With a name like Brain Drill, you can pretty much imagine what to expect. Which is what had some of us so flipped out over Brain Drill's debut Apocalyptic Feasting (which somehow didn't get reviewed here, but we could still order it for you though!), a furious ultra technical blast of insanely complex death metal, pretty much universally dissed for being more about parts and technical craziness than songs, but again, pretty sure that's what made it so appealing. Like a big budget version of aQ faves Necrophagist, Brain Drill cram about a million parts into every song, filling every nook and cranny with bursts of frenzied leads, tangled melodies, the songs stuttering and lurching and leaping from time signature to time signature. That said, we found that record to be weirdly catchy, despite what everyone was saying, they pretty much became our new favorite (technical) death metal band.
So here we are, two years later, and Brain Drill return, and if anything, the songs are even more chaotic and over the top, the guitar playing is even more ridiculously INSANE, and the songs are again dizzyingly, head spinningly convoluted. This time around, the sound is way better, the production thicker and heavier, more leads all over the place, but much like the first record, it's an awesomely insane exercise in death metal excess, the whole record playing out like a single multi movement death metal epic, chugging and thrashing and grinding, crunch and squeal and pound and grunt and buzz, guitar squiggles everywhere, the drumming relentless and frantic, but again, they manage to make this stuff, as insane and UNmusical as it seems to some folks, sound downright catchy to these ears.
The whole thing culminates in the epic 16 minute title track (when's the last time you heard a 16 minute death metal jam?) a sprawling, expansive, uber complex, hyper grind monstrosity, rife with some surprisingly melodic elements, those moments deftly tangled up in ever shifting squalls of jagged death metal crunch and buzz, before finally disappearing in a cloud of shimmery black ambience, buried vocals, murky melodies, a strangely haunting drifting outro to an otherwise exhausting mayhemic metal workout. So awesome.
Reissue of recordings by San Diego's Brain Police made between 1964 and 1969. Garage Psych, acid blues rock jams a la Iron Butterfly.
Four new tracks from everyone's favorite filthy Swedes. Dark, disgusting murky sludge rock with titles like "I Wish I Was Dead She Said" and "Cum In Blood" grace side one. Side two features the highly anticipated and lengthy remix of "It's A Burning Hell" by the one and only Destroyer himself, Alec Empire. Don't think this will make it onto cd anytime soon, so don't delay.
A NEW FUCKING BRAINBOMBS RECORD!! And it rules. Heavy and droney and hypnotic and dirgey and AMAZING. Too bad it was limited to 630 copies, of which we only got 8 copies the first time around, when we tried to order 50. Somehow, it's available again, not sure if they found a bunch or pressed up some more, but this time we managed to get a whole TWENTY copies, and again, if we had our way we would have gotten at least twice that many, so needless to say, Brainbombs freaks, and we know there are more than 20 of you out there, you're gonna have to be quick on the trigger, as these might be the last copies we can get, and most likely if they're not gone already, they will be by the time you finish this sentence.
(We can only hope there will be a cd version soon...)
What really needs to be said about the Brainbombs? Other than they totally fucking rule! Happy to report that rumors of their demise were greatly exaggerated, this is the second 7" in the last year from these demented Swedes and it's another killer. Two tracks of gritty, grimy, sludgy Stoogesy garage stomp. Murky and lo-fi, thick and abrasive, bleating trumpet skronk and strangled whiney vocals are buried within a massive roiling blast of divine scuzz rock. Blown out, sloppy and sick, a single badass riff pounded into your skull over and over and over and over, while some lunatic rants about his need for speed and how you'll just end up dead. Completely godlike!
BRAINBOMBS! LIVE! Not sure about all of you, but that's pretty much all we needed to hear. A live document of a rare Brainbombs performance, captured way back in 1993, Burning Hell era, in all its sludgy, filthy, misanthropic lo-fi glory. And it is lo-fi, BIG TIME. The sound is reminiscent of the Les Rallizes Denudes records, super hissy and in the red, captured on a shitty tape player most likely, all the sounds in-the-red, and much like with Les Rallizes, that sort of sound most definitely suits the Brainbombs. The perfect compliment to their already murky and muddy sound.
The bad news is we could only get 15 copies, it's already sold out, and out of print, and these are the last copies we'll ever have, and by now you all know what that means...
