Tangerine Dream: Alpha Centauri

Today's album is Tangerine Dream's second LP, the cosmic Alpha Centauri, released in 1971 after first drummer (and further on succesful solo artist) Klaus Schultze left the band. Nonetheless Alpha is -like all of the first four TD first four LPs- a magnificent piece of work, one of the highest points reached by the so-called Krautrock. So forget about further-on progressive -and kind of boring- TD, because this is real cosmic music, not new age-y stuff good for waiting rooms or mid age hipsters (as most of the stuff they played from the late 70's and on).

INFO:
Web page on Krautrock with lots of links.
TD Fan site with interviews, articles, picture, etc.


Alpha Centauri

Sebastien Tellier: Sessions

Today I'd like to introduce Sébastien Tellier to those of you who do not know his music talent: he is a 25 years old parisian who has already released three albums, "L'incroyable verité", "Politics", and this one, the last, "Sessions". "Sessions" is something peculiar in Tellier's discography because it consists in a one-day session that pictures his playing some song from his back catalogue (including also "Fantino", featured on Sofia Coppola's "Lost in translation"), an unreleased track, "Classics", and a cover version of Cristophe's "La dolce vita", in a bare and extremely impassioned acoustic performance.
What makes the difference betweens this and the previous Tellier's LPs is that the french musician avoids here his typical and a-bit-of-kitsch arrengements, and in doing so his songs sound more sincere, unlike their versions on "Politics" and "L'incroyable verité" (beautiful "La ritournelle" apart) that sometimes seemed more a divertissement than proper songs.

If you want to give him a try you can also go listen to ST's songs on his Myspace page.

Sessions

The Go-Betweens: Before Hollywood (expanded disc)

Just as I said, here is The Go-Betweens' "Before Hollywood" expanded disc. And it is not a matter of half-formed demos (although they are, mostly, demos) or such: they are all well-played songs, starting with "Just a king in mirrors" or "This girl, black girl", and it includes also the single (from the "Send me a lullaby"-first LP-period) "Hammer the hammer".

Before Hollywood Expanded Disc

The Long Ryders: 10-5-60 (EP) + End of the trail (Live)

The LONG RYDERS are another Paisley Underground band: they were a cow-punk or -if you prefer a country-rock ensemble lead by singer Sid Griffin in the early 80's. These days with musicians as Ryan Adams or Neko Case being so hip LONG RYDERS are definetely a name to re-discover.
Today's download is LR's first EP (released 1983), "10-5-60", and a good-quality Bootleg called "End of the trail" from the final part of their career (presumably shortly after "Two-fisted tale", their last LP).

For more info see LR'S page @ Sid Griffin's website (a very-well made one, where you can also find some MP3 of live material), or Wiki.

Two links this time for the download:

Long Ryders (Megaupload)

or

Long Ryders (Sendspace)

The Go-Betweeens: Before Hollywood

Hello, and sorry if I have been away for a while (on vacation in Paris, by the way), but now I'm back and with a hell of an album...and I know I have already posted a lot of THE GO-BETWEENS' stuff, but in Paris I bought this one (I had not bought it before because it is not available in Italy, so I had only bad MP3s of it) and I am so satisfied with it that I have decided to make it my comeback-post.
So, I'm talking about GB's second LP: "Before Hollywood", IMHO their first masterpiece (cointaining the absolute gem of McLennan's "Cattle and cane"), and one of those record that sound both naive and stunning...their sound is so clearly stuck in the past but still fascinating and beautiful (in that it kind of reminds me of REM's first album, "Murmur": it is clearly an LP made in the ealry 80's with all that crystalline sound and fine-sounding guitars...in fact both LP's were released in 1983!).
Anyone interested also in the bonus disc?

The Go-Betyweens on Wiki
The Go-Betweens Archive

Before Hollywood

Re-post: Robert Forster - Radio showcase

This is for those who did not make it to download Fosrster's radio showcase.

Showcase