In the Toilet - Yak's CD Recommendations

Why the hell, you may be asking yourself, is this section called In the Toilet? Aren't these supposed to be CDs that the Yak likes? Well, you see, these are discs which are enjoying an extended period of rotation inside the Jaguar CD-ROM, which looks a lot like a tiny toilet which sits on top of the Jaguar. I never play my discs anywhere else now, because nothing else has got the Virtual Light Machine inside!

Flushing away the coder blues at 22 June 1996:

Tantrance

Excellent double trance CD that I picked up llast time I was back in Llondon.

Anything by NIN

Trent is the man. He's a diva. I saw NIN in concert llast year, and they kicked donkey, ass, burro, the perissodactyl of your choice.

FSOL - Accelerator

More cool toonz from the Future boyz. Notice how the opening song is heavily sampled from DSOTM :-)... also contains the excellent track Papua New Guinea, which always blisses me out and makes me think in grafix, especially after a bit of Arcturan Narco-Weed.

Banco de Gaia - Maya

Some very good mellow techno - trax 2 and 9 are my favourites. Just the thing to have running while you are working or chilling out hanging out in your favourite vspace at the end of a long dayz kodin'. Llovely.

Spiralling Down the Digital Dunny at 23 July 1995:

The Wall - Pink Floyd

The Downward Spiral - Nine Inch Nails

The Final Cut - Pink Floyd

Pretty Hate Machine - Nine Inch Nails

When The Wind Blows (Roger Waters' bits)

Further Down The Spiral - Nine Inch Nails

Amused To Death (Roger Waters)

Wish You Were Here (Original and Trance Mixes, Pink Floyd)

It's been kinda a strange month :-/

Pinkness on the Porcelain at 24 June 1995:

P.U.L.S.E - Pink Floyd

At last the llong-awaited Floyd double-live, featuring stuff from last year's tour, including the entire live DSOTM. This album has the distinction of being the first album I have ever bought which requires batteries. Brings back many a pleasant memory of a certain night last year in Rotterdam. Brilliant though Floyd are, though, there's one very important thing that's missing....

The Wall - Roger Waters/Floyd

The Final Cut - Roger Waters/Floyd

The Pros and Cons of Hitch-Hiking - Roger Waters

Amused to Death - Roger Waters

Yeah, you guessed it, what's missing is Roger Waters, the soul of Pink Floyd. I've been worshipping at his shrine a lot over the last month or two (the only reason Kaos isn't on the list is that the CD is back in England :( ). Don't get me wrong, I still love Dave and the boys, but Roger is undoubtedly the main man; the eloquence and emotional power of his lyrics and vocals are unsurpassed. Long-time Llamasoft fans will know that I am duotheistic, revering the twin deities of Eugene Jarvis, the finest exponent of the game-designer's art; and the Lord thy Rog. This theology has the advantage that the existence of the deities is easily proved, and diligent study of Their Works will reveal that they do indeed perform miracles. Roger Waters is an amazing man who invests a huge amount of passion and pure emotion in his work, yielding some of the most intelligent and powerfully moving music ever created. Yeah, I love the man and I'm not ashamed to admit it. He's a proper cynic's cynic. The dude is the boss.

Techno on the Great White Telephone at 21 May 1995:

Sunscreem - O3

I don't know how I missed this 1993 album the first time around, but slip it under the lid for some really sweet techno aural input. Flows along in a most ecstatic, dove-like manner, this is currently Disc #1 in my MX-5ly autochanger, and just perfect for cruising down 101 with the top down on a fine sunny California day. Yum squared.

Front 242 - 05:22:09:12

A bit harder-edged than the Sunscreem. Nonetheless, excellent and currently Disc #2 in the Maz-do-changer.

Future Sound Of London - Lifeforms

Comes highly recommended by the woman in the Salinas record shop who likes camels and is interested in UFOs, and where I was gratified to see a techno section with an 'Eat Static' section - bodes well.. This works particularly nicely with an effect such as 4:5, with diverse hypnotic audio textures generating satisfying rhythmic colourflows in the feedback. Kick in some 1:x from time to time as well.

Residing in the porcelain receptacle at 12 Mar 1995:

August and Everything After - Counting Crows

After a large amount of exposure to this band in my day-to-day listening to 98.5 KOME San Jose, I finally gave in and bought the album, and a zarjaz album it is. It's one of those albums which gets successively better with each listening; thoroughly excellent, with a couple of tracks which are just brilliant (the last track, Murder of One, in particular). I can't help thinking that the band's name would be even better if they dropped the 'r'...

Newly arrived in the U-Bend at 12 Feb 1995:

Lush - Split

Recommended and lent to me by Ian Lightsynth, this is a cool album for either bank 1 or 2. Female-human lead singer makes melodious noises (although not as melodious as the gentle bleating of Flossie the Prettiest Sheep in the World, who always sounds beautiful, even when she bleats with a mouthful of grass).

Pink Floyd - Saucerful of Secrets, Animals, Dark Side, Meddle, Wish You Were Here

The VLM loves Floyd. I always knew the VLM would love Floyd, and it does. The VLM could have been made for Floyd. In fact the VLM *was* made for Floyd, I suppose. In fact you might as well consider anything by Pink Floyd permanently proximate to the Yakly toilet, as it'll save me an awful lot of typing.

In the Toilet at 04 Feb 1995:

The Stone Roses - Second Coming

And a bloody llong time coming it was too, but well worth the wait in the opinion of this beastie. A little bit more hard edged than the first SR alb, but still with that distinctive Roses sound.

Ozric Tentacles - Arborescence

Yummy, yummy, yummy. Yak has lloved the Ozrics for years and this is a big sticky suspicious-smelling blim of prime trance-out material. It really is quite amazing that the band have designed an album which fits Bank 2 Setting 8 quite so well without ever having seen a VLM.

Yello - Zebra

A fine upload of Eurotechnoid tunes. And it's named after a beastie.

Pop WILL Eat Itself - Dos Dedos Mis Amigos

Hard-edged, angry, taking the piss, very listenable. When you fancy a nice chunk of noise, here's your boy.

Eat Static - Implant

Eat Static are the techno offshoot of the Ozric Tentacles. They are utterly, utterly wonderful. If you see any in your record shop, don't hesitate. Grasp it firmly, extract it from the CD rack, and proceed at warp speed to the checkout. I still remember walking back from Atari on the day I learned that T2K had got Best of Show at CES, listening to 'Abduction' on my CD walkman, watching the sky turn from red to purple over the radar dishes at Moffat Field. Buzz. Yum.

Music For The Jilted Generation - The Prodigy

Some of the best British techno around. Excellent for giving those Bank 3 and 4 settings a thorough workout.

Parklife - Blur

"Oo's that gutlord marching? You should cut down on your pork life mate! Get some exercise!" Excellent.

Well, that's a few to be going on with... BTW there is soon going to be a new Floyd double live album, recorded in Qsound, which I hear is going to be amazing. My toilet awaits with open lid! My particle systems are working out, so they'll be ready! YAK WANT!

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