Right from the beginning, the second recording from Avsolutized to make the list, this time an earlier demo tape, limited to 99 copies, of which we got the last dozen, so these will no doubt go FAST.
Right out of the gate, these Japanese black metal weirdos demonstrate exactly why we've barely been able to keep their cd in stock, with some haunting clean guitar and some INSANE falsetto vocals, like an unhinged hair metal howl, that slips from guttural grunt to warbly croon all the way back up to that freaky falsetto, in a single stretch, and then the band kicks in, exploding in a frenzy of beautifully blown out black buzz, and chaotic drumming, and those vocals continuously slipping and sliding and soaring all over the place.
The buzz slips dramatically into some woozy more midtempo Burzumic lopes, with the guitars unfurling soaring melodies and haunting atmospherics, always grounded by a sudden burst of howling screeches or a burst of off kilter rhythms and machine like flurries of blast beat mayhem. Weird to think we might not have ever heard these guys if they hadn't just emailed us out of the blue. Even weirder is that we just discovered there may be some link between Avsolutized, and their equally demented black metal countrymen Arkha Sva, especially considering the distinctive Arkha calligraphy that adorns the tape cover. But none of that matters once you're immersed in the swirling black world of Avsolutized, furious and blackened and heavy, all twisted into strange shapes and tangled up with those insane and impossible vocals, and some seriously inhuman lightspeed drumming. And again, LIMITED TO 99 COPIES! We have less than 15. Each one housed in a cool extra paneled tape cover, and each one hand numbered.
Eight brand new tracks of pummelling blasting grind from these Buffalo thrashers (not actual thrashers of buffalos, but thrashers -from- Buffalo). Insane blast beats with a dual vocal attack (one bark, and one growl, the growl being maybe one of the best
Could this be any cooler of a concept for aQuarius consumption?! It's a disc of urban field recordings, it's on the always-excellent experimental Utech label, and it's by none other than Michel "Away" Langevin, best known as the amazing drummer and visual art director of French-Canadian sci-fi prog-thrash metal legends VOIVOD!! Heck, we love Voivod, we love Utech, and we love found sounds and environmental recordings. And this is a good one. Away, who did the cool cover art in his distinctive Voivodian style, has apparently been keeping his ears active outside of playing in his band, seeking out and recording interesting sounds - from the natural to the man-made, and often musical - while wandering about his hometown of Montreal or wherever in the world Voivod's touring has taken him. As per the album title, the pieces on this disc were each recorded in different cities - Montreal, Chicago, Mexico City, and various burgs in Europe. Edited into concentrated sound-collages, each track here holds many unique charms, rapidly unfolding in seamlessly seguing ambient soundbites, this sorta "plunderphonic" approach to real world recordings getting somewhat dizzying in its kaledoscopic changes from moment to moment. You'll hear the droning hum of passing traffic, industrial noises, church bells chiming, loudspeaker announcements, birds twittering, crowds chanting (sports fans? protesters?), what sounds like an ethnic festival or three, and lots of MUSIC, snippets of many sorts - it's part of our environment more than we know, as this disc proves. Away's microphone was drawn to all kinds of busking street musicians, marching bands, radios playing in stores, boom boxes blaring� there's pop and classical and gypsy folk and more.
These recordings sound celebratory at times, intimate at others, but always convey a sheer love of sound. They definitely transport the listener, as effective field recordings do, right into very specific and "real" yet still somehow mysterious places and times. Anyone who likes the methodology of many of the Sublime Frequencies releases that take us armchair travellers to other lands will enjoy delving into this.
We've read that Away has said, "I've always been fascinated by field recordings, tape collage and musique concrete. I was introduced to it by [late Voivod guitarist] Piggy as a youngster." Still, who would have thought that Away's first solo album would be a disc of field recordings?
It's interesting, since Voivod tends to imaginationally explore the outer reaches of the cosmos in their space-metal constructs, that for this solo project Away would come up with something so "down to earth", but the spirit of exploration is the same.
As usual with Utech, a nicely designed package, comes in slim but heavy black jacket printed with Away's art in metallic silver and white ink. Limited to 500 copies.
Getting a bit caught up with our friends to the north at Mint Records... We've just gotten in a few new and new-to-us titles on this fine Vancouver indie label (this one as well as some by Neko Case's early band Maow, Buttless Chaps, The Pack A.D. and Immaculate Machine)!
This pop gem is from a couple of years back, but still sounds fresh as a daisy! Psst, we also just got their more recent album Slimming Mirrors, Flattering Lights (it's not reviewed yet, so if you'd like to order it just ask!).
From the garden that bloomed those New Pornographers, Destroyer, Zumpano... Awww, you know the pop city we're talking about -- Vancouver! Here's a fresh new addition to us, but the faces aren't necessarily unfamiliar having played with and been buddies with the bands mentioned above among many other aQ fave Canadians. The Awkward Stage's debut album will surely geek the ears of soft-hearted, smart-lyric'd pop fans. No surprises it's on Mint Records (Canuck home to the NPs, Neko Case, Ms Mark, Duotang, I Am Spoonbender, The Organ, and many others). As we've come to know and love about Canadian indie popsters, these folks are terrific songsmiths, unabashedly earnest and romantic, but not without a sharply witty barb or a, yes awkwardly, dorky self-deprecating line here and there. Guitars have plenty of jangle and crunch. There's nice variations in rhythm, tempo, and percussion choices. And Shane Nelken's smooth sensitive guy lead vocals are sweetly charming and complimented well by The Choir Practice's Coco Culbertson's backing vocals on songs like . Co-produced by New Pornographer Kurt Dahle. If you dig The NPs, The 1900s or Peter Bjorn And John, we recommend you give this a spin!