Don't let the jaunty little Lawrence Welk ditty that opens Obey lull you into any sort of peaceful state, you'd best be prepared for the hateful murderous mayhem that Obey has in store for you. Then again, that's probably precisely what the Brainbombs had in mind. A gentle voice luring you into a dark alley, a shiny trinket distracting you while the burlap sack goes over your head and you're dragged kicking and screaming into the woods, a sweet piece of candy draws you just close enough so you can be knocked unconscious, tied up, and stuffed in the trunk. Those of you familiar with the brutal musical world of Brainbombs will know exactly what we're going on about. The rest of you, be very very careful. They traffic in a sludgey, jazzy garage rock scuzz stomp, repeated riffs, simple pounding drums, a lurching leering fuzzed out psychedelic dirge underpinning tales of murder and mayhem, murder and rape, death and dismemberment. This is probably their most overtly harsh record. Mostly because unlike the rest of their releases you can actually hear what these Swedes are singing about. All delivered in a sort of fey, heavily accented English. As if the song titles weren't enough,"Kill Them All", "Die You Fuck", "Anal Desire", "Lipstick On My Dick", "Fuckmeat", the lyrics are misogynistic, misanthropic and just plain messed up. The sound is like Melvins meets Whitehouse filtered through the fuzzy garage stomp of the Stooges but with a maniacally repetitive looped quality, that cranks up the tension, while the vocalist slowly unravels and gets meaner and meaner, more and more insane. And let's not forget the occasional warbly warped trumpet (!). What can we say? We love Brainbombs.
We've never listed this one before, as it has been seemingly out of print for ages. Thankfully a distributor managed to scrape up a bunch, but we can't be sure how long we'll have these.
Who would have thought that the joyous occasion of the first tUMULt 7" vinyl release would also bring such sadness and despair. But sadly it's true, the Brainbombs are no more. But thankfully, they've gone out with a bang. The bang being this grungy, scuzzy, pummelling 45 rpm, two song farewell kick in the face. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Sweden's Brainbombs, think prime Stooges, recorded in a smelly sweaty basement, on a boom box, amidst scattered porno mags, corpses, weapons and human excrement. While a whining vocalist spits up mysogynistic and misanthropic tales of hyper violence. Then add in the occasional bleat of a demented-jazz trumpet and some fucked up fuzzy blown-tweeter bass. So good. And these two tracks are some of the best Brianbombs material ever. The A side starts with a stuttery, super distorted beat before the sky collapses and you're buried in a pile of violently squirming barbed wire guitars, while a ghostly, sort-of-Eastern melody weaves surreptitiously through the melee. Track two trawls similarly dark territory, a 'Fun House'-ish dirge with a warbley trumpet melody desperately trying to keep from being sucked under by the muck and grime. While the Brainbombs may be dead, they have not entirely ruled out the possibility of more mayhem in the future. But for now, this is a suitably brutal and brilliant epitaph. On thick white vinyl. And we mean THICK. Maybe the thickest vinyl we've ever seen!! Seriously, it's like a ceramic salad plate or something! ----* ----* Selected New Arrivals : ----*
We thought we had heard the last of these Swedish musical miscreants with their Stigma Of The Ripper 7" on tUMULt a while back, but according to the band, these two tracks here are actually their last will and testament, the band have finally officially called it quits, with various members continuing on in their own perverse musical pursuits.
And a fitting way to end it. Nothing new or spectacularly different, just more of that murk, filthy, jazzy garage sludge we have come to know and love. A simple riff, doused in distortion and played through some beat up old amp, repeated over and over and over, mantra like, hypnotic and disturbing, the drums propulsive and motorik, a horn bleating and skronking within the murk and mire, while the vocals, delivered in a totally detached deadpan drawl, recount tales of fucking and sucking, rape and incest, and all manner of sexual depravity and ultra violence.
"Stinking Memory" is perfect Brainbombs, a simple riff, ultra fucked up lyrics, some damaged jazz skronk, all wrapped in a thick production of murky muddiness, and pounded out relentlessly, a damaged demented scuzzy filthy garage rock stomp. "Insects" is even better, taking the stomp of side 1 and blowing out the guitar even more, sounding impossible catchy while getting even filthier, every spare bit of space filled up with tangled scrabbling angular guitar solos, so convoluted and dense, they seem to just add another layer of noisy buzz to the proceedings.
God, we're gonna miss these guys...
LIMITED TO 377 COPIES!
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Holy fuck! The return of the Brainbombs! We thought they were dead and gone, but thank the gods of misanthropic sludge, these Swedish masters of the vile, ultra-violent, vicious, grungy garage-sludge-jazz dirge have returned. Two short blasts of Stooges-ish fuzzed out and filthy garage rock, filtered through the misanthropic lyrical lens of Whitehouse and the sludgy sieve of the Melvins. Or something like that. Who cares? You know the Brainbombs rule and you know you need this record and you know we should be on our knees begging for mercy at the feet of one of the best bands ever!
