Amusingly droll lo-fi art-rockers...A collection of rough edged, twitchy songs that has them sounding like a sardonic Modern Lovers with a large dose of Northern Grit....Intro, Hospital List #1 and Simple Pleasures all spark with raw energy.
While I've been reading the forum for a while now, I only just signed up so I can offer this Amie Street recommendation. This was a blind buy for me some time ago, but I have to say that of all the many hundreds of albums I've gotten from Amie Street over the last couple of years it may be my single favorite. Still not sure how to embed the link properly, but here it is: "This World, Then the Fireworks" by The Witch Hazel Sound. I can't think of any better way of honoring the demise of Amie Street than to recommend this wonderful album to you.
Curse Toast free; drifting freak and fuzz with a folky gate and an electric buzz. Space Mandino under 50 cents; what you get when you give an extraterrestrial some string instruments, cable tv and a folkways box set. Gifford Pinchot free; husband and wife team doing a rustic prog/fuzz/folk thing similar to early 70s band tractor. Perfect for sitting on the front porch of an abandoned farmhouse, in the middle of nowhere, during a particularly nasty Midwestern thunderstorm. Excellent stuff Wits End free; primarily guitar, bass and drums flailing away at a gathering of notes; recommended to those who fall asleep during In Memory of Elizabeth Reed from Live at the Fillmore The Billion 30 cents; fuzzy acid blue garage funny boys singing songs about meat men and offering to be your Jimmy Page or Rick James-your choice. Every song has frog prints on it. Heckle free; oddball prog that can put a crick in your neck. Pretty good Undercover Bonobos free; punk-a-billy Andy Santospago free; Brian Wilson smiles, Paul McCartney whimsy and Paul Simon reflection
Particularly for BrighterNow and Kargatron: The Raw and the Cooked by Temperamental Trio--currently free. From AllAboutJazz:
The Temperamental Trio is a unique outfit on the Israeli jazz scene (all three players are part of the Jerusalem Kadima Collective), and not just because of its members' rich and international background. American-born baritone player Stephen Horenstein is associated with sound innovator Bill Dixon and is one of the most valued musical educators in Israel. Bass and electronics player Jean Claude Jones began his musical career in France and the US, before moving to Jerusalem. French science researcher and laptop player Loic Kessous, who resides now in Israel, is a constant feature in many alternative musical happenings.
The working process sets apart this trio. Weekly spontaneous free improv meetings among all three players were documented, than manipulated by Kessous on his laptop and later edited into short pieces by Jones and Horenstein. This time-consuming process did not affect the fervent vitality and subversive tone of the Temperamental Trio's debut, Raw and the Cooked. The trio succeeds in creating a shared textural language and extending the sonic capabilities of instruments like the baritone sax and the bass.
The Temperamental Trio expands current experiments in the latest forms of electroacoustic improvisation, as documented by labels like Erstwhile Records and For 4 Ears (and I doubt if the members of this trio are aware of these sonic experiments), still keeping an organic flow in the music. All of the seventeen tracksonly two are over four minutes longfocus on a single theme or a line, allowing the process of manipulation to expose its many facets.
Horenstein, who unfortunately rarely records, presents his rich and imaginative vocabulary on the baritone, from dry drone sounds through windy flute-like whistles and angry shouts to Middle-Eastern percussive sounds. Jones enjoys such improvised chaos and instigates the trio to explore extremes with extended bass techniques and effects. Kessous adds surprising, alien soundscape manipulations that push the musical envelope of this trio further.
Sometimes the sophisticated process and hi-tech instruments result in soundsas on "Slow Day"that were already investigated by such vintage electronic outfits as the early Tangerine Dream, and sometimes Horenstein's shrieks and growlsas on "Mucho 2"sound like they're referencing some of the most introspective moments of another sound explorer, Swedish reed player Mats Gustafsson. But on most of the tracks, the Temperamental Trio follows its own adventurous course, invented by three daring and restless souls who manage to transform their sonic collisions into a bold statement of creativity.
Has anybody been able to purchase anything from AmieStreet this morning? All I'm getting is the 'could not process your order, try again' screen ad infinitum.
Well my day set aside to cash out came and went without being able to buy anything... hopefully, I will have the opportunity to cash out today or tomorrow.
We are having technical issues due to the high volume of visitors but we have fixed the issue and you should now be able to use Amie Street as normal, including browsing, purchasing and downloading.
Frogkopf, any luck making any purchases recently? I was able to get some through earlier this morning but about an hour or two ago it seems their pricing server went south again.
...and new stuff has started dropping again. As soon as I successfully make purchases again I'm gonna clear out my shopping cart and download those last purchases and try not to look back.
