Asphodel presents three pieces of Cage's symphonic work fortunately without DJ Spooky to add insipid post-modern liner notes or to 'digitally record' the performances. "Atlas Eclipticalis" and "Winter Music" are severely spartan orchestrations for Cage with a huge spaces set between each of the tones, set indeterminately by Cage as he traced constellations onto music paper. Here, the Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble with David Tudor, perform these two scores simultaneously. The liner notes indicate that these two pieces were meant to complement each other, but it seems a little vague in terms of the rationale behind the fusing of the two. Regardless, this performance is quite spectacular.
"103" was composed more as a collection of 103 solos in which each instrument plays a series of single tones with specified windows of time for the tones to be played. Cage had intended for this piece to be performed without a conductor. Instead, the length of each of the 103 solos would determined by a digital clock. However, the performance presented here by the Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra from the Czech Republic was conducted by Petr Kotik. While Cage not surpringly didn't care much for the idea of rehearsing, Kotik believes that the conceptual agenda may be augmented to maintain the integrity of a performance.
"So if a guy brought in a home made cd, you guys would sell it?" So said a homeless guy when I told him that "Branches" -- which had been playing on our house system at the time -- was more the kind of thing we were looking for than the Eric Clapton & Kenny G
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"This landmark Wergo set presents 8 out of 10 volumes from John Cage's unfinished spoken diary. Read in the composer's own inimitable voice, these recordings provide fascinating insights into Cage's musical and life philosophies. These are not simply spoken word recordings -- each volume is sonically composed. Changes in typography in the printed text correspond to simultaneous changes in the stereophonic position and simultaneous changes in the volume of Cage's voice. This deluxe 8 CD boxed set includes a 64-page booklet containing several photographs taken in John Cage's loft and during the recording sessions in 1991, as well as a complete chronology of the composer's life." - Wergo liner notes. This is the new edition of this infamous Wergo document, with new, slimmer packaging and new written book.
What a fucking nut. Two discs of Cage reading, calmly and without expression, cut-up non-sensical passages from Henry David Thoreau's journals, live in Milan, 1977. The audience reaction is, however, quite expressive! Over the two discs the outcry builds: clapping, jeering, stomping, shrieking. Eventually the recording is more of the noise-making audience's near-riot than of Cage's performance, which is certainly in keeping with the man's philosophy of "music". Amazing and absurd. What a fucking nut!
Cage's first work composed entirely by using the I Ching (the title is taken from the name of Kurt Wolff's book on the I Ching "The Book of Changes". Every pitch value, note duration, expressive marking is determined by this painstaking process -- a process that Cage caught much flack for from many of his total serialist contemporaries. This was the first recording of that piece ever
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THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Never-before-released radio play collaboration between John Cage and writer/artist Kenneth Patchen performed in 1942. In what has to be one of the oddest Cage pieces ever, professional radio voice talents unravel a truly surreal story in straight '40s radio drama style. Replacing the usual radio drama sound effects is a percussion ensemble led by John Cage which punctuates the dialog throughout. Along with muted gongs, tin can xylophones, and marimbula are an assortment of electronic gadgets, including an audio frequency oscillator, electric buzzers and recorded sounds. Also included on this disk is "Credo in us" with Genevieve Blons on shortwave radio, and a 1939 recording of Cage's "Imaginary Landscape" for shortwave radio. Oh, and according to the Cortical Foundation, this cd is limited to a pressing of 1000 copies.
Debut blast of feral, furious, knuckle dragging hardcore from this SF crew, with a very UN-hardcore pedigree, featuring non other than Tony from the Ovens on vocals, and members of aQ pop faves the Sopors and Violent Change as well. But as CA, these guys ditch all that poppiness for something much more fierce and fucked up, brief blasts of grinding punk energy, the songs measure in seconds not minutes, pounding caveman drums, bellowed vox, wild squalls of guitar, sheets of feedback, buzzing bass, their live shows are bloody and brief, all hoodies and mic cords wrapped around fists, and they last about as long as this 7", which as far as we know is in fact their whole set captured on wax. Needless to say, this is some frantic heaviness, some pit destroying punk destruction. As the label describes it "There's not one ounce of originality in these grooves, but if it ain't broke, don't try to fix it". Haha fuck yeah. Includes a killer into from Bay Area rapper Antwon, whose Ormolycka tape End Of Earth was a big hit around here.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!!
