Feb 7, 2008

Alphabet Soup (17)

Hello, Alphabet Soup reached Q today, now that's not a letter much in use today. Possibly it's because there's too little to make of it, queen(s), queer, quiet, quacks, quarks oh well you get the picture, there's just not much between P and R no quantum jumpers yet , i already posted icelandic hiphoppers Quarashi a year ago so in the end my choice was limited.
You may have heard that the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi died yesterday, the man who brought us Transcendental Meditation (TM), the easiest and cheapest way to feel better and thus better able to achieve your goals. Well, he died piecefully 91 years old, leaving behind 5 million adepts who will carry on the torch for global peace.

So whats that got to do with my first Q, well a lot actually todays first band played a mixture of jazz and progressive rock with an strong influence of music from India. They were tagged a 'spiritual' band and were playing new age rock before the term was born. Quintessence is the name, i have here a compilation of their first early seventies albums, which sadly doesnt do too much justice to their Indian input, but then the way this band finally broke up isnt a happy story either, money and crazy label management, but before those dark days the shared many moments of bliss. Secondly, Quando Quango a band founded in Rotterdam but from there went straight to the heart of Manchester's Factory records and the Hacienda, a handful of 12" and just the one album you' find here.Finally, i had to have a queen, in fact a whole bunch of them right from the stoned age. Throughout the nineties there was a lot of crosspolinating going on at the US 's N W coast. One such band that over the years sort of crystalized to a regular line up are Queens Of The Stoneage, with such a background it should be no surprise that the first album under that name easily could have been the last aswell, it sure wasn't, and that i would says enough...

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Quintessence - Oceans Of Bliss ( 70 * 99mb)

Quintessence were formed in April 1969 by Raja Ram in Ladbroke Grove, Notting Hill. They played a hybrid of jazz, progressive rock and Indian Music. The original line-up included Shiva Jones (voice, keys, percussion), Raja Ram (flutes, percussion), Sambhu Baba (bass, guitar), Maha Dev (guitar), Allan Mostert (guitar), and Jake Milton (drums, percussion). Quintessence were tagged a 'spiritual' band and were playing new age rock before the term was born. Although their evangelism in retrospect might seem to be a bit over the top, the music retains its beauty created by some highly individual souls. They rehearsed in All Saints Hall which was a converted church near Portobello Road, and recorded 3 albums for Island Records between 1969 and 1971. two further albums were recorded in 1972 for RCA. The 'Self' entitled first of these was their best with studio material on side one, and the band playing live at Exeter University December 11, 1971 on side two.

Their live set was usually mostly improvised as they avoided playing the same riff twice or going into a routine thing. Not unlike the Grateful Dead, they did a lot of collective jamming with an intention to trance out their colourful audiences by a forceful combination of the chanting of mantras with the Krishna flute lines and the lyrical guitar soloing. Often the local Hare Krishna disciples would provide an extra percussion section to the already steamy proceedings. Quintessence had their household guru in Swami Ambikananda who, with his clairvoyant talents and psychic abilities, was known to blow people's minds constantly. They built a reputation on solid club work and were deemed London's Underground Sensation in 1970. Besides appearing at the first two Glastonbury Festivals (then called 'Faires'), in 1970/71, they also were invited to play the Montreux Jazz Festival at a time when jazz was still being played there. At their peak they sold out the Royal Albert Hall twice.



