Rhode Island avant doom duo The Body just swung through town, with their pals in Braveyoung in tow, the two groups touring as a single unit, the increased firepower of this newly formed two headed beast harnessing some serious black energy. And for those who were unable to witness said energy in the flesh, comes this, an audial document of the collaboration, and while we'd never heard Braveyoung before, the resulting sonic onslaught speaks to the two groups' compatibility, the result a sprawling blackened soft cacophony, a series of surprisingly melodic and impossibly lush blackened doomscapes replete with a choir (the very same choir from The Body's epic All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood), and an unlikely cover of a song by sixties voodoo groovers Exuma!!
The opening track explodes with black gouts of crumbling low end, murky blurred riffage, and churning black hole crush, but as the song unfolds, all manner of melodic subtleties blossom, what sounds like soaring strings, muted tangled melodies, moaning low end rumbles, the buzz and crunch peeling way right at the end revealing the swirl of melodies that lurked underneath all along.
The factually titled "Song Two" seems to be the centerpiece, a massive epic clocking in at 15+ minutes, a brooding slow build, long droning tones over a bed of hiss and crackle, the sound quickly growing more melodic, laced with deep throaty cello, tinkling chimes, and lush female vocal harmonies, the sound downright liturgical, hints of Godspeed and other brooding post rockers, eventually the drums kick in, the guitars begin to buzz, and the song is transformed into a fantastic dirge, peppered with long stretches of crumbling low end, keening guitar tones, more ethereal voices, finally building to a massive coda, the drums cranked WAY up in the mix, the guitars too, the sound so in-the-red, you can almost hear all the meters peaking, everything wreathed in clouds of feedback, until finally disappearing in a haze of crumbling buzz.
The title track is the prettiest of the bunch, the two groups laying down a thick fog of blackdrone and hiss drenched rumble, muted streaks of feedback, all blurred into one heaving undulating stretch of corrosive low end, while over the top, Christmas carol like melodies drift and shimmer, the crystalline tones hovering weightless above the black sonic chasm below.
And then finally, the band finish off with their Exuma cover, trading the over-the-top swamp shaman vocals of the original with some gorgeous folky female vox, transforming the sound into a weird sort of dirgey atmospheric doom folk, the sound woozy and warm, washed out and dreamy, the main vox backed up by the lush harmonies of the choir, while The Body and Brave Young, wrap everything in a thick coruscating black haze, a blackened background that more than anything, adds a bit of dreamily sinister texture to the proceedings.
Fantastic stuff, and well worth experiencing live too if you get the chance...
Following hot on the heels of The Body's somehow surprisingly/supposedly "poppy" full length No One Deserves Happiness on Thrill Jockey comes this release on Neurot, which sees The Body, a band noted for their affinity for collaborations, teamed up with former tour-buds, Maryland's Full Of Hell, whom we know best from a previous collaborative effort of theirs, with Merzbow. This one stacks up well with that, and with that recent album from The Body, as well. With The Body on board, of course this disc is heavy and strangely catchy, intense and idiosyncratic, a destructive, dynamic onslaught of blackened industrial cathartic clank & blast, laced with feedback, samples, ambience, and a disquieting variety of vocals. Meanwhile, Full Of Hell, themselves always a raging attack of experimentally inclined hardcore noisethrash, definitely keep up their end, adding to the intensity and heaviness no doubt. But this does however really sound more like a record by The Body than one by Full Of Hell, due to the dynamics - and those vocals, both The Body's trademark ear-hole abusing, pained vocal shrieks and the conversely quite lovely female vocals they provide as well. Damn, some harrowing & extreme shit here, pretty compelling, might actually dig this more than No One Deserves Happiness!
Not a split, but a proper collaboration between these two doom/sludge combos, and strangely enough, the band math sounds exactly how you think it would - dense flurries of double drumming, underpin, thick, viscous, downtuned riffage, there's probably bass in there too, but it's more like a thick undulating slab of low end droned, plenty of squealing feedback, and warped melodies, not to mention dueling vocals, the harsh demonic rasp of Thou, with the inhuman hysterical shriek of The Body, all wound up into churning sprawls of lurching, lumbering noise drenched heaviness, the first three tracks blurred into a sort-of songsuite, epic, and crushing, downtuned heaviness, total head shearing, gut rumbling chug and churn, the best part maybe the clouds of guitarnoise and twisted FX, that seem to swirl in squalls around the song proper, not to mention some bad ass processed drumming, that gives the sound a twisted sort of black doom dub vibe, the whole thing culminating in a cover of Vic Chesnutt's "Coward". Both bands are masters of the cover song, each having transformed some classic jams into their own warped mutations, and this one is no different, starting off all lovely, except for the distant vocal shrieks, and when the hammer falls, instead of exploding into full on metal mode, the two groups unfurl a bed of rumbling, gristly distortion, and drape a blown out disorto-melody over the top, before devolving into a gloriously dirgey and doomy creep, with huge booming drums, thick walls of crumbling distortion, and more harsh vokills, that somehow manages to preserve the melody and vibe of the original, while essentially burying it in gristled murk and thick black buzz!
Gorgeously packaged, fancy heavy weight jackets, letter-pressed inserts, and pressed on 180 gram vinyl. NO download.
Maybe cause they're just a lonely duo, avant doomsters The Body sure like to collaborate with other folks. Not only with the Assembly Of Light choir who have appeared on The Body's albums, but also on records they've done with Braveyoung, Haxan Cloak, and Thou. They must really dig Thou (sludge bros stick together!), though, 'cause this the second team-up of the two bands, following the Released From Love lp on Vinyl Rites last year. As per that release, you can expect another onslaught of blackened noisy downtuned droning crushing heaviness and so forth. Yep!
Sheer peace-destroying sonic ugliness with an undercurrent of majestic desolation is what's on offer here, with the expected elements of wretched vokills, abject blackened atmospheres, shrieks of anguish, occasional ambient interludes, seasick riffage buried under blown out dirge-drone, and industrial-strength tribal rhythmic pummel (particularly on the cover they do of "Terrible Lies" by NIN). Thou and The Body definitely seem like sick soulmates, a match made in heaven, or rather, some bowel of hell.
Note: the compact disc version of this includes the tracks from that previous collaboration of theirs, Released From Love, for this first time available in non-analog format.
We discovered experimental doomlords The Body via their 2004 self titled debut, a crushing slab of slo-mo dirgery, that at the time we compared to other sonically like minded bands like Conifer, The Ocean, Pelican, and Isis. It was all pounding moody mathiness and churning downtuned doom chaos. But it was really on 2010's All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood, where the Body transformed into something way more than doom-dirge knuckle draggers, expanding their sound to include multiple drummers, electronics and samples, and a full female choir. That record definitely set a benchmark for avant-doom, and with each release since, the band seem dead set on continuing that drift into the outer realms, although odds are you won't find a more twisted and sonically abstract corner of the doomworld than I Shall Die Here, which finds the Body submitting to a serious sonic makeover from Haxan Cloak, who transforms the sound into something bleak and abstract, the resulting sound something that seems like it might be more at home on Tri Angle or Blackest Ever Black, so no surprise we're flipping out big time.
