01 - Undercover Man (Hammill) :: Lyrics 02 - Scorched Earth (Hammill, Jackson) :: Lyrics 03 - Arrow (Hammill) :: Lyrics 04 - The Sleepwalkers (Hammill) :: Lyrics ~ BONUS ~ 05 - Forsaken Gardens (Hammill) :: Lyrics 06 - A Louse Is Not A Home (Hammill) :: Lyrics
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Godbluffis the first record released by Van der Graaf Generator after they reformed in 1975. It is their fifth disc overall.
It features a tighter, more pared-down sound than the band's earlier recordings with John Anthony. Hammill makes extensive use of the Hohner Clavinet D6 electromechanical keyboard.
By 1980 it was estimated that eighty planes per night were air-dropping drugs on to the Florida mainland and it was widely accepted that trafficking was the largest single source of income for the state. Marijuana alone generated considerably more than the tourist industry. So much grass was confiscated that authorities stopped destroying it in incinerators and gave it to the Florida Power and Light Company to burn in their ovens to generate electricity. In 1978 alone, cocaine entering the state was estimated at $7 billion.
It wasn't only Miami's crime statistics that were doing somersaults. As illicit cash poured in, the state's finances went haywire: in 1979 the Miami Federal Reserve Bank reported a mysterious cash surplus of $5.5 billion—more than that of all the other twelve Federal Reserve banks in the country put together. The Miami state bank, built to supply a city with a population of under 350,000, began supplying cash to the other twelve federal banks. It soon became obvious where all this money was coming from: in the banks, traffickers and their assistants showed up regularly with boxes, sports bags and even supermarket trolleys full of cash to deposit.
When there were finally rumbled and the Bank Secrecy Act was invoked (instructing banks to report cash deposits of more than $10,000 at a time) a new industry emerged. Traffickers employed runners to drive around the city's banks, making repeated deposits of just under ten grand. On occasions DEA agents would follow them—only to discover that they were being driven around in buses from bank to bank like tour groups, queues of them shuffling out with shoulder bags full of cash at each stop before re-embarking and moving on to the next one. So comedic was their appearance, all permanently queuing to get off the bus or into the bank, that the DEA named them after cartoon characters, the Smurfs.
Of course, once in the banks, the money had to be transferred and laundered before it could be moved back to Colombia. The easiest way to do this was to invest it in real estate. The result was that Florida property prices went through the roof. One economist estimated that 40 per cent of all properties valued over $300,000 were owned by offshore corporations and that, were they to pull out, a real-estate recession would ensue.
Streatfeild, Dominic. Cocaine : an unauthorized biography. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Picador, 2001. pp.237–238. Print.
B1 - Abschied B2 - Segnung B3 - Andacht B4 - Nicht Hoch Im Himmel B5 - Andacht
In 1972 Florian Fricke converted to both Christianity and Hinduism, and decided to move even further away from electronic instruments, preferring the most humble acoustic instruments over high-tech devices. A new line-up, centered around the angelic wails of Korean soprano Djong Yun, recorded Hosianna Mantra (Pilz, january 1973) in a Buddhist meditative tone, showing a solemn and elegant way to bridge the Western mass and Eastern meditation. Fricke on keyboards, Amon Düül II's guitarist Conny Veit, Between's Robert Eliscu on oboe, Fritz Sonnleitner on violino, Klaus Wiese on tambouras build up ascetic atmospheres that catapult the listener into Tibetan or Gregorian monasteries. Most of the interplay is between the piano (tenderly caressed by Fricke) and the guitar (whose phrasing simulates the Indian mantras). The other instruments add evocative power to the music, rarely altering the flow, in a manner similar to renaissance music. The key difference between this music and classical or rock music is the repudiation of rhythm: Tangerine Dream was removing rhythm (i.e., Time) from its cosmic soundpainting, and Popol Vuh removed rhythm (i.e., Time) from its spiritual soundpainting. - Piero Scaruffi
Is this the same group? I can only imagine what hungry young Germans heads must have been thinking when back in 1972, eager for more wild outer space music, they opened up the plastic, slipped the LP out of its sleeves and put Hosianna Mantra on the turntable.
Gone were Holger Trülzsch and Frank Fiedler, gone was the Moog synthesizer, and in were Conny Veit (electric and 12-string guitar), Robert Eliscu (oboe), Klaus Wiese (tamboura), Fritz Sonnleitner (violin) and Djong Yun (vocals). One might expect some changes with a whole new line-up (besides the ever-present Fricke, now on piano), even significant ones, but this was nothing short of revolutionary.
Hosianna Mantra has virtually NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the two albums that preceded it. Part of that was due to Djong Yun. Fricke said, "I always had this great desire to find an instrument that could express a human voice, of vocals or the singing of a girl for instance, by electronic means. When you listen to In Den Gärten Pharoas on the A-side you will find this voice. And all of a sudden this voice that I felt was in myself really came into my life when Djong Yun appeared. Fricke also said, "I'm a conservative artist, not interested in just pressing buttons, so I went back to piano. Sometimes the power would vary so you couldn't always get the same sound on the synthesizer. It's too dependent on the machinery. It's nothing human. The piano is more direct. That's when I realized that I'd probably be happier if I lived my life with music that had acoustic instruments.
