We really didn't have very expectations for this one as most big time punk reunion records have been pretty dismal and depressing. But we're happy to report that this is not bad at all, in fact it's pretty damn good! With the original lineup together and Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys on production duties, Build A Nation was recorded like the good old days, right to tape. Of course nothing Bad Brains could do will ever replicate the fire and intensity of their legendary ROIR debut, but this is for sure better then any of their releases in the '90s. Going back to their roots the record finds a nice balance of punk rock songs and HR's love of roots reggae and offers up a much less metallic slant then their last several discs. You can tell that Adam Yauch put a lot of love and care into recording his heroes and he really was able to get a sound from the band that represents so much of the best parts of who they are. Any self-respecting punk/punk-lover knows that Bad Brains are one of the most important bands in the history of American Hardcore so it's very nice to hear a new record from them that kicks serious ass...
Bad Brains were (are?) arguably the greatest hardcore band of all time, and this collection of killer footage from three consecutive nights of shows way back in 1982 definitively demonstrate what a powerhouse they were. 1982 was indeed a good year for H.R. and the boys for sure, and by the looks of the crowd bounding all over the stage -at times it's hard pick out the actual band members -- they can do no wrong.
The dreads may still short at this stage, and yes, there are a few Rasta soliloquies here and there, but for the most part, the mosh level stays high. Frontman H.R. is always in command, staking out his little portion of the stage, and while axeman Dr. Know is still developing his craft, even back then, he was already blowing minds. And it sure is pretty weird to see the bald white kids skanking around to the stony-Jah riddums... But that's part of what made Bad Brains so bad ass. It's a very racially diverse crowd and everyone seems to be there to mosh or skank and not to fight or fuck shit up. Which is pretty cool.
The footage itself has a wonderful quality to it, especially for the era, the audio is good and it seems as though the video was compiled using the best songs from each of the three nights at CBGB. You can't go wrong with this, and we'd be hard pressed not to recommend this as CRUCIAL to your '80s hardcore video archive.
Oh man, these Bad Dudes will for sure push all your smart alecky, manic prog, fuzzy synth, indie pop, angular art metal buttons and then some. Imagine the Champs, Upsilon Acrux, XRBXR, Zebulon Pike, Pinback, and Behold The Arctopus, in a dark alley, ready to rumble, armed only with synths, drum machines, gameboys, dayglo metal guitars, lots of zippers and wristbands, and of course vocoders. The resulting bloodshed sounds a bit like Rob Crow fronting Mr. Bungle, while they hold a new wave dance competition in the room next door. Wild and weird and fun and funny and a little bit confusing but in a good way!
The War On Huh? is the first full length from Bad Grid (aka Mark Nemeth and Paul Brown) and it's comprised of a baker's dozen lo-fi, electronic pop/rock songs laden with socio-political commentary on "Generals And CEOs", "Barbara Bush" and "Radical Republicans" with plenty of newsreel soundbites (unfortunately they've included a bunch of already way too over-played Bush clips). The vocals are delivered in a low, somewhat sullen speak-sing style reminiscent of Daniel Ash. As a result their statements in songs such as "Solution Song" and "Enjoy Your Life" occasionally come across as somewhat passive or defeatist rather than rallying. May seem a bit contradictory, but they get their message across -- raising awareness while keepin' things downbeat.
We'd been hearing about these guys for a while, lots of people we trust, kept telling us we'd love these guys, and just how crazy heavy and hooky they were, and you know what? They were right. Imagine the bastard son of the Melvins and Harvey Milk, ok? Now imagine that son got it on with the bastard son of Thin Lizzy and the Champs, and then the resulting bastard son got super into Deep Purple and ZZ top, and ended up hooking up with some hot metal chick into Motorhead and the MC5, and they had a baby, and all they played that baby was nineties AmRep 7"s until it grew up and was basically doomed by several generations of rock genetics to start a band, well, then this is probably the band he or she would start.
With any sort of band like this, there's a bit of tongue and cheek going on, not that it's a joke band, but bands like this are meant to be FUN, especially live, the sort of show you go to and end up getting home, beaten and bruised, sweat soaked and drunk as fuck, with about twenty years worth of classic riffs lodged in your head. And they've done a pretty good job of capturing that on vinyl, huge thick guitars, monster drumming, bellowed vox, that sound like that have to be coming from some massive bearded mountain man, the sound flitting easily from dense progged out math metal radness, to punked out metallic stomp, to swaggery classic rock crunch, harmonized leads, cowbell, all the ingredient of ROCK, deftly wielded by these barbarians. Opener "Brick Toothpick" starts out all Champs-y before stumbling into some Melvins style lumber, "Fake Tan" is all fist-pumping, head-banging stadium rock epic writ punk-as-fuck, "Bore" is all churning math metal swagger, with big hooks, big drums, and some awesomely ridiculous lyrics.
