - (Colona Records)

Scientific Dreamz Of U - Mystic Revelation Of Science - (Bokhari Records)

Ford Inc. - Delirium - (Throne Of Blood)

Cetranger - Spear Words - (Vernal Records)

Farbror Resande Mac - Drakryggen - (Is It Balearic?)

Jonny Nash - Phantom Actors - (Melody As Truth)

Gunnar Haslam - Ajapajapam (Version) - (L.I.E.S)

Mugwump - Doobie Shine Trouble - (Subfield)

Gaussian Curve - Impossible Island - (Music From Memory)

Cass. - Forest + Deer - (Emotional Response)

The Unknown Cases - Masimbabele (Justin Van Der Volgen Remix) - ([Emotional] Especial)

Stratus - Axis - (Aficionado Recordings)

Mushrooms Project - Obsession - (Uber)

Holy Other - Yr Love - (Tri Angle)

Baby Alpaca - Sea Of Dreams (Turbotito Remix) - (Music For Dreams)

Len Leise - Ryoshi's Garden - (Aficionado Recordings)

Eddie C - The Touch - (Red Motorbike)

Download available via [Hearthis]

[inthewindtunnel]

Fabio Monesi

Moonriver

(vocal mix)

Piano Vandals

-album-

[still-single]

Halfway Point 2023

halfway 2023 best ofs baker's dozen:

Wireheads – Potentially Venus (Tenth Court)

Meg Baird – Furling (Drag City)

FACS – Still Life in Decay (Trouble in Mind)

Connections – Cool Change (Trouble in Mind)

The Tubs – Dead Meat (Trouble in Mind)

Beau Wanzer – A Dead Person's Monologue (iDEAL Recordings)

Ron Morelli – Heart Stopper (L.I.E.S.)

Life Expectancy – Decline (Iron Lung)

Sharp Pins – Turtle Rock (self-released)

Jana Horn – The Window Is the Dream (No Quarter)

Water Damage – Two Songs (12XU)

Chain of Flowers – Never Ending Space (A L T E R)

Ulrika Spacek – Compact Trauma (Tough Love)

reissues/archival lucky 13:

Milford Graves – Children of the Forest (Black Editions Archive)

The Particles – 1980s Bubblegum (Chapter Music)

HEAVY METAL – IV: Counter Electrode Iron Mono (Total Punk)

Arthur Russell – Picture of Bunny Rabbit (Audika)

Shizuka – Heavenly Persona (Black Editions)

The Sheaves – Excess Death Cult Time (Minimum Table Stacks)

Tyvek – Blunt Instrumentals (Gingko/Doubles Tapes)

Tolerance – Divin / Anonym (Mesh-Key)

Comet Gain – Mess Music for Bruised Hearts (self-released)

Laurie Styvers – Gemini Girl: The Complete Hush Recordings (High Moon)

The Dark – Dressing the Corpse (Scat)

The Flowerpot Men – 1984 (Demon)

The Toms s/t (Feel It)

(Doug Mosurock)

[cyborgmarx]

January 2023

4x4

This path month has been a month of fresh starts. I've recommenced a pretty consistent listening habit, so there's been a lot more new music that I've been introduced to lately. Plus, I looked into some albums I've been meaning to give listens to for a while.

Astrud Gilberto's Talkin' Verve (1998) takes the cake this January (and December, really) for my favorite album. Talkin' Verve is a smooth compilation of Astrud's finest samba and bossa nova works over the course of her career. Many of the tracks were tracks I hadn't heard before. Astrud's voice is as iconic, lovely, simultaneously wistful and brilliant as ever all throughout. My two personal favorites from this one: "Call Me" and "Summer Samba (So Nice)" featuring Walter Wanderley.

Carrying me through some darker days has been a cult classic of the ska punk world, Sublime - Sublime (1996) has been an incredible recent find for me. I know I'm a little late to the party, but it was only when my friend forced me to listen through the whole album (and not just "What I Got") that I came to realize the appeal. Relaxing, but grimey. Hardcore, but also tranquil. Greasy. Very, very greasy. And yet, somehow, very refreshing. There are plenty of favorites on this one, since track after track is just phenomenal. But if I had to choose one to rule them all, it's "Jailhouse."

Two listens that have been inspiring for my own music efforts recently are Saetia - Collected (2001) and Neil Perry - Lineage Situation (2003). Not sure if I can choose a favorite between the two, they're both outstanding screamo albums. I definitely would say I prefer Neil Perry's vocalist, but Saetia had a wider instrumental tone. From Collected, "Woodwell" stands out as a favorite.

Starting off this year has been hectic and busy. Fitting for that are these EPs released by L.I.E.S. (Long Island Electrical Systems) Records, perfect outsider house music for the rush of the day-to-day. Maybe that's just me, though. I must inform you that I am from Long Island. Malvoeaux - Targets (2010) and Willie Burns's self-titled EP are excellent and tend to grow on you with more listening. Above all, though, my current favorite from the L.I.E.S. collection is Legowelt's Sark Island Acid (2011) - subtle, clean, enigmatic house music.

Some honorable mentions - Phyllomedusa - Fijian Fantasies (2019) is some wild goregrind mixed with traditional tropical music. It's kind of scary. SZA - CTRL (2017) was some seriously heartclenching modern R&B. Still lyrically relevant, honestly: check out "Love's Galore."

I was REALLY addicted to Babyxsosa's Everywhereigo (2019) for a long time. Super addictive cloud rap beat and hypnotizing vocals. The same goes for YUNGCYBERPRINCESS & Threat333 - TOPIC (2020). The only complaint I have about these two singles is that they just weren't long enough.

background image credit: @abstraktr

[radiophd]

ron morelli -- house music revenge