Anaksimandros features members of Finland's wonderful Kemialliset Ystavat. Although the sound here is a bit removed from the gorgeous folk of KY. The title had us expecting some sort of noisy cross between Merzbow and Skullflower...and it's not all that far from being spot on. Although add in a little No Neck Blues Band hippie jam and some Dead C ambient roar and you'll be even
Anyone into the No Neck Blues Band, the Dead C, Birchville Cat Motel, Skullflower and anyone who bought those recent Sunroof! / Vibracathedral Orchestra cd-rs will lose their shit over this. Vinyl only and extremely limited.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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More grinding noise and bad taste from the best worst band in the land. Furiously blurry grind bordering on Merzbow-style noise and the most ridiculous/offensive (read:really offensive) song titles ever (odd, since in the early days, they didn't even bother with song titles): 'Your Kid Killed Himself 'Cause You Suck' originally titled (pre-lawsuit) 'Connor Clapton Killed Himself 'Cause His Dad Sucks', 'Rancid Sucks (and the Clash Sucked Too)', 'Being Ignorant Is Awesome', 'I Gave NAMBLA Pictures of Your Kid', and a bunch of others we can't even print.
Notorious grindcore jokers A.C. change tack entirely and record an album of sensitive acoustic love songs--really they do. They've pulled a Ween on us.
Last list we raved about UK crust / noisecore combo Sore Throat, and in that review, we mentioned that perhaps, besides making some of the most amazing and brilliantly brutal music EVER, they were also most likely directly responsible for these guys, the late great Anal Cunt, who over the years have been equally beloved and reviled, maybe better known to most for their ridiculous and often hilarious and even more often offensive song titles, not to mention their violent and brief live performances, but fans of extreme music, have know for ages, that these guys also made some seriously kick ass noise. And yeah, we mean noise, cuz while they are often classified as metal, in the early days, their sound was more like short, sharp concentrated bursts of Merzbowian white noise, each 'song' a burst of feedback drenched chaos, all tangled riffage, amp buzz and drums-down-the-stairs anti-rhythms, peppered with the occasional stumbling melody, or buzzy guitar grind, these tracks are fierce and feral and furious and easily some of the most face meltingly kick ass grind/noise you'll ever hear.
Not for the faint of ear, the tracks gathered on these two disc are the band's earliest, and thus most raw and unpolished (if anything they ever did could be considered polished), with most of the songs lasting mere seconds, and so many tracks that on cd, and even on record, there were clumped together as whole records, here the tracks are whole record, whether it be the "47 Song Demo", "The 88 Song EP", or various splits with other noisemakers like the Meat Shits or Seven Minutes Of Nausea. Probably the most remarkable track here is the "5,643 Song E.P.", which besides featuring a little piano intro(!), also happens to be what is essentially 16 Anal Cunt tracks playing at once, over three hours of music, crammed onto a 7", and onto two track here, those 16 AxCx jams on top of each other, blasting and stumbling simultaneously, and other than sounding way more dense and thick and HEAVY, it still sounds like pure AxCx sonic chaos. Fans will definitely want this, tons of rarities, lots of stuff on cd for the first time, loads of pix in the liner notes, as well as detailed notes on each song from AxCx mainman Seth Putnam from before he died earlier this year (R.I.P.). And while many metalheads will fail to see the appeal, anyone into noise and grind and pure sonic punishment, no doubt already understands. Andee AND Allan approved, and wholeheartedly RECOMMENDED!!
Previously released as two seperate, hard to find cds ("Old Stuff Part 1" and "Old Stuff Part II") on two different labels. Now some crazy person at NG Records has gone and released this new version, compiling (as it says) the early works (i.e. demos, singles, and compilation appearances) of this notorious blurr-core, noise-metal, very un-pc band from Boston. Over 7000 "songs" to be found here, spread over two cds. That's mainly thanks to the presence here of the tracks from the infamous "5,643 Song EP"... Now for most reviews of A.C. discs, we'd simply pick the best song titles and leave it at that, 'cause offensive & funny song titles are what A.C. does best. But the material on here dates from back when A.C. didn't supply titles (or lyrics for that matter) for their "compositions". So that leaves us to make a case for the musical rather than humorous value (or musically humorous value) of these tracks. Oh boy...well for all you experimental jokers out there, the aforementioned "5,643 Song EP" features the songs playing at the same time! There's actually three hours of material compressed onto the original 7", and it took twenty hours for them to record it! Compares favorably to the Francisco Lopez disc we made record of the week last list... Then there's the "Unplugged EP" tracks, where A.C. takes their screaming metal chaos into the acoustic realm for some unique results. And, any fan of John Zorn or Masonna should really check out A.C. as well, on general principles... truly a classic band, American outsider improv "genius". If not musical genius, then comedy genius. Sure, you or I could have recorded more or less the same stuff on your parents' stereo much like these guys did for their first demo (disc one, track one), but you have to admit that you'd never record so much of it, for so many years, or play such crazy shows. We (Allan and Andee anyway--in fact, A.C. was the first interview Allan ever did for his old 'zine) love this band. For you collectors, note that there's material on these cds not found on the original singles and such. And for novices, we also recommend A.C.'s "Morbid Florist" ep and "Everyone Must Be Killed" album to start with... The cd booklet includes detailed liner notes about each track/release written by A.C. mastermind Seth Putnam. All hail!