Rockadrome's Vintage division comes through with the proto metal goods yet again, this time reissuing the 1975 debut album from Minnesota hard rockers Cain (put out on compact disc once before by Rockadrome's previous incarnation Monster Records, but long out of print). First off, you know this is gonna be heavy when you see that cover, graphically and grossly depicting an actual pound (or more) of actual flesh overflowing from a tin can marked Cain. "8 Prime Cuts" it says on the can. And there are, 8 prime cuts of good ol' '70s American riff rock. (Plus four more bonus tracks from '78 on this cd reish.) It's along the lines of Grand Funk, Starz, Bad Company, Ted Nugent, Moxy, with some hints of Angel and Blue Oyster Cult...
Frontman Jiggs Lee's barechested vocals lead the charge with barroom bravado, as Cain kick out their jams, consisting of hard hitting party time grooves definitely made to be blasted LOUD out of muscle cars in the Midwest. Full of funky rhythms and dramatic crescendos, Cain's music is basically swaggering cock rock, with nods to both glam and the proggier fare from the likes of Led Zep and Queen (there's even flute in the intro to the second track, "Katy"). Speaking of Queen, you gotta love a band that has a song called "Queen Of The Night" and then another one, two tracks later, entitled "South Side Queen".
If you liked the recent Rockadrome reissue of Poobah, you'll want to check this out too. And for even more proto metal awesomeness that's shown up here this week, see also our review of the Up All Night various artists collection!
Been waiting for this, those of us here into the authentic, ass-kicking Seventies hard rock action that is. After their 1975 debut, Pound Of Flesh, the cd reissue of which we reviewed some time ago (you know, the one with the gross can o' meat cover, to illustrate its title), Cain returned with a second album in '77. Now it's been reissued on cd too, with six live bonus tracks.
Like we said about Pound Of Flesh, this is music made to loudly blare from an 8-track in a muscle car. These long-haired and bushy-mustachioed Minnesota boys, lead by bare-chested, leather-lunged frontman Jiggs Lee (how did he not become a big rock star with that name?) sure knew how to rock n' roll it, in a very '70s swaggery cock rock style that mixes hard riffing and sweet melodies. Lotsa badass boogie here, and some more "sophisticated" moments too - "The Minstrel Song" is their pomp rock opus, recalling early Styx (when Styx were sorta heavy, yes they were) and Queen. There and elsewhere we're also reminded of Rainbow (and Elf) and Starz and other more famous '70s contemporaries. Cain's songs are designed to get a crowd goin' with wailing guitar heroics, soaring vocal hooks, and what might be just the right amount of cowbell - definitely dated but damn good fun, though maybe they didn't really need to do a cover of "Gimme Some Lovin'".
If disco and new wave hadn't come along, Cain might have gone places, 'cause apparently they were one heck of a live band, as you can kind of get a taste of here from the bonus tracks, most of which were recorded at the 1977 Minnesota State Fair. Jiggs was even known to do magic tricks and juggling, in addition to belting it out, wow.
So yeah, Rockadrome/Vintage deliver the '70s hard rock/proto-metal goods again, after the Hooker and Sainte Anthony's Fyre reissues we've reviewed on recent lists. Especially if you liked Hooker, you'll like this. Keep 'em coming, guys! (They have the proto-doom legend Icecross on deck next, yeah!!)