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The neccessary singles collection from the Brainbombs, a band any decent moral individual should hate. But defying our own sense of decency, the Brainbombs are an unlikely AQ favorite. These foulmouthed Swedes crank out pummeling variations on the Stooges' "Funhouse" formula of proto punk heaviosity (circa 1970) with drunken jazz flares. For better or for worse, the ultra violent lyrics of misanthropy and misogyny are buried deep with sloppy production.
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If Eric Harris had a collection of Brainbombs albums, then the media would actually have a story. What the hell are they talking about with KMFDM and Marilyn Manson being the impetus for violence? The Brainbombs embody all things misanthropic and misogynistic. Musically, the Brainbombs crank out some of the best post-Stooges hypnotic sludge rock; lyrically, the Brainbombs are another thing... a whiny Swede recites sexually charged hyper-violence. For whatever reason, all of those classes from Pat Matthews on the feminist interpretations of Duchamp and Meret Oppenheimer did nothing to indoctrinate me to dislike a song like "Ass Fucking Murder". Life is full of paradoxes.
Oh lord, are we ever in filthy, crusty, demented, depraved, misanthropic, sludge rock heaven! That's right, FINALLY, it's the second collection of 7"s from Sweden's mightiest musical export (well, if you ask us, at least!) THE BRAINBOMBS! Everything we love about these musical miscreants is in full affect, the pummeling trash can percussion, the downtuned fuzz drenched ultra distorted guitars, the bizarre, sort of fey, sort of scary vocals, regaling tales of murder and mayhem, rape and torture, death and destruction, the warbly dented drunken trumpet, all wrapped up into a stumbling, hypnotic, and seriously fucking disturbed package.�
It's like they took their favorite Stooges riff, stole a bunch of instruments from the music store, and set up in the basement of the local highschool, where in between kidnapping and torturing students, they would record these slabs of abject musical horror, each one a single riff, pounded and pummeled into submission, sometimes flecked with bits of slide guitar, or that damaged trumpet, but always dripping and oozing with all manner of pestilence and putrefaction. And we can't get enough.�
Folks who love Bone Awl and Akitsa and other primitive droning black metal outfits, will probably hear lots of that foul blackness all tangled up in the Brainbombs primitive garage stomp, and folks who have bee digging stuff like the Violent Students and Clockcleaner and Shit And Shine and Rusted Shut and other similar noisy bastards absolutely need this!!
Includes the single that came out on Andee's tUMULt label, the most recent Stinking Memory 7" on Anthem, as well as the Wabana Gun Court single, the Ken Rock single as well as the Big Brothel single. Easily some of our favorite BB tracks ever, "Stigma Of The Ripper", "The Grinder", "I Need Speed"... fuck! If only more bands could do so much with so little. Stripped down and blown out, catchy as all get out but still grimy and brutal and very very very fucked up.��
Also included are some rare live tracks, all time BB classics, "Urge To Kill" among them, recorded live in Norway way back in 1993, the sound appropriately distorted and low fidelity, and don't miss the hidden last track, a minute long, post performance Brainbombs sign off, with some demented crowd action, chanting for more...
Essential!
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Good grief, we've never listed this??? Every once in a while we realize when such an oversight has occurred. Thankfully, we've got this new vinyl reissue to review. This album, originally released in 1971 (that's right!), the debut from Swiss krautrockers (I think you can call 'em that) Brainticket, is simpy one of the freakiest, LSD-trip inspired slabs of groovy mu-sick ever. Up there with Funkadelic's Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow, even.
The first two tracks on side one, "Black Sand" and "Places Of Light", ease you into it, being laidback groovers laced with stabs of distortion... then the true "trip" begins, the utterly over the top, three-part "Brainticket", that starts on side one and spreads over all of side two, dense and propulsive and repetitive, with orgasmic female vocals and all kinds of intense psychedelic throb. It's the perfect soundtrack to goin' completely mad. In addition to wah-wah guitar, organ, flute, tabla, and sci-fi electronics, there's layers of musique concrete "samples", tapes of rainfall, clanging bells, clattering trains, cheering crowds, all sorts of chaotic noise panic...
Quite a overdose of LSD-enthusiasm, that even today still seems more likely to scare folks off from trying drugs than encourage 'em to do so. But then, who needs to actually drop acid when you can just listen to this? Fans of the likes of A.R. & Machines, Amon Duul II, Siloah, Tangerine Dream's Electronic Meditation, and other cosmic trips (as well as hippie kitsch) this is another one you need to get turned on to if you haven't already. Oh, and as a footnote, the drummer went on to play in proto-metallers Toad.
An old fave, maybe a bit more expensive than it needs to be, though to be fair this package does come with a cd version of the album as well, which is a nice touch. 180 gram vinyl, gatefold sleeve, which is nice too.