The opener sets the template, with fragments of the original sound recast in a whole new context the big crashing drums, super distorted and blown out, laying down a mesmeric tarpit groove, the guitars muted and muddied, and blurred into a soft swirling, distorto churn, at this point, it could still be a proper doom record, the weird shrieked vokills swoop in, howl abjectly in the background, buried in the mix, and then suddenly, a cloud of digital glitchery erupts, the guitar churn peels back, those shrieked vocals become a disembodied loop, in come deep bass pulsations, and the song settles into a super minimal electronic creep, skittery, and glitchy, and staticky, and so heady and hypnotic. It ends way too soon, would have loved to see that final part stretch out for another 10-15 minutes of moody electro-murk, but instead, the process begins again, distorto drums, this time dubbed out a but, more buzzing riff-blur, wailed high pitch screeches, and then right back into another sprawl of electro-doom minimalism, this time eventually erupting into a wild, gristly squall of blown out tribal drumming, and layered drones, sounding a bit like a million copies of Tusk being played at 16 rpm.
And so it goes, some tracks are dirgey stretches of oozing black riffage, spread out into slowly churning landscapes of crumbling distortion, others fuse warped psychedelic techno with grim, gristly buzz, and still others actually sound a bit like the recent Coil / Nine Inch Nails 'collab', heaving industrial weirdness and fractured electronic experimentation, here of course fused to gargantuan black doom crush. The final track spends most of its time drifting moodily, a spare stretch of dreamily divine ambience, peppered with hushed pulsations, before it too eventually explodes into one final burst of pounding, howling, blown out electro-doom pummel. Awesome.
Surprised this one didn't happen sooner. Hell, if it hadn't, we probably would have suggested it. Providence, Rhode Island's two piece doom sludge wrecking crew The Body, and Aussie slow and low heavies Whitehorse. A seemingly perfect match, but the weird thing is, they both offer up something out of the ordinary here.
The Body start things off with what could be their most metal jam yet, sounding like some grim black metal slowed way down, there are even some almost-blasts, the vocals shrieked and maniacal, the song collapsing part way through into a super thick doomed out sprawl, laced with bursts of blown out buzz, the vocals hovering over a thick undulating almost ambient layer of downtuned guitar buzz and dense tribal drum pound, that every once in a while sounds like Lightning Bolt slowed to a crawl.
Whitehorse counter with a booming, echoe-y chunk of churning doom-ed noise rock, about as groovy as these guys get, and we're talking Eyehategod style groove, which is to say, barely a groove at all, occasional blasts of thick low end creep up from below, shrieking feedback and squalls of glitched out noise pepper some surprisingly black metal riffing, the vocals here veering fro, shrieked to cookie monster grunted, a massive, lumbering, lurching sonic slab of doom sludge crush.
SUPER LIMITED. In fact, already mostly out of print. We got some of the last copies direct from Whitehorse before they headed back to Australia. Packaged in super swank screen printed jackets.
With the breakup of Sonic Youth, we have Kim Gordon's vision and voice coming through her new project Body/Head, a duo with Bill Nace - a New England improviser whose run of collaborators also includes Michael Morley, Thurston Moore, Chris Corsano, etc. Nace's freeform strategery of low-impact, buzzsaw guitar blur met with stompbox feedback-dinosaur roar dynamics is equaled by Kim Gordon's intergenerational channeling of Patty Waters and Jandek, in separate but equal parts. The songs are decidedly atonal, zombified, anti-blues numbers, following what Gordon brought to the experimental portion of the Sonic Youth equation, especially, her songs from those obtuse SYR albums. Anybody hoping for "Kool Thing" should know better, as she's long passed out of her pop-tune phase. Small two note phrases waft in and out of the minor-chord slumping strum, occasionally punctuated by squalid scratchiness, purposefully wonked cable hum, and "I just shit my pants" bursts of guitar excitement.
You might not expect a band featuring former members of Whitehouse and Sutcliffe Jugend to sound a bit like some twisted noiserock hybrid of old Today is The Day, the crushing bombast of the Swans, and the ominous brooding doom and gloom of Joy Division, but that's precisely what Bodychoke conjure up on this, their long out of print final album, circa 1998, now reissued by Relapse.
We always assumed we didn't like Bodychoke all that much, the other records we heard we really not that good, and their version of "Painted Black" was even left off the tUMULt comp featuring multiple version of that iconic song, but holy shit has this record knocked our fucking blocks off. There's plenty of noise for sure, jagged and processed and crumbling and crunchy and blown out, but noise is just one element here, the band in full on noise rock / post rock. Unfurling low slung bass lines, jagged riffing, some cool complex drumming, the arrangements super dynamic, the vocals slipping from ominous deep Michael Gira like croon, to strangled punkish wail.
Opener "Control" pretty much has it all, beginning with a weird cacophony of fractured fragmented noise, the band soon slip into a minimal bass groove, before the guitars kick in and lock in with the snares, the song transformed into a brooding almost Angels Of Light sounding jam, until the chorus, which EXPLODES, and the noise from the beginning returns, wrapping the churning loping crush in a swirling field of feedback and crumbling grit and grime. It's just so intense and heavy and weirdly catchy, and so much better than we ever remember Bodychoke being.
And so it goes, the rest of the record continues to display a sound that's almost more slow building post rock than noise, but most of the tracks are laced with heaping doses of caustic crunch. There's also a cello player in the band, who offers up some gorgeously moaning ambience, and subtle strings here and there. Many of the tracks spread way out, sprawling lugubriously, expansive minimal post punk soundcapes, skitter and whisper, burning slowly until the song is engulfed in tangled riffage and wild tribal pounding, and even the noise, it's so deftly crafted and well placed, it's hard to imagine anyone into heavy music being put off at all, it's just like another layer of heaviness, another level of dynamicism, it's weird, we all had the exact same response when this record came on. "Oh I don't like Bodychoke", but gradually, it seemed everyone was listening to this, ALL the time, even now, as this is being written, not only is it playing on the stereo in the back room, but also in the store, this record just slays. So dark and heavy and brutal and melodic and epic and AMAZING. Based on nothing but how often this gets played in the store and how often we've listened to this since it came in, we're beginning to think maybe we should have made this Record Of The Week, so consider this an EXTREME highlight, and thus overwhelmingly recommended!
We're pretty excited about this new vintage reissue label, Monk, that's releasing these nice deluxe vinyl versions of early recorded music that are hard to come by these days: blues, folk, country, bluegrass, Western swing and early jazz. Sure there's Mississippi records, but these have nicer packaging, are well researched, and compiled, and just a bit more, well, deluxe. Plus Monk also seems to be focusing on the veritable stars of these genres like Charley Patton, Charlie Poole, Dock Boggs and Django Reinhardt, providing a fine selection of their best early recordings.