Latest full length from this long running experimental black metal one man band, masterminded by Andrew Curtis-Brignell, who has been doing Caina since he was a teenager, and who for this new record is joined by a pretty elite group of guests, Imperial from Krieg, Rennie Resmini from hardcore legends Starkweather, and Chris Ross from Blood Revolt / Revenge / Axis of Advance.
Like on past records, the sound of Caina is a tough one to pin down, fusing total shoegaze pop, to indie pop jangle, crushing downtuned doom to soaring epic post rock slow build, gloomy gothy drift to churning mathy almost-prog, and pretty much anything else Curtis-Brignell can think of. The opening track here is the perfect example, exploding right out of the gate with a chugging almost punky D-beat pound, with wildly bellowed vox, but laced with shimmery melodies, the vocals heavily effected, and insanely high in the mix, swinging wildly from speaker to speaker, eventually the song slipping to what sounds almost more like Mogwai, that sort of brooding, smoldering crescendo, building to an explosive climax, before fading into a bit of shimmery drift, hushed and softly psychedelic, a smeared expanse of woozy low end and hazy guitar glimmer, which leads directly into a burst of old school raw black metal blast, guttural vox, stumbling blast beat, murky frenzied riffing, but this is Caina after all, so it doesn't take long for the sound to splinter into something weirdly mathy and dynamic, and then transform into a dreamy melodic drift, hovering beneath some sick vokills, and again building slowly to something much more fierce and frantic.
It would probably be a bit confusing to go track by track and try to describe every part of every song, needless to say, it's wildy varied, but never to the point of losing cohesion, it's an epic sonic patchwork, woven deftly into some super idiosyncratic avant black metal, infusing the usual blast and buzz and pound, with field recordings, swirling synths, strange samples, blissed out kosmische drift, tribal drum driven math rock, all manner of strange vocals, the sound constantly shifting from black metal blast, to depressive dirge, melodic jangle to drifty drone and back again.
It's probably too all over the map for the true grim hordes, but most aQ metalheads will find this stuff easy to get lost in, a wild sonic journey through some twisted epic black metal otherworld.
Included with the album proper is a bonus disc, featuring reinterpretations of four older tracks, remastered versions of the originals and a Nico cover, both the old and new version of the older songs definitely light on the metal, more jangly and atmospheric, darkly psychedelic, with the biggest surprise might be the re-done version of "To Pluck The Night Up By Its Skin", which is retitled "To Funk The Night Up By Its Shit" and is exactly what the title warns us it might be, a groovy, almost disco-y reworking, but insanely enough, it's actually pretty awesome, and ends up sounding like a slightly darker dirgier version of that whole Eurodisco Carpenter / Goblin worship that is so popular these days.
Sweet packaging too, full color six panel digipack with booklet packed with liner notes, lyrics and photos.
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SORRY. This is the first in a super limited series of 3" cd-r's dedicated to H.P. Lovecraft. This inaugural installment comes from UK one man black metal horde Caina, whose debut record indeed bore a passing resemblance to AQ faves, Lurker Of Chalice, the weirder side project of Leviathan's Wrest, but managed to be it's own strange black beast.
And if anything, I, Mountain is even stranger, with barely any black metal, in fact there's very little here that might be considered metal at all. But that in no way means this isn't dark, or mysterious or subtly heavy.
I, Mountain is an instrumental interpretation of Lovecraft's At The Mountains Of Madness, and is an intense sonic journey.
The first five minutes are a blissy dreamy drift, muted acoustic guitars, glistening and shimmering, it's not until five minutes in that the tenor becomes ominous, with haunting crumbling production and mysterious minor key ambience. Then it's about halfway through before we get the first hint of anything resembling metal, and even then, it's thick clouds of noxious distortion, drifting in the background, a sort of black ambience, but this quickly gives way to a churning doomy sludge, downtuned guitars, thick waves, layer after layer, slowly shifting and pulsing.