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Here's a nice pairing, featuring Expo 70, who needs no introduction to the aQ readership, and Brainworlds, an Atlanta based guitarist whose work at least here rivals that of Expo 70. Both of these long tracks are recordings from a night of cosmic meditation in 2010 at the seminal performance space Eyedrum in Atlanta. Brainworlds' deep guitar tones float weightlessly in a shimmering expanse from his hypnotic loops and evocative cosmic solo work outs that come across like some lost Ash Ra Tempel jam getting remixed by Troum at their most stratospheric. Really stunning work, and this would have been great to see live given the reverberant acoustics of Eyedrum. Justin Wright was in more of a cosmic mindset for that performance too. Wright's guitars take after some of Michael Rother's phrasing at the beginning of his set, locking into a darker heavier mantra as the performance moves forward with a pulsing rhythm and heavy chords reminiscent of Expo 70's masterful album Black Ohm. Classic drugged-out space drone bliss from both Brainworlds and Expo 70. We're pretty sure this is a 60 minute tape; it's damn long regardless... but it's limited too, just 100 copies released from the Hooker Vision imprint run in part by Rachel Evans of Motion Sickness of Time Travel.
Brak, the lovable and dim outer space villian featured on the Cartoon Network's brilliant "Space Ghost Coast To Coast" show, has his own album now (as the title makes plain). Despite the presence of showbiz pals like Freddie Prinze Jr., Grape Ape, and fellow interstellar creep Zorak, this album really does belong to Brak and his unique vocal stylings, not to mention lyrical content. Songs like "Magic Toenail" will bring a tear to your eye. We practically wrecked the car laughing, listening to this on the way to bowling league last night. Allan's never even seen the TV show (no cable!) but is now obsessed with this and the other Space Ghost compact discs!
In the age of the internet, it's rare for any record or band to exist without a comprehensive backstory, or a million blogs with everything you could possibly want to know abut said group or record, but this, the sole album from the awesomely named Bram Stoker, a record with an equally awesome title, Heavy Rock Spectacular, seems to be quite a mystery, released in 1972 on a tiny label, and mostly the work of a chap named T. Brondson, there seems to be very little else known about this guy/these guys and this record. Even though it's been reissued multiple times over the years (once with a whole new cover, and new title: Schizo-Poltergeist!), but really it hardly matters, cuz what does matter is this is a primo slice of heavy hard rocking psychedelic organ driven prog that KILLS. Think Emerson Lake & Palmer, Atomic Rooster, Black Widow, Buffalo, Lucifer's Friend, if that reads like your psych/prog dreamteam, then you'll probably gonna dig Bram Stoker.
The ELP comparison might be the most apt, cuz the organ really is the main instrument, unleashing wild flurries of tangled melodies, locked tight with the drums, the tracks intricate and dizzyingly complex, and with plenty of classical influence, which of course harkens back to ELP tracks like "Toccata", but unlike the guitarless ELP, there's plenty of fuzz guitar going on, some of it extremely blown out and distorted, check out "Born To Be Free", that has to be some of the filthiest, crumbliest guitar EVER, total heavy psych proto metal radness for sure. Those moments of proto metallic heavy psych fuzz guitar though are most definitely outnumbered by all the fierce and furious psychedelic organ jams, but they do make for a pretty sweet combo, especially when the guitar and the organ get all tangled up into wild dueling psych-prog blowouts. Stick around for creepy closer "Poltergeist", which obviously inspired the alternate title, with dense drumming, thick guitar crunch, swirling organ, lush vocal harmonies, some weirdly haunting, hushed passages, and a wild frenzied organ/guitar finale! So good!
Surrealistic solo artist The Bran (Another plight of medic's...) Pos, aka AQ-customer Jake Rodriguez (who helps to run & book the Clit Stop venue here in SF), has released what I think is his actual debut cd, after a variety of cd-r releases. Experimental to the core, in live performances Jake's a veritable Tasmanian Devil of insane vocal manipulations and electronic effects. Here, the vocals take a back seat (or can't be differentiated from the electronics!), it's pretty much all outer-space distortion and chaos-collage, like a Masonna intent on making 'weird' noises instead of painful ones. One track features his free improv duo Compomicro-Dexall. For fans of Mike Patton and other John Zorn-approved avant garde noise craziness. Good stuff. Comes packaged in one of those clear plastic clam-shell cases.
