This double disc set from Steve Wilson's Bass Communion project reissues the second and third albums, both unavailable for some time now. II was originally released on Hidden Art back in 1998, and III had been an on-demand cd-r which Wilson offered through his website back in 2001.
On II, an elegiac violin spirals into a chorale loop with itself and sympathetic melodies, as a soft crackle of what could be icy rain or maybe even downtuned surface noise on a piece of vinyl. In many ways, this fits neatly next to the orchestrations that Godspeed! You Black Emperor were creating at the time, with a slow building crescendo hitting a dark majesty before the bittersweet comedown into subterranean drones and dappled ambience. There's a lot more going on here in terms of melodic interludes and discreet flourishes of sampled horns, strings, and post-IDM electronic rhythms, especially when compared to the bleak arctic environments of such Bass Communion masterpieces as Ghosts On Magnetic Tape or Loss. But it's still gorgeous and arresting ambience.
III is a collection of ephemera, most of which had predated II, including some pieces of television that Wilson had been commissioned to compose. Given the disparate sources, III doesn't flow as nicely as the other disc; but the opening track "Amphead" is clearly one of Wilson's best pieces. It's just filtered white noise transformed into a desolate piece of sweeping dronemusik on par with anything that Thomas Koner or Keith Berry has released. Some of the other tracks hit on the Biosphere tip with synthetic strings pocked with simple electronic underpinnings; but there's also some head-rattling digi-dub harkening back to the illbient aesthetic of Scorn or DJ Spooky many moons ago.
Loss is an apt title in describing a sensibility that we find super compelling in music, each list tends to have at least one example of a record that taps into the ideas behind the nostalgic loss of memory and the triggers that cause those memories to flood back into consciousness. For an example, have a gander at the introductory paragraph of the review of Tim Hecker's Harmony In Ultraviolet. Bass Communion's Loss, while not exactly aesthetically sympathetic to Mr. Hecker's pixel smear masterpiece, shares the sensorial drama of residual sounds evoking things past. Steven Wilson, the sole proprietor of Bass Communion, has commented that Loss is an extension of the ideas he previously investigated on Ghosts On Magnetic Tape, which related to the parapsychological research into the Electronic Voice Phenomena, whereby voices (presumably from beyond the grave) break through mediated sound in order to communicate with the living. Of course, that record complete with its spectral droning clouds of sound went over quite well here at Aquarius; and its follow-up does not dissapoint. Sourced from reverb saturated piano, old 78 RPM records, and supposedly a vibraphone, Wilson offers yet another compelling perspective upon the nature of memory and loss through a spartan and occassionally grim unveiling of drones and low-end piano notes.
Included in both 5.1 (as heard on the DVD component of this twin set), and as a regular CD.
While most folks probably know Steven Wilson as a member of modern prog rockers Porcupine Tree, or as the producer of several Opeth albums, around these parts, Wilson is best known as the man behind Bass Communion, an ever evolving drone project, whose last few records have definitely hit the spot for the aQ drone faithful. Treading similar sonic ground as Thomas Koner, Jonathan Coleclough, Andrew Chalk, and the like, he crafts expansive and delicate crystalline soundscapes, minimal and hushed, deep and resonant, deep tones, layered low end, all deftly assembled into a mysterious otherworldly droneworld.�
This latest disc finds Wilson dabbling in something a bit harder and heavier. Still using processed recordings of actual instruments as well as field recordings and apparently a laptop for the first time, two of the four tracks here are more in line with the more corrosive elements of the modern drone/dirge/doom movement. Instead of hushed and whispery, the opener here is caustic and crumbling, a field of ragged, distorted, blown out tones, a layered expanse of grinding buzz, but beneath it, angelic melodies shimmer and hum, transforming the track into something subtly beautiful, a sprawling prickly sonic squall wrapped around a dreamlike core. The other heavy track here is actually titled "Corrosive", and is again, well, corrosive, beginning with supercharged guitars, spewing fiery fields of freaked out high end, over a weird billowy bassline, which begins to define the track, as it becomes more propulsive and present, and that opening field of skree seems to move into the background, smoothing out into something weirdly more melodic.
The other two tracks, while more in line with the mood of past BC discs, also sound a bit more song-y. More composed and arranged, as opposed to more abstract and improvised. The sound is ethereal and ephemeral. Soft string-like swells define a mournful melody, traces of high end fill the sky above with streaks and melodic fragments, smoothed into clouds of chordal color, the whole thing very delicate, and subtly filmic, darkly moody and dramatic. The closer, appropriately titled "Haze", is indeed a hazy somnambulant drift, at least in the beginning, floating dreamily through a soft black expanse, a tranquil barely there ambience, supported by a deep pulsing low end. Part way through, a strange electronic buzz is introduced. It offers up a strange textural contrast, almost like someone is subtly shifting the dial on the radio, soft interference, buoyed by the music's sudden dramatic swells. The track gradually becomes more choral, the sounds resembling voices, woven into the softly swaying swell of the musical backdrop, culminating in an effulgent field of sun dappled high end, before fading softly into the background, as that unrelenting low end foghorn tone, leads us slowly and funereally to the finish.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
As much as we tried, and we have, we could just never get that into Porcupine Tree. And before you flood us with emails, we tried, we really did. And it's not that it's bad or anything, just not our cup of tea. Steven Wilson's other project though, Bass Communion is a whole 'nother story. Bass Communion as a project explores worlds of deep deep low end, a literal bass communion, how could it not appeal to the aQ drone obsessed?
This release was outrageously limited, and thus we ended up getting only a fraction of the copies we ordered (as in 17 copies is all we have) so we won't go into too much detail, just know that if you want one, best act fast.
Originally Pacific Codex was intended to be released on vinyl, but apparently the notes were so low and the bass so heavy and intense, that they could not be fully realized on vinyl, so the project was reimagined as a cd / dvd release as those digital formats could in fact handle the deep tones. And deep they are. This is some seriously deep, low end sound. At low volumes, much of it is barely audible, at high volumes, the room literally shakes, and the woofers vibrate so intensely the papers on the desk next to the speakers flutter and are blown across the table top. Woah.
And we love bass. We know you do too, so this is like the ultimate low end document, huge billowing metallic shimmers, deep rib cage rattling rumbles, melodies rendered in slow motion, transformed into glacial smears, the feeling is that of being underwater, but WAY underwater, maybe several miles below the surface, everything inky black, save for a few glowing fish, and stray bits of light that somehow made it down from the surface.
What else to say, drone obsessives will lose their mind over this. Imagine cranking your favorite most minimal Lustmord record with the bass cranked to 10 and the treble down to zero. This is the sort of record you don't hear as much as you feel. And yeah, it's minimal sure, but the low end is maximal, threatening to split your stereo right down the middle like some beautiful seismic serenade.
The accompanying dvd is dvd-AUDIO (5.1 surround), so don't try watching it, it's just a black screen, but it is sort of the perfect visual representation of the music within.
Two discs, one cd, one dvd, both housed in a deluxe gatefold sleeve, with a full color perfect bound cd sized book filled with gorgeous textural photos of the sea and sky, a printed insert card on super thick textured paper each one hand numbered, all housed in a heavy gauge box / slipcase.
Again, we only have a handful, so when these are gone we will NOT be able to get more as it's already out of print at the label.
Steven Wilson may be known best from Porcupine Tree, although he has also been quite prolific as Bass Communion producing a whole slew of darkly tinged ambient records for the past decade or so. Back in 1996, Wilson began corresponding with Bryn Jones of Muslimgauze, at first merely to share his enthusiasm over the Muslimgauze album Blue Mosque. Without expecting anything, Wilson sent a set of recordings to Jones whose urge to improve upon the recordings was too great for him to deny; hence, a few days later, Wilson received several hours of recordings with his musics radically transformed into the fiery Arabic electronica that had been the signature for Muslimgauze for countless records. Thus began a collaborative process, whereby Wilson would mould the Muslimgauze sounds into something to his liking, only to have Jones reject those mixes in favor of his own. The Muslimgauze ethos is still the dominant force here, with a ghostly dark ambient lingering in the distance the only remnants of Wilson's contributions. The recordings that comprise this CD had been released previously as a long CD EP / short album (depending on who you ask) and a CD single; both of those discs had been out of print for sometime now, so it's nice to be able to hear this stuff again!
Super limited cassette of "retro futuristic dunestep" from aQ pal JD Short, aka Bassdblr, who made these tapes exclusive for aQuarius, limited to just 100 copies, and if you're not a sucker for experimental dubstep, and/or a sucker for DUNE themed electronica, there must be something really wrong with you. A bass player by trade, Short infuses his particular brand of dubbed out beat heavy stutter with REAL bass, so the sound is thick, and buzzy, a little proggy, and in its own way sort of heavy. The sound looped and hypnotic, cyclical and a bit tranced out. But then it's hard to pin down cuz the sound is all over the place.
Opener "Atrocity Arms The Future" is some seriously bass heavy dubstep electro prog ambience, sounding like a dubbed out soundtrack to some creepy eighties sci-fi epic, all looped beats, woozy distorted bass, and electronic pulses that give the sound a teensy bit of a Carpenter vibe. And that live bass also give it a sort of post rock feel too, but the beat is most definitely dubsteppy. "IX" is almost like Pinback crossed with Squarepusher scoring some zombie flick, all dark and tense and low slung and ominous, warm fluid basslines wrapped around a pulsing electronic rhythm, while "Long Live The Fighters" sounds like it could have come out on Not Not Fun, a fuzzy, percolating bit of retro electronica that is like a more progged out caffeinated version of the current crop of Goblin/Carpenter worship. "The Scattering" takes thick sludgey bass and wreathes it in fluttery flute like melodies, and crunchy electronic glitch for something swirly and almost psychedelic sounding, Bassdblr's dirgey basslines lending it some un-electronica sounding heft.
