TLASILA Blog

New Links #2: "Helen Butte" vs. Masonna Pussy Badsmell!

2012-01-23T14:36:00.004+01:00

Hello Droogs,

Continuing: TLASILA's second full-length album, "Helen Butte" vs. Masonna Pussy Badsmell. Recording began in June 1994 at the Studio, Miami (two live tracks recorded at Churchill's, the infamous Little Haiti nightspot, were also included), and was completed in October. (Note: many of the album's backing tracks were re-edited versions of cut-ups I'd completed in 1985 for Peach of Immortality's 'E' Making of Salisbury epic!) Bulb Records were originally scheduled to issue the album around Thanksgiving '94, but inter-label rancor scuttled the release. Eventually, Full Contact, a short-lived offshoot of the soon-to-be-doomed Fifth Column logo cabal, dumped the disc into the nation's cut-out bins rather later than planned: 1996. Fuck. We suffered quite a lot of blowback in those early years...

Anyhow, this album is way, way gone, and now you can go full truck stop on it at your leisure.

Link here!

Cheers,

TS

---

From the info file:

To Live and Shave in L.A. - "Helen Butte" vs. Masonna Pussy Badsmell

(1994, released 1996, Full Contact CD 9868-63235.)

Avalability: long out of print.

---

01 Root of Pop Compulsion
02 Tina Russell, Free
03 Take a Lot of Ofay
04 The Ass God
05 Open City '72
06 Shit If They Hit
07 Spelvin, the Righteous Bush
08 Veinsearchin'
09 Superhype Security Probe
10 My Third Decade of Ultrafuck
11 Crypt Rocket, Tomb Rocket, Turd Rocket
12 The "Six" in The Six Wolves
13 Mizrahi Speculum
14 I Learn to Inject Morphia
15 Lady Dedlock
16 Hypecuff
17 A Low Mass Will Be Said
18 I Suppress Nothing
19 Wanna Bust Up a Virgin Ass?
20 One Navel of Decline
21 Rexroth, Cozy Cool
22 I Used to Pay a Heavy Bribe
23 Kama Sutra '71
24 Anne's Eager Bottom
25 Shivman Destroys Spoonman
26 "Godspike" Soph. Hoax
27 Theresa Soder in My Hot Hands
28 Television's Over
29 "American Car"
30 Gone and Bitched Up
31 I Slur a Name
32 Tealink
33 First Pop Novice
34 Lock of Gut Twine
35 Balling Andrea True
36 Bataille = No Stipe
37 In the Assworks

Recorded June 1985 (assembled from loops created by Tom Smith for Peach of Immortality's 1985 album "'E' Making of Salisbury") and June-October 1994 by TS and Rat Bastard at The Studio and Churchill's Hideaway, Miami (tracks 4 & 19).

Mixed and produced by Tom Smith.

Tom Smith: voice, exteriors
Rat Bastard: bass
Ben Wolcott: oscillator and treatments

Music TS/TLASILA. Lyrics TS. (Except 28, music & lyrics by T.V. Smith/Adverts.)

New Links #1: 30-Minuten Männercreme!

2012-01-23T00:55:00.003+01:00

Hello Again,

New links, as promised earlier. The first will lead you to TLASILA's debut album, 30-minuten männercreme. I wrote and produced 30-mm from August 1991 (when "Shot Your Mouth Off" began to take shape) to October 1993, the point at which I seriously began pruning the 80-odd tracks that had been assembled. Forty ultimately made the final, befouled cut. The band was just me at this early juncture, but some of the names that would later become familiar were hovering: Rat Bastard mixed eight of the 40 tracks, Bill Orcutt played guitar on two of the selections, and Oscar Perez, Tigra L'Trimm, and Tracie Phillips, all of whom appeared on the Doris Wishman-directed Spatters of a Royal Sperm long-form video, explode over several shrieking shards. I started a label called Love Is Sharing Pharmaceuticals out of my Miami Beach apartment, had 1,300 copies pressed in June 1994, and finally sold the last remaining handful in 2008. Scoop it up, dear friends, if it's rigorous aesthetic convulsion you prefer...

Here.

Cheers,

TS

New: Rope Cosmetology Web!

2012-01-22T23:18:00.004+01:00

Hi Again,

Good news from a related front. Tim Lane Seaton, erstwhile Peach of Immortality titan and suave multimedia counter-conceptualist, recently unveiled the official Rope Cosmetology domain. It's exact and precise and perfect on all counts. Tim, one of the five core members of Ropecosm, worked on the site for as long as it took.

The rest is up to you and your itchy orbs...

Yours, still,

TS

Postscript: a cross-edict from F'buch:

Rope Cosmetology? It's the group that TLASILA morphed into following the Shave's 2008 European tour. It was too fucking obvious that the lithe, intensely focused Euro group was a far superior beast compared to the lumbering, often oafish performance of the 2007 ensemble (which on occasion featured eleven members, most of whom were hauling foul guitars from A to Zed); I needed to swim out of the morass, smash the framework, re-tool the lathe, locate the worm born of Selbstzufriedenheit, etc. And in the autumn of 2008, Ropecosm emerged. We're five years, five albums and one micro-tour into our regimen of aggressive angioplasty, and recently, co-member Tim Lane Seaton unveiled our official web. Go there, now.

Murkier Hew Receding...

2012-01-21T13:54:00.003+01:00

Droogz,

The debut performance from Merkwürdig Riechen (a new collaborative project featuring ex-Child Abuse-r Luke Calzonetti and myself) is cuffed and gagged in the bag. One rehearsal, a few files exchanged, four new compositions conjured, one cover de-Gestalt-ed, and one of my solo vocal pieces detourned/re-deployed. Our faces ripped too-ripened facets, etc. Evidence of documentation may soon be found herein. DJ Boiled Ryce spun solid FSK sides, and all was luminous within the void...