Finally, with only minutes to go, the metal kicks in, but it's no black blast, instead a propulsive metallic dirge, thick guitars, and pounding simple drums with the occasionally splattery fill, trudging resolutely forward before the drums drift off, leaving dense peals of processed guitar to swirl and shimmer ominously before the dark ambience fades to black.
I, Mountain is tracked as a single 20+ minute track, although in the booklet, the sections are separated into movements. Packaged in a slim jewel case, with a 4 panel booklet and a thick card insert with a photo of Lovecraft on one side and an essay on the other. Nice!
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!! We got 20, and it's already out of print, so when we run out, we will not be able to get more...
The first we heard about this UK outfit Caina, was that they sounded a bit like Lurker Of Chalice, Wrest from Leviathan's more experimental black metal side project. And if you're anything like us, which we're thinking in matters Leviathan you most definitely are, then that was pretty much all we needed to hear. And it does definitely share some sonic similarities, although it is most definitely it's own mournful, melancholy blackened beast.
The opening track doesn't prepare you at all for the rest of the disc, it's a strange and murky, shimmering ambient soundscape, rich swells of epic sound, like an instrumental post rock Constellation band run through some sort of Jeck / Basinski / Tim Hecker filter rendering everything smeary and gloriously indistinct. Distant drums, bits of percussive skitter, all drifting below a sun baked expanse of glistening soft focus drone. Quite lovely. And the rest of the record is lovely too, just in a much more bleak and blackened way. The opening track has a definite shoegazer vibe that manages to stretch out and settle over all the tracks here. Thick reverby guitars, super primitive practice space drums, arpeggiated minor key melodies, strange little guitar leads spun out into the ether, ultra raw vocals way up in the mix, huge guitar chugs, lilting sort of sea sick rhythms, bizarre convoluted song structures, blast beats that seem to just sink into the mire, long stretches of caliginous dark ambience, gorgeous slabs of simple hypnotic guitar, the whole record wreathed in a dense funereal sonic fog. Dark and creepy and pretty but still so bleak and black. Lurker / Leviathan fans need this for sure. As does anyone into weird damaged blissed out black metal. And if you love stuff like My Bloody Valentine, Jesus & Mary Chain, M83, Phillip Jeck, Tim Hecker and the like, but can't really imagine what all those bands would sound like in a black metal context, look no further...
We were super into the first couple records from UK black metal outfit Caina, especially their entry in the HP Lovecraft 3" cd-r series, but then after that we sort of lost interest, not sure what it was exactly, the records started sounding more acoustic, more folky, not that we're opposed to that, it just wasn't doing it for us. So we almost skipped this new disc completely, but boy are we glad we didn't. Another instance that has us wondering what the hell we were thinking, and giving us cause to go back and see if maybe we just weren't way off the mark.
Because Temporary Antennae is really something else. Heavy, and folky, and creepy, and pretty goddamn weird. Beginning with some rumbling black ambience, assembled from what sounds like chants and guttural vocalizations, culminating in an incredibly freaky processed voice, leading us into the first song proper, a killer start stop blackened groove, that almost sounds like Led Zeppelin mixed with Lurker Of Chalice. We had compared Caina to Lurker way back when, and it still sort of applies. If you consider Lurker to be the gothier doomier creepier less distinctly black metal side of Leviathan. The sound her is definitely black, but not buzzy and blasty, instead, the guitars almost jangle, the voice is deep and dramatic, and the arrangement is more epic, almost post rocky, with haunting majestic melodies, warm reverb drenched ambience, all very moody and dour, another black metal band that seems to be leaning heavily toward old school slowcore. But filtering in all sorts of doom and folk and various other unlikely elements.