Brand new hip-hop project featuring Kool Keith and Ice T. The joke is really wearing thin now, guys. We've listened to it, and we don't wanna be nasty, but that prevents us from saying anything about this record.
Ah, France. Home to the sugary pop sounds of Phoenix and the stately elegance of Air... But scratch the surface to the French underground, and you're faced with the harsh realization that things may be way more fucked than you ever imagined. Festering like an open sore is the Anals, a nihilistic duo from Metz capable of whipping up an ungodly racket with only drums, synthesizers at their most basic functioning level, occasional guitars, anguished Frenchman vocals sung in English, and a whole FUCKLOAD of sheer, agonizing noise. After listening to these hateful miscreants, it makes total sense that they were shat forth from the same land that brought us the Marquis de Sade, Celine, and Gerard Depardieu.
Looking at the lyric sheet to Total Anal may be the deciding factor for just how much you can take from these guys. Those into pushing the limits of decency and comfort with bands like the Brainbombs or the Country Teasers, however, will probably find much to love with this one. The album begins with "Commando Of Love," a little ditty musing poetic on a love triangle set in a concentration camp. The song is comprised of a creepy, tense synth whir that is eventually met with pounding cave man drums and vocals that sound more exasperated than enraged. Like many of the other songs on the record, the melodies are almost perceived, as the songs are pretty much made up of earsplitting noise, carried forward by a relentless thump and cacophonous vocals. Other parts of the record sound like This Heat being beaten up and reinterpreted by a couple of French street thugs armed with sound generators and Six Finger Satellite records. The incessant drumming and unrestrained feedback make it feel like your heart might blow at any moment. Strangest of all, however, is on songs like "Vaginal Death Tunnel," where you realize that though this is noise rock with an emphasis on both the "noise" and the "rock," the Anals are creating music that somehow manages to fall within the approximation of a pop song structure, in the same way a group like the Dead C was able to achieve on some of their earlier records. Not that this would ever be mistaken for pop music...
Coming to us from the killer Chicago store/label Permanent Records, who introduced many of us to the glorious sounds of Cave, Total Anal also comes with a free download in a nod to the turntable deprived. Highly recommended listening for those who like things on the dirty side, in every imaginable way.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Stellar compilation of South Indian film music. A great, complex hybrid of western pop and Asian classical & pop. A barrage of genres meet in beautiful and confounding ways. Sweet, perfect voices singing love songs - translations provided.
We listed a split record between these guys, Anapparatus, and a band called Llange a while back, both bands doing their own version of the metallic post rock thing. Llange were definitely more of that sort of Godspeed / Explosions thing, but Anapparatus took their post metal whatever and injected some serious screamo into the mix, which definitely hit the spot.
When we got that split, they also sent us a handful of an older ep, and boy what a difference a year or two makes, the Anapparatus of old shows no sign of post rock, or post metal, or whatever you want to call it, instead they are full on mathy post punk screamo metal grind. Furious tempos, insane drumming, incredible riffing, buzz and blast, howled vocals, every song a lurching, sweat soaked, basement destroying, ultra dense math metal workout.
Sure they bliss out here and there, get all moody and doomy now and again, and there are melodies and hooks everywhere, and the recording is so good, the band sound loud and heavy and like you're right there in the pit about to get crushed by a volley of stage divers, but even in the frenzied fury of these short sweet songs, they also manage to inject a little Drive Like Jehu into the proceedings, making for some serious dense, complex post punk heaviness. No idea why these guys aren't HUGE, but we've practically been listening to nothing else since we first got these in.
Packaged in a full color sleeve, pressed onto one of those 3 inch cds embedded in a 5" plastic disc, super striking looking, and a killer bargain, eight songs, 22 minutes, 6 bucks. WAY recommended.
You know, you think by now we'd be sick of the metallic post rock thing, the slow builds, the epic crescendos, the mathy drumming, the explosive metallic blow outs, the spidery riffage, the Godspeed like ambience, but fuck it, we're not, we LOVE that shit, especially when someone does it right. Or does it differently. Mixes it up a little while retaining the bits that made us dig that sound in the first place.
Thanks to aQ pal Dave S. for the heads up on these two bands, both of the math rock post metal whateveryoucallit variety, but each with a distinctly different take on the sound. Anapparatus is the band that lured us in, their sound is sharp and hard, heavy and metallic, but with a total screamo edge. Howled vocals over churning minor key riffage, super powerful drumming, all locked into a loosely post-metal framework, lots of long stretches of tribal understated rhythms, chiming guitar harmonics, soft sheets of feedback, but then when the heavy parts kick in, and the vocalist shrieks, it's magic, like if Godspeed or Explosions In The Sky recorded for Gravity Records in the nineties. Some of the riffs are SO catchy, and the band unwind terse super tight mini-epics, that manage to sound super controlled but sprawl wildly at the same time. But it's definitely the vocals that seal the deal, transforming what was already a killer mathrock band following in the well worn footprints of Isis and Pelican and the like, into something intense and passionate and angry and aggro and fuck it EMO. Way mathier than any of the above mentioned bands, and so much more impassioned, this is post metal punk rock for sure. All three tracks destroy. We'll definitely do our best to track down more from these guys.
But Llange aren't too shabby either, although right off the bat, their take on the sound is a bit more traditional, but like we said, it's a sound we love, and Llange do it well, wrapping guitars in soft billowy reverb, the drums weaving a dense framework for the soaring guitars, the arrangements flowing organically from slow brood, to heavy moody dirge, to full on blown out psych jam to shimmery near balladic drift. The band does get almost metal at times, but chooses to remain just this side of full on downtuned crush, which suits them just fine. The closer adds gorgeous crooned vocals to the warm whirring synths and tight mathy drumming, the melodies sweetly melancholy, building to a seriously heavy finale that would most definitely give Conifer a run for their math rock post metal money...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Described as Morbid Angel meets At The Gates, Sweden's Anata play relentless and pummelling melodic death metal. While their last record -was- really great, it was definitely plagued by their blatant Morbid Angel worship. On 'Dreams...' they make a huge progression, still heavy and intricate and almost catchy, but much more uniquely Anata.
From our pal Duncan at Rage Of Achilles comes this thrashing, pummelling head banging death/splatter/grind/metal doubleheader. Two bands we'd never heard of, battling it out, both pretty awesome. The first 21 tracks, almost all clocking in at a minute or less, come courtesy of Anatomi-71. Crusty, sort of lo-fi, not-quite-hyperspeed grind. Two vocalists (or one doing double time) grunting growls and hellish screeching. All furious and fast and compliacted. Good stuff, but the final 12 tracks are where it's at! The band Nemo are responsible for these, and they are soooooo fast, and so insane sounding. They incorporate lightning speed drum machines, video game samples, and all sorts of bizarre bleeps and blips and buzzing into the mix, turning their metallic grind into some sort of grindmetal alien video game soundtrack. This stuff is so nuts it's kind of hard to even describe. If I was making a horror/alien invasion/splatter flick, the is the music I would want as the soundtrack. Think some fucked up mix of the Locust, Orthrelm, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Crom Tech, Man Is The Bastard, Space Invaders, Galaga, Missle Command, Joust and Rastan. Or the best death metal video game they never made for the Commodore 64! Fucking great!
There was a zine produced by power electronic antagonist Mark Solotroff, back in the mid-'90s, called Rape Of The Angels. In one issue, he wrote rather poignantly about two new projects which then were mostly unknown - Brainbombs and Bodychoke, describing them as two sides of the same abject-rock coin with one side aligned with the bacchanalia of the Stooges and the other the melancholy of Joy Division. At the time, Solotroff's principal outlet for his power electronics was Intrinsic Action, which was shameless in appropriating Whitehouse's ultra-violent posturing and searing noise. But since, Solotroff has ventured into a whole host of projects with various aesthetic differences, but all of which maintain an axis of grime, sleaze, transgression, and violence. Anatomy Of Habit is Solotroff's first venture into an outright 'rock' context, after the punishing electronics of Bloodyminded and the bleak coldwave of A Vague Disquiet; and here, it all comes back around to Brainbombs and Bodychoke (although more Bodychoke than Brainbombs) with Anatomy Of Habit. Formed around Solotroff, drummer Dylan Posa (Brise-Glase, Cheer Accident), Greg Ratjczak (Winters In Osaka), Kenny Rasmusen, and Blake Edwards (Vertonen), the band is a steamroller of huge Swans / Neurosis riffs chugging out of crawling rhythms, and lots of bad vibes. Both sides of the wax are sprawling numbers that hypnotically build out of interlocking guitar and bass that steadily builds towards a distorted, crushing climax with dextrous turns toward powerdrone sludge. Solotroff, with his years of barking like William Bennett, has turned into quite a deft vocalist with his baritone in perpetual motion amidst the roiling noise-rock, coming across more like a cross between Jaz Coleman and Michael Gira. Well worth checking out.
There was a zine produced by power electronic antagonist Mark Solotroff, back in the mid-'90s, called Rape Of The Angels. In one issue, he wrote rather poignantly about two new projects which then were mostly unknown - Brainbombs and Bodychoke, describing them as two sides of the same abject-rock coin with one side aligned with the bacchanalia of the Stooges and the other the melancholy of Joy Division. At the time, Solotroff's principal outlet for his power electronics was Intrinsic Action, which was shameless in appropriating Whitehouse's ultra-violent posturing and searing noise. But since, Solotroff has ventured into a whole host of projects with various aesthetic differences, but all of which maintain an axis of grime, sleaze, transgression, and violence. Anatomy Of Habit is Solotroff's first venture into an outright 'rock' context, after the punishing electronics of Bloodyminded and the bleak coldwave of A Vague Disquiet; and here, it all comes back around to Brainbombs and Bodychoke (although more Bodychoke than Brainbombs) with Anatomy Of Habit. Formed around Solotroff, drummer Dylan Posa (Brise-Glase, Cheer Accident), Greg Ratjczak (Winters In Osaka), Kenny Rasmusen, and Blake Edwards (Vertonen), the band is a steamroller of huge Swans / Neurosis riffs chugging out of crawling rhythms, and lots of bad vibes. Both sides of the wax are sprawling numbers that hypnotically build out of interlocking guitar and bass that steadily builds towards a distorted, crushing climax with dextrous turns toward powerdrone sludge. Solotroff, with his years of barking like William Bennett, has turned into quite a deft vocalist with his baritone in perpetual motion amidst the roiling noise-rock, coming across more like a cross between Jaz Coleman and Michael Gira. Well worth checking out.
Anatomy Of Habit is the noise-rock ensemble revolving around the twisted mind of Mark Solotroff, Chicago's long standing power electronics king known for his numerous projects over the years including Bloodyminded and Intrinsic Action. Accompanying Solotroff is another noise icon, Blake Edwards (aka Vertonen), yet even with these two ear-shattering technicians on board, Anatomy Of Habit's impressive dynamics come from the far more traditional axis of drums, bass, guitar, and vocals, played by Dylan Posa (Cheer Accident, Brise-Glase), Greg Ratajczak (Winters In Osaka), and Kenny Rasmussen. "The Decade Plan" begins with a bright ellipsis of guitars that wouldn't be out of place on a slowcore jam from Codeine or Slint before the band launches into a super heavy riff, girded by metal-bashing percussion only to settle into a assaulting groove to further along Solotroff's tales of sex, violence, and their psychological implications. The brutal brooding continues on "After The Water" amplifying their smashed sound even further through the tranced-out, sludge riffs and subharmonic roar. Think Pelican, Isis, Bodychoke, and of course, Swans. Cut at 45 rpm, these two tracks are fucking massive!
This is a strange one for sure. A collaboration between Alva Noto, aka Carsten Nicolai, long running purveyor of Raster-Noton style click and bleep, and the legendary Blixa Bargeld, he of Einsturzende Neubauten and the Bad Seeds. And the first couple minutes won't dissuade you from that impression, a stretch of what sounds like layered screaming and sympathetic tones, a haunting, harrowing bit of dronemusic, that begins to glitch out, as Bargeld spoken vocals come in, now laid over a strange bit of high end staticky stutter, and a deep resonant rumble, before the sound shifts again, the screams returning, and Bargeld switching to moody croon, a burst of tripped out grind and crunch, some wistful piano, and a very balladic outro, sounds like the perfect intro to this collection of improvised abstraction and avant minimal soundscaping.
The second track sounds more like the Alva Noto we know and love, a clipped bit of minimal rhythm, wreathed in clouds of grit and static and hiss, and then the vocals come in, and it becomes much more musical, and moody, dramatic and intense, and as the record progresses, the sound definitely becomes less an unlikely collaboration, and more a meeting of like minded warped musical visionaries.
Bargeld is a chameleon, switching from strident bellow, to hushed whisper, to surprisingly melodic croon, and Nicolai is equally adept, alternately crafting austere minimal glitchscapes, swirling pop ambient shimmer and lush almost orchestral sounding avant pop. They even cover Harry Nilsson, and they manage to keep the spirit and mood of the original, while infusing it with all manner of thrum and hiss, crunch and skitter, and just as soon as we're in more familiarly pop territory, the record switches gears, and the two unfurl a droned out bit of cinematic drift, the layered vox creepy and ominous, the music a blur of hiss and crackle, stutter and drift. The rest of the record offers up more of the same, a sort of futuristic cabaret, glitched out balladry, minimal avant dronepop and skeletal industrial ambience, quite hard to succinctly describe, but the varied sounds here all manage to coalesce into a pretty fantastic bit of haunting avant minimal beauty, perfectly encapsulated in the string laden final track, all whispery vox, warm symphonic swells, rich mellifluous vocals, and tense dramatic minor key melodies, so gorgeous.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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We didn't think it was possible, but with their second record, Ancestors have managed to get louder, heavier, more distorted, noisier and weirdly enough groovier. Short and not at all sweet, a bunch of songs jammed onto a 7" (or a cassette if you swing that way), a relentless blown out blast of blackened ultra distorted metallic punk. Or black metal. More likely somewhere right in between.
Not to be confused with THE Ancestors, the stoner rock outfit, Ancestors have a rich punk rock pedigree (Charles Bronson anyone?) but since the old days the sound has moved way further into the black, think Bone Awl, Akitsa, Ash Pool, Malveillance, Zarach'Baal'Tharagh, that sort of relentless blackened crusty metalnoise, furious and frenetic, a wall of chaotic crush infused with blast beats and buzzing riffs. Record number two is so ferocious, it's a wonder it can remain musical, but it does, BIG time, in fact, it's weirdly way more musical than the first record, more melodic, with more of a groove, more slow parts, but that only makes them sound that much more fucked up and brutal.
Hissing white hot distorted fury, the riffs crumble and melt, the drums pound and thrash struggling not to get swallowed up by the churning blackness, and then the vocals, holy fuck, they are SICK, ultra distorted, processed, some sort of inhuman howl / shriek / gurgle, like Abruptum meets Popeye meets Merzbow, but sometimes so warped it almost sounds like it's not in fact a voice, but some sort of malfunctioning synth. Amidst all this blown out noise drenched damage, the guitars occasionally explode into awesome blasts of super technical and angular post punk squiggle, but all blackened up. There are also hooks and catchy melodies, and the songs slow down to offer up a CHUG, or a fragmented groove, before bursting back into action, overall, the whole record manages to sound way more polished and refined, without losing an ounce of vitriol.
The record even finishes off with a weirdly gorgeous bout of midtempo moodiness, but the band manage even with that, to make it sound abrasive and caustic and catchy as fuck.
Beautiful packaging, the 7" comes in a super abstract full color sleeve and insert, printed inner sleeve, very little in the way of information, pressed on thick white vinyl, LIMITED TO 333 COPIES!!! The tape is also limited, and features the same abstract full color artwork, and the same dearth of info...
Latest from these LA psychedelic space-prog heavies, whose sounds has definitely gotten more polished and melodic, but thankfully no less heavy and druggy, and in fact, may have gotten even proggier. Which as far as we're concerned is never a bad thing.
The sound on In Dreams And Time is not that far removed from their last, Of Sound Mind: crushing riffs, bombastic drumming, crooned gruff vox, and LOTS of keyboards; swirling walls of sounds, massive production, intricate arrangements, dreamy angelic female vox, and of course looooong songs, with a sound that slips deftly from Neurosis like churn, to Voivod-y math metal, and from blissed out FX heavy Hawkwind style blowouts, to slow build majestic post rock epics a la Godspeed, with stops in between for haunting balladry, and full on planetarium lightshow psychedelia, all tangled up into a dizzying concoction that these guys definitely make all their own. The first thing we thought listening to this recently, was that it bears a bit of a resemblance to the new WAY less metal Baroness, but if anything, these guys might even do that sound better, not sacrificing any heaviness, but managing to push their sounds in all kinds of non-metal directions, the opener an organ heavy bit of mathy psych metal that is as melodic as it is heavy and dense, before slipping into some dark. dolorous piano driven minimalism, which quickly explodes into a weird bit of super heavy, but still melodic dirgery, the song swinging back and forth between the haunting hush and the soaring howl. Later the sound gets downright prog, swirls of organ, long stretches of shimmery space rock lope, clouds of effects, the melodies minor key and melancholic, but rife with blasts of furious riffery and near metallic heft.
The rest of the record seasaws between headbanging psychedelic prog metal and more melodic post metal heaviness, with "Running In Circles" finding the perfect middle ground, the vocal harmonies and soaring majestic melodies wreathed in some serious heaviness, which leads directly into the 19 minute closer, which is a killer psych rock headtrip, stretched way out, droney and druggy, super hypnotic, lush and textured, a little cinematic coda near the end, after nearly seventeen minutes of the kind of space-psych that fans of White Hills, the Heads, Lumerians, Mugstar, Assemble Head, Farflung, and the like should flip over.
Not to be confused with the -other- Ancestors, the noise drenched, blackened lo-fi, blown out raw as fuck punk metal outfit, no, this is something all together more stoned and groovy, spaced out and ROCK.