Yours in Silver,

TS

Mega-Urgh.

2012-01-20T17:42:00.002+01:00

Dear Comrades,

Links to several dozen official To Live and Shave in L.A. mixes, free album uploads, and other effluvia/ephemera originally posted here on TLASILA Blog are now presumed lost, due to the recent eradication of the Megaupload domain cabal. Uploads will commence ASAP; cross-linked posts will appear on our other sites...

Already quite behind schedule in 2012 - as soon as we returned from our Stateside sojourn, the avalanche began. Massive KSV update (once foolishly scheduled for December 30th) due soon.

Yours,

Tom

Via M.P. Lockwood / No-Core: Death by Audio, January 4th, 2011...

2012-01-10T22:46:00.003+01:00

Courtesy of M.P. Lockwood:

"Sightings were doing their thing, sounding as focused (yet blurred) as ever. I was told there was exactly one practice for this show but it would have been hard to guess they hadn’t been playing this set for a month on tour. Everyone seemed 100% in command, holding back or cutting loose exactly when needed with no nervous or puzzled glances. It’s a pretty perfect pairing too, Sightings and Tom Smith, as they both work in a similar mode: composed but loose, planned but spontaneous. Sightings works with sound shards and Tom works with words, both of them stretching their material to the breaking point."

Follow the link!

Cheers,

TS

A Parental Enquiring Sigh...

2012-01-08T15:21:00.003+01:00

(Cross-posted from F'buch.)

Re Peach of Immortality: although I failed to transfer POI's unreleased third album, The Baptist Hymnal (I thought I'd already done so during my 2010 trip to the States), I brought back a motherlode of unissued titanium. There's more than enough extant here at HQ to assemble a sick, sick, sick compilation album/box/etc. Fifteen albums, lots of shows from the Peach/Pussy Galore tour, all the existing mixes for Taxi zum Shoah (about eight hours' worth), live and studio oddments from the Smith/Ginsberg '88 group, and many recordings from the magisterial (and, of course, much-ignored/loathed) Tim Lane Seaton period (late '88-early '91). Bad news for dullards, but a Tory Lane squirtgasm for glorious and fetid wanderers...

More on this as the encroaching apocalypse merits,

TS

6,000 Red Splatters for a Krone... (USA Day 21)

2012-01-07T23:56:00.003+01:00

Hi All,

Flying into Copenhagen earlier this morning. We still had another seven and a half hours to go, but the vast swath of those were layovers. Brain dead from the day-long slog...

Yours, as ever,

TS

USA Day 20 (cont..)

2012-01-06T11:43:00.000+01:00

Hello All,

Brothers united against all banality, including their own! Andrew W.K. and me at Death by Audio in the early hours of January 5th, before lighting out to after-party #1!

---

Wearily,

TS

Happy New Year! All Hail 2012!

2012-01-01T19:22:00.002+01:00

Droogz,

All the best from everyone at TLASILA Zentrale / KSV HQ!

Love,

Tom

Official Universal Best of 2011...

2011-12-31T19:43:00.005+01:00

Hallo Again,

Here's the list. All others lie.

No kudo-looping, friends, labelmates, former associates, etc.

Best of 2011

Exercise One - "Snakepit" / "Phantom Voice"

Oops, party's starting! More to follow...

ZTS

Achtung! SMACK SHIRE Sale!!

2011-12-28T19:01:00.002+01:00

Hello Everyone,

As you're doubtless aware, we're currently ensconced Stateside for the holidays. I've been tearing through the archive, and blasting open the panic doors leading to the most obscure redoubts.

Dunno if you have any of the recordings the late Gerard Klauder and I issued on our Smack Shire imprint, but if you don't, I suggest you get your mitts on them ASAP.

The suspects:

TSSR 1001 After That It's All Gravy - Band on the Run

TSSR 1002 The Reverend Lester Knox of Tifton, Georgia - Put Your Face in Gwod: The 366th Revival

TSSR 1003 Tarot or Aorta: Memories of a PRE Festival

TSSR 1004 To Live and Shave in L.A. - God and Country Rally!

TSSR 1006 Sightings Tom Smith - Gardens of War

TSSR 1007 Xex - Group: Xex (expanded reissue)

(TSSR 1005 was never issued, due to Gerard's death. It was later released on Karl Schmidt Verlag as KSV 063.)

How about a SALE?

How about shipping from the USA?

How about 36 hours only? This offer is valid ONLY THROUGH DECEMBER 30TH!

And, how about sick Xmas 2011 prices?

Order now and get all six Smack Shire albums for $36, shipped anywhere, postage included.

Or, for $7 each, adding $1 for each additional album (if you need more than one) for shipping.

PayPal to tlasila (at) gmail (dot) com.

---

OK?

We'll have a new KSV release announcement on the 30th, after the sale is over. If you want ANYTHING from the TSSR archive, act now! I won't be dragging all these boxes back to Germany with me...

Best,

Tom

RIP Bert Schneider...

2011-12-14T07:06:00.003+01:00

R.I.P. Bert Schneider... Who? Oh, he was the co-producer of The Monkees. (Episode 57, "Monkees Blow Their Minds," prefigures the amazing film Head - also produced by Schneider - and features an insane intro segment with Frank Zappa, one later borrowed for the 200 Motels movie.) As a producer, Schneider also gave us Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, The Last Picture Show, Hearts and Minds, and Days of Heaven. Not a bad way to be remembered...

The New York Times' obit can be found here.

---

TS

Busier Than Ever, But Soon Coming Up for Yams...