Aaah, the fountain overflows with a facetious flood of tweaked tunes from Mr. Mildred Pit and Mr. Otis F. Odder. Together they are the Bran Flakes from Seattle, WA. Giving a tip of the hat to Irwin Chusid (radio host and champion of musical eccentrics everywhere ---Raymond Scott to name but one), they plunder and paste melodic incongruities (what was that?! a tv show theme? and
Seattle-based duo The Bran Flakes have put together another cherry of an album. Sonic plunderers who must have ridiculous amounts of thrift-store $1 records, The Bran Flakes painstakingly yet assuredly cut everything up -- macabre children's songs, sleigh bells, latin percussive rattles, afro cuban drumming, tooting horns, minor key strings, occasional drum 'n bass, bad disco, some goofy approximations of dub, wurlitzer organ, noir film samples, oompah oompah in the left channel, funky drummer-style breakbeat on the right -- and arrange everything into precise sonic juxtapositions, resulting in a very confident and enjoyable trip from beginning to end (in fact the end is a three minute long recitation of people's names, jesus how long did it take them to cut *that* stuff together?)
The album's highest point comes when they cut up (Terry Riley "You're Nogood"-style!) everyone's favorite muppets Kermit and Fozzie Bear singing "Movin' right along...". It's so frickin' wonderful and happy go lucky -- can't you just see 'em in the Studebaker? While most comparisons to fellow cut 'n pasters involve names like Wobbly and Negativland, I think the group will fit nicely right next to your Kid Koala tape, your People Like Us cd, and maybe even your 12" collection of solemn DJ Shadow, who uses the same tools -- vinyl -- but never cracks a smile, whereas The Bran Flakes are all about hilarity. Look at what moog pioneer Jean Jacques Perrey says about 'em:
"I enjoyed your record very much, it is so fresh, so cool, made for people who have a 'child soul' and at the same time perfectly elaborated harmonically and technically with some funny winks to other composers."
Recommended for the lighthearted!
It's no secret we are huge Glenn Branca fans here at AQ. No one has found ways to create such dissonant beauty and mesmerizing power with guitars quite like Mr. Branca. The title piece here, performed in 1981 with 10 guitars and drums and timpani is one of the most impressive Branca pieces we have ever heard. Its inescapable tension wraps itself around your ears and while you feel it's grasp taking a hold of you, you don't really ever want it to end. With young devotees like Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore in the ensemble it's no wonder the piece sounds so perfect and received the long standing ovation it so deserved. But one man in attendance of this performance was not impressed. In fact he had lots to say about it, and nothing positive. That wouldn't be that big of a deal of course if that person wasn't John Cage!! In a clever twist of their long running rivalry and Cage's very public dismissal of Branca's work, Branca decided to follow the title piece on this reissue with a conversation that John Cage had with Wim Mertons about Branca's piece. In the conversation Cage speaks very eloquently as he always did, about his dislike for Branca's piece and his work in general. He goes as far to call the piece fascist, which then led to a very public and bitter tiff between two legends of forward thinking 20th century music. We have to admit that sometimes we actually like hearing Cage talk even more then we like listening to his music. As the rhythm of his voice and the depth of his intelligence is so damn pleasing to take in. While we wish Wim Mertons would have done a better job of defending Branca, we can't blame him for being a bit tongue tied and slow in the face of Cage's eloquent understated fury. We can imagine that if we ever had the opportunity to have a serious exchange of views about music with Cage we probably would have been crazy nervous and marble mouthed. The record ends with a late 80's piece by Branca called Harmonic Series Chords which is a really nice somber piece performed by the New York Chamber Sinfonia. Like two heavyweight champions exchanging blows we feel lucky to get to sit on the sidelines as Cage disses Branca, and Branca's music speaks so loudly for itself. Highly recommended!
Class is now in session with the much anticipated vinyl reissue of Glenn Branca's seminal 1980 debut of post-modern no-wave composition, Lesson No.1. The first release on legendary New York label 99 Records (who also introduced Liquid Liquid and ESG to the world), Lesson No.1 combined the New York school of minimalist composition (Terry Riley and La Monte Young) with the burgeoning ferocity of dissonance and feedback prevalent in no-wave and punk of the time (Sonic Youth, Theoretical Girls, and The Static). While Branca was not the first to combine modern composition and rock tropes, or lead bands with multiple guitarists (Rhys Chatham was doing that first, though his Guitar Trio recording was released much later), Branca's compositions tended to wield much more sonic power and hefty brutal dynamics than Chatham, leaning more toward heavy ear-shattering club performances at CBGB's than respectful art-spaces like The Kitchen.
This reissue includes an extra one-sided 12" of the 16 minute bonus track, "Bad Smells", originally on a John Giorno compilation, Who Are you Staring At? which was commissioned for a Twyla Tharp dance piece. It also features the guitar work of Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo who played in many of Branca's performing bands before forming Sonic Youth. You can hear the churning origins of Sonic Youth's trademark chiming dissonance in every one of Glenn Branca's early big bang epics. Essential!
