HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY

Biggie With the Hype Shit

HERE


It occurred to me embarrassingly late in life that all of the rap stars I loved in the 90's must have lo-fi demotapes buried somewhere that would eventually rise to the surface. I posted the Snoop demotape a while back but you guys probably didn't download it (because you're racists). This blog has just as much Rap as it does Black Metal so I thought I'd give posting another incredible hype demo a try.





This is probably the best hype demo of all time. If you guys have any better ones, I challenge you to post them in the comments. Anyone have a Too Short demo? What about Richie Rich or Mac 10 or something like that. Teenage E40? Anyone?

2011 Volkswagen Sport Cars Concept By Kyrgyzstanian

2011 Volkswagen Sport Cars Concept By Kyrgyzstanian

Steel Drake Volkswagen Sport Cars Concept is a simple but elegant design. Here are the latest production cars, the 2011 Volkswagen Sport Cars Concept By Kyrgyzstanian, Volkswagen Drake is the type of steel. Kyrgyzstanian graphic designer “Steel Drake” has created something very much fitting with this scenario in the form of his Volkswagen Sport Cars Concept.

2011 Volkswagen Sport Cars Concept By Kyrgyzstanian

It resembles a reduced front Motors Audi R8. Then, at halfway of the project, Audi he cans and presents his sketches and model prototyping of Volkswagen decided to put the two doors cut in production. Steel Drake’s Concept Sports Cars is a simple-yet-sleek design let down only by some questionable design choices.

2011 Volkswagen Sport Cars Concept By Kyrgyzstanian

Get for instance the drooping taillights that seem additional befitting a Chinese automobile than 1 built in Germany, or the peculiar concave curves around the doorways that seems caught on as opposed to an integral part of the style. Otherwise it is rather fantastic seeking, although maybe far more something Infiniti would produce than Volkswagen.

2011 Volkswagen Sport Cars Concept By Kyrgyzstanian

NIDEN DIV. 187 - IMPERGIUM (1997)

First off, big ups to Illogical Bro Humboldt Pete for turning me on to Niden Div. 187. Pete has been supplying me with all manner of obscure metal in the last week or two, and you will be hearing much more from him in the near future. Nice work, dude.

Second, Niden Div. 187 was a side project of the core members of DAWN (whose beyond-excellent Nær Sólen Gar Niþer For Evogher you can find HERE), so if you're already familiar with that band you've pre-emptively abandoned this write-up altogether in a mad dash for the download link. I don't blame you.

Third: HOLY FUCK. Dawn is fucking great, but bloody Hell, Niden Div. 187 is some NEXT LEVEL BRUTALITY. The former had that whole Swedish black/death thing down to a science, but man, Niden just chucks the whole "death metal" thing out the window, puts the pedal to the fucking floor, and just keeps it there for the duration of Impergium's all-too-brief 26-and-a-half minute run, maintaining a constant onslaught of discordant, evil riffs, light-speed blastbeats, and war-and-death-related samples throughout. Fuck.

This is exactly how I like my black metal: raw as shit while still remaining supremely listenable, intense as a hurricane in a cutlery store, screechy, misanthropic, and fast--really, really FAST. To quote IC reader difference_engine from the comments section of yesterday's Tomita post:

IF YOU ARE A FALSE DON'T ENTRY

Download HERE

Purchase the re-issue, which includes their 1996 EP Towards Judgement, HERE

Metallum/Last.FM

The Legend of Purple Aki

Every place has urban myths and legendary beasts - Scotland has The Loch Ness Monster,

















Virginia has The Mothman














and rumours have abounded for years of the infamous Abominable Snowman, or Yeti of the Himalayas,
















but NONE of these creatures have terrified the local populace so much as the local mythical beast of where I grew up, the all-too-real man-beast known as...
...PURPLE AKI!




