Dock Boggs, if you aren't familiar, was a singer and banjo player, discovered playing in mining camps as he worked the mines all over the Appalachian Mountains. A contract from Brunswick Records in 1927 got him out of the mining camps to record these 12 songs after which he had the start of a fine career, touring extensively and playing parties before the Great Depression hit and he was forced to give up professional music. It wasn't until the folk revival of the sixties where he was re-discovered and recorded three more records for Smithsonian Folkways. This record represents his complete recordings for the Brunswick label made between 1927 and 1929, and a more sadly intense and beautiful document of early Appalachia may nary be found!
Another archival bit of lost sixties synthesizer music from the very mysterious Urusula Bogner. Or is it? We made the Ursula Bogner full length our Record Of The Week a while back, a collection that purported to be the music of a British housewife, who was basically a secret one woman BBC Radiophonic Workshop, spending her time at home during the day, collecting and building analog synthesizers, constructing soundproofed recording studios, inventing strange instruments, and most importantly, creating some incredible spaced out, subtly psychedelic electronic music. But the catch is, she just might not be real, and in fact, might just be the construct of Jan Jelinek, whose Faitiche label 'discovered' Bogner and assembled that collection. You can read more about Mrs. Bogner in our review of the full length, but as far as we were concerned, it hardly mattered, if she was in fact real, it's an amazing discovery, if it is actually a hoax, then it's an incredibly and meticulously pulled off hoax indeed, and after all, it all comes down to the music, which in either case, is absolutely fantastic.
This super limited 7", was released to coincide with a show / exhibit of music and drawings by the mysterious Mrs. Bogner, the sleeve features what we would assume is a photo of the lady herself, as well as a drawing of hers on the backside, as well as some postcards, the music though, is again, awesome, sci fi new age, primitive space music, analog synth explorations, a gorgeous starscape of squiggly high end shimmer, flurries of warbly black hole muted melodies, streaks of hiss, everything wreathed in reverb and echo, primitive FX, even some super stripped down robotic drum machine, total Lost In Space otherworldly cinematic sixties sci fi space wave bliss. So whether it's archival and historical, or modern and a bit cheeky, we'll still happily proclaim Mrs. Ursula Bogner our favorite sixties sci fi synth pioneer!
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!
So when you were a kid, what do you think your Mom got up to while you were at school, or out playing with your pals? Doing laundry? Cleaning the house? Doing the dishes? A little gardening? Or maybe playing bridge? Canasta? Going to the grocery store? How about collecting and building analog synthesizers? Building a soundproof recording studio in the extra room? Recording strange space-y minimal electronic music on reel to reel tapes? Or building an 'orgon accumulator' in the backyard? Such were the activities of a mild mannered housewife named Ursula Bogner, who in addition to being a pharmacist, as well as a loving wife and mother, just so happened to also be obsessed with electronic music and analog synthesizers, but unlike others with similar interests (were there other 30 something housewives so obsessed?), Bogner didn't just read about electronic music, she attended seminars, followed the activities of various groups and musicians (even apparently sharing her children's enthusiasm for new wave pop!) eventually deciding to create music herself.
She never released any recordings, didn't even really make public her hobby, instead, she simply spent her free time, creating, composing, recording, experimenting, for over 20 years, amassing an incredible body of work. All of that wouldn't merit anything but a cursory glance and maybe a chuckle, if the music weren't amazing, but it is, fantastical and inspired, primitive and raw, playful and childlike, but also, haunting and mysterious, otherworldly, and so incredibly varied, from spare academic sounding minimalism, to Perrey & Kingsley style playfulness, to super stark click and skitter that would be right at home on Raster-Noton, to swirling fantastical spaced out soundscapes that could have been sixties sci-fi soundtracks. The sounds are so evocative, so mysterious, it almost seems impossible that they were recorded by a Mom in a spare room in a house in the suburbs.
The collection opens with "Begleitung Fur Tuba", which indeed features tuba-like tones, locked into a playful grove with a bleepy bloopy rhythm, which is eventually joined by streaks of static, and a warbly main melody. From there, highlights include "Proto" which is kaleidoscopic and groovy with a super minimal click-track rhythm. "2 Ton" is almost like space age lounge music, with it's reverbed guitar like shimmer, and slithery tempo. "Speichen" is another playful number, the burbles and bloops, and definitely predicts groups like James Bong, Luke Vibert, Boards Of Canada and the like. "Punkte" is another minimal groover, with a hissy static rhythm, a bloopy bassline, and all manner of descending and ascending electronic tones, as well as pizzicato bleeps that almost sound like an alien thumb piano. The longest track is "Soloresonanzen" and is maybe the dreamiest, taking the minimal click of Raster-Noton, and draping it over slowly shifting layers of electronic whir and buzz, peppered with bits of click and glitch, textural hiss, woozy melodic fragments, very dreamlike and meditative. And finally the record finishes with a brief burst of tangly scribbly electronic whir and skree, all mad scientist machines gone haywire, but deftly arranged into a pretty alien lullaby, weird and wonderful.
Bogner's music was discovered via some pretty incredible happenstance, Jan Jelinek, who runs the Faitiche label, met Bogner's son on a plane and the two got to talking, Jelinek was an electronic musician, so was Bogner's deceased Mother Weirdly enough, and well, the rest is history. Or is it? There has been much talk that this is all a massive hoax, or more correctly, the ultimate concept album. Carefully crafted down to the tiniest details, photos, back story, Bogner's artwork, everything. In some ways it doesn't really matter, in fact, it's almost more impressive if the whole thing was in fact fabricated, but you know what, fuck it, it's so much more fun to just go along with it...
The cd is gorgeously packaged in a thick book-like digipak, with extensive liner notes from Jan Jelinek, notes on each song, lots of photos, as well as various reproductions of Bogner's various outer space linocuts.
Several years ago, we made the first archival release from housewife turned experimental electronic musician Ursula Bogner our Record Of The Week, even knowing full well, that there probably is no Ursula Bogner. On the surface it definitely seemed like the find of a lifetime. The story involved someone's casual interaction with a man on a plane, discovering that this man was the son of a virtually unheard experimental electronic musician, a mom and pharmacist, who had built a recording studio in their home, and who had recorded for twenty years, those recordings proving to be impossibly prescient, the sort of sounds that would stand up to similar recordings at the time by Delia Derbyshire and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. That initial release was filled with all manner of documentation, photos, notes, like we said, it seemed like the real deal. But it also seemed like an ingeniously perpetrated hoax. The man in question who supposedly ran into Bogner's son on a plane, was none other than Jan Jelinek, whose music is not all that dissimilar to Bogner's. Perhaps we're just the suspicious types, but there seems to be little or no information about Bogner, other than that provided by the label, which could just speak to her absolute obscurity, but could also speak to the fact that it's all a put on. To be honest, we want to believe it. How cool is that story? But that said, as we mentioned in the review of that first release, if it IS a hoax, we like it even more. So meticulously planned, photos, hand written notes, then the music� Similar to those funereal violin cds we carried a while back (that guy not only recorded all the cds, he also wrote a whole book about the history of funereal violin!), it would require a whole other level of creativity, but enough about all that, it is ultimately about the music, as much as we love the story, true or not, and like the first record, this is another fantastic collection of 'early' primitive recordings, these newly unearthed tapes featuring a focus on the voice, which was not present before, and our first actual exposure to the voice of Bogner, who supposedly passed away in 1994. Opening with piano and vox, the sound fluctuates as the tape speed falters, the sound is murky and definitely sounds old, plenty of spaced out effects, female voices processed into mysterious melodies, percolating rhythms, primitive and very low fidelity. Some of the tracks feature kitschy sounding organs and snippets of looped pop music, but they are transformed into cool sixties style tape music, occasionally lush and lovely, other timeshaunting and austere, there's one track in particular which finds Bogner reciting numbers over a backdrop of hiss and static and blurred melody, that most definitely is a nod, intentional or not, to the perennial aQ fave The Conet Project.
