We're Late For Class

#98 The Deepest Dreams Of Jamaaladeen Tacuma

When it's all said and done, this is just one big piece with multiple sections and sidetracks, all culled from a single, lengthy session. However, we couldn't be bothered to come up with another half-dozen titles to give it all clarity, but you'll catch on. It's really just another long-form, name-dropping excuse to concoct unclassifiable noise. Almost 30 minutes that didn't exist until it was willed into being, then forgotten, and never attempted again. Our apologies for sullying the good name of a universally established and beloved bass-playing monolith. If, by chance, you're the curious sort that clicks any random track you might happen to come across, we recommend sticky Thai and noise-cancelling headphones for this one. TURN IT UP! As you've come to expect... FREE 320s are below, but those with audio apparatuses like a long-eared jerboa can get elevated file formats like AIFF, FLAC, WAV and others from Bandcamp (or their players) for a single dollar.

Listen:
<a href="https://werelateforclass.bandcamp.com/album/98-the-deepest-dreams-of-jamaaladeen-tacuma">#98 The Deepest Dreams Of Jamaaladeen Tacuma by We're Late For Class</a>

1. The Deepest Dreams Of Jamaaladeen Tacuma (17:16)
2. Kunst! (10:32)

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#97 The Faux Tapes IV: Faux IV

It might seem like we're on a kick, theme-wise, but we're really just still mixing tapes from when we actually were on a kick. Here's Faux IV, for what it's worth. The fourth in our series of Faustian escapades... or rip-offs, say some. We must not be big in Germany, or we surely would have gotten more complaints by now. The epic medley, "COMPLETE The Epic Medley Piece #3,” plays uninterrupted on the streamer. But, we’ve also included the medley's individual tracks, for those who prefer such things. Over 30 minutes that are - technically - unaccounted for. Maybe we'll do something different next time. If you've been here before, you know what we expect of you... Free 320s are below, but those with Kal-El-esque super hearing can get high-brow file formats like AIFF, FLAC, WAV and others from Bandcamp (& their players) for a single greenback.

Listen:

Side One

1. THE EPIC MEDLEY PIECE #3 (13:53)

00:00 - Soundcheck (0:29)

00:29 - She Had The Kind Of Body That'd Make A Bishop Kick Out A

Stained-Glass Window (1:43)

02:12 - Chronic Fatigue (Night & Day) (4:12)

06:26 - Santini's Canasta Hand (2:20)

08:46 - Napoleon's Retreat (5:07)

2. And This... Is Blue Noise (Live On Armed Forces Radio) (4:17)

Side Two

3. Overture (Long Version) (3:11)

4. Kurty's Toothbrush, Pts. 1 & 2 (11:19)

(PLUS "The Epic Medley Piece #3" is also included as individual tracks.)

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#96 The Faux Tapes III: Chunnelfaust

Just imagine a raging claustrophobic forced to endure an agonizing - and seemingly endless - journey from France to Kent beneath the English Channel… via The Chunnel. Now imagine that this is the only music available for the ride. The horror… the horror. The single track, “The Epic Medley Piece #2,” plays uninterrupted on the streamer, but we’ve also thoughtfully included individual track versions for those of you who question the need for 14 uninterrupted minutes of anything, much less us. Regulars know the drill. Free 320s are below, but those with scientifically engineered and accredited hearing capabilities recognized by US Government agencies can get high-brow file formats like AIFF, FLAC, WAV and others from Bandcamp (& their players) for a price-busting buck.

Listen:

1. Chunnelfaust (Part 1) (10:39)

2. THE EPIC MEDLEY PIECE #2 (14:04)

00:00 - Sky King Was A $2 Whore (1:23)

01:23 - Six Tenets Of The Sahara Accord (8:06)

09:29 - The Last Linoleum Salesman (1:00)

10:30 - Titling Rights Runoff (2:29)

12:57 - After The Pink (1:05)

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#95 The Faux Tapes II: 71 Minutes

"WLFC's Faustian masterpiece."
- Uncut

"A creative explosion of sound, effects and ideas."
- Pitchfork

"Far more engaging and inventive than its namesake."
- Billboard

"An analog feast for needy ears lost in exile since the 70's."
- Smarter Than You Are Press

You are aware that you have to take everything we say with a grain of salt, right? The UK's MOJO Magazine actually said that about us... in print! (that's actually true), but it's sound advice, regardless. Here's #95 The Faux Tapes II: 71 Minutes. Our follow-up to #80 The Faux Tapes. Believe it or not, there are actually 71 minutes on this one - providing evidence that we've probably stolen more than just a title. The 24-minute aural albatross, "The Epic Medley Piece," is broken down into sections below for your edification. There's more of this rot in the pipeline, so beware of being encouraging. You might already know that free 320's are found below, while those of you who need more can get FLAC, AIFF, WAV and other elevated file formats from our Bandcamp page (or players) for a lousy buck.