Elsewhere, the sound slips from super distorted Torche like sludge pop, to -almost- arena ready heavy rocking a la Mastodon or Queens Of The Stone Age, even some tripped out krautrockiness and swirling psychedelia here and here, but these guys don't get weird or musically high falutin', this is the sort of RAWK, that's about drinking and fucking and fighting, this is the sort of hard rocking good ol' boy soundtrack we all hear in our heads as we're making one glorious bad decision after another. Fucking AWESOME.
Long out of print cassette-only release on CD for the first time! Not as punk as their other stuff, Dust on the Bible is decidedly gospel with fiddle, tuba, and accordion. Excellent.
Twangy fingerpickin' bluegrass punk rockers, this Austin duo play their own brand of hillbilly boogie, like the Squirrel Nut Zippers if they were country, not swing. Banjoriffic!
Unlike the bulk of psych bands from the UK these days, the Bad Losers are not Hawkwind worshipping spacelords, or krautrock obsessed drone rockers, instead, these sixties beholden psych rockers channel that classic freakbeat garage sound - fuzzy organs, jangly guitars, harmonicas, some fuzz and crunch, plenty of hooks and melody, but also a dash of lysergic trippiness. It makes for the sort of spacey, head nodding grooviness most modern bands can't pull off. Fans of like minded bands from back in the day will dig for sure - think paisley pop, Nuggets, that sort of thing, but also, anyone into the current crop of psych-garage combos like Lorelle And The Absolute, Sultan Bathery, Moon Duo, People's Temple, etc. who maybe missed out on the earlier waves of psychedelic garage, this will definitely hit the spot.
Super duper limited too, released on the aQ beloved, and usually more experimentally minded Equation Records (New Blockaders, Troum, Nadja, irr.app.(ext.). Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, Organum, etc.).
Another beefy dose of industrial rhythms and bad vibes from San Francisco's Bad News, who as we mentioned before have nothing to do with the British comedy troupe of the same name that brilliantly parodied all of the cliches of heavy metal back in the early '80s. This single takes up a Crash Worship frenzy of drums extracted from the pagans and programmed into the machines of the Hypo Luxa & Hermes Pan school of Wax Trax productions circa 1989. Clipped, machine-gun snare fills and metal-bashed samples stand at the foreground of the A side, with the vocals from Sarah Bernat warped from her already diabolical chant through a square-waved tremolo pattern. The B side is a remix, with the vocals pushed towards the foreground for more of a cold-wave feel buttressed by swarming synths provided by Marc Manning; and the aggression of the programmed drums certainly remain. Super limited pressing on lead-gray vinyl. Download code? Yes and thank you.
No, not the same Bad News which offered up a British version of Spinal Tap's heavy metal stupidity and awesomeness; although there is a certain incredulity about this Bad News as well. Of course, styles come and go with each season, and many of the sounds that defined the '60s, '70s, and '80s have eventually come back around through whatever cultural zeitgeist is spurning them on. So, this Bad News is one of several bands currently at the forefront of a minor movement that is pushing beyond the minimal wave aesthetic out of the early '80s and into the more aggressive, blustery sounds of industrial uttered by Wax Trax, PIAS, and Nettwerk from 1986 to 1990. Yeah, think Vivisect 6 era Skinny Puppy or Twitch era Ministry. Bad News is the work of Alex Lucas and Sarah Bernat, the latter being renowned for her work in the chairkickingly punk-as-fuck noise trio 16 Bitch Pile-up; and her bad-ass swagger on vocals and guitar is amply matched by the heavy sequencing and blister-popped electronics from Lucas. "Decay" sports a Missing Foundation / Skullflower guitar churn amidst a slow dive bomb squalor of electric noise and Bernat's gray-colored monotone vocals, with the rhythms and electronics embued with a heavy, machined plod. Sweaty. Smelly. Greasy. The title track throws a monophunk basskick into the foreground with hypnotically aggressive intentions matched by what could only be seen as an industrial strength / megaphone raga in which Bernat chants those titular words. "Typical Illusion" is Bad News' finest moment of post-hardcore riffage affixed to militantly double-timed rhythms and cluster bombs of heavy noise, electronic confusion, and ill will. If anybody remembers when Controlled Bleeding released a couple of really ho-hum records on Wax Trax in 1989, THIS is what Paul Lemos, et al. should have been doing.
