:Episode One Hundred Seventy-Three: 1.31.2020

* Not on Spotify:
Nothing this week. Sometimes, they really do have it all.

Description

This week's show starts off with a track from the most recent album by Kungens Män (which translates to King's Men in Swedish, meaning that they have the same name as the band that put Portland on the map, back in the day) who, like nearly all contemporary Swedish psych bands, have a sound reminiscent of the Pärson Sound/Harvester/Träd, Gräs & Stenar continuum that formed the backbone of the 1960s/70s Scandinavian avant-garde scene. After this is the first contemporary Hungarian band I believe I've ever played on my show, Budapest's Lemurian Folk Songs, who provide an fine example of a somewhat overlooked genre: stoner prog (think Sabbath Bloody Sabbath/Sabotage-era Black Sabbath or Sleep/Om). Then we get some VU/JAMC/BRMC sunglasses rock by Uruguay's Las Cobras, a new single by Space Program favorites Endless Boogie (still boogie-ing, endlessly, to that singular ZZ Top meets Beefheart sound), and finally a sample of the fascinating collage of 70s pop detritus - the influences include, somehow, both early electrofunk/R&B and Neil Youngian ramble-folk - that is Matt Valentine's newest album.

The middle set opens with a song from the recently reissued, self-titled debut (of sorts) of the Deep Listening Band, aka the late, great Pauline Oliveros and her collaborators Stuart Dempster and Panaiotis. It's nothing but the three of them doing their minimal, 20th century avant-garde composer thing in an empty cistern in Port Townsend, Washington (not too far from the land of sparkly teenage vampires) in the late 80s, and is one of my favorite ambient records of all time. Following this is neo-Kosmische act Arp performing live with his very 70s fusion-jazz Ensemble, and the timeless, latter-day Krautrock (from 1983) exercise in electronics and percussion that is Moebius, Plank, and Neumeier's Zero Set. Then we get legendary weirdo Alain Neffe, founder of underground label Insane Music, with some... well, weirdness, of the 80s minimal synth variety (known, contemporaneously, as "darkwave"), featuring his frequent collaborator Bene Gesserit (a Dune-referencing name that you'll all be familiar with after the latest stab at adapting Frank Herbert's Lawrence of Arabia in Space hits cinemas this Christmas). Speaking of which, we finish up the set with numbers from the OSTs to two sci-fi films: Colin Stetson's fantastic, avant-garde synth 'n' sax score to the Nic Cage-starring H.P. Lovecraft adaptation Color out of Space (listen to the show for my less-than-glowing review of the film - the music is the best part, to my mind); and the WRWTFWW release of Tom Raybould's kosmische-y soundtrack to obscure 2013 film The Machine.

Finally, since it wouldn't be an episode of the Space Program without a few ridiculously loooo-ooo-oooong numbers, the last set consists of a mere two songs: the title track from Nihonjin, the freshly repressed debut of Far Out (who would go on to become Far East Family Band, often referred to as "Japan's Pink Floyd"), a great example of early, non-self-indulgent 70s prog; and a cut from Ivar Grydeland & Henry Kaiser's album of minimal guitar stylings, In The Arctic Dreamtime.