And so it goes with Temporary Antennae, simple skeletal drum machine rhythms beneath glimmering fx laden shimmer, haunting operatic vocals, all giving way to a super slow, but surprisingly not 'heavy' funereal doom, rife with clean guitar, and fucked up bellowed vox, atonal off kilter blasting blackness stutters into a lurching arrangement that makes it sound more like Ved Buens Ende than anything more traditionally black, and again, shot through with moody mathy clean guitar, crooned vocals, processed shoegazey guitars, and out of the blue drum machine throb and pulse, there's even what sounds like some eighties FM radio new wave, all synthy and poppy and jangly, which gradually transforms into something much heavier, like Jesu or Nadja, the same sort of M83 fuzziness, and then suddenly the record will shift again into a brooding gothic pop, all mournful melodies and spare drumming, guitar harmonics and distant hazy shimmer, only to change gears again moments later, taking the shape of a sort of melancholic sadcore jangle, like Mazzy Star or The For Carnation, and for the next few songs, the sound shifts, continually slipping from jangle to shimmer to drift, but never really returning to anything remotely metal, but by that point, you don't really want it to, you're in some sort of blissed out trance state, which is precisely the point.
Only the most adventurous and pop savvy metalheads are gonna dig this. Even at its heaviest, things are still pretty fuzzy and jangly and pretty, but if you've been digging stuff like Alcest and Amesoeurs, then this might just hit the spot.
Latest from this one man UK avant black metal outfit, whose Temporary Antennae record on Profound Lore we raved about a while back, a four song ep that like Temporary Antennae, and most of the other Caina records, veers all over the place, taking seemingly disparate sounds and parts, and weaves them all together into something cohesive and compelling, mysterious and a bit bizarre.
The record opens with some sunshiney post rock, all warm sun dappled synths, simple drums, whooshing major key shimmer, epic and majestic and pretty, which only makes the second track that much more menacing, with it's overdriven crumbling guitars, its growled demonic vokills, its weird spaced out arrangement, more doom than black metal, until the song revs up and blasts blackly before slipping into something much more abstract, the vocals remain, but the music transformed into something more jangly and poppy, the sound once again shifting back toward something blown out and blissy, a soaring emotional coda that does not at all match the song's ominous beginning.
The third track is the most fucked up of the bunch, beginning with some plodding, weirdly melodic depressive black metal, before everything drops out leaving just the guitars, to unwind some folky fluttery melodies, over subtle bass throb, and warm synth swells, eventually dropping out completely, leaving just some sampled voices, which just so happen to be Jim Jones from the People's Temple recorded in Guyana, creepy and fucked up for sure, the music shifts to match, a lurching start stop that sounds a bit like the recent Funeral Mist.
The final track begins with some almost-cheesy Goblin-y soundtracky synth, laid over some simple shuffling drumming, spidery minor key guitar, post rocky and drifty and dreamy. About halfway through, some warped metallic chug gradually builds into a pounding math metal workout, again all very major key and epic sounding, gradually becoming less and less epic, as the sound shifts slowly toward a more raw and blasting blackness.
Cool stuff, definitely twisted and confusional, but we're beginning to think that's precisely why we dig Caina so much...
One man folk outfit, The Cairo Gang, gets his solo vinyl debut on local label Empty Cellar and it's quite beautifully melancholic and intimate. We've been familiar with singer songwriter Emmet Kelly's work for awhile now, especially his collaborations with Bonnie Prince Billy where he managed to take Oldham's recent maximal ambitions back to the spare economy of his work as Palace Brothers. Like another Will Oldham release we favor above most of the others, Master and Everyone, The Corner Man is a spare and close set of tracks that has lovely British folk lyrical qualities with guitars, pedal steel and soft thumping drums. Kelly's clear resonant tones lay out wistful moods of impermanence and a weary knowing regret. On the Corner Man, The Cairo Gang's sound has become fully realized, and it's a thing of beauty indeed.
Comes with download card!