01 - Notting Hill Gate (4:40)
02 - Move Into The Light (3:30)
03 - Giants (4:37)
04 - Prisms (3:11)
05 - Twilight Zone (5:17)
06 - Dive Deep (4:44)
07 - St. Pancras (6:14)
08 - Manco Capac (5:18)
09 - Dance For The One (10:46)
10 - Midnight Mode (9:12)
11 - High On Mount Kailash/Burning Bush/Shiva's Chant (10:38)

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Quando Quango - Pigs and Battleships (85 ^ 132mb)

Quando Quango was formed in Rotterdam, The Netherlands in 1980 by Mancunian Mike Pickering and Rotterdam-based Gonnie Rietveld, supported on drums by her brother Reinier Rietveld. In 1982 they moved to Manchester, England, where Pickering's friend Rob Gretton was setting up The Haçienda nightclub. Their unique sound , the result of an eclectic mix of Latin, jazz, reggae and disco, all in a pioneering new wave context, influenced the underground dance music scenes in New York and Chicago in the 1980s.In 1983 Reinier Rietveld left the group to concentrate on his Rotterdam band Spasmodique. Soon after, former A Certain Ratio drummer Simon Topping joined as percussionist. Hillegonda Rietveld settled into her role programming their electronic music and Pickering continued to write lyrics and melodies.

The same year, Derek Johnson of fellow Factory act 52nd Street joined on bass, soon to be replaced by his brother Barry Johnson, After releasing a few singles that were minor dance club hits, the group collaborated with Manchester music legends Johnny Marr and Vini Reilly to create full-length album Pigs & Battleships. Andy Connell of A Certain Ratio and Beverley McDonald of 52nd Street also contributed. The group didn't last long after the album's release. After the group's demise, Pickering went on to form dance duo T-Coy with Topping and, later, M People. Rietveld's connection with the Haçienda continued when she researched and co-edited the book The Haçienda Must Be Built!, which was edited by Jon Savage. After gaining her doctorate, Dr Rietveld single-authored This Is Our House: House Music, Cultural Spaces and Technologies, and is currently Reader in Cultural Studies at London South Bank University, where she supervises postgraduate research projects in electronic dance music cultures.



01 - Genius (6:21)
02 - Go Exciting (5:53)
03 - Happy Boy (5:07)
04 - Rebel (5:37)
05 - This Feeling (4:57)
06 - S.T. (4:36)
07 - 40 Dreams (5:51)
08 - Low Rider (4:18)
--Xs
09 - Atom Rock (6:39)
10 - Triangle (6:56)


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Queens Of The Stoneage - Queens Of The Stoneage (98 ^ 318mb)

Formed from the ashes of stoner rock icons Kyuss, Queens of the Stone Age reunited the group's singer/guitarist Josh Homme, drummer Alfredo Hernandez, and bassist Nick Oliveri along with new guitarist/keyboardist Dave Catching. The project's origins date back to Homme, who in the wake of Kyuss' 1995 demise relocated to Seattle to tour with the Screaming Trees; he soon began working with a revolving lineup of musicians including the Trees' Van Conner, Soundgarden's Matt Cameron, and Dinosaur Jr.'s Mike Johnson, recording a series of 7"s originally issued under the name Gamma Ray. After rechristening the group Queens of the Stone Age, Homme recruited Hernandez to begin work on their self-titled debut LP, issued in late 1998 on Loosegroove. Instead of trying to recreate the sound of his former band Kyuss, Josh Homme took a new approach to music. He crafted tight hard rock songs that were heavy on melody and light on vocals. While there is still a lot of fuzz coming from the amplifiers, the vocals are softly interwoven among the chords. There's no screaming or rock & roll antics, and the group takes an almost lo-fi attitude to heavy metal -- an interesting combination that makes it acceptable to produce creative music that doesn't rely on testosterone as the driving force. After the album was completed, Oliveri left the Dwarves to rejoin his former bandmates, with the subsequent addition of Catching rounding out the roster. In addition to extensive touring, Homme put together a series of albums for the indie label Man's Ruin; the various volumes of the Desert Sessions feature Homme's collaborations with a loose-knit, revolving-door lineup of likeminded musicians, some from bands like Soundgarden, Fu Manchu, and Monster Magnet.

In mid-2000, Queens of the Stone Age issued their sophomore album, R By that point, drummer Hernandez had been replaced by a tag-team combo of Gene Troutman and Nicky Lucero. The group built a healthy buzz courtesy of accolades from such renowned publications as Rolling Stone, and due to good old-fashioned touring. 2001 saw the group perform at the massive Rock in Rio festival and a spot on the year's Ozzfest. The same year, Homme and Oliveri put together yet another volume of the Desert Sessions series, while QOTSA assembled a third studio album.