Y'see, back in the days before the internet, it was a lot easier to be mysterious and for unsubstantiated gossip to spread and mutate like wildfire. So it was with the shadowy figure known to us kids as Purple Aki. He was used as a bogeyman figure (yes, BOGEYman, not BOOGIEman like you fucking septic tanks use...seriously, are you THAT ashamed about disco?) by unscrupulous parents in the eighties in order to bend children to their will..."If you don't get to bed/do your homework/eat your greens, Purple Aki will get you!"...and stories were often told about him and encounters other people had with him, mostly bullshit we figured, but scary nonetheless.

As a kid, I heard the name around and learned the following 'facts' about him - that he was a large black man who was from Toxteth in Liverpool (A predominantly poor, black area where I spent half of my life living. It's a ROUGH place and is mostly famous for rioting and heroin) but was often seen around the St Helens area (Near where I actually grew up. It's a pus-filled canker sore on the face of existence and should be bombed into oblivion. It's famous for....umm....glass). That he would follow and accost young boys, especially those who worked out or went to the gym a lot, ask if he could feel their muscles and then offer them the choice of either being raped by him OR to have his initials carved into their buttocks, leading to the alleged bone-chilling question he was said to have asked his victims..."POP OR SLASH?".

At no point did I find out ANYTHING else about him - what he looked like, aside from being huge and black, why he was called 'Purple' Aki, or if he was ACTUALLY real.
To me, he was a spook, an imaginary ghoul, who would appear to friends of friends of friends and ask his question, only for them to run away and escape his rapey clutches. A friend of mine who was a well known bullshit-artist swore blind that Purple Aki had accosted his brother, but, well, I didn't believe him.
To be honest, I was pretty damn sure he didn't exist.

I was WRONG.













The story that I had heard most often in connection to Purple Aki was that he had approached a boy at a train station and so terrified the boy that he ran onto the train tracks and was electrocuted in his mad scramble to escape. Again, it all sounded like some kind of scare story told by parents to stop their children from going out at night alone or something...but in 1995 I moved to a flat in Toxteth and met people who actually KNEW Purple Aki. Then, I read about him in the local newspaper.

The bogeyman was REAL.

His name was Akinwale Arobieke, and he was known as 'Purple' Aki due to the colouration of his skin giving him an almost purple hue. He was six foot five and weighed twenty stone. He'd been charged over the death of the boy who was electrocuted running away from him but had gotten off due to lack of evidence and possible racial discrimination in the trial. This was the only crime he had ever been charged with, as far as I knew.




















It turned out that the whole 'pop or slash' rape thing wasn't true, and his ACTUAL perversion was FAR stranger than that. He hung out around gyms and suchlike and would ask people about their muscles and general fitness in the guise of being a fellow enthusiast, offering advice and so on, until he would whip out a tape measure and ask if he could touch and measure the hapless victims muscles. If you were particularly unlucky he would either ask you to do push-ups whilst he lay atop you - in the guise of 'providing extra weight to make it harder' - or, his signature move, "inverted piggybacks" – where the victim would squat so he could lean over their backs with his face by their buttocks and his junk on their necks, while squeezing their quad muscles.

Yeah. Now, you're probably wondering exactly HOW he managed to get such rough 'n' tough big-ass guys to DO this kind of shit? Well, it was a combination of his own intimidating stature, knowing that men are way less likely to talk about this kind of thing to the police, and the personal information he had in his 'Stalkers book'.

His WHAT?!?

Well, when he was most recently arrested in 2008 - after already having gone to jail in 2001, then again, almost as soon as he got out, in 2003, until 2006, when he was released on licence and had the following piece of legislation levelled against him, he was "...banned from touching, feeling or measuring muscles, asking people to do squat exercises in public, entering the towns of St Helens, Warrington or Widnes without police permission and loitering near schools, gyms or sports clubs" - one piece of evidence brought up against him was a book containing "...details about victims' body measurements, contact numbers and families." It was alleged that Arobieke would "do research into his victim, confronting them with such details as their father's car registration number or sibling's place of education.".
Yep, he may be a sexually perverse weirdo, but he does his homework.

Now, these brushes with prison and the 'muscle-touching ban' only seemed to serve as encouragement to him as almost as soon as he was released from prison following his 2008 sentencing, he was jailed for another two and a half years for defying the 'muscle-touching ban' in North Wales. So, his notoriety had spread across the whole of the North-West of England and into Wales. He was now internationally infamous, in a small way.




















