¡para!helion: Fourth - When Technology Fails

 Haven't really been paying attention, but Dave pointed this out to me last time I saw him...seems we've had almost 15000 downloads of this ¡para!helion record over at the Free Music Archive. I always felt like this was one of the best projects I was ever involved with...it seems others agree.



Recorded summer 1999, improvised live to two track.Players: Dave C- Trumpet, effects, percussion; Jeff K- Electric Balilaika, effects; aboombong - Clay Djemba, acoustic bass; Chris & co. - Djemba, additional percussion.

Thanksgiving - giving music

 Happy Thanksgiving all. Just thought I would post the download links to all the music available here on Pen & Mallet. Not sure how many hours worth it ends up, but it would take ya all Thanksgiving day to listen to it, at least.

 ambient; experimental; noise; drone; improv; dream pop, warped, psych-folk, etc. 
ABOOMBONG: anaphora

ABOOMBONG: atrophic

ABOOMBONG: admixture

ABOOMBONG: amnemonic 
ABOOMBONG: asynchronic 
ABOOMBONG: aboombong 
ABOOMBONG (w/ dustdevil & crow): Taking Blue Mountain by Stages 
dustdevil & crow: accidental music

dustdevil & crow : .​.​.​and chuang tzu dreamed that he was me
dustdevil & crow: while speaking softly you can hear the insects sing 
Boom Dispenser: A Chronic Groove Feeder 
AZWARM: shelter 
AZWARM: a morning's work 
¡para!helion: Midaq Alley 
¡para!helion: 3 Miles From Mecca
¡para!helion: >3
¡para!helion: When Technology Fails
¡para!helion: Harpers Bizarre Film Festival
Icastico: The-ambient-Sundae bar 
Icastico: Étude for Six Mirrored Hands
Blotter: Once and Again - Minus Four - in Stereono 
Blotter: Sludge the Butcher
Blotter: Songs for Mommy
Psychic Enemies Network: Valis (with bonus tracks)
Psychic Enemies Network: P.E.N. (with bonus tracks)

Punk; No-wave; Post-punk, etc.
Waltz Bop Shop: All My Idears are Flawed in Sum Way + Quartet
Waltz Bop Shop: Name Dropping at Angela's and Melting
Waltz Bop Shop: All my idears are played live today
Waltz Bop Shop: A whisper in the airwaves
The Jonny Cats: Last- Ode to Sergio
The Johnny Cats: Burns Rubber 7"
Swayback: Outer Space Tonight
AOS: Rip It up! + live tracks
AOS: live and Raw in the Pit also (some cleaned-up live tracks)
DJJ: Throw it out there, not away

Shoegaze; Rock; etc.
Choke: Choke (e.p.)
Choke: Hard to Swallow
Choke: Gauze/Total Reverence
[redacted]: left blank 
Super Naam: two rough cuts

 Most of these links will allow you to download in FLAC, MP3 and Ogg Vorbis. Let me know if you have a request for a FLAC/WAV version of any of the other MP3 only files.

¡para!helion - Harper's Bizarre Film Fest

The last of the CDr's that Dave shared with me this winter is up today. This one is ¡para!helion as it existed before I started playing with them. One long track recorded live. Liner notes on the disc are as follows: "Harpers Bizarre Film Fest-O 1/10/97 -> Mono. Produced by Nobody. Special tech supports Radioshack corp of AM; Chinese Slave Labor Kingpins since 1959."Can't really tell you anything beyond that. Dave and Jeff with Chris on hand drums. Enjoy.



Don't forget you can support our work here at Pen & Mallet by purchasing something from aboombong , psychic enemies network, or azwarm, (name your own price) or making a donation via a "donate" button here at Pen & Mallet.

once and again - minus four - in stereono

The last blotter related for the time being (until Dave sends me more tunes), Once and Again - Minus Four - in Stereono is an eclectic collection of blotter tracks and improvisations from the original line-up of ¡para!helion. This one has everything from outright noise to mellow prettiness. Up next will be a live album by this original ¡para!helion line-up. Enjoy.



Don't forget you can support our work here at Pen & Mallet by purchasing something from aboombong , psychic enemies network, or azwarm, (name your own price) or making a donation via a "donate" button here at Pen & Mallet.

sludge the butcher

Another release from Jeff and Dave recorded in the 1990's, Sludge the Butcher. Some longer trippier tracks alongside some shorter odder ones on this release...in the end it all blurs into one beautifully incoherent whole. This one has a lot more sampling & tape manipulation/outright noise on it than Songs for Mommy but manages some definite ¡para!helion like passages as well. Whereas touchstones for Songs for Mommy might include Half Machine Lip Moves era Chrome, this one is much closer to territory opened up by The Residents or Negativland. Very much a DIY gem for the fan of outsider music. Enjoy.