A terrific sophomore release from The Awkward Stage has made its way down the West Coast to our eager ears. What is it in that Vancouver water that sprouts such dandy melodic sensibilities? On Slimming Mirrors, Flattering Lights, the dulcet drowsy voiced Shane Nelkin and company may initially come across as unassuming, and at times, yes, maybe slightly awkward, but in the most charmingly distinctly Canadian way. Then they wheel out their (also distinctly Canadian) guitar pop chops, and watch ears start pricking up and toes start tapping. Hot on their heels come a graceful tickling of the ivories and some buoyant bright horns (that gave us the nostalgic warm fuzzies for Zumpano), and well, away we goooo! The Awkward Stage casually nestle catchy hooks into both smooth and crunchy settings with delightful results. We're guessing they were raised on '60s pop and '70s soft rock (a la Raspberries, Sweet, Bread, Chicago, etc), and nurtured in the neighborhood of fellow Vancouverites The New Pornographers, the abovementioned Zumpano, and Immaculate Machine. Heck, Nelkin played with both A.C. Newman and Jason Zumpano's Sparrow for a spell. We also think this may tickle your fancy if you dig Hidden Cameras, Arcade Fire, Sloan and Interpol too. When this has been played in the store pop loving folks have asked, "Ooh, what's this?" and often take one home with them!
Finally! The long out of print nineties releases from legendary industrial / power electronics / UK noise / black drone one man band AX once again see the light of day. Longtime fans of the mighty Skullflower, will no doubt be familiar with AX, the project of one time SF member Anthony Di Franco, who also did time in a number of other bands you might also be familiar with: Ramleh, Novatron, Ethnic Acid, JFK. But we always had a soft spot for AX, whose first two vinyl lps (collected here), Nova Feedback and II, originally released in 1994 and 1995 respectively, were for some of us our first taste of power electronics, and unlike much of the more harsh, ear shredding power electronics, AX trafficked in something much more droned out, a sound that whether intentionally or not, seemed to foreshadow the sort of slowburn sludge, and crumbling slo-mo ultra-doom that would follow. It's hard not to hear hints of Earth and SUNNO))) and Bunkur and Khanate or even groups like Troum and Maeror Tri, for all of its noise, and it IS noisy, that noise is sculpted in such a way as to render it impossibly listenable, totally hypnotic, and utterly mesmerizing. You can almost imagine a primitive hybrid of Troum and SUNNO))), the dark trancelike dronescape of the former, fused to the impossible black hole heaviness of the latter, but then the whole thing doused in a haze of caustic industrial crunch, and liberal swaths of grinding howling feedback.
This collection opens up strangely enough with one track that is NOT from either of those two 12"s, but is instead plucked off AX's only proper full length cd, 1997's Astronomy, but that track, "Kortex", is definitely the perfect opener, and in some ways the perfect introduction to AX. The doomiest of the bunch by far, due in no small part to its plodding slow motion 'beat', a gristly metronomic crunch, that sounds like a snare hit slowed down a hundred times and run through a bank of dead distortion pedals, over which Di Franco lays down a churning layer of crumbling blackened distortion, wreathing those plodding squashed bug beats in squalls of overloaded powergrid buzz, it's a sort of primitive electron-level ultra doom, snakelike tendrils of hiss wrapped around sheets of grinding metallic buzz, all driven by that sinister blacknoise pulse. Which leads directly into "Nova Feedback 1", a swirling psychedelic wash of rumbling black buzz, and phased out thrum, evoking the whole guitar-against-the-amp style near-static minimalist doomdirge. Fans of the late great Vulture Club and other practitioners of that sort of doomdronedrift will be in heaven.
"Heavy Fluid" is near symphonic, a sprawling 11 minute soundscape of layered guitar buzz, gristly electronics, shards of static, clouds of hiss, some serious proto-SUNN extreme slo-mo heaviness, which had us thinking a bit of another recent aQ fave, Blackwolfgoat, unfurling an endless cascade of woozy guitar buzz and melting blackened psychedelic riffage, the tones shifting constantly, as if someone was continually fiddling with the pitch knob, or more likely, an endless fiddling with the tuners, letting notes morph into other notes, to dip down into an even murkier thrum, before slowing drifting into a near howl. The sort of track, that we could listen to ENDLESSLY, only really exploding about 8 minutes in, when the original detuned creep is barraged by scrapes and squiggles and an avalanche of still more roiling guitarnoise. There are moments of pure noise, "Theme One", is in fact pretty much a four minute blast of face melting, ultra corrosive, blacknoise blur, but it almost acts like a palette cleanser, as it leads directly into the title track, which might be the most tranquil jam here, again foreshadowing the sort of bleak black soundscapery of groups like Wolf Eyes or Blue Sabbath Black Cheer or Gnaw Their Tongues, a gorgeously abject stretch of haunting post industrial buzz and hum, super cinematic, laced with all manner of grinding guitar noise, and strange moans and creaks, slipping easily from hushed drift, to cavernous bellow, and back again.
We then move into the two tracks from AX's II 12", the first a 10+ minute of grinding power electronics bliss out, which after an opening blast of speaker destroying crunch, seems to gradually settle into something more spaced out and atmospheric, but really no less noisy, buried voices, shards of feedback, and all manner of metallic crunch, are blurred and smeared into a softly heaving sprawl of dense, droned out, psychedelic free-noise drift. The second part begins as a low level hum, distant heaving moans buried beneath layers of static and hum, super dense and tense, the perfect cue for the final shot in some long lost seventies horror movie, but soon the haunting elements are all but subsumed by the swirling noise, the result a roiling sea of hiss and howl, grinding metals and churning buzz.