He also said, "Hosianna Mantra is actually a combination of two different cultures, two different languages, two different lives. It has a dual meaning; ‘Hosianna,' which is a religious Christian word and ‘Mantra,' from Hinduism. Behind all of that I was convinced that basically all religions are the same. You always find it in your own heart. Fricke referred to Hosianna Mantra as "a mass, a church mass, but not for church - a conscious reflection upon religions origin is included in this music, but not in particular to any religious groups. I don't want to use synthesizers as part of Christian religious music, but you can't refer to it as church music unless you consider your own body as a church and your ears as its door.
So how does it sound, you ask? Nothing short of majestic - a revelation, an epiphany, a high point in the history of music. From the first moments of the first track (the appropriately named "Ah!"), we know that this is something special. Suddenly Florian Fricke puts to use all those years of musical training on the piano to create something wonderful. The instrumentation outside of the piano keeps the song flowing along, but the piano drives this song with chords and runs up and down the length of the piano that must have sounded radical even to avant-garde jazz fans, and yet the whole thing is beautiful and peaceful.
Once we get to the second track, "Kyrie," electric guitar takes over as the dominant instrument, and never before have I heard such beautiful, fluid, melodic sounds emanate from an electric guitar. Conny Veit came over to Fricke's house every day for almost half a year to prepare for this album. Entering next are the soaring soprano vocals of the Korean Djong Yun, and we're transported to a musical landscape heretofore unseen. The lyrics are based on a text by Martin Buber, a Jewish philosopher, but unless you're fluent in Latin you won't understand what's being said anyway. With singing this beautiful, Yun could be singing the proverbial phone book and it wouldn't matter. She truly becomes another instrument.
The song dips, swoons, soars and takes off, and we haven't even gotten to the ten-minute "Hosianna Mantra," truly one of the most beautiful and unique pieces of music ever to grace the earth. Where Fricke was channeling this stuff from is a mystery, but we're well out of the realm of krautrock and electronic music here and into something that can perhaps only loosely be described as rock. I will say no more about the song "Hosianna Mantra" other then around the 5:15 mark, soon after the oboe enters the mix, Djong Yun does something vocally that is one of the most spinetingling moments I've ever heard in music. Side one is truly musical perfection on another plane.
Though side one contains three separate tracks, the side itself is called "Hosianna Mantra." Side two is called "Das V. Buch Mose" ("The Fifth Book of Moses") and is more pastoral, more classical, and it's here where perhaps the roots of what prompted people to later refer to Popol Vuh as new age music sprouted from. It still carries the same instrumentation as side one; the same beautiful vocals, the same fluid guitar, the same pulsating tamboura, oboe and violin, but it's more muted and gentle. I don't find myself listening to side two nearly as much as side one, but it would be hard to deny its beauty. - Gary Bearman
Rare compilation-only track later released as a bonus track on a bonus disc of an expensive box set that, chances are, Borders does not have in stock by default, no, you'll have to order it
"He Hit Me (It Felt Like A Kiss)" is a pop song written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King and recorded by The Crystals under the guidance of Phil Spector in 1962.
The song
Goffin and King wrote the song after discovering that singer Little Eva was being regularly beaten by her boyfriend. When they inquired why she tolerated such treatment, Eva replied, with complete sincerity, that her boyfriend's actions were motivated by his love for her.
The song was written and intended as a sort of protest song from the point of view of an abused woman. Phil Spector's arrangement was ominous and ambiguous.
It was a brutal song, as any attempt to justify such violence must be, and Spector’s arrangement only amplified its savagery, framing Barbara Alston’s lone vocal amid a sea of caustic strings and funereal drums, while the backing vocals almost trilled their own belief that the boy had done nothing wrong. In more ironic hands (and a more understanding age), 'He Hit Me' might have passed at least as satire. But Spector showed no sign of appreciating that, nor did he feel any need to. No less than the song’s writers, he was not preaching, he was merely documenting. - Dave Thompson
Upon its initial release, "He Hit Me" received some airplay, but then there was a widespread protest of the song, with many concluding that the song was an endorsement of spousal abuse. The song soon became played only rarely on the radio, as now. - Wikipedia
The Move were one of the leading British rock bands of the 1960s from Birmingham, England. They scored nine Top 20 UK singles in five years, but were among the most popular British bands not to find any success in the United States. - Wikipedia
"I Can Hear the Grass Grow " is the second single by The Move. It is a psychedelic rock song referring to the synesthetic effects of hallucinogenics. ... It reached number five on the UK Singles Chart. - Wikipedia
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Tomorrow (previously known as The In Crowd and before that as Four Plus One) were a 1960s psychedelic rock band. Despite critical acclaim and support from DJ John Peel who featured them on his "Perfumed Garden" radio show, the band was not a great success in commercial terms. They were among the first psychedelic bands in England along with Pink Floyd and Soft Machine. Tomorrow recorded the first ever John Peel show session on BBC Radio 1 on 21 September 1967. - Wikipedia
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