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There's been quite a little resurgence of interest in the eighties downtown NY scene, specifically the guitar orchestras and proto-post rock of Rhys Chatham and Glenn Branca. This DVD features two live performances recorded in 1995 with an unknown (at least to us) ensemble with Branca at the helm conducting. The music is fantastic, dark and propulsive. Repetitive and trance-like, with churning guitars and tribal drums. Sound remarkably similar to AQ favorites Circle or Salvatore. Visually, there's not a whole lot to see, although it is cool to hear what sounds like your basic rock band, but is in fact a large ensemble, with guitar players struggling to 'rock out' but stuck behind their music stands. The visuals do reflect the music quite nicely though, dark and brooding, with spare lighting and lots of empty space on the screen.
I only ever knew Glenn Branca as "the guitar orchestra guy" responsible for assembling huge groups of guitarists (often well known rock guitarists), to perform huge, throbbing, hypnotic and repetitive compositions -- some for ten guitarists, fifty guitarists, even one hundred guitarists. The recent Rhys Chatham box, reviewed a few lists back, suggested that perhaps Branca's guitar orchestra concept was 'borrowed' from Chatham, as Branca had performed in many of Chatham's multiple guitar ensembles. But in much the same way that we were surprised by the rock-ness of the early Chatham material, this early recording from Branca and his four guitar/bass/drums outfit has much more in common with noisy post punk/post rock: Bastro, Bitch Magnet, Slint and the like, than Ligeti, Penderecki, Messiaen or any of the other names dropped in Lee Ranaldo's liner notes. Extended drony, atonal rhythmic explorations stretch on and on, building horror-movie-minor-key tension, building and building and building, before bursting into unrelenting rock rhythm/riffs. Lots of the more rock parts sound like an instrumental version of North Western punk rockers The Wipers, but with lots of odd dynamics ala Bastro or Slint and with the extended riff repetition of modern minimalism stretching the songs into droning, hypnotic master works. Throbbing and relentless, pounding and intricate, weaving back and forth between ferocious, unrelenting rock-action, and epic, complex geometric stop/start, hypno-minimalism.
Born in 1896 in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Max Brand lived throughout Europe before emmigrating to the US in 1946. A contemporary of Schoenberg, Berg, Weil and Kranek, Brand was one of the early pioneers of electronic music, but most of his works were destroyed or lost and he slipped into obscurity. (Or, he never existed and this disc is a clever hoax, just the kind of thing we like!) Disc One of this set is a primer of Max Brand's multi-faceted electronic works, including some bizarre commercials. Disc Two is a tribute to him by members of the new electronic scene in Vienna including: Pita, Pure, Fon, Curd Duca and others.
The Vienna improv-glitch squad strikes again! From some of the same folks in the bands Radian and Trapist, including the duo responsible for the Too Beautiful To Burn disc on Erstwhile, Die Instabilit�t der Symmetrie (The Instability of Symmetry) is another freakin' great disc of what we might call laboratory jazz. You know, improv music where the notes played on instruments are suspended over what sounds like crackling chemical reactions and Geiger counter clicks. These four live musicians (playing guitar, double bass, lap steel, synth, drums and percussion) interact with each other and their own electronic/computer processing, creating a beautiful low-key soundscape, full of ominous doomful droning and abstract minimal melody, like gathered stormclouds sending down glitchy streaks of rain... There's a quiet, haunting beauty to much of this, with circling tones and the rattle of bells, restrained percussion sketching broken grooves. It's lulling, but beware the sudden pulsing squall of static. Definitely recommended, specifically to all into the likes of the aforementioned Radian/Trapist, Starfuckers, Supersilent, and Spring Heel Jack's Blue Series recordings. And while a brief liner note from Siewert says something academically cryptic about this being a site-specific audiovisual project, the sound on this disc is completely sufficient for home listening enjoyment!
Edited by West Coast sound artists Brandon LaBelle and Steve Roden, "Site of Sound" is a compendium of theoretical discourses within conceptually based sound art. Along with the rather dense and at times poetic texts, the book also features a cd of work by the authors. Featured both on cd and in print are Achim Wollscheid, Christina Kubisch, RLW, John Hudak, Toshiya Tsonuda, Christof Migone, Steve Peters, m/s, and others. Text only contributers include Loren Chasse, Giancarlo Toniuitti, CM von Hausswolff, Leif Elgrenn, David Dunn, etc.
