Vinyl Headz pay attention! About two years ago we were fortunate enough to catch a few copies of Mulatu Astatke's Ethio Jazz on vinyl. Volume 4 of Ethiopiques (easily the single most popular release in the series) was essentially the album Ethio Jazz, but expanded to include another five Astatke tracks. This release includes those five tracks previously only available on Ethiopiques Vol. 4, plus three tracks of Astatke's which were on Ethiopiques Vol. 1, and one track of his from Ethiopiques Vol. 8. Here's a little background on Astatke from our Ethio Jazz review: "Astatke had the unique privilege to be sent off to school in 1960 (at the age of 17) to study music in London. From there he continued on to the United States, attending The Berklee School of Music in Boston and later moving to New York. One can imagine he picked up a wide range of influence, and that he did. He became absorbed in Latin and Caribbean musics, eventually forming his own group the Ethiopian Quartet in New York. Upon his return to Ethiopia in the late sixties he was treated like a king, being hailed as 'the first-Ethiopian-musician-educated-abroad' and as a arranger/bandleader he was unequalled."
This record is an absolutely stunning collection of instrumentals. Most are composed by Astatke, while others are arrangements of traditional songs or other composers. His music is a wonderful amalgam of swinging jazz tunes, sweet soul and punchy funk and laden with fuzzy electric guitars and tremolo drenched electic pianos. What's more is that unlike the afro-funk of Nigeria, the rest of Africa or the world even, the unique scales of Ethiopian music produce the most haunting melodies that we've ever heard. Now for the bad news: we only have a small handful of these puppies in stock and when they're gone, they're gone... No more, vamoosh! Another small pointer for those that do pick this up: the copy we cracked open had the A side and B side labels mis-printed on the vinyl. We suspect the whole pressing may have this erroneous labelling. No biggy, just something to pay attention to when identifying what you're listening to.
Ethiopia was the site of some of the most beautiful yet sadly forgotten music in the 60's and 70's. This compilation takes some of the best tracks from the enterprising Amha Records. This label specialized in recording unusually catchy and groovy pop songs that are not dissimilar to late 60's Jamaican rocksteady fused with jazz signatures and Ethiopian folk, plus plenty of James Brown funk.
This disc features the all instrumental "Ethio Jazz" by Mulatu Atatke. We don't know of anyone who's heard this and not fallen absolutely in love with it. Recommended without reservation!
Now is one of those rare times when the dedicated lovers of vinyl are rewarded with something exclusive to LP. By now we're all pretty familiar with Mulatu Astatke, what with Ethiopiques #4 and the LP reissue of his "Ethio Jazz" album he's practically a household name by now (at least around here). I'm kidding of course, but rabid fans of the inimitable funk/soul/groove sounds from Ethiopia no doubt place him pretty high on the short list of the greatest from the period. And what's better is that "Mulatu of Ethiopia" contains entirely exclusive tracks. Yep, that's right, none of these tracks are on any of the discs in the Ethiopiques series (though there are two reworkings of tracks -- "Dewel" and "Munaye" -- from Ethiopiques 4). The album itself, a reissue of a 1972 release of the same title, was recorded by Astatke in the U.S. during his tenure here and until now it fetched high prices on the collector's market. Given Astatke's experiences working in the U.S. with American jazz and Latin jazz musicians it should come as no surprise that it sounds nothing like anything else in the myriad Ethiopian groove reissues. For one, it's super smooov' (in a good way) with Mulatu picking up his mallets and playing vibes through it all and the recording -- which must have been done at some swank U.S. studio -- is ultra lush (what's that? You say you can hear the bass?) The music on this album totally sounds like a soundtrack to some long lost Michael Caine political intrigue film. You can almost see the cigarette dangling out of Caine's mouth as he drives around in an Austin Healey tailing a bad guy. On "Mulatu of Ethiopia" Astatke is accompanied by a pretty tight ensemble, much smaller than the orchestras of the Amha recording era. The backbone of his accompaniment is an uber funky organ/electric piano that sounds at times like they've got a wah wah pedal hooked up to it. Also included in the ensemble is electric bass, drums, percussion and plenty of soloing assistance from saxophone, flute and trumpet. Highly recommended, but act fast 'cause, as with so many things, we only have a few...
MPEG Download: "Mascaram Setaba" [/audio/mulatumascaram.mp3]
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If there was an actual way to measure the warmth of music, the sounds Mulatu Astatke created in the '60s and '70s would be at the top of the thermometer, his incredible and rich Ethio-Jazz sounds drifting right from the speakers and melting into your ears, permeating every cell of your body. Strut strike gold once again, coming up a killer collection of some of Astatke's finest material, recorded between 1965-1975.
After leaving Ethiopia as a teen, Astatke studied music in different parts of the globe and it's wonderful to hear how he subtly infused those various outside influences into his classic Ethiopian groove based sound. Some of the tracks here will stand out as being the classic Astatke tracks we are all familiar with, culled as they are from the amazing Ethiopiques 4 collection, but Strut digs deeper as well, exploring some of the lesser known songs and sides, many of which show an awesome Afro-Latin jazz influence, as well as some tracks that find Astatke teaming up with vocalists like Muluken Melesse and Menelik Wossenatchew.
Astatke really does belong in that divine elite class of musicians like John Coltrane, Alice Coltrane, Ravi Shankar, John Fahey, Duke Ellington, Moondog, etc. - the sounds he creates are universal in their appeal. Infused with so much soul and emotional warmth, these are sounds that transcends genre or geography, plain and simple, this is amazing music!
If I had a dime for everytime someone has picked up a copy of Ethiopiques #4 and asked if we had it available on vinyl I'd probably be able to afford to buy the original pressing of "Ethio Jazz" for the price it fetches on e-bay. But now for a mere 170 dimes vinyl lovers everywhere can at last have a copy of their own. Mulatu Astatke's "Ethio Jazz" was released as Volume 4 of Ethiopiques (expanded from 9 to 14 tracks for the CD issue) and is easily the single most popular release in the series (at least here at AQ anyway.) Astatke had the unique privilege to be sent off to school in 1960 (at the age of 17) to study music in London. From there he continued on to the United States, attending The Berklee School of Music in Boston and later moving to New York. One can imagine he picked up a wide range of influence, and that he did. He became absorbed in Latin and Caribbean musics, eventually forming his own group the Ethiopian Quartet in New York. Upon his return to Ethiopia in the late sixties he was treated like a king, being hailed as "the first-Ethiopian-musician-educated-abroad" and as a arranger/bandleader he was unequalled. This record is an absolutely stunning collection of instrumentals. Most are composed by Astatke, while others are arrangements of traditional songs or other composers. A "jazz" record, yes this is, but hardly just. "Ethio Jazz" is a wonderful amalgam of swinging jazz tunes, sweet soul and punchy funk and laden with fuzzy electric guitars and tremolo drenched electic pianos. What's more is that, unlike the afro-funk of Nigeria, the rest of Africa or the world even, the unique scales of Ethiopian music produce the most haunting melodies that we've ever heard. For better or worse, this record has probably the broadest appeal of any release we've had. Very highly recommended (and for CD buyers, if you haven't picked up Ethiopiques #4 yet we always keep them in stock.)