We had this on cassette briefly, and we gotta say that the vinyl mastering job renders a truly superior product. Fucking rad.
Let's just go on the record and say, that British comedy is far superior to American comedy. Especially in the realm of the ultra-uncomfortable. Love Curb Your Enthusiasm? Just wait until you check out Peep Show. Can't get enough of the Office? Well the British original is way funnier, and WAY more brutal. And you haven't even begun to feel massive gloriously hilarious discomfort until you've seen Alan Partridge (review of the series DVD elsewhere on the AQ site).
But way back when, the Brits were already showing us a thing or too, with the utterly amazing, very DIY, and funny as fuck Young Ones, finding its way to American TV in the '80s... the tale of a hippy, a mod, a punk, and a creepy money obsessed shyster, all living in a run down house together, with a talking hamster, an insane landlord, and bands like the Damned or Madness showing up every week to rock out in the living room. After the Young Ones dissolved, the punk and the hippy and the mod went on to the long running meta-sketch comedy show The Comic Strip. Super smart and sharp, but not afraid of being really really dumb once in a while (but in a really smart way).
Hence we have Bad News. The worst heavy metal band you've never heard. Taking the whole Spinal Tap thing in a much more dismal, depressing, volatile and gut busting direction. Culled from two episodes of The Comic Strip, the disc captures all of their 'hits' as well as track after track after track of the band bickering and even physically abusing each other.
As if you couldn't tell already, this is one of the funniest records ever. EVER! And unlike lots of 'joke' musical projects, the songs are completely kick ass. In fact the song "Drink Till I Die" sounds like some lost Motorhead B-side. Hell, A-side even.
They do a painfully bad version of "Bohemian Rhapsody", a Christmas single, and a handful of amazing originals, like their theme song "Bad News" and the super kick ass "Warriors Of Ghengis Khan". But the songs, as good and as funny as they are, are merely musical interludes for the fighting that comes between. And the cool thing, is it's not just clips from the show, it's band meetings, aborted recording sessions (including an amazing bit where they spend forever trying to make 'scary woodland sounds', resulting in one of them moo-ing like a cow, and yet another fight ensues since 'cows are not scary or evil'), confrontations over who re-recorded whose parts, lots of screaming and yelling and tons of profanity. It's intense and brutal and so goddamn funny. It's so relentless you can barely take it after an hour. Any one who is into Longmont Potion Castle or the Great Phone Calls record or Jon Wayne (the band) or Spinal Tap will love Bad News. Plus, if you can, rent the video, which is just as funny as the cd. You get to see Bad News actually perform at a British Metal festival, and get pelted with bottles and eventually beaten to a pulp, as well as all your favorite metal stars (Ozzy, Scorpions, Def Leppard, Lemmy) talking about how much Bad News suck.
Soooooooo goddamn funny and amazing and essential.
From the same label that brought us the minimal hypnotic pummel of Mammal, and the shrill doomic psych sludge of Cadaver In Drag, comes Bad Party, another hateful noise drenched sonic assault on the senses.
This duo though takes a whole 'nother angle, kicking up a serious din of shitty programmed drum machine, huge moaning buzzing bass, yowled snotty vocals and sheets of squealing feedback. Falling somewhere between Big Black, Suicide and the Brainbombs, these two spew stripped down mechanical garage jams, a fuzzed out lo-fi party ruining stomp, minimal and stripped down, but still noisy as fuck, the lyrics nasty and mean and pretty fucking funny, woven into the lurching grooves and the almost new wave bass lines.
Some tracks get extra murky and grungy, while others sound almost well produced, but even at their cleanest (which is not all that clean at all) the proceedings are still showered in shrieking high end, and that awesome fuck-you caterwaul, you can almost picture these guys shirtless in huge stiletto heels and furs, trashing the stage with just a bass and a crappy old synth, sunglasses, booze and coke, and a cadre of ill behaved hangers on. Bad party indeed. Trashy and noisy and fucked up and fun. As long as it's not your party. Recommended.