And so it goes, from stripped down, loping-bass-lined cinematic creep, to gristly, super distorted electro-buzz, from blissed out skittery / prismatic kosmische electronica, to old school VHS synth-funk, to grinding glitchy dirge dub stutter, to super melodic lilting electronic buzzpop, and from proggy, glitchy retro-futuristic electro ambience, to finally, a a last blast, a more distorted take on the opening dubsteppy jam, all anchored by Short's heavy cyclical dark-prog Dune-driven bass. Super rad stuff for sure.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Available only at aQ, includes a download coupon as well!!
Another new one from the always intriguing Utech label. This disc is a collaboration betwixt Marcia Bassett (of Hotogisu and Zaimph fame) and Jenny Graf of Metalux, two somewhat noisy gals who together construct a strangely compelling soundworld here, part frightened folk, part disturbing drone... The harrowing journey begins with "Zero As Sky", seventeen minutes that start with a dawning drone, eventually revealing gently layered and looped vocals... a girl's voice, singing something that sounds ancient and folky, but buried amidst a static-y keening buzz, and sudden reverberating sound effects. With severe bursts of distortion in conjunction with what sounds like Wicker Man chant and warble, this whole whispery wind tunnel of a track would be a shivery late night listen. Could be the electric moaning of malevolent spirits. Even the part in the middle that makes us think of a haunted video arcade enhances the weird mood! Just a bit spooky, yeah. And at its heaviest, competition for Urthona and Harvestman.
If that lengthy piece was akin to Bassett and Graf taking us for scary walk in the dark woods (with arcade detour), then the next is more like they're singing to us 'round the campfire. "Black Waters Glow" is a short(er) interlude, only six and half minutes, wherein the drones die down and the vocals rise up, quietly still, with gentle guitar slowly stalking along. The track is this disc's most melodic, sounding like a witchier Painting Petals On Planet Ghost, maybe. Or old timey Brit folk filtered through floorcore FX. Or even some strange Devendra Banhart/Richard Youngs hybrid.
That's followed by the disc's third and final track, the 15 minutes of "Phantasmagorical Mapping", another miasma of distorted drones and disembodied drifting vocals, with the addition, upon occasion, of some mechanical rhythms, gone a bit haywire... Again, messily mesmeric. Bassett and Graf have done unique good work here, and despite doubts about whether or not our sanity can stand it, we hope they continue to collaborate!
LIMITED TO 500 copies! Nice, slim, oversized Utech-style sleeve.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Heeey Bassholes fans, time to get off yer (b)asses! 'Cuz there's a new collection of their old singles and unreleased stuff from the early '90s. Broke Chamber Music brings their unmistakable trashy nasty blues rawk right back to your front stoop. Still ripe and ready to chafe many a delicate ear, these are the raw gritty folk songs to play while you're chippin' the crud off your mud-caked boots with a termite-infested twig. Seriously fucked-up, slurred vocals that sound alternately like they're being sung by someone who's had his tongue cut out and sewn back in or some stunted teenager messing with the tape speed on his tape recorder. Very Ween-ish (or maybe it's the other way around). Includes a bang-up cover of Rodd Keith's delightful song-poem "Little Rug Bug"!
We first got a glimpse of the newly invigorated, and newly METAL-ized Bastard Noise on the recent split with The Endless Blockade, with BN sounding like the second coming of Man Is The Bastard, all heavy and noisy and bassy, but still rife with noise and electronics, incorporating our favorite elements of Bastard Noise offshoot Geronimo into a dizzying hybrid, that hit the spot like crazy. So with this new full length, Bastard Noise have pushed that sound even further. Opening with a brief spoken word monologue, the band explode in an electronic flecked bass heavy crush, the bass and drums locked tight, a lumbering lurching dirge, proggy and intricate, and weirdly melodic, with some of the SICKEST vocals ever, alternating death metal growls and throat shredding shrieks, and all over the place, thick shards of damaged electronics and fractured effects, careening wildly until finally locking into a groove that just won't quit, chaotic drumming, low slung bass buzz, the heaviest, most bad ass thing we've heard in ages. "Me And Hitler" is another blast of Man Is The Bastard style bass driven powerviolence, but with the addition of those shrieked almost black metal vocals, and still more caveman electronics... and when the band again get all proggy and intricate and heavy and groovy, they almost sound like Nomeansno, if NmN were WAY meaner and brutal and caustic, which is in NO way a bad thing.
The whole record is a crushing downtuned post-punk avant prog powerviolence electronic kraut-dirge motherfucker, the songs lurch and swing and grind and blast and pound and pummel, bursts of double kick underpin shards of crackling electronic glitchery and analog skree, there are some really strange stretches of almost jazzy drift, crooned reverbed ambience, operatic abstraction, spaced out dronemusic and moody instrumental skitter, but those brief moments only serve to balance the otherwise insanely and genius-ly brutal heaviness. Fuck, this totally rules!
Take an hour-long sci-fi noise journey with John Wiese's and Eric Wood's latest Ground Fault release. These ex-Man Is The Bastard noiseniks provide all the squelching rumbling grinding hissing droning distorted sounds you love, but structure it like program music -- unlike the often monolithic sonic assaults of Japanese competition (Incapacitants, Hijokaidan, and Merzbow for instance),
The return of long running Man Is The Bastard offshoot Bastard Noise, who now have a body of work that dwarfs their previous group's comparatively tiny catalog, but who took a long time to win us over. Not sure if it was the disappointment of no more MITB or that suddenly Bastard Noise seemed to release a million records, or that our heart belonged to Amps For Christ. Whatever the reason, it took a few years, but we learned to love BN, even more so lately as they've seemed to have become a real band, a real HEAVY band. Gone are the days of harsh noisescapes and power electronics, the band are now a serious sonic forces to be reckoned with, in BAND form, and on their latest, they continue on the path set forth on A Culture Of Monsters, melding tripped out psychedelic ambience, to lurching lumbering doom, the rhythm section as tight as MITB ever was, the shrieked vox seriously harrowing, a good foil for the monstrous guttural growls, and as we mentioned in our Record Of The Week review of A Culture Of Monsters, the bass tone, and the overall bass driven heaviness, had us not only thinking of the legendary Nomeansno, but also another MITB offshoot, former Record Of The Week-ers Geronimo, whose krautrock like rhythmic mesmer seems to have found its way into BN's new sound.
The opening title track might be the most epic thing BN has ever recorded, a creeping ambient drone/dirge, that finds the band churning and chugging, howling and pounding over a hazy shimmery smear, their metallic crush augmented by some hushed ethereal flutter, the sound almost Native American, it's a strange combo, but it works, weirdly, the track easing up partway through its 13+ minutes, the band unfurling a kosmische sci-fi shimmerscape, before lurching and lumbering back into action, and pounding out the last couple minutes.
Much of Skulldozer actually seems to have the band channeling their former group, with short bursts of jagged punkish power violence, but then the band slip right into their other incarnation, the other side of the band we love, their abstract psychedelic space drift ambience, last heard in full bloom on their awesome Rogue Astronaut record, and so goes the rest of Skulldozer, lurching from churning powerviolence crush, to glitched out abstract sci-fi drift, to experimental ambience, to blackened metallic pound and back again. Totally ruling, and most definitely a new favorite!
Sixty-two more minutes of wonderfully harsh, grinding noise from John Wiese and Eric Wood of Man Is The Bastard. Features two long ass tracks previously available, one on a really limited Japanese tour 3" cd-r, the other on a one sided 12" that we've had
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We love Man Is The Bastard. Always have. So we wanted to love Bastard Noise as well. And we did, once in a while, but we might as well fess up, the thing that kept us from truly embracing Bastard Noise, was in fact, the NOISE. Allan may be into his speaker shredding Japanoise, and Jim definitely loves his minimal grind and glitch, but for the most part, noise music has generally left us a bit cold. That's not to say there haven't been exceptions, there most definitely have, and those exceptions tend to be when the noise is less 'noisy' and more drone-y or textural or dynamic or all three. Our favorite Merzbow records tend to be the ones where Masami Akita isn't just spewing a face full of hot white noise. Our favorite noise records to tend toward the dronier more ambient side of the noise spectrum. So there have definitely been some Bastard Noise jams that have totally hit the spot, Descent To Mimas was one, released on Ground Fault, and Rogue Astronaut is definitely another, just out on Gravity. Rogue Astronaut seems to be sonically and thematically a sort of continuation of Descent To Mimas. Another noise opera of sorts, a tale of post apocalyptic space travel, of dead satellites and a withered Earth, of floating alone through space, of the endless expanse and the soul shearing loneliness of the Rogue Astronaut.
Much like Mimas, and our favorite noise records, the sounds on Rogue Astronaut are less harsh and heavy, and more atmospheric and textural, the ten minute opener, even features haunting falsetto vocals set amidst an expansive drift of analog buzz and electronic squelch, layered drone, and a symphony of upper register tones, the sounds are noticeably Bastard like, raw and corrosive and analog and lo-fi, but deftly arranged into epic sweeping dronescapes and noisescapes, slipping from minimal buzz and glitch to full on fuzzed out malfunctioning electronic roar.