A split 10" hardcore head-to-head battle between the late great DC grind freaks Jenny Piccolo and Asterisk*, a new (to us) band of hardcore killers. Of the two, Asterisk* kicks a bit more ass, especially on the final roaring track "Exodus". Asterisk* rage... hard. They've titled their side "Dogma III: The Mythology of Heavenly Poultry" as inspired by C.J. Hjelm's book "Manniskan och Anglavariden". And on their side, Jenny Piccolo give a nod to Will Oldham and the awesome Swedish band Female Anchor of Sade.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Totally fun, dizzyingly silly Japanese band takes zany electronic hiphop rock to a new level, coming across like a combination of Afrika Bambaataa and The Chipmunks.
'Bout time these guys were back with a follow-up to 2009's great The Weirding. And damn, if San Diego prog rockers Astra don't just blast off from the get-go here, 8-minute instrumental opener "Cocoon" being a galloping space rock hoedown indeed. Hold on to your hats. Then they head right into the album's longest piece, the quarter hour title track. Vintage keyboards are set to stun, Astra channelling some Yes "Heart Of The Sunrise" action here, the epic composition veering from the head noddingly heavy to gently sung and and acoustic-y and back again, or all at the same time, and that's just within the first few minutes.
Next up, "Quake Meat" takes both the rocking out/spacing out to each extreme, while "Drift" is more laid back and aptly named... And so it goes, Astra proving themselves again to be one of the best modern prog bands at doing what sure sounds like ye olde '70s prog, but doing it with just enough heaviosity to fit in on the Metal Blade label. Just check inside the (quite nicely graphically designed) cd booklet to see how authentically '70s these guys look - all the requisite long hair, double necked guitars and other gear... one of the polygon-framed photo montages even features an Old English Sheepdog.
You gotta love prog to get into this, but if you do, this band's chopsy synth laden grooving will take you very happily to your special prog place/space!
Slipcased jewel case packaging, as usual with Metal Blade's Rise Above licensed releases.
A while ago we found a cd-r by this mysterious heavy space rock band (they hail from San Diego as it turns out) and thought it was pretty cool. Probably should have tracked 'em down for the store, but never did, sorry. Thankfully however, Astra have popped up again, this time with a proper cd release on the English metal/doom/psych label Rise Above!�(Issued domestically now by Metal Blade.)
Astra is for anyone into the sounds of prog rock yesteryear (i.e. a lot of AQ customers, and us!) especially of the more Floydian, spaced out variety loaded with Mellotron, Moog, Arp, and other tasty synthesizer wooshery. Some flute also makes an appearance which we always like. The eight epic tracks here very obviously hark back to bands like King Crimson and Yes (note the Roger Dean alike cover).
Astra's melodic vocals also sound quite authentically seventies, mellow and moody and sad, which feeds into the doomy feel you might expect from a Rise Above release, this is at least slightly doomy, in a very old school way, with the keyboards getting Uriah Heepish at times. And like we said, they're obviously fans of the band who arguably wrote the first ever metal and/or doom track, King Crimson, whose "21st Century Schizoid Man" predates even Black Sabbath. Speaking of metal, and keyboards, we might recommend this to those into the most recent, most proggy output of local avant metal fave Hammers Of Misfortune. And also to fans of other "young prog" acts we've listed, like England's Diagonal and Sweden's Gosta Berlings Saga. Everything old is new again, maybe it's not that "progressive" anymore in the truest sense of the word, but it's still a sound we like to hear, and bands like Astra and the others mentioned manage to keep the '70s prog spirit alive without seeming too cheesy or pretentiously ponytailed about it. It helps of course that it's on the heavy side, though not to the extent of our favorite San Diego heavy space prog act, Tarantula Hawk (whatever happened to them????).
For those of you who missed out on the first seven installments of Astral Social Club's limited series of self released cd-r's (us and probably most of you), the ASC swoops in to save the day with this massive MP3 cd-r, containing every track from all 7 of those discs, 589 mb's, 57 tracks, over FIVE HOURS!!! All for 11 bucks! Hard to beat, and as we've only made it through the first three, we can tell you already, it's well worth it.
Astral Social Club just so happens to be Mr. Neil Campbell, the mastermind behind the genius Vibracathedral Orchestra as well, who for years, has been spending his days off from VCO, recording disc after amazing disc of deliriously spaced out drone, blown out extended ragas, and seemingly endless slabs of hypnotic pulse and drift. Pick any track on any of these seven releases and you'll be instantly transported to some other world, where sounds are alive, everything is glistening, the sky is full of vivid blinding streaks of sound, synths pulse and throb, it's like Terry Riley or Steve Reich transported to some imaginary sci-fi future where they spend all their time composing for Tangerine Dream and Popol Vuh.
These seven discs cover a whole lot of ground, from epic droning raga like bliss a la Skullflower or Sunroof!, to simple mesmerizing minimalism a la Riley or La Monte Young, sometimes both at the same time. All of it amazing.
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On the last list we reviewed #1-7, an Astral Social Club mp3 cd which collected the first 7 volumes of their self released cd-r series and everybody flipped. We've barely been able to keep them in stock (if you're waiting, more are on the way!). Well, the series is now up to volume 12! No plans as of yet for another mp3 collection, and volumes 8 through 10 seem to be already gone, but we've got a bunch of number 11 and number 12, both of which are killers.�
This here disc, number 11, begins with some strange (and not very ASC like)�murky, looped percussion, with bits of electronic glitch, sounding almost a little like some�sort of twentieth century classical filtered through some primitive krautrock. After that though we're back in familiar territory, with�glorious sparkling epic shimmering drones, technicolor cascades of rich reverberant sounds and all manner of glimmering glittering ear candy,�super minimal dark ambience, with drifting whale call melodies and deep rumbling swells,�Sunroof!-y bit of high end raga sparkle, complete with the sounds of crickets and running water, sun dappled, dreamy looped guitar sheen, all wrapped up into one big glorious space drone whole.�
The last three tracks might be the best here,�dense synthscapes, lots of hiss and whir, with buried rhythmic pulses, weird underwater bloops and burbles... all three tracks sounding very much like some white label Pop Ambient 12". Awesome.�
Packaged in thick plastic sleeves with a full color paste on insert. And of course, quite limited...
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**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
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Latest in the ongoing series of self released cd-r's from Mr. Neil Campbell, aka Astral Social Club, formerly of divine dronesters Vibracathedral Orchestra. This is number 14, and sonically begins with a track (after a brief noisy intro) that had us thinking this might end up sounding like the recent releases on Important, taking the blessed out incandescent white hot ragas, and transforming them into some strange propulsive alien dance music. And yeah, on the Important discs, dance music might have been stretching it a bit, but here, at least on the opening track, the beat is definitely the focal point, insistent and pulsing, laying down a simple groove amidst flittering clouds of spacy FX and little bleeps and bloops.
But after that it's right back to business, the business of thick corrosive washes of overblown distortion and buzzing droning ragas, thick slabs of feedback, grinding chunks of guitarbuzz, processed vocals, all wound up into a snarled dronepsych blowouts.
A few of the track eschew the noisy psych side completely, choosing instead to tinkle and drift through tranquil smears of soft sound, but even those tracks eventually build to intense climaxes, high end streaks and tangled slivers of feedback all wound up into gorgeously shimmering upper register skreescapes.
Another gorgeous collection of dense freeform psychedelia, definitely for fans of all things Vibracathedral, Skullflower, Yellow Swans, Skaters and the like, and those afraid of beats, or dancefloor phobic, no matter how noisy and strange that particular dancefloor is, can just skip over that second track�
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It's that time again, another volume in Astral Social Club's ever expanding self released cd-r series. It's been only a few months since the last one, but who's complaining? If we didn't have to work and do stuff and eat, and all that, we might just spend all our time high as a kite, sprawled out on a big ol' fuzzy sofa, with Astral Social Club blasting through 1000 watt quadraphonic speakers mounted in the ceiling.
