The Dillards - Wheatstraw Suite (1968)

I'm going to post all the album that truly need to be posted on Life at the moment. All the following albums are the ones that I've been hooked on all summer, and haven't yet been posted on this blog. I wish you all the best with them, because these following albums are my absolute favourites at the moment.

In the late 60s it was a big deal to connect the first generation of bluegrass and country players to the electric new generation. The Byrds tried it with Gram Parsons by paying tribute to the old time, and Gram Parsons tried it solo, with his Flying Burrito Brothers, but they didn't quite succeed as The Dillards and The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band did. What we have here is a mind-blowing album that has been completely forgotten. It is on par, to say the least, with the best works of The Byrds (and I love! the Byrds!). Just listen to this album, especially the first five songs will hammer this into your favourite albums ever selection.

listen to the sound
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Laura Nyro - New York Tendaberry (1969)

A Joni Mitchell voice, combined with a more adventurous take on composing, and a New York-background, Laura Nyro created one of the most honest, heart-breaking records in 1969. Immensely, immensely important for what women could do on a record, I want to emphasise how important this record is. Without Laura Nyro we wouldn't have had, for instance, someone like Tori Amos, and the whole bunch of women that followed her and came before her. Brilliant production also makes this record a very special one. I was struck by the beautiful shifts in tone and feeling, and also by the layers of her vocals.

Like a session on the couch of a shrink, this record is 100% Laura Nyro at her most earnest and heart-felt. She was a very special songwriter, singer and artist and she died way too early of the same disease her mother also caught: cancer.

you don't love me when i cry
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Lucio Battisti - Anima latina (1974)

I'm about to do something really special. This blog is going to feature the three freshest, most exciting, and downright greatest records it has featured in a long time. I have held these three albums back for quite some time, to build up a momentum with the three of them together and cause a landmark moment in the musical history of my followers. I am well aware that these three albums are not the three most obscure records ever, so therefore I realise that a lot of people will have heard of these albums, or have them already on their computer. Still, statistically, the chances are very, very likely that the majority of the people following this blog have not heard any of these records, and have long planned to do so. Let today be the day! Because I have something really special coming. Here we go!

Lucio Battisti. Italian pop-singer. That's what you should think at first. Just like you would call Caetano a Brazilian pop-singer. Think again, because on Anima latina we have possibly the greatest ever hybrid between pop and experimentalism. This record is so incredibly rich in sound and atmosphere, and air! for that matter, that I will not even bother to describe it. Just listen to this record on a beautiful morning when the sun is shining and you have nothing to do. And also the day after today you will be free, totally carelessly listening to this record, preferably in the garden, when it's still chilly, the grass is still wet.. Etc! Make it happen!

due mondi
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Negativland - Escape From Noise (1987)

The Godfathers of Plunderphonics. Ah men, do we really have to find a superlative for every single artist. No, we don't need to. At least I don't need to. But because these anti-heroes, these meta-musicians, deserve a superlative, I have granted them one. We have here a collective of tape geniuses, copy-pasters, who crafted a well-built manifesto for their own musical genre. To be compared with The Residents from the 70s and The Avalanches from the 90s, Negativland (named after a NEU! song), reached their creative peak in the 80s.

Also to be remembered for a radio-show called Over the Edge. They released 9 records full of material from this show. Escape From Noise offers you a collection of the most far-out, demented, meta-music available. Shockingly hilarious!

michael jackson
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Nara Leão - Dez Anos Depois (1971)

Here we have one of the pillars of MPB, the popular music of Brazil. MPB is, in my opinion, one of the most sympathetic musical genres, and also one of the more out-there musical genres that come from the mainstream. Caetano Veloso, as we know, didn't only craft hits, he also pushed the boundaries of pop music. This record, a more safe affair, is one of the longest records. A double album, clocking in at precisely an hour, with 24 songs to offer, it's still an ambitious outing.