2011-12-13T00:37:00.000+01:00

Jetting off for a three-week tour of the wreckage of America on Saturday! Four days in NYC, a leisurely drive down the eastern ribbon, five days in Georgia, a few in Florida, and back again to Manhattan. Two (a-)musical performances scheduled: Richmond on the 22nd, with fellow Rope Cosmetologist Ryan Parrish, and on January 4th in NY with Sightings, Don Fleming, Fat Worm of Error, et al. If you see us, rub up against us for good luck...

TS

Thieves' Who's Who: Debut Berlin Gigs...

2011-12-01T22:39:00.005+01:00

Thieves' Who's Who - my duo project with the lovely and talented Wouter Jaspers - will perform a pair of gigs over the weekend in Berlin. See us at O Tannenbaum on Friday, and/or at Brunnen70 on Saturday...

Yours,

TS

Rest, Obscured Scum...

2011-11-24T17:42:00.002+01:00

So: the VHS masters for Peach of Immortality's 1991 Succumbs (restored) compilation and To Live and Shave in L.A.'s Spatters of a Royal Sperm, the unfinished 1992 long-form video directed by the late Doris Wishman, have been transferred to digital. The former will be reissued via Karl Schmidt Verlag in 2012, and the latter will be re-edited/"completed" for the bonus disc of the re-release of Ms. Wishman's A Night to Dismember DVD. Three cheers for climate-controlled storage (i.e., Mom's house back in the USA)!

Yours Faithfully,

Tom

RIP Pat Passlof...

2011-11-16T22:05:00.000+01:00

Another titan passes... She was a native of Brunswick, Georgia. A homegirl...

(Ms. Passlof with her husband and fellow artist Milton Resnick...)

(Passlof's Housetop, from 1958.)

"... canvases vibrate with unpredictable line and thick, luminous color..."

The Times obit may be found here.

--

TS

Hope Leatherette's a Spinoff...

2011-11-08T23:54:00.004+01:00

Hello Friends,

Still folding and tucking. Must be barreling toward a career in custom curettage for the next null-and-void hereafter. As the last orders of Blue Before Blackface lazily drift into HQ, available post-prod time recedes. Still, all KSV enthusiasts are likely to enjoy a Very Merry...

Yours,

TS

Why Hand-Folded Is Better Than Hand-Wrung...

2011-11-03T20:39:00.013+01:00

Hi Again,

A mosquito just picked the green start button of my laptop as the spot where it wished to die. Its proboscis was bent, bereft of function. Must have had a rough afternoon. It fluttered, tried to right itself, flew a few inches into some cords, then expired...

Got the snap-front bags from the supplier, and so I've begun folding and packing the remainder of the outstanding orders for the KDTS Blue Before Blackface set. The first spool had 42 audio discs, and six PAL DVDs. That took a little over an hour to assemble. Slowly, surely...

Images from the aforementioned struggle:

The above? About 67 minutes of our time, happily given over to thee. We'll try to have the lot in the post by late tomorrow afternoon, Saturday at the latest. At the very latest latest, well, uhh, let's not think about that right now...

Cheers,

TS/KS

KDTS Blue Before Update!

2011-11-02T17:38:00.007+01:00

(Amended 2 Nov 11.)

Hello Everyone,

Hope all is well out there.

If you ordered Blue Before Blackface a few weeks back, you'll notice that KSV hasn't yet claimed your funds. Why why O why? Well, the company that supplies the snap-front bags we're using for the release informed us they'd run out of them. (I won't take your hard-won geld before orders can be filled. Remember, we make everything on-demand. There is no inventory.) This occurred after I returned from Berlin with the first six orders, which were purchased by Daniel at Rumpsti Pumpsti. (No other copies of the six-disc/one-DVD set have gone out thus far.) Much irritated thumb-twiddling ensued, as is always the case when delays throw themselves in our path. The bag company finally got new stocks in their sumptuous showrooms on Tuesday, but because of work I couldn't pick my share of them up until today. Why bother with the fucking bags? Cos the discs look so cool inside 'em.

A tedious, wholly anodyne tale, but true. We're meticulously transparent here at KSV...

So, with 45 new snap-front bags in my larder, all I have to do is fold, snap, and post. (The discs for all extant orders, including DVDs, are already burned.) In the post maybe by Friday? I'll grab everyone's cash just before the mail drop.

Oh yeah, there are seven sets left, so if anyone still hasn't thrown their lot in with us, now's your fat chance...

Alles klar?

Love,

Tom

November 1st, and the Children Are Barking...

2011-11-01T07:37:00.003+01:00

Hi Again,

Still here, just absurdly busy. So much content in the holding pens - I hope to add at least a portion of it in the next few days. Lots to report, including: excellent solo/solo/duo concert the Saturday before last (October 22nd) with Wouter Jaspers at the Oberdeck here in Hannover; saw the Daniel Richter 10001nacht exhibition at Kestner Gesellschaft - mostly very blah, unfortunately; Weasel Walter, Jim Magas, Azita Youseffi (no shit) and I (and perhaps others from the original sessions - who knows?) will be reuniting as Miss High Heel, but probably only for a new series of recordings; I'll be opening for Sightings at Friese in Bremen on November 19th, and we'll be performing together as the Sightings Tom Smith quartet in NYC on January 4th (venue TBA); Rope Cosmetology's website is almost up and salivating - we'll be on tour in Europe during the first three weeks of March - we'll have our first non-KSV releases out by then (if luck holds) as well; a newly commissioned Three Resurrected Drunkards C-90 will soon be available via an Australian imprint whose name escapes me at present; there'll be a new TLASILA C-60 soon as well (info will be posted as soon as my mind clears); the three-disc Shave remix box on MonotypeRec is in production, but probably won't see the grim light of doom until 2012; Epuration is also now set for a 2012 release; I decided to stop giving interviews for The Cortege - you've never seen such insipid fucking inquiries; and, not that you wouldn't have guessed, but there's been lots of tweaking and editing, as usual, at KSV HQ...

That's it for now.

Love,

TS

KSV: Mid-Okt Flood...

2011-10-18T23:47:00.006+02:00

Hi Again,

New releases via KSV. All single-disc efforts. €8.49 Eurozone, €11 elsewhere, postpaid. PayPal to the usual address...

Girded?

--

KSV 162 Contrarian Composers Series #1: Lazim

KSV 163 Contrarian Composers Series #2: Niccolò Malipiero

KSV 164 Contrarian Composers Series #3: Gbessi Hazoumé

KSV 165 Contrarian Composers Series #4: Choe Iseul

KSV 166 Contrarian Composers Series #5: Nested Corruptions

KSV 167 Tom Smith - Poor Dears (Solo Vocal #4)

KSV 170 Four Flawed - Interlingua '11

KSV 173 Iodide Stud to Antimalarial - Night Gistss

KSV 174 Toys Moaned Urine - Haggish Lily Quirt

KSV 175 Volcano the Bear - 30. Juni, Oberdeck, Hannover

KSV 176 Bled Creche - Mainspring Ovum

KSV 177 Christian Galarreta - Resonances

KSV 180 Blue Sabbath Black Fiji - Annulled Alleles

KSV 181 Kunt - Stormbell Steambooty

KSV 182 Astma - Consumer Vorticism

KSV 185 Crank Sturgeon - The Kiss-Lunch-Ibiza Loop

KSV 186 Dental-Exorzismus - RPV

KSV 187 Bill Orcutt - Freise (16. Okt, Bremen)

KSV 188 Ava Mendoza - Oberdeck (17. Okt, Hannover)

KSV 189 Eradicates Own - Boohooed Book Trait

---

More info, edition sizes, etc., tomorrow. Off to bed!

Ciao,

TS/Karl

Ava Mendoza / Bill Orcutt / KSV Update...

2011-10-17T23:55:00.003+02:00

Hi All,

Excellent set by the formidable Ava Mendoza just under an hour ago at the Oberdeck. Last night, Bill Orcutt fed us the raw, undiluted EYE at Friese in Bremen. Superb back-to-back events - what a great time to exist. Both artists have authorized their performances for release on KSV, so I beg your indulgence while I complete sleeves and editing and add them to the bulging larder in queue. OK?

Yours Sincerely,

TS

KSV Addenda Addenda!

2011-10-16T00:03:00.002+02:00

Hi All,

Nineteen new albums (and one new book) will be available from Monday via Karl Schmidt Verlag, including the first five installments of our Contrarian Composers series, and releases by Astma, Christian Galarreta, Volcano the Bear, Kunt, Blue Sabbath Black Fiji, Crank Sturgeon, Four Flawed, Toys Moaned Urine, and more. Pull your peepers from their stalks and place in range of your smart device, as info will soon flow...

Re Blue Before Blackface: about twelve sets left. Make a note to move, if need be.

Best,

TS

KSV 179 Addenda...

2011-10-06T19:42:00.005+02:00

Hi Again,

Can't quite afford the 5xCDr/DVD Drumm Smurf box? There's a special "Sediments" edition available at the usual KSV single disc price (€8.49 Eurozone, postpaid, and €11 elsewhere, also postpaid), one that collapses the five-disc tangle into a raging 64:39 inferno of mothlight.

The sleeve, as you can weep/peep below, is nearly identical.

No extras, just the hand-folded sleeve and the muzak, but for demons on a budget, hard to fuckin' flail...

Note: the Sediments mix comes along with the full-blown box, so don't buy it if you've already shelled out for KSV 179 proper. OK?

PayPal via the usual channels.

Who said we didn't love you, albeit semi-anonymously?

Cheers,

TS

Blue Before Update...

2011-10-04T23:20:00.000+02:00

Achtung: KDTS tour box already 20% sold, so... Make your move or etc.

Available from Friday on KSV...

2011-10-04T17:49:00.002+02:00

Hello Droogs,

Incredibly busy here - the last weeks have been non-stop erotic neurotic necrotic, with scarcely a moment to slash and burn, much less turn worms. The usual backdated updates will follow. More news than I can relate at present, but...

KSV 179 Kevin Drumm Tom Smith - Blue Before Blackface (5xCD/DVD)

Five hours of audio culled and cudgeled from the May 2011 tour recordings, with accompanying video jumble.

€34 Eurozone postpaid; €41 elsewhere, postpaid.

PayPal: tlasila@gmail.com

Edition of 50.

--

Best,

TS/KS/Linda

Georgia Is a Fuckhole...

2011-09-22T05:45:00.003+02:00

New at TLASILA Soundcloud...

2011-09-12T23:23:00.001+02:00

New uploads are ready for the twitchiest of fingers at TLASILA Soundcloud. Go go go go go!

TS

First Review of The Cortège...

2011-09-12T17:20:00.002+02:00

First review of To Live and Shave in L.A.'s forthcoming album, The Cortège. For reasons that should be abundantly clear to even casual enthusiasts, I'm posting this with mixed feelings! Nice that MM got a proper nod. He killed on the song referenced herein (and elsewhere on the alb, natch).

See below...

TS

RIP Jordan Belson...