Ex-Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl was very vocal in the press about his admiration of the Queens, which led to an invitation for him to join the group for the third album's recording and, subsequently, supporting tour. Surprisingly, Grohl accepted, putting the Foo Fighters on hold (despite having a new album completed and ready to go). One of the year's most eagerly anticipated hard rock albums, Songs for the Deaf was issued in August 2002 and was preceded by a tour that saw Oliveri and Homme joined by Grohl on drums, ex-Screaming Trees vocalist Mark Lanegan, and A Perfect Circle guitarist/keyboardist Troy Van Leeuwen. As if their schedules weren't busy enough between QOTSA and their other projects, Oliveri and Homme signed on to pen the musical score to the movie The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (with backing by Rage Against the Machine drummer Brad Wilk), and formed a new project, Headband, with ex-Marilyn Manson bassist Twiggy Ramirez and Amen frontman Casey Chaos. Homme also hooked up with old friend Jesse Hughes for Eagles of Death Metal, which issued the Peace Love Death Metal LP in 2004.

When QOTSA reconvened for the March 2005 LP Lullabies to Paralyze, the lineup featured Homme, Joey Castillo, Alain Johannes, Van Leeuwan, and Lanegan. The Over the Years and Through the Woods CD/DVD appeared in November that same year. It featured live material from the band's tour for Lullabies, but also included rare and archival Queens footage. In 2007, the band (Lanegan at this point was only a guest) released the excellent Era Vulgaris, which also included contributions from the Strokes' Julian Casablancas, among others.



01 - Regular John (4:35)
02 - Avon (3:22)
03 - If Only (3:20)
04 - Walkin' On The Sidewalks (5:03)
05 - You Would Know (4:16)
06 - How To Handle A Rope (3:30)
07 - Mexicola (4:54)
08 - Hispanic Impressions (2:44)
09 - You Can't Quit Me Baby (6:33)
10 - Give The Mule What He Wants (3:09)
11 - I Was A Teenage Hand Model (5:01)

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All downloads are in * ogg-7 (224k) or ^ ogg-9(320k), artwork is included , if in need get the nifty ogg encoder/decoder here !

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello! Thank you, but i can't download Quintessence. All links in shurrit.com writes transferring... but no result! Help me please!

Rho said...

Hello Anon, sorry about that, i oversaw that one..had re-upped the other shurrit links, looks like that was a big ripping scam, anyway you can retry now.

best of luck,

Rho

Anonymous said...

Now works fine:) Quintessence was great band. Thanks

Anonymous said...

Can you please reupload the album "Pigs and Battleships" by Quando Quango??? Thanks.

Stathis said...

Hi,
Can you please reupload "Pigs and Battleships" by Quando Quango?
Thank you very much
Stathis

Rho said...

Hello Stathis, not for the first time I re-upped Quando Quango. N'Joy

Stathis said...

Thanks
Stathis

Stathis said...

Thanks
Stathis

Anonymous said...

Hi, could you please re-upload the Quando Quango record? Thanks!!

Anonymous said...

Would be nice to hear Quando Quango 18yrs after I foolishly gave my vinyl copy away.

Andre

Rho said...

Hello Andre giving away a 17 year old album (at the time)is understandable, however not making a copy a bit shortsighted. Now Quando Quango is an album rip by me hence i don't have it in flac. Unfortunately the back up HD is currently off line but i hope to have it back up soon, then i will re-up it in quality ogg.

Francois in Siam said...

You have been posting something about Raja Ram last Sunday(z) and perhaps you could revive the related Quintessence link that is now dead (Oceans Of Bliss). I hope there will be more posts related to this guy that I personally met in Goa in the 1990s. Many thanks. (ogg files are suficient)