Hadn't heard too much about the Bad Plus other than the ususal "They're that weird jazz group that does weird covers." A bit of an oversimplification perhaps, but yeah, the Bad Plus are a weird jazz group, and they do indeed perform lots of unlikely covers. But beyond that, they are a super original, super fucked up, totally original, post-bop jazz weird-rock hybrid. Which makes them a bit hard to pin down. They are definitely too weird and 'rock' to appeal to jazz snobs, but they have some serious jazz chops, serious enough that it definitely alienates a lot of the jazz-phobic among us. Which is too bad, because they are simply amazing. Splattery percussion is all over the place, skittering delicately one moment, crashing and pounding the next, matched by deep, throbbing upright bass, and wild mayhemic piano. Their originals show a firm grasp of the classics, but their choice of covers demonstrates a band history rich in indie and hard rock. In the past they have covered Blondie, Nirvana and Aphex Twin. This time around they take on Ornette Coleman's "Street Woman", as well as the Pixies' "Velouria", which gets deconstructed into a persistent throbbing pulse (that folks in the store mistook for an upstairs neighbor stomping around) with the song's unmistakable melody stretched out into a classical fugue, that eventually gives way to a weirdly funky free-bop workout. But the album's finest moment may just be their verison of Sabbath's "Iron Man", in which an out of tune piano intro gives way to a sludgy, jazzy dirge, surprisingly heavy, and weirdly chaotic and confusional. Part way through they unexpectedly change from minor key to major key, turning that classic metal riff into some sort of strange fanfare, all pomp and bluster, at once totally unlike the original, but at the same time you can imagine, maybe in some other dimension, the major key version being THE version. And that's what makes the Bad Plus so good, their ability to trample all over sacred ground, be it rock, or jazz, or uncoverable covers, but to do it in such a way that we end up thinking the muddy trampled ground, footprints, dead flowers and all, is almost superior to the cherished original.
It's really easy for a band to be overshadowed by its gimmick, be it crazy makeup, wacky song titles, insane pyrotechnics, setting your drums up backwards at the front of the stage or whatever. A band has to really have the songs and the sound to keep their chosen gimmick in check. With L.A.'s acoustic free jazz combo The Bad Plus, it's their choice of covers. I mean, what proper jazz band would dare tackle songs by Blondie, Nirvana, Aphex Twin, the Pixies and Black Sabbath? Well, none actually. And since the Bad Plus is not a proper jazz group it works out just fine. Piano, bass and drums, all acoustic. From dark and minor key smokey simmer, to chaotic, splattery post bop freakout, to almost Neu!-like krautrock workouts to lush expansive jazz flecked soundscapes, these guys somehow manage to sound totally traditional and utterly fucked up at the same time. The bizarre cover this time around is Vangelis' "(Theme From) Chariots Of Fire" which the Bad Plus smash into a million little free jazz pieces, stick back together seemingly haphazardly, using just the original melody as the glue, as sputtering spastic percussive squalls rain down on manic piano runs and rumbling throbbing basslines, while that impossibly unforgettable melody creeps and skips and slinks in between. If you had never heard the Vangelis original, you'd think it was just the catchiest, weirdest wildest most perfect slab of freaked out jazz ever. Thankfully the originals play just as well, densely layered, ultra complex, wildly playful and darkly melodic, veering all over the jazz spectrum as well as careening occasionally way outside the realms of anything remotely jazzlike. Booklet includes an exclusive original comic strip from David Rees (Get Your War On). And definitely catch 'em live if you can, supposedly they're even wilder and weirder and likely to whip out even more ridiculous covers!
From the always impressive Sygil label, who in the past has given us stunning releases from
Aurora Dorey Alice, Charnel House, Avakr, OS, Sky Projection and more, comes this gorgeous missive of witchy, washed out dark wave gloominess/dreaminess. Falling somewhere between the drifty murk of Grouper, and the gothic torch songs of Zola Jesus, Bad Psychic unfurls stately, hauntingly meditative gloom-ragas, with soaring, tranced out vocals, over a bed of roiling dark drones, and softly churning synths. Woozy loops, and layered melodies, bleed and blur into softly undulating sonic tapestries, sometimes tethered to a spare, skeletal rhythm, but often left to float weightless in a sprawl of blackened shimmer. Some tracks (like "Dance Spell") slip into a sound a bit more overtly new wave, but even then, it's still creepy, and hazy, and drowsily lo-fi. Opener "Fortune" sets the mood perfectly, with it's tranced out, almost chorale sounding mesmer, that druggy, drowsy vibe surfacing throughout the record, sometimes morphing into a grim kosmische sound, other times blossoming into near poppiness, but always shadowy, and grey, and darkly dreamlike. Even after just one listen, we were compelled to just lift the needle and put it right back at the beginning again.