Hinting more at bossa nova, this is a beautifully crafted, tasty, baroque album from the peek of Brazilian pop music. Enjoy this album, and hope for the sun!

fotografia
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Fred Lane - From the One That Cut You (1983)

Welcome to the wonderful world of Shimmy-Disc, a label that released some of the most out-there music available. This is the first release of Shimmy-Disc and it took the label three years after this release to release something new again. Maybe set back by the reactions this record evoked, I don't know.

This is a big-band record. Crazy stuff. Ill subject matter, with song titles like I Talk to My Haircut and Danger Is My Beer. This is my sort of humor, packing very sick subject matter in 'catchy' big-band songs. Bringing the sick stuff to you with a smile. Gotta love it. Mind you though that the music itself is also very great, at times catchy, at times as free as we expect from experimental big bands.

fun in the fundus
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Charlie Haden - Liberation Musical Orchestra (1970)

Without a doubt I can say that everything is here on this record. Charlie Haden, Don Cherry, Carla Bley, Dewey Redman, Roswell Rudd, Andrew Cyrille, Michael Mantler, Gato Barbieri, and many more. So half of the BYG crew is here, and some crazy people from the Europe jazz field. This is free jazz, in a big band, very chaotic at times, with hints of melody, even fragments of old Spanish folk songs. An Ornette Coleman track is here, a song for Ché Guevara.

Haden got inspiration for this album from songs he heard from the Spanish Civil War. This album is one big aural free jazz party, although definitely not as harsh and challenging as you are used from me, the BYG stuff, etc. (I warn you though that BYG/tough free-jazz is still on its way, many records waiting!) Have fun with this record! Have a great afternoon, evening, or morning! I'm so glad I'm back. :D

drinking music
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Dreamies - Auralgraphic Entertainment (1974)

And we start again with a blast: HERE WE ARE AGAIN! I checked my Mediafire-account yesterday for the first time in a year to discover that Life As A Rehearsal has had over 400.000 downloads, which amazed me, just like it will amaze you. I know that a lot of albums have been taken offline and that a lot of people will have forgotten about me and my blog, but I'm sharing some albums once again. I'm still a student from Amsterdam, and in three months time a start my new study: Philosophy. I have been reading in the meantime, many novels and other works of literature, so it would be more logical to start a literature blog right now. But as Life As A Rehearsal is my old love, and music is still something I like a lot, I am trying it again. I still search for the music with the heart, the soul, the sounds.

Here we have Bill Holt, a simple state employee from Wilmington, Delaware, who quit his job in 1972 to buy some instruments, learn how to play them, and recorded this album in the next two years. It is a raw sound collage, one of the first in fact. We have Beatles-snippets here, weird R. Stevie Moore proto-moogery, some hints of library music, and the like. (On a little technical note: the artist is called Dreamies, the monniker of Bill Holt, but I have tagged this as Bill Holt, because that's how Last.fm scrobbles it. Oh well.) Enjoy this people, I love you for all your support, downloads and admiration for reggae, free jazz, and every other weird genre that I feed you. Love from me to you!

dreamies
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Auburn Lull - Alone I Admire (1999)

When I die, I'd like something apocalyptic to be the last music I hear. Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica, Stravinsky, Beethoven's 9th, recollections of these musical miracles spring to mind when I think about me taking my last breath. To hear Don Van Vliet grate my eardrums, and Pachuco Cadaver and the whole circus of the Magic Band, would be a beautiful last experience. Well, normal people would probably be satisfied with the ethereal tunes of the criminally unknown Auburn Lull.

Auburn Lull qualifies as dream-pop, ambient-pop, something like that. It's beautiful, just listen.

stockard drive
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Dog Faced Hermans - Those Deep Buds (1994)

I am not entirely sure at the moment if I have once told you all how much I love the Dutch band called The Ex. Anyway, they are a highly influential band who have made everything ranging from hardcore punk to African tribal music over the span of 30 years. This band, Dog Faced Hermans, is a band from Edinburgh, Scotland, who moved to Amsterdam and are closely related to The Ex. Andy Moor, formerly an Ex-member, has been in the band from 1990 until the disbandment in 1995.

Their music is just us powerful, underrated and unusual as the music of The Ex. This is their last album, because they disbanded a year later. Great band, hear this!

human spark
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