Finally, the collection finishes off with the last two tracks from Nova Feedback, the first, a dreamily psychedelic swirl of prismatic deconstructed guitar shimmer, and process chordal whirl, pulsing and pulsating, easily the prettiest track here, those strange melodies a recurring theme throughout the track, but gradually pulled apart and recontextualized, drifting dreamily one second, chopped up, looped and layered the next, wreathed in delay and reverb, and sent swirling into the ether, keening melodies over soft focus background guitarnoise, here rendered a dreamlike haze, totally hypnotic, and strangely tranquil. And finally, "Cluster" finishes things off, with what sounds like a classic chunk of black metal buzz, but here looped and layered and stretched out into an endless stretch of guitarbuzz mesmer, again reminding us of Blackwolfgoat, or perhaps Mick Barr, if he was restrained to just using the lowest strings, but that sort of near symphonic buzz, a churning tangle of blackened riffage, but blurred into something much more amorphous, a dreamlike cloud of psychedelic black shimmer, that is the perfect finish, to a near perfect collection.
Needless to say EXTREMELY recommended, and not just for nineties industrial obsessives (although obviously, for those folks, this is a no brainer), but if you dig minimal guitar mesmer, psychedelic doom, abstract heaviness, post industrial soundscaping, all strains of drone, especially heavy guitardrone, this collection will blow your mind.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
David Axelrod, whose resume includes a stint as Cannonball Adderley's producer as well as some time in the Electric Prunes, "Earth Rot" is a paisley clad polemic from the '70s on the pending destruction of the earth as a result of enviromental abuse. Excessively decorated with lots of orchestral flares and bass guitar noodle, this is pretty much a psychedelic choral number that mimics "Hair" in melodrama albeit with a different ideological bent.
Another often overlooked ambitious album in the amazing career of producer/arranger/musical mastermind David Axelrod. Unlike the orchestrated and conceptual records he made earlier in his career, this 1975 album is all about the totally deep and funky jazz. Very much an album of its time, this is some over the top fusion jazz-funk action that definitely has its moments but can get very very wanky. That said, there are plenty of moments that you could imagine J Dilla sampling, or snippets that would fit so perfectly on the Beastie Boys record Pauls Boutique. Kind of like a 70's cop show meets porno soundtrack vibe. If you don't have any David Axelrod in your music collection (which you should remedy post haste!) this isn't necessarily the place to start. Try, Songs Of Innocence or the great collection The Edge: David Axelrod At Capitol Records 1966-1970, as those really capture the true genius and innovation of Axelrod. But for those who want to dig deeper into his sound or just have a sweet soft spot for this era in all its funky weirdness then we say why not go seriously deep?
So good! Axelrod founded the "black music" division of Capitol records in the '60s. During his reign at Capitol he produced amazing records by Cannonball Adderley, Lou Rawls and David McCallum. He also pretty much created the two weirdest Electric Prunes albums. What has been hardest to track down are three of his own records during that era: Songs of Experience, Songs Of Innocence, and Earth Rot. On these, Axelrod put together an orchestra of sound complete with strings, hammond organ and a super rich backbeat that's been sampled and worshiped by the likes of DJ Shadow, Madlib and Dr Dre. This collection compiles tracks from those three albums as well as a few choice cuts he produced for other artists at Captiol circa '66-'70. His sound is one that laid the foundation for the explosion in fusion which would happen in the '70s. Miles Davis always gave props to Axelrod and one could argue that he was very responsible for helping lay the foundation for a work like Bitches Brew to be born. Taking the richness of soul, the freedom of jazz, elements of classical composition and hints of rock and psych-pop Axelrod is one of the few guys who can get away with wearing sunglasses inside 'cause he was just that cool!
Yet another reissue from the illustrious Southern California black metal collective known as the Black Twilight Circle, this one from the oddly monikered Axeman, whose lone 2010 demo was previously only available as a super limited cassette, but is now available again, as a slightly less limited lp.
As we mentioned in our reviews of some other recent Black Twilight reissues (Odz Manouk, Tuukaria), the Black Twilight Circle is modeled after the infamous French Black Legions, which included bands like Mutiilation, Vlad Tepes, with just a small handful of members, each playing in different groups in different arrangements. Volahn, the man behind Axeman, also performs under his own name, as well as in a number of other lesser known projects, and at one time played both in Bone Awl (live) and Ashdautus. In Axeman, though, Volahn mixes his old school crusty black thrash with classic eighties style metal, at least on the opener "Metnal", with its synth laden, spidery minor key opener, that sounds like some lost metal ballad, before kicking into full on rocking, rife with wild shredding leads, and chaotic drumming, we'd have ben happy if that was the total of Axeman's sound, but instead, the sound shifts to a more chugging dirgemetal, with raspy vokills, before finally exploding into some blasting thrashing metallic mayhem, raw, primitive, chaotic and loose, the shredding leads returning, and the sound shifting back to that classic metal sound that opened the track. "Kosmic Death" is a much black beast, frantic and frenzied, way more black metal, a murky lo-fi onslaught that is as filthy and buzzy as anything else we've heard from the Black Twilight bands, with some awesome King Diamond like falsetto wails. And finally, "Attestor of Doom And Birth" is a wild blast of old school black thrash, the sound so blown out and distorted, it often turns into a dense wall of droned out buzz, but when the buzz is dialed back a a bit, a tangle of buried melody is revealed, and soon the leads return, which definitely add something special, as most black metal seems to have dispensed with guitar solos entirely. Here it just gives the sound a classic speed/thrash metal vibe, which is a cool match with Axeman's more grim sinister murky leanings. The production is awesomely lo-fi too, with the tape hiss sometimes so loud it's like another instrument, which again, just adds to the atmosphere, and if you're like us, make it sounds even cooler.
Full color printed inner sleeves and nice thick black and red jackets.
[note: The sound is a bit less lo-fi on the lp, these samples were made from the tape version]
ALSO ON CD!!!
A while back we reviewed Three Virgins, the 1986 debut from NZ pop weirdos the Axemen, and as a frame of reference for what sort of deviant pop to expect, we mentioned Strapping Fieldhands, Guided By Voices, Sebadoh, Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments and older outfits like Captain Beefheart, the Velvet Underground, we also posited that these guys would have sounded right at home on legendary label Shimmy Disc. Well by 1989, very little had changed when the Axemen unleashed their second long player, Derry Legend. If anything, the songwriting was better, with some crazy catchy poppiness tucked amidst the sonic chaos, but otherwise, the sound was as ramshackle and al over the map as ever. The sound has definitely got some Flying Nun DNA running through it for sure. But those genes were mutating big time, and whatever similarities these guys shared with their fellow 'Nuns, the Clean, the Chills, the Bats, in the Axemen, those sounds were all twisted and tangled up into warped and warbly shapes, the sounds melty and druggy, loose and wild, and on the edge of total collapse. No surprise that Derry Legend was one of Kurt Cobain's favorite records, cuz it definitely has much in common with lots of his other faves: The Vaselines, Half Japanese, the Shaggs, etc. From snarly, snotty, swaggery jangle glam pop, to noisy, stumbly, fuzz drenched post punk, to hazy, drugged out fug-pop balladry (replete with Velvets style 'do-do-do-do' background vox), to damaged twee pop warble, to organ driven garage rock crunch, to almost fifties sounding rock and roll, to ominous, brooding drug folk, these guys tied all these disparate sounds into one ever-shifting, outsider mutant pop that will have weirdo pop obsessives freaking the fuck out!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Furious '80s garage punk from Australia on the fabulous Flying Nun label.
Originally released in the eighties on legendary New Zealand label Flying Nun, the Axemen's Three Virgins remained mostly unheard by all but the most extreme of NZ underground obsessives, sort of makes sense that it would end up on Siltbreeze, whose pop roster should give you an idea of what to expect from these Axemen: Strapping Fieldhands, Guided By Voices, Sebadoh, Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments, to those references you could also add the Velvets, Beefheart, and even more appropriately, to these ears at least, would be seminal East Coast outsider label Shimmy Disc. The Axemen traffic in a fractured, stumbling, keening, detuned lo-fi pop, the guitars atonal, occasionally buzzy and crunchy, otherwise spidery and jangly, the songs laced with plink plonk piano, whistling, the drums strangely produced, usually buried in the mix, spidery guitar leads wrapped around warped and warbly melodies, and the vocals, seriously out there, this is a pop record after all, so it's the vocals that really drive things, the various voices seem less concerned with being in tune, and more with energy and exuberance, they're high, whiny, plaintive, sorta sad boy, but delivered with gusto, howled in places, crooned in others, the harmonies slightly off, defiantly tuneless in places, adding another bit of whatthefuck to the already cracked vibe, which is augmented further by some awesomely tripped out weirdness, that sounds in places like a more tuneful (just barely) Dead C, or some primitive tape experiment, or some warped boom box DJ collage or even like some sort of lysergic sixties psych folk, all of the various elements constantly shifting, and mutating, and getting all tangled up with each other, the sound poppy one second, droney and dirgey the next, fuzzy and psychedelic one second, detuned and demented the next, but always confusional and off kilter, a pretty brilliantly baffling slice of primo eighties NZ underground sound for sure.
Pressed on nice thick vinyl, housed in an eye popping gatefold jacker, and LIMITED TO 600 COPIES!! Includes a download coupon.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Awesome droning avant metal. A bit industrial, a little black, very dark and creepy.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
While I was listening to this the first time, I found myself literally singing along, making up words, something like "I love noise rock, I surely do" kind of facetiously, but as this record played on, I realized I actually still do. And this here slab of noise rock in particular. Dug the recent Axolotl cd and this cd-r is just as good. A swirling mess of drones and clatter and deconstructed melodies and propulsive almost rhythms and weird snatches of sonic detritus, all muddled up into a totally listenable, surprisingly catchy, really fucking good burst of avant/free/folk/noise/rock!
We totally dig local free noise one man band Axolotl, and were ready for another blast of gorgeously abstract drone, clatter and skree when we threw this on, but holy cow is this record completely something else. We had to keep checking to see what we were listening to.
Some of the elements are certainly similar, but it's way dreamier and laid back, muted and murky, subtly propulsive, it actually sounds quite a bit like Oval or Gas! Which is a VERY good thing. Slow shifting underwater drift, a looped hypnotic dreamworld, rich waves of warm sound, a totally gorgeous abstract minimal ambience. So so so good!
SUPER LIMITED! 525 COPIES. Each copy is hand numbered and has a cool paste on cover.
Even though Axolotl was San Francisco based, for some reason it was always difficult for us to get many of his releases. Most were extremely limited, a few times we managed to get merely a handful before they disappeared, but for the most part they came and went before we even discovered they were out.
Axolotl may have moved away, but he also started up his own little label, concentrating on releasing various bits of sonic Axolotica. Live shows, impromptu jams, and various other recorded sonic happenings. And thankfully this time we have a direct line to the source, and we've got copies of all three titles in the first batch. All packaged in miniature dvd-style cases, with photocopied covers and some with a little xeroxed insert. And while we're not sure just how limited these are, we're fairly sure it's VERY.
Live is a collection of live recordings (duh) from all over the globe, two from London, one from Glasgow, one from Amsterdam, one from right here in San Francisco, and two live on KALX. The London shows are much noisier than normal, dense clouds of crumbling distortion, static and hiss, but as always, melodies swirl beneath the skree, the various textures changing shape constantly, dizzying, and on the very dreamy pleasant side of noisy. The Glasgow show is a rich thick fluid drone assembled from glowing layers of burnished guitar shimmer and distant choir like vocals. The first KALX show is a deep tripped out druggy swirl, voices and fragments of melodies, all spinning drowsily, the second a super percussive steel string workout that sounds like solo dulcimer or something. San Francisco is a tripped out tribal drug jam, murky percussion, a haze of high end jangle, fluttering feedback, and tiny little squalls of buzz and skree. And finally, the Amsterdam show, a long stretch of high end hiss, manipulated tape, and fuzzy warbly static, all woven into a surprisingly dreamy drone. Once again, fantastic stuff.