Track two, "Ryobi Party" sounds a bit like another post Bastard project, Geronimo, only with the drums stripped away, and the addition of gurgling demonic vokills. The twenty minute title track is gorgeous and space-y, the tones and sounds and textures allowed to sprawl and spread out, set amidst a lush backdrop of reverbed black shimmer, and deep ominous drones, the squelches and glitches like lost radio broadcasts, drifting aimlessly through the inky blackness of space. Sheets of feedback are muted into layered high end whirs, the 'noise' is allowed to hover and float and change shapes and transform, the track is almost like some strange beast made out of sound, captured so we can observe it in captivity, watching as it morphs before our very eyes, a sonic representation of what lies beyond. The track is less about noise, and more about ambience, and mood, and it does create an intense and ominous and super evocative cinematic soundworld.
The last three tracks cycle through the various shades of noise and space, highlighted by the darkly delicate "Moonpool Team", which begins as a hushed ultra minimal drift, before it transforms into a groovy, moody, reverby almost Eastern sounding bit of abstract soundtrack music, like it could have come from some crazy lost sixties space epic, gorgeous soaring vocals, the grinding electronics muted and smeared into almost melodies, peppered with the occasional violent squall, but for the most part, a gorgeous languid landscape of deep bell like tones and swirling space-y noise flecked shimmer.
Gorgeous packaging too. Metal foil stamped booklet that folds out into a poster, with full color inserts/cards as well as a sticker.
How could we not be intrigued by this? Not only is this DIY, US black metal band on the same label that recently brought us the excellent Electric Wizard worshipping doom of Windhand, but they are named after a song on the first album (the one released on our own Andee's tUMULt label) by local prog metal masters Hammers Of Misfortune! And, they have had various folks online, including the BrooklynVegan blog, raving about 'em like crazy. (In fact, via BrooklynVegan, you can listen to a full-album stream of the record here: https://soundcloud.com/brooklynvegan/sets/bastard-sapling-dragged-from, so check it out, we think you'll be convinced.)
Although named after a Hammers song, Richmond, VA's Bastard Sapling (featuring members of Cannibis Corpse and Battlemaster) would seem to have more in common with another San Francisco tUMULt metal artist, the late great Weakling. Thus the classic '90s Norwegian likes of Immortal, Darkthrone, Mayhem, and Emperor have without a doubt been a steady part of Bastard Sapling's listening diet and serve as the influences for the frosty, frozen, grim, galloping epic black metal found here on these four long tracks (with titles like "Cold Winds Howled Across The Desolation"). Blasting and buzzing, the rasping croaking shrieking vokills stabbing like icicles in your ears amidst the blizzard-like onslaught of drum battery, guitar riffage, and keyboard atmosphere. What Bastard Sapling really have going for them, besides a lock on that classic sound, is a knack for bleakly melodic, miserablist majesty. Whether blazing away at speed or slowing down for a detour into post-rock-ish moodiness (like the intro to "Beyond The Void Of Life"), Bastard Sapling's songwriting gets a serious grip on the listener and doesn't let go. Full on quality black metal, with not just a Norwegian scene vibe, but maybe a Ukrainian one as well, and definite hints of Swedish greats Dissection as well. Good thing they named themselves after that Hammers so we'd check 'em out!
Limited to 500 copies, vinyl-only as far as we can tell (on "marbled obsidian black & cocaine white vinyl" to be precise!). Gatefold, with insert and patch!
Bow down and bleed! 'Tis the punishing return of black metal upstarts Bastard Sapling, who hail from Virginia rather than the cold northern climes, though their blasting, majestically-riffed sound is so very Nordic in the grand, grim tradition. However, Bastard Sapling's take on tradition features some interesting twists, and a lot of extra oomph, no surprise 'cause most of the band are also members of a much less genre-specific metal outfit we love, Inter Arma, those ambitious masters of math-sludge-psych-post-metal.
Bastard Sapling (named after a song on the debut Hammers Of Misfortune album that Andee's tUMULt label put out, we're always amused to note) find ways to diversify their brutal blackness; for instance the album's most epic track, "Lantern At The End Of Time", features an ethereal vocal cameo from Windhand's Dorthia Cottrell, and on the likes of "The Killer in Us All", they even really 'rock out', if you will. Hail!
Bastard Wing is the duo of Christina Carter from Charalambides and Andrew MacGregor who records as Gown. A while back we reviewed a cd-r collaboration between MacGregor and Carter, which was a strange and creepy affair, but also a fairly caustic and atonal one, with plenty of anguished Jandekian wailing and Keiji Haino like frenzied howling, cacophonous and bizarre, but beautiful in it's own damaged way. The Bastard Wing finds the two in a much more contemplative mood, spreading out warm thick blankets of psychedelic strum, swirling fuzzy ambience, over which breathy ethereal vocals drift and shimmer, gorgeous foggy soundscapes of distant blown out psych guitar, haunting disembodied vocals, crackling crunchy distortion, swooping vocals that seem to creep up right to the microphone before fading into the murky background, everything bathed in thick reverb, tons of delay and clouds of swirling outer space FX. Some tracks sound like deconstructed Mazzy Star, with any semblance of 'rock' taken out, so the ghostly remnants are allowed to drift incorporeally heavenward, while others are frenzied otherworldly rituals, dense with thick vocal swirl and damaged guitar histrionics, although even at their most manic, everything is muted and smeared into an indistinct haze. Creepy and lovely. Definitely for fans of Grouper, Lichens and of course Charalambides.
Like all Free Porcupine Society releases, nicely packaged, this time in a cool simple white cardstock folder, printed with metallic silver ink, spare and striking.
So cool. We've been wanting to list this for a while, finally got a bunch of copies so we can. It's a disc collecting early pieces by one of our favorite idiosyncratic music makers and sonic visionaries, Pierre Bastien. For those who have yet to discover the joys of Bastien, imagine strange haunting lullabies, played BY ROBOTS. Real Robots! Well sort of. Bastien would take apart old turntables, use bits of random electronics, stuff laying around the garage, sometimes adding multiple tone arms to record players, sometimes using bits of metal and electronics to create little machines that would pluck strings, or make little rhythms, and he would play along usually on trumpet. It sounds strange, but the music he created was magical, mysterious, childlike, but strangely mechanical (obviously) and haunting. Like a super DIY bedroom Philip Jeck but with a band of homemade robots! Sold? We figured you'd have to be. We've been pretty obsessed with Bastien and his music ever since we first heard his Musiques Paralloidres album almost 10 years ago.
This compilation collects a bunch of early tracks, a handful never before released, all from well before his first proper album, mostly culled from the eighties although one track is from WAY back in 1968, an untitled track for prepared guitar and Metronome!
Soon, rather than utilizing a mundane metronome, he was indeed building his own mechanical music-making helpers, the "Meccano". Each one custom-designed to accompany Bastien on plucked strings, skipping record, scraped metal, automated percussion, whatever Bastien imagined as accompaniment for a specific song. The results are divine, tick-tocking, clicking and clacking, wavering and warbling, dark plucked melodies, dizzying fragmented loops, squiggle and scrapes, alternatingly mesmeric and gentle, chaotic and clattery, a sound like a ramshackle music box, gives way to a sweet child-like melody, the sound of a toybox coming to life once the children are asleep, a mini toy orchestra performed in the still of night, with only the moon and the stars looking on. Many of the tracks feature much more actual playing than later Bastien discs, but the robots are still out in full force, playing along, his own little mechanical band.
All of Bastien's records are fabulous, super creative, innovative, baffling, fun and funny, playful and sometimes silly, but just as often dark and beautifully brooding. Mecanoid, Pop, the recently reviewed Visions Of Doing, all of them deserve to be in the collection of any adventurous music lover, and Les Premieres Machines 1968-1988 most certainly does too!
The booklet features a few photos, liner notes in French only (unfortunately), and an extensive discography!
We've long been fans of French composer / sculptor / musician Pierre Bastien, whose sound is a fantastically mysterious world of warbly rhythms, of woozy melodies, looped and mesmerizing and hypnotic, which would already be enough, but the fact that Bastien doesn't actually PLAY this music, instead he builds super elaborate robotic machines, customizes turntables and re-engineers household objects, creating impossibly complex mousetrap like contraptions, which actually play the music. Sounding a bit like a warped hybrid of Philip Jeck's abstract turntablism and Strotter Inst's customized turntable rhythmscapes, Bastien weaves looped, woozy soundworlds of muted murky rhythms, of constantly shifting textures, a sound warm and lush, but at the same time, sort of alien.
This album is a collection of sorts, gathering up a handful of tracks from soundtracks, and installations, and while being disparately sourced, works quite well as a record proper, and besides being a new collection of Bastien tracks, which is always cause for celebration, this disc also includes a dvd, containing a handful of short films, featuring Bastien's machines in action, and for some folks, it will be the first time seeing Bastien's music come to life, having only heard the records and seen pictures of his musical inventions. More on the dvd in a second. First the album.
The record opens with the murky "Pull Up", which for folks new to Bastien, is a perfect introduction. Besides building these machines, and composing the music, Bastien, a trumpet player by trade, would often accompany his machines, his trumpet providing the melody. So here, the melody, which could be a trumpet, sounds as if it's being played underwater, a burbly, bubbling woozy melody, melancholic and wistful (and underwater!), set over a deep low slung thrum, muted percussion, looped low end thrum, it's fantastically dreamy, and sort of sounds like Bastien's take on Portishead, a dreamy, nocturnal vibe. "Nip In" opens with some Morricone-esque rubber band twang, which is quickly joined by a backdrop of mechanized pluck and thrum, which in turn is soon joined by fluttery flute like melodies, and eventually chimes and bells, and finally Bastien's muted trumpet. Bluesy and woozy and divine.
