Blog

http://rock-a-rolla.com/main/wp-content/cover36.jpg


On the cover: The mighty Corrosion of Conformityreturn with the classic Animosity line-up and their first album in six years!
Inside: Alcest, Dirty Three, Orange Goblin, Pontiak, Bushman's Revenge, A Whisper In The Noise, Christian Mistress, Disappears, Sulatron Records, Kelvox1, The Eye of Time, Wino & Conny Ochs, Locrian, Loincloth!
Plus! Helmet’s Page Hamilton talks Meantime in our Classic Albums series!
Plus! Over 100 album reviews including Earth, All the Saints, Alog, Oren Ambarchi, The British Expeditionary Force, Brokaw, blacklisters, Ceremony, Cloud Nothings, Craft, Erland Dahlen, Dodecahedron, Crippled Black Phoenix, El Doom & The Born Electric, Electric Moon, Errors, Guided By Voices, Fennesz + Sakamoto, Russell Haswell, Charles Hayward, Hanne Hukkelberg, Father Murphy, Jono El Grande, The Howling Hex, Black Bananas, King Giant, Landmine Marathon, Mark Lanegan Band, Lantlos, Liberteer, Eyvind Kang, Locrian & Mamiffer…

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2012/02/label_sampler_zum_records.php

By Sam Lefebvre Fri., Feb. 3 2012 at 8:59 AM

​Many local labels are offering obscure reissues and innovative new releases on all conceivable formats. Label Sampler is a new column that will profile a different Bay Area record company each week.

Name: Zum Record Company

Headquarters: Oakland

Owner: George Chen

Founded: 1997

Creation story: Similar to independent labels like Sub Pop and Touch & Go, Zum began as a fanzine. In 1997, George Chen and his sister, Yvonne, released a compilation as a companion disc to an issue of their zine, and their label was born. The musical climate of the late '90s was naturally much different than it is now, and Chen reminisces fondly over his memories as a wide-eyed, young label founder. "We never thought that we should split the magazine and the label into two things, because we thought that we would do all of these things forever. At that time, the distribution model was very different. …

garage/post-punk/psych-pop pranksters The Prefab Messiahs have a new 12" out on Fixed Identity called Peace Love & Alienation. Excavated 1982-83 tapes with fab remastered-for-vinyl sound! 2 songs produced by Bobb Trimble!

grab some free tracks here at their Last.fm page
stream the tunes at Bandcamp
buy the 12" from Fixed Identity (label run by Gary War & Taylor Richardson)
read the cool GET BENT! review
check the posts at Altered Zones
see some other press
like up The Prefabs on facebook

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
recommended for fans of:
Ty Segall, Thee Oh Sees, Television Personalities, Swell Maps, The Clean, The Monochrome Set, 100 Flowers, The Beets, Big Troubles, The Bitters, Bizarros, The Bizarros, Black Lips, Blank Dogs, Acid Baby Jesus, Christmas Island, Cloud Nothings, The Creation, Creaturos, Crystal Stilts, Dead Moon, doomstar!, Dum Dum Dum, Eat Skull, The Electric Bunnies, The Fall, fedavees, The Fedavees, Fire Engines…

Holy crap!

A full two-hour show! No basketball to pre-empt my show. I totally forgot how exhausting a full radio show is. It takes work being that charming for two hours. Wink wink.

I also played music:

Things that Are Square 1-19-12

(*) = New release

Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out of This Country - Let's Get Out of This Country

(*) Neverever - Wedding Day - Shake-a-Baby
Cub - Everything's Geometry - Come Out Come Out
Gossip - Careless Whisper - Live in Liverpool (For Demetra in Los Angeles, CA)
Bikini Kill - Rebel Girl - The Singles

(*) Eddy Current Suppression Ring - Boy, Can I Dance Good - So Many Things
Sex Church - Garbage in the Grass - Growing Over
Wire - I Am the Fly - Chairs Missing
Mala Strana - Love Is Over - Pyramid EP

(*) Claps - Across the Floor - Wreck
OCDJ - Smoke My Cheese - Hooray
Dan Deacon - The Crystal Cat - Spiderman of the Rings
Holy Fuck - Echo Sam - LP
Battles - Tij - Mirrored (For Mahala in Irvine, CA)

…

Welcome & HNY! и наконец-то почти правильный список :)

:▲: †he †øp 0f †he Pøp 20†† :▼:

001. Strom Noir - Dni Stratili Svoju Farbu [ambient, drone]
002. John Maus - We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves [lo-fi, experimental]
003. Earth - Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I [drone, doom]
004. Tropic of Cancer - The End Of All Things
005. Петля Нестерова - Baвилoнcкaя Бaшня 2xCD
006. Veronica Falls - Veronica Falls [lo-fi, noise pop]
007. Peaking Lights - 936 [psychedelic, lo-fi]
008. The KVB - Subjection/Subordination [post-punk, shoegaze]
009. Pulseprogramming - Charade Is Gold [idm, glitch]
010. Sunn O))) meets Nurse With Wound - The Iron Soul Of Nothing [doom, drone]
011. The Caretaker - An Empty Bliss Beyond This World
012. YoungTeam - Daydreamer
013. Burrrn - Blaze Down His Way Like The Space Show [japanese, shoegaze]
014. Boy Friend - Boy Friend EP [witch, lo-fi]
015. Ringo Deathstarr - Colour Trip [shoegaze, noise pop]
016. Broken Water - Peripheral Star
…

For the third time i am making my personal top 20 best albums of the past year, but this time i thought i make some changes. First of all, i figured out, that this article will be mainly viewed by english speaking audience, so i switched to english. Secondly, I will try to say a few words about every album on the list, what I haven’t done before. Finally, I decided to speak about big disappointments as well as my predictions for the following year at the end of my little article.
So, without further ado, let’s get started.

20. R.E.M. - Collapse Into Now
http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/174s/59815465.png
Released 1/3/2011
Played 20 times
This is some king of tribute to the band that no longer exists. Despite that fact, there is nothing special about this album. I mean, it sounds really nice and surely deserves the 20th position in this poll, but there are at least 19 better contestants this year. Sorry R.E.M. It was a good run.

19. Monkey3 - Beyond the Black Sky
http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/174s/62131739.jpg
…

1 Pulp 324
2 Wire 278
3 Parts & Labor 263
4 WU LYF 247
5 Belong 194
6 Radiohead 168
7 SchnAAk 140
8 Seefeel 139
9 The Constantines 128
10 Pixies 121
11 Working For A Nuclear Free City 120
11 A Sunny Day In Glasgow 120
11 Disappears 120
14 Fungi Girls 116
15 KEN mode 92
16 Minutemen 89
17 St. Vincent 83
18 Sonic Youth 81
19 dEUS 77
20 Sufjan Stevens 75
21 Shabazz Palaces 74
22 Mastodon 69
23 The Beatles 68
23 Destroyer 68
23 Menomena 68
26 Mission of Burma 66
27 David Bowie 65
28 Kurt Vile 64
29 Guided By Voices 63
29 Komplizen Der Spielregeln 63
31 R.E.M. 61
32 Boards of Canada 60
33 Talk Talk 59
34 Modest Mouse 57
35 Clinic 56
36 Devo 54
36 Talking Heads 54
36 The Monochrome Set 54
36 Flying Lotus 54
40 RJD2 53
41 Liars 51
42 Disco Inferno 49
43 Antony and the Johnsons 48
43 The War On Drugs 48
45 Ja, Panik 47
46 Do Make Say Think 46
46 The Beta Band 46
46 The Thermals 46
46 Liturgy 46
50 Kraftwerk 44

Jak co roku o tej porze zachciewa mi się muzycznych podsumowań. Jak zwykle powstaje moja prywatna lista, która śmieszy, szokuje i denerwuje innych, a uzasadnienia są totalnie „z dupy”. Ten subiektywny ranking płytowy powstaje głównie po to, abym za kilka lat mógł go przejrzeć i sam z siebie się pośmiać: „ jak mogłem czegoś takiego słuchać i w ten sposób pisać?!”. Subiektywny i dla mnie, więc po co go publikuję? Nie ukrywam, że liczę na dyskusję oraz spostrzeżenia. Może ktoś przeoczył ważne wydawnictwo płytowe? Może to ja coś przeoczyłem? Mam nadzieję, że każdy skorzysta na lekturze tekstu i ewentualnych komentarzy.

W porównaniu z rokiem 2010, przesłuchałem o około 30 płyt mniej. Przyczyniło się to tego wiele zdarzeń: awaria słuchawek, zgubienie słuchawek, awaria drugich słuchawek, oraz nieudana końcówka roku w której nałogowo słuchałem Małpy.

Również przez pewną niechęć do słuchania odkrytych zaległości w końcówce roku, nie udało mi się odrobić lekcji i w tym zestawieniu nie znajdą się płyty…