What's this? Some unexpected prettiness on the usually angular edgy Narnack label? A refreshing change. The Cairo Gang's music brings many other non-Narnack artists to mind. Despite the moniker, this is a one man band. Most notably Mr. Emmett Kelly's softly lilting vocals and bossanova rhythms that pepper the album draw immediate comparisons to Sam Prekop and Sea And Cake. Further into the album, the ninth song "Last Time Since September" seems like a breezy lil' something that The Shins might do on a mellow afternoon, while the eleventh track "Silhouette" is very awash in swishy shoegazin' guitars a la Ride, Slowdive or Jesus And Mary Chain. To boot, the sweet flittery recorder playing evokes a wide-eyed innocence seldom heard these days. Amid all of this laidback, contemplative melodicism though Kelly does on occasion descend into brief periods of dissonance and wooziness which prevents the listener from completely drifting off into dreamland. Taken in one sitting, this album's variety of indie pop sounds is quite reminiscent of Unrest and The Lilys too. A hazy late summer evening kind of listen.
These local favorites, that for painfully obvious reasons, have made it big (-ish). The worst song on this cd is the hit on MTV. With embarrassing lyrics, funky, kooky riffs, and gratuitous poppy bullshit, this release was unbearable for me to listen to. Yuck.
As seen on MTV.
Graeme Jefferies and his brother Peter have been stalwarts of the New Zealand indie-pop community since the beginning practically, with their careers beginning with their gritty re-invention of Joy Division and Swell Maps as the little heard Nocturnal Projections way back in the early '80s. The Jefferies brothers' sound matured as they founded This Kind Of Punishment, often contrasting the agitated punk energies of Peter's songwriting tendencies against Graeme's introspective tracks which highlight his emotive baritone and simple acoustic guitar numbers. Eventually, This Kind of Punishment collapsed and the brothers parted ways, with Peter producing some questionable solo projects and Graeme forming The Cakekitchen in which he continues to hone his skills as an indie-rock troubadour. It's a little bit surprising, although sort of appropriate that "How Can You Be So Blind" has been released by Hausmusik, the German label best known for Village Of Savoonga and Notwist. While The Cakekitchen shares none of the indietronica that the beloved Notwist embraced or the post-rock deconstruction of Village Of Savoonga, the melancholic sentimentality of Jefferies' singer / songwriter ideals definitely resonates with both German projects. Serene and bittersweet, Jefferies croons over beautifully rough-hewn arrangements for guitar, drums, bass, and a lilting violin; but on occasion, his voice waltzes into surprisingly carnivalesque harmonies, sounding a bit more like Syd Barrett. Nevertheless, fans of Iron & Wine, Elliott Smith, 16 Horsepower, and M. Ward will definitely find much to love in The Cakekitchen.
This Russian dark-ambient duo have named themselves after two mathematicians (Eugenio Calabi and Shing-Tung Yau) who specialized in differential geometry and collaborated on defining a hypertechnical thesis which was later expanded through string theory. It's unclear whether these electronic cosmonauts have a background in high-level mathematics, although they do give a rudimentary explanation (in English) as to the metaphors that they are seeking through their music towards their namesake's research: as string theory describes poly-dimensional spacetime as coiled up and unobservable amidst those dimensions which are able to be seen. A clinical distance is duly noted in the sounds grafted onto this CD, as billowing clouds of synthetic mist and slow-motion shadow streaked across the refined surface of this album. But at the same time, Compactified isn't a completely detached piece of inhuman computer music trapped by the restraints of pure mimicry. There is a sense of the sublime which hovers throughout the album, the mystery of what we do not know about our own universe even as science makes great advances as to its origins, and the cosmological beauty which parallels the subatomic and the galactic. At times, Calabi-Yau recalls some of Lustmord's investigations of sound minus the death obsession; at times, Aidan Baker's softly modelled ambience is not far from earshot.
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SORRY.
Popular but now sadly defunct SF synth-wave quartet easily recognized by their white belts and ties. Quite frankly this band rocked with a hearty dose of thick Roland Juno 60 and Moog synth lines. Half this album was recorded by Helios Creed at Half Machine Studios. Also check out their 10" record "Simplicity And Style".
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SORRY.The now-defunct Calculators certainly fired up quite a new wave frenzy in their short life. