Midori

As introduced to me by our beloved Han Wu Ti, Midori are a hardcore/punk band with a touch of jazz. Now, ignoring genre, as 'hardcore' will more than likely put you off, brave Beardians... It's more like a more reserved, non-electronic Melt Banana. It's fun, and you have a Lolicat seal of approval on it!

http://www.mediafire.com/?ytlo7x39o9z - first album
http://www.mediafire.com/?y13lvjdgjsq - second album
http://www.mediafire.com/?mpav5uymupy - third album
http://www.mediafire.com/?nmbbyhiy3o0 - fourth album

Tom Waits

I'm gonna whittle you into kindlin'
Black Crow 16 shells from a thirty-ought-six

Indeed, another offering from gritty bluesman and all-round musical genius Mr. Tom Waits. Swordfishtrombones is where he really began to experiment and (without mixing any words) it sounds batshit weird when compared to the Small Change record I previously linked you to. It's not for everyone, that's for certain, but I would urge everyone to listen to it at least once. It's very, very good.

Review courtest of allmusic.com -

Between the release of Heartattack and Vine in 1980 and Swordfishtrombones in 1983, Tom Waits got rid of his manager, his producer, and his record company. And he drastically altered a musical approach that had become as dependable as it was unexciting. Swordfishtrombones has none of the strings and much less of the piano work that Waits' previous albums had employed; instead, the dominant sounds on the record were low-pitched horns, bass instruments, and percussion, set in spare, close-miked arrangements (most of them by Waits) that sometimes were better described as "soundscapes." Lyrically, Waits' tales of the drunken and the lovelorn have been replaced by surreal accounts of people who burned down their homes and of Australian towns bypassed by the railroad -- a world (not just a neighborhood) of misfits now have his attention. The music can be primitive, moving to odd time signatures, while Waits alternately howls and wheezes in his gravelly bass voice. He seems to have moved on from Hoagy Carmichael and Louis Armstrong to Kurt Weill and Howlin' Wolf (as impersonated by Captain Beefheart). Waits seems to have had trouble interesting a record label in the album, which was cut 13 months before it was released, but when it appeared, rock critics predictably raved: after all, it sounded weird and it didn't have a chance of selling. Actually, it did make the bottom of the best-seller charts, like most of Waits' albums, and now that he was with a label based in Europe, even charted there. Artistically, Swordfishtrombones marked an evolution of which Waits had not seemed capable (though there were hints of this sound on his last two Asylum albums), and in career terms it reinvented him.

Note: I hate trying to fit Tom Waits into a genre. He transcends them. I label these posts with some of the more likely genres he might fall into, but his music really can't be categorised.

Artist: Tom Waits
Album: Swordfishtrombones
Genre: Jazz, Blues, Rock, Experimental
Official Website: http://www.anti.com/artists/view/1

1. "Underground" – 1:58
2. "Shore Leave" – 4:12
3. "Dave the Butcher" – 2:15
4. "Johnsburg, Illinois" – 1:30
5. "16 Shells from a Thirty-Ought-Six" – 4:30
6. "Town with No Cheer" – 4:22
7. "In the Neighborhood" – 3:04
8. "Just Another Sucker on the Vine" – 1:42
9. "Frank's Wild Years" – 1:50
10. "Swordfishtrombone" – 3:00
11. "Down, Down, Down" – 2:10
12. "Soldier's Things" – 3:15
13. "Gin Soaked Boy" – 2:20
14. "Trouble's Braids" – 1:18
15. "Rainbirds" (instrumental) – 3:05

Download: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=AQBDSXXJ

Tom Waits

And you can't find your waitress with a Geiger counter
She hates you and your friends and you just can't get served without her
And the box-office is drooling, and the bar stools are on fire
And the newspapers were fooling, and the ash-trays have retired
'Cause the piano has been drinking, the piano has been drinking
The piano has been drinking, not me, not me, not me, not me, not me

Thomas Alan Waits (born 7 December 1949) is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by one critic as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car." With this trademark growl; his incorporation of pre-rock styles such as blues, jazz, and Vaudeville; and experimental tendencies verging on industrial music, Waits has built up a distinctive musical persona. He has worked as a composer for movies and musical plays and as a supporting actor in films, including The Fisher King, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and Short Cuts. He has been nominated for an Academy Award for his soundtrack work on One from the Heart.

Lyrically, Waits' songs are known for atmospheric portrayals of bizarre, seedy characters and places, although he has also shown a penchant for more conventional ballads. He has a cult following and has influenced subsequent songwriters despite having little radio or music video support. His songs are best-known to the general public in the form of cover versions by more visible artists—for example, "Jersey Girl," performed by Bruce Springsteen; "Downtown Train," performed by Rod Stewart; and "Ol' '55," performed by the Eagles. Although Waits' albums have met with mixed commercial success in his native United States, they have occasionally achieved gold album sales status in other countries. He has been nominated for a number of major music awards and has won Grammy Awards for two albums, Bone Machine and Mule Variations

The album I post today is his 1976 offering Small Change. The album featured famed drummer Shelly Manne, and was, like Waits' previous albums, heavily jazz influenced, with a lyrical style that owed influence to Raymond Chandler and Charles Bukowski as well as a vocal delivery influenced by Louis Armstrong. The music for the most part consists of Waits' hoarse, rough voice, set against a backdrop of piano, upright bass, drums and saxophone. The album's themes include those of desolation, deprivation, and, above all else, alcoholism. The cast of characters, which includes hookers, strippers and small-time losers, are for the most part, night-owls and drunks; people lost in a cold, urban world.

This is probably me my personal favourite of Tom Waits' albums. Keep an eye out, I'll be posting more. The man is a genius.

Artist: Tom Waits
Album: Small Change
Genre: Jazz, Blues, Rock
Official Website: http://www.anti.com/artists/view/1

1. "Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets To The Wind In Copenhagen)"
2. "Step Right Up"
3. "Jitterbug Boy (Sharing A Curbstone With Chuck E. Weiss, Robert Marchese, Paul Body And The Mug And Artie)"
4. "I Wish I Was In New Orleans (In The Ninth Ward)"
5. "The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me) (An Evening With Pete King)"
6. "Invitation To The Blues"
7. "Pasties And A G-String (At The Two O'Clock Club)"
8. "Bad Liver And A Broken Heart (In Lowell)"
9. "The One That Got Away"
10. "Small Change (Got Rained On With His Own .38)"
11. "I Can't Wait To Get Off Work (And See My Baby On Montgomery Avenue)"

Download: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VX4YEUQ0