Well here's the thing, I recently came into some money and I would like some recomendations. Not about a stereo, or speakers, or a soundcard, or anything like that...I would like recommendations on some completely unknown yet should be essential recordings. I have had to tone down my music purchasing for the last 2 years because college is..well, expensive. So now I am rewarding myself, my intention is to blow about 1200 dollars on new CD's, vinyl, etc. I have a pretty diverse collection but I seem to have hit a blockage in that I find very few new artists anymore-maybe lack of time, effort, whatever. Anything goes but I don't particularly care for country, if you feel it deserves recognition go ahead and post it though. Thanks very much for any leads and discussion this may bring to light.

Viral

I vote for anything Jump, Little Children, probably choosing "Vertigo" over the other CDs. Beautiful vocals, blending of instruments, and a completely unique style. =D

Not totally unkown, but less known: "Esthero - Breath From Another" (Amazon link). One of my favorite albums of all time.

I'm not sure how well-known they are, but Primus is a good band. Website is @ http://www.primussucks.com/

As far as music style, I don't know how to describe them. They are the only band with their own ID3 music genre. If I had to say, though, I would go with thrash-funk.

Their best work artistically might be 'Sailing the Seas of Cheese'. 'Frizzle Fry' is also good.

Edward Artemiev's "Solaris - The Mirror - Stalker" soundscapes for Tarkoskyv's films. You can find it, but it'll cost you as an import.
It's quite atmospheric instrumentals which simply are a treat for the ears. They are wonderful.

http://www.electroshock.ru/eng/edward/revi...aris/index.html

http://www.electroshock.ru/eng/edward/

Well, nearly all my CDs are unknown ! But they are also the kind of music that is better listened to with attention. I mean that many people won't like it, and that it defenitely will draw away consumer from a shop, for example, if used as background music. Therefore I can't advise you without knowing your tastes better.
Examples of CDs that can sound beautiful to ones' ears and unbearable to others, in various genres :

XVIIe Vie - LLewella
Spaceship of the Imagination
Frolic - To Dream, Perchance to Sleep
Idir - A Vava Inouva
...

But trying to stick with your request, I think that I've got one CD whitch got a very high success/rarity ratio among my relatives :

Cosmic Baby - Stellar Supreme

Quite impossible to find outside Germany, nearly everyone who heard it wanted a copy of it (on tape, it was in the mid 90's). Nothing magic or exeptional in it, but easily enjoyable by anyone.
I don't understand german but it's listed in http://www.amazon.de

These aren't "totally unknown" either, but they certainly deserve more recognition than they are normally given. Just taking a guess though, that they're not already in your collection... and if you want some essentials, they should be. I'd give a strong endorsement to any of the following (Amazon links provided below):

Running Jumping Standing Still by "Spider" John Koerner and Willie Murphy

Spirit by Spirit

Present Tense by Sagittarius

The Carnegie Hall Concert by Lenny Bruce

Vintage: The Very Best of... by Moby Grape

Both Matthew & Son and New Masters by Cat Stevens

6- and 12-String Guitar by Leo Kottke

Teenage Shutdown: Jump, Jive and Harmonize (Various Artists)

Blows Against the Empire by Paul Kantner and Jefferson Starship

If I Could Only Remember My Name.... by David Crosby

Ogden's Nut Gone Flake by the Small Faces

Black Monk Time by the Monks

We Are Paintermen by the Creation

- M.

Edit: Fixed a non-functional link.
Edit 2: Added a couple of titles.
Edit 3: Added a few more albums.

Hmmm,

my most unknown that I like is probably Nipponjin by Far East Family Band.

What I like more - and is not quite so unknown is complete Van der Graaf Generator.

Funny thing @pseudoacoustic: never before heard of Primus until two weeks ago my sister gave me a CD full of Primus, encoded in sceners' delight full stereo, but at least with LAME 3.92 @ 192 kBit

I have A LOT of virtually unknown music.

Buck 65 Is the best hip-hop out there, IMO. "Square" is his best CD.