"Now On" takes the aforementioned comparisons (Jeck, Strotter) and now adds Kid Koala to the mix, Bastien doing something similar to Kid Koala's recent blues record, where the backdrop is still all warped rubber band basslines, wheezing bellows basslines, but here a female blues singer's record spins lazily (or maybe it's sampled?), the vocals draped over Bastien's alien robot blues, there's also what sounds like a kazoo solo. The whole record is a stunning sprawl of meticulously arranged and impossibly choreographed robotic symphonies, from the gorgeously melodic dream like shimmer of "Never Even", a soft cacophony tempered by the songs melody and emotion, to the field recording flecked "Spare Spanish Sin Apse Raps" which includes recordings from the city which commissioned the work, Bastien's trumpet front and center, over another mechanoid framework, accompanied by the sounds of running water, distant conversations, the sounds of sidewalks being swept, tolling bells, all woven into a dreamy sonic cityscape.
The rest of the record unwinds equally mysteriously, the muddy creep of "Trope Report", which drags and oozes, and is flecked with wheezing ominous moans, and creaking melodies, "Yale Relay", which warps warbly opera singing over a strangely cinematic stretch of machine-looped percussion, Spanish guitar sounding twang, and the ever present low end robotic thrum, "Peep" with its super spare tangle of layered high end tones, and exotic percussion, and finally, "Dogs' God", which is a brief bit of wheezing drone and skitter, underpinning a return of that burbling underwater melody that opened the proceedings. So fantastic. And odds are, if you not already Bastien obsessed, this will do it, and have you obsessively tracking down everything you can find. And heck, if the record itself doesn't do it, the dvd definitely will!
The accompanying dvd is as fantastic as the record, maybe even more so, as it gives us a much more fully realized glimpse into Bastien's fantastical mechanized sound world. Seeing his inventions in action, brings the music to life in a way that the recordings sometimes struggle to do. Just check out the first video for "Mecanoid", which begins with a paperclip attached to a strip of plastic, vibrating against another piece of plastic. In front of it is a keyboard, with a strange music box stylus, seemingly made from an old rolling pin, with nubs attached, it's set revolving, and plays a woozy melody on the keyboard, while in the background, a tinker toy like assembly, spins like a bicycle creating more abstract percussion elements, while in the foreground, a customized record, lifts and sets down the needle, creating little lopped vocal snippets, all the while, Bastien's hands come into frame, adjusting, changing speeds, altering implements, its a strange mechanical ballet, that just so happens to sound as beautiful as it looks. And all the films are equally fascinating, the kinetic sculptures and robotic music making machines are stunning even just to look out, and the mysterious mechanoid symphonies they create seem impossibly beautiful to come from these robots and machines, a stylus is dropped onto a spinning record to make a percussive squelch, a primitive bellows becomes a homemade harmonium, flaps of paper and a fan, create something visually stunning, but at the same time provide a subtle bit of percussive skitter, a bow (as in a bow and arrow) is attached to a series of gears, and is flung about, creating strange rhythms, strings and rubber bands are stretched everywhere, with various robotic implements tasked with plucking and strumming, even a pair of scissors and a comb and other bits of every day household ephemera become impossibly beautiful sound makers. Stunning, both visually, and sonically.
We loved the last Pierre Bastien record, which consisted of broken down old children's turntables rigged to play simple loops while Bastien played along on a muted trumpet. Those rigged turntables have given way to even greater flights of mechanical fancy,
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Multiple turntables and trumpet, very interesting. Bastien takes portable turntables and attaches pieces of metal below, and directly to, the tone arm, causing the record to skip and forming simple and hypnotic loops. He then plays trumpet melodies over the looped records turning these disparate ingredients into sleepy, hiccuping lullabyes.
We sure are suckers for unconventional music making. Be it accidental (ice melting, applause, junkyards, metal rusting, fire burning) or environmental (elephants, sled dogs, cats purring, FROGS!, bats) and most especially the mysterious or unexplained (the sounds of the dead, breaking through the radio waves, haunting shortwave spy transmissions). Then there is a whole other realm of unconventional music making: the mad scientist. Why form a band, when you can construct robots and machines to play all the instruments? Why actually play the piano, or the guitar, or the drums, when you can construct an elaborate set of pulleys and levers and gears and axles that will play them for you? Why be happy with a turntable that plays records with only one stylus when you can make music with a turntable equipped with multiple needles? We can only assume Pierre Bastien asked these same questions, and the answer he came up with is Pop. Forty five minutes of simple, repetitive, hypnotic and mesmerizing machine driven minimal krautrock. That's right, krautrock is what this sounds like.
In lesser hands a room full of self playing instruments would most likely result in a sterile series of sound events, but Bastien has a deft hand and a keen ear, and breathes life into his automatons, delicate contraptions that each contribute a unique element to a song, not just spitting out sounds -- strange gadgets that play simple chords on a keyboard, an apparatus to beat out simple insistent rhythms, all manner of haunting minor key plinkety plonk, crisp windup toy clickety clacks and disgruntled grinding large machinery groans and whines, some strange warped turntablizations, wearily wheezing woodwinds, all woven into spare stretches of minimally propulsive ambience. Sounds a bit like an army of tiny wind up toys assembled in an automated sonic ballet, an inhuman menagerie making music more human that it seems possible. The vibe is very fuzzy and washed out, droney and dolorous, smeary and sepia-toned, definite shades of Philip Jeck and Tim Hecker, with plenty of creak and crackle surrounding the minimal melodies and subtle rhythmic pulses within each song. It's easy to become obsessed with the method behind the music, and the amount of obviously painstaking preparation that went into creating these machines. And why not?! It's absolutely mind boggling to be sure, but even beyond the mere construction of these music making mechanisms, imagine figuring out how to get these 'things' to make these sounds, and THEN somehow to compose music this lovely and captivating. Seems impossible. Surely, Pop is too perfect to be accidental, too beautiful to be pure luck, too musical to be anything other than the work of a brilliant mad sonic scientist. Or better yet, and possibly more likely, imagine Bastien is nothing if not lucky, a man who somehow stumbled upon a secret world of machines, in some mysterious forgotten warehouse, in some dark overlooked part of town, an insulated little world populated by these devices, not a living breathing creature in sight, just shelves full of strange little contraptions, all running endlessly and self controlled, creating this beautiful music as if that's what they were designed to do, and he was just the first to stumble upon this place, these things, and was able to capture these mysterious sounds before one night, that building and those things were nowhere to be found. Sounds farfetched, maybe a little silly, but it's the sort of romantic story that befits music this warm and beautiful and mysterious, whether it was ultimately the work of a man, or the just the serendipitous sounds of a room full of machines.
Oooh. We're always excited about any new releases from French automated-instrument builder and trumpeter Pierre Bastien. How often do we get records featuring music made (in part) by robots? Not often enough. And such lovely music too. All these tracks were originally composed as soundtracks to projects by a Dutch experimental filmmaker by the name of Karel Doing (hence the title). But Bastien's music so readily stokes the imagination than Doing's cinematic visions are not necessary accompaniment.
We said 'automated-instrument builder', those instruments being what Bastien calls his 'Meccano', simple sound-making robots or kinetic sound sculptures, that make looping music box melodies and provide a backing of slow, steady mechanical clank for Bastien's own wheezing, muted trumpet. Bastien plays in a smokey jazz mode, breathy, beautiful, oh so melancholic, that in the this context reminds us of Chet Baker in some sort of Tom Waits-ish instrumental junkyard. The gamelan or thumb piano like plinkings of Bastien's Meccano - exotica for scrappy homebuilt robots - are rendered somehow more human by the sweet sighs of Bastien's trumpet. He also makes use of field recordings, unidentified underwater warblings, and other mysterious textures in constructing these tracks. Wonderful stuff, so languid and relaxed and full of life, animated indeed by Bastien's Visions Of Doing. Bastien's previous discs for Rephlex, and others, have all been 'late night faves' here at AQ, and this latest gentle gem from Bastien joins them for sure.
Here's a band that far outshone most of their contempories but somehow managed to slip through the cracks and become more known as a footnote of the bands that came after than the rock legends they truly were. Ever wonder where David Grubbs spent his time after Squirrelbait and before Gastr Del Sol? Ever wonder what Bundy Brown did before Tortoise? Ever wonder what John McEntire did before he was in Tortoise and the Sea & Cake and started producing Stereolab Records? Did you ever wonder what band featured members who would go on to play in bands like Slint, Evergreen, King Kong, The For Carnation and more? Well, if you did, the answer is a resounding BASTRO!
This live release was supposed to coincide with the two proper Bastro lps finally released together on a single cd, but there seems to be some weird legal hang up, presumably with Bastro's old label Homestead, but for now we have this glorious live record, from one of the most amazing bands of the late eighties / early nineties.
If you're already a fan, this record is Holy Grail type shit, all songs that were never recorded, caaptured live right before the band broke up. Some of these songs morphed into Gastr Del Sol songs, but a whole new record of never-before-heard Bastro songs should have your jaw around your ankles. And for those of you new to the whole Bastro experience, these songs will definitely whet your appetite for more.