With him safely ensconced behind bars for a while, weightlifters and fitness enthusiasts need not fear dropping the soap in the showers, and entire rugby teams will go unmolested - yep, I shit you not, he actually stalked an entire rugby team. you may be unsurprised to know that while he ws inside, even the prison hardmen were terrified of Aki. Of course wild stories still circulated - such as the one about him being the inspiration for Clive Barker's 'Candyman' character, but mostly he has just faded into the local culture as a figure part bogeyman, part figure of fun...
















This banner was seen as the Glastonbury festival back in 2008 - it's phrased in the Liverpool, or 'scouse', vernacular, with 'Arrr mate!' meaning 'What-ho fellow', 'gripped' meaning 'accosted' and 'portaloo' meaning 'portable john' - and can even be found on MySpace, Twitter, and in multiple places on Facebook. There is a Purple Aki website, is STILL widely discussed on bodybuilding sites, sites about urbanlegends and local weirdoes, hell, he's even on wikipedia!!

There have been a few songs written about him by local bands, and he gave his name to this wonderfully twisted composition by my good friends, and fellow infamous local weirdoes, a.P.A.t.T....



...and there are a number of 'tributes' to him to be found on YouTube, of which these two are prime examples - not only of what a well-known twisted weirdo he is, but also of exactly how fucked-up the local humour is where I grew up...




...oh, by the way, the opening of those cartoons is a reference to classic british 1970's kids TV show 'Bod', for all you septic tanks scratching your heads in confusion...



It's funny how an infamous sexual predator can become a cultural icon isn't it? The only other one I can think of is Freddy Krueger, except the child molestation thing was conveniently swept under the carpet after the first film, wasn't it?

Mind you, we do have a history in the UK of embracing well-known criminals and lunatics to our cultural bosom - train robber Ronnie Biggs ended up making a record with The Sex Pistols, and a frankly FANSTASTIC movie was made about notorious prison-addict Charlie Bronson.

So there you have it, yet more evidence that us limeys are a bunch of fuckin' weirdoes.

Now, I couldn't think of anything decent that was appropriate to give you as a download, so here is 'Dropped', the second album by Mindfunk - a criminally underrated record made by a mostly reviled band who saddled themselves with a shitty name - for no other reason than that I like it.




















Bon appetit!

PSYCHEDELIC BRAIN-DROPPINGS FROM THE ELECTRIC SAMURAI

Shelby Cobras, photographed May 27, 2011

I'm not exactly sure why today's post reminded me of Brother Seanford's words during Guilty Pleasures Week, but it did, and in case you don't already have those words memorized (you really should), they were posted HERE and went something like this:

"...sometimes we as bloggers are compelled to post things based on a criteria that uses something other than quality as a measuring stick, a criteria which uses rarity and trueness to determine whether or not something is postable. Now im not accusing any particular blogger of posting records they’re not crazy about, I’m simply acknowledging an impulse which I believe exists amongst bloggers, perpetuated by a need for social dominance. Is it possible that posting obscure records has become too competitive? Is it possible that even the true catch themselves posing?"

Excellent observations on the part of our beloved second-in-command indeed, observations that do in fact make me question the motives of most music bloggers, observations that make me myself look inward at my own reasoning and internal impetus. Why do I do what I do? Am I looking for some sort of "social acceptance" by posting "obscure" music that may or may not be deemed "good" by my peers via the internet? Are my reasons for spending time almost every day sharing music with the public at large entirely altruistic, or are my attempts at connecting with people via shared opinions about music some sort of psychological compensation for other inadequacies?
I think the answers to these questions boil down to one common denominator, hinted at by Seanford in his earlier quote. The denominator is this: Do I (and other music bloggers) post stuff because it is GOOD or because it is COOL? Let's take a closer look...