Listen:

<a href="https://werelateforclass.bandcamp.com/album/95-the-faux-tapes-ii-71-minutes">#95 The Faux Tapes II: 71 Minutes by We're Late For Class</a>

1. Adventures In Analog Group Think (Embryo) (8:48)

2. THE EPIC MEDLEY PIECE (23:55)

00:00 - Soundcheck (0:14)

00:14 - Flying (Remix) (2:44)

02:58 - The 'Noids (1:55)

05:03 - Arigato Barbieri (1:08)

06:11 - Island (Of Lost Souls) (2:22)

08:33 - Thrown Face First From A Moving Vehicle (4:01)

12:37 - Reply From Fornax (4:23)

17:57 - Areola Borealis (4:58)

3. Live (1:35)

4. The Monolith Monsters (aka Monster Magnet Remix) (8:19)

5. Fury Of The Damned (11:20)

6. Untitled (0:37)

7. I-Land Generic (4:09)

8. Call Out The Chords (Mixed On The Fly) (11:26)

9. The 71st Minute (0:59)

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#94 Rank Cosmosis

Please don't believe what the corporate music press has been saying about us. It's not true that we're just padding our catalog in the hopes of eventually selling all our rights for hundreds of millions of dollars, like Dylan, Neil Young and a few others have done. It's called 'fattening the cow' and - truth be told - we're not that cud-worthy. Besides, by our fog-ridden calculations, we'd need at least a few hundred thousand MORE of these so-called releases to make us even appear viable to moneyed investor types. Such is life. We will, however, happily sell out directly to you, our cherished fans (and curious visitors), for a paltry buck... even less. Veterans already know that free 320's are found below, while those of you with advanced, super-human hearing can get FLAC, AIFF, WAV and other elevated file formats from our Bandcamp page (or players) for the aforementioned simoleon.

Listen:

Cosmosis (4:16)

Keepers Of The Secret Guitars (Excerpt) (3:00)

The Duplex In Tampa (3:13)

Elegant Restraint (1:00)

Can We Float In Your Pool? (7:51)

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#93 THE MANIPULATIONATORS III The New Psychedelia...Live In The Studio!

THE MANIPULATIONATORS BIO: Using a syncopated array of re-interpreted themes, pre-organized interruptions, subtly adjusted variations and unrelenting repetition, THE MANIPULATIONATORS re-configure a steady stream of obscure grooves, disguised DNA and questionable invention - meshed with random, magnetically impaled particles, technologically altered waveforms and a few resurrected past glories - into this undeniably trippy collection, boldly trying to establish itself as the spearhead of some rare new cultural movement suspiciously called The New Psychedelia.

3rd is a series, collect them all. As the title suggests, The New Psychedelia... Live In The Studio! is yet another attempt to attach ourselves to a potentially money-making trend that hasn't actually happened yet. It's called being ahead of the curve, which - despite the bragging rights - is really about as lucrative as being behind the curve. But, at least in this installment of the ongoing saga of THE MANIPULATIONATORS, there's an 18-minute plus tripping section, where drug abusers of every conceivable ilk are welcomed to bring their tape machines and capture the atmospherics and music they would probably miss in real time. We've done the preservation for you, here. 320's are below, while those with Special Forces Hearing Accreditation (SFHA) can get FLAC, AIFF, WAV and various other file formats from our Bandcamp page (or players) for a miserly buck.

Listen:

False Identity (6:00)

Tripping To The New Psychedelia (18:40)

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The Manipulationators I & II

Click The Covers To Collect Them All

#92 A Bucket Of Blood (Original Fictitious Soundtrack Recording)

This is our fictitious soundtrack for Roger Corman’s A Bucket Of Blood. You're invited to paste on a fake goatee, conspicuously leave a half-open book of Elizabethan poetry laying around and prepare yourself to function on 10-to-12 cups of unregulated, re-caffeinated South American coffee as we take you into the bowels of a nondescript underground 1950s bohemian hangout, The Yellow Door. Frequented by murderous busboys, comic relief beatniks, noticeably undercover narcos, verbosely pompous poets and all of the free-wheeling sensory overload we’ve come to know and love as A Bucket Of Blood.

FOR YOUR ON LINE LISTENING PLEASURE... we've included a "complete" version to quell track changing interruptions and to compliment your carefully cultivated atmospheric mindset. As you're aware, free 320s are below, but those whose audio needs border on elitism, can get FLAC, WAV, AIFF and other high-brow formats from our pals at Bandcamp (or the player below) for a paltry buck.