Download Is a little known electronic group. There best work is, unquestionably "The Eyes of Stanley Pain"


And ANYTHING from Warp Records is amazing. Especially Aphex Twin (Richard D. James), Squarepusher (Tom Jenkinson), Autechre, Boards of Canada, and Anti-Pop Consortium.

The Donnas - Spend The Night: Kinda like KISS + AC/DC, but all girls. Rocks!

Golden Boy with Miss Kittin - Or: Great electronica with an 80s vibe. A little electroclash-ish, but actually good.

Rob

This group is not "unknown"in a general sense, but unknown to younger people.

Rockbilly Boogie by The Johnny Burnette Trio from Bear Family Records contains

what is auguably the finest example of rockabilly ever recorded. Most of the material was recorded in 1955-1956, even before Carl Perkins made an impact
at Sun Records. Without this group, retro groups like the Stray cats would not have existed. If you want a taste of some blazing rockabilly/rock n'roll that influenced many groups that followed, this is a great CD to get. BTW, Bear Family
Records has done a superb job of perserving essential rock and roll history in their catalogue. Well worth checking out their website http://www.bear-family.de/

Don't know "who knows what", but these are at least the "lesser knowns" that I like (in no particular order)...

Synergy ~ Audion
Radiohead ~ OK Computer
The B-52's ~ Whammy!
Hole ~ My Body, The Hand Grenade
Lexx: The Series (Original TV Soundtrack)
The Chemical Brothers ~ Surrender
Milla ~ The Divine Comedy
Ozric Tentacles ~ Jurassic Shift
Primus ~ Pork Soda
Sass Jordan ~ Rats
Joey Stuckey ~ Take a Walk In The Shadows

--------------------------
Edit: Ugh...Migraine medication makes me ramble. OK, rambling's normal for me, but it makes ramble more than usual. Hence, I shortened the list after "coming down".

Joey Stuckey is linked because he's released under his own label and won't be found anywhere else. He handed me one of the first copies of his debut CD in 1994 before there was a "production company". The rest can be found via the usual searches.

Good tastes in music, I'm especially impressed with the Lexx Sountrack, I wish I had it ; but wasn't this thread supposed to UNKNOWN artists? I think the Lexx selection is the only one that really fits here . . . .

I thought it was "unknown CDs"...but if I misread the initial post it wouldn't have been the first time it's happened.

I'm guessing (for many people) Marty Simon (Lexx), Milla, Joey Stuckey, Sass Jordan, Ozric Tentacles and Synergy would probably be the least known artists in the list.

For many others, the CDs are not so common IMO, though the artists are. Such as for Outlandos d'Amour; Whammy!; My Body, The Hand Grenade; Surrender; A Farewell To Kings.

The rest are simply "deserving of recognition", as part of what was mentioned in the original post. Just my $0.02 for building/expanding someone's collection with music they might not otherwise pick up. Plus the fact that there's no way to tell what's "unknown" to a certain person. Hole was completely unknown to me until two years ago...I got so hooked that I've since bought their entire collection.

just a few of my favourite "probably-unknown-to-some" albums:

keren ann - biographie de luka philipsen
ivy - long distance
way out west - intensify
lunik - ahead
terra ferma - the adventures of...
rank 1 - symsonic

OIO - Anima (but you will probably won't be able to find it)

Roger Glover: The butterfly ball and the grasshopers feast
http://home.swipnet.se/rogerglover/text/re...ds/butterfl.htm

One of my favourite albums of all times. There is a small cult following, and most people know it through seeing the "love is all" song and cartoon during the childhood. The whole album is of the same calibre.

good call on Way out West. Also check out their self-titled debut if you can find it...a nice fusion of powerful progressive house, breaks, chillout, downtempo & ambient. Intensify takes it a bit further with a few more poppy elements.

For my own addition, an album by a good friend of mine: Kilowatts - Perfected Everything. Experimental compositions sitting somewhere inbetween IDM and downtempo with elements of jazz and countless other genres thrown in for good measure.

All "Sunya Beat" Records

Main Artist is "Axel Manrico Heilhecker"

"Fishmoon" is an intresting Solo Album.

