- Matthew Jeanes
- Albums and Singles
Bola's Soup remains one of my most played records because it captures that simple but entirely synthetic beauty of melancholic electro better than just about anything else. While Boards of Canada were warming up the analog tubes and Autechre were moving away from melodies towards complete abstraction, Bola was turning out the electro equivalent of love songs and power ballads made with drum machines. So, it's no surprise that I'm a big fan of Shapes, which is a record from that general era of Bola material between his first two albums.
Apparently the collectors have been clamoring for a re-release of this initially limited vinyl offering for some time, but I imagine that in some cases, that has more to do with completing Skam listings on Discogs than it does with actually sitting down to enjoy these tunes. The reissue is good for folks like me, though, who weren't on the right mailing lists when these records came out and don't routinely spend fortunes on eBay tracking down out-of-print vinyl.
What's a little strange about Shapes is the way it comfortably fits in Bola's discography no matter where I try to place it chronologically. While it shares a lot of the stylistic touches of Bola's oldest work (and indeed one of these tracks appeared on the Skampler compilation in some form,) if Skam had told me that this was just a completely NEW Bola record, I think I would have been none the wiser. In fact, when stacked up against the many other producers making this kind of emotive synth music in 2006, Shapes sounds positively contemporary.
That's probably a bit of a mixed blessing. Like a lot of bands that put out an early record that I love and then don't veer far from the formula, I imagine that when I want to reach for a Bola record I'll probably always just pull out Soup or the anomalous Mauver if I want to mix it up. Still, it's nice to have yet another example of impeccibly crafted electro mood music to drop when the grooves on the old favorites have worn thin. Besides, when I put the tracks all together on an mp3 player, I'll probably never tell them apart anyway.
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At last! Someone has had the good manners to include a CD-R with their lathe cut release. This 8” split sees both acts going in the opposite direction of their usual material, making the best records of their discographies so far. The Low Point label continues its roll of great music, with label head Gareth Hardwick offering up something a little more composed than usual and Last of the Real Hardmen hitting subdued free rock.
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At last! Someone has had the good manners to include a CD-R with their lathe cut release. This 8” split sees both acts going in the opposite direction of their usual material, making the best records of their discographies so far. The Low Point label continues its roll of great music, with label head Gareth Hardwick offering up something a little more composed than usual and Last of the Real Hardmen hitting subdued free rock.
Hardwick’s swerving eight minutes of mismatched loops set up a beautiful mood of stalled movement. Drips of clear sound flitting around the main parts like frayed reverb or delicate harp strums. At times these pieces seem like piano notes pulled like sticky toffee, exaggerating their endnotes and tailing off into nothing.
Last of the Real Hardmen is the name given to Chris Summerlin’s diverse and gorgeous solo output, and here he turns things up a little to dedicate a jam to a Stooges guitarist. The wahwah guitar/drums piece here (which is revealed in its extended glory on the handy CD-R) refuses to slob out to a blow-out, instead keeping its head somewhere musical and feet stomping on the ground. There are moments of Tom Carter-style guitar delicacy that make this a contender for whatever platitudes/tag they’re spitting out this week for this sort of thing. It’s a genuine pleasure to keep these two on a loop for the best part of a few hours.
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With the sleeve featuring portraits of grandparents and great grandparents, it is easy to think that We Can Driving Machine will be soft on the ears. The opening piece (none of the tracks have titles) is a scratchy recording of an old lady singing about nightingales. The cuddly grandmother theme led me into a false sense of security and I was totally unprepared for the sheer chaos that ensued. The rest of the album hurtles out of the speakers like a comet; it is a seriously heavy adventure.
SAF
From the second they start, they pummel my ears into submission. Mikaela’s Fiend are Chris on guitar and Donnie on drums (no second names are given). Donnie provides no-nonsense testosterone-drenched drumming and Chris fills out the sound with a massive amount of guitar for one man. It sounds like he’s running the guitar through a couple of amps with different effects simultaneously. Some of the processing knocks the signal out of key to cause dissonance and beating which give the music a lot more power and aggression. On the fourth track, this effect is particularly evident. The guitar seems to be coming from both sides with the drums centred in the mix, pinning me to my seat.