Long overdue collection of out of print material from SF based free noise sound sculptor Axolotl. Collecting tracks from the Jyrk cd-r Oranur, the Spirit Of Orr cd-r Object Phantom and the more recent Gypsy Sphinx 12" Chemical Theater.
As much as we pretty much love everything Axolotl has done, and as much as we're psyched to have some of the older stuff on a real cd, this disc is worth it alone for the two tracks from the Chemical Theater 12", the first record where we noticed a distinct stylistic shift in Axolotl's sound. Here's what we had to say about those tracks:
"We had to keep checking to see what we were listening to. Some of the elements are certainly similar, but it's way dreamier and laid back, muted and murky, subtly propulsive, it actually sounds quite a bit like Oval or Gas! Which is a VERY good thing. Slow shifting underwater drift, a looped hypnotic dream world, rich waves of warm sound, a totally gorgeous abstract minimal ambience."
Sounds pretty great huh? Well, it is. And the two tracks from Chemical Theater are nearly twenty minutes long! Basically half of the 12". Including the 11+ minute glorious dreamy drone "Illiaster".
But the funny thing is, revisiting the older tracks, they are just as good somehow, sounding way more fuzzy and blown out and beautiful than we remember. And we definitely remember digging them, a lot, but they sound SO great... Thick washes of murky gritty grime, drones that twist and rumble and give way to fragmented bits of melody. Soft focus stretches of pixelated ambience, guitar strums that come apart, the notes drifting in all different directions, each note enveloped in its own little swath of buzz or fuzz, simple percussion, damaged rhythms, all wrapped in a dense fog of glowing guitar growl and fuzzed out feedback...
So recommended.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Not sure what happened to Axolotl, but at some point his noises got way less noisy, and everything started to sound a lot fuzzier and beautifully disoriented, almost like a few records back, the band stepped into a thick puddle of sonic quicksand, and every record they've sunk a little bit deeper, everything getting more and more fuzzed out and murky, buzzy and indistinct, until now, heck they must be neck deep, cuz everything sounds about as blissed out as can be.
Like an indie rock underground version of Mink Ink's Gas, Axolotl are now firmly in the Pop Ambient camp as far as we're concerned. Thick swirling sheets of ambience, guitars are fuzzy and drift like fat soft clouds, melodies are buried all the way at the bottom of about a million layers of grit and hum and whir, allowing us only brief glimpses, and letting occasional fragments float to the surface. Within this warm dense swirl is a pulse, a beat, a rhythm, often impossible to pick out, occasionally just loud enough to be heard over the soft din, a little like hearing a heartbeat through someone's down overcoat, a distant blurry thump, that almost just sounds like a random dynamic disturbance in the dreamlike hiss of each song's tranquil drift.
There are always a lot of amazing records vying for the coveted late night listening position, you know the perfect disc to relax to, to read along with, or best of all, to free your mind and send you drifting off into some relaxed, not-quite-sleep but dreamily blissed out headspace, and this Axolotl disc (a reissue of a super limited, out of print cd-r) has has pretty much knocked out all other contenders!
Amazingly gorgeous packaging too, a white folded over sleeve with embossed reflective silver printing, a textured pattern on the front, bold type on the back. Really striking.
Even though Axolotl was San Francisco based, for some reason it was always difficult for us to get many of his releases. Most were extremely limited, a few times we managed to get merely a handful before they disappeared, but for the most part they came and went before we even discovered they were out.
Axolotl may have moved away, but he also started up his own little label, concentrating on releasing various bits of sonic Axolotica. Live shows, impromptu jams, and various other recorded sonic happenings. And thankfully this time we have a direct line to the source, and we've got copies of all three titles in the first batch. All packaged in miniature dvd-style cases, with photocopied covers and each with little xeroxed insert. And while we're not sure just how limited these are, we're fairly sure it's VERY.
Trade Ye No Mere Moneyed Art is the first release on Loci, and is everything we've come to love about Axolotl. Slow drifting mursckapes, swirls of muted percussion and disembodied guitar blur, soft edged effects, thick layers of whirring synth, crumbling bits of distortion, long static rumbles, subtly shimmering overtones, insectoid buzz, electronic glitch, and thick blown out sun dappled dreamlike drones. So nice.
- MPEG stream: 1
- MPEG stream: 2
A brand new full length from local noisemaker Axolotl. We've carried loads of releases from this one man band, almost all of them cd-r's and thus almost all of them now out of print. Way Blank is actually, as far as we can tell, only the second proper cd (not cd-r) release so far, and we're glad it's a real cd, cuz it's pretty awesome.
Following up the Chemical Theater 12", Axolotly continues on the road toward a fuzzier dreamier place, more Gas and M83 and Tim Hecker than Yellow Swans and Wolf Eyes.
Everything is soft and fuzzy and bathed in a warm whirring glow. The opener "Penuma" sounds like it could have been plucked right off one of the Pop Ambient collections. Buried vocals, drifting melodic murk, all wrapped in thick slow shifting layers of fuzzy glistening sonic gauze. The second track is similarly murk and indistinct, but manages to build abstract rhythms out of crumbling distorted sonic fragments, a rumbling, creaking, whirring soundscape that builds into a massive wall of pitch shifting fuzz. Pretty glorious sounding actually. Massive and dramatic and so dreamy.
The rest of the tracks are all variations on the same glorious theme, blurry indistinct smears of foggy soft focus sound, buried melodies and distant sonic shadows, everything whirling and swirling, a cloudy ambient abstract drift through a warbly world of warm colors. A gorgeous new direction for Axolotl, one we definitely hope he'll continue to explore, joining his new sonic brethren, Gas, Tim Hecker, Fennesz, Basinski, et al., as they chart meandering dreamlike journeys into unknown worlds of sound.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
First record from this mysterious troupe, and it's a good one. We heard a little from them on that recent Space Is No Place compilation, but Axolotl is the sort of band that requires a whole record to truly unwind and explore and get us to where we want to go. This is classic, minimal, creepy out-rock music, but minus most of the rock. Damaged drones constructed from warbling synths and moaning ambient flutter, garbled melodies of chopped up voices, excited strings and all sorts of minimally percussive scrabble. There are drones but this is most definitely NOT a drone record, it's far too unsettling and dynamic. The drones are just one of the many elements of Axolotl's otherworldly miasma of sonic muddle and seemingly random sound. Occasionally a machine like rrrroooaaarr emerges from the murk, but manages to remain somehow pleasingly but not at all obviously melodic (a la the Dead C) like an anvil dipped in tar and wrapped in feathers.