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Of Norwegian decent, though a current resident of Northern Ireland, Kjetil D. Brandsdal constructs ominous lo-fi droning tape loops similar to a gritty variant of Omit accompanied by throbbing de-tuned bass and occasional post-VU strum. A very nice introduction / documentation on the perennially great Corpus Hermeticum!
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This compiles two hard to find vinyl only records from the Norwegian experimentalist Kjetil D. Brandsdal. With a freefloating agenda of subconsciously exploring sound (not far from Nurse With Wound's earliest sonic freakouts but with the sound of NZ freenoise artists), Brandsdal giddily wallows in the muck of cable buzz, overblown 4-track recordings for organ & guitar, and feedback from malfucntioning amplifiers. All the while managing to elicit simple melodic passages. Difficult but enjoyable listening.
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Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace presents the fourth album from the mysterious experimentalist Kjetil D. Brandstal who hails from Norway. Brandsdal's gritty lo-fi dinscapes for cracked guitar feedback drone and turntable damage (don't expect any Skratch Piklz wizardry, rather it sounds as though he's applying thick balls of dust to the needle to force skips and loops) appear devoid of structure, beginning, or end. Freefloating stuff along the same lines as Gate, Total/Skullflower, and No Neck Blues Band.
We recently discovered this little label in Germany called Gruenrekorder, who specialize in "Phonography and Audio Art" which translates to field recordings, turntablism and audio installations, which definitely sounded right up our alley. We then discovered that they had 60 or 70 releases, probably more by the time of this review, most cd-r's and all incredibly limited, usually to 50 or less. Yikes. Had to do some quick thinking, so we picked two of the most promising sounding and got a bunch of those (a bunch meaning 25 copies, which is half of the pressing). So elsewhere on this list you'll find the other Gruenrekorder release, a field recording of bats (and you know our love of bats is second only to our love of frogs!), which somehow seems to perfectly balance this one right here, a live recording of a sound installation for turntables, records and... plastic angels.
The set up goes like this, a bunch of turntables, all set up on a small dais, each with a plastic angel spinning in the middle of the lp, and each angel with a weight hung between its wings, which shifts with each rotation, and causes various loops to alter, drift, shift, change duration, overlap, all the while, Brandstifter, the man responsible, crawls around moving the angels, replacing the records, changing speeds, the result is pretty magnificent, a looped hypnotic soundscape of operatic voices, fluttering flutes and fiddles, droning whirs, hiccupping song snippets, skipping stuttering rhythms, the vibe very festive, as most of the discs are choral, the voices locked into hypnotic mantras, the various cracks and skips adding percussive filigree. Some passages are epic and triumphant, voices soaring, while others are murky and mumbled, sounding like they could have been yanked from some mysterious Finnish free folk record or from some blurred Philip Jeck turntable landscape.
Haunting and eerie, like some damaged funhouse mirror holiday soundscape, Christmas carols twisted and gnarled, holiday favorites scratched up and looped, bits of opera looped into fuzzy repetitive seasick mantras, you can almost imagine some Tim Burton-ish mad scientist armed with a bunch of dusty scratched up records and weird old fashioned turntables and all those painted angels, hovering in a dark cobwebby corner of some old seventies mall, families and children steering clear of the crazy man in the corner and his murky muddy choral din. SO AWESOME!!!
Beautifully packaged, printed cd-r, full color sleeve, but again, LIMITED TO ONLY 50 COPIES!!! So once these are gone, that's it...
The cover of this Branko record, featuring a stylish long haired bell bottomed hippy posing in the middle of a street, with sunglasses and a cigarette, had us imagining that it must be some archival psych rock record from the sixties, and that the guy on the cover must be Branko. But in fact, Branko is a band from Sweden, and not from the sixties, but from NOW, although they sound very much like they're from the sixties, their sound a heavily reverbed surf rock, groovy garage pop, a la Link Wray or the Troggs, or the Ventures, but their sound is definitely modern, the guitars are impossibly fuzzy and blown out, all the instruments in fact are crazy distorted, it sounds like the whole record is crumbling as it comes cascading from the speakers, and the deeper you get into the 7" the more sort of punk it sounds, some serious surf punk for sure, laced with wild bouts of chaotic percussion, weird sci-fi samples, random voices speaking in strange languages, draped over the bands hypnotic grooves, with lots of the tracks sounding like revved up theme songs from lost sixties spy programs, or the ultimate soundtrack for the most bad assed chase scenes EVER. So great. Includes a download card too which includes an extra NINE track not on the 7"!!
Polish "lounge-psych" on Last Visible Dog.