There isn’t a single track, barring the grandmother intro, that doesn’t hit me like a ton of bricks being fired from a cannon. The pace is kept high throughout the album, only dropping the odd time for Mikaela’s Fiend to show that they can do Melvins-esque sludgy treacle too. The shortness of the tracks (most are between one and four minutes) and the variety of the playing gives We Can Driving Machine a lot of life. Each piece is a burst of pure energy, it’s impossible not to get up and move to the music. However he messed up rhythms make it impossible to move sensibly to the music.
The tinnitus from enjoying the CD at an appropriate volume is not welcome, however, this is a fucking great album that I can’t easily turn off or down.
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Sol Invictus
SOL VERITAS LUX
An All Time Neofolk Classic Returns at the Right Time
Even in this modern world, it seems every few years, some new resurgence of "folk music" rises out of nowhere and finds a welcoming following.
The latest wave commonly labeled as freak-, psych-, or wyrd-folk has given us such stars as Devendra Banhart, Akron/Family, and Six Organs of Admittance. From the English folk revival of the 60's, to this "New Weird America" movement now in full swing, the quality each of these moments has in common is looking respectfully to the past, while contributing a new twist appropriate to the times.
Just about two decades ago now, another curious folk music movement began to emerge. A strain of English "industrial" groups were looking for ways to impart new meaning into their bleak and frightening noise, and a new and highly creative, "post-industrial" folk music came to life, heavily charged with mystical and philosophical themes. "Neofolk" as it would come to be known is largely defined by early releases by Tony Wakeford's Sol Invictus, alongside fellow pioneer projects Current 93 and Death in June.
2006 now sees the reissue of one of the best and most important releases of neofolk, Sol Veritas Lux by Sol Invictus.
Sol Veritas Lux – which combines the debut "Against the Modern World" LP (1987) along with the live "In the Jaws of the Serpent" LP (1988) – is likely to rank as one of the most raw listening experiences you can ever find. Playing this album is like calling an arctic blast from Old Pagan Europe. It's cold and it's mean and it offers no apologies. Whatever you think, you are not ready to hear this album.
Over the following years Sol Invictus would smooth out the rough edges and produce many beautiful albums, but there are many who would argue Sol Veritas Lux shows Wakeford and company at their most potent and compelling. It has always stood as one of the best selling Sol Invictus releases.
The 2006 edition of Sol Veritas Lux celebrates nearly 20 years of Sol Invictus, presented in a luxurious package with new liner notes, and freshly remastered by Denis Blackham to bring out even more of its primitive glory. It offers three newly rerecorded bonus tracks showing a current interpretation on the same material.
The most remarkable achievement of Sol Invictus and the neofolk scene would have to be its enduring appeal. New releases and new concerts are received by a loyal cult following year after year. Watching the trends in the music world, it may even turn out the peak is yet to come for Tony Wakeford and friends.
Sol Veritas Lux is the first major Sol Invictus album to be released in an edition specially for North America. Sol Veritas Lux is promoted & distributed in North America by Strange Fortune. Release date in North America is late Summer 2006.
Claim your copy of one of the all time classics of neofolk today at www.strangefortune.com
"Sol Invictus blow most over-hyped death folk/psych records out of the water."
–The Wire
Strange Fortune
www.strangefortune.com
The source for strange & exquisite sounds
Strange Fortune / PO Box 440383 / Somerville MA 02144 USA
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artist: Conrad Schnitzler
title: Trigger Trilogy
catalog #: IMPREC114
format: 3 cd
release date: October 24, 2006
Conrad Schnitzler is a genuine legend in the krautrock and electronic music worlds. Schnitzler studied under Joseph Beuys before joining an early Tangerine Dream. Their first album Electronic Meditation shows a band highly influenced by Schnitzler's unique, singular approach. Schnitzler left Tangerine Dream to form Kluster with friends Dieter Moebius and Hans Joachim Roedelius. When Schnitzler left Kluster they changed their name to Cluster eventually merging with Michael Rother (of Neu!) to form Harmonia, a group who Brian Eno once called the most important rock group on the planet. Schnitzler also founded Eruption in 1970 along with Klaus Schultz, Manuel Gottsching (Ash Ra Tempel), and Klaus Freudigmann.