Fans of witchy, dreamy dark pop, especially folks who were bummed on the most recent Zola Jesus record, will find themselves wishing that had sounded more like this. A dark, droney, hypnotic, gloom pop gem, that comes WAY recommended. Includes a download code as well. LIMITED TO 200 COPIES!! Each one hand numbered.
Yet another one of Andee's guilty pleasures (hard to believe there can be so many). Bad Religion record number 341 or something, and while it's nowhere as good as 'Suffer' or 'Against The Grain' (both are completely amazing), the sound is still quite similar
The newest offering from this 'intelligent' punk band. And while not their best record, certainly their best sounding (thanks to a sparkling and fairly creative Todd Rundgren production). They still remain head and shoulders above most pop punk bands. Catchy songs, hooks, and occasionally hyper-literate lyrics. It must suck to have helped define a genre, and then wake up one day, fifteen years later, opening for Blink 182. They deserve better.
"Vacuum Pulse" is a collaborative effort between Japan's Contagious Orgasm and Italy's Bad Sector, both of whom have extensive catalogues of post-industrial rumblings. This was originally a cassette from Old Europa Cafe, who fortunately issued this again in a digital format with two extra collaborative tracks. Bad Sector's sound is typified by slow Wagnerian melodic progressions creeping out of tense John Duncan-esque data-crunched drones. Contagious Orgasm prefers to lace processed authoritative speech patterns with Eraserhead radiator sounds. Their collaborative efforts sounds a lot like a louder Main without as much bass and with a gilded aura surrounding all of the work.
Awesome! We'd been waiting and wanting more from New Zealand's bizarre Bad Statistics ever since we got their vinyl-only debut, Static, last year. In addition to thinking they had a really excellent band name, we loved the doomic, droning weirdness of their propulsive krauty NZ noiserock, made even weirder by the utter outsider vocal garble that arose over their ritualistic music, like spirits or specters seemingly summoned from the other side. Now, huzzah, there's this new full-length, an actual cd on the Pseudo-Arcana label, and it pretty much picks up where the LP left off! 47 and a half minutes more of mysterious musical ceremony, Bad Statistics style, on these seven tracks. Again, the vocals (produced from the throat of one Thebis Mutante) are really strange, unhinged alien hippy rant-chant, like Ya Ho Wah's Father Yod speaking in tongues, sometimes looped and layered. Together with the throbbing drum beats, distorted electronic textures from guitar and bass, and hollow horn bleat and twitter on a track or two, you have the basic tempel-vibrating template for Bad Statistics' repetitive, rumbling, mesmerizing murk. Best listened to from a yogic position of spiritual openness, legs crossed, mind clear, third eye unblinking. Though, at their loudest, most intense chugging psychrock peaks, some vigorous rocking back and forth will be called for, maybe even full-on writhing on the floor.
Let's take the 13-minute title track as an example... it's moaningly eased into, the percussive plod slow and sparse, but after a short while Thebis cries out quite like Can's Damo Suzuki, and the pace picks up, cymbals crashing... before another long droning lull with whistling and mumbling drifting over the slo-mo chug of the guitars and drums... then towards the very end, the singer suddenly seems possessed, his voice dropping into a guttural exhortations, the din of the instruments rising into a psychedelic swirling howl... welcome to the reverse exorcism!!
Imagine the kosmic-kraut-primitivism of early Amon Duul, Tangerine Dream, or Siloah, with Circle's Mika Ratto as voice coach, encouraging Yod x Yoko vocal vibrations. Or the linear lo-fi insanity of a secret Dead C meets Reynols monster jam, if directed towards the worship of some ancient god, recorded on cheap cassette only as an afterthought. Yeah. It's pretty much awesome.
One of our favorite new records of late, comes to us all the way from New Zealand, but via Belgium (where their label, long time AQ faves Kraak are based). A mysterious troupe called Bad Statistics, their debut a two song vinyl only EPIC. Equal parts droney noise rock, propulsive krautrock, and even some weird sort-of-doom. Drenched in swirls of chaotic FX and a blown out in-the-red recording, that manages to be fierce and murky at the same time.
Each track takes up a whole side and is given plenty of time to change shape and direction, sound and spirit, transforming gradually, but managing to remain hypnotic and blissed out. The A side, begins as a doomy plod, but with clean guitars instead of downtuned distorted ones, the drums spare, and all manner of weird demon-y vocals, a sort of post rocky crawl. Eventually, synths join the fray, and along with the drums, they lock into a looped cyclical groove, over which, still more strange vocals croon and moan. And we're talking REALLY strange, mewling moaning howling weirdness. The music sounds like some spaced out Tangerine Dream, the drums a constant pound way down in the mix, the synths pulsing and throbbing, the vocals though turn it into some damaged outsider space jam. At one point the synths drop out and the vocals go crazy, sounding like they're speaking in tongues, before the band kick back in, launching into a fierce Hawkwind style FX drenched psychrock outro that goes on forever.