Don't know too much about these guys other than they're a 5 piece from LA, and man can they riff with the best of 'em. Two looooong songs, one nearly 17 minutes, the other almost 22, each a sprawling stoner rock psychedelic groovescape. Think Kyuss, Monster Magnet, Hawkwind, Earthless, Dead Meadow, Acrimony, Los Natas. The songs are less proper songs, and more epic jams, the actual verses and chorus and vocals relegated to popping up here and there, while the majority of the song is spent rocking the fuck out, unfurling majestic sun baked soundscapes of riff and groove and killer leads EVERYWHERE. Occasionally, the songs bliss out, and get all tripped out and druggy, with soft Santana-y guitar squalls, and tons of effects, but those parts inevitably build and build until suddenly the song is back in full swing, the band lurching and lumbering and grooving relentlessly. This is the sort of jam band we can get behind, epic heaviness and endless riffery.
The second track is almost Melvins-y at the beginning, howled vocals over slow churning guitar grind, before slipping back into something way more sixties and psychedelic sounding. Like the super kick ass outro of every killer space rock song all stitched into one epic mega-jam. Near the end, the track blisses out and transforms into a loping moody dirge, with reverbed guitars and haunting female vocals way off in the distance, finally kicking back into gear for the last few minutes, a whirring minor key organ making the groove seem melancholy and strangely funereal.
Killer stuff for sure. Any one into heavy heavy post rock, stoner rock, riff heavy jams, sweet leads, or ANY or any of the above mentioned bands will most definitely dig this.
Housed in a sweet digipak with awesome artwork by Arik Moonhawk Roper!
We're gonna start this review like the last one from these guys: Not to be confused with the -other- Ancestors, the noise drenched, blackened lo-fi, blown out raw as fuck punk metal outfit, no, this is something all together more stoned and groovy, spaced out and ROCK.
Ok, with that out of the way, let's talk. This Ancestors, hailing from Los Angeles (um, wait, might that be where the -other- Ancestors are also from? Maybe?), takes the whole prog-metal approach that so many bands attempt and does it, frankly, WAY better than most. Like, you can tell Ancestors actually listen to prog rock, not just Neurosis-informed metal bands showing off proggy chops merely because it is the latest thing. In fact, there are certain moments of majestic grandeur on Of Sound Mind that many metalheads would have been embarrassed by just a few years ago. We sure are glad things have changed, because this stuff is really hitting the spot, and one of the band's greatest strengths is their prowess with amazing sounding keyboards. There are tons of swirling, distorted Hammond-style organs and fuckloads of buzzy synthesized goodness. Of course, the rest of the band really have it together as well, what, with all the epic guitar solos and the awesome rhythm section. Along with bands like UFOmammut and Titan, Ancestors are one of the more impressive bands to offer up music that perfectly merges progged out, atmospheric heaviosity with CRUSHING, grooving metal in the vein of the Melvins (the dude sounds quite like King Buzzo, in fact), Neurosis, and the like. Thankfully, things never get too proggy for their own good, and more than anything, you will be digging this collection of lumbering, epic songs that effortlessly chug into double digit time limits, sometimes separated by cool keyboard-centric interludes. The songs are long enough to take you all kinds of places, and the structures are sufficiently out there and complex, perfectly utilizing the cd/double lp format over the course of 71 minutes, making Of Sound Mind one of those perfect albums for late night, lonely listening.
Holy shit! All we can say is look out Bone Awl. You'd never know it from the strange cover art, an abstract photo of pens and books and a family photo, or the name, or the indie like scrawled liner notes, but this is some of the fiercest, heaviest, most damaged off kilter and ultra raw black metal we've heard in forever. Well, since Bone Awl actually, or maybe Ildjarn. But music this raw and punky and fucked up, is only barely black metal anyway, they sound a bit like a supercharged Brainbombs, or maybe the Violent Students playing black metal. This is in-the-red, overblown, crusty blackened garage stomp. Filthy and pounding. The drums are so hot, they make the tape distort. The vocals are an inhuman snarl, the guitars are just a dizzyingly dense tangle of white noise and black buzz. The tempos are relentless and occasionally, the guitars and drums lock into a weird four on the floor techno style pound, albeit dripping with amp buzz and blown out guitar, before launching back into a full on black crust speaker smash assault. Fans of all things raw and distorted beyond recognition will go apeshit. And all you Bone Awl obsessives might have just found a new band to love...
This is the second release for the amazing new Soul Jazz subsidiary label World Audio Foundation, devoted to new recordings of far-flung sounds from around the globe. The first was the Carnival Music of Eastern Cuba, an amazing recording, we'll hopefully list next time, if we can keep it in stock! But this beautiful recording of Sacred Polyphonic Vocal Chants out of the Republic of Georgia by the all male Anchiskhati Choir is equally amazing! Polyphonic singing dates back to pre-Christian times, but was readily adopted for Georgian Orthodox liturgical services, the second oldest Orthodox Christian Church in the world dating all the way back to the first century. Polyphonic singing involves two styles, one where two alternating male singers sing over a drone sung by a male chorus, and the other where three independent vocal lines are sung simultaneously to produce an array of consonant and dissonant chords. Probably the most well-known example of Georgian Polyphonic singing is the traditional folk song "Tsintskaro", featured in Werner Herzog's film version of Nosferatu, as well as Kate Bush's "Hello Earth" from her album Hounds of Love. Maintained over centuries as an oral tradition, The Anchiskhati Choir are the world's leading exponents of this incredible musical form, and after listening to it, it's not difficult to understand why it was proclaimed by UNESCO to be "one of the Oral and Intangible Masterpieces of Humanity".
