Desmond Morris

The Human Zoo by Desmond Morris is a brilliant attempt to explain the evolution of man, in a sense. It is a very interesting commentary on how man fails to grasp that he is just one more species on the surface of the planet. Man surely has achieved a hell of a lot of more things that our animal counterparts haven't even got the ability to begin understanding. But the biggest drawback of our evolutionary process seems to be that our biological system has failed to evolve on equal terms with the immense evolution of the human brain. Biologically we aren't much different from the monkey - as a result, at some fundamental level, the big urban societies we have built for ourselves suffer from essentially the same problems that animals in captivity have to face. The book takes us through a brilliant analysis of the human zoo.

Gonzo

I read The New Journalism by Tom Wolfe not so long ago. It had some of the most entertaining short stories in the first person narrative. They aren't exactly short stories, as one could call them essays or journals or articles or even, poems, sometimes. I need to get into more gonzo journalism.

The Dillinger Escape Plan

Its been a while since I've written anything here. Life in the last one year has for a large part been a vague blur. Owing to no broadband at home I haven't listened to any new music and the only listening I've been able to do is on my train ride to work. If there's one band that has really rocked my world in the recent times, it is The Dillinger Escape Plan. Fans of music in the extreme-hardcore realm will do well to check out the band's twisted debut EP Under the running board, which has a total running time of 7 minutes and 33 seconds. I will write about that album in another post. What I'm here to write about is the band's second EP Irony is a dead scene which features one of the greatest vocalist of our times - Mike Patton. Mike Patton is an enlightening musician. When did vocalists forget that language and lyrics were just convenient tools for making melodies? The true vocal melody should bend the mind by using not mere words, but by chanting and sceaming. Mike Patton's vocal style is a marked departure from the convention, emphasizing clearly what we expect to get out of music - madness and bliss. To see my point, go listen to the song When good dogs do bad things. The guitars and drums on the album are also equally genius - end result - a masterpiece of sound.

The Great Doom

I like Kyuss a lot. Their style of groovy rock and roll has been growing on me ever since I first listened to the mother of all stoner/rock/doom/desert albums “Welcome to the Sky Valley”. It is a collection of 10 mammoth tracks which are driven by a relentless rhythm section comprised of Brant Bjork on the skins and the mighty Scott Reeder on the bass. The guitarist Josh Homme is a god of desert-blues guitar playing, always walking the line of groove and craziness. John Garcia, the vocalist, achieves what I call one of the best vocal performances in the history of rock and roll. Listen to the tracks “Supa Scoopa & Mighty Scoop” and “Odyssey” and wander off into the burning desert. Naturally I began searching for all things doom. This led me to a bluesy land of music called The Great Doom, where I found other bands like Sleep, The Obsessed, Greenleaf, Earth, Eyehategod, Goatsnake, Unida, Acrimony, Electric Wizard, Melvins, Neurosis, Old Man Gloom, Wolf Eyes and many more. “Tumuli Shroomaroom” by Acrimony has to be one of the greatest stoner/desert albums released after Kyuss disbanded. The Melvins is an other three member mad clown carnival. It will take forever to listen to their entire discography and their music is noisy doom rock which is essential for anyone interested in the said genre. The ambient/noise/sludge/doom band Wolf Eyes introduced me to a few noise freak Japanese bands like The Boredoms and Acid Mothers Temple. I discovered post-punk or whatever people want to call it. Steve Albini’s genius projects like Big Black, Shellac, Rapeman are about raw, garage punk. 

HFT

This one is a recent discovery. HFT (High Fucking Time) is a three piece instrumental jam band from Delhi!. Their tunes are absolutely hypnotic and their songs can go on for 15 minutes if they have to. Lew Hilt on the bass is a madman. Arjun Sen (guitars) doesn’t play guitar in the conventional sense. His unique texture-weaving kind of playing is beautiful. The drummer, Adhiraj Mustafi is the third member of this line up, and trust me, he is the perfect compliment to the bass and guitars. Catch them live if you can and download their mp3s and videos off their webpage http://www.hftmusic.com/ .

Lightning Bolt

Noise. Noise at its loudest. That is how one can describe the music of the drum/bass duo of Lightning Bolt. All efforts to describe their sound in rational terms will eventually prove useless. I write this at a point where I’ve been listening to only LB for more than two weeks. Further listening means you are risking permanent damage to your ear drums. The crazy, incredibly precise drumming of Brian Chippendale leaves one gasping for air. The evil distorted bass of Brian Gibson is definitely going to get you and rip that head of yours. How does one get the idea of replacing one of the bass strings with a banjo string? Wreaking havoc with the sounds thereby produced. The vocals are sung into a telephone receiver. This is one evil evil band, meant for the hardest of the hard-core noise freaks.

I’ve also been incessantly listening to Black Pus, a solo side project of Brian Chippendale, who also writes comic books when he’s not jamming. The first two Black Pus albums are available for free download at http://www.fauxfetus.net/faux/bands/blackpus/ . I find it absolutely impossible to try and describe the sound in Black Pus. Go ahead and find it for yourself!

Best of 2006 : Music

I haven't listened to too much music released in 2006 owing to my extreme indulgence in a few newly discovered bands. Although I discovered both bands old and new, I thought it'd be nice to prepare a list containing just my favourite 2006 releases. Last year also turned out to be radical in terms of the genres I started listening to. Metal suddenly took a back seat and in came post-rock, post-metal, jam rock, noise rock, math rock, sludge, doom, drone, jazz etc., which according to me is a good thing. I also got into techno for a brief period, which is also good! So, lets get on with the list.

1) The Ladies - They Mean Us

2) The Snake Trap - At Home In A Hostile World

3) Battles - EP C/B EP

4) Tool - 10,000 Days

5) Mastodon - Blood Mountain

6) Isis - In The Absence Of Truth

7) Don Caballero - Wold Class Listening Problem

Other releases that I enjoyed include The Advantage - The Elf-Titled, You.May.Die.In.The.Deesrt - Bears In The Yukon, Wolf Eyes - Human Animal, The Devin Townsend Band - Synchestra, The Melvins - A Senile Animal. I do not have any patience to review these albums right now. Go get these albums and write your own reviews!