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elcome to the Digital Meltd0wn Music Blog. The aim of this blog is to introduce the readers to music that is out of print, commercially unavailable, released under a creative commons license, or with approval by the featured artist. The majority of the music posted here would be considered underground. Don't let that fool you into thinking that the music featured here might be any less enjoyable than that of the mainstream artists you hear on the radio, as this couldn't be further from the truth. Please keep in mind that the majority of the artists that appear on this blog, along with their respective record labels, are not wealthy and need your support. If you enjoy the material that you find here, please support the artists/labels by purchasing their material afterwards. If you are an artist/label that would prefer to have your material removed from this blog, simply leave me a comment, and I would be more than happy to promptly remove the offending post. In addition to running this blog, I also work on a few other projects during my spare time. You can find links to those, as well as a few other important links associated with Digital Meltd0wn in the menu bar above.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Negativland - Escape From Noise


While the sound collage of Negativland's first three studio albums pointed in the band's ultimate direction, they were really rough sketches compared to Escape From Noise. Escape is a full-on audio assault, more musical than ever, but with tight and well-constructed sound sections thrown in. Instead of simply a collection of sounds and snippets, however, each cut on Escape From Noise picks a target and takes aim. "Quiet Please" takes on market research in the world of radio. "Michael Jackson" is a laundry list of pop stars being charged with creating commercial pop. "Sycamore" turns happy, shiny, new pre-planned communities into something far more sinister. Although some other tracks ("Yellow, Black and Rectangular," "Car Bomb") don't really take on particular targets, they're fun nonetheless. Probably the most accomplished piece is the strangely creepy "Time Zones," which talks about how many time zones there are in the Soviet Union (there are 11, by the way, and it's not even funny). Although it wasn't apparent at the time, the centerpiece of the album would be "Christianity Is Stupid," a prime example of how sound bites can be rearranged to say whatever you want them to say. (The full sound bites appear on the album Helter Stupid, the first half of which was inspired by a media frenzy after the band suggested that a murder may be attributable to "Christianity Is Stupid," as an excuse to get out of having to tour in the wake of this album, which turned out to be a much bigger success than anyone expected.) Scattered throughout the album are unexpected guest appearances from some of the biggest names in underground music, including Jello Biafra on "toilet flushing," the Residents on "hoots and clanging," and the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia and Mickey Hart on mouth sounds and "processed animals." In addition to better-constructed material, the production quality on Escape From Noise is also top-notch, making it a joy to listen to. Although future works would prove more controversial, this is probably Negativland's masterwork.

Track List:
1. Announcement
2. Quiet Please
3. Michael Jackson
4. Escape From Noise
5. The Playboy Channel
6. Stress In Marriage
7. Nesbitt's Lime Soda Song
8. Over The Hiccups
9. Sycamore
10. Car Bomb
11. Yellow Black And Rectangular
12. Backstage Pass
13. Christianity Is Stupid
14. Time Zones
15. You Don't Even Live Here
16. The Way Of It
17. Endscape

Download: Negativland - Escape From Noise (57MB)

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I already have this one but I would definitely be interested in anything else you migh be making available.

Many thanks

Ugoralph

Anonymous said...

negativland is teh best!

Anonymous said...

a great conceptual LP
thanx

Anonymous said...

used to have this back in the day. thank you so much.

Anonymous said...

I still have the "CAR BOMB" sticker that came with this on my guitar amp,excellent stuff ta

Anonymous said...

this is fantastic music! thank you very much...

sadly,
track 4 and 6 are not playable

is there a chance to upload them maybe separately? would be very, very nice.

(excuse my bad english skills - i hope this sounds not rude)

Zer0_II said...

Anonymous: You aren't being rude. I'll check on the tracks that mentioned. You may want to download it again and see if you have the same problem. Sometimes rar archives can become corrupted when downloading them. If they still aren't working then I'll re-upload them for you.

Stanley said...

Thanks for this one. I remember it from my younger flat-sharing days in North London.

But I must concur with Mr Anonymous. Tracks four and six will not play.

Stanley said...

Re. the unplayable tracks 4 & 6


I converted to wav with dbPoweramp and then converted back to mp3.

They both play fine now!