But, as it is, we'll just have to make do rocking these cd-r's in our iPods. Which is fine, as this stuff is perfect to drown out daily life, or to fill your head with whirs and buzzes, drone and spaced out psych, to chillout, drift off, or to groove to on some alien dancefloor, or to blast from your strange sleek pod like vehicle as you speed down some alien highway. Neil Campbell, ex-Vibracathedral Orchestra, the man behind ASC, continues to dabble in dance music, as well as spacekraut, taking his usual Sunroof!-ed ragas, into all sorts of new directions. Sure the core of the sound is still the circular looped hypnotic longform drone, but many of the tracks here get twisted into strange mesmerizing rhythms, some bordering on dance grooves, but even at its 'funkiest' it's still blissy and droney and spaced out and druggy. A few of these tracks still show that Campbell can hold his own within the dreamdrone set, offering up transcendental slabs of glistening high end that Sunroof! Or Birchville would love to call their own, but then right after, will come some super minimal percussive flutter, some swirling abstract FX-scape, or some pounding almost house sounding banger. But all filtered through Campbell's uniquely cracked effects-soaked, drug-infused, blissed out, space drone soundworld.
The series continues... Neil Campbell and his Astral Social Club return with two more installments, each a limited cd-r of trippy, druggy, spaced out dronemusic, but more and more the sound of ASC has been drifting toward some sort of otherworldly dancemusic, and that's just how number 18 starts off, with a dense chunk of drone-raga house music, a thumping 4 on the floor beat, that pounds its way through swirling clouds of blurred buzz and industrial crunch, the beat flips backwards, and the surrounding sounds just get more thick and dense. The rest of the disc is all over the map, from super tangled speaker abusing blasts of strangled high end and stuttery glitch, to washed out noise drenched loops, all warm and fuzzy and textural, to super minimal muted buzzscapes, to cool jagged downtempo anti-grooves, to barely there hushed rhythmic skitter, to gorgeous fluttery ur-drones that slowly transform into billowy almost pop ambience, to crunchy heard-through-the-floor dancefloor throb and so it goes. Definitely the sound of the more beat oriented ASC, but even at its beatiest, Campbell still has a way with drones and ambience, wrapping every beat here in swirling squalls of soft noise, crumbling distorted rumbles and twisted glistening effects. Awesome stuff as always. Each in a handmade sleeve with all sorts of random clippings affixed to the front.
The latest in the ongoing Astral Social Club cd-r series is in fact a collection of live recordings, gathered over the past 9 months, recorded in multiple locations with a bunch of guests including a veritable choir on the last track.
6 tracks, 34 minutes, the first track sounds like Yello's "Oh Yeah" chopped up and reassembled into a dizzyingly skittery psych jam, the beat relentless, wrapped in all sorts of chirping high end squeaks and bleeps, looped and super hypnotic. The second track, from the same set, takes that first number and strips away the frantic rhythms, leaving just a buried pulse, and a thick swirl of high end hiss and smoothed out glitches, a droned out high end drift, that manages to entrance with that barely there beat. The final track from that same show is a chaotic cacophony of sci-fi stutter, and fractured effects, a symphony of what sounds like lazer pistols, looped and layered into a head spinning sonic free for all, underpinned by some haunting almost Goblin-y super distorted mood music.
The second set of tracks is a much murkier affair, the first track an endless Sunroof!-y drone, long tones overlapping and intertwining, the second pulls back the skree, leaving a cool, industrial sounding drum loop, that is soon joined by a house-y 4 on the floor kick drum high hat pulse, which transforms the song into some sort of damaged, house-drone-industrial mash up, but again, ASC are able to turn it into something hypnotic and if not danceable, at least in some strange way groovy. The final track is another murky industrial flecked crawl, spread out over what sounds like some strange undulating drone, but on closer listening is in fact a sort of choir, but they all seem to be moaning or humming, not a harmonious exactly, but it does make for some truly strange and haunting textures, a very abstract, organic human dronemusic. Cool. And definitely the first time we've heard anything like it.
Each cd-r is housed in a printed cover with a pasted on live photo.
The second in the Astral Social Club mp3 reissue program. One disc, 9 cd-r's and close to 8 hours worth of blissed out shimmer, soft dreamy noisescapes and mutant alien discodrone, all jammed onto one little disc. So for those of you who missed out on any of the numbers 8 through 16 (heck we did too, we only reviewed 3 of those!), then this is a good way to get it ALL!
First, an Astral Social club primer would probably be useful:
For those who don't already know, Astral Social Club just so happens to be Mr. Neil Campbell, the mastermind behind the genius Vibracathedral Orchestra, who for years, has been spending his days off from VCO, recording disc after amazing disc of deliriously spaced out drone, blown out extended ragas, and seemingly endless slabs of hypnotic pulse and drift, and more recently a sort of fractured otherworldy dancemusic.
Okay then, odds are, most of you are probably gonna want this, but in case you need a quick description of some of the sonic joys to be found within, here goes:
Strange and murky, looped percussion, with bits of electronic glitch, sounding almost a little like some sort of twentieth century classical filtered through some primitive krautrock, glorious sparkling epic shimmering drones, Technicolor cascades of rich reverberant sounds and all manner of glimmering glittering ear candy, super minimal dark ambience, with drifting whale call melodies and deep rumbling swells, Sunroof!-y bit of high end raga sparkle, complete with the sounds of crickets and running water, sun dappled, dreamy looped guitar sheen, all wrapped up into one big glorious space drone whole, dense synthscapes, lots of hiss and whir, with buried rhythmic pulses, weird underwater bloops and burbles... all sounding very much like some white label Pop Ambient 12", thick corrosive washes of overblown distortion and buzzing droning ragas, thick slabs of feedback, grinding chunks of guitarbuzz, processed vocals, all wound up into a snarled dronepsych blowouts, tranquil smears of soft sound, high end streaks and tangled slivers of feedback all wound up into gorgeously shimmering upper register skreescapes, circular looped hypnotic longform dronemusic, blissy and droney and spaced out and druggy, transcendental slabs of glistening high, super minimal percussive flutter, swirling abstract FX-scapes, pounding almost house sounding bangers all uniquely cracked, effects-soaked, drug-infused and blissed out and more more more more.
Essential listening for fans of all things drone-y and blissed out, fans of Vibracathedral, Skullflower, Yellow Swans, the Skaters and folks looking for some truly twisted outsider dance trax to go with their ambient dronemusic.
packaged in a thick PVC plastic sleeve, in a plain white jacket with a paste on front cover image.
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Another new release on the Trensmat label. Last time we highlighted the latest from Italian cosmic psych folk siblings My Cat Is An Alien, and now there's this, the latest from Neil Campbell, formerly of Vibracathedral Orchestra, who now creates distorto electronica as Astral Social Club, having seemingly ditched the ur-drone ragas of his former outfit for something more fractured and beat driven - although you'd be forgiven for thinking this was in fact VCO, based on the first track. Sure there are beats, but they're spare and abstract, and mostly seem to be adding rhythmic texture, to a shimmery field of folky almost Appalachian sounding guitar strum, and swirling, smoldering buzz and thrum. Hazy, and dreamy, and druggy, a glorious washed out drift that's super mesmerizing and ultra hypnotic, and goddamn if we wouldn't have been perfectly happy if this track had filled up both side of this here lp. But this is Astral Social Club, so the second track explodes into an FX heavy frenzy of pounding almost happy hardcore sounding beats, buried beneath an avalanche of swirling psychedelic dream-noise, wild tangles of blown out shred, a swirling, dizzying sonic squall, that sans those beats might sound more like the more abstract moments of Birchville Cat Motel or Our Love Will Destroy The World, albeit with some heavy psych overtones. And like past ASC jams, it's pretty irresistible, in some ways, it's almost like some warped hybrid of caveman techno and Japanese psych, which for most aQ-ers we would imagine would be pretty goddamn enticing.