Don't forget you can support our work here at Pen & Mallet by purchasing something from aboombong , psychic enemies network, or azwarm, or making a donation via a "donate" button here at Pen & Mallet.

blotter - songs for mommy (a ¡para!helion side project)

Well folks, if you are reading this, it means that your humble host is now a daddy. In anticipation of the upcoming event, I have prepared a few posts ahead of time so that I can get you that exclusive DIY music you want with a single click. Given that motivation, this one seemed the most obvious place to start.

Songs for Mommy is the brainchild of Jeff from ¡para!helion and features an eclectic set of musical experiments in collaboration with David Chapman and others. Recorded in Albuquerque in the 90's with a few live shows under various names (including Blotter), I was given permission by David to share it with you when I saw him on a brief holiday visit to New Mexico. A couple more CD's worth of these excursions coming in the near future as I focus on feeding, burping, changing, and sleeping. Enjoy.


Last year was, truly, the most productive year of my life. Given the two aboombong albums, an azwarm album, the boomdispenser remixs, and collaboration on the DUSTdevil & crow sophomore album, that would be true if life were just about music. But last year also saw completion of my Ph.D. and, the beginnings of the most important production of my life, my beautiful son. I have been a truly blessed individual of late. Random donations for the little one's music education are gladly accepted via the "donate" button here at Pen & Mallet.

Free Music Archive Updates

I just did a large update to the aboombong artist page over at the Free Music Archive. Along with asynchronic, the FMA now hosts Boom Dispenser remixs: A Chronic Groove Feeder, as well as all of the ¡para!helion albums. Of course, FMA downloads are MP3 only. If you are interested in lossless versions of these albums, go to aboombong's Bandcamp page, or the ¡para!helion pages over at the Internet Archive (here, here, here, & here). As a preview of the FMA updates, here's a quick FMA mix of tracks off of each of the newly uploaded albums.


I have also added a"Tip The Artist" link to the FMA page for those of you who feel inclined to support the work here at Pen & Mallet monetarily. Or you can just use the "Donate" buttons here at Pen & Mallet (like the one below). Of course, word of mouth is as powerful a support for a DIY artist as cash, so if you like any of the music you find here, please spread the word. Your friends and followers all know you have great taste. (^_~)

A final note: The FMA feature of Drag Along Behind in Ten Tracks to Sync Volume 2 has led to several people incorporating it into their own creations. Updates with links to video & audio are available on the previous Pen & Mallet post related to TTSV. Check 'em out and leave the creators a comment.

Just So Stories from the Creative Commons

Katya from Kazoomzoom.com contacted me today with a nice surprise. She has put together a nifty little compilation of Kipling's Just So Stories and has included para!helion in the music for How The Rhinoceros Got His Skin (track 3).

Check it out here or here (includes info and cover art).
UPDATE: Collection is now back on-line.

¡para!helion-Fourth: when technology fails

This is the final ¡para!helion release here at Pen & Mallet. Due to human errors and technology failures, these tracks needed some significant work to remove unwanted clipping, digital feedback, and other nastiness. There are still some minor cracks, pops, skips, and screeches on the record. I think the music holds up, however, despite the rawer audio quality. These tracks come from the same sessions as greater than 3, so they include the trio plus some additional players here and there. Available wav, flac, ogg vorbis, mp3. Enjoy.

Album: Fourth: when technology fails
Style: late night dream states
Recorded summer 1999, improvised live to two track.
Players:
Dave C- Trumpet, effects, percussion
Jeff K- Electric Balilaika, effects
me- Clay Djemba, acoustic bass
Chris & co. - Djemba, additional percussion


Tracklisting:
1) Destroy!
2) From 11 to 6 to 3
3) Ring Modulator (echoplex)
4) String Drum

UPDATE: I have updated a previous post to make it easier to find all of the "lossless" posts now available on Pen & Mallet. You can, of course, search by genre, date, band name, or click on the "FLAC" tag as well.
UPDATE: This record is featured over at undomondo. They've got a lot going on over there. Worth checking out. Drop by and vote for ¡para!helion.

¡para!helion: >3 (never released material)

Album: >3
Style: high altitude meditations
Improvised and recorded live to two track summer of 1999
Players:
Dave- Trumpet, effects, percussion
Jeff - Electric Balilaika, effects
me- African Kettle Drums, Dumbek, Clay Djemba, 1940's wooden field snare, clanks, mic stand gooseneck, booms, crashes, & scrapes.
Chris & co. - Djemba, additional percussion

Of all the music I have posted here at Pen & Mallet, the two ¡para!helion releases are the ones that I personally listen to the most often. I have always chalked that up to the fact that ¡para!helion's music was all improvised. None of the overlearning under a critical ear that goes into creating and perfecting composed songs goes into the creation of improvised music, so, for me, it feels easier to listen to the songs as music, rather than as a product of my ego. In other words, it's easier to let go and hear the songs as songs without being critical of my own performance or wishing I had one more take to move the song closer to the ideal version that I carry around in my head.

Of course, ¡para!helion has been duking it out with Waltz Bop Shop for the most downloaded music at Pen & Mallet, so maybe I like them 'cuz they're good records. Hard to tell.

