Posted on October 24, 2017
UNDERGROUND AND UNDER HERE
Amemorable news purveyor “The Guardian” have published a list of 50 “underground albums” that “you” have “never heard of” LINK FOLLOWS
Poring over the list for old favourites I note that they have
A) included several albums that “I” have heard of, and dismissed as one-dimensional or “phoney”
B) failed to include any of the best albums that I have not heard of, which I am unable to list here for the same reason
If I had heard of them, I suspect they would be as follows.
Edgar Winifred: The Egg is on Fire
This hard-to-find record by Edgar Winifred was only released via fax machine, the ink compressed so deeply as to form grooves that could be played on most readily available record players. Recorded during one of his fugue states, it contains eight brief songs, each made up of two distinct movements, which the liner notes record as “before” and “after”. Winifred could not (or would not) remember what any of it meant, and during at least two interviews utterly refused to claim responsibility for the album at all, although notably both journalists made record of the fact that he “left the room loudly humming his own melodies”.
The Underwater Seal Experiment: I Was Outside, You Were Hiding
This all-girl band formed in the 1920s but didn’t make their first recordings until they found themselves unexpectedly reunited in a nursing home, having lost many of their capabilities. Immediately returning to music, they recorded seven albums in as many months before all dropping dead from exhaustion within hours of each other. As each of them had willed the master tapes to another member of the group, they briefly fell into a disputed state, held on a boat that traversed international waters until their surviving ancestors could agree a deal. The subsequent release, which was only available via a costly phone line, was hailed as a masterpiece by all that heard it.
Hova Stanta: No Means, No (?)
The genderless, ageless Stanta compiled this late-period release by splicing together rehearsal tapes from their one-person band. Confusingly high on harmonies and polyrhythms, the result was instantly denounced by the Catholic Church, which led to a brief sales spike that independent record stores struggled to keep up with (only four copies having been made available, each hand-decorated by the artist and their small army of insect pets). AllMusic.com refers to the album as “literally inaudible”, but it should be noted that the review was published during the deafness plague of ’08.
BRIIIIIIIIINE: Briiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine
BRrrriiiiiiiiiiiiine