As with the other record, there are expertly penned liner notes, translations of original texts that Bogner wrote to accompany the pieces (especially the boxed cd version which features a massive 100+ page book of liner notes and artwork), all very cryptic and Eno-esque, tons of photos, of installations, of the reel of tape these tracks were discovered on as well as Bogner herself (again, especially in the book that accompanies the cd!). Very recommended of course, for fans of vintage sixties experimental music, of Jan Jelinek, and of impeccably crafted musical hoaxes.
Bogus Blimp were nothing like we expected. I mean, they're from Norway. They release records on Garm's (from black metallers Ulver) label Jester. Who could have guessed that they would sound like circus music, or gipsy music, or sort of like Tom Waits. No
We were told this was supposed to sound like circus music, and it sorta does--like really, really demented circus music. Another quite strange release on the quite strange Jester label (see also Esperanza and When, below). Jester is run by Garm of Norwegian black metal avantgardists Ulver and Arcturus, and it could be said that this band is a bit reminiscent of the more cabaret-styled material on Arcturus' last uberweird opus. Bogus Blimp seem to be an ensemble of evil clowns who have combined carnivalesque themes with the theatrical fury of Cradle of Filth, all within an hallucinatory electronic realm close to that of The Young Gods. Fans of Nina Rota, Mr. Bungle, Arcturus, etc. should check this out.
From what weird Norwegian experimental electronica label do we always expect the unexpected? Well there's the excellent Rune Grammofon...and Smalltown Supersound...but it's Kristoffer "Garm of Ulver" Rygg's label Jester that really knows how to throw us for a loop, time and again. And having heard from Bogus Blimp before, the anticipation here is high... On their two previous Jester releases, Bogus Blimp were what we had to call "circus music"... quirky not-quite-metal, partly electronic bombastic carnivalesque stuff that lived up to their puzzling but oddly pleasing name. Now on Rdtr we get something just a little different. Here Bogus Blimp operate in a realm of glitchy soundtrack noir (actually Rdtr IS a soundtrack, maybe, or at least pretends to be) meant to evoke a futuristic dystopia with a sinister sci-fi feel. So not so circusy as before, more serious...it's electronic post-rock that reminds us a bit of Goblin soundtracks, always a good thing.
We were blown away by this, the most recent issue of this totally DIY travel / music / metal magazine. It's their 8th issue, and it's overflowing with amazing stories and killer interviews and reviews, with plenty of aQ faves. Metalheads will probably want to check this out for the interview with Erik from Watain, or John Gossard from Dispirit / Weakling / The Gault / Asunder, and there's also a bunch of killer in depth reviews of records by Necrite, Dispirit, Barn Owl, Walknut, Horna and others. Which on it's own would probably be enough. But the bulk of the magazine is about travel, specifically of the DIY type, even more specifically, with a focus on train hopping. From Traveling on freight trains in Mexico, to various expeditions throughout China, Mongolia, Finland, Norway and Nepal, there's a history of railroads and railroad operations in Maine, where the author is from, and there's tons of crazy stories, encounters with other travellers, loads of photos, it's pretty incredible, and besides getting a vicarious thrill from reading about all of these amazing places, and the amazing journeys to and through and back, it definitely gives us the bug, to tour, travel, explore, get lost, the sort of thing that the best travel writing does. We've been reading this like crazy, but it's HUGE, so are only partway through, but you'll find yourself riveted, and probably will have trouble putting it down. Also has us hankering to check out past issues as well! Total photocopied, cut and paste old school zine radness, and obviously WAY WAY recommended
Debut record from these Greek avant black metal warriors, oddly named after a redwoods retreat near here that should be familiar to the conspiracy-minded, whose sound is equal parts midtempo Burzumic buzz, furious blackened blast and gnarled experimental blackness, which means, awesome!
Five long tracks that slip from pounding primitive crush to insectoid frenzy and back again, with a sound that definitely harkens back to the Norwegian elite, the riffs epic and majestic, the vocals a gravelly demonic howl, the drumming crushing and intricate, the band deftly balancing their two sides. Pounding away relentlessly, before launching into a blazing blast at the drop of a dime, only to screech to a halt, and lurch right back into the pound, often shifting gears even more, slipping into some seriously doomy plod, or sprawling out into some weirdly melodic post-BM meander, but always finding their way back to the trancelike buzz.
The record finishes with the Deathspell-ish
"Drowning In The Roar Of A Sinking World", a 12+ minute, post rock, black metal hybrid, loping and lurching, the riffs angular and atonal, the song a woozy waltz, the band spitting out intense little squalls of rapid fire double kick and grinding buzz, the track slows down even further eventually, becoming downright doomy, the vocals getting full on Popeye / Immortal, a hellish croak, the guitars getting more and more seasick and psychedelic, until they launch into an epic, blasting, midtempo, melodic outro.
Super swank packaging, 6 panel black on gold digipak, featuring super creepy evil artwork from Justin Bartlett, who among other things, designed an aQ t-shirt not too long ago. LIMITED TO 1000 copies.
Named for the mysterious Northern California glade where old white male dignitaries gather to perform strange and bizarre rituals, hold costumed orgies and who knows what else. Members include a who's who of world leaders, businessmen and various other wielders of power. These Greek black metallers wield their own brand of power, manifested in these blasts of frenzied avant black metal madness, furious gnarled riffage, colliding with incredibly dense and complex drumming, gorgeous epic and twisted melodies and gruff demonic vokills, the awesomely titled opener "Star Wimpled Dome" combines all of those elements into some seriously classic black metal, only to switch gears with "The Tree Ravens", more of a Buzumic lope, with some surprising vocals, deep bellows, super operatic croons, but those bits are nestled between bursts of furious blast, and pounding doomic trudge. Two more chunks of twisted epic black metal lead to the 11+ minute finale, a sprawling epic titled "When The North Winds Blow Fair", that like much of the record channels a bit of Deathspell through classic Norwegian style blackness, guitars here soar and howl, the track flitting from grinding black gnarl to frenzied insectoid buzz to lumbering midtempo crush, some incredibly catchy Khold-like riffing, some killer classic metal leads, more surprising almost operatic vocals, all wound around an awesomely intricate and convoluted arrangement.
Packaged in a super striking black and gold digipak, with some seriously bad ass bare-breasted goatgod / pagan ritual / mysterious monk cover art, not to mention a nicely printed booklet/lyric sheet.