Looking back at Conrad Schnitzler's career it becomes obvious that he was an architecht who helped draw the blueprints for some very significant musical movements. Perhaps overlooked, or at least desperately underappreciated, it hasn't slowed Schnitzler down. Since leaving Kluster Conrad Schnitzler has composed dillegently for electronics and piano. Now located in Dallgow Germany he continues to accumulate equiptment and recordings of what he says is “cold, hard electonic sound.”
Trigger Trilogy consists of three discs each selected from hundreds of hours of Schnitzler's private recordings. Each represents a one of the few unique approaches that Schnitzler takes to recording, each uniquely identified and defined by Schnitzler. Within each of these recordings one can hear how Schnitzler influenced a generation of artists not only in Germany but the world around and how he's brought those sounds into the modern day. It's also apparent in these recordings that Schnitzler is a thoughtful and enlightened, a total and pioneer floating freely in a world of sound.
Trigger One consists of what Schnitzler calls his Solo Voices or Solo Electronics. This particular recording happens to be rhythmically based electronic work. Recognizing that in traditional music the melodic line is subordinate to the ensemble leaving it no true impression of it's own Schnitzler has liberated the solo voice in his own music and given it it's own vocation as noise, tone and sound. By superimposing several voices or forming a sound environment by mixing Schnitzler has created new dimensions, worlds of sound where the individual voice is no longer subservient to synchronization or the conductor's baton. The results are sound combinations which adhere to no logic.
”The strength of the individual voice lies in its freedom from vis-a-vis any sound.” Conrad Schnitzler
Trigger Two is what Schnitzler refers to as Free Concert Mix Solos:
“From solo to mix, from melodic line to ensemble. Accumulation of voices,
note clusters which are not opposed to one other but are equal and
parallel in a free play of energy. The mix of solo voices produces
concentrations of notes and noises, tangles, compressions, sound
constellations, sound catastrophes, acoustic phenomena's.
The individuality of each voice is absorbed into the chaos of the
overall sound, is held there and blurred. Musical developments emerge
from the atmosphere of the individual voices of the ensemble and its
variations. Sound sequences spill forth, revealing tight and loose webs
of notes, changes in tempo, varying expressions of volume and dynamics
and shifts in the direction of the sound pattern. A sound chaos which
appears to change automatically becomes perceptible. the indeterminate
starting order for the solo voices create an open unfinished work,
containing a wealth of episodes with sound sequences, environmental
associations, stylistic devices from other worlds and interplay's of
nature and technology.” Conrad Schnitzler
Trigger Three, the final disc in the Trigger Trilogy, is a Con-Cert. This is a tradition that Schnitzler has been working in for quite some time. Originally using cassettes and now using compact discs Schnitzler creates live mixes of multiple recordings. The sounds are intentionally designed, shaped, constructed and composed in specific relation to one another.
“The articulation of sound in an era where new technology allows for the
creation of an unlimited number of new sounds calls for new recording
techniques. These are offered by tape, CD or computer hard disks.
In the past I used conventional cassettes to create my concerts, but now
the sounds are recorded on CD and can be used in the concerts thanks to
their enhanced quality.
The individual tracks have fixed starting points which can be adjusted
by a number of seconds and thus produce different results. The volume of
the individual tracks can be adapted to the acoustics of the location
and the listening experience will vary for each location as a
consequence.” Conrad Schnitzler
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title: Some Blood Will Stick
catalog #: IMPREC106
format: cd
release date: October 24, 2006
Hototogisu is Matthew Bower (Skullflower/Sunroof!) and Marcia Bassett (Double Leopards). They've been laying down billowing sheets of tetonic guitar drone-noise since 2003 with the thickest possible helpings of vocals and electronics.
Some Blood Will Stick is a collection of tracks from their ultra-limited self produced label Heavy Blossom. Songs were taken from Swoon Scream (2004) and Awful Symmetry (2005) with one additional track. What makes this disc more than a simple re-release is the extraordinary scalpel re-editing by Matthew Bower and the crushing and invigorating mastering by Scott Hull at Visceral Sound making this one of the heaviest and most beautiful Hototogisu releases.