Yes, 'tis Brassy starring Jon "Blues Explosion" Spencer's kid sister Muffin back for a second full length - basically picking up the party right where Luscious Jackson left off back in 2000. Distinctly girl-powered, Gettin' Wise is filled with funky beats and samples, groovin' bass, punchy guitars with sassy, slightly snarky spoken-sung vocals that show glimpses of the raw bluesiness of her older brother and also bring to mind those of throaty Peaches or Solex -- much less foulmouthed and less quirky respectively though! Definitely not forging ahead into any unchartered territory, but granted, Brassy doesn't lay any claims to doing so. This is just plain feisty fun very well done. My only gripe would be that the fifth song "Feeling Sorry" veers a little too close to Smashmouth's "Walkin' On The Sun" for my taste. Fourteen tracks plus a bonus disc that contains three remixes and one additional song. Now get movin' and party down!
Graced by the presence of Jon Spencer's sister Muffin, Brassy pump out the tunes like an amped up 'n' funkier Luscious Jackson with lots of bum-bumpin' beats and squitchy-squitchy scratchin'. Certainly a welcome release for those who wept at the demise of the aforementioned LJ.
Just as we expected, and certainly hoped, the fact that the Phoenix label reissued the freaky '70s Japanese psych artifact by Karuna Khyal (their album Alomoni 1985, highlighted here a few lists ago) meant that Brast Burn and their lone album Debon from 1975 was sure to follow. And now here it its, another rare record originally released on the extremely underground Voice label, the work of a mysterious avant-psych entity that may or may not have shared more of less the same membership as Karuna Khyal. Very similar to that band's record, this one also consists of two sprawling side-long tracks, that seem designed to demonstrate that Japanese hippies can could play primal "krautrock" too. Both tracks situate fairly mellow grooves amidst droning, heavily effected weirdness, with vocal chanting, ceremonial hand percussion, acid rock guitar spew, raw flute soloing, tape manipulated field recordings, rumbling drums, buzzing electronics, Twilight Zone melodies, and other good stuff making significant appearances in the freeform stew... it's very "Eastern", quite insane, and totally enjoyable.
If you liked the Karuna Khyal, you'll like this too. Also any fan of Acid Mothers Temple, Ghost, or other modern day Japanese psych would be remiss not check this out, we'd be surprised if it wasn't to be found in Kawabata Makoto and Masaki Batoh's record collections. Furthermore, without even checking, we're pretty sure this is the sort of thing that must be on the famous Nurse With Wound "list"... ok, we looked, it's there! Of course. And speaking of lists, it's #26 on Julian Cope's Japrocksampler Top 50, by the way (the Karuna Khyal was #19).
In the usual "wallet" style Phoenix cd packaging, limited to 1000 numbered copies.
The first thing I noticed about this new Bratmobile album was the addition of keyboards to this punky trio's tried and true guitar, bass and drums lineup. This effectively changes their stripped down, riot grrrl sound quite a bit... for the better or for the worse? I've yet to decide. It sorta makes it all seem a bit more '60s garage girl band. But what I used to find so novel about them was their bare bones approach, which seems to have been lost here. It sounds like they are growing up before my very ears. About time! Even Allison's voice doesn't sound quite as shrill and annoying as it has in the past. Though she isn't doing anything new, she does sound a bit more composed, but unfortunately often that ends up translating as monotone and a little bit bored sounding. Good but not a particularly energized follow-up to 2000's "Ladies, Women and Girls", their feisty return to the punk rock scene.
Head's up! The riot grrrrrrandmas are back! More spunky punky female-empowering punk rock.
There's a whole new generation of indie rockers who missed out on a crucial era in indie rock history in the early nineties, K Records, the International Pop Underground, etc., and thus probably don't remember Tiger Trap, a short lived group that released a single record and a handful of singles before calling it quits after about a year. But TT had a lasting impact, and found a cult following, and made TT frontwoman Rose Melberg a bit of an indie rock icon. Along with Black Tambourine (whose complete discography was recently reissued and is reviewed elsewhere on the aQ site), Beat Happening, Heavenly, Tsunami, Mecca Normal and others, Tiger Trap were a group who represented the DIY indie rock spirit and helped empower women to start bands and labels. Melberg would go on to play in Go Sailor and the Softies, and has returned once again in Brave Irene, whose sound is not that far removed from her other bands, which is just fine with us, stripped down, soft focus jangly indie pop, Melberg's voice is in fine form, lots of dreamy harmonies, warm whirring organs, fuzzy guitars, propulsive rhythms, eight songs in 17 minutes, brief bursts of perfect pop, dreamy and hypnotic, a sound of which we never tire.
Absolutely for fans of any of the above mentioned bands, and the current crop of girl pop: Grass Widow, Dum Dum Girls, White Fence, Vivian Girls, Splinters, Girls At Dawn, Veronica Falls, Yellow Fever...