2011-09-10T18:17:00.003+02:00

I distinctly recall when and where I first read about Jordan Belson's work (South Georgia, in the ancestral bedroom, probably around 1970, in the Underground Film paperback), and when and where I was sitting when I watched Re-Entry for the first time (in the home of Miami Beach artist Charles Recher, early 1991). Belson's work will have lasting influence, and the news of his death is occasion not for sadness but for joy - his work was rarely prosaic, and often wondrous...

(Left, Henry Jacobs. Right, Jordan Belson.)

Obit here.

TS

Illiquidity Studies A-U: SoundCloud Re-Post!

2011-09-05T19:15:00.003+02:00

New to TLASILA SoundCloud: the twenty-one Cortège remixes comprising the 2008 "Illiquidity Studies" set, originally exclusive to our official (and now basically abandoned) MySpace page, now disinterred and burnished for your leisure (dis-)interest.

Dip your toes into the furnace,

Tom

Urgh...

2011-09-05T01:13:00.002+02:00

I've now got the same cold everyone in Northern Germany has been passing back and forth for the last two weeks. Damn. I expect to be at home for the next 48 hours, so I'm extending the KSV Open Vault Amnesty another two days. Take your time...

Best,

TS/KS

KSV Open Vault Weekend!

2011-09-03T12:05:00.003+02:00

Hello All,

Pretty blasted after my DJ set last night at Centrum. We went very late into the evening/morning, and I've only had a few hours of unconsciousness to balance the endorphin overload.

From now until Monday morning, the KSV vaults are open! If there's anything you missed first time round, now's your chance to attack. All books are available, and most of the CD releases are too. Ask if you have any questions.

The seventy-two disc version of 72 Hours (KSV 115)* and the 50-disc 2010 box What's a qNadsat Word for Tank Jazz? (KSV 061) are not currently being offered for sale.

(*The hard disc and two-disc "supermix" versions of KSV 115 are still available.)

Look around, make a decision. PayPal to the usual address.

Cheers,

Tom, Linda, and Karl.

SHOCK FLASH! Billy Is Back!!!

2011-09-01T15:20:00.002+02:00

Warning! Warning!

Ex-Melted Men/To Live and Shave in L.A. surrealist provocateur Billy Taylor is in Germany and will be giving the full Mr. Misty treatment to the lucky throng attending his performance tomorrow night at Walther! Do everything in your power to attend!

(Click above for a larger image.)

Be there!

Soundcloud TLASILA: New Cortege Preview (Re-)Mix

2011-08-30T23:19:00.002+02:00

Hi All,

Our Soundcloud page is up and palpitating. There'll be TLASILA tracks, KSV previews, TS solo stuff, Rope Cosmetology material, OHNE fetish items, etc.

As for now, go here.

Best,

Tom

Modal Renunciation #37

2011-08-29T07:08:00.003+02:00

Adele, in we're "Grenade" Pitbull Pitbull and Fire's interactive ends...

TS

My New Toaster Oven...

2011-08-28T15:27:00.002+02:00

Fan Death sent a test pressing for The Cortège.

And so shall it remain. (No turntable.)

TS

Modal Renunciation #36

2011-08-28T13:27:00.003+02:00

To Pitbull themselves. Now, been "deep" Britney been...

Tom

Modal Renunciation #35

2011-08-27T00:16:00.002+02:00

We judge, though have looking event on us, but ignore given...

TS

Modal Renunciation #34

2011-08-26T06:29:00.003+02:00

We're ignore we Fire's the that what's but the -- crossed we neglected...

Tom

Modal Renunciation #33

2011-08-25T06:21:00.002+02:00

Arcade been Arcade the now, egregiously...

Third and final renunciation series of sixteen begins today...

TS

Modal Renunciation #32

2011-08-24T07:05:00.005+02:00

Effectively lurid measures demand rip-offs, thighs, atmosphere...

(A third and final group of sixteen unspool from Thursday.)

TS

Modal Renunciation #31

2011-08-24T07:05:00.001+02:00

Modal Renunciation #31

2011-08-23T00:09:00.005+02:00

Shallows of shallow truck; hands, mud and electric rut...

TS

Modal Renunciation #30

2011-08-22T00:19:00.003+02:00

A long summer of sighs and warring slumps...

TS

Modal Renunciation #29

2011-08-21T23:35:00.003+02:00

Could it level, however? Write, however? (Day several of cause while, above.)

Tom

RIP Jimmy Sangster...

2011-08-21T22:56:00.000+02:00

Jimmy Sangster, the much-loved screenwriter oft-employed by Hammer (he wrote dozens of their films, ranging from the Cushing/Lee classics to oddities like The Snorkle) and director (Lust for a Vampire, The Horror of Frankenstein) died on the 19th at the age of 83...

NYT obit here. Guardian, here.

Requiescat in pace...

TS

Modal Renunciation #28

2011-08-20T23:33:00.002+02:00

Desires illegible. Stacks. I’m unable, I’m unable...

TS

Christian Galarreta: Oberdeck, Friday, August 19...

2011-08-20T12:21:00.004+02:00

Hello All,

Peruvian musician Christian Galarreta performed a very intriguing set of manipulated magnetic resonances last evening at the Oberdeck here in Hannover. Superb in all respects.

He's staying here at KSV HQ through Sunday evening. Expect a release of his performance in the next week or so on the Verlag, and a duo collaboration with yours truly in the months ahead. We have a recording session later in the evening...

As for now, dead tired. I DJed until four in the morning. Nothing left but ashes.

Cheers,

TS

Modal Renunciation #27

2011-08-19T23:32:00.004+02:00

Compound agency is father's control...

TS

RIP Raúl Ruiz...

2011-08-19T21:02:00.001+02:00

The great Raúl Ruiz has passed away at 70. His contribution to cinema was immense...

