From: Rob Thornton <rt AT clark.net>
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 1998 22:28:29 -0500 (EST)


Generally, I became discouraged with the state of pop music in 1997. Not
that I didn't enjoy a certain amount of mersh mind candy (i.e. "MMMBop")
or stopped digging my "Patsy Cline Story" CD, but I never found much new
stuff that made me glad that I was alive. The only rock-oriented album on
my list is from Abunai, and they blended '90s noise-weirdness wiht an
uncanny ability to rock out in a fresh and spontaneous fashion that
recalls the '60s psych-rockers of yore.... 

<in no particular order>

1. Pelt: Max Meadows (VHF)
2. Gravitar: Now the Road of Knives (Charnel)
3. Surface of the Earth: self-titled (Corpus Hermeticum)
4. Loren MazzaCane Connors: Calladen Harvest (Road Cone)
5. Abunai! Universal Mind Decoder (Camera Obscura)
6. Subarachnoid Space: Almost Invisible (Relapse)
7. William Hooker w/ DJ Olive & Glenn Spearman: Mindfulness (Knitting 
Factory)
8. Loren MazzaCane Connors & Alan Licht: Mercury (Road Cone)
9. 310: Aug 56
10 Thurston Moore: Piece for Jetsun Dolma (Victo)

Fave Reissue
------------
Miles Davis: Dark Magus 2CD set - Devastating free-psych funkjams that
made me feel as if someone dropped a cherrybomb in my skull. Yeah,
words fail me this time but this recording often paralyzes my left
hemisphere anyways. IMHO, this heralds the no-wave funk meltdowns of James
Chance & the Contortions and is much better than Live Evil, which sounds
way too proto-fusion for my tastes. Just say no to Jaco, I always say....