This long sought after, long out of print cd-r, released originally on the Jyrk label way back in 2005, is available again for a limited time -- now as a super swank, ultra limited lp from Jefre Cantu Ledesma's (Tarentel) Root Strata label.
Triple threat SF free noise cd-r tag team match up between some names you should probably know by now, Axolotl, the Yellow Swans, and Gerritt. With three times the firepower you might think that would mean three times the noise, but be prepared to be surprised! And soothed. That's right, three lengthy tracks that lean more toward the dreamy minimal drone and the shimmering sheets of sonic skree than the all out noise attack. The first track is a slowly shifting gritty electronic soundscape of hazy melody and electronic buzz and hiss, eventually building into a louder, yet no less swath of drone and glitch hiss. Track two is a bit more in your face, with rich slabs of distorted chords and warm warbly drones, with swooping melodies and electronic mosquito buzz. The final track is twenty minutes of thick churning low end grind and grumble, pulsing with some buried beat, until the whole thing explodes into a huge wall of thick electrogrit and fuzzed out feedback screech. Wow. Really nice.
Limited to 500 copies we think.
Super limited single from these two modern masters of soft noise. The A side is from local boy Karl aka Axolotl, who over the last little while has slowly changed direction, the chaotic thick noisescapes of past records gradually becoming more and more melodic and blissed out. His half of this split continues in that direction, beginning with a brief bit of slowed down processed industrial clatter, which slowly gives way to some super blissy vocal drift. Soft swells, warm wheezing organs, bits of electronics, and disembodied vocals slowly shifting and wrapping themselves around one another. Creating strange subtle shapes and gorgeous harmonies. Lo-fi noise-rock pop ambience for sure...
Inca Ore (now also local wethinks) fills up the flipside with whispered vocals and old music box melodies, suspended in an old fashioned haze, late afternoon sun and dust motes hanging motionless in the beams of fading light. A room full of furniture untouched, old faded photos, a life forgotten. Haunting and creepy, mysterious and strangely cinematic, bits of choral fragments pepper the hushed vocals and simple melodies, sounding like it wouldn't be out of place in a Dario Argento movie.
LIMITED TO 450 COPIES, each one hand numbered, pressed on white vinyl, and packaged in thick sleeves with a photocopied insert.
We managed to get just a handful of these super limited (and seemingly already out of print, arghh!) cd-r's documenting this particular abstract free noise summit, that took place earlier this year live on the air at KDVS in Sacramento. Featuring names you should all be familiar with by now, Axolotl, Mouthus and the Skaters. Not as noisy as one might expect, instead this is some strange ambient industrial workout, murky and muddy, lots of processed vocals, clanging percussion, and weird swells of sound, cloaked in a dense swirl of lo-fi hiss. Sounds like it could be some lost live Throbbing Gristle outtake. Thick squirming guitars, creep and crawl through a craggy soundscape of thick gritty drones and jagged streaks of feedback, while haunting vocals moan and howl above the crepuscular din.
Some vinyl tag team action from these two Bay area based frenzies heavyweights. Axolotl offer up three lengthy tracks, a warped warbly hiss drenched ambient drift with distant singsongy vocals, a soft shimmery cinematic soundscapes, all soft edges, sparkling and glistening, and a crunchy super distorted blown out bliss out. All different but with a distinct certain something that ties them all together and makes them uniquely Axolotl. The Skaters counter with a side long epic, weird birdlike electronics trill and flutter, affected guitar jangles and floats dreamlike, hypnotic vocal loops, lurch and shimmy and eventually blend into a single smeary sound, the whole track dense and murky and warbly and lo-fi but as always so totally soft on the ears.
Gorgeously packaged as are all things on Catsup Plate, this time, metallic textured gold ink on a black sleeve, hand screened with a photocopied insert. SUPER LIMITED. Already out of print at the label, so we might not be able to get more unless they press more!
Even though Axolotl was San Francisco based, for some reason it was always difficult for us to get many of his releases. Most were extremely limited, a few times we managed to get merely a handful before they disappeared, but for the most part they came and went before we even discovered they were out.
Axolotl may have moved away, but he also started up his own little label, concentrating on releasing various bits of sonic Axolotica. Live shows, impromptu jams, and various other recorded sonic happenings. And thankfully this time we have a direct line to the source, and we've got copies of all three titles in the first batch. All packaged in miniature dvd-style cases, with photocopied covers and some with a little xeroxed insert. And while we're not sure just how limited these are, we're fairly sure it's VERY.
The third release in the inaugural batch of Loci releases finds Axolotl teaming up with someone called Weyes Bluhd. On the first track of two, the duo create some sort of super distorted ghostly folk, where the vocals are crumbling effects drenched moans, surrounded by streaks of feedback and bursts of glitch and crunch, melodies assembled from jagged fragments of sound, all in a murky muddy soundscape of fuzzed out ambience, eventually building to a serious chunk of chaotic free psych blowout, overblown and WAY in the red.
The second track is like a shadow of the first, a whispery shimmer to the openers crunchy buzz, the vocals lonely moans, the instrumentation nothing but barely there slivers of high end shimmer, a lonely guitar drifting through the ether, the surrounding ambience fuzzy and gauzy, some serious abstract ghost town blues.