The rest of the record seems to split the difference between the more dense, driving, beat heavy noisescapey, and more washed out, ethereal kosmische sprawl, "Rainbow Weather" sounding almost like Astral Social Club new age, again, still slathered in buzz and thrum and wreathed in a halo of squiggly effects. But then again, "Twenty-Four Times Yes" swings back into some alien electronica, the beats buried beneath another wild concoction of druggy swirl, fractured noise and playful primitive electronics. "Valley Of The Left-Handed Depilator" seems to emerge full formed from the pervious track, but quickly blissed out into a soaring shimmering dream-drift epic, the churning rhythm, not so much adding propulsion, as just more texture, totally heady and super psychedelic, before things finally finish off with "Boiling Up The Bones", which sounds like Astral Social Club via Kompakt, minimal and spare, but with some weirdo sounds, tweaked percussion, and plenty of twisted shit going on below the surface.
As always, crazy limited, already sold out at the label, we may be able to get more, but probably best to snag one now just in case. And includes a link to a full download of the record as well.
These UK psychedelic dronelords began life as something altogether different, for years conjuring up some mutant strain of modern minimalism, dreamily lysergic noise drenched ragas and longform avant-psych kosmische kraut-age bliss outs. At some point their sound shifted and became decidedly more electronic, transforming in some cases into actual techno, albeit a super noisy, deliriously fucked up version, but it seemed they had perhaps made the move into dance music full time. But with the last few releases, the sound seems to have been drifting back to that early sound, or perhaps more accurately, the two sides of ASC seem to have merged, creating some dizzying psychedelia that within a single song can flit from fractured techno, to glimmering, prismatic psych-noise, to full on meditative raga-drone spiritualism, that strange confluence is in full effect here.
The opener "Infinity Thug" is a wild collage of electronic bloops and bleeps and buried-in-the-mix tabla like rhythms, a cascade of distorted soft noise swirl that leads directly into the gristly cosmic sprawl of "Phantom Transmitters" that sounds a bit like the music from a planetarium light show, wreathed in a cloud of sculpted static, and draped over a soft guitar strum and softly undulating layers of buzz and thrum. And as you might have gathered from the above, after that, all bets are off - pulsing sitar like ragas drift through fields of chanting monk like vocals, pocked with electronic squelches, and spacey FX. Churning alien techno sprawls into psychedelic cosmic-kraut grooves. Billows of distant chordal shimmer drift weightlessly beneath spiritual spoken word, peppered with guitar fuzz and mysterious sonic filigree. It's a swirling sonic chaos that manages to be both noisy and psychedelic, dreamy and meditative, with fractured noisiness and jumbled melodies. The extended stretches of staticky electro-minimalism are almost like some home-brewed Raster-Noton release, at times sounding like some damaged variant of heroin house, at others like it could have been constructed from intercepted alien transmissions. And finally, there is a soft bit of spacey glimmer, that explodes into the wild bombastic psychedelic squall that is the closer "Squeegee Anthem #3", which by 9 minutes in (of 18) sounds like Burnt Hills or the Heads, doused in spaced out electronics and cosmic FX, a totally hypnotic, noise drenched, electronic flecked, heady, hard rocking, psychedelic blow out.
The record is split into THREE sides, the first two on the vinyl, the third 'side' on the included cd. But fear not, a download is included that features all three.
Holy shit! Record collector nerds and weird music obsessives might as well prepare to give up their first born or take out another mortgage on the ol' homestead, cuz this series of ultra limited 8" SQUARE lathe cuts is gonna break the bank, but it's so so so worth it. This is the first in a series that looks like it will include a who's who of noise rock / free rock / avant noise / free folk luminaries, including SO many all time AQ faves it makes our heads spin. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. The first batch of these babies just showed up, three titles, each a custom hand cut, Peter King lathe cut, 8", and SQUARE!!! Packaged in gorgeous square and triangular die cut sleeves, super fancy textured paper, with a paste on front cover and a printed insert, each insert hand numbered, each release limited to 150 copies. Phew.
For those new to the lathe cut, it's a hand cut record, on polycarbonate not vinyl, they are more fragile than normal vinyl, and after repeated plays the sound quality can degrade a bit, but in our experience, in most cases it just makes them sound cooler. Peter King is THE MAN when it comes to super limited small run lathe cut releases, and pretty much every cool band you can think of has gone to him for some super rare or limited release or another.
So anyway, these are clear, they are 8"s across, shaped like a square and are insanely limited, and thus, pretty dang expensive! This is the second in the series and features Astral Social Club, an offshoot of the mighty Vibracathedral Orchestra. And as you might expect, this is two sides of gloriously buzzing raga like ur-drone. Glistening, glimmering, shimmering, sparkling, guitars and sitars and strings and reeds all tangled up in a blissed out harmonious buzz, albeit very melodic, with weird subtle sonic colorations and constantly shifting overtones. So lovely!
It seems the transformation is finally complete. Astral Social Club began life as a logical sonic extension of the mothership that birthed in, Vibracathedral Orchestra. But lately, Mr. ASC aka Neil Campbell, has been dabbling in sounds more suited to the dancefloor. Just a track here and there, but with this new single, hot on the heels of a recent sonically similar 7"/cd-r, it seems that the new Astral Social Club is indeed making music for THE CLUB.
Not that it's not still noisy and tripped out and bizarre and space-y, it most certainly is, but now you can dance to it. Or at least nod subtly, or just sort of sway back and forth. The point is there's a beat, and the beat makes it sort of funky in some alien psychedelic way, and we LOVE it.
The A side features the above mentioned beat, it's propulsive and sort of house-y, pulsing away beneath a cloud of swirling FX, strange percussion, stuttery loops, it's all very chaotic and free, druggy and far our, but that rhythm keeps in grounded. Music for some video game danceparty on an alien planet, or some seriously drug addled fucked up underground rave held in a cave a mile below the surface of the earth. Either way, it's excellent.
The flipside is like the chill out version of the A side, still looped and hypnotic, but that thud that defines the beat is replaced with a synthy squelch, all around it sounds streak and blur and shimmer, everything sort of bleary eyed and indistinct, like the wind down 3 am chill out after party at the end of the universe.
Now that Campbell has found his groove, we're dying for a full length, which will undoubtedly be the freaked out fucked up drug fueled underground alien danceparty record of the year!
You thought UK space drone freeks Vibracathedral Orchestra were prolific!? Well get a load of Neil Campbell, one of VCO's founding fathers, who split that scene a while back, only to whip up a new ensemble, well, ensemble is maybe not the right word, since Astral Social Club is just him, let's just call it an Astral Social Club then, even more spacey, abstract, and experimental than the 'Orchestra. Oh and outrageously prolific. An avalanche of cd-r's, every one of them a mind blower, difficult to keep up with, but well worth the effort...