The second track is even better, and one of our favorite songs of the year hands down. A gorgeously blown out dirge, the guitars so hot they crumble with every downbeat, the recording super distorted and raw, but the melody and the main riff are super gorgeous, catchy and minor key, the track relaxes briefly, spreading out into a glitchy ambient murmur, over which guitars shimmer, little bits of electronics flutter, and the bass holds it all together with a simple dreamy groove. Very krautrocky, and a bit like a more lo-fi noiserock Necks. The track shifts constantly over the next ten minutes or so, to weird doomy twang, with gorgeous majestic riffing, thick bass chords, and some shapeless falsetto vocals, then to a super distorted psychdrone freakout, replete with chiming guitar harmonics, and a pulsing throbbing rhythm buried beneath a layer of crunchy buzz, then to a sunbaked space jam, all open chords, simple drumming, more shapeless vox, and finally to a washed out krautrock dirge, peppered with bits of backwards percussion, garbled voices, reverse guitar, and jagged chunks of crumbling distortion, until the whole thing slowly burns to black.
Sorry to everyone without a turntable, but this just may be the blown out space psych doom kraut jam of the year!!
The hyperbolic sonic aggresion of Panacea is set aside for this side project dedicated to riding the new electro wave. Angular old-school robobeats, as heard on the amazing Electro Non-Stop compilation of a few months back.
This is Eric Oblivian (Oblivians), Jay Reatard (Reatards, Lost Sounds), and King Louie Bankston (Persuaders, King Louie One Man Band, Royal Pendletons). They got together to record an album of songs they had worked up in their individual "bad times" outside of their regular bands. All three met in New Orleans for one day of practice and one day of recording. Totally fuzzed out fucked up lo-fi madness. Punky and Stoogesy, a wild and chaotic messy party.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Huge (176 page) book-like zine. This issue's theme: folk music. Thus, reviews of weird & wonderful "folk" albums from around the world. Plus, Jim O'Rourke interviewing the Royal Trux, an essay on Nico, an interview with The Ex, a talk with Samoth of black metallers Emperor (!) and lots of other weirdness. The free cd compilation it comes with includes exclusive tracks from Pearls Before Swine, Six Organs of Admittance, Simon Joyner, Spires of Oxford, Cannanes, Richard Davies, and many more. Wow! Highly recommended, as always.
Some of you might be familiar with Raz Mesinai from his work with the illbient/ambient dub project Sub Dub. If so you know that he has this great ability to get to eerie places in the music he creates. Growing up in Jerusalem he spent many of his formative years around Bedouins and really really latching onto their musical stylings. Then studying with dervish sheik Murshid Hassan he became a master of Middle Eastern drumming excelling in the playing of everything from bendir to zarb to darbukka. Meanwhile, he also studied extensively with folk musician and Hasidic rabbi Harov Shlomo Carlebach. All this background info really sets the stage for this outing as Badawai. The underlying tension in his homeland is no doubt a constant fuel for his music. Taking from both Palestinian and Jewish traditions he creates songs that are loaded with suspense and sizzle under the surface. With an amazing ensemble including Eyvind Kang, Marc Ribot and Mark Feldman the result is darn near flawless. It might just be a matter of moments before Mesani is snagged by a big film studio because we can't think of anyone better suited to score films filled with drama, mystery, suspense and horror. Wow.
What do you get when you take Tom Carter of Charalambides, Ben Chasney of Six Organs Of Admittance, Pete Swanson of the Yellow Swans and Rob Fisk of Seven Year Rabbit Cycle? The curiously monickered Badgerlore actually, who manage to take the disparate sounds of all the contributors and weave them into a rich thick sonic soup of fuzzed out psychedelic soundscapes, haunting disembodied falsetto vocals, urgently strummed acoustic guitars, keening minor key melodies, and darkly ominous rumbles and whirs, all beneath a thick haze of speaker hiss, staticky grit, warm thick reverb, fuzzy instrument buzz and atmospheric shimmer. So lovely.
Packaged in beautiful hand screened / metallic ink sleeves.