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artist: Conrad Schnitzler
title: Klavierhelm
catalog #: IMPREC113
format: cd
upc: 793447511429
release date: October 24, 2006
Conrad Schnitzler is a genuine legend in the krautrock and electronic music worlds. Schnitzler studied under Joseph Beuys before joining an early Tangerine Dream. Their first album Electronic Meditation shows a band highly influenced by Schnitzler's unique, singular approach. Schnitzler left Tangerine Dream to form Kluster with friends Dieter Moebius and Hans Joachim Roedelius. When Schnitzler left Kluster they changed their name to Cluster eventually merging with Michael Rother (of Neu!) to form Harmonia, a group who Brian Eno once called the most important rock group on the planet. Schnitzler also founded Eruption in 1970 along with Klaus Schultz, Manuel Gottsching (Ash Ra Tempel), and Klaus Freudigmann.
Looking back at Conrad Schnitzler's career it becomes obvious that he was an architecht who helped draw the blueprints for some very significant musical movements. Perhaps overlooked, or at least desperately underappreciated, it hasn't slowed Schnitzler down. Since leaving Kluster Conrad Schnitzler has composed dillegently for electronics and piano. Now located in Dallgow Germany he continues to accumulate equiptment and recordings of what he says is “cold, hard electonic sound.” The piano is certainly an instrument with which Conrad Schnitzler is not often associated. However, his compositions on Klavierhelm exhibit his highly expressive and free approach to the piano. Calling to mind Erik Satie and Cage, Cecil Taylor and even Carl Stalling. Limited edition of 1000. Cover design by Conrad Schnitzler.
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This mostly exhaustive triple-disc set spans four decades of Loren MazzaCane Connors' work, collecting 7" and 12" singles, compilation tracks, private CD-Rs, collaborations and unreleased pieces. For an artist with such a large and intimidating back catalog as Connors', Night Through serves as a perfect introduction, cutting straight through the uniqe avant-primitive guitarist's baffling discography, showcasing a variety of approaches, and by its very nature focusing on shorter, more approachable pieces.
Family Vineyard
Perhaps because of his extreme prolificacy, his idiosyncratic and often intuitive approach to blues guitar, or his early reticence to reveal much about his musical project, Loren Connors is most often compared to Jandek by those trying to situate the artist in a generic context. Although the last few years have seen a couple of surprise collaborations between Connors and the mystery man from Corwood, the comparison of the two artists is a red herring, in my opinion. Jandek's music is bleak and tuneless, and whether by coincidence or design, is virtually unlistenable to all but the most courageous. Connors, though he has produced much work that could only be described as experimental or avant-garde, never seems to become completely untethered from a bedrock of melody, tunefulness and emotive, expressive phrasing. Even after all these years, Jandek and his guitar seem uncomfortably alienated from each other; where Connors and his guitar seem on the closest terms possible. Even when Connors painstakingly puils the most strained, atonal vibrato bottleneck drones out of his instrument, man and guitar seem as one, and the playing never reaches my ears sounding purposely befuddling, as does much of the modern improv scene.
Loren Connors' early work consists of successive mutations of a particular idiom of blues, specifically the bottleneck style of Robert Johnson and other Mississippi Delta blues musicians. Out this haunted, primitive twang, Connors gradually developed an idiosyncratic style that is totally unique without sounding the least bit affected. Though the style inevitably carries with it suggestions of the American primitive style as defined by Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music, and also of the sound that has come to signify the haunted plains of the mythical American frontier, there is never a sense that this style is not organic to Connors himself. It is unselfconscious and hypnotic, a reservoir of fragile sound that carries with it a cultural memory that only strengthens its meditative power. Connors is capable at times of sounding like two or three guitarists playing at once, high trebly curling overtones matched by acoustic strumming underneath, sunburnt electric squalls kicking out sprays of swamp mud with each lick, and undercurrents of drone created by feedback and low-fidelity recording equipment.