Listen:

FOR YOUR UNINTERRUPTED ONLINE LISTENING PLEASURE...

A Bucket Of Blood (Original Fictitious Soundtrack Recording) (19:31)

INDIVIDUAL TRACKS...

"I Will Talk To You Of Art" (3:03)
A Coupla Hustlers At The Yellow Door (2:17)
Blood Queen Revisited (7:05)
The Interlopers (1:05)
A Bucket Of Blood (feat. Pedro on sax) (3:39)
Epilogue (2:23)
LP Version's Repeating Run-Out Groove (Bonus Track) (1:00)

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#91 Richard Wright Dreams While Crashing On Nick Mason's Boat

True Story. After a tour-ending celebration party that - like Woodstock - was so legendary, more people say they were there than actually were, Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright retired to pal Nick Mason’s boat to wallow in the vessel’s quiet, rocking ambience and expensive catered sushi… and to dream. Like he had never dreamt before. As you know, 320's are below. But those who only want the best can get FLAC, AIFF, WAV and other file formats from our Bandcamp page (and/or player below) for an industry-bucking buck.

Listen:

Pt1 A Night Of Revelry… One For The Ages (5:59)
Pt2 Richard Wright Dreams While Crashing On Nick Mason’s Boat (8:14)
Pt3 The Sea Abided (6:22)

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PRESS THANKS...

Thanks to the late, great Fred Dellar at MOJO Magazine for mentioning Art Jackson's Atrocity AND We're Late For Class in two separate "Ask Fred" columns, where he called the Atrocity's Gout a "fine, percussion-fuelled, invigorating free-for-all," and also saying, "we at Ask Fred are glad WLFC exist." Thanks Fred!

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Many thanks to Jeff Fitzgerald over at Psychedelic Waves for including Art Jackson's Atrocity in his list of Top 30 Albums of 2019, calling Tribute To Sun Ra... "Some great, exploratory, tripped out Sun Ra inspired free jazz," and "a terrific album." Needless to say, we're shocked. Since we never sent the guy a dime. Thanks Jeff.

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Thanks to Roz Milner for the two interview/articles posted at Bearded Gentlemen Music, "Solving the Mystery of Art Jackson Atrocity’s Gout," and the most recent, "With His Back To The Crowd: Art Jackson’s Atrocity’s Live In Europe - Lost Live Jazz Recording."

We collectively appreciate the creative interest and the well-groomed ink.

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Thanks to It's Psychedelic Baby Magazine for the article, "Maybe It’s Time To Take Art Jackson’s Atrocity Seriously." Maybe.

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AN ACTUAL RECORD REVIEW...

ART JACKSON'S ATROCITY

Gout

(Unreleased 1974 Promo On Columbia Records)

Reviewed by Joe Kenney @

Julian Cope Presents Head Heritage

If, like me, your favorite era of Miles Davis is his electric era, specifically the 1973-1975 years in which Pete Cosey was his guitarist, then you’ve probably wondered why that super-fantastic lineup of his never cut an album together, after Miles decided to retire in late 1975. I mean, they were the greatest group in history, with Pete Cosey’s phenomenal, psychedelic guitar (the man was beyond Hendrix, that’s all there is to it), Reggie Lucas’ wah-wah’d grounding rhythm guitar, Michael Henderson’s dub-like basslines…hell, I can’t go through all of them, but if you know them, you love them. But if you’ve ever wondered what an album by this super group sans Miles would sound like, well my friends, I give you Gout, by Art Jackson’s Atrocity.

Only thing is, you’ll have to hunt the blogs for it. Recorded in 1974, the album was cut as a promo by Columbia, who then went on to drop both the group and the album, which is unreleased to this day. “The horror…the horror…” No one’s sure why (info is slim to none on this group and album), but most rumors have to do with Art Jackson’s drug abuse. In any case, the album has perfect sound quality – the only source is the promo LP, of course, and it sounds phenomenal.

The Miles connection surfaces again: Art Jackson was a twenty year-old guitarist whom Miles Davis himself recommended to Columbia records. Apparently Davis even funded the recording of the album. The Atrocity was put together around Jackson, an 11-member collective of hard-rockin’, psychedelia-lovin’, jazz-playin’ motherfuckers (two saxophonists, four drummers, two keyboardists, a guy on reeds, a guy on bass, a guy on “effects”), none of whom I’ve ever heard of (much like Art Jackson himself).