- MPEG stream: 1
- MPEG stream: 2
Wow! The Omni Recording Corporation reissues another gem in the form of this druggy 1969 West-Coast Pop-Americana masterpiece by enigmatic country legend Hoyt Axton. Son of a Nashville insider who wrote "Heartbreak Hotel" for Elvis, Axton cut his teeth in the Greenwich village folk scene, becoming better known as a songwriter than a singer, scoring a big hit for The Kingston Trio with "Greenback Dollar". But it wasn't until a little film called Easy Rider featured one of his songs, "The Pusher" performed by Steppenwolf, that Axton got his biggest break. Signed to Columbia Records, he immediately began working on My Griffin is Gone, a startling socially conscious document of drug withdrawal (LSD and pills) and war that is barely concealed under kaleidoscopic lyrics and blissful orchestral folk rock arrangements of spacey organs, soaring strings and sitar rock-outs. Like Euphoria covering Nick Drake's Five Leaves Left or Bill Fay doing The Notorious Byrd Brothers, this is full of that wistful melancholy, stunning songcraft and pointedly poetic self-examination that we love in records from this period. Not a good plan for a money-making hit record, but perfect for those great lost cult records that we can't seem to get enough of. This reissue augments the original album with 12 rare bonus tracks of demos and singles, 8 of which are previously unreleased, including his demo recording of "The Pusher". Essential for psych-roots-folk fans of all persuasions. God Damn!
We've been meaning to list more releases on Medical Records, one of the coolest reissue labels going these days. The label describes themselves as "Purveyors of classic synth, cosmic disco, wave (cold/new), and future music", and in the past have brought us killer reissues from Der Plan, Deutsche Wertarbeit, and Alexander Robotnick, with tons more we've yet to review (but hopefully will soon!). But we can't think of a better way to start our Medical Records review campaign than this amazing record, 1983's Novels For The Moon, by the awesomely named Axxess, aka French multimedia artist Patrick Mimran, a record whose genesis is nearly as interesting as the record itself. But before we get to that, just know that ANYone into the current crop of psych-space-synth retro-futurists, a la Zombi, Majeure, Umberto, Gatekeeper, Dylan Ettinger, Nightsatan, Blizaro, Xander Harris, Roll The Dice and all the rest, should grab one of these right now!
So, the story goes, that Mimran was working as a top executive at Lamborghini Motors (the exotic sports car / race car company), when he made this record, and originally released it on, believe it or not, Lamborghini's own record label (which had us wondering what other Lamborghini Records releases might be lurking out there?!). His music was heavily influenced by the German krautrock of the time (Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, etc.), and he even commissioned a German engineer to build him a custom synthesizer, a much more complex version of one that the same engineer had earlier designed for Tangerine Dream! And in a further connection to Tangerine Dream, Novels For The Moons was recorded with help from TD member Christopher Franke (who was also in Agitation Free). Needless to say, sonically, this Axxess album has much in common with Tangerine Dream, but also with the creepy synth soundtracks of Goblin and John Carpenter, the sounds on the record ranging from pulsing space disco, to haunting ominous synth soundtrackery, to blissed out kosmische new age, often all of those combined.
On first listen, you'll be shocked at how much the current crop of synth wranglers sound like Axxess, an artist probably most of them have never heard, but who no doubt will be immediately obsessed with, how could they not be? The tracks mesmerizing and hypnotic, sequenced melodies, pulsing rhythms, the Kraftwerk vibe HUGE in places, thick swaths of kosmische drift, swirls of new agey shimmer, much of this sounds like mysterious B-movie soundtracks, chase scenes, credit sequences, others sound like background music from some seriously tripped out seventies nature program, all of it sounds druggy and cosmic, soaring and epic and impossibly catchy, driving and pulsating, pulsing and mesmerizing, beyond the classic synth sounds, there's plenty of other craziness going on as well, strange processed vocals, intense stereo panning, even wild monkey screeches on one track, but it's all somehow woven into the whole, which most definitely works as an album proper, but whose sound slip seamlessly from dark and ominous, to playful and goofy, to intense and driving, krautrocky and blissed out one minute, groovy and darkly psychedelic the next. So totally recommended.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES! Each one hand numbered. Pressed on 180 gram yellow vinyl, housed in a reproduction of the original jacket, with a 12"x12" printed insert with liner notes including pictures of the synth used to make the record, a history of the record and its creation, and an interview with Patrick Mimran!
So, do you really need another hole in the head, I mean black metal album? Well, yes you do, you just might want this one, it's a bit different and certainly on the extreme of extreme. On the other hand, Ayat could easily be too scary for some. We were intrigued with Ayat for several reasons. 1) It's on the Moribund label, and we always at least check out their releases, 2) the band hails from of all places, BEIRUT, and 3) we read an interesting interview with them recently in the venerable Metal Maniacs magazine (which, by the way, we're sad to hear is soon to cease publication, a seriously severe loss to the metal scene we grew up with).
In their interview, Ayat make some seemingly hyperbolic statements ("Moribund couldn't refuse this; they had no choice"), but also also sound like they have intelligent reason to believe them, and express some ideas that we don't think we've ever heard a band say, such as the notion that their listeners "are the people who don't give two shits about Ayat but have a life of their own. Every now and then, we give them a gift. The musician/listener relationship should not go beyond that." They also discuss what real war is like (something they know about, that most black metal bands don't), explaining "it's getting your hands dirty, and screwing everyone around you until you convince yourself you're not such an asshole after all". Their atypical background and evident intelligence already set Ayat apart. Then you should note that the guy quoted above calls himself Filthy Fuck. And the other guy in the band is named Sadogoat. Reconciling that, taking them seriously, definitely made us want to hear their music.
