Wednesday 30 September 2009

Rock n Roll Lament

A charming poetic hodgepodge this, allowing the Gong shaman Daevid Allen to revel in his whimsical yet witty bardic persona.

Disparately drawing on the Beats, Robert Wyatt, Genesis P Orridge and Faust [!], the result is a gorgeous homage - and obituary- to poetry and music.

Realised with the help of [Mark] Kramer on piano, William S Burroughs via sampled voice and Elizabeth Middleton adding female voice and occasional piano, Allen concocts and mixes the elements masterfully together.

The Burroughs featured track 'You Never Existed At All' is the highlight of this mini-album; Allen continuing the project that Burroughs and Gysin began: creating forms and textures from cut up samples of recorded, then manipulated voice tracks.
It's both eerie and mesmerizing, and somehow manages to utilize the seemingly oppositional styles of ambient and industrial.
Clever.
Released in several different forms, this is the original 12" vinyl version.

Daevid Allen - The Death of Rock & Other Entrances (1982)

Death of Rock
Poet For Sale
Tolly's Birthday Song
You Never Existed At All
Afraid

Vinyl rip @320kbs
Go beyond the Planet Gong here

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

hiya roy
i'm so chuffed you've posted this little gem,my copy was nicked years back but i still have the cool daevid allen designed 'poet for sale'poster that came with it... i only recently discovered that Allen lived at the legendary beat hotel along with gysin,burroughs,norse,etc.
xx

Anonymous said...

Hello there Roy

I tried to like this but unlike the 99.9% of your other posts couldn't get on with it at all - maybe because it takes a few listens or I'm just not open to it.

Gave it a few listens then deleted it - rather an obscure leap but don't suppose you have Bootsy's Zillatron? that album is as rare as Rocking Horse poo...

Keep posting them

Nick

roy rocket said...

Allen was ubiquitous; you can hear it in his work.
Glad to have got you back together with this.
'Reunited...'

O well 99.9% ain't bad...
It's not everyone's cup o' tea; but at least you gave it a chance...
Hey, there's some Zillatron here:

http://www.taringa.net/posts/musica/1356622/Megapost-P-Funk-+-Solistas-%28109-discos%29.html

You have to look deep but it is there.
Happy hunting!

Anonymous said...

Zoinks there's a whole lot of Funk to be had there - thanks very much.

You and the rest of your followers may like this groovy headphone music.

http://rapidshare.com/files/235771948/Stereol_b___N_rse_With_Wound-Simpl_Headph_ne_Mind.rar

You may however not want people posting links - please delete if you do.

Thanks again Roy - this is a great place to hear good music.

Nik

Anonymous said...

Many years ago my band used "The Death of Rock" as intro music to a show, on the advice of a firend now involved in radio in France. I was always haunted by it, but the only version I had was the last two minutes on a soundboard recording of our set. Earlier today I had been performing yet another search trying to get a copy of this, or at least MP3s or WMAs or WAVs of the contents, when I came across your blog. I have been trying to find this for ages, and thought I was close one time when I found it as a download at eMusic - but for some reason it's not available as a download in the United States, where I live. So thanks for bringing a long search to an end!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for posting this - I'd been searching for it for ages, and it's damn near impossible to find in any format!

Anonymous said...

hey man, sweet, hodgepodge i can relate to and the tuneful mr. allen.. got hit men, a collab. he did with kramer, been looking for that one for years .. used to have it on vinyl, why oh why did i part with it?

roy rocket said...

Try 'my little bubble of diy' (go via my labels, under 'blogs and stuff' to the right of this page) for that Kramer/Allen cut... could be.... roy