Yeah, I managed to spend the last $1.60 of my $1.77 in rec credit this afternoon; it took repeated tries to get the purchase to go through but the download went smooth. I feel for the people with actual money tied up and unable to purchase anything. :-/
I've had over 60 albums in my cart for a couple of days and have tried to cash them all in at once (and individually) every few hours since. They finally went through at about 9 am CST, and promptly directed me to Paypal to put $3 more in my account, since a few of the albums increased in price. Not wanting to take a chance at losing the cash-out window, I added the money, rather than taking a chance by deleting something out of my cart. It went through and everything downloaded ok when I got to work. 5 minutes later, the buying went down again.
To make my selection quicker, I basically picked out 30 kranky albums, 30 Metropolis albums and a few others I had my eye on. I'm sure I now have more KMFDM, Suicide Commando, and Velvet Acid Christ than I will use in a lifetime, but that's life......
Did you get it at 50% off? That's the message I saw this 4am - add money to my account and take advantage of the 50% off sale. And their overloaded servers.
Farewell and adieu to you Try Again windows - finally, miraculously, got to buy that Walter Trout album I've been trying to buy for 4 days. Added another Reefer Blues album because it was the first thing I found at the right price point and I'm done. If the site's not wonky tonight I've got a couple of dollars of 1 or 2 cent Recs I haven't cashed out but I don't know if I've got the strength to wrestle this beast any longer. Vaya con Dios, Amie, it's been grand.
Comments
While checking out some of the freebies, I found this labelmate of Bocca that sounds good:
Swiss Guards - Once The Process (currently free)
The Wire September 2004
http://amiestreet.com/music/the-witch-hazel-sound/this-world-then-the-fireworks/
Space Mandino under 50 cents; what you get when you give an extraterrestrial some string instruments, cable tv and a folkways box set.
Gifford Pinchot free; husband and wife team doing a rustic prog/fuzz/folk thing similar to early 70s band tractor. Perfect for sitting on the front porch of an abandoned farmhouse, in the middle of nowhere, during a particularly nasty Midwestern thunderstorm. Excellent stuff
Wits End free; primarily guitar, bass and drums flailing away at a gathering of notes; recommended to those who fall asleep during In Memory of Elizabeth Reed from Live at the Fillmore
The Billion 30 cents; fuzzy acid blue garage funny boys singing songs about meat men and offering to be your Jimmy Page or Rick James-your choice. Every song has frog prints on it.
Heckle free; oddball prog that can put a crick in your neck. Pretty good
Undercover Bonobos free; punk-a-billy
Andy Santospago free; Brian Wilson smiles, Paul McCartney whimsy and Paul Simon reflection
At least the cart still works - I guess I'll have to choose what I want and try every few hours to actually buy it.
N/A in Region :-(
- Thanks anyway.
We are having technical issues due to the high volume of visitors but we have fixed the issue and you should now be able to use Amie Street as normal, including browsing, purchasing and downloading.
Sorry about that, Steve - we had to re-start our pricing server.
The site should be working now and we'll be keeping a very close eye on it during the few remaining days.
Best,
Eric
I've had over 60 albums in my cart for a couple of days and have tried to cash them all in at once (and individually) every few hours since. They finally went through at about 9 am CST, and promptly directed me to Paypal to put $3 more in my account, since a few of the albums increased in price. Not wanting to take a chance at losing the cash-out window, I added the money, rather than taking a chance by deleting something out of my cart. It went through and everything downloaded ok when I got to work. 5 minutes later, the buying went down again.
To make my selection quicker, I basically picked out 30 kranky albums, 30 Metropolis albums and a few others I had my eye on. I'm sure I now have more KMFDM, Suicide Commando, and Velvet Acid Christ than I will use in a lifetime, but that's life......
My finally final purchase (I got weak and dropped another $10 last week): the track Ethiopia/Lower Ground from Bill Laswell.
So long, Amie. I have almost three weeks of music thanks to you.
Did you get it at 50% off? That's the message I saw this 4am - add money to my account and take advantage of the 50% off sale. And their overloaded servers.
Wait, what am I saying, clearly, it's time to get a bigger disk.
edit: Holly carp, I made over 3 bucks on the recs I threw to the wind the last time a few albums dropped.
Final Balance: $.01...Dr. Mutex, I agree - you need a bigger disk!
What I want is a USB-powered portable exHD.
I did manage to get about 11,000 tracks for about $100 total cash input in about a year.
Condolences Daytripper on losing your favorite store. It wasn't my favorite but I will miss it.
- They are still adding new music.
I left $.02 behind.