And of course, what really matters IS the music. And the music here, or should we say "music", is REALLY distorted and deranged and blasting and brutal. Up there with early Anaal Nathrakh and Revenge. It almost makes you wonder, why they don't just go all the way into Merzbow or Incapacitants style total noise? But then this would lose the frantic headbanging catchiness that underpins all the blurred, buzzing, screaming chaos. Ayat's relentless raw, rawarrrrghhh sound is really kind of punk rock (like Pissed Jeans x 666!!!), but the attentive listener will also realize there's quite a bit of artistry to how these tracks are constructed. It's a complex thing cramming all this craziness and violence into what are actual, rockin' songs. Considering that the band -sounds- like they'd rather be slitting their wrists or gargling alcohol or beating you up rather than doing anything constructive.
Ayat's song titles are just lovely, like "Puking Under Radiant Moonlight (Followed By A Century Long Ejaculation)" and "Thousands Of Pissed Motherfuckers". Filthy Fuck's vocals are often barked, rasped and sputtered like a hardcore Donald Duck and it's not always possible to tell what he's singing about (which may be just as well) but we get the idea it's nihilistic, not nice.
We were -really- worried about the singer towards the climax of the first track "Ilahiya Khinzir! (All Hail Allah The Swine)", but then realized what we were hearing was a recording of pigs squealing. The album is littered with tons of weird, disturbing samples, which sometimes extend into sinister soundscapey passages... but then it's back to the blasting, soon enough. There's actually lots of surprises within these tracks. Snippets of old timey music. The occasional perfunctory guitar solo surfacing. Once in a while, there's even some clean, chantlike singing (a la Root's Big Boss), most notably on the downtempo album closer "Such A Beautiful Day! (The Exaltation Of Saint Francis)" which combines plodding, morose melody with a subtle sheen of electronic drone. Whew! Many methods to their madness here.
Be warned, as you've undoubtedly already surmised, there's religious intolerance, heck, HATRED expressed (not entirely a surprise, as they are a black metal band, usually not known as fans of organized religion, or terribly concerned about offending anyone). This band, based in Lebanon as we mentioned, is avowedly anti-Islamic. Wonder how that works out for them?
Outside the morphological sounds of Nocturnal Emissions, Nigel Ayers has embarked on a few collaborative projects - one with Robin Storey and Randy Grief, and this one with Mick Harris (Scorn, Lull, Painkiller), and John Everall (Sentrax Records). Collectively, the trio delves into the deepest pits of the dark ambient, pioneered by the likes of Lustmord. Sublime.
Wow, this one's a real surprise, because as much as we're fans of jazz vibraphonist Roy Ayers' early to mid-seventies rare groove and jazz albums, his later output that we knew of, pretty much fell into cheesy disco and RnB. So when Universal Sounds re-issued this album from 1983 that we had never heard of, we were a bit wary but also highly intrigued. Released on his own independent label Uno Melodic while he was between major-label tenures with Polydor and Columbia, Lots of Love clearly shows Ayers independence as he freely explores many styles of post-disco dance music from the Afro-beat inspired "Black Family", the electro-funk of "Fast Money", and the minimal house of "Chicago", while "D.C. City" hearkens back to the simmering rare groove classics he recorded with Sylvia Striplin and Ethel Beatty. He also gets in a couple of grooving instrumentals with the vibes, showing that he never lost his chops. His best record since 1976's Everybody Loves The Sunshine!
Recommended!
Okay, those of you Albert Ayler obsessives / vinyl collectors who felt left out by the recent release of the Ayler Holy Ghost 9cd boxset, can now rejoice, as Revenant will finally be releasing the the Holy Ghost box on vinyl, spread out over several multiple lp sets. This is volume one, and while not quite as elaborate as the totally extravagant cd box, it's still quite nice, gorgeous thick threefold gatefold cover, printed inner sleeves and clear vinyl! While we imagine only Ayler obsessives would probably need this, since many of his recordings are readily available and much cheaper, here's a brief thumbnail description of the man for the Ayler neophytes out there:
Albert Ayler was a master on the tenor sax, who decided to forget everything he had ever learned and approach his instrument in a completely different, way more spiritual way, hoping to channel the divine through his music. And goddamn if he didn't succeed. One of the most influential players and composers in the history of free jazz!
So yeah. While this may be a bit overwhelming (and pricey) for someone who has never heard Ayler, for fans of Ayler, free jazz fanatics, and vinyl obsessives, this is absolutely ESSENTIAL.
Another totally and absolutely breathtaking musical artifact from Revenant Records. This long in the works box set finally sees the light of day and is way more overwhelming than we could have hoped for, both musically and design-wise. Albert Ayler was a master on the tenor sax, who decided to forget everything he had ever learned and approach his instrument in a completely different, way more spiritual way, hoping to channel the divine through his music. And goddamn if he didn't succeed. Packaged in an ornate black plastic box cast from a hand carved original 'spirit box', the box is packed with music and material. A 208 page harbound book with essays by Amiri Baraka, Val Wilmer, and other Ayler acolytes. A photgraph of Ayler as a young man, a pressed flower, a reproduction of a sixties underground jazz zine, as well as all sorts of other flyers and Ayler related ephemera. The there's the discs. Seven discs of rare live material: the Herb Katz Quintet with Ayler, Helsinki, 1962, Albert Ayler Trio in NYC, 1964, Ayler Quartet in Copenhagen, 1964; NYC, 1967, Burton Greene Quintet with Ayler in NYC, 1966, Albert Ayler Quintet in Cleveland, Berlin & Rotterdam, all 1966, Newport, 1967, and Saint-Paul-de-Vence, 1970, Pharoah Sanders Ensemble with Ayler in NYC, 1968, Don Ayler Sextet w/ Ayler in NYC, 1969 and Albert Ayler solo in NY, 1968. Then there's two discs of interviews from 1964, 1966 and 1970 as well as an interview with Don Cherry from 1971. And finally a rehearsal disc featuring Ayler as a member of the U.S. Army Band. Wow. While this MAY be a bit overwhelming (and pricey) for someone who has never heard Ayler and is just looking for a good introduction (there are plenty of single disc releases still available), for fans of Ayler and lovers of free jazz, this is absolutely ESSENTIAL.
