Your Favorite Obscure Albums (that most people here have never heard)

[thesweetscience]

I don't know if this qualifies because people here might very well be familiar with it but Triumph released an album in the late 80's called Surveillance. I was probably a freshmen or sophomore in high school when I found the cassette on a discount rack at a record store and bought it. I liked their more popular stuff and I had only been introduced to Rush 2 or 3 years prior. I paid like 2 dollars for it and wore it out. I came across one of the songs from it on You Tube recently as I had forgotten about it. It still stands up today. It is a great album from start to finish.

[ILSnwdog]

Super 8

 

Jellyfish

 

Virgos Merlot

 

 

Off the top of my head.

I have "Bellyboutton" from Jellyfish. :banana:

[Khan]

TPOH - Love Junk

[EmotionDetector]

I'm not that fond of making lists...

 

LOL...just polls... ;)

[ILSnwdog]

TPOH - Love Junk

I'm an Adult Now is one of my all time favorite songs! One Sided Story is a pretty good album from TPOH too. :haz:

[Territorial_Game]

http://www.roadburn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/GS-Cenotes.jpg

[Blue J]

Out of all of you prog-lovers, I'm surprised no one has mentioned Amon Duul. I really don't listen to prog at all (outside of what Rush has done), but Yeti blew me away when I heard it back in the mid 90s.

 

Goobs- I love Relatively Clean Rivers. Other than the friend who gave me that record, I've never heard anyone else mention them.

 

Also love Jonathan Wilson (I like Gentle Spirit better than Frankie Ray, actually) and Vetiver, too.

 

Here are a few others:

 

Anything by Guided By Voices, or Bob Pollard solo albums (Robert Pollard, if you're going to do a search) or his other side projects. The best among them, in my opinion:

 

For GBV:

Same Place the Fly Got Smashed

Vampire on Titus

Propeller

Bee Thousand

Alien Lanes

Under the Bushes, Under the Stars

Mag Earwhig

 

Robert Pollard:

Standard Gargoyle Decisions

We All Got Out of the Army

Lord of the Birdcage

Space City Kicks

 

Boston Spaceships- Zero to 99

Boston Spaceships- Planets Are Blasted

Boston Spaceships- Let it Beard

 

Circus Devils- Mother Skinny

 

I'm sure I'm forgetting a few others.

 

Also:

 

Devendra Banhart- Rejoicing in the Hands

 

I'll have to dig Through my old stuff to find some more...

 

 

 

 

[Hatchetaxe&saw]

Jane - Here We Are(1973)

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWCVE4uhs2A

[Steevo]

^ Beautiful emotional solo and nice production (first listen). Good choice.

[rushgoober]

Out of all of you prog-lovers, I'm surprised no one has mentioned Amon Duul. I really don't listen to prog at all (outside of what Rush has done), but Yeti blew me away when I heard it back in the mid 90s.

 

Goobs- I love Relatively Clean Rivers. Other than the friend who gave me that record, I've never heard anyone else mention them.

 

I never mentioned Amon Duul because I don't think they're that obscure. Amon Duul II & Can are probably the most well known Krautrock bands, unless you include Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk in there too. Now, Amon Duul is pretty obscure compared to Amon Duul II (the original group split - Amon Duul II got a lot more popularity and they were a LOT more interesting, but Amon Duul made a few albums as well). To me the REALLY essential Amon Duul II albums are Dance of the Lemmings and Yeti. Their first one Phallus Dei is really worth owning as well. After that they were more hit and miss, although the next albums Wolf City and Carnival in Babylon had some interesting material on them - they just were nowhere near as consistent as their first three were.

 

Relatively Clean Rivers is something special, though not for everyone. It's an album I like to describe as "you're 100% guaranteed to love it if you're a Grateful Dead fan." The main guy behind it, Phil Pearlman was also responsible for two other groups/albums - Beat of the Earth (1967 - a lot of bongos and very long atmospheric tracks - not indispensable, but worth hearing/owning) and The Electronic Hole (1970 - recorded as a demo to entice other musicians to record with him, but that said, it's a GREAT album), though neither of them sound much like Relatively Clean Rivers. The RCR album was printed in VERY limited quantities and there are stories abound about him just giving away copies of the album, leaving them on park benches for people to find, etc. This is another classic case of an obscure album where the group and/or album is MUCH more well known now then when it came out thanks to word of mouth, trading, the internet, etc.

[Khan]

TPOH - Love Junk

I'm an Adult Now is one of my all time favorite songs! One Sided Story is a pretty good album from TPOH too. :haz:

That one always gets me going at the gym.

[Hatchetaxe&saw]

Wolfgang Riechmann - Wunderbar

 

Fabulous German electronica from 1978.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASTcB8apEEQ

[Blue J]

 

Relatively Clean Rivers is something special, though not for everyone. It's an album I like to describe as "you're 100% guaranteed to love it if you're a Grateful Dead fan."