The five long tracks on Gout center around Jackson’s guitar, and the kid is Pete Cosey reborn; the stuff on here sounds almost identical to what Cosey was performing on the Agharta and Pangaea albums. That same sort of fucked-up, psychedelic distortion which goes from raging and chaotic one moment to spaced-out drones the next, the strange tunings, the works. Only thing is, unlike Cosey, Jackson’s not above playing a power chord or three, so the album packs a definite metal-rock punch. I mean, it’s fantastic, the whole thing.

The superbly-named “Shaft In Afghanistan” opens the album. Jackson’s guitar is on super-fucked mode, sounding like a cyclic tone. The rhythm section lays down a menacing, throbbing track, which Jackson and the sax & reeds proceed to riff over. Jackson soon leaves the actual “song” to the others, instead riffing and roaring with all manner of guitar sounds across the track. He’s everywhere, from wah-wah to thick distortion to cosmic fuzz. Things cool down three minutes in, but it’s only a fake-out; the track comes right back in. Jackson funks it up on wah-wah, with studio-tricked handclaps providing additional percussion. There's all sorts of electronic gimmickry on the album; this isn’t just some quickly recorded demo. This eventually calms down again into a sort of funky ambience – but it’s just another fake-out! The track rips right back up, the drums so superbly recorded (and no doubt closely-miked) that they seem to pound within the caverns of your skull.

“Arabian Fabian” (another great title!) comes in with total menace, until a faux-lite jazz tune pops up. Funky, proto-drum’n’bass drum kit and sax. But this soon becomes something altogether un-lite. Echoed murk creeps across the track, eerie wails, treated reeds, and dubbed-out sax bleats. Those close-up drums kick in and we’re in an altogether heavier, funkier groove. The first half of the track belongs to the Atrocity, with Jackson throwing in brief fills and licks on his mutated guitar. Things collapse into psychedelic ambience at the five-minute mark; free jazz with plinking guitar and tapped cymbal. But ominous guitar fuzz hovers in the distance, a starving wolf preparing to attack. John Carpenter keyboards arise and give the track even more of a horror-movie feel. But it’s a ruse; the piano takes over, playing a melancholy melody as the other instruments recede into the murk. This doesn’t last. Those ultra-loud drums kick the shit out of you again, jumping out of nowhere, and suddenly we’re into the strangest of strange: ambient free jazz with heavy metal drums. The track eventually wears itself out, descending back into the murk from whence it came.

“Available Bush” sounds like some early ‘90s industrial mash, with in-your-face drums and ripping and roaring Ministry-esque guitar. The track throbs on an off-kilter funk grove, Jackson heading the proceedings with the twists and turns of his guitar. The sax plays a faux-Middle Eastern counter-melody to his blasts and blares. The bassist throws in a few snake-like fills of his own, but his instrument sounds anemic compared to Jackson’s acidic distortion. This one humps along for seven minutes which quickly pass by, never establishing anything beyond that off-kilter groove, but never suffering for it.

“Tomato Reign” is the epic of the album, 16+ minutes of cosmic echo and free jazz. It crawls out of the murk in the opening moments, ethereal and disjointed fills from the assembled players. Things continue in this dubbed-out vein for a few minutes; nothing on the level of the Taj Mahal Travelers, but close…along the lines of the last half of Miles’ 1975 shows, when Cosey et al would let it all hang out in improvisatory bouts of experimental noise and abstraction. Pounding, tribal drums which pop out and then disappear. Bleated sax fills which float across the sound spectrum. Even animalistic grunts, growls, and screams from the group. This culminates in ultra-fucked guitar from Jackson, sounding again like some cyclic tone from hell, and then someone (a group member? a sample from some obscure film?) states in the calmest tones, “Fuck her. Let her rot.” A few more minutes of banging, echoed drums and bleating, mournful fills from the sax, and that’s it: the freest noise-skronk ever comes to a close.

“Let’s go!,” someone yells, and we’re straight into the pounding, pissed-off proto-metal of the title track, “Gout.” This is the rock version of the preceding track, another rhythmless excursion into all things free, only packing a wallop in the guitar distortion and overall menace. It pounds and snarls for six minutes, never finding a groove, preferring to live in its own sonic hellhole of chaotic din. Finally it builds to a climax of sorts, with a few final bashes on the drum kit, and the record’s over.

To be fair, you can see why Columbia refused to release this. Gout is the type of album you’d only find on some free jazz label or, if it was recorded today, some ultra-hip indie label. But Columbia in the mid-1970s? Releasing this groundless swell of jazz-metal ambience? Hard to believe. But those master tapes are out there, somewhere, as is the full story of what exactly happened to Art Jackson and his Atrocity. In the meantime, we can only listen to their one recorded album, and wonder.