Bastro are really hard to descibe, which could be why maybe they ended up going over a lot of people's heads. They incorporated lots of elements of other post hardcore / college rock bands but in perfectly obtuse, totally unlikely ways. You can hear bits and pieces of Jesus Lizard, Big Black, Rapeman, Scratch Acid, Drive Like Jehu and Don Caballero. They started out as a sort-of-industrial-noise rock band a la Big Black, turned into a pumelling noise rock combo, and eventually morphed into a dense, complex avant-math-rock outfit, which is where this live recording catches them, live in 1991, in Chicago and Germany. Super serpentine guitar lines, extended convoluted song structures, impossibly mathy drumming (resident AQ drummer Andee spent ages learning and then playing along to Bastro songs, and considered McEntire one of his favorite drummers back then) all in a dense tangle of fragmented pop, mathy post rock and obtuse musical chaos. So incredible. As much as we love the bands that came after, Bastro still hold a special place in our heart, their music somehow transcending the music of almost all of their contemporaries, melodic, heavy, bizarre, beautiful. We're dying for the reissue of the albums proper, but for now we'll just listen to Antlers, over and over and over and over and over.....
Also includes two live Quicktime videos of Bastro live in Germany and Holland!!!
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Wow, Homestead reissues two of Andee's favorite records ever (see The Frogs, below). There was a time, pre-Tortoise and pre-Gastr del sol, when John McEntire and David Grubbs rocked. I mean really ROCKED. Hard to believe, but in 1989, those guys were making some of the meanest, noisiest (barely indie) rock around as Bastro. Nasty Albini-ish high end guitar assaults, hammering rhythms, and howlingly furious vocals, made them Slint's bigger and meaner noise rock brother. Awesome.
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Natasha Khan, the artist behind Bat for Lashes, is a one-woman wonder. Though assisted by numerous musicians - including Scott Walker (!) on "The Big Sleep" - Bat for Lashes is obviously Natasha's heart and soul project. When one person is the primary songwriter/musician, there's an almost undefinable connectivity and synergy in the instrumentation that is difficult to achieve with a "real" band. The interplay between vocals and synths, how one will flow into another and then back, just as the koto-inspired drum programming kicks in, it's brilliant. There's pretty, tinny piano synths, brooding gothic synths, and sweeping orchestral synths, with just enough violin or guitar or live percussion to keep it from sounding completely electronic. Honestly, the artist that comes to mind more than anyone else while listening to "Two Suns" is Kate Bush, and while that may be a turn-off for some, it's a huge freakin' compliment as far as we're concerned. Like Kate Bush, Bat for Lashes can turn what would otherwise be semi-cheesy instrumentation into interesting, beautiful songs. Highlights include the opening song "Glass" (a little bit Bjork, a little bit of the Creatures), the second song "Sleep Alone" (a whole lot of Kate Bush), and the Scott Walker duet "The Big Sleep".
Another gorgeous collection of Buddhist based modern minimalist compositions from one of our favorite contemporary 'classical' composers/performers. We recently made another Batagov release our Record Of The Week (Music For The 35 Buddhas), and we sold tons of Batagov's sprawling three disc minimalist masterpiece The Wheel Of The Law, which had we been able to get more, would also have been a Record Of The Week. And for some of us, ranks as one of our all time favorites, classical or otherwise!
Bodhicharyavatara is breathtakingly beautiful, and once again demonstrates Batagov's ability to fuse his Buddhist practice, with his unique compositional style, informed by so much of what came before (Glass, Feldman, etc.) but definitely something wholly original, especially here, where the sound takes on something more akin to post rock, incorporating warm smoldering guitars, even some actual drumming, into his already achingly lush palette of piano, bells and percussion.
All of the tracks here are tranced out and hypnotic, delicate slow building swirls of sound, constructed from lush resonant piano, warm wistful woodwinds, chiming bells, the guitars more like swirls of smokey shimmer, the tones stretched out into warm, chordal streaks, with Telo Tulka Rinpoche, the Supreme Lama of Kalmykia, reciting ancient Buddhist texts over the top. It's very reminiscent Of Godspeed! You Black Emperor, especially in the way Godspeed used to employ samples of spoken word, but here, that same effect becomes something much more spiritual, haunting and heady. While it's definitely more droney and dirgey than other Batagov recordings we've listed, it's still quite meditative, the lush backdrop of sound, broods and pulses, tones moan and soar, the piano alternates between low end flurries and pointillist crystalline melodies, and then part way through the second track, in come the drums, and the song blossoms into full on post rock, pounding drums, wailing guitars, all over that darkly swirling bed of bells and piano. Super intense, and the sort of thing Godspeed freaks will flip over.
The third and fourth 'movements' return to a sound much more restrained, but like the first few tracks, continue to explore a brooding, post rock flecked modern minimalism, the sung/spoken texts truly mesmerizing, woodwinds drifting in, bleating horns, blurred into softly churning backdrop, all of this adding a haunting melancholy to the already moody minor key sound, and while the drums are still present, their presence is much more abstract, their rhythmic colorations more spare, skittery for the most part, but with brief moments of bombast. Batagov has always professed a love of collaborating with rock musicians, and many of his records display the fruit of these collaborations (there's even been talk of a drum / piano record, with our very own Andee!), but few reveal his mysterious musical mastery, better than this one. Stunning.
We first discovered Russian pianist / composer Anton Batagov via his breathtaking triple cd release The Wheel Of The Law, a record EVERYone here loved, and one that we sold tons of and realized in retrospect, really should have been a Record Of The Week. Much of what made that record special was how rooted in Batagov's Buddhism the music was, a mesmerizingly hypnotic arrangement for organ, glockenspiel, xylophone, piano and percussion, it conjured up a tranquility and otherworldliness that we found quite moving, the various movements offering up gorgeously rhythmic and almost looped sounding figures, the sort of composition that we presume is how he ended up being described by some reviewer as "Reich on vodka". And while he is most definitely influenced by Reich and Riley and Glass, his sound is definitely something unique, we find ourselves sometimes reminded of another aQ favorite, Lubomyr Melnyk, the two have a similar flair for lyrical melodies and lush arrangements, although where Melnyk fills all the space with flurries of notes, Batagov is as much about the spaces between the notes as the notes themselves. Batagov is also quite the collaborator, often teaming up with rock musicians and other non classical performers, and has produced all manner of releases from straight up classical to soundtracks. Needless to say, we are obviously big fans.
So in the process of trying to track down more Wheel Of The Law cd sets, we discovered another Batagov record that we found equally amazing, from back in 2001, another composition based on Buddhism, which is obvious from the title, Music For The 35 Buddhas and like Wheel, it's another fantastic and dreamlike composition, mixing Batagov's lovely piano playing with vibraphone, Javanese gongs and antique cymbals. There's definitely a gamelan vibe, but in a whole different setting, the interplay between vibraphone and piano, deft and effortless, producing a dreamily cinematic sprawl of notes floating weightless in space, a sort of tranquil soundscape, that seems perfect for meditation, contemplation or even just relaxation. The tones ring out, the extended decay as much a part of the composition as the initial notes, making the whole thing sound very fluid and organic and full of a hopeful energy. Delicate and divine. And even at 40 minutes, way too short, the sort of piece that we imagine playing on forever.
The second piece is a bit darker, and is more overtly linked to the record's theme. Batagov unfurling darkly melodic figures, gamelan like melodies draped over the top, deep resonant tones, and tinkling chimes, over which two different voices deliver prayer-like incantations to each of the 35 buddhas by name, the music brooding and minimal, but utterly entrancing, and with the voices, it only becomes that more powerful. This is probably the most listened to record in the store recently, and it's easy to see why, Batagov achieves the seemingly impossible, creating a piece of music that is both tranquil and soothing, but one that still manages to be active, and engages the listener in active listening, if they so desire, the main melody/refrain is the sort of melody, that will stick in your head, and will surface constantly, which in a way seems like the perfect accompaniment to the Buddhist teachings that accompany it, a sonic mantra, that can be revisited throughout the day, to help the listener remain lost in the music, and perhaps help achieve a degree of inner peace, even when, or maybe especially when, the outside world seems to be at utterly at odds with such a state.
We continue to dig ever deeper into the catalog of Russian composer / pianist Anton Batagov this week, with two different, and extremely different sounding titles. The other (elsewhere on this week's list) is one of the strangest recordings we've heard from Batagov so far, which finds him paired up with a musician called simply XMZ, for a gorgeous record of piano and electronic sounds/treatments, and this one, Passionate Desire To Be An Angel, which once again finds Batagov's pushing beyond the idea of standard classical music, and expanding that music's typical palette, to include not only cello, harp, vibraphone and samplers, but also guitars, and not delicately arranged 'classical' guitars, we're talking chugging distorted rock guitars, just check out the opener here "Can You Feel The Rhythm?", which pairs chugging rock riffage, with delicate flurries of piano, a strange combination to be sure, and a bit jarring at first, but after a few minutes, it somehow makes some strange sort of sense, but then it gets even weirder, with mournful trombone melodies, and finally, after a brief respite, the riff swoops back in, wreathed in pointillist piano, but now accompanied by some seriously belted out soulful female vox. Woah. We can definitely see classical nerds being a bit confused, but we're pretty into it, Batagov to at all afraid to mix his love of classical music, with rock, and an obvious joy in strange collaboration.
The rest of the record is not nearly as bizarre, but is, like all the other Batagov records we've reviewed, gorgeous, "Cunjunctio", a sweeping near 30 minute epic, that begins as a series of solo piano vignettes, which are soon joined by organ, and celesta, transforming the sound into what could be some seventies E.L.P. style prog epic, but instead of exploding into tangled rock bombast, the tones are drawn out into meditative drones, and lush layered textures, over which angelic female choral vocals soar, sounding almost liturgical, and it's at this point that we first realize how much of this record, sounds almost Christmas-y, the sort of fanfare you can imagine hearing at midnight mass, or as the soundtrack to some strange art film, all snowy vistas, and glimmery lights strung from houses, Batagov's love of Philip Glass evident here as well, with the busy organ chorale very reminiscent of Glass's score for Koyaanisqatsi.
