Picking out Mike Pride tracks for Other Music proves to be a difficult task!

As mentioned a couple of weeks ago, we’ve had awesome interviews on the last two editions of Other Music. On 6/24/12, we had an interview with Kevin Burkett of the Electrical Guitar Company, who told us lots of interesting facts about building aluminum guitars, as well as an historical overview of aluminum instruments. Dan Jenkins of Ideal Cleaners also joined us in the studio for a live “aluminum jam,” over which I did some spoken word chatting about all things aluminum.

You can download an mp3 of the Kevin Burkett interview here.

And you can download the aluminum jam here.

Last night, we had an interview with drummer and composer Mike Pride, who discussed his many bands and projects, including a Kickstarter campaign he’s currently running to produce a recording of his Drummer’s Corpse piece. As of this writing, there are 21 days left to reach the funding goal for the Kickstarter–check out the link above for more information, and you can sign on to help make a recording of this crazy cool piece happen.

You can listen to Mike’s interview on Other Music here.

While I’m thinking about Mr. Pride’s work, I wanted to suggest a few albums from his back catalog that I think readers of Words on Sounds would really dig. While I haven’t reviewed an MP-related album since I ramped up the reviews on this blog last year, I’ve been following his work for years, and I consider many of his recordings to be an essential part of any contemporary jazz/experimental collection. Pride has an enormous back catalog of recordings that might be daunting to approach at first, but here are five of my favorites to get you started:

Dynamite Club – Fusion Era
The newest recording by Mike’s avant-rock/punk/math trio, “Fusion Era” pummels you with 12 tracks in 20 minutes, but it has more notes, humor, and attitude than most albums can hold in an hour. Mike and guitarist Kentaro Saito share vocal duties, while the low end is alternately covered by Evan Lipson (Normal Love) and Jesse Krakow (Time of Orchids). The physical pressing features awesome packaging and album art, including lyrics and liner notes printed on four insert cards. This band put on some of the best shows of the mid-oughts, and this recording ably captures the intensity of their live show.

Bunda Love – Beards & Calves
This double CD is a collaboration between Pride and Portland, ME improvisor id m theft able, manipulating four years’ worth of recordings into an indescribable onslaught of EAI and noise. The perfect makeout disc for your next Furry party!

Whoopie Pie – Sweet
Whoopie Pie is a trio featuring Bill McHenry on tenor and Jamie Saft on electric bass, along with Pride behind the drumkit. Saft and Pride really take this project from jazz trio territory into passages evocative of drone and thrash music, with distorted bass tones and relentless percussion. And McHenry is no slouch either, adding great melodies and Ayler-esque wails over it all. If the idea of Sunno))) covering “Spiritual Unity” gets you excited, hit yourself with some Whoopie Pie. By the way, pop the CD in your computer for some bizarre videos of Maine folks hitting one another with the venerable desserts…

Period – Period
This is a devastating 1-track improvisation between Pride and Extra Life/ex-Zs guitarist Charlie Looker. Balancing impulses of brutality and austerity, Period is a must-listen for fans of both Pride and Looker, its weighty improvisation giving insight into the compositional impulses of both musicians. A Funhole Records and FuckingA co-release, the physical edition of this album is out of print, but you can buy the digital version for just under four bucks on Pride’s BandCamp site. By the way, the other records in this list of recommendations can be bought directly from Mike–just click here. Period has finished more recordings, too, which I hope to hear soon. In the meantime, you can visit the Free Music Archive for a few live sets that will give you an idea of their direction after the s/t release–Chuck Bettis and Darius Jones are also featured on these live sessions.

Andrew d’Angelo Trio – Morthana With Pride
This album isn’t a “proper” Mike Pride recording–he’s sitting in with d’Angelo’s brutal Morthana unit–but it features some of Pride’s most intense scream vocals, power electronics, and drumming on record. Listeners of the Other Music show will probably recognize the opening track, “My Prostate,” which I’ve spun several times. I love the harsh free-jazzcore of this unit, and though Morthana has been dormant for a while, at least we have a couple of recordings to remember them by.

Enjoy your explorations into the diverse Mike Pride catalog, and let’s hope the Drummer’s Corpse Kickstarter campaign adds another killer recording to the list!