Genre and Style is somewhere between "Prog-Rock" Pink Floyd, "Ethnic-Influenced" like Santana or Dead Can Dance, and all releases contains "spacy Guitars" and "delayed Guitar Strings" played as Instrument and "magic sound carpets", by the "Man at the Mixer".

Regards Lego

The Apartments - Drift
Old Official Website.
From Australia with grace... Peter Milton-Walsh's songwriting is beautifully natural, lighter than dreams, deeper than pain... as haunted as any solitude could be.



Encyclopedia entry for 'The Apartments'

I don't believe a word of that. I've never never met anyone who knows that band. If anyone here does, I'll be happy to know.

The Pale Fountains - Pacific Street
A.K.A Shack, The Strands.
A great band from Liverpool that time has forgotten.

Shack Official Website
Great Fan Website



Other records (maybe less unknown):
Swell - Too Many Days Without Thinking
Red House Painters - Down Colorful Hill
American Music Club - Mercury
Palace Brothers - There Is No-One That Will Take Care Of You
Felt - The Strange Idol Pattern And Other Short Stories
Richard Hawley - Lowedges

15-60-75 (The Numbers Band) - Jimmy Bell's Still In Town

15-60-75 performs an inspiried blend of blues, R&B, and rock. This live recording from 1974 catches their red-hot performance, opening up for Bob Marley to an indifferent crowd. The band blazes with both rhythm and passion. Using guitars, saxophones, harmonica & congas, they prove that even the best music can get passed over by the music industry. (I may post some short clips if I get a chance.)

This album is highly recommended!

You can order it from the band's website, Amazon, or via Pere Ubu's Hearthan record label.

Nurse With Wound - Thunder Perfect Mind, Soliloquy For Lilith
Coil - Love's Secret Domain, Musick To Play In The Dark Vol. 1 and 2, Time Machines, Moon's Milk
Throbbing Gristle - 20 Jazz Funk Greats
Michael Stearns - Planetary Unfolding (100% Serge synthesizer)
Current 93 - Swastikas For Noddy
Vince Clarke & Martyn Ware - Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle (designed for headphones)
Death In June - But, What Ends When The Symbols Shatter?

Francis Cabrel - Samedi Soir sur la Terre

YEAH Throbbing Gristle!! The first industrial band ever. I really want to find their first CD: Throbbing Gristle's Greatest Hits Vol. 2 (gotta love the sense of humour, eh?).

Anything by the Pixies, music today would be totally different without their influence to bands in the early 1990s.

AFI is an amazing group. Have gotten some airplay on MTV and the radio, but they are still an underground band at heart. Same goes with The Ataris, awsome pop-punk.

Guster is simply amazing. Pick up "Lost and Gone Forever' and 'Keep it Together"

Here's a good one. This band is certainly unknown to most, as they were practically earased from history by an 80s hair band of the same name.

Skid Row

The databases of the major music distributors are *very* confused over this.

The band features a 17 year-old Gary Moore absolutely ripping blues/rock guitar riffs. Not that that alone should impress anyone, as Gary's catalog ever since has been pretty limp.

Highly recommended.



mobius

I don't think Atari Teenage Riot are unknown, but most people I know have never heard of them.

I'd listen to an album before you buy one, they are the type of band that you will either love or hate. And don't buy Live at Brixton Academy 1999 unless you prefer noise to music.

My favourite ATR CD is The Future of War. If you like that then buy Alec Empire's solo stuff on Digital Hardcore Records. I like some of his albums on Geist Records, but that is more ambient.

Sui Generis - Vida
Fito Paez - Giros

.. It's in spanish though... Great muzak.