- GOOD MUSIC: I guess saying that one posts only "good" music would imply that motivation for sharing comes from some sort of internal barometer of quality, that the blogger in question writes, listens, and works solely out of love for the art form, not from any sort of desire for acceptance or need to be considered "cool" or "fashionable". Sounds which are pleasing to the ear, no matter who makes them or how they are delivered, will be propagated and shared, not through any prism of social judgment or peer approval, but through a sense of benevolence and, to drop an old phrase, sincere BRONESS.


- COOL MUSIC: The idea of posting about "cool" music would seem to indicate that the blogger in question is writing and uploading more out of a sense of inner emptiness and desire for heightened social standing than any real need to share good art. The hipster plague is no stranger to this concept, and while I try not to throw too many stones here in my glass pyramid, I think that many online publications (Pitchfork or Vice perhaps, maybe even certain sites closer to home) tend to hype COOL music rather than GOOD. But I digress.

I think my point is already pretty clear. We here at IllCon love GOOD music, and to prove it, I'm going to post four albums today that absolutely nobody else will like. These are tunes that are indeed close to my heart, that I believe with every fiber of my being resound with talent, integrity, heart, and intelligence. But they are also tunes that will earn myself and Illogical Contraption ZERO fuckin' "cool points" with the In Crowd. YOU won't like this music either, but you know what? I don't care. To me, these four releases are the summation of GOOD MUSIC. That's right: SHELBY COBRAS IS THE ONLY PURE MAN IN THE INDUSTRY.



If you're looking for quality jams, you need look no further than the collected works of Japanese synthesizer maestro Isao Tomita. Sure, I've posted about him in the past (three times, actually), but I've been on a major Tomita bender in the last couple weeks, and felt that it was time to purge a large section of my library.
Some people might write Tomita off as some sort of second-tier Japanese Wendy/Walter Carlos clone, but in all honesty, I find Tomita's compositions to be far more creative and listenable than Carlos' (and I do consider myself a big Carlos fan). Dude shreds balls, and the intergalactic/transdimensional/alien aesthetic of his work vibrates in tune with my own inner Icke. He rules.

Anyway, this intro is way too long already. We've still got four albums to get through.
Let's do this.


ELECTRIC SAMURAI - SWITCHED-ON ROCK (1972)


Tomita released this collection of tripped-out pop music standards under the moniker "Electric Samurai" way back in '72, between his early years composing themes for film and television and his mid-seventies forays into Moog-ified classical music. The track list here is pretty cheezy (4 Beatles songs, "Jailhouse Rock", and a couple Simon & Garfunkel jams can all be found herein), but Tomita's psychedelic interpretations breathe spastic new life into these tired numbers, and although the album takes a song or two to really get moving, it's fucking unstoppable once it hits stride.
The fact that Switched-On Rock appeared a full four years after Walter Carlos' Switched-on Bach does little to further Tomita's case for artistic independence, but this album is nonetheless an excellent cocktail-party soundtrack and/or late-night hash-smoking companion, depending on your intoxicant of choice. Super mellow but pretty freaky too.

Download HERE




ISAO TOMITA - SNOWFLAKES ARE DANCING (1974)


Tomita's electronic interpretation of Claude Debussy's Children's Corner "tone paintings" earned him three Grammy nominations (including one for Best Classical Album) in 1975, and, if that weren't enough already, also contained the theme for the PBS series Jack Horkheimer: Star Gazer ("Arabesque No. 1").

From Wikipedia: "The use of the term tone paintings here describes the nature of a large portion of Debussy's work, which was concerned with mood and colour, eschewing traditional tonality in favour of constructions such as the full-tonal scale, parallel chords, bitonality, and to a certain extent atonality, in order to achieve a greater degree of musical expression not allowed by strict adherence to a single key. Thus, the term tone painting is quite appropriate, in that Debussy's compositions often experimented with a much broader palette of tones, allowing each to behave similar to a colour within an illustration."