This is one of two new releases, the other being vinyl only, both sort of two sides of the same sonic coin, although they definitely both have their own distinct vibe. Read about the lp elsewhere on this list, but the funny thing about the cd is, we could probably describe it in 4 words, and if you are anything like us, those 4 words would have you diving madly for the Add To Cart button.... So what does Neon Pibroch sound like? Well, at least the first track sounds just like *Spacemen 3 on Kompakt*!!! That's right. Imagine those endless loops of druggy effects, the subtle melodies stretched into gauzy soundscapes, super head nodding and hypnotic, but then imagine it with a strangely propulsive, almost techno beat, a relentless pulse, it's easy to imagine that endless spaced out groove pouring out of the sound system on some alien dancefloor. It's nearly twenty minutes long too, so that alone would be worth the price of admission. But hold up... there are two more tracks, and 40 more minutes of drifting beatless bliss to come...
The title track begins as a glistening ur-drone, all buzzing strings and keening high end, but part way through erupts into a white hot wall of coruscating grinding guitar buzz, super distorted and blown out, before drifting off again, leaving that burbling cosmic drift to fade gracefully out. The final track offers up more of the same, but if anything it's even more rich and thick and dense, it's the sort of sound that is almost visible, physical, it's like staring into the sun with your ears, makes you want to shade your eyes from the glorious sonic glare...
Can this man do no wrong? Guess not when it comes to transcendental sonic space drone... Absolutely essential listening for fans of such things, as is Super Grease, this record's vinyl analog...�
It's a weird thing, but we've always noticed that musicians, especially avant outsider musicians (and even then ESPECIALLY metal musicians) seemed inordinately fond of electronic music. Every time a band would come in the store, they would head straight for the electronic section and end up buying a bunch of weird techno or jungle or whatever.
Which then might make it less surprising that recently some of our favorite noise makers seem to be heading in that direction with their own music. Campbell Kneale's Birchville Cat Motel is gone, and in its place, Our Love Will Destroy The World, whose first record was indeed some bastardized dance music, a strange hybrid of blurred buzzy drone music, and thumping club jamz. Similarly, Neil Campbell, aka Astral Social Club has been peppering his recent record with similarly club worthy jamz, but again, those sounds still soaked in the same sort of blissed out psychedelic ambience that most people associate with his Astral Social Club.
For this latest full length, Campbell once again starts things off with a track that would almost sound more at home on Planet Mu than VHF. A skittery bloopfest, with a thick grinding synth bass line, and bloopy bleepy beats, but all wreathed in processed guitars and blurred soft focus buzz, which leads right into the second track, still electronic, but not actually danceable, it sounded more like a club jam on 45, the beats stumbling over one another, like a jumbled, almost hyper speed Pierre Bastien, a million little mechanical men, spewing a symphony of clicks and bleeps and loops, all wound around buried melodies and long thick streaks of hiss and fuzz.
We kept expecting things to switch gears, and for the sound to gradually bliss out into the more 'traditional' ASC sound, long form ur-drones more along the lines of Sunroof! or Skullflower, but most of us were hoping just the opposite, that maybe he'd push further, take ASC somewhere no band like that had really felt at home, the dancefloor, albeit, some strange seriously fucked up and drug addled ALIEN dancefloor. And so he has, for the most part. The first half of the record is indeed, all fractured beats, and warped loops, woozy tripped out grooves, effects swirling and whirling everywhere, the beats playful and not quite funky, stuttery skittery, and seriously fun. This is the kind of stuff that just might lure the perpetual wallflowers out onto that dancefloor.
BUT!!! Hidden between the opening salvo of beats and loops, and the closing outer space house jam, lurks some of the prettiest droned out ambience we've heard from ASC. Processed glitchery, smeared into grainy expanses of glistening blur and shimmery starburst, draped with delicate melodies, gradually growing into a glorious wall of warm fuzz, super thick grinding buzz, smoothed into hypnotic loops and pulsing soundscapes, a more caffeinated Tim Hecker, gauzy and washed out but propulsive and kinetic, glorious sun baked upper register blow outs, wrapped around crystalline acoustic guitars, all woven into a wheezing heaving whole, some sort of super abstract avant garde raga, and finally, a brief but fantastical tangle of crunch and buzz, off hiss and glitch, warped melodies and damaged arrangements, lo-fi tape hiss slithers beneath stuttering chopped up samples, again all blurred into something dreamlike and bleary eyed. WOW.
It all might seem a little schizophrenic, and it is, but it's also the best of both worlds, and the key being that the more beat oriented tracks, are still able to function like the more ambient drone based sounds, if you're laying in the dark, headphones strapped on, those beats might not induce you to shake your tail feathers, but they'll still be able to suck you under, to transport you to some crazed soundworld, to totally mesmerize and hypnotize, which makes the whole record either the weirdest most fucked up electronic dance record EVER, or quite possibly just the best Astral Social Club release so far. Maybe both...
Ultra limited new vinyl only release from UK noisemakers Astral Social Club, a perfect follow up to their recent aQ Record Of The Week, Octuplex. But unlike Octuplex, which mixed ASC's new found obsession with beats and dance music (albeit of the very twisted and alien variety) and their more classic ur-drone sound, Plug Music Ramoon, tends toward the latter, 2 sides, 4 loooong tracks, revisiting the sort of old Astral Social Club / Sunroof! / Skullflower sound we're so fond of. Drawn out notes, layered and interwoven, lots of shifting textures and mesmerizing drones, lots of upper register tones, some seriously blown out space drone meditative bliss out for sure. ASC this time around, as evidenced by the insert, are a three piece here, synths, woodwinds, guitar, and LOTS of effects.
The first track is brief and glorious, a smoldering shimmer of looped melodies and layered drones, sun dappled and dreamily fuzzy, very very lovely and warm and hypnotic. The second track, taking up most of side 1, begins as a murky fuzzed out krautjam, like later Skullflower, a simple, motorik beat, buried beneath a swirl of processed sounds and fractured effects, before the swirl explodes into full on cacophony, a wild space rock free jazz freakout, dizzying and dense, fucked up and free, the rhythm all but swallowed up by the massive blown out ball of skree and buzz and glitch, but noisy as it is, still retaining some semblance of melody.
The second side begins with another krautjam, this one much more spare and stripped down, a tribal sort of drum circle workout, very little in the way of wall of sound, more a steady propulsive beat, augmented by subtle bits of clank and clatter, extra percussive filigree, subtle effects, sounding way more like something you'd hear from Avarus or Kemialliset, muted and minimal, slightly mechanical and totally mesmerizing, and most definitely a bit tripped out. The closer is another softly smoldering dronescape, woozy loops, lots of crunch and grind smoothed into further layers of warm buzz and mysterious melody, a little carnivalesque, dizzyingly off kilter, like a symphony of warped 78s, the end result is a short stretch of washed out, soft focus, subtly rhythmic ambient drift that would do Tim Hecker of Philip Jeck proud.
LIMITED TO ONLY 500 COPIES! We had trouble getting enough in to list, so this might be it. Please don't cry if/when we run out. Super nice thick jackets, each one hand numbered, with a thick textured paper insert.
Another spaced out and droned out musical missive from Neil Campbell and his Astral Social Club. This vinyl only release is yet another leap into the unknown, as we follow along with Campbell's continuous exploration of ur-drone and fractured alien techno. Psychic Smog finds Campbell revisiting a more classic ASC sound, with only two tracks exhibiting his newfound love for fractured rhythms and alien dancefloor beatmaking.