Bridget Bardot featured soundtrack!
On their latest musical mission And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead have come bearing a mixed bag o' unexpected accoutrements. There's a bit of (almost) everything including some retro pop, power pop, '70s glitter rock and roots rock. Clearly they've left their hungry, volatile post-punk years behind... y'know, back when they used to trash their gear. Now, we're honestly not pulling some indie rock snobbery here when we say that with each album since they signed to a major label, it has seemed the band have seemed a bit lost, grappling for an identity. On the other hand, it could be due to the numerous lineup changes. Or maybe they've known exactly what they've been doin' all along, and they're intentionally dodging classification. What do you think? The result though is music that sounds like a lot of other artists past and present. What comes to mind when we think of And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, is probably completely different from what you might be thinking of! Very befuddling. That said, in our opinion, this one works well as an enjoyable pop/rock melange... albeit not as specifically an AYWKUBTTOD album. The lead-off track is very earthy, almost-country rock. Then there's a bit of seemingly tabla inspired percussion on the third track. Further on in the album, there's some downright Elton John Yellow Brick Road flamboyance in the number titled "Life", followed by the very Sgt. Pepper-esque marching peppiness of "Eight Days Of Hell". The undercurrent throughout is a hazy, high powered rock that's steeped with boyish emotion but not 'emo' per se. Think: Superchunk's power pop energy with Swervedriver's uh, drive. Really good! Still, you'd never guess this was AYWKUBTTOD. We sure didn't.
Following their absolutely dismal major label debut EP is this full length. We poke at it gingerly. Perhaps the EP was just a minor misguided faltering? Trying to appeal to a wider audience with tentative trials in emo-melodicism? I'd hoped they'd regained
A mighty fine collection of improvisorial acoustic guitar solos from Bruce Anderson of MX-80 fame. That said, Anderson's solo guitar work is miles away from the sharp, incessant cacophony of the mutant-punk of MX-80 from back in the day. It's more of a Loren Mazzacane Connors feel, but played on an acoustic guitar with classical tunings. Or perhaps as our regular customer Monte opined, "sounds like Derek Bailey, if he learned to play melodically." Yeah, that's it! Anyway, with the quiet, rather ascetic nature of these recordings, we're guessing that the reference in the title is to Robert Bresson, the new wave French film director. The dulcet plucks and slow deliberate pacing of Anderson's work would certainly make for a complementary soundtrack to any number of Bresson's films even with their noted lack of musical accompaniments. Lovely stuff, and limited to just 75 copies.
This East Bay avant-guitarist quipped that Dispassion finds him in his 'death-ray' mode. We were not all that sure what he might have meant by this; and we figured his 'death-ray' would be some fucked-up Keiji Haino styled exploration of infernal guitar noise; or perhaps a power-drone of sawtooth gnashing akin to a Zbigniew Karkowski or Kevin Drumm. But no, Anderson's 'death-ray' approach is one of atonal polyphony, through layerings of heavily processed guitar tones that are sustained, filtered, modulated, and whatnot, into beguiling phrases that more resemble the dissonant chords of mismatched church organs. In fact, if Anderson hadn't stated from the onset that this was a solo electric guitar piece, we would have assumed it to be some midnight black mass piece of diabolical pipe organ orchestration. There might be Charlemagne Palestine gleefully getting drunk on blood red wine whilst completely unaware of the psychotic technician who was tone-bending all of his minimalist, clustered drones through tricked out digital means. But no, it's just Bruce with his guitar and his pedals, and it's a very unsettling mood created by this death-ray of his. Limited to 50 copies.
Bruce Anderson wandered into the store a few weeks ago, commenting in reference to Scott Walker's new Bish Bosch album that he would much rather experience subversion through beauty than something willfully ugly. While he's quite appreciative of Mr. Walker's art (in fact he has some amusing anecdotes about seeing him as a hired gun for some garage band touring the states back in his youth, wondering who that beautiful bassist with the booming voice was), the art of subversion through beauty is an apt description of where Anderson has taken his solo guitar work. Of course, Bruce Anderson was the frontman for the seminal Bay Area art-punk outfit MX-80, and this disc follows suit with the last couple of semi-improvised recordings that Anderson has graced us with. The angularity of MX-80 is here, but the tones he gets from his guitar are rounded and rich, suspended with a sustained drone that acts as a halo on his slowly paced plucks and strums. Sonically similar to Loren Mazzacane Connors, John Fahey, and Derek Bailey, and laced with a lovely, profound sadness. Limited to 75 copies.