Our favorite Teutonic twilight doomjazz combo, the awesome Bohren & Der Club Of Gore, is back with a new, 35+ minute ep, once again released via mega fan Mike Patton's Ipecac label (as have been their past few domestic outings). It's classic Bohren we know and love, more of their usual slow, sad, sparse jazz, that's "heavy" and noirish and minimalistic. But this ep also introduces a WTF? factor we weren't expecting. Of the three (long) songs here, one's a cover. And it goes a long way to establishing their metal cred, more than the Immortal and Emperor t-shirts they sometime wear (with suits) on stage. No, rather than cover a black metal song, as you might expect, they instead proved that they're real old school metal fans by doing "Catch My Heart" by '80s German heavy metal band Warlock, you know, the outfit fronted by blonde metal siren Doro Pesch before she went solo.
It's a nice, melodic song, and Bohren successfully adapt it to their own style, extending it to over 13 slowly trickling minutes, and making it all the more emotive and moody. And... they got Mike Patton to sing it. Which is where your mileage may start to vary, depending on how much of a Mike Patton fan you are. Patton doesn't get too over the top or anything, he sticks to a deep voiced, torch-song croon that's only a little bit weird, reminding us a bit of the singer for Urfaust in fact. But, we kinda think they should have done it as an instrumental (which is of course Bohren's usual mode), and also that way the weirdness of doing a Warlock cover woulda been a bit more subtle. Or, if they had to have somebody sing it, maybe they should have just gotten Doro herself!!
Aside from the presence of Patton's vocals, though, "Catch My Heart" sounds very much like a typical Bohren piece. As do the other two songs here, quietly droning, glacially paced, utterly gorgeous, no vocals. "Zombies Never Die (Blues)" is all drifting near-ambient synth, adorned with some smokey sax which tends to give this the vibe of the soundtrack to an '80s Jonathan Demme film, wistfully perfect for a late night street corner scene between two young lovers. The final, title track, is the longest, over 14 minutes, wonderfully atmospheric, shimmering textures from the trap kit, limpid notes arising from the keys, no sax. Nice.
But, the Warlock song isn't the only thing that's really weird about this ep. Another truly WTF? element to this release is the cover art, as discerning music fans will recognize it as some sort of tribute to the album Fun At The Funeral by the band Jesters Of Destiny (you know, the late '80s LA alt-metal act beloved by our Finnish friends Circle, they reissued that album on their Ektro label!). Same logo/typeface, almost identical (but different) artwork. No explanation. We're really curious what the deal is with that, 'cause it's such an obscure thing to reference and has nothing to do with anything else about this release, if they'd have done a Jesters cover on the ep rather than a Warlock one, it would make more sense. Instead, it's a total non-sequitur that almost nobody will even "get".
And thus, Bohren are somehow even cooler now than we already thought they were!!!
"Black Earth" is the dark as night new album from an old AQ fave. Is it the heaviest album on this list? It is if you understand Bohren's concept of "quiet heaviness", using their self-described "horror jazz" instrumentation of subtly-brushed drums, down-tuned double bass, sparse piano, Fender Rhodes, mellotron, and melancholic saxophone to create an atmosphere of heaviness "which is otherwise only achieved using distorted guitars and lots of noise."
Our appetite was whetted for his release by an email from Bjoern Eichstaedt (of Caacrinolas), our German friend who originally introduced us to Bohren. He described a recent Bohren concert in which the band played in a cubic room, the walls painted completely black, on a black stage, without light -- all wearing black suits. Live, they used two basses for maximum bottom end. He spoke to them afterwards and learned that black metal is their main influence, noticing also that they were all wearing t-shirts from such bands as Immortal. Yet Bohren's music is far from loud and fast. Metallic or not, it's certainly DOOM. Creeping, plodding, yet gorgeously, sleepily melodic. Each note played on the piano, each hit of the snare, carries great weight, and beauty. Their music falls like thick drops of liquid into a still, dark, black pool, rippling the surface with unknown echoes. Foreboding, and entrancing. Certainly more than deserving of this disc's black on black, skull embossed packaging.
The sultry, smoky saxophone introduced on their previous album "Sunset Mission" is still in evidence, though not so much as before. When it's present, it only adds to the noir-ish vibe, great for wandering the rainy streets of night-time San Francisco with this playing in your Walkman, let me tell you. And compared to "Sunset Mission", this new album definitely extends Bohren's methods to further extremes: slower, moodier, dronier, lovelier: "heavier". Quite quietly heavy, indeed.
Imagine a blackened, funereal dooooooom band like Skepticism or Nortt morphed into the jazz idiom (after having kissed a frog, or some fairytale scenario like that), playing their slow, sad music in a smoky Berlin jazz club. The sound is jazz (electric piano, organ, vibes, sax, double bass, trap kit...) but the feeling is doom. That's our usual shorthand for describing the unique music made by longtime AQ fave, Germany's Bohren & Der Club Of Gore. Here at last is their eagerly anticipated 5th album, Dolores (not named after the San Francisco street near us, presumably). If you're fans like we are, you know what to expect, it's just as ponderously "heavy" as a "jazz" band can be. No, not loud, not harsh, not noisy. The opposite of all that. Rather, whisper-quiet, glacially slow, and spacious, with sparse snare hits keeping time like a wound-down clock ticking off the eternity between 2 minutes to midnight and the witching hour itself. Doomsday so slowly arrives on a velvety bed of somnolent deep bass notes, and the cool slinky tones of vintage Fender Rhodes. Cymbals shiver in a dark haze of ambient drones near to silence. Several of the songs are infused with the warmth of tenor or baritone sax breathes gorgeous expiring breaths. It's all so sad and woeful and achingly beautiful, Bohren nodding off, their fragile melodies trickling like tears, and by the end you may find you have shed a few too.
This newest Bohren differs mainly from their previous Ipecac outing Geisterfaust by being composed of somewhat shorter, sweeter tracks, ten in all, in about an hour. But it is, again, an-ever-more-perfected example of why Bohren is one of our all time favorite bands, especially at twilight and late at night...
Not metal -- not remotely. So why did they get written up in Terrorizer magazine? Well this German four-piece isn't exactly a jazz band either, even though they utilize such instruments as Fender Rhodes electric piano, vibraphone, double bass, and saxophone. No, they're actually really really heavy though it's always hard to explain how something this quiet and this pretty can be "heavy". But you'll feel it when you hear it. Their special brand of Teutonic, minimalist, noir-jazz influenced "heaviness" is not to be denied. And so it makes sense that they like grim black metal and that people who like grim black metal like them. A very special band, certainly unknowable to some, but very well liked 'round here. So we were pretty excited to hear that the release of this new album Geisterfaust ("Ghostfist") was impending. And it does not disappoint. Five tracks for the five fingers of the Ghostfist (skeletally represented in the cd digipak). Almost one full hour.