Distant soaring painterly melodies swirl over crunchy grinding high end electronics, while below seas of muted cyclical whir roil and churn, overlapped loops become jagged and splinter apart before more layers take their place. The sound goes from tranquil to dense and overdriven and chaotic. The beats, when they do surface, are mechanical and robotic, and are doused in burbly squelching buzz, groovy for sure, but those beats quickly give way to some of the most divine and otherworldy drift Campbell has ever cooked up. Swirly, shimmery and oh so dreamlike, the A side finishing off with a wall of fractured beats, caustic buzz, pulsing crunch, but all infused with plenty of muted bleep and bloop.
The B side is two long tracks, the first, is all delicately druggy ambience, almost post rocky in its slow build to a thick swirly soft cacophony. While the second track is another loping programmed beatscape, the groove galloping through a glimmering field of chopped synth stutter, warped electronic glitchery and sparkling streaks of soft focus shimmer. Not groovy or dance-y so much as rhythmic and almost krautrocky. Awesome!
Pressed on gorgeous swirled pink and red and black and white vinyl, and housed in a full color sleeve.
He may be a master of droned out noise, but he's been flirting with club music on and off for the last few years, each full length hiding at least one dancefloor gem, and so Mr. Neil Campbell, ex of Vibracathedral Orchestra, now of Astral Social CLUB, at least on this here new 7", is all about the tripped out psychedelic electronic groove.
But seeing as this is Neil Campbell, his idea of what constitutes dance music, or even electronica is WAAAAY different than most folks. Just check out the A side here. Maddeningly repetitive, a flurry of bleeps and glitches, swoops and burbles, locked into a relentless loop, the main 'beat' staying steady, while all around it a cloud of FX swirls and shimmers, some seriously druggy electro psych drone for sure.
The second track is all minimal house music, sort of. The main beat a stripped down pulse and squelch, with synthy basslines, and some haunting disembodied piano drifting over the top, making for a truly creepy mash up. Maybe one of our favorite Astral tracks ever!
As with all Trensmat 7" releases, the vinyl comes bundled with a cd-r, featuring both the tracks from the 7", as well as three remixes from Richard Youngs, John Clyde-Evans and Magnetize, ranging from super spastic chopped up electronic madness, to spacey static drenched minimal house groove, to wild Bruce Haack like electronic experimentalism, playful and goofy and over the top.
Don't let all the talk of club music scare you away though, fans of recent Astral Social Club know all about Campbell's wild and off kilter take on dance music, which really ends up having more in common with tripped out psych drone and free noise weirdness than it does with -actual- club music.
Pressed on yellow vinyl, and SUPER limited.
After three years, Astral Social Club returns, the project of Neil Campbell, he formerly of Vibracathedral Orchestra. Originally ASC was a logical sonic offshoot of VCO, but along the way something happened, and ASC was transformed into some strange bit of alien electronica, and this brand new single continues in Campbell's warped dancefloor trajectory.
The A side is some serious cosmic psychedelic space techno or whatever you want to call it. The sound is hazy and shimmery and psychedelic, but it's all about the beats, and the glitches and squelches, arranged into a twisted bit of daft funk, fractured beats, super distorted Casios, buzzing synths, propulsive and frenetic, and growing gradually thicker and darker as the track progresses. The B side is like some twisted ASC house music, a pounding 4 on the floor beat, surrounded by buzzing drones, more glitched out electronics, percussive synths adding sympathetic rhythms, all wound up with tangled distorted melodies, peppered with high end hiss and more tangled tones, some seriously psychedelic space house. The perfect music for your next alien dance party...
SUPER LIMITED, the label doesn't say how many exactly, but there's a good chance that these are the only copies we'll be able to get since we had to pre-order these, and Trensmat only made as many as were ordered...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Two new ones from Mr. Neil Campbell in the last few weeks, formerly a founding member of the mighty Vibracathedral Orchestra, now the main (and only?) man behind Astral Social Club, who continue on in a similar direction as VCO, taking sounds and weaving them into epic ur-drones and outerspace ragas, stretching and looping them into long form sonic chunks launched into the cosmos.
This lp only, two song killer, comes on gorgeous swirled milky blue vinyl, and fills up each side with a single blast of blissed out druggy drift. Side one begins with looped machine like rhythms, which frame a vast pool of liquid sound, cricket like chirps, chunks of fuzz distortion and swirling reverb, glistening bits of synthy sparkle, all building gradually into a manic chattering wall of cyclical fuzz and blur, culminating in a grinding jagged angular coda.
Side two begins with a brief swooshy, flanger flecked krautrocky jam, simple and propulsive, that slowly changes timbre and texture as the effects cycle through, the rhythms and song structure sinking beneath the ever increasing wash of FX, splintering into near tranquil ambience, another ASC slow building celestial wash, undulating swells of synths and electronics, gorgeous and massive and dreamy, sounds a bit like what we imagine it might sound like standing on some alien planet watching a new universe being born from the endless blackness of space. Intense and epic.
As if Vibracathdral Orchestra wasn't prolific enough, VCO mainman Neil Campbell spends his spare time recording even -more- records under the monicker Astral Social Club. This actual cd (not a cd-r). VHF's 100th release, compiles Campbell's favorite tracks from all the various long out of print cd-r's and gives them the remix and remaster super megamix treatment. All tweaked and twisted into one continuous 67 minute spaced out psych collage (although it's tracked for easy listening). But anyone wouldn't want to just sit back and listen to this all the way through is beyond us. A gloriously tripped out psychedelic ambient space rock stretched into pulsing, throbbing buzzy droney bliss. Like the extended outro to every Monster Magnet song all tangled up and mixed together, a blurry, dizzying free rock trip. From hiccupping rhythmic flutter, to super minimal drift, to thick grinding fuzz, to hypnotic krautrock jam and every psychrock stop in between.
For fans of Monster Magnet, Bardo Pond, Spacemen 3, the Telescopes, VCO, Loop, Kinski, EAR and all those sonic spacemen ...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Another mysterious release from the mighty aRCHIVE label who in the past have brought us releases by Bardo Pond, Goslings, Keiji Haino, LSD-March, Growing, Khanate, James Plotkin, Earth, Boris as well as Jack Rose and Tetuzi Akiyama (elsewhere on this week's list), all super limited and amazingly packaged.
Astral Travelling Unity is a Japanese space drone outfit fronted by Hiroshi Hasagawa of legendary Japanoise combo CCCC. But turn back now if 'tis noise ye seek.. ahem... nothing noisy about this disc, this sounds exactly like the name would lead you to believe, deeeeeeep astral drone music for travelling through inner space. Guitars are pulled apart into wispy tendrils, sitars buzz, and that buzz shimmers out into slow lazy ripples, analog synths supply even more buzz and drone, not a thick tangle mind you, this is gloriously spare and spacious, abstract spiritual ur-ambience, the sound of universes forming, with your eyes closed you can see forever and ever and ever. Distant streaks of melody color an infinitive landscape of deep droning swells, glistening song fragments sparkle as they float lazily through a night sky dense with twinkling stars.
The second track is live, so it's a bit more raw, a little bit more lo-fi, with Acid Mothers Temple guitar guru Kawabata Makoto adding some extra guitar and showing an amazing amount of restraint. The raw live sound adds a whole other layer of fuzz and atmospheric ambience as does the addition of some simple percussion. Utterly spaced out and divine!
Amazing packaging. The disc is affixed to a full color two panel sleeve with paintings by Hasagawa, with a color acetate insert printed with another of Hasagawa's oil paintings that lays over the cd, which is printed with an image of a cd-r found washed up on the beach.
LIMITED TO 600 COPIES!!
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One of two new releases from the Frequency Thirteen label, home of TRUE SHEFFIELD BLACK PSYCHEDELIA, as in aQ faves like Black Vomit, Ice Bound Majesty, Skulltrol, Dukkha, Rape Rack and others. Elsewhere on this week's list you'll find the new record from Torture Gnosis, a tripped out disc of celestial lo-fi psychedelic synthscapery and blackened cosmic dronemusic, but this here, the debut from Astral Womb, is exactly the opposite, although from the band name we were maybe expecting something 'astral', but instead these guys kick out some serious noiserock grindprog jams, churning downtuned heaviness, wild octopoidal drumming, buzzing guitar crunch, the songs wildly intricate, the band slipping from churning chug to furious grind to mathy metallic pound to lumbering dirgey doom to dense stop/start dynamics. Like some twisted lo-fi hybrid of the Fucking Champs, the Ruins and Loincloth, with some Lightning Bolt thrown in for good measure. It's like math rock, noise rock, grindcore and maybe a little death metal all tangled up into a lurching chunk of wildly rocking avant heaviness. The recording super lo-fi, giving the sound a seriously raw vibe, and be sure and stick around for the last track, an sprawling 8+ minute math heavy progged out epic, that pretty much pushes all of our heavy rock buttons, furious and frenzied, mathy and heavy, loads of stop/starts, even some weird clean guitar jangle, but for the most part, lurching and lumbering, pounding and blasting, the sort of jam that's a total set ender and leaves the crowd a sweaty bloodied exhausted mess. So killer.
LIMITED TO 50 COPIES!!
Three new tapes from local label Black Horizons this week, all of the artists new to us, EXCEPT Astro, whose Japanoise power electronics crush has always been a favorite around these parts. However here, he offers up his own take on 'New Age', laying down some soft noise komsiche bliss out, a gloriously celestial sprawl of deep rumbles, pulsing synths, and swirling space aged FX, all blurred into a heaving expanse of deep space drift and dizzying starfield synth shimmer, on the verge of total noise collapse, but remaining firmly entrenched on the dreamy side of the divide.
Fear Konstruktor, from Russia, counters with his own brand of cosmic soundscapery, a similarly warped take on new age, it sounds a bit like the Astro side dipped in some sort of viscous fluid, all murky and underwater, burbling and muted, but peppered with wild electronic squiggles, and skittery sonic shards, building eventually to some full on crumbling, corrosive NOISE, which somehow manages to infuse its caustic crunch with the spacey drift that came before. Cool.
Swank packaging, a marbled art mini booklet J-card, printed on glossy plastic stock, housed in a purple case, the tape purple too with metallic stickers on both sides.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
A killer four way split of extreme electronic music, ranging from deep drones to Merzbow style white noise to gorgeous synthy krautdrift, this match-up pits Astro against Pulse Emitter against Acre against Monsturo, three long times aQ faves and one unknown-until-now, each taking half a side and offering up their own bit of electronic punishment.
Japanese one man wrecking crew Astro is up first and lays waste with a blown out assault of roiling super heavy cosmic power electronics, distorted murk barraged by bleeps, in-the-red, distorted and crumbling, bordering on Merzbowish white noise but more clipped and looped and rhythmic and weirdly hypnotic.
Up next is Pulse Emitter, who finds extremity not in volume or distortion but in space, delivering a swirling spaced out sci-fi bit of synth wave kosmische drift, hypnotic and ethereal, no rhythms, just electronic pulses and swirling synths, soft flurries of melodies, floating in a buzzing expanse of near blackness, exactly what we love about PE, a single shot exploration of inner/outer space.
Acre deliver the drone, an impossibly dense and heavy sound, that on the surface seems minimal and pretty, but is somehow sooooo powerful, the layered tones seem to vibrate your skull, minimal maximal dronemusic that manages to be gorgeous but subtly punishing at the same time.
Finally, Monsturo delves even deeper, unfurling some seriously super deep lower register thrum, like an all low-end Raster-Noton, rumbling and rhythmic and barely there, but at the right volume will crumble all the buildings within earshot, as well as causing the Earth's crust to collapse sending you plummeting into its molten core. Awesome.
LIMITED TO 200 COPIES. Each one hand numbered, with a printed insert, and housed in a full color paste on sleeve.
ATTENTION FINNISH MUSIC FREEKS. Record number two from this far out Finnish big band gypsy jazz ensemble. Our apologies to folks who were after the last record, Questral Places, which went out of print before we had a chance to get more in stock, but we've been bugging AQ pal Pentti, founder of the legendary Deep Turtle and head honcho of the Zerga label, to get us some copies of this newer release, 21st Century Drifting Episode. So we waited and waited, heard nothing for ages, and then one day, a big ol' box of these landed on our doorstep, and we're happy to report it's just as amazing as the other disc.
As we mentioned before, fans of Aavikko would do well to check these guys out, as they have a similar exotic flair, but instead of spy movies and Casios, they take their influence from gypsy folk music, big band jazz, and African music. In fact, if we had to describe this in a sentence, we might say Astro Can Caravan sound like a Finnish version of Ethiopiques 4, which is high praise indeed!
Sultry grooves, funky rhythms, lots and lots of horns, but also drums and synths, drums and percussion and spacey effects. The sound is a mysterious exotica, definitely reminiscent of the Ethiopian Grooves we love so much, but there's enough weird noodly synth and buzzing angular new wave elements to make this appeal to fans of Aavikko and other weird jazz groove whatthefuck. The band pepper their African style grooves with bursts of chaotic free jazz, slabs of buzzing synth abuse, but those moments are few and far between, instead, the band deftly cobble together their own unique sound, funky, and soulful, groovy and spiritual, wild and far out. Some tracks are rollicking and fiery, irresistible and the sort of thing that would send a dancefloor into an absolute frenzy. While others are dark and moody, slithery and slow burning.
If you dig any of the following: Coltrane, Sun Ra, Miles Davis, Fela Kuti, Taraf De Haidouks, Keukhot, Ethiopiques, Okros Ensemble, Aavikko, this band will completely kick your ass, or at least get it out of your seat and shaking.
Features a who's who of the Finnish Underground, including Pentti from Deep Turtle on guitar and mandolin. Produced, strangely enough, by Jussi Saivo of mysterious drone alchemists Tiermes. Packaged in a super striking digipak, and be forewarned, we did get a whole bunch of these, but once we run out it might take a little while to get more.
Okay, heads up Finnish music obsessives, especially you Aavikko freaks! Let us introduce you to this massive freaked out weirdo jazz ensemble Astro Can Caravan, which just so happens to feature members of Cosmo Jones Beat Machine and aQ faves Aavikko. And it sounds like it to!
Featuring more than a dozen players (sometimes as many as 18) this ensemble whips up a dizzying and eclectic world of funky jazzy, psychedelic weirdness. Wild guitars, fuzzed out organs, plenty of horns. Spacey future funk wrapped in outer space FX, Ethiopiques style jazz funk, big band jazz gone haywire, long stretches of free jazz freak out, groovy African jazz. You can definitely hear bits of Coltrane, Miles Davis, Fela Kuti and Sun Ra and of course some Aavikko style space jazz funk freakiness.
Wild and fun, weird and far out. But plenty groovy and jazzy and funky. Perfect dance party music for sure. If you love the Ethiopiques but always wished it was just a little bit more psychedelic and freaked out, well then friends, Astro Can Caravan may be just what you've been hankering for...
