Although it's been an annoying buzz word for at least a year or two now, it has to be admitted that the amorphous entity that is Web 2.0 has yielded a few useful/invasively addictive web sites. F'rexample, it seems hard to believe the music industry was able to conduct business prior to MySpace and a clever AJAX webmail application like Gmail makes Hotmail seem like..um..something really antiquated. Anyway, as you can tell by my long-winded and vaguely geeky introduction, I'm on the fence about anything that tends towards "buzz"-iness on the web. That said, I'm sold on this extremely Web 2.0 site I ran across the other day: www.netvibes.com.

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Radiodiffusion

Still being created but looks pretty interesting

Great sound quality on this 2 CD recording from a interesting period of this pop-folk icon. Nice simple performances of the folkier stuff ('Epistle to Derroll', and so forth) plus looser, freer jazzy interpretations of the poppier stuff ('Mellow Yellow', and so on) that really fly, not in small part due to the flute and sax contributions of folk-jazz legend Harold McNair.

Donovan - The Complete 1967 Anaheim Show

A new Ghost album for 2007. Not surprisingly, there are some definite psych-folk elements here, but run through a weird Japanese filter/perspective. This song is a prime example of what I mean. It's also one of the most tuneful and concise on the album. The fact that it still clocks in at nearly 10 minutes should be some indication of what the word 'concise' means in relation to the rest of the record.

Actually, I've put the whole album up now: Ghost - In Stormy Nights

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The Paragons were five 16-year olds from North Carolina who released one amazing limited-run single in 1967, then split up...

The Paragons - Abba

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Have you heard this? Not so keen on 'A House...' but everything else is excellent. Well done Duke Spirit.

I'm sure everyone has heard of this by now. The long lost acetate picked up for 75c with alternate mixes and takes of the whole Velvet Underground and Nico album. Well here it is for your listening pleasure. There is a second copy of the acetate which had been bootlegged onto a Japanese CD and that is where these mp3s are taken from.

enjoy!

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Yes, better even than this one. This Frenchman, his cool taste in music and generosity/cavalier attitude to copyright law means that I'll probably never buy an album again:

Chocoreve

Am I really slow and everyone has been listening to this for the past year?? That would be typical. I only just discovered this amazing album! I guess they're from Maine. It's got Sunn O)) buzzing bass drones, slooooww metal power riffs, slightly post-rock anthemic passages, spacepsych interludes and Burzum vocals. Not sure what else would fit in this package. 3 tracks adding up to 65 minutes on this album out on Important. I'm putting up the whole album.

Ocean - Here Where Nothing Grows

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Partly riding the lounge-jazz exotica wave of the late '50s and early '60s, Dorothy Ashby released a series of albums on different labels, some featuring harp-ed up versions of easy listening standards ('Fool On The Hill', 'Windmills Of Your Mind'), but all distinguished by her unique playing style. This is from an album released on Cadet records in 1968, Afro-Harping', and is as remarkable for Ashby's harp as its funky David Axelrod-style orchestral-psych arrangement.

Dorothy Ashby - Soul Vibration

I don't really know much about this song apart from it was the title theme to a cool-looking 1970 Italian spaghetti western and that I'm totally obsessed with it. A quick scout around on IMDB for its composer Mario Migliardi reveals that he only scored about ten films, all of which look like cheapo sword'n'sandals gladiator pics or low-budget westerns. A shame, because this is great....

Mario Migliardi - Matalo

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And now here's a Steve Wright album

Heard these Comets on Fire acolytes a while ago doing barely coherent, verrry verrrry far-out'n'damaged rock on their first album... it was (occasionally) great, but just heard the second, Phoenecian Flu And Ancient Ocean, and it's even better — relatively speaking a lot more straight-up, but still psyche as you like. This floaty li'l lovely is a highlight. There are two more albums after that as well... lemme at 'em

Residual Echoes - Lorelei

Another new one on me... Simply Saucer, early-days pre-punk weirditude from Canada. One of the first things Daniel Lanois put his hands to producing, in the band's basement. What does that big rising/falling bass hook in the chorus remind me of? Can't place it, maybe it's just that cool that it sounds like you always knew it... great freak out at the end too. Yeeaah.

Simply Saucer - Dance the Mutation