(Palomita blanca, 1971)

From SMz:

"Rising to international prominence in the early 1980s, Raúl Ruiz has proved one of the most exciting and innovative filmmakers of recent years, providing more intellectual fun and artistic experimentation, shot for shot, than any filmmaker since Jean-Luc Godard.

Slashing his way through celluloid with machete-sharp sounds and images, Ruiz is a guerrilla who uncompromisingly assaults the preconceptions of film art. This frightfully prolific figure--he has made over 50 films in twenty years--does not adhere to any one style of filmmaking. He has worked in 35mm, 16mm and video, for theatrical release and for European TV, and on documentary and fiction features.

(L'hypothèse du tableau volé, 1979)

Ruiz's career began in the avant-garde theater where, from 1956 to 1962, he wrote over 100 plays. Although he never directed any of these productions, he did dabble in filmmaking in 1960 and 1964 with two short, unfinished films. In 1968, with the release of his first completed feature, Tres tristes tigres (1968), Ruiz, along with Miguel Littin and Aldo Francia, was placed in the forefront of Chilean film.

A committed leftist who supported the Marxist government of Salvador Allende, Ruiz was forced to flee his country during the fascist coup of 1973. Living in exile in Paris since that time, he has found a forum for his ideas in European TV. His first great European success came with Hypothèse du tableau volé, L' (1978); a puzzling black-and-white film adapted from a novel by Pierre Klossowski, constructed in a tableaux vivants style that tells the enigmatic story of a missing 19th-century painting.

Influenced by the fabulist tradition that runs through much Latin American literature (Gabriel García Márquez, Jorge Luis Borges, and Alfonso Reyes have all been cited as influences), Ruiz is a poet of fantastic images whose films slip effortlessly from reality to imagination and back again. A manipulator of wild, intellectual games in which the rules are forever changing, Ruiz's techniques are as varied as film itself--a collection of odd Wellesian angles and close-ups, bewildering p.o.v. shots, dazzling colors, and labyrinthine narratives which weave and dodge the viewer's grasp with every shot.

(Image de sable, 1981)

As original as Ruiz is, one can tell much about him by the diversity of his influences; in addition to adapting Klossowski, he has been inspired by Franz Kafka (Colonia penal, La (1970) is a Chilean reworking of The Penal Colony), Racine (Bérénice (1983)), Calderon (Mémoire des apparences (1986)), Shakespeare (Richard III (1986)), Robert Louis Stevenson (Treasure Island (1985)), Orson Welles (whose F for Fake is a precursor of The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting, 1978), and Hollywood B movies (Roger Corman was executive producer on The Territory (1981)).

(Le Domaine perdu, 2005)

Like Godard (whom Ruiz names as an early influence and who also owes a debt to B films), Ruiz makes no differentiation between the "high art" of Racine or Calderon and the "low art" of Roger Corman. Unfortunately, only a handful of Ruiz's films are available for viewing in the US, and it is on these few films that his reputation here is built. The few works that are available, however, bear witness to the genius that informs his entire body of work."

(Tres tristes tigres, 1968)

---

Rest well, Maestro.

NYT obituary here. Also, check this entertaining profile of Ruiz written by the Times' A.O. Scott less than a month ago...

TS

Modal Renunciation #26

2011-08-18T23:30:00.002+02:00

Detail doubts detail motion the details faced. The judge is out.

TS

Modal Renunciation #25

2011-08-17T07:02:00.002+02:00

The enduring critics and enduring museum...

TS

Modal Renunciation #24

2011-08-16T23:58:00.003+02:00

Gold gold? Analysts safe in demand slowdown...

Tom

Modal Renunciation #23

2011-08-15T06:19:00.003+02:00

Never personal an addiction: war his sphere, withdrew a life sphere...

Tom

Modal Renunciation #22

2011-08-14T11:33:00.002+02:00

Snarling the pop dustbin...

T

Via WFMU Blog...

2011-08-13T09:57:00.002+02:00

Hello Everyone,

Blogger Paul Haney, a contributor to the always-sterling WFMU Blog, has posted a piece on my post-Boat Of, pre-TLASILA aggregation Peach of Immortality.

Cheers, Paul! (And thanks also to M.P. Lockwood, another frequent WFMU Blog contributor, who alerted me to the post.)

Find it here.

Best,

TS

Modal Renunciation #21

2011-08-13T08:14:00.001+02:00

Have animals, the rock stuff, the pop-to-stuff, the most glass?

Tom

Modal Renunciation #20

2011-08-12T23:31:00.000+02:00

Country make only documented country! Whereas, music be country newspapers!

TTTTTS

Just in from Fan Death...

2011-08-12T23:05:00.002+02:00

Guten Abend,

Fan Death have revised their release date for the vinyl version of TLASILA's The Cortège.

SEPTEMBER 2.

The rest is up to you!

TS

Modal Renunciation #19

2011-08-11T23:29:00.002+02:00

Instead, a festival glass experience...

Tom

Modal Renunciation #18

2011-08-10T23:19:00.001+02:00

Ceiling reduction slide outlooks probable...

TS

Modal Renunciation #17

2011-08-09T06:58:00.002+02:00

Second series of sixteen begins today...

TS

Modal Renunciation #16

2011-08-08T06:54:00.000+02:00

Husband enjoyed admission, enjoyed secret probes...

Karl

Modal Renunciation #15

2011-08-07T09:10:00.003+02:00

"Especially well for the very rich and the very poor..."

Tom

Modal Renunciation #14

2011-08-06T10:12:00.003+02:00

Aboriginal community, move, thermal gorge...

Tom

Modal Renunciation #13

2011-08-05T00:03:00.002+02:00

Call America Off by Paid American Countrystep...

TS

Update 20110804

2011-08-04T22:09:00.002+02:00

(Amended crosspost from F'book.)

