Decapitated - Australia 2007 (two mpegs)
Couple fairly decent audience recordings of the Polish death metal band. Typical of the style in that it sonically doesn’t translate to live recording very well, here the problems generally affect the drums (which are clicky and gated or gated sounding) and the vocalist who doesn’t sound all that much here like he did on their last album. The guitar playing is a highlight, excellent with the chording and lead.
Soft Machine - Anatomy of Pop (mpeg)
Soft Machine - Theatre de la Musique, Paris 1970 (divx)
Two very short yet classic Soft machine clips, the former a collage of music and interviews with all the major players, definitely portraying the band as the out or progressive pop band of the day with the philosophy. Some great Ratledge footage as he careens around his organ. The Paris 70 clip is 4 minutes long and fantastic quality - where is the rest of this? The Robert Wyatt vocal part at the end is priceless. I wonder when we’ll get a comp of all these little bits and pieces on video.
Sensations Fix - RAI UNO TV (divx)
Very short 2 minute track with vocals that seems very early in the game, you definitely get the SF style emerging with the electronics and guitar wizardry, but this is still ostensibly a pop song. Altogether rather unique with some visual scenery linked in.
Eider Stellaire - Marines/Amblon/Studio 1987 (DVD)
The preponderance of the same material in common between these three recordings (two live, one studio) of the French Magma influenced jazz rock group really makes this a chore to get through due to the song repetition. Why Eider Stellaire needed two keyboard players basically playing chords the whole time is anyone’s guess, but they lag far behind the guitarist who, despite not being the lead member, is the focus of all the music, ripping it up and making it feel just on the edge of breaking out but not quite getting there. The music is mostly from their third album, which, while a recovery from their very dull second, is still rather unspired, mostly just featuring a jam which tends to go on and on. Thee surprise is Coltrane’s Impressions in the Marines set, although, again, they more or less do the themes and the guitar player goes to work like he has to. While the band’s sound is a little more original at this point in the game than they used to be, I still prefer the zeuhl clone stylings of their first much better and subsequently wish this was earlier.