Also endearing to me is Tomita's penchant for listing every single piece of equipment he used during recording in the liner notes of each album, a list that, for Snowflakes, read as such:

- Moog synthesizer

One 914 extended range fixed filter bank
Two 904-A voltage-controlled low-pass filters
One 904-B voltage-controlled high-pass filter
One 904-C filter coupler
One 901 Voltage-controlled oscillator
Three 901-A oscillator controllers
Nine 901-B oscillators
Four 911 envelope generators
One 911-A dual-trigger delay
Five 902 voltage-controlled amplifiers
One 912 envelope follower
One 984 four-channel mixer
One 960 sequential controller
Two 961 interfaces
One 962 sequential switch
Two 950 keyboard controllers
One 6401 Bode ring modulator

- Tape recorders

One Ampex MM-1100 16-track
One Ampex AG-440 4-track
One Sony TC-9040 4-track
One Teac A-3340S 4-track
One Teac 7030GSL 2-track

- Mixers

Two Sony MX-16 8-channel mixers
Two Sony MX-12 6-channel mixers

- Accessories

One AKG BX20E Echo unit
One Eventide Clockworks "Instant Phaser"
Two Binson Echorec "2" units
One Fender "Dimension IV"
One Mellotron

This is a relatively short list, compared to his later releases.

Download HERE
Purchase HERE




ISAO TOMITA - PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION (1975)


Another standout in a seemingly endless stream of classical-via-Moog releases in the mid-70's, Tomita's reworking of Mussorgsky's Pictures At An Exhibition (released the same year as his excellent Firebird Suite) finds him at the top of his game creatively, melting faces not only with his nimble fingers but also with a constant barrage of special effects, delay, oscillation, and all manner of other assorted electronic tomfoolery.
The original Pictures, written in 1874, was a tribute by Mussorgsky to his recently-deceased friend, painter Viktor Hartmann, and is meant as an aural analog to attenting one of Hartmann's art shows. It is by far Mussorgsky's best-known work, being interpreted by many a conductor over the years--none of whom could match Tomita's Technicolor treatment, of course.

Wiki again: "Mussorgsky links the suite's movements in a way that depicts the viewer's own progress through the exhibition. Two "Promenade" movements stand as portals to the suite's main sections. Their regular pace and irregular meter depicts the act of walking. Three untitled interludes present shorter statements of this theme, varying the mood, colour and key in each to suggest reflection on a work just seen or anticipation of a new work glimpsed. Mussorgsky, not generally known for cutting a svelte figure, wrote to Stasov: "My physiognomy can be seen in the interludes." A turn is taken in the work at the "Catacombae" when the "Promenade" theme stops functioning as merely a linking device and becomes, in "Cum mortuis", an integral element of the movement itself. The theme reaches its apotheosis in the suite's finale, The Bogatyr Gates."

Download HERE
Purchase HERE




ISAO TOMITA - THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE (1978)


Our final Tomita effort today is The Bermuda Triangle, which, unlike the other albums posted here, contains quite a bit of Tomita's own composition.
Other sections by Prokofiev and John Williams (you'll know it when you hear it) round this one out, with the whole package being a diverse and wholly sci-fi excursion into creepy, spacey realms of pure fantasy and high weirdness. Bermuda is probably my favorite of the four records presented in this post, not only for the completely top-notch music, but for the track listing as well. Check it out:

1. The Round Space Ship Landing on the Earth While Emitting Silvery Lights (The Arrival of UFO and the Mysterious Electric Waves)
2. Look Out the Bermuda Triangle, Look Out the Bermuda Triangle, Look Out
3. Strong Electromagnetic Waves
4. The World of the Different Dimensions
5. The Giant Pyramid Sitting at the Bottom of the Sea of Bermuda and the Ancient People
6. The Venus Wearing the Space Uniform Shining in Florescent Light Color (The Return of UFO)
7. The Children Playing in Agharta, the Deep Underground Kingdom
8. The Hollow Vessel Called the Earth
9. The Song of Venus
10. The Dawn at Bermuda
11. The Mysterious Electric Waves (Computer Data Signals)
12. The Dazzling Bright Cylindrical Object Which Had Crashed Into Tunguska, Siberia
13. The Harp Being Played by the Ancient People and the Venus and Her Space Children Singing the Song of the Future
14. The Visionary Flight to the 1448 Nebular Group of the Bootes (The Departure of UFO)
15. Now, You Have Been Carried Away from the Earth

That's right, my friends: Hollow Earth Theory, UFO's, the Bermuda Triangle, and an insurmountable wall of swirling Moogs all in one place. Please try to contain your excitement.