Update: Working a lot, explaining inverted conditionals and past perfect tenses to energy execs. Pretty sizable feature on me coming soon in Testcard, covering "career," KSV, etc. Possible (proper) Rope Cosmetology alb in the works. Possible Kevin Drumm/Tom Smith vinyl alb from recent tour as well. TLASILA Cortege vinyl and CD out very soon. Illustrated To Live and Shave in L.A. book on the way as well. A living, chortling fuckload of releases extant and forthcoming via KSV. What else? Can't recall at the moment...

Tom

TLASILA 2011 Hybrids #216

2011-08-04T18:18:00.003+02:00

Hysteria Streeters,

Despairing Americans see cheap, sad. Businesses record low-class...

Palley Prospect,

Tom

--

#216

(Click above for a larger version of the image.)

Edited, mixed and produced by TS at KSV HQ, Hannover, on August 4, 2011.

01 216 (17:09)

Sleeve by Karl.

Vielen Dank!

Modal Renunciation #12

2011-08-04T00:02:00.002+02:00

Distinguished endowment; letters held letters...

Tom

Günter Brus zum 50!

2011-08-03T23:29:00.004+02:00

Dear Droogs,

Reckon you'd prefer the following to Arcade Fire...

Günter Brus - Günter Brus zum 50. Geburtstag Überreicht vom 1. Deutschen Trivialeum: Panisches Liederbuch (Dichtung und Musik)

(Released by Die Taubosel as DT 1 (12" LP), 1988. Very limited edition, long gone. My rip from my copy, which sits forlornly Stateside. Rudolf Eb.er has a copy too, and I made a cassette dupe of his at Dave Phillips' flat when OHNE were on tour in 2002. My German was non-existent then, but Brus' voice was nonetheless consoling...)

Dichtung von Günter Brus aus der Jahren 1973-1988. Konzeption / produktion / regie: Arnulf und Franziska Meifert. Sprecher: Arnulf Meifert. Recorded at P&P Tonstudio, Regensburg, sommer 1988.

TT: 45:23; 108 MB ripped @ 320. Additional information and scans (not my own) enclosed in the archive.

Get it here.

Best,

Tom

Actual Progress...

2011-08-03T22:18:00.003+02:00

Hello All,

I have a 5:30 wake-up and need to be dozing soon, so a quick note before lights out: I've completed the 72 Hours restoration, and thus one of the remaining obstacles to a faster, more responsive KSV has been removed. I might even make it available again, but probably only in the two-disc iteration, minus the book. Or, you tell me what you prefer. At any rate, the logjam has been cleared. Still have a lot of catching up to do, of course, but ETC ETC ETC.

Yours Faithfully,

TS

Modal Renunciation #11

2011-08-03T22:12:00.001+02:00

Selected for prose, then award, then work, work!

TS

Modal Renunciation #10

2011-08-02T23:59:00.000+02:00

Communicate universal recurring character, melody D (notes of notes)...

TS

Modal Renunciation #9

2011-08-01T23:21:00.002+02:00

Epiphany pronoun "her" helped game self-love to incite...

Tom

Modal Renunciation #8

2011-07-31T23:56:00.004+02:00

Exiled and injured almost (the chief landowners revolt to 1959 work poetic)...

TS

KSV Sunday Update...

2011-07-31T22:14:00.003+02:00

Hi Again,

Back in post-production mode. Lost four days due to the technical breakdown, and I've still a bit of administrative tedium to attend to, but mixdowns proceed. Should be spitting out new discs and completing extant orders soon...

Many thanks, as ever...

TS

Modal Renunciation #7

2011-07-30T22:41:00.002+02:00

Sustenance prey, my brothers! In mother, immortal...

TS

KSV Progress Report

2011-07-30T20:47:00.002+02:00

Hello Again,

We're back, with a new laptop and hours of re-installation ahead of us. The sighs are multitracked and elongated, but production should soon resume...

TS

Modal Renunciation #6

2011-07-29T23:30:00.002+02:00

Translated imprisonment languages...

Tom

Update: Groan...

2011-07-29T19:23:00.002+02:00

Hi Again,

Clattering from the CP's rig.

It wasn't only the power adapter - my laptop's power input jack was also struck dumb. This lead the multitude of investigating tekvolk to conclude that a short must have coursed through its system. The battery died before I could recover some recent data, but everything is safe. Just inaccessible, at least until repairs have been completed. In the meantime, I may have to inaugurate KSV Mobile 2. Sighs, etc. I'll keep you p'sted.

Yours Faithfully,

Tom

KSV: Temporary Shutdown!

2011-07-29T14:49:00.003+02:00

Fug! My laptop's power supply died this morning. Went to a couple of big electronic shops in the city center to find a replacement, but no-one had an exact match. Just ordered one from Amazon, but it may take a week to get here. So, production has ground to a halt. Can't do the work on my iPad, unfortunately, so everyone will have to wait a while longer. As usual when there's been a delay, I'll toss a free catalog entry into everyone's parcels to compensate them for the time they spend tapping their toes in frustration. Only 54 minutes left on the battery, so I need to run.

Very, very sorry for the delay...

Sincerely,

TS

Modal Renunciation #5

2011-07-28T23:49:00.002+02:00

Atlanta Norton Forge, intellectual. (Francis He-Manning, He-Davis of Davis' daily...)

TS

Getting to Know Your Recent KSV Releases, Pt. 0...