Bruce Anderson is best known as the guitarist / frontman for Bay Area seminal avant-punk band MX-80, whose records back in the early '80s situated themselves on the suitably angular Ralph Records - home to The Residents, Snake Finger, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Tuxedomoon, etc. This 2008 composition - possibly just released, possibly never distributed until now - is a long-form, multi-tracked acoustic guitar exploration. Upon first listen, Fahey, Loren Mazzacane Connors, and Tom Carter seem the obvious references for these lilting elliptical arrangements; but as the piece develops, Anderson is insistent on hitting purposefully sharp notes, which atonally register thanks to his panned stereo distribution of layered tracks. As result, The Inherent Beauty Of Hopelessness begins to mutate into a Jandekian aesthetic of warped raga-blues, as if the Jandek standard "European Jewel" found itself tempered and elongated into a quiet, 40-minute epic.
Having played together numerous times and on many recordings over the past several decades, it's kind of remarkable that this is the first time Fred Anderson and Hamid Drake have played together without an extended ensemble. Just drums and horns. And the results are sublime. Super relaxed arrangements, these tracks definitely have the feel of two old friends, lots of natural chemistry, comfortable and familiar. Anderson's tenor is subtle and smoky, soulful melodies that occsionally erupt into manic runs, but only briefly, before they settle back down, nestled in Drake's dense backdrop of complex tribal hand drumming and powerful, skittery post-bop drum work on the kit. So nice.
To commemorate the 25th anniversary of this inimitable New York avant garde artist's landmark album, the fine folks at the Nonesuch label have remastered and reissued it... and it sounds as mysterious and beautiful as it did the first time around! The unforgettable eight minute long single "O Superman" made a surprise showing at number 2 on the U.K. pop charts back in 1981, and the album from which it came left its own indelible mark on many of us here.
The music and spoken word pieces that comprise the album were actually drawn from Anderson's expansive eight hour long performance art stage production United States Live (which was performed over the course of two evenings). Drawing on disparate elements and themes, commentaries and critiques about life in America, Anderson's Big Science is at once bold, imaginative and artful. Dryly humorous and chillingly bleak. Starkly minimal and deeply moving. Playful and cerebral. Thoughtful and thought provoking. Challenging and engaging.
Keep in mind, the short audio samples here really don't do the whole work justice. This album should be experienced in one complete distraction-free listening session. One of Cup's all time favorite albums, she recommends you stop what you are doing right now. Big Science beckons.
Oh yes, and we should mention that this special edition includes the haunting "O Superman" music video and a (unnecessary in our opinion) bonus track "Walk The Dog".
A legend and pioneer in not only performance and video art but also in how to intertwine those arts with music in a mystifying, engaging, confusing, question-raising, mind-blowing way. We could go on and on about the people Laurie Anderson's work has had a huge influence on. Fever Ray, Tracy & The Plastics, Miranda July, Sadie Benning, Oneohtrix Point Never, Planningtorock, Bjork, Kathleen Hanna, Gang Gang Dance, etc. She really is one of the few people who has been successful in merging the worlds of performance art and music, with captivating and breathtaking results. Her 1982 debut, Big Science, remains for many of us as one of our favorite records of all time. Decades later, Homeland taps into a very similar approach to sound as that iconic album. It's a record that really encapsulates what Anderson does best which is to both provoke, confuse and create an overall feel that operates in a different dimension.
While Anderson is mostly first thought of as a performance artist and thinker, it should not be overlooked what an incredible violinist she is, not to mention composer, and pianist too, always getting such interesting sounds from her keyboard. And she has such a keen sense for bringing together a wide range of instrumentation and vocal deliveries to create such striking moods. On Homeland she enlists the amazing voices of Tuvan throat singers as well as a great cast of players including Eyvind Kang, John Zorn, Kieran Hebden, her husband Lou Reed, and Antony, who contributes the most ethereal vocals on one of the albums stand out moments, the song "Strange Perfumes".
Homeland is a meditation on American life over the last decade. It really creates this insular zone in which you get completely entranced by its sounds and words and lose touch with everything around you. It's best to listen to this really loud and when you are in a place to fully surrender and be completely present. It's not a throw-on-when-you're-hanging-out-with-friends-and-talking kind of record, but when you blast it on headphones the next time you're on an airplane or while sitting on a long bus/train ride you will be so thankful to have this record for the intense and beautiful spaces it transports you to. So awesome to know that some artists stay as great as they were when they first made their impact on culture and continue to challenge themselves and make such stunning work.