"Opus Alchymicum" starts out with a very Vangelis feel, pizzicato strings, chiming melodies, all wrapped in swirls of reverbed piano melody, pulsing and propulsive, the song shifting from softly churning and rhythmic, to emotional and darkly hauntingly melodic and back again, those chugging guitars from the first track making a return appearance, and again the vibe is very wintery, and soundtracky, and really quite lovely.
The record finishes with "Umbra Solis", which begins all stately droned out mesmer, whirring organs, and long layered tones, minor key and wistfully minimal, before blossoming into another wintery chorale, swirling washes of organ chords, and harmonized operatic vocals, almost like the score to some time lapse film, of the end of winter, snow melting, falling from branches, buds and shoots pushing their way through the icy ground, the sun bathing everything in its hazy springtime glow. So good.
The accompanying booklet, includes all sorts of alchemical diagrams as well as various bits of text (including some quotes from Manly P. Hall), speaking to a deeper philosophical/alchemical/ideological subtext to these works, which only makes the sounds here that much more moving and powerful.
Yet another breathtakingly beautiful release from Russian composer/pianist Anton Batagov, the fourth we've reviewed, and another recording/composition inexorably tied into Batagov's Buddhism. The Monk Thogmey's Thirty-Seven Precepts, like Batagov's other compositions, unfurls a lush, luxurious sonic backdrop, over which sacred Buddhist writings are sung/spoken/chanted, in this case, it's Gyalsey Thogmey Zangpo's titular poem chanted by Lama Tsering Dondrub, and the subtly sing songy delivery is mesmerizing, quite trancelike in fact, drifting serenely over the brooding, hypnotic, darkly lovely shimmer beneath.
A slow series of sonic swells, constructed from piano, organ, vibraphone, guitar, bass, cello and percussion strike the perfect balance between the meditative mesmer of Batagov's Music For The 35 Buddhas, and the almost Godspeed like post rock / modern classical minimalism hybrid of his Bodhicharyavatara. The record starts off very much like Batagov's masterwork The Wheel Of The Law, delicate piano, muted melodic percussion, a dreamlike sprawl of hushed, haunting rhythmic melody, before the vocals come in, accompanied by a lush almost wall of sound, swirling pianos and shimmering gongs, moaning strings, dramatic and majestic. The whole of the subsequent 21+ minute first movement seems to follow a similar sonic pattern, weaving a gentle, delicate sprawl of washed out and woozy, soft focus melody, chiming and lilting and dreamlike, before shifting to something ever so subtly darker, adding guitar and bass, and infusing it with some of that post rock brood, while the vocals drone prayerfully over the top, before slipping back into the more melodic ambient first half, the cycle continuing for the duration, a slow motion sonic seesaw, that in its structure is also quite meditative and trancelike. The second movement adds more shadow to the light, big booming drums, more guitar, melodically and structurally similar to the first part, but a bit more intense, darker and dronier, but equally as mesmerizing.
Finally, the record resolves with an instrumental epilogue, that fuses the two parts into a slow, dolorous piano driven post rock minimal drift, guitar strums drift weightless over pointillist piano, organs wheeze out lush softly undulating drones, that main melody woven deftly throughout. Fantastic stuff as always. The liner notes describe the record's arrangement as relating to seventies rock music, and although we're not sure we would have picked up on that, it is part of what makes Batagov's compositions and performances so singular, and so unlike the rest of his minimalist peers.
Fans of the other Batagov records will definitely want this one too, this could very well be our favorite recording of his (after Wheel Of The Law)...
Super elaborate packaging, a gorgeous full color slipcase, enclosing the cd in a jewel case, and a thick full color booklet, beautifully laid out with liner notes, in Russian and English, as well as Thogmey's poem in Russian and Tibetan.
This is not actually new, but this is the first time we've been able to get this, and the moment we heard it, we knew it was something we had to list! Recorded in 1999, and orginally released in 2002, The Wheel Of The Law compiles three epic pieces of gorgeous minimalism from Russian composer Anton Batagov. Three discs, three tracks composed for organ, glockenspiel, xylophone, piano and percussion, inspired by Buddhism and the Quest for Nirvana, and the practices involved: peace, meditation, deep thought, breathing, conciousness. Repetitive and melodic, lush and so so beautiful. Someone once referred to Batagov as sounding "like Reich on vodka", not sure we hear the vodka, or even any sounds distinctly and immediately recognizably Russian, but there is certainly plenty of Reich here, as well as Riley, and most definitely some Harold Budd, especially in the delicate, spare piano arrangements. The first disc, "Circle Of Time" is four long movements of warm rich swells of organ, flowing lazily beneath delicate cyclical chimes and abstract piano figures, very dramatic and hypnotic. The second disc, the 4 track Voidness cycle: "Appearances And Voidness", "Clarity And Voidness", "Bliss And Voidness", "Mind And Voidness", introduces the same delicate chimes found on the first disc, but this time over a repeating series of haunting moaning violin melodies. Minor key and mildly atonal, the melodies are spread out over a spare background of complex overtones, all drifting dreamily into space. The final disc: "Liberation Through Listening In The Between" is again a massive sprawl of lush static organ drones, wavering and subtly pulsing, with simple three and four note melodies played out over minutes instead of seconds, chiming and ringing, resonating above the organ's mesmerizing drone, the whole thing supported by a barely there framework of simple percussion, so subtle and simple that it's basically a single drum, muted and way down in the mix, offering a sort of pulse for the piece, a musical heartbeat, slowed down, as if in meditation or contemplation.
So completely an utterly breathtaking.
On the last list, we reviewed the first collaboration between Russian composer / pianist Batagov and the mysterious XMZ, which resulted in a strange sort of post-classical Batagov, with swirling atmospheres, dense drones, and perhaps strangest of all beats, Batagov's ethereal, dreamlike pianoscapes transformed into something much more rhythmic and electronic and 'modern'. For their second collaboration Batagov augments his usual piano with one that has been prepared, as is evidenced in the picture on the back cover, which features a shot of the strings inside the piano, augmented by screws, dowels, quarters and allen wrenches, with Batagov not just playing that prepared piano, but also the strings inside, adding plucks and scrapes, haunting pizzicato melodies, and all manner of percussive textures.
The mood this time around is much more somber, and soundtracky, XMZ adding thick swirls of rumble and whir, of lush chordal thrum, and slow shifting shimmer, drifting clouds of soft-noise blurred into washed put prismatic smears, over which Batagov unfurls stately, melancholic melodies here, creepy atonal plinks and plonks there. The first few tracks are hushed dark drifts, moody and murky, Batagov's melodies floating weightless amidst streaks of grey and woozy burbling whirs and hums, the result is darkly dream, and mysteriously meditative, it's not really until the fourth track that the sun begins to shine through, that track unfurling like a Philip Glass / Oval mash up, the backdrop a murky swirl over which Batagov flits elegantly. But those moments of light are fleeting, as the mood darkens almost immediately after, Batagov and XMZ weaving a hazy dirge, tense and minor key and quite dramatic, which is only magnified on the follow up, which seems to blur and bleed and ooze into something much more abstract, and nearly terrifying, a could-be score for some lost arty seventies giallo, sinister and smoldering.
The last few tracks mix it up a bit, slipping from Caretaker like haunted ballroom shimmer, to something surprisingly almost flamenco sounding, the first beats we've heard so far, a shuffling skitter, underpinned by a house music like pulse, if Batagov was playing synths instead of pianos, it could almost be some strange sort of Umberto / Zombi retro-soundtrack thing, but instead, it's much more moody and measured. And finally, the two finish off with another Caretaker-ish bit of ghostly drift, the prepared piano sounding almost zither like, the piano proper unfurling gorgeous dreamy melodies, all swathed in a softly swirling cloud of gauze-y ambience.
Another winner from Batagov, and yet another sonic side to this aQ beloved modern classical master...
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One of two releases on this week's list from Russian composer / pianist Anton Batagov, this one the first in a series of collaborations Batagov produced with a musician called XMZ, who according to the liner notes, contributed 'sounds' the the project, and what sounds they are. We shouldn't need to go into too much detail about how much we love Batagov, his piano playing fluid and lyrical, expressive and emotional, every record we've heard has been stunning, and while this one is no different, it definitely casts Batagov's playing in a whole different light, with XMZ leaving the piano alone for the most part, but creating a lush, and layered, super varied landscape around Batagov's piano, the opening track alone perfectly demonstrates this strange partnership. Batagov unfurls lovely, haunting melodies, which at first are underpinned by strange percussion, and slow shifting textures, but quickly those textures build to soft swirls of chordal color, and underneath, rhythms begin to surface, skittery and barely there at first, but soon, those too become more driving, and eventually almost bombastic, the surrounding ambience too, becomes darkly dramatic, majestic swells of post rock like shimmer, the final minute, pounding, dramatic and so epic!