A welcome and wonderful follow up to the debut Badgerlore record from a couple years back. This time out Rob Fisk (7 Year Rabbit Cycle), Tom Carter (Charlambides), Ben Chasny (Six Organs Of Admittance, Comets On Fire), and Pete Swanson (Yellow Swans) add Glen Donaldson (Blithe Sons, Skygreen Leopards) and Liz Harris (Grouper) into the stew, creating hazy and blurry meditations that sound like some perfect cosmic meeting of the most ghostly moments of Loren Mazzacane Connors and the earthly explorations of The Jeweled Antler set. It's almost as if you can hear the sounds of the mud and the moon on this album as there is such a prevailing sense of nature intertwining with the outerworld. Grouper's sensibility is felt in a really nice way, adding wonderful layers of delay and mystique to the already mysterious surroundings. One of those records that perfectly fills that mysterious gap somewhere between waking and sleeping. Whispers of guitars, voices off in the distance, rumblings you can't totally place. It all feels like some weird fever dream where you can't really make out what's happening but you can't imagine being anywhere else, enthralled and blissfully entranced...
Once Byram brought it to my (Cup's) attention that Mr. Damon Gough sounds remarkably like a rather chipper Elliott Smith, I couldn't hear these songs as being sung by anyone but! Check out the songs "Something To Talk About" or "River Sea Ocean" if you
Another solid ear pleaser from Mr. Damon Gough. He's always been a fine folk popster (or pop folkster?), but Born In The U.K. might be his most country leaning album to date, and his most smooth and accessible. He's definitely scaled back a bit from the grand orchestrations of his last album, 2004's beauty One Plus One Is One. While he might be prone to rambling and mild distemper on stage, here on record he keeps things even keeled, the tone warm and the mood down low. Still very steeped in sentimentality. His songs always make you go "awwwww". Some have liken him this time to a more sullen Neil Diamond (mind you, not quite to the extreme of Crooked Fingers' Eric Bachmann). Maybe a bit damp, but never dreary. Such shufflin' shamblin' sweater wearin' earthiness makes a perfect accompaniment to an autumn cuddle up.
In-store listens of this new Badly Drawn Boy album have drawn more vocal comparisons to the intelligent, tweaked pop of Robyn Hitchcock than to the sentimental, boyish heartbreak of Elliott Smith (to whom he formerly bore more than a striking vocal resemblance). Yet, this also seems to be his most accessible work to date. Whereas Hour Of Bewilderbeast was lovely, melancholic, and flowing, this is much more saturated, eccentric, and lively (much like Hitchcock or more recently Destroyer's Dan Bejar). Actually Damon Gough's recent soundtrack to About A Boy seemed a much more logical full length successor to his debut! However, this album does still shine with the sharp, detailed songcraft (often very reminiscent of Lennon and McCartney) and soaring grandeur of his previous works, not to mention the deeply romantic heart, but he's incorporated more classic '60s/'70s pop rock elements (y'know, lots of piano, a fine variety of backing vocals!) into the arrangements. A little different, yes, but pretty great in a grow-on-you-with-every-listen kind of way.
Damon Gough has pulled out all the stops for One Plus One Is One -- another totally grand Badly Drawn Boy album. Although his last full length Have You Fed The Fish received mixed reviews around these parts, O.P.O.I.O. looks to be the one to which both old fans and newcomers will take a fresh, generous shine. Can this man write a song or what?! And sing it in that achingly sensitive lad voice (still very much like fellow beloved folk-pop troubadour the late Elliott Smith)? And incorporate such a range of styles into his pop structures (some country, some cabaret, some prog even!)? And arrange it all in the most lush yet still earthy orchestrations? Soaring strings, introspective piano, feverish flutes, acoustic guitars? It really doesn't matter what instrumentation he chooses, his songs on this album consistently charm the pants off the listener. Who else can make an album that's the perfect soundtrack for both dreary'n'rainy and warm'n'sunny days. So damn good! One particular album highlight (of which there are many) is the seventh song "Year Of The Rat" which comes complete with glorious children's chorus (psst, the kids reappear on the fourteenth song "Holy Grail"). Absolutely splendid!
Note: this domestic release includes two bonus tracks!