Night Through does a fantastic job of charting Connors' trajectory, from the early bottlenecking of singles like "Come On In My Kitchen" and "Ribbon O'Blues," to the manic-depressive high-lonesome wail of "Saoirse (Freedom)," to the more abstractly progressive suites such as the nine-part "Stations of the Cross" that takes up a good bit of the first disc. It is with much interest that I note the fact that Connors' recordings, presumably by design, become more low-fidelity as the decades pass, with layers of tape fuzz and blunted amplifier distortion contributing the grainy atmosphere suggested by Connors' dusty, resonating electric guitar figures. As inspiration, Connors tackles blues standards or traditional registers; or alternately, creates improvised pieces inspired by historical events with personal resonance, such as the Irish famine or Biblical scenarios; bits from verse from Keats or art exhibitions by friends and associates serve as fodder for other tracks.
Appearing on disc two of this set is a 15-minute live performance by Haunted House (originally released in a CD-R limited to 30 copies), a group comprising Connors, Suzanne Langille, Andrew Burnes and Neel Murgai. Its amazing to witness how easily Connors made the transition from lone-wolf solo blues guitar to playing within the group context, and Haunted House consistently create the sort of hypnotic avant-rock that would win the admiration of Thurston Moore, Alan Licht, Keiji Haino and Jim O'Rourke, all of whom eventually collaborated with Connors. The performance included here is particularly electric, Connors leading the fray with some absolutely, frighteningly possessed lead guitars, whining, clawing and hammering his way across the cerebral cortex in a series of solos that are so senseless, they make all the sense in the world.
Ending with a strange and luminous two-part wah-wah pedal tribute to Miles Davis that sends out gaseous arcs of rippling, textural soundwaves, this triple-disc set attests to the genius of Connors' particular soundworld. It is well-known by now that Connors was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease in the early 90s, but paradoxically this diagnosis seems to have resulted in a flurry of activity, and the past few years have seen a record number of solo and collaborative works issued on labels like Table of the Elements. But if anyone asked me where to start with Connors, I'd have to point them towards this set. It's a remarkably sequenced and packaged set that showcases the career of one of the avant-garde's most approachable outsiders.
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Another solid release from Mono, this time a collaboration with another Tokyo artist by the name of World's End Girlfriend. The music is as good as I expect from Mono, as there’s no departure from the sound they’ve cultivated on previous releases. I would like to see some exploration of their sound but the familiarity is comforting.
Palmless Prayer/Mass Murder Refrain is essentially one large piece split across five long tracks (well it feels like one piece, the two titles would suggest otherwise but it’s hard to tell where one piece would end and the other begins). It is a slow and melancholic piece of music that changes subtly throughout the album. It is the kind of album that I find is best appreciated by giving it full attention on headphones late at night. Like the rest of MONO’s output, it is that slick “soundtrack to a movie where all of civilisation has crumbled and only a few are left to struggle against the elements” sound. One striking thing about this release is that for a collaboration, it sounds remarkably like just MONO on their own. I’ve no idea what world’s end girlfriend add to the album apart from a suitably apocalyptic name.
The first two parts of Palmless Prayer/Mass Murder Refrain are slow, meditative string pieces that explore variations of the same melody. It is a peaceful and relaxing 25 minutes of music, I could quite happily listen to a whole CD of it. However on the third part MONO up the ante and change the direction of the piece, introducing guitar and building the music up slowly into a throbbing… They eventually pull back and return to the style of the first two parts but add piano and voices to the strings. All of the music is intensely sad and it is this tugging of the heart strings that brings MONO up from being a cliché to being a formidable group in their own right.
The fifth and final part of Palmless Prayer/Mass Murder Refrain is the longest, clocking in at nearly twenty minutes. Starting with a similar piano and strings pattern to “Part Four” it builds up with bass, guitar and drums into the closest thing to a happy feeling that MONO have ever produced. Although it is also the weakest part of the album which makes me think that being miserable is far more entertaining than being happy. It does round off the album satisfactorily but it is a little anticlimactic compared to the rest of the album.
While it’s not Mono's finest, it certainly deserves to be on the shelf next to their other albums. Although I must say I still can’t fathom what world’s end girlfriend bring to the table.