The second track is much more atmospheric, near ambient, and very cinematic, with XMZ doing most of the heavy lifting in the beginning, Batagov left to unfurl stately chords, and little melodic flourishes. Eventually, the background noise coalesces into another rhythm, and Batagov's piano becomes more forceful, the whole track gaining momentum, becoming a sort of dreamy, soundtracky krautrock flecked new age. The rest of the record unwinds similarly, from moody, darkly dramatic soundtrack like refrains, and strange crackling background textures, disembodied voices, moody rumbling drones, shuffling beats, lush clouds of chordal piano shimmer, sometimes sounding a bit like DJ Shadow, a sample heavy sprawl of beat driven classical piano, but elsewhere, it's a dramatic, dreamy melancholic ambience, and finally, a brooding, lovely, slo-mo sonic elegy, XMZ letting Batagov finish things off, adding very little, just some subtle sonic colorations, and some deep background thrum. As always, fantastic stuff, this one especially sounding like something you might hear on Type or Miasmah or Time Released Sound. Needless to say, absolutely recommended.
Tayatha is the latest release from aQ beloved composer/pianist Anton Batagov, and it just might be his loveliest and most haunting work to date. Which is saying a lot, considering how much we love pretty much everything we've heard from him, we've even made several of his records Record Of The Week, before this one, and his triple cd Wheel Of The Law remains one of our favorite modern minimal releases EVER (and would have also been a Record Of The Week, had we been able to get more). But this new one is something else entirely.
On past records, Batagov has enjoyed the act of collaboration, and has explored playing with rock bands, with experimental electronic musicians, incorporating electric guitar, pounding drums, different vocalists, Buddhist recitations, all a part of Batagov's idiosyncratic approach to modern composition, but never has one of his collaborations been so potent, and so moving, as on Tayatha. Yet another Buddhist based composition here Batagov is joined by Tibetan vocalist Yungchen Lhamo, and that's it, just piano and vocals. And it's stunning. Absolutely. Some of the most beautiful and lyrical piano playing we've heard from Batagov, the sound so rich and emotional, moving and personal, even sans vocals, Tayatha would be a revelation, but Yungchen's voice is a marvel, lush and lustrous, but super distinctive, slipping from rich throaty croon, to something more abstract, and back again, and similarly sans piano, this would be a gorgeous a cappella performance, in fact, Lhamo has been performing solo and a cappella for years, but it's how Lhamo's voice and Batagov's piano fit together so perfectly that makes this record so special.
It's hard to put into words what exactly it is about this record, but without sounding overly dramatic, we got chills the first time we put this one. It's lush and lovely, but definitely haunting, and subtly harrowing, Batagov and Lhamo somehow imbuing the sound with intense emotion, the music surprisingly personal and intimate. We won't pretend that there wasn't a potential for new age schmaltz, what with the female vocals and piano, and the rather new age-y looking cover, but don't be misled, this is a powerful collection of dark, dreamy, moody and meditative music that is truly transcendent. Might be best to just listen to the samples below, we find it hard to imagine you won't be immediately smitten.
And what's even cooler about Tayatha, is that the sound and the compositions are super varied, tracks like "Medicine Buddha" are almost poppy, it's not hard to imagine someone like Tori Amos or Regina Spektor performing the same song, but with dramatically different results, yet even in the hands of Batagov And Lhamo, the song swells dramatically, the piano melodies super intense and strangely catchy, the vocals too, since we don't speak the language, often act like another instrument, imbued with the power of the human voice, but not beholden to any sort of lyrical interpretation. Other tracks are more tranquil and meditative, some are lilting and and dreamlike, others brood and pulse with a mysterious dark energy, and at least one, "Flying Dakini", almost sounds like some 'Nighthawks At The Diner' Tom Waits style balladry, albeit in Tibetan and a bit more modern minimalist. But all the tracks here, every one, is heartbreakingly beautiful, the whole somehow is so much more than its constituent parts, repeated listens have transformed Tayatha into more than just voice and piano, it's almost liturgical, a mysteriously lovely spiritual sonic journey, that manages to turn sound into something divine.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
For those well acquainted with the prose of Aquarius Records, the German duo Troum should be a familiar reference to any one keen on dark dronescapes; but Martyn Bates is something of an enigma to us despite being a stalwart of neo-romantic British art-rock thanks to wealth of recordings with his group Eyeless In Gaza. Blessed with the angelic voice of a classic crooner, Bates certainly fits in with the theatrically inclined singers such as David Sylvian, Scott Walker, and Gordon Sharp. Even when Eyeless In Gaza began under the banner of post-punk, Bates' impassioned delivery enveloped the anti-pop sensibilities with a majestic aura that probably repelled just as many potential fans that might be swayed by his rapturous clarion. To be completely honest, we've never been entirely convinced by Bates or Eyeless In Gaza, despite numerous attempts by lifelong fan and AQ pal Loren Chasse to convince us otherwise. In working with Troum on To A Child Dancing In The Wind, Bates has presented himself again as the occultish troubadour, but with Troum's dark elegance wrapped around his voice, we may need to reconsider. Nocturnal for sure, but hardly as overwhelmingly dark as some of the other Troum records (i.e. Tjurkurppa 2 or Sigqan); To A Child Dancing In The Wind has Troum wrapping shadowy drones and their slow motion churn of heavily processed guitar, accordion, harmonica, and bass as the tapestry for the celestial hymns scribed by Bates. For those transfixed by David Sylvian's collaborative efforts with Fennesz on Blemish, we would hazard to guess that you'll find this album equally as emotive and beautiful.
Some of you may be tired of us going on and on about that Devil's Rejects movie (we listed the Banjo And Sullivan and the killer soundtrack recently). Well tough luck! We finally got the score in and it's amazing, even if you didn't see the movie. A dark and droney, rumbling creep fest, that if you weren't paying attention you might just mistake for a Lustmord record! We kid you not. Don't know too much about Tyler Bates, other than he has a deft hand at composing a scary score, albeit a hand dripping with viscera and blood! Slow building stretches of rumbling shimmering drones, creaking and crackling, splintering into shards of high end, slow heart beat like pulses, all ominous and oozing with dread, occasionally interrupted by blasts of pulsing teutonic crunch, chaotic rhythms stumbling wildly over tangles of atonal melody and and swirls of keening noise. There are moments of obvious soundtrack-ness, where the music was required to dictate some on screen action, a snippet of bump and grind funk, a brief passage of dizzy goofy circus music, but for the most part, each track is a dense black hole of musical misery and dark drones, that should totally hit the spot for all you dark ambient doom drone creatures of the night.
With past releases including Acid Mother's Temple and Yahowha 13, we can always count on Prophase to deliver a lysergic dose of psychedelic awesomeness. Gypsy Woman is their latest offering of psych-folk bliss, a free-flowing cosmic epic from Oakland's tarot warrior Janina Angel Bath. With the help of some friends and a wide array of world instruments, including bansari, tamboura and flute, Ms. Bath gently crafts an otherworldly escape into ethno-drone solace. While Gypsy Women is heavily decorated with exotic instrumentation and dizzying effects, the majority of the album revolves around Ms. Bath's vocal work. "Mystic Lady", a favorite track of ours, probably because it features Kazem Zia Ebrahimi on electric sarod, unfolds like a hazy desert dreamscape. Somber gestures from the sarode weave in and out of Bath's vocal croons, swells of reverb fade into the distant horizon as the many layers fall into place like a leaf onto water, so mysterious and elegant.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Imported from New Zealand. Bathgate is also guitarist in Tall Dwarfs.
In a former life, Alec Bathgate was one half of the New Zealand indie rock band Tall Dwarfs (Chris Knox was the other half). He's now gone solo, shifting his focus slightly for The Indifferent Velvet Void. His overall sound is along the lines of the soft, wispy twee folksiness crafted by Elephant 6 Collective bands such as Olivia Tremor Control, Minders or Apples In Stereo, but we sensed some subtle Raspberries '70s softrock influences too. The first song immediately made Cup start singing "Yummy yummy yummy I've got love in my tummy!" but then again that might also be because she'd just eaten an enormous slice of chocolate cake. Nevertheless, this is some super sweet retro poppiness which just might tickle your fancy if you dig any/all of the artists mentioned above!
We actually thought this was going to be the SF band Baths we've been hearing so much about but turns out there is actually a Baths from LA who are way different but totally awesome as well (the San Francisco Baths are changing their name and we're anxious to hear a record from them one of these days too). This Baths is a one man warped electro-hip-hop artist out of Los Angeles who fits so perfectly on Anticon. This is a record that really does sound like the natural progression for the label and its sound really needed and deserved. Approaching left field pop with the same kind of vision that folks like Black Moth Super Rainbow/Tobacco have, infusing hip-hop production and beats into a much more nuanced and Technicolor soaked melodicism. Crazy to think this guy is only 21, as the music he makes sounds so assured flows so flawlessly. Armed with J Dilla like beats and Neon Indian sounding production, this is totally hitting the spot right now!!
When it rains, it pours. Especially when we're talking about, um... shit? Bathtub shitter that is. Now that the world has discovered the joys of Bathtub Shitter and the 'Shitter are no longer just an underground grindcore secret, the band have systematically been re-releasing their long out of print (and unbelievably kick ass) early seven inch singles. Bathtub Shitter were pretty dang prolific with more than a dozen singles and even more compilation tracks under their belts before they finally released a proper full length. So here we have the Angels Save Us 7" from 2002 and the Mark A Muck 7" from 2001, as well as a bonus track from a long out of print grindcore compilation. So if you're new to Bathtub Shitter, here is as good a place to start as anywhere. Imagine a grindcore band that incorporates bits of Zeppelin, and surf rock, and metal into their grind, occasionally veer off on questionable tangents and explore truly bizarre musical flights of fancy the way Japanese bands are often wont to do. But as with most bands, it's the vocals that -make- the band, but most bands probably don't have a skinny Japanese vocalist who bellows like an overwight demon with indigestion one minute, and screeches and squeals like an hysterical teenage girl the next. Sounds weird? It is. Really weird. But so funny and cool. A completey unpredicatable and super fun blast of chaotic grinding metallic rock and roll weirdness.