 

Heh heh...that's a pretty fair generalization. Even though it's what I would call a folk-rock record, it does have a hippie vibe to it.

 

A few others to add to the list:

 

Shinki Chen- S/T

Twink- Think Pink (some of this sounds aimless and certainly drug-induced, but some of it is really solid psych)

Gary Higgins- Red Hash

Woven Hand- S/T

Kuutarha- Lau Nau

[Maverick]

Michael Jackson - Thriller

[treeduck]

I don't consider anything I listen to obscure, so I have no additions to make.

[bathory]

I don't consider anything I listen to obscure, so I have no additions to make.

 

yeah, the way I see it, if a f*cker like me can find it, it can't be too obscure

 

not to mention, obscure just depends on who you're around. I had a cousin call neil young obscure once, so it really depends on what your knowledge of music is.

[treeduck]

I don't consider anything I listen to obscure, so I have no additions to make.

 

yeah, the way I see it, if a f*cker like me can find it, it can't be too obscure

 

not to mention, obscure just depends on who you're around. I had a cousin call neil young obscure once, so it really depends on what your knowledge of music is.

 

Aye... :hail:

[Aikenrooster]

BT-ESCM

Hanzel und Gretyl-Transmissions from Uranus

Vision of Disorder-Vision of Disorder

Days of the New-Yellow

Days of the New-Red

Days of the New-Green

Marilyn Manson-Antichrist Superstar

 

just a few albums that I listed to in my 20s and hoping Travis Meeks will put something out again one day.

[GeddyRulz]

Some of these artists aren't "obscure" at all, and yet I don't personally know anyone else who has these albums...

 

Pizzicato Five “Pizzicato Five in the Mix”

Guided By Voices “Human Amusements at Hourly Rates”

The Stranglers “Black and White”

Cornershop “When I Was Born for the 7^th Time”

Esquivel “Cabaret Manana” and "Space Age Bachelor Pad Music"

Randy Coven “Funk Me Tender”

AC Newman “Get Guilty”

Hiram Bullock “Give It What U Got”

Combustible Edison “I, Swinger”

Eric Matthews “It’s Heavy In Here”

Stu Hamm “Kings of Sleep”

Stanley Jordan “Magic Touch”

7 Seconds “Praise” and “New Wind” and “Ourselves”

October Project “October Project”

Asha Bhosle “Playback Queen”

The Shins “Port of Morrow”

Francis Cabrel “Quelqu’Un De L’Interieur”

Ronny Jordan “The Quiet Revolution”

Holly and the Italians “The Right to Be Italian”

Riverdogs “Riverdogs”

The Grays “Ro Sham Bo”

Brian May + Friends “Star Fleet Project”

Edited May 17, 2013 by GeddyRulz

[Bastille Dave]

anything by The 77's from the 80's and 90's and anything by The Lost Dogs from the 90's. I'd bet my house nobody on this forum has anything from these 2 bands.

[Pause Rewind Replay]

I'm pretty disgustingly mainstream, but I'm pretty sure these haven't been recently discussed here...

 

The God Awfuls - Next Stop: Armageddon (worth finding just for "NRA")

 

Murder City Devils - In Name And Blood (Punk with an organ player...)

 

Psychostick - We Couldn't Think Of a Title (Comic hardcore with tracks such as "Two Ton Paperweight", "Pluh", "Prozac Milkshake", "Orgasm=Love", and "Fake My Own Death And Go Platinum" )

 

I forget whose list it was on, but I do have Pure Reason Revolution's "The Dark Third" IMHO the best way to listen to it is to completely ignore the lyrics... if you try to make sense of them you just get a migraine :smoke:

[The Cat 3]

I was just thinking about this yesterday while listening to Ryan Roxie, "The Roxie Nox".

 

The album, "Peace, Love and Armageddon" by Roxie77 is one of my favourite albums.

 

Great hooks, clever lyrics and great rock and roll swagger.

[Blue J]

Guided By Voices “Human Amusements at Hourly Rates”

 

I don't have that one, but I have all of the GBV albums from which the songs on it were compiled (see my rave about them in my first post in this thread).

 

How about Erkin Koray? Eurasian psychedelia from the late '60s. I have a disc labeled "Istanbul LP #8" by him, but I've never verified if that is an actual album title or not.

[GeddyRulz]

Guided By Voices “Human Amusements at Hourly Rates”

 

I don't have that one, but I have all of the GBV albums from which the songs on it were compiled (see my rave about them in my first post in this thread).

 

In truth, I don't even have this compilation album. I only snagged the song "Glad Girls" for my iPod, and only because it was memorably used in an episode of "How I Met Your Mother."