I would help if you mentioned a few bands that you like, but anyway...here are some greek recommendations:

1) Diafana Krina (Transparent Lillies) - Any Album: One of the best greek rock bands with some darkwave elements in the style of Joy Division. Here are a few comments from some foreign e-zines that reviewed the album their latest album "Silence Gives the Odour of Wild Cherries"..."Diafana Krina's vocalist is superior to any of these singers (Stewart Staples of Tindersticks and Leonard Cohen, Lee Hazelwood), both in expressiveness and in vocal timbre"..."Diafana Krina's sound is thoroughly modern, with a basic rock beat but also some jazz touches, and with great interplay between the guitars, which utilize lots of effects, including occasional heavy fuzz and just a bit of dissonance at times"..."They play guitar lines that Radiohead's Johnny Greenwood would be proud to call his own"..."Don't let the language barrier be an impediment - this one's a winner regardless".

2) Raining Pleasure - "Nostalgia" (or) "Flood": I can't praise this band enough. They took their name after a song of Triffids, and you could say that share a lot in style with them, along with James, dEUS and such bands. Just listen to songs like "Rainsong 55", "Nostalgia", "Song Of The Wolf" and "Fake" to make up your own mind about this band's artistic value.

3) Stavros Lantsias - "Epistrofi": One of the most skilled modern greek (more exact, cypriot) pianists in his first solo album. Filled with touching and sensitive instrumental compositions that luckily have nothing to do with the kind of mellowness that "artists" like Yanni for instance represent. Emotional and strong melodies...

4) Takis Farazis - "Spells Of Musing": Yet another instrumental album, filled with pianistic melodies. Similar to artists like Ozymandias and in the same vein with Erik Satie's Gymnopedies, Farazis managed to combine minimalism with romanticism, in a result that left many speechless.

5) Manos Hadjidakis - "Reflections" or "Magnus Eroticus" or "Gioconda's Smile": Probably the best greek composer of the last century (along with Theodorakis) and a true musical genius...I copy from a biographical note:

"Modern Greek society developed and was nurtured by the personality of Manos Hadjidakis. Never for a moment did he hesitate to propound his visions to the utmost, thus revealing the deepest meaning of art.

An irreconcilable pioneer, an enemy of pomposity and solidified views, a lover of ?youth,? nonconformist to the core, and armed with Greek and world culture, he was able to combine classical with folk music, thus creating a ?new? sound, a ?new? type of song, with roots both in the East and the West."

There's nothing from this man that I can't suggest with all my heart, but I tried hard to limit down the choices to three...

"Reflections" is an album that you'll like for sure since it uses english lyrics. "Magnus Eroticus" is probably his best album ever (and among the best of the greek repertoire in general)...it's a cycle of songs based on the poetry of Odysseas Elytis, Nikos Gatsos, C.P. Cavafy, Dionysios Solomos, Sappho and King Solomon among others. "Gioconda's Smile" is the absolute instrumental album and the one that every other tries to compare to...

I think noone should be without the album "Electrasy - In Here We Fall". Solid rock with electronic influences and a tad of hip/hop here and there.

For nice electronica vinyls check out these artists (some more popular than others):
Max Graham
Planisphere
Starecase
Praha
Chab
Steve Gibbs
Sonourus
Adam Dived

edit: Oh, for some otherwise interesting music, check out "Dusted". Their song "Allways Remember To Respect And Honour Your Mother (Part 1)" is mesmerizing. Generally, their music is relaxing and very "rich". Hard to describe.

Oh well, it a relief to know that this CD is unknown in foreign countries The RTL2 national radio station plays "Hors Saison" about 6 times a day. It's a good artist, but we've got too much of him here
My father says about him "that's what you get when a peasant takes LSD !".



AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH !!!!!
This album is UN-LIS-TEN-ABLE !!!

I used to to make bets with it in high school : "I bet you can't listen to this CD from the beginning to the end !".

If you like progressive rock try:

Einstein www.jonathanmover.com
Tribe of Judah www.tojonline.com

Larry Raspberry and the Highsteppers. Link here.

Herman Brood. Link here. (watch out for pop-ups)

Gary Moore. Link here. Check out Parisienne Walkways - (live), whew!