Limited to 1000 copies and hand numbered!
Every kid dreads finding a lump of coal in their stocking come Christmas morning, so much so that many spend the weeks or months before the big day doing their very best to ensure their spot on Santa's 'Nice' list. No more teasing the siblings, no more grousing about yardwork, cheerfully doing all their chores, eating all their vegetables, doing all their homework. Whatever it takes. But this year kids have something else entirely to worry about. Sure finding a lump of coal is a drag, but how about finding your stocking full of shit!! Well around here, that's something to be excited about. Because this is the year that Brown Santa comes to town. And who better to fill our hearts with Christmas cheer and regale us with tales of Brown Santa than Japan's shit obsessed grind lords Bathtub Shitter? That's right, it's a Bathtub Shitter Christmas. Record! Forget your Nat King Cole, and Perry Como, and Bing Crosby, and Barbara Striesand, this is the only Christmas record you need! And it's conveniently stocking sized, a cute lil' 3" cd, jam packed with furious grind, howling pummeling brutality, and lots and lots of shit.
For those of you new to the wonderful world of Bathtub Shitter, let's refer to a past review that perfectly and succinctly describes the Bathtub Shitter Experience:
Imagine some strange mix of Drop Dead, the Boredoms, Brutal Truth, CSSO, death metal, grindcore, and well....um...shit! Crunchy riffs swing from almost-surf rock, to Zeppelin groove to metallic crunch, but spend most of their time in grind mode, splattered and speeding out of control. Crazy drumming, farting bass and some wicked guitar noodling add to the sick sonic stew. But the vocals are where things get really weird. The main vocals are of the burping, grunting, cookie monster death metal variety, belching out indecipherable tales of shit and shitting, but their foil is a squealing, squeaking little girl of a man voice, sounding either like a babblingly hysterical middle age housewife shrieking at the top of her lungs or a horror movie cheerleader being evicerated, screaming in that terrified way only dying cheerleaders in horror movies do. The two vocal styles swing and switch and battle and butt heads like some sort of bastard grindcore Beastie Boys. Or imagine Chuck D as Chris Barnes in his Cannibal Corpse days and Flavor Flav as the aforementioned shrieking dead cheerleader. With the everpresent S1Ws made up of members of S.O.D. and Angelcorpse. Other sorts of vocals are occasionally introduced like the 'dog barking underwater' and the 'asthmatic yodel'. The truly strange part is that all of the various vocals come from the very same guy!
Speaking of vocals, our Bathtub Shitter Xmas starts off with the a cappella "Brown Santa", a confusing and brilliantly bizarre series of shrieks and gurgles, grunts and wheezes. This guy could very well give Jaap Blonk a run for his money. Track two is the reverential hymn "Holy Shit", a grinding blast of Japanoise flecked surf-sludge-grind-rock, with insane squiggly guitars, chugging downtuned riffs, blasting octopoidal drumming and of course the 'Shitter hi / lo, shriek / growl vocal battle is in full effect. And finally, what better way to finish things off, than with a classic holiday chestnut, this time roasted over roaring hellfire!! WOOOAHHHAAAA. "Little Drummer Boy" turned into a sludgy slab of slow motion drone metal, huge churning guitars, the only glimpse of the original being the martial snare drum rat a tat tat-ing beneath all that sludge and of course the impossibly guttural growling cookie monster vocals spweing out a barely recognizable "parumpapumpum".
Wow! Now if that doesn't sound like something everyone would want to find in their stocking or under the tree Christmas morning then we don't know does!
"We're dreaming of a... Brown Christmas!"
Holy shit!!! A brand new record from our favorite Japanese stoner grind sludge punk rock group. Possesor of quite possibly the best band name ever. And most appropriate too, as the band seems strangely pre-occupied with shit (although not bathtubs so much). It's been raining 'Shitter reissues as the band works through their considerable back catalog of singles and split eps, so we ordered this thinking it was another reissue, but lo and behold, it's a whole disc of brand spanking new Bathtub Shitter. For those of you new to the world of Bathtub Shitter, imagine the bastard spawn of Brutal Truth, the Boredoms, Celtic Frost, Black Sabbath, and Dick Dale. Stoner grooves collide with buzzing goregrind, surf rock licks sit unexpectedly amidst sludge metal riffs and lightning fast blast beats. A glorious goofy grinding metallic mess as only the Japanese can do it. But the star of any Bathtub Shitter is Masato Henmarer Morimoto, the owner of quite possibly the most ridiculous and breathtaking set of vocal chords ever. On first listen, we were convinced that BS must have had at least two vocalists, maybe more, but it's all the work of one man, Masato. Once you hear it you'll understand why it's so hard to believe. There is of course the requisite goregrind gurgle, a rumbling, phlegm spewing demonic growl, then there's the sort of punk rock yelp, that balances the first voice a bit, but it's the third distinct voice that blows the mind. A piercing, falsetto, damsel in distress, horror movie massacre, cheerleader / housewife shriek. It's so crazy, but sounds so great, especially when engaged with the aforementioned growl in a sort of unholy duet, like a grindcore Beastie Boys, but battling atop a swirling squirmy mass of downtuned guitars, rumbling bowel loosening bass and blasting splattery drumming. WE LOVE BATHTUB SHITTER.
Packaged like the last few BS releases in an oversized 7"style sleeve with really cool and creepy cover art!
Ah, Bathtub Shitter. Even the mere mention of the band gets us all smiling. Not just because Bathtub Shitter is quite possibly the most stupidly brilliant band name ever, and not just because their lyrics are composed in a dizzyingly bizarre confusional sort of Japanglish, and not just because they sing mostly about shit, but because they are still one of the coolest, weirdest grind bands we have ever heard. If you're a regular AQ customer, you are probably already well aware of how much we love Bathtub Shitter, and probably have a good idea of why, but those of you yet to be acquainted with the 'Shitter, let's recap. Imagine if you will, the Boredoms covering Agoraphobic Nosebleed, or maybe a wacky, damaged Japanese Pig Destroyer. Wild and splattery grind, huge downtuned guitars, blazing fast, super complex riffs, pounding blast beats, and a vocalist who manages to grunt with the best of 'em, a guttural gargling demonic gurgle, but who, in the blink of an eye, can switch to a hysterical shriek, that sounds a bit like a mad housewife or a terrified cheerleader in a horror movie as she is about to be ritually disemboweled. Amazing! Seeing them live, it's completely baffling to see these two voices coming from the same skinny little Japanese guy, so much so that until we actually did see them, we were convinced there had to be two vocalists.
This is Bathtub Shitter record number three, and is quite possibly the best of the bunch, compiling all of their long out of print seven inches, compilation tracks, songs from splits as well as some demos and unreleased tracks. Packaged in an oversized seven inch sleeve, with cool gory cover art on one side, one of those goofy punk rock / heavy metal style collages of onstage / backstage hi-jinks on the other, and of course all the lyrics inside. LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES WORLDWIDE, AND HAND NUMBERED!
...And coming soon, in plenty of time for the holidays, you knew it had to happen... a Bathtub Shitter Christmas record!! On Andee's tUMULt label!! Holy shit!!
If you've been hanging out with me (Andee) much lately, you've undoubtedly heard me singing the praises of Bathtub Shitter. In fact before I had even heard them, I knew Bathtub Shitter had the potential to be my favorite band. C'mon, they're Japanese, they are called Bathtub Shitter, oh and did I mention they only sing about shit? For a while I was fantasizing about releasing a split with the two best bands in the world (as determined at the time solely by monicker as I had yet to hear either) Bathtub Shitter and Fuck I'm Dead. I'm still thinking about it, but while I ruminate, we're lucky to have this, the first full length Bathtub Shitter record and their only cd. We spent a good long while tracking down 7"s, but since the world leans heavily in the digital direction we had to wait until this beautiful shiny shit-obsessed marvel fell into our hands! What's it sound like you're probably wondering by now. Well, imagine some strange mix of Drop Dead, the Boredoms, Brutal Truth, CSSO, death metal, grindcore, and well....um...shit! Crunchy riffs swing from almost-surf rock, to Zeppelin groove to metallic crunch, but spend most of their time in grind mode, splattered and speeding out of control. Crazy drumming, farting bass and some wicked guitar noodling add to the sick sonic stew. But the vocals are where things get really weird. The main vocals are of the burping, grunting, cookie monster death metal variety, belching out indecipherable tales of shit and shitting, but their foil is a squealing, squeaking little girl of a man voice, sounding either like a babblingly hysterical middle age housewife shrieking at the top of her lungs or a horror movie cheerleader being evicerated, screaming in that terrified way only dying cheerleaders in horror movies do. The two vocal styles swing and switch and battle and butt heads like some sort of bastard grindcore Beastie Boys. Or imagine Chuck D as Chris Barnes in his Cannibal Corpse days and Flavor Flav as the aforementioned shrieking dead cheerleader. With the everpresent S1Ws made up of members of S.O.D. and Angelcorpse. Other sorts of vocals are occasionally introduced like the 'dog barking underwater' and the 'asthmatic yodel' but I don't want to give away too much. It's better if you just let the Bathtub Shitter unfold before you like a beautiful, shit-filled flower.