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Tortoise is the latest '90s independent supergroup to issue a generous collection of three CDs (of hard to find music) and one DVD (a complete assembly of music videos with other things). Where Stereolab has issued collections before, it was understood there were things to be saved for the next compilation; Low left nothing out, but Tortoise forgot some critically important pieces of their history, hence this imaginary compilation to fill the gaps.
unreleased (this is an imaginary record)
It's important to first establish that A Lazarus Taxon is an essential piece in any fan's collection. Whether they be mild to hardcore the assembly of music isn't only the painfully difficult to get, or, in some cases, previously unreleased, but the compilation tracks and singles like "Gamera," "Goriri," and "Why We Fight" are some of the finer moments of '90s independent rock music. Not only is the long deleted tour-only Rhtyhms, Resolutions, and Clusters remix album available again BUT it is finally indexed so we aren't forced into a 30-minute multi-song single-track CD. Packaged at a price lower than most two CD sets, I can't make any strong arguments against A Lazarus Taxon (despite the order being sloppily arranged with no regard to chronology—sorry, but "Cliff Dweller Society" only sounds proper following "Gamera" while "Adverse Camber" and "To Day Retrieval" need to sit next to each other). But there's more to the Tortoise story.
A Lazarus Companion begins at the genesis of the group. "Mosquito," "Onions Wrapped In Rubber," and "Gooseneck" compose the first 7" single. Forced into the time constraints, the group gives it their all, establishing themselves with multi-bass guitar action, polyrhythmic drums, dub echoes, and just a little bit extra weirdness (backwards effects and non-instrument noises) to set it apart. With the second single, Tortoise pretty much began something they couldn't quite accept until 12 years later: "Lonesome Sound" is a Freakwater cover tune with vocals and all and wouldn't sound out of place on The Brave and the Bold. One of the tunes on the flipside, "Sheets," on the other hand pursued that weird side again with more unconventional music but the vocals were so close to Brian McMahon's in Slint, it seemed like an appropriate move to get that guitarist from Slint to join the group!
From 1993, we jump to 1997, and a string of remixes. D's remix of "Why We Fight" originally appeared on a Lo Recordings compilation titled United Mutations. "Bionic Beatbox" comes from a 1998 album Techno Animal vs. Reality and is the first time here that we see the Tortoise tacked onto somebody else's song. 1998 was the year we saw Tortoise playing more with electronics all around, evidenced on the TNT album and "Madison Ave," the A-Side to a tour-only 7" single that went around with the band that year. "In Sarah, Mencken, Christ and Beethoven There Were Women and Men" got reworked by a different D (techno legend Derrick Carter) who supplies both sides of the 12" on A Lazarus Companion: "D's Winter Crazy Dub" is nearly 10 minutes of extended goodness. It's an exploitation of a great riff with additional instruments which never drive us away from the original tune. Its other side, "D's Winter Crazy Outtake" features a classy piano solo and seems far richer for a song only approximately half the other side's length. "Jetty 99" comes from a compilation titled Chicago 2018...It's Gonna Change and is the second Tortoise version of this "Jetty" song which ended up on an alarming number of different albums by different side projects in different interpretations. This version is probably the one to least resemble the original, however.
"In a Thimble" is one of those songs that makes me scratch my head as to its lack of inclusion, as it's a fantastic full-band song that came off the Reach the Rock soundtrack in 1999. "Defect 2: Curiosidade" is a Tom Zé tune remixed by Tortoise, sounding like how a Tortoise song with Tom Zé on the vocals should sound. Those of us fortunate enough to catch two tours of Tortoise with Tom Zé are still anxiously awaiting an album or something between the two but are only left with this one track, from Zé's Postmodern Platos EP.
A Lazarus Companion closes with the MGM tiger roar opening the song "Beautiful Love," as featured on the Moog soundtrack compilation. It highlights a different side of Tortoise to what they released to the world that year in 2004: the album It's All Around You. "Beautiful Love" is very beat-punchy with a dubby electro bass line and a prominent synth riff similar to "Seneca," the stellar opening to 2001's Standards album.
Don't look for this CD in a store near you nor on the "Internets" but maybe with enough persuasion the group will eventually just give these tracks away if they don't plan on compiling them on the next collection, which I doubt will happen any time soon.
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