I am from Mexico (as some of you already know).
The best mexican band is, without a doubt:




Cafe Tacvba

You can't go wrong with any of their albums.
Indescriptable music, you just have to listen to it

thanks for all the replies, for those who wonder i like it all, everything from Funkromicon by Buchethead and Bootsy Collins to the Goldberg Variations by Gould. I like Pole,Lamb,Autechre,RDJ,Berd Steidl,Morgan Phillips,Etc..
All by Buckethead,Bonobo,Anime soundtracks, road to perdition, PI, etc.. just guess what i like... if you're wrong it hurtw noone but my checkbook.

anything but coutry will be seriously considered,garth brooks need not apply.

sorry for the misspelling, add blue man group while you are forgiving me for my past sins.

I'm surprised I didn't hear more Bernd Steidl, and other assorted crazyness including Manuel Gottsching and Chris Vrenna's OST to Alice.

ATR rock!


Probably not as well known as The Future Sound of London, but not less recommendable are Biosphere. Patashnik is my personal favourite album, followed by Microgravity.
Generic CD stores would put them into the same slot as Autechre...

Depending on where you live, Radiowaves by the superb Norwegian band called Seigmen is totally unknown. Not sure if it's still in print, but ususally available at www.shadowland.no.

No way!! It's MANA!!!!!!


"Rayando el soooooolll....."

Check out Mia Doi Todd - Golden Age.

Introspective female vocal, minimal accompaniment.

I prefer Los de Abajo without a doubt. B)

best CD I own that is totally unknown: The Acappellas - The Acappellas (acapella gospel )

Ah! Buckethead? Primus and Buckethead have good ties.
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/p/primus/110956.html

Hybrid - Wide Angle
BT - Movement In Still Life

All available on Amazon with sample previews, truely ground breaking electronica/dance albums in their time!

Ruairi

Au Pairs - BBC Sessions 79 - 81

is probably not too well-known.

I saw this band in their heyday and thought they were great!

pol

i have to disagree! although the first track on Nurse With Wound's "Thunder Perfect Mind" might be hard going for some (think lots of fast hard cutting factory sounds layered together), i really like it, and have a lot of friends who also dig it big time. besides, if you listened past track 1 "cold", and got as far as 2 "colder", you would realise that this track is a very long and deep ambient track, as unlike track 1 as its possible to get. i urge you to try again and listen without prejudice

and whilst we are at it, i forgot to mention all the krautrock in my last post! so here goes:

Neu! - Neu!, and Neu! 75
Faust - Faust
Cluster - Sowiesoso
Harmonia - Musik Von Harmonia

Yes, the second track is actually OK, it's the first track that I can't bear. I can't listen to this again since I sold the CD to a radio station. I made a big mistake, by the way, because I thought that I got rid of these CDs forever, but the radio actually played them, so I had to hear them even more than before . Especially the awful "Hirsche Nicht Aufs Sofa - Musik Fur Flugeshafte" (but there are other good albums by HNAS).

But I prefer by far the "sister album" of Nurse With Wound's, that is "Current93 - Thunder Perfect Mind".

By the way, in the "unknown and worth recognition" category, let me add

Current 93 & Höh - Island.
(Featuring Björk's voice in track 1, for fans, though the style has nothing to do with her later solo works).

yes Pio2001, there is a whole rich vein of wonderful undiscovered music waiting for people to enjoy. a lot of these bands (coil, nww, c93, chris and cosey etc) can be accessed from the World Serpent site:

http://www.worldserpent.com/

people might also like to try:

http://www.middlepillar.com/

http://www.soleilmoon.com/

http://www.tesco-distro.com/

Well, your post has a different meaning than your subject-line, but ok:

Think "international". In the quest for something "new", I've discovered the whole JPOP/KPOP/Anime thing. This genre has managed to put the silly "fun" back into music.

Start here. This is a free download by the British group Boa. Great song. Not to be confused with the S. Korean singer BoA: equally good in a different way.

Then start checking out, Utada Hikaru, Maaya Sakamoto, Morning Musume, Megumi Hayashibara, etc., etc., the list goes on forever.

Cutesy pop stuff, but you gotta admit, its different.

Dex

I don't know about totally unknown, but the most underappreciated popular music album of the century is definitely Love - Forever Changes.

probably 'No Sun Today' from Grey Daze