Now released domestically!...When we first heard the Badly Drawn Boy, we couldn't believe our ears. Who was this guy? He was like a Britpop Beck; sort of Beck-like voice, twisted pop sensibilities, beautifully Sentridoh-style home recording, and songs that kill. Well, we still don't exactly know who he is, except for the fact that he's the Mercury Prize winner, but at least now there's more than two impossible to find eps. Surprisingly, for his first full length, BDB has abandoned the lo-fi bedroom sound, and lots of his Beck-isms and created a lush, hyper-produced pop masterpiece. Somewhere between Elliott Smith, Radiohead, and Beck. Right off the bat, the first song is a spare arrangement for strings and oboes and cornets. In fact the whole record is dotted with swelling string parts, horns, accordions, bleeps and bloops and super creative production. This is a weird and beautiful (albeit commercial, compared to his earlier recordings and remixes) record, definitely for fans of Beck, Elliott Smith, Radiohead, Quasi, Built to Spill, etc. Imagine Beck or Elliott Smith, if they grew up in England, listening to Radiohead and Oasis, and cut their teeth doing remixes for a who's who of British pop/dance groups, and put a record out on MoWax. It's kind of like that, but not exactly. But it *is* totally great.
Following up their 1998 disc "Dancing Drums", here's a second album of "Indian electronica" that again sees DJ and producer Badmarsh teaming up with multi-instrumentalist Shri (bass, tabla, flute...). On the UK Outcaste label, for fans of that "Untouchable Outcaste Beats" sound.
Let's get this right out of the way, Erykah Badu is a genius! While we love and can't get enough of folks like Sharon Jones and Nicole Willis, there really is no one else like Erykah Badu, someone who is taking soul and funk into new and outer dimensions. She represents the best of hip-hop culture as well as carrying on a legacy of spiritual and cosmic soul. Badu has that something special that you can't really put your finger on but you sure can feel.
Her last record Worldwide Underground ranks as one of our favorite psychedelic soul/hip-hop records ever made! Five years later, she returns with another ambitious and crazy rewarding record that boasts Madlib as a producer, as well as the Sa-Ra crew, collaborations and guest spots by Georgia Ann Muldrew, Bilal, Omar Rodriguez (Mars Volta), and more. There's super tight and punchy live instrumentation, and samples that demonstrate a wide reaching and enlightened taste (The Yamasuki Singers, Eddie Kendricks, Curtis Mayfield, Nancy Wilson, etc). Badu is mindful and super knowledgeable about the past but she isn't a retro act, she is so about the here and now and could care less about trends and fads. She is one of the few high profile modern artists who truly has her own vision and such a special touch. Her live show a few years ago at the Paramount Theater in Oakland we reminisce about all the time, her band was so out there in the best of ways, and she owned the stage, even playing the Theremin and taking everyone in attendance to the outer limits of a super soul planet we wish we could always orbit.
Her new record starts off with an adaptation of the Roy Ayers produced Ramp classic "American Promise" and from there on out is filled with some of the best songs Badu has recorded to date, including a couple chilling tributes to her close friend J Dilla who passed away since her last album. New Amerykah has a couple moments where it trips up, but like all brave artists it takes the courage to slip up from time to time in order to create so much musical magic. Highly recommended, and for sure check out Worldwide Underground as well if you haven't!
ALSO ON VINYL!!
Erykah Badu is one of those singular artists who is able to create such a devotional and personal relationship with her listeners. Where New Amerykah Pt. 1 had a fiery political undertone, New Amerykah Pt. 2: Return Of The Ankh, is much more personal and relationship minded. But no matter what Erykah's songs are about, there is always a sense of authenticity and integrity that runs so strongly through them. In many ways this is the closest in sound and theme to her breathtaking debut Baduizm, as it shares a similar slow melting groove and such rich instrumentation that you just don't come by on many contemporary soul records. The amazing thing about Erykah Badu is how she is both so modern, futuristic yet an integral link to the history of powerful and spiritual soul. She doesn't rehash, or mimic, instead she's created a sound and style that is so totally her own.
New Amerykah Pt. 2 is as seductive as it is psychedelic. You can tell she has a deep love of pioneers like Ramp, The Rotary Connection, and Dorothy Ashby, but she has learned from her deep love of true hip-hop how to take from her influences yet create something totally new and unique out of it. There is no one like Erykah Badu around, she has proven she is a musical visionary, and her live shows only further prove that she is the real deal, capable of creating magic with her music that hits the soul in such deep and true ways. She also stands out in the way she is still very committed to the artform of the album. From start to finish this is a record that takes you on a journey that you want to revisit over and over again. The thing that makes Erykah Badu albums so remarkable is how they slowly seep into your subconscious. They are never about the latest trends or a quick fun ride, instead they are the kind of records you turn to at those crucial moments of your life and become a narrative that becomes as much a part of your journey as it is hers. These are songs that empower, comfort and challenge. Once again Erykah Badu has proven to be one of the strongest and most unique musical voices of our time!
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.