Thusly, a Bohren album cannot be properly absorbed in little snippets. The time frame within which their compositions work is not conducive to quick scans or distracting environments -- even the shortest of the five tracks here isn't much less than eight minutes in length, and the opening track "Zeigefinger" is a 20+ minute experience. So, when I got my copy of this (oooh) I took it home and drew the curtains, lit the candles (well, ok I didn't really light any candles, but could have), and assumed a relaxed pose in order to let the music of Geisterfaust infiltrate my conciousness. Which it did. At Bohren's usual glacial pace, which utterly starts to alter one's perception of time. The long songs are endless...then over. Eternity telescoped. So spare and melodious. Like magnified drops of rainwater, falling on the petals of a shivering flower. The vast space of Bohren's music makes the listener concentrate, and gives each and every note (a vibraphone chime, perhaps, surrounded by a nimbus of a gentle cymbal-strike's shimmer) extra weight and meaning. The Bohren aesthetic certainly holds that less is more. Even though there's guests -- a tuba player and a choir, even -- augmenting the basic Bohren quartet on several of these tracks, you're never overwhelmed with sound, but with silence. And the sheer *subsonics* that a band with two bassists can generate. Geisterfaust flows exquisitely, the listener's pulse rate slowing. Calm. Cool. Bliss. Stupor. So gorgeous, soo heavy. There we go again. This IS heavy. You'll see.
Basically it's like some utterly slow crushing doom band (the Melvins at their most monolithic -- Khanate -- Caspar Brotzmann Massaker -- Corrupted -- Gore) with their instrumentation transposed into the "jazz" realm. The snare only brushed. The distorted electric guitar replaced with the tinkle of a Rhodes piano. Notes not riffs. Played like a dirge, with hints of drone, sombre and sad, but beautiful. There's only a smidgen of saxophone (dreaded by some) that is brought in only at the very end of the last very track, one that is almost speedy by Bohren standards, to act as the light at end of the tunnel, the sun's rays just over the horizon...
Our friend Bjoern in Germany (of Caacrinolas), who first turned Allan and thus AQ on to Bohren five or six years ago, emailed excitedly about the release this new album (that's often when we hear from Bjoern, actually!). Here's a quote from his email: "...fucking amazing!!! Better probably than anything they have done before! You need this for AQ!!! It will sell zillions of copies!" Well of course. As a follow up to the Ipecac-released Black Earth, this is an even greater triumph. Brilliant.
This is nice. For all you Bohren Und Der Club Of Gore fans (or at least 19 of you, as that's how many of these we were able to get), we've got a deluxe vinyl pressing, the first time ever on LP for this, the debut album from the AQ fave German instrumental dirge-jazz group. The import price is helped out by the fact that this comes in a black box with "BOHREN" stamped in silver on the lid, and within the box you not only will find two slabs of vinyl weighted down with their magnificent music, but also tucked in with those there's sundry printed ephemera of apparent Bohren-related interest (b&w art and text, mainly in German). The Gore Motel album was first released on cd back in 1994. When we discovered Borhen a few years after that and got their discs for the store, we wrote the following about this album: "...dark, stark, slow-moving, and lovely. For those who crave comparisons, this is like a super-dirgey version of Scenic. Music for a dark-night campfire out on the plains of Mordor. Slow and beautiful, relying heavily on the ultra-heavy subsonics of the bass and the eerie wavering tones of the organ...Very atmospheric and evocative, indeed chilling."
Of course, this is a very limited, numbered pressing (300 copies!) and, to repeat, we only received a handful. First come, first served on this one.
Here's an old favorite -- a former AQ Record Of The Week in fact -- that we've been unable to get for a long time now, until just this week that is. So we thought we'd better relist it, especially since when we relisted the Ipecac reissue of Bohren's most recent album Black Earth we sold a whole bunch of copies to folks who'd missed it the first time, and this one is perhaps even more essential not to miss! So here's a portion of our review from the first time we had this:
At last, we've managed to import some copies of this fantastic 1995 album by this mysterious German instrumental band! I (Allan) discovered them via a friend in Germany (an AQ-customer who, like many others, has been so kind as to turn *us* on to stuff: it's a two-way street). I was visiting for the 1999 total solar eclipse (well, among other things; I was also in the land of schnitzel for a metal festival...) and heard a tape of this sprawling double cd set in the context of a late night, post-eclipse, wine-drinking get-together. But when I finally got a hold of the actual album some weeks later (we couldn't even find one in the local record stores, my friend had to special order it and send a copy to me in the States), I was happy to discover that it wasn't merely my memories of the wondrous eclipse that had imbued Midnight Radio with such a gorgeous sense of darkness and dread, but that it really was an amazing album!
After Midnight Radio, Bohren released Sunset Mission (later followed by Black Earth). If the now out of print Sunset Mission album was the ultimate noir-jazz soundtrack to a hypothetical first person shooter video game set in afterdark Berlin, then this aptly-titled previous double cd set, (sans saxophone, an addition to the Sunset lineup) is the perfect accompaniment to a late night autobahn death ride, cruise control on, cigarettes burning. There's even a moment, two hours or so into it, when sun starts to come up over the horizon (you'll hear what we mean when you get to the end of the second disc).
Now, we're always talking about "hypnotic" music here at AQ, but this is music for when you're *already* hypnotized, slumped near bed at home or cruising down that infinite highway at 3am, aware of only your own thoughts and the darkness all around made even more black by your headlights. (Maybe this is what some of those unexplicable people who I saw driving around during the eclipse were listening to...for two very long minutes anyway.) Heavy, heavy bass notes, glacially deployed, crushingly beautiful slow-motion guitar and dark, liquid pools of piano, with a narcotized drummer who must be passing in and out of consciousness to occasionally brush his snare and hi-hat. Midnight Radio enters into the tiny pantheon of somehow similarly intended doomy double cd sets beloved of AQ (Esoteric's Pernicious Enigma and Epistomological Despondency, Corrupted's Llenandose de Gusanos). Of course, Bohren is not at all metallic like those two outfits, but is knowing of the same gloombliss. Slow and low, and highly recommended!
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Long rumored, long awaited, Bohren and Der Club Of Gore's installment in Southern UK's limited edition Latitudes series is, finally, here!! While the Latitudes series has included a disparate selection of interesting artists, including AQ faves like Circle, Shit & Shine, Grails, and now Bohren. You'd think they were asking US who they should put out! Certainly if they HAD asked us, we'd have said Bohren, we're (as you probably know) huge fans, we're still in awe of the live show they played in San Francisco a few months back, also something that we didn't ever think we'd see. The stage was in total darkness except for small lights shining from directly above each musician, one bassist, one keyboardist, and another who played keys, bass, and sax as necessary. And while it was unfortunate that there was no drummer (for some reason he couldn't travel with the band) their usual slow tempo meant that the keyboardist could "play" sampled drums fairly effectively, though doubtless it would probably have been even better had the actual drummer been there (however, one of our friends who was at the show didn't even realize there was no live drummer present, due to the darkness, and the fact that the glowing Bohren skull-head logo in the center of the stage looked like it was on a bass drum head!). Their music was so beautiful, and sooooo heavy. Literally one of the HEAVIEST performances we've ever witnessed, SO MUCH BASS it was insane. And remember, they're essentially a jazz group.