2011-07-28T08:25:00.003+02:00

Hi Again,

Off to work in a tick, so I only have time to provide a teaser. 72 Hours (KSV 115) was an attempt to re-write, divert, deflect, and redirect the "ambient" canon. As indicated by the title, it was a three-day piece, one intended for listeners suffering from an illness. The text wasn't meant to be mollifying, but I hoped that a restorative effect might be conferred through the textual loops and obstacles encoded into a purposely wry narrative, one primarily concerned with fumbling, obsolescent bureaucracies.

Not exactly yr grannie's 2:59 bag of pop thumbtacks.

After the initial flurry were sent out, I deleted the assembly versions (which sprawled over 650 GB of hard drive real estate) and kept only the master vocals, the room tone recordings, etc. Feedback was excellent, job well done.

Then, less than a month ago, two very loyal KSV enthusiasts reported they'd not received their shipments.

FUCK...

I'd had a few things go missing in the mails before, but this was quite a blow. No stress re replacing the lost items - that's my obligation. But, as you might now gather, it meant recreating the laborious process, twice. Once for a customer who'd ordered the 72-disc version, and another for one who'd paid for the two-disc mixdown iteration. The latter has to wait on the former for completion, so these last few weeks have found me slouched over my workdesk on a fairly constant basis.

The more I listen to it, however, the more pleased I am with it.

It's meant to be listened to when one is at his or her weakest.

I recorded all the vocals when I was ill. Two sessions, both in 2010 when suffered from particularly nasty colds. And, after the KD/TS tour, I found myself with bruised vocal cords, so as I recovered, I re-cut a few of the segments for the customers whose orders had apparently tumbled into the Mid-Atlantic Trench.

And, the album comes with a 72-page book of wintry, slightly queasy photographs.

Who loves you, baby?

I'll add a bit more info later.

Off to the Hauptbahnhof.

Best,

Tom

Modal Renunciation #4

2011-07-27T00:17:00.002+02:00

In the Fall of 1923, remembered fostering factors...

TS

Modal Renunciation #3

2011-07-26T06:57:00.004+02:00

Jihadist deformed banner, denounced religion...

TS

Modal Renunciation #2

2011-07-25T06:51:00.004+02:00

(Error extant in original text...)

TS

Modal Renunciation #1

2011-07-24T23:16:00.003+02:00

Another new meditative series, spiraling forward...

TS

(Temporarily) Working (Front)wards from Infinity: ∞ +6

2011-07-23T21:20:00.004+02:00

An illustration created and posted by dolts, now repurposed...

Back to Black, Then Fade...

2011-07-23T19:24:00.006+02:00

(Amended 24 July 11)

RIP Amy.

Guardian obit. NYT appraisal.

Emika: "Pretend" Live...

2011-07-23T18:18:00.003+02:00

Droogs,

With so very few recording artists willing to address the future, I find my pulse barely lopes along when I peruse lists of new releases. No matter the age or attitude or level of mediation, it's almost always the same old same old same old same fucking old.

But, my maggot-infested ticker skips a few weeks' worth of beats when Kryptic Minds drop something new, and now, too, Emika.

Here's the vid for her latest, "Pretend."

---

Wish she'd smashed the arrayed gear at the end of the song, but, as clued-in readers will note, her (brilliant) 2010 single "Drop the Other" was beginning, so I suppose an amoklaufen wasn't in the offing...

Yours,

TS

Perfection Pt. 666.666800009188

2011-07-22T06:20:00.002+02:00

Thumbnails: Jacques Demy's masterful short Ars, 1959...

(Click, etc.)

TS

RIP Lucian Freud

2011-07-21T07:14:00.006+02:00

Hello All,

Humanity lost another recalcitrant titan today with the death of Lucian Freud. He most certainly did not go gently...

Obits: NYT; Guardian.

Requiescat in pace, Herr F.

TS

TLASILA, Oceanic Fouler...

2011-07-19T20:09:00.004+02:00

Hello Friends,

Fan Death have announced their official release date for the vinyl version of The Cortège: August 30th.

Songs by yours truly (with the exception of one co-written by Mark Morgan and myself), performed by many members of the 2007 TLASILA collective, associate produced by Graham Moore, Gaybomb, and Rat Bastard, exec produced by Chris Grier, with an essay penned by Nihil Unbound author Ray Brassier, a sleeve photographed by Karl Schmidt, the overall design supervised by Tobi Prinz, original recordings engineered by Matt Azzarto (at Think Tank in Hoboken - cheers to Sonic Youth), and the final mix created and produced by Don Fleming.

Lovingly peruse the front cover below:

So, buy if you desire, or download/steal a digital iteration. You have my permission to act.

The CD version follows later on Thick Syrup. More on that later.

Thanks, as ever,

Tom

TLASILA 2011 Hybrids #200

2011-07-19T00:38:00.007+02:00

Black Hull White End,

Foam your beach, move black your outward phosphor...

Young misery nothing,

Tom

--

#200

(Click above for a larger version of the image.)

Edited, mixed and produced by TS at KSV HQ, Hannover, on July 19, 2011.

01 200 (17:27)

Sleeve by Karl.

Vielen Dank!

Working Backwards from Infinity: ∞ -1

2011-07-17T23:42:00.006+02:00

Hello Again,

Still here. Super busy with work, life, liebe, and defending high ground as I swim through the latest KSV flood. Everyone doing well?

Respect to the Japanese team for eking out a win in a genuine nail-biter against the understandably disappointed American squad. Insanely high level of play throughout the World Cup final...

More tomorrow,

Tom

Working Backwards from Infinity: ∞ -2

2011-07-16T20:05:00.002+02:00

Cold, rainy weekend. Same as always...

Working Backwards from Infinity: ∞ -3

2011-07-15T23:21:00.000+02:00

But of course...

Working Backwards from Infinity: ∞ -4

2011-07-14T22:27:00.003+02:00

Delete delayed insert...