Anyway, today we have 6 never released songs taken from the Midaq Alley and 3 Miles from Mecca sessions. At the time we put those two releases together, these didn't make the cut primarily due to non-musical issues like less-than-ideal microphone placement, or minor equipment failures. After 10 years not hearing these, I don't find that those issues hurt these tracks much at all, so I thought I would share them.

Several of these tracks include additional players beyond the trio including ¡para!helion's original drummer, Chris (iirc) and a gang of percussionist he brought over for one or two of our night recording sessions. Track's one and two come from the very last ¡para!helion session, with Ghazna being the last song we ever recorded.

All files are available in lossless Flac, Ogg Vorbis as well as Mp3 from the internet archive.



Tracklist (player plays all six tracks):
1) Chabolo
2) Ghazna
3) Bactra
4) Haraiva
5) Lampaka
6) Nagarahara

Serving up FLAC all day

As promised, lossless FLAC versions of recordings posted here at Pen & Mallet.

ABOOMBONG: aboombong
Waltz Bop Shop: All My Idears are Flawed in Sum Way + Quartet
Waltz Bop Shop: Name Dropping at Angela's and Melting
Choke: Choke (e.p.)
Choke: Hard to Swallow
Choke: (video) Live AIDS benefit Show
The Jonny Cats: Last- Ode to Sergio
Swayback: Outer Space Tonight
AOS: Rip It up! + live tracks
Psychic Enemies Network: Valis (with bonus tracks)

These links will, of course, also allow you to download in MP3 and Ogg Vorbis. Let me know if you have a request for a FLAC version of any of the other files already posted.

Throw it out there, not away - loop fodder for the remixologists among us

Today we have a series of tracks recorded by the follow up to ¡para!helion (see Midaq Alley and 3 Miles from Mecca). In the summer of 2000, after Jeff graduated and moved away from Albuquerque, Dave and I recruited our friend Jeff Gassaway to join us on bass for some late night improv sessions. When I found these recordings, I initially decided not to include them here, not because there isn't a lot I like about them, but because (unlike the para!helion sets) in the end none of the tracks manage to quite gel into cohesive units. Each have moments I like - there are plenty of interesting herky-jerky, odd time-signature grooves and Dave does some of his best trumpet work - but in the end the project really needed an additional player if it was going to work. I have kept these recordings intending to do some radical remixes and to recruit some additional players to lay overdubs on the resulting tracks. But, given that I haven't gotten around to that after almost 9 years, it seems unlikely that will ever happen.

So, what changed my mind? Why post these? Well, I recently ran across this great little project by Kutiman where he remixes clips from youtube into some fantastic numbers. Seeing and hearing his work made me realize that there might be someone out there who could recognize the potential in these tracks and turn them into something. In that spirit, I am posting the raw tracks, flaws and all, as loop fodder for the remixologists out there that may find them useful. For listeners, I would advise dropping these into a random mix rather than treating them as an album. They work better that way.

Album: Throw it out there, not away
Style: Free improvisation - jazz meets math rock
Recorded live to 2 track DAT summer 2000.

Trumpet, effects - Dave
Bass - Jeff
Drum Kit - me


Player plays all seven tracks.

If you turn these into something, shoot me a copy and I'll post it here.

¡para!helion - 3 Miles from Mecca

Album: 3 Miles from Mecca
Style: Opium Den Ambiance
Released in very limited quantities in 1999

Players:
Dave- Trumpet, effects
Jeff - Electric Balilaika, effects
me- African Kettle Drums, Dumbek, Clay Djemba

This is the first ¡para!helion release that I played on (Dave & Jeff had released some earlier work with a different drummer). The bulk of these were recorded live at Mecca coffeehouse in Albuquerque to entertain the troops as Basement Films projected and archived a massive donation of educational films. We played with films projecting on every available piece of wall space. The first and last track were recorded in Dave's living room.

Get "3 Miles from Mecca" (@ 320)
Update: available at the internet archive (Flac,Ogg Vorbis,mp3 or stream or original posting).

Note: player plays the whole album.
Enjoy.

¡para!helion- Midaq Alley

Album: Midaq Alley.
Style: Dirges from the desert.
Released in very limited quantities in 1999.
Featuring:
Dave-Trumpet, effects
Jeff - Electric Balilaika, effects
Me - percussion, loops, and acoustic bass.
Improvised and recorded live to two track.

Get part one and part two (@320)
Update: available from the internet archive: on one page (here includes FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, mp3) or on two (part one & part two)

Track List:

1) Allal
2) The fqih
3) Istikhara
4) The Waters of Izli
5) Mejdoub
6) The Wind at Beni Midar
7) The Story of Lahcen and Idir
8) 1000 days of Mokhtar
9) Abhilash Talkies (Thanks to Ernie for the mumbling.)
10) Ayemenem
11) Naxos
12) The Fqih (Slight Return)

Read a review of Midaq Alley here