So, we like Bohren. You like Bohren (or if you haven't heard 'em, may we suggest their most recent album, Dolores?). And so we're both excited that this is here. Heck, we've been waiting for it for a while. Apparently the Latitudes folks like to get people all in a tizzy by announcing things YEARS in advance of the actual release. As a result, Bohren fans have been asking about this one, since, well back when Barack Obama was still an unknown community organizer, it seems. We had sorta given up hope of ever actually seeing it come out, assuming it was a figment of someone at Southern's overactive imagination. But then what do you know, out of the blue, with no warning, here they are. We got ALL the copies we're gonna be able to get, and good luck finding it elsewhere. So act fast if you want one.
Here's the lowdown: Like the previous Latitudes volume, from White Magic, this is an ep, just one song in fact, and while Bohren have been known to make some looooong songs, this one is "only" 10 and a half minutes in length. But of course what with Bohren's typical mesmeric glacial pace and soporific atmospheres, when "Mitleid Lady" is playing it's as if time has stopped, anyway... the bass frequencies throbbing gently, the sparse snick...snick...snick of the drummer's high hat, the dulcet liquid tones of electric piano melodically meandering... eventually the merest suggestion of a sweet whisper of smoky saxophone... ahhh the unique slo-mo "jazz" of Bohren is utterly entrancing as usual. This track was recorded back 2006 (we said it was long awaited), after their Geisterfaust record and before the more recent Dolores, and sounds like it could easily have found a place on either album. But having it here on its own disc is actually rather nice, as a "concentrated" (not really) dose of Bohren's special sound to savor.
It's also an attractive collectible artifact, in the usual die-cut, cardboard Latitudes packaging, including an insert with text in German on one side, and a curiously unexpected picture of the mostly all-bald Bohren guys on the other side - all four of them dressed in black, of course, but standing in a grassy park on a sunny day somewhere, three of them wearing shorts, two of 'em in sandals and flipflops!
LIMITED EDITION! 1000 COPIES ONLY! We got less than 100, and that's IT. And don't ask us when the also-announced 12" vinyl version is coming out, we don't know...
Like Circle, Earth, Boris, and The Necks, Bohren & Der Club Of Gore is one of those long time fave bands that you can always count on us getting all excited about here at aQuarius, even when it's essentially 'more of the same' - we WANT more of the same, since theirs is a unique, wonderful sound. So, yay, the German "death jazz" greats are now back with their 8th full-length album. Piano Nights features piano, yes, lovely placid piano, and also all the other usual Bohren ingredients: restrained minimal timekeeping on the traps, lots of low end from the double bass and baritone guitars, additional atmosphere and melody from mellotron, organ, and vibraphone, and some smokey noirish saxophone too.
There's nine more gorgeous, soft focus, slow moving tracks here in the Bohren tradition of all-instrumental slowcore jazz noir, gently doom laden twilight moodiness that's practically hauntological, to use a term often used to describe stuff like Demdike Stare and The Caretaker - especially the portions of these tracks wherein an underlying ghostly ambient hum is made evident. Although this is not so much scary-haunting, as it is wistful-haunting. Also almost romantic, as if maybe Rodelius had joined Bohren, especially with the piano playing.
Bohren's previous outing on Ipecac, Beileid, had a bit of a weirdness factor (mainly due to an unexpected cover of an '80s German metal song, with guest vocals from Mike Patton) that Piano Nights perhaps wisely retreats from, instead simply providing the sort of aching, intimate yet cinematic sounds we have enjoyed from them since back when we first discovered the music of Bohren on a trip to Germany so many years ago.
This just came out this week, so it's just sinking in, but what a feeling, this music is all about sinking in. We'll be spinning it a lot, it's the perfect late night relaxing in an armchair with a glass of whiskey sort of record, lights low, eyes half closed... The libation, furniture, time of day, etc. can be purely imagined, but this music sure conjures that vibe. Another classic Borhen opus in other words.
After being out of print for almost FIVE years, Bohren's third album Sunset Mission finally gets re-released this time in a spiffy digipak!
Back when we first listed this (the first Bohren we'd managed to get a hold of for the store), this is what we said: Allan discovered Bohren on a trip to Germany in 1999, with their '95 double-cd Midnight Radio, an amazing extended late-night autobahn driving soundscape, slow, low, instrumental "lounge" music, utterly perfect for a mesmerizing midnight listen. Sunset Mission, their third album, was originally released in 2000 and is similar to Midnight Radio, more overtly "jazzy" perhaps, with the addition of smokey tenor saxophone to their piano/drums/bass lineup. Their original US distributor (electronica/techno label Studio K-7) labeled this ambient, but that's far from the mark. From the song titles ("Prowler", "On Demon Wings", "Black City Skyline", "Darkstalker") to the packaging (photos of nighttime Berlin and dangerous weaponry) to the music (a downtempo film noir soundtrack like the slowest, dirgiest Melvins played by Morphine, darker than Photek, moody and gorgeous) this is the nightmare "ambience" of a nowhere jazz-lounge you'll never leave alive.
By now, Bohren & Der Club Of Gore are a firm AQ favorite, with their recent album Geisterfaust sure to show up in a lot our our customers' year 2005 top-ten lists. Meanwhile Bohren's Black Earth, Gore Motel and Midnight Radio have always been steady sellers, so it's nice to have Sunset Mission back in the racks as well! Of the Bohren discography, Sunset Mission seems to be the jazziest (if indeed it's appropriate to use that term), definitely with the most sax of any of 'em, perhaps coming closest to its follow-up Black Earth in sound.
Boards of Canada fans take note! Outside of solipsistic IDM circles, Bola has, for the most part, been forgotten due to the overwhelming popularity of Boards Of Canada -- an electronica duo just as good as a Bola who got the fortunate break of landing on
Also, a word about the cover art -- it's so beautiful that several of the AQ-staff bought it on vinyl just cos it's so gorgeous. Since the designer is not credited, we'll just assume it's the Bola folks who put together these incredibly detailed, full color illustrations of fantastical insect-like creatures that have been created by careful collaging of imagery seemingly lifted from under the sea or inside the body. Just great looking!
We will soon have two versions of this album on vinyl -- both are nice gatefolds holding two lps. The cheaper one is black vinyl, the $24 one features two gorgeous pictures discs. You may reserve copies.
With Autechre abandoning the tropes of the Intelligent Dance Music genre they helped originate back in the early '90s and Aphex Twin currently in hibernation, there are few options in the current IDM community for new and exciting discoveries. While not new per se, Darrel Fitton's Bola project has been a staple of the Skam label, and has consistently provided almost all of those choice IDM moments as of late. With a preternatural gift for somber lullaby melodies and an unwavering appetite for skittering broken breakbeats, Fitton encapsulates everything good about the IDM electronica sub-genre. Bola's third album Gnayse follows the pun-as-title trend found on all of his records, as when you compress his name with the title, you get something that sounds close to bolognese. This follows Bola Soup (Bowl o' Soup), Bola Mauver (Bowl 'em Over), and Bola Fyuti (which according to a Bola fansite is footie-baller). Yeah, its stupid; but the music more than makes up for the silly titles. Darker and more melodramatic than Boards of Canada, Gnayse meshes complex yet mid-tempo polyrhythmic skittering beats with vast minor chord seascapes and compelling synth melodies. Certainly as good as its excellent predecessor Fyuti.
