[RELEASE] April Bi-Monthly Comp : Weird & Bizarre!
 

This month's theme, as voted forth by you and you and you, was weird and bizarre, songs that can somehow be described using either of those two terms. It seems like the theme got people's created juices going because the turnout is rather good. With a total of 22 tracks, I think it's the highest number of submissions for a comp since I started doing them. There are many ways a song can be weird or bizarre, so revel in the variety and expect the unexpected!

Now, get it!

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Instead of the regular guessing game, I'd like instead to just ask you contributors to write a little bit about the track or tracks you chose for the comp. What makes it or them weird and/or bizarre?

Hope you like it! :)

I guess I can go first! I had a hard time choosing tracks for this comp. I went through some different criterias for weirdness and I found out that a lot of my weird music is in norwegian and I thought I'd steer clear of those since part of what's weird about them is typically in the lyrics. Then I quickly noticed that by far, most of the weird stuff was weird because it was meant to be funny. I wanted to steer clear of that as well ..

The weird stuff in my library that I was left with then, well, a lot of it was not really that appealing. There were a lot of songs that, although weird, were not actually good or were even just unpleasant like minutes of tortured screams or music made to audibly illustrate how it is to have a bad trip on drugs. Removing those from the potential candidates left me with a much smaller list of songs that I like and that were still weird. I wanted songs that I think could appeal, despite their weirdness, so I settled on a song by The Residents (them not being in a weird comp would be a crime anyways) and Samla Mammas Manna.

The Residents - Constantinople
I actually love this song while my girlfriend absolutely hates it. It may not be the strangest Residents song, but I think sometimes, a very effective sort of weirdness comes from when something you think is familiar is changed in some way. I think most are familiar with the song Constantinople, but The Residents take on it is definetly a bit different from most other versions. Sorry for the low BR though! I have to get a better copy.

Samla Mammas Manna - Dundrets Fröjder
Samla Mammas Manna is definetly one of my favourite avant-garde groups out there and this is the first track from their well known 1972 album Måltid. For those who haven't heard about them, they're a swedish avant-prog band and a crucial one in the RIO (Rock In Opposition) movement. Their sound on this album (which I think makes them somewhat weird) is very playful, skilled, sometimes a bit surprising and with the occasional crazy, nonsensical vocals. Måltid is warmly recommended. :)

I've been busy the last few days, so I haven't heard all the contributions yet (so the tracklist is quite random), but I'm really looking forward to checking out the rest!

Me and Buckethead- I discovered Buckethead through his work with Guns 'N Roses. One day, I was going WAY overboard at a music store and bought about 14 albums. Among them Monsters and Robots, because I wanted to see what Bucket sounded like solo.

Weird is The Shape V.S Buckethead- The song tries to tell a story, almost like a radio show with sound effects and guitar shredding, only the story is NOT CLEAR AT ALL and half the voices sound like robots. Most of them ARE pretty altered, if not compleatly robotic. And the music- it sounds like it came out of a commercial for a horror movie. Then, the beats and disk-scratches try and give it a hip-hop flavor. It's horror-hop for godsake, if that's a genre. Or maybe it's horror-shread. "His Life was Livin'" many weird voices echo throughout the song. "I don't know what to do" a voice says. You know what? When I first heard this, I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to take the song. Lyrics sites call it "instrumental", and though it's very oriented around the guitar, the vocals are incredibly important at the same time. Can't describe it.

Man, I wish I could download this. Looks top notch!
I can't wait until my computer back from the shop. :/

Unexpect-Desert Urbania The first time I heard this song (this was the first one I heard by them) it tore my head off. It's a mix of death metal, and tim burton style musical. Keeps rearing from one psychotic extreme to the other

Finntroll-Asfalgens Dod I always knew these guys as a folk metal outfit. But after doing a bit of research, they had released an accoustic album. This is one such song. It's kind of silly, and almost cartoonish to listen to. The weirdest thing is the semi spoken troll vocals. the bass line is stupid catchy and will probably stay in your head a while.

Cardiacs - R.E.S
I find it's really obvious why this song is weird. It has a really fickle structure, it's all over the place. The vocals are also a bit eccentric, and some of the instruments used make me think "psychotic clowns".

Family Fodder - Monkey
Oddly catchy, and completely insane.
"With a banana!"

They're weird for almost the same reasons, I must've selected songs with specific criteria subconsciously.

Now that I think of it I could've used some Comus instead of Family Fodder, that last song gets tiresome after a bit.

Poll added!

I've been listening some more. I can only get so far before the GF starts complaining too much and I have to turn it off, but so far, my favourites are the Space and the Gomma Workshop tracks. They're not the weirdest, but I tend to appreciate audible aesthetics which I think is present in both these. The Space track was very charming .. gonna have to track down that album!

Let me know where it's from, noise :)

edit :

By the way, thank you guys for the track write-ups! So far, I find reading what you've written about the songs more interesting than the usual guessing game. :)

Print - Gomma Workshop

Admittedly, this was the least weird track on his album Almanacco Moderno, but the way the album is done as a whole is what makes it memorable. Gomma Workshop is headed by Vittorio Demarin, who titles the album as a collaborative piece between many dozen artists. The album is made up from hundreds of individual 'sample' sections, and he made most of them, performing with the violin, guitar, viola, toys, random electronics etc. He does accompanying animations as well. The entire album is freely downloadable from his website and the animation is available on youtube.

Scott Walker - Bolivia '95

Not necessarily the weirdest song you'll hear from the man (and, looking back, maybe there were one or two others I could've submitted instead), as it's a lot more melodic (if very subtly) than other songs he's recorded. I think it fits with the comp though because a) like a lot of Walker's later work, it requires your full concentration to properly enjoy it, b) you could spend hours trying to wrap your head around the cryptic lyrics and figure out what's it's on about and c) it's an art song in one of the oldest English musical traditions, this particular tradition dating back some 500-odd years. Also, you wouldn't exactly hear it on Radio 1 eh :p:

Public Image Ltd - Francis Massacre

Any song on Flowers Of Romance could just as easily have fitted this compilation, as it's possibly the most forward-thinking album PIL ever did. Metal Box pushed the boundaries of rock music to breaking point whereas the followup, Flowers Of Romance, tries to sort of break through into a new, post-rock territory as an album. At least that's what I get from it. Anyway, this song is that manifesto in a nutshell. As such, there's absolutely nothing resembling the conventional rock song structure - the rhythm sounds like some kind of avalanche in the studio, the keyboards have a very free jazz kinda vibe to them, there's no bass or guitar, there are all sorts of strange overdubs and synth effects and John Lydon just yells the same two lines over and over. It's one of those songs that, at least with me, just grabs the listener and never lets go, and is certainly a snug fit with this theme.

I haven't made it to Public Image, but I quite liked the Scott Walker song :) It's the most enjoyable song I've heard of his that I can remember actually, but maybe my mind has been particularly receptive or maybe I'm just slowly warming up to him.

Zarko, I tried downloading that album, but all I could find were short sample mp3s! It looks like there might be a link to the album in the downloads section, but all I get is a blank page when I click it .. Am I the only one with this problem?