Download HERE
Purchase HERE



PS: If anyone has a link for Tomita's soundtrack to Catastrophe 1999: The Prophecies of Nostradomus, please send it my way. I have, as of yet, been unable to locate it through conventional means....

Tomita Last.FM
Website

Past Tomita offerings on IC:
Firebird Suite (1975)
The Planets (1976)
Kosmos (1978)

TOMITA JUDGES YOU

2011 Ferrari Sport Cars Superamerica 45

2011 Ferrari Sport Cars Superamerica 45

The Ferrari sports car was build for Peter Kalikow, a Ferrari collector from New York, the rich people, who is a real estate entrepreneur, to celebrate that he’s a Ferrari client and driver for 45 years. The Ferrari Superamerica 45 is styled internally by Ferrari Design and engineered and built in-house. The sports car features an unique roof system which opens the roof-top by fliping it backwards.

2011 Ferrari Sport Cars Superamerica 45

The Special Projects Ferrari Superamerica 45 is a unique one-off model. The 2011 Ferrari Sport Cars Superamerica 45 model was built in-house and styled internally by Ferrari Design, making its public debut on the 20th of May at the Villa d'Este Concorso d'Eleganza. When open, the roof is housed by an entirely new boot, while the design appears to be bespoke, featuring a carbon-fiber rotating hard-top which integrates a rear screen.

The 2011 Ferrari Sport Cars Superamerica 45 is built around an aluminium spaceframe chassis similar to the limited production 599 Aperta roadster. Power comes from the very potent V12 also used in the 599 GTO. Based on the engine originally used for the Enzo, it produces well over 650 bhp. This is transferred to the rear wheels by a semi-automatic gearbox, which is operated by paddles behind the steering wheel. Carbon ceramic discs ensure that the 2011 Ferrari Sport Cars Superamerica 45 can slow down as fast as it can accelerate.

2011 Ferrari Sport Cars Superamerica 45

Like 400 Superamerica Cabriolet, the new 2011 Ferrari Sport Cars Superamerica 45 is finished in a lovely metallic blue paint, which is further accentuated by blue carbon-fibre sections and polished aluminium A-pillars and wing mirrors. Additional vents in the front wings and a spoiler on the tail set the car further apart from the 'standard' 599. The latter was a necessary addition to create sufficient downforce and stability at high speeds. The interior is refined by a carefully selected combination of Cuoio leather trim and Blu Scuro carbon fiber details. The driver will also enjoy a latest-generation touch-screen infotainment system.

2011 Ferrari Sport Cars Superamerica 45

While the 2011 Ferrari Sport Cars Superamerica 45 did make its public debut at Villa d'Este, it was not yet officially delivered. Ever the perfectionist, Kalikow pointed out several details that still need changing before the car is really 'ready'. Among them were the lining on the roof, which will most likely be changed to the same tan leather as the rest of the interior and the door handles, which still need to receive the Kalikow's initials as previously seen on the 612 Kappa.

2011 Ferrari Sport Cars Superamerica 45

When Kalikow does take official delivery of the car, he intends to use it extensively on the road, like he does with a vast majority of the fabulous Ferraris in his collection. We, particularly, can't wait to see the Superamerica 45 next to the 400 Superamerica Cabriolet that inspired this project.

2011 Ferrari Sport Cars Superamerica 45

Specifications :

Key: AT - automatic transmission, MT - manual transmission, F/R/AWD - front/rear/all wheel drive

Powertrain : Type     V12

Displacement  :   366 cu in (5999 cc)

Power  :     620 hp @ 7600 rpm

Torque :     448 lb-ft @ 5600 rpm

Driveline :    Rear Wheel Drive

Brakes & Tires :  Brakes Front - Rear     Ventilated Discs - Ventilated Discs

Tire Size Front - Rear     245/40 R19 - 305/35 R20

2011 Ferrari Sport Cars Superamerica 45