Three years have passed since we have last heard from Daryl Fitton and his Bola project. It seems that many of his contemporaries in the IDM community have also been enjoying lengthy sabbaticals. Boards Of Canada and Autechre have both been laying low for the last couple years, and Aphex Twin has kept a low profile too, well at least as Aphex Twin. Needless to say, after a hiatus as long as three years we could surely expect some noticable changes to the seemingly stalwart Bola sound; and yes, the dark veneers of jetblack melodies, spiralling electronic algorithims, and midtempo breakbeats do lighten up considerably. Fitton has always stated that his origins stand as a jazz drummer; and perhaps more than any of the other records do those jazz sensibilities express themselves here. The electronica grooves of Kroungrine have a jaunty spring to their collective step, and the mood is much more playful than before. A very nice listen through and through.
After a long absence, finally repressed!!! Here's what we said when this was first released: After a brilliant single and a fantastic contribution to the "Mask 100" compilation, Bola has released his debut album. Fitting right along side fellow Skam residents Gescom (aka Autechre) and Boards of Canada, Bola offers an unmistakable ambiance of freefloating synths and delicate breakbeats while retaining an alian sensibility to rhythm, form, and development. The end result has been qualified as "chill-out music for the non-emotionally handicapped."
We just got a few copies of this kinda-hard-to-find cd reissue of a much harder to find (only 200 copies pressed!) 1972 lp by a hard rock band from Florida who are kinda legendary for their song "Dead Meat", a over-15-minute opus of proto-doom metal, which appears here as the album closer. Combining sub-Cooper schlock horror stage theatrics and sub-Sabbath riffage, "Dead Meat" was
Bbbb-oo-rrr-ing.
Release number ten from local label Time Released Sound, a one man operation that produces some of THEE most extravagantly packaged micro releases we have ever laid eyes on, with every element of every release meticulously assembled by hand, or built, or drawn, or collaged, or whatever it takes to realize these miniature works of art. Which is precisely what these are, they are records obviously, and the music is fantastic, but that steep price tag is because this music is paired with the perfect packaging, that both represent the sounds within, the unique and ephemeral nature of sound and of music, and these works of art offer a visual analogue to the music, thematically linked in a way that's not always super obvious.
Needless to say, every release is fantastic, sonically, visually and aesthetically, and we're lucky to even get any of these considering how ultra limited they are.
Which brings us to this, the latest piece of musical art from Time Released Sound, which comes to us from musician / field recordist Will Bolton, who here indulges in his interest in the industrial revolution in the UK, by setting his miniature epics in the Quarry Bank Mill, one of the largest and most important textile mills in the UK, and is again an actual functioning mill. Bolton made repeated trips to the mill to capture the sounds of manufacture, of looms and machines, all manner of industrial whir and clatter, rumble and hum, around which he weaves lush and lovely drones and drifty bits of soft focus psychedelic folk. We're reminded a bit of Rameses III, a sort of pastoral folk, but performed on the floor of some old functioning factory.
Little bits of acoustic guitar shimmer, shards of melodic filigree, looped and fragmented, layered and woven into the sounds of machinery, Bolton's own drones deftly blurred into those of the mill, until it's impossible to tell what is field recording and what is music, until the music gradually fades leaving just the sound of the mill, which is surprisingly musical on its own. A deft application of effects, and of manipulate samples, sound reversed and layered, truncated and stretched out, creating these darkly delicate lullabies, rife with music box tinkles and folky flutter, laid out in dreamlike swells, and draped over the sounds of that aged mill. So lovely.
And as always, the packaging is top notch, a printed, hand distressed, 6" square cloth bag, made from raw unfinished cotton, at the actual Quarry Bank Mill, there's also a hand distressed, printed and numbered tag, while inside, the disc is in a full color digipak, and is accompanied by a hand worked and sewn textured paper booklet, with liner notes, as well as images from and photos of the mill. So fantastic, and SO LIMITED. JUST 100 COPIES. We have a dozen and will most likely not be able to get more.
Oh my god! This label continues to astound. These kids forsake the dancefloor entirely by creating insane, broken grooves, barely audible beneath the distortion, shredded by sound collages and spoken samples. More likely to make you bang your head than shake your ass. Domesitc version of the full length by one of Digital Hardcore's most intense (and youngest) groups...
Sublime Frequencies followers will remember the great Group Bombino record from a few years back in their Guitars From Agadez series. Since then it seems that Oumara Almoctar, aka Bombino, has ditched his 'group', yet thankfully his tranced out Agadez desert sound, is still as hypnotizing and entrancing as ever.
Following in the footsteps of Ali Farka Toure, Bombino has that special ability to create songs that transcend language and place. Much like Tinariwen, Bombino's song have such a fluidity, and even a tranquil strength that makes listening to this record such a cleansing and empowering experience. The incredible hypnotic, guitar playing creates an awesome feeling of a locked groove that you never want to end. We can definitely imagine lots of modern psych groups like Carlton Melton, Brightblack Morning Light, and The Drift being so into this sound, and in fact incorporating it into their own. So great!
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.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Arizona DJs Emile & Radar (who along with Z-Trip make up the Bombshelter crew) take their turntable wizardy to the deep realms of dark drum 'n' bass anthems, cutting tracks from Decoder, Dylan, Jonny L, Ganja Kru, as well as a super dark track from Radar.
The eagerly awaited follow-up ep (four brand new songs) to last year's highly acclaimed debut, from a band who has gone from self-released wunderkind to critics' darlings in little over a year. We finally got around to reviewing their debut last list, not because we didn't like it, but we didn't really love it quite as much as the rest of the world seemed to. It's not at all bad, we just weren't sure why all the singular heaps of praise for a sound that has been pretty present throughout the past year. Heck, Sub Pop's current roster is ALL about this sound. Rootsy and sensitive songwriting with high quality musicianship and production value. Yeah, that's cool and all, but wouldn't the real challenge be to NOT make a sad record during the thick of winter in Wisconsin? OK, all snarkiness aside, if you loved the debut, you'll want this, especially for the last song where he throws his falsetto choir into computer auto-tune to interesting effect.
Although we've been listening to and loving the Bon Iver debut For Emma, Forever Ago, somehow we neglected to review it this past year! Shame on us! In case you somehow missed it too, here's a chance for all of us to get caught up with and snuggle up to this terrific album by the fireplace during these chilly winter months. And, it's just now also available on vinyl. Very much at home on the Jagjaguwar label, main man Justin Vernon is sorta the male equivalent to the label's head mistress, sweet chanteuse Julie Doiron. Utterly bittersweet folksy introspection expressed in some mighty fine songwriting. Definitely also for fans of the gentle bristled, warm intimate voices of Will Oldham and Iron & Wine. So nice!
