GOT THE INFECTION, GOING EAST FOR THE CURE!

I gotta tell you about this album. See, we've got history, and that makes it even more special, sort of. The artist, Ramasutra, he's been around for a while on the lounge front. His real name's Ramachandra Borcar, and under that identity, has released the fantastic Steel & Glass album, a formidable future jazz soundtrack in collaboration with The Stacked Deck that you should run and buy right away. But that's not the main subject of this post.

Because it all started with Ramasutra and his first album, The East Infection. Now, I used to own this album, and it was very dear to me: there was a couple of tracks that I played regularly on my radio show, and I really enjoyed it as a whole.

But if you've had teenage children, you'll know what this is about. Sometimes, some precious objects disappear, no one quite knows where. Usually, it's not stolen or anything, simply misplaced, borrowed or worst: forgotten. And that was the sad fate of The East Infection. It vanished. I noticed one day it was missing, and there's no telling how long it'd been gone.

Now this was all before the iPod, so I had not yet ripped the album to my hard drive. It was truly lost.

I tried Amazon, but it was stupidly priced. I looked in used cd places to no avail. Time went by. Zoom to january, when I suddenly get the urge to check iTunes. I know: how very 20th century of me! It should have been the first place to check, I suppose. And there it was, waiting for me to download it for a small fee (surprisingly small, in fact). So I'm back to being happy about this album. And it's aged pretty darn well, too.

In fact, if you enjoy Bombay The Hard Way, Indian Ropeman, or any of those indian electro hybrids, I highly recommend this album: you won't be disappointed. There's this amazing track, New Wave (Permanent Wave DJ) where we're treated to a mix of surf guitar, spacey sitar, Brazilian percussions, all in the span of some 4 minutes. It's simply amazing. And there's many more. I found a couple of tracks on Youtube that came from this album, you can sample them here and here if you'd like.

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FIRESTART MY FLINT UP - or is a splinter from a Prodigy still a prodigy?

Remember The Prodigy's defining album, The Fat Of The Land? This was the album where there was a pretty surprising transformation of this act. If you weren't following the singles or the band, you basically went from a breakbeat/jungle act with more dancers than musicians on stage to a post-industrial heavily pierced and tattooed freakazoid demonstration of anger. The video for Firestarter was one of those moment where you raise an eyebrow and go: duh?

There was a funny story circulating, on how the band had tried to trick Natacha Atlas to guest vocalize on Smack My Bitch Up (the scheme included a renamed cassette demo with some key lyrics obfuscated). Good or bad for Natacha Atlas, she steered clear of those strange british kids.

Anyway, if you remember the vocalist for this album, a strange and imposing figure named Keith Flint, apparently the offspring of an unlikely mating of Gene Simmons and The Green Goblin, you might also remember thinking this: "Gee, what a charismatic singer... Don't I wish he had his own band and played some Ministry type heavy industrial metal!"

You don't remember thinking that? C'mon! Look harder. It's gotta be there, in your synaptic soft drive?

Well, whether you wished for it or not, the album exists. The band's name is Flint(!), and the album is Device 1. Thing is, it was never released. Possibly because the band was dissolved before it was released. But lucky you, there is this amazing blog, The Unheard Music, which specializes in reviving lost albums, unofficial releases and bootlegs: honestly, it's a good thing this blog didn't start too long ago, because I think I've already spent way too much time downloading his amazing archives. Here's Flint. Other key entries include: the banned albums of The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu, Plone's unreleased second album (a pure gem), and tons more.
As for Flint's failed attempt at rockstardom: look at Ministry. Jourgensen's not doing so great, and if it weren't for the strong anti-Bush current he rode, his latest albums were far from noticeable. You could do worst than listen to Flint's unborn vinyl clone: it's aged well.

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