A few days ahead of its scheduled reissue, Neurosis ' 1987 debut LP, Pain Of Mind , is currently streaming at the group's Bandcamp site and pre-order links for the physical releases, which include color options for vinyl, are available at Neurot Recordings .  Highly anthemic, raw, and certainly energized, Pain Of Mind precedes the band's first actual steps toward the path that Neurosis would eventually cut for themselves, pioneering a version of metal music that investigated how sound could be explored and the treasures those deep recesses could hold.  Released at a time when hardcore was going through its midlife crisis, faced with either the possibility of growing musically or staying the course, Pain Of Mind is itself a crossover release, musically ahead of the lockstep one-two punch typified by hardcore's highest esteemed while adhering to the genre's speed, song length economy and aggression.  It's a blistering listen.   Pain Of Mind will be ...

On November 10th, On U-Sound , the creative outlet and seminal dub label run by producer Adrian Sherwood , reissued some early releases and a compilation of unreleased tracks from Sherwood’s own project, Dub Syndicate .   Following the short-lived but seismic effect punk rock enjoyed in 1977, the need to expand upon the music’s creative and cultural reach bore a period of musical output that harnessed not only the primal aspects of punk rock music, but also pulled from many genres: funk, disco, jazz, and reggae.   Sherwood, himself a fanatical devotee of reggae music, acted as a small-time distributor of dub singles before growing into a curator of sorts, performing in multiple groups, producing acts, and eventually launching the On U-Sound label, through which he was able to not only pursue his own musical endeavors but to provide a platform for other artists.   With that said, Dub Syndicate, which would later develop into a creative partnership between Sherwood and dru...

Walter Becker and Donald Fagan were two-halves of the inimitable jazzy soul rock band, Steely Dan .  It was announced the morning of Sunday, September 3rd, that Becker had passed away .   While vague details regarding a "procedure" had been addressed by Fagan as explanation to why Steely Dan had performed without Becker for a couple of dates earlier this year , cause of death is as yet, (or as the time of this writing), unknown.  Becker was 67 years of age. I have no conscious memory of the first time I'd heard Steely Dan , but their music seemed omnipresent growing up in the early- to mid-80s.  They were always on: whether being funneled into our living from my father's stereo, aired over the PA at our local ACME supermarket, or just on the radio.  And I didn't think much of them.  Steely Dan was unfortunately of a musical category that often deserved vehement derision: clean, precise, smooth rock grooves that were too pleasant to offer a generation's p...

Def Leppard Hysteria Mercury Released: 8.3.87 We all start somewhere, right? It was four or five years after Hysteria ’s 80s-appropriate blend of hook-savvy and sugar-metal anthems had become permanently linked to my budding musical awakening that I found punk rock, which meant that all that had come before needed to be abandoned.   I was all in.   So, all that had been me was now forgotten with a cause, my newfound purpose to revel in my Alterna-angst and familiarize myself with all that was raucous and angry the main objective.   Def Leppard ’s Hysteria , despite all that it had meant to me, was no longer necessary.   We all go through this, right?   As eras change and tastes shift, especially when one is afflicted with prepubescent self-doubt and the need to fit in somewhere, you find yourself trying to outrun the things you once enjoyed and become this other thing that you may or may not relate to.   I was a child of the 80s, grow...

Weather Report Black Market Columbia Records Released: 1976 Van Halen s/t Warner Brothers Records Released: 1978 A Place To Bury Strangers Onwards to the Wall EP Dead Oceans Released: 2012 J Dilla Ruff Draft Stones Throw Released: 2007 Tangerine Dream Firestarter (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) MCA Records Released: 1984 Tom Waits Real Gone Anti Released: 2004 Cabaret Voltaire Code EMI-MANHATTEN Released: 1987 The Fall Dragnet Superior Viaduct Reissued: 2016 John Coltrane & Alice Coltrane Cosmic Music Superior Viaduct Reissued: 2017 Sincerely, Letters From A Tapehead

Death Waltz Recording Company/Mondo : Angelo Badalamenti Twin Peaks Originally released: 1989 Reissued: 8.10.16 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me Originally released: 1992 Reissued: 1.25.17 Death Waltz Recording Company Am I a bad fan since I haven't opened either of these yet?  Angelo Badalamenti 's excellent soundtracks for David Lynch 's Twin Peaks series and its accompanying film provided a necessary and magnetic dimension to this tale of murder and this town's cast of weirdos affected by the event.  Truth to be told my hesitation to break these open is for purely geek reasons, most significant of which is that I need to acquire some plastic sleeves so I can safely file them onto my shelves.  Those die cut covers, while well-conceived and beautifully crafted, can be easily damaged. The other reason is that the soundtrack vinyl is no longer for sale . I managed to buy this copy from a seller at Discogs, which was a thankfully quick and painless experi...