Brian Eno/Robert Fripp - No Pussyfooting (1973) and Boredoms - Seadrum/House of Sun (2005)

These are two albums I put on when I want to be able to concentrate on something else and need some kind of background noise...also, combined, they are probably 4 of my favorite songs (each album has just 2 tracks). No Pussyfooting was recorded by Brian Eno (on the cusp of quitting Roxy Music and just months before his first "proper" solo release Here Come the Warm Jets) and King Crimson's resident "genius guitarist" Robert Fripp over the course of three days. Eno supplied manipulated tape loops of synthesizers etc. and Fripp just kind of noodles over it on his guitar. It should be awful but it's really not...Eno's loops prefigure most of his ambient work that would come later and sound somewhere between Terry Riley and Steve Reich, and there are some of Fripp's (using his own custom built "Frippertronics...no joke, look em up) mightiest riffs on here. The album gets (slight) critical acclaim for "Heavenly Music Corporation" but I prefer "Swastika Girls" aside from its 70s "shocker!" name. Which one will you like better? YOU CHOOSE. (It also has an awesome cover).

The Boredoms are/were a Japanese avant/noise/psychedelic group that seemed to move further and further away from the noise punk thing and into Frank Zappa/Alice Coltrane/Santana/Tribal- Jazz territory as their career progressed. This album is indicative of that, five years or so after their last proper full length,"Vision Creation Newsun" which, in my opinion, is their best. "Seadrum" is probably closest to the sound on that album, with "House of Sun" veering more towards the jazzy-psychadelic sitar 60s thing. Neither of these albums, in description, may sound like anything potentially listenable to while attempting focus on other things, but whats interesting to me about them is that, given all their avant-garde sensibilities and experimentation and predecessors that were admittedly "difficult listening" both albums are downright pleasant to listen to, if not, at times, even calming.

Eno/Fripp:

http://www.mediafire.com/?ntu37c3ph4x172u

Boredoms:

http://www.mediafire.com/?fzzotdldj3w

Sunforest - Sounds of Sunforest (1969)

This was one of those late 60s psychedelic bands that just, despite their hippy blend of sonic instruments (i.e. loud organs and guitars) mixed with pastiche and Grateful Dead-ish farmhouse anthems, couldn't cut the paisley mustard. They recorded this one album and called it quits, but a few years later Stanley Kubrick employed 2 tracks from this album "Overture to the Sun" and "Lighthouse Keeper" for the film "A Clockwork Orange." The soundtrack is where I first heard both of these tracks of course, yet no credit is given to Sunforest, just the respective writers of the song (i.e. "Lighthouse Keeper" is by Erika Elgen on the record sleeve). After a little detective work (read: its 4am and I've got nothing better to do) I figured out that these songs came from this album AND....that's about it. The album itself is all over the place, with "jams" alongside strange Arthurian themes, and pop-baroque arrangements (there's even a children's song sounding track about a bee named "Mr. Bumble"). While its not anywhere on par with the kind of psychedelia their much more popular peers were making at the time, its an interesting listen and, oddly enough, given the forays bands like the Flaming Lips have made into these kinds of territories, it doesn't sound too terrifically dated. (Also: highly recommend the Clockwork Orange soundtrack...moog covers of classical music = who can say no?).

http://www.mediafire.com/?jongtwztjwd

The Advantage - Elf Titled (2006)

I'll start off by saying I hated the NES "Advantage" controller, an arcade style pad with a joystick and some awkwardly placed buttons. It just seemed like a whole lot of trouble compared to the flat little controller pad (however the Advantage was crucial to saving New York City in Ghostbusters II...it's what they used to steer the Statue of Liberty into the city and smash the slime covered museum to stop the possessed painting ghost from using the infant as a vessel to...I'm realizing this is a complicated comedy movie and a complicated digression). The Advantage that I'm featuring here is not a Dan Ackroyd payola prop nor is it a controller, but it IS indicative of the kind of music this band makes: all NES game music covers, done in a kind of "math rock" (remember math rock?) hyper metal style by members of the (defunct?) other mathy/metal group Hella. For me, its nostalgia coupled with genres of music I like, but for those who aren't familiar with the "Solar Jetman Theme" it's indicative of just how (sometimes) great, and ridiculously complicated these video game compositions truly were (the composers often had limited capability due to the size of these video games, having to find tricky ways to extend just 2 or 3 notes). If yer into this one their self titled is just as good.

http://www.mediafire.com/?o5k6psorlsh