That would be one of the most ridiculous names for a band ever, if we didn't know that it's a conglomeration of names reflecting the international collaborative lineup here: members of Astro (Hiroshi Hasegawa, Japan), Jazkamer (Lasse Marhaug and John Hegre, Norway), and Hair Stylistics (Masaya Nakahara, Japan), natch. Well it's still pretty ridiculous but at least it makes some sense. Not so sure about the album title, but at least it's an attention-getter. Another attention-getter: this is one of them limited releases on the aRCHIVE label. Just 600 copies. And with usual aRCHIVE special packaging, the cd on a plastic nipple attached to a glossy tri-fold diecut cardboard sleeve, with graphics by Marhaug: the Ghost Rider on the front, and incongruous images of Johnny Cash and, uh, Mr. T on the back and inside, non-sequitur style. It's all about *attitude* we guess. Mr. T? He pity the motorcycle fuck fool!!! That's the spirit. Yeah, you want attention? Just try cranking this up loud. One track, 46 minutes, recorded live in Japan 3/3/2007. The three-word-description: Distorted. Noisy. Insanity. This is Merzbow territory, folks. Grinding overloaded amp-blasting electronic skree, a dense howling storm of unfettered feedback n' noise, static-y but far from static, in fact totally in motion, an active, extreme, almost-psychedelic freakout. Seemingly every noisemaking device and/or effect these guys possess juiced up and sent into the fray. That there's enthusiastic applause at the end of this disc, rather than simply the stunned silence of what remained of a numbed audience (read: victims) is amazing. But of course, this was in Japan!
Need we repeat, LIMITED TO 600 COPIES...
Between his two projects Loveliescrushing and Astrobrite, Scott Cortez has been dissecting My Bloody Valentine's epic swansong album "Loveless," and presenting two equally valid extrapolations upon that album. With Loveliescrushing, Cortez and Melissa Arpin-Henry have explored the fragile dreaminess of the MBV sound, while Astrobrite takes on the more explosive noise pop of that album with huge, blissed-out layers of controlled guitar distortion bent into lilting melodies and burying those archetypal Brit-pop constructions found in My Bloody Valentine, Teenage Filmstars, and Ride. While Loveliescrushing offered greater distance between themselves and My Bloody Valentine, Astrobrite's "8 Candy" is a deadringer for "Loveless," right down to the andrgynous vocals (provided all by Cortez). This is one of best of the "Loveless" mimics: as a result, it's nothing new. But, considering what he's paying homage to, Cortez's Astrobrite is pretty great.
Astrobrite is the candy-colored, shoegaze-pop project fronted by Scott Cortez, who's better known for his snowblinded guitar driftscapes in Lovesliescrushing. At one time, Astrobrite was a trio, but Cortez soon adopted the name for his own use; this album appears to be one of the Cortez-only incarnations of Astrobrite, originally released on cd by Clair Records in 2001. For both Lovesliescrushing and Astrobrite, Cortez' guitarwork follows all the great shoegaze guitar impressionists - My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Swervedriver, Ride, etc. - although both projects are the opposite sides of the same coin. Those Lovesliescrushing albums shed pretty much all of the song-structure from the classic shoegazing sound to amass endless waves of softly crushed smears of distortion and oceanic, narcotizing drones. Like Belong and Christian Fennesz, Lovesliescrushing seemed to be pondering what Kevin Shields might have done as an encore for Loveless, but within Astrobrite, Cortez indulges in pure mimesis of shoegaze bliss-pop at its finest. These blown out four-track recordings could easily be some lost set of MBV recordings circa 1989, complete with androgynous whispered vocal harmonies and whammy-bar tone bending. Given the recent retread of washed out noise-pop by way of Pains Of Being Pure At Heart and Beach Fossils, a revisitation into the sugarsmacked sound of Astrobrite makes a hell of a lot of sense. Bright translucent red vinyl and a download coupon complete the package. Nice!
Of all the Ukrainian black metal hordes we love, all of which seem to share members, be it Drudkh, Blood Of Kingu, Hate Forest, Nokturnal Mortum, Lucifugum, Mistigo Varggoth Darkestra and the like, Astrofaes seems to be the only one we've never reviewed, which is definitely a shame, since most of the black metallers around here dig that band as much as any of the others. So in some weird way this almost seems appropriate, even though the band has released six full lengths, their 1998 debut will be the first one to make it on the list. Recently reissued by Negative Existence, Dying Emotions Domain should most definitely hit the spot for fans of any of the above mentioned outfits, and since it's their debut, it's the most raw, the sound simultaneously lo-fi but also impossibly heavy, the guitars super distorted, the sound informed by lots of classic metal as well as more grim blackness, the riffing definitely not run of the mill black metal, the chugging and churning peppered with cool little licks and trills, the guitar so blown out the sound is transformed into a blurred in-the-red warmth, as opposed to a frosty buzz, everything underpinned by soaring majestic synths, the vocals buried in the mix, the drums pretty kick ass but down in the mix as well, it's all about those riffs and that crazy super saturated guitar sound, just check out the sample below for "Fiery Mysticism" and you'll know just what we mean. They also cover a Celtic Frost track and pretty much make it their own, there are also some hints of the folk that would inform later bands, but for the most part this is just a pretty serious slab of blown out blackness, that anyone into buzzing old school black metal (Ukrainian or otherwise) will probably dig big time.
Most folks know that we are pretty picky and particular when it comes to contemporary jazz. Of course we're not that into it when it's too straight ahead, but we're also not the biggest fan of wanky, aimless skronk sessions. So it takes a lot for a new jazz album to win us over, but these two long jams by San Francisco's Astronaut Body Four, are really hitting the spot, some seriously forward thinking, left-field jazz for sure. The A side is the 18 minute track "Citizen's Day Parade" which starts off like some lost vintage early '70s psych-jazz complete with awesome mystical sounding flute, and as it progresses a really odd but wonderful keyboard that sounds as if its being channeled from another planet, enters the fold and along with the sax, bass and drums the track takes all kinds of twists and turns, including some serious skronk, which instead of being annoying actually serve as great moments of tension building and release.
The B side is another long one, the 20 minute track "Murder City Planetarium" which starts with a very moody and voyeuristic vibe, reminding us of moments from one of our very favorite films of all time, "The Conversation." As the track continues on it maintains that subtle sense of suspense, leading up to a charged, chaotic freak out, and then ending on a note of deranged elegance. Awesome.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Awesome zine from AQ pal Jon Dale who also just happens to run the equally awesome Rhizome label. Dense and well written and most importantly, fun to read. Features on Bill Wells, Shirley Collins, David Behrman, Future Pilot AKA, Tim Barnes, Hall Of Fame, Tower Recordings and a big ol' chunk of opinionated reviews! Fans of the Wire and Signal To Noise would do well to check this out.
Sure, these heavy jam-kicker-outters from Sweden are yet another '70s lovin' stoner rock band hoping to become the Scandinavian Kyuss, joining the ranks of Mammoth Volume, Roachpowder, Spiritual Beggars, Terra Firma, etc. I mean, the Swedish government must
Astroqueen (who in homage to the second half of their name use a detail from Queen's "News Of The World" album cover for the back of their cd) are not to be confused with the also awesome and similarly "astro" Dutch stoner rockers Astrosoniq, although we did, which was a good thing 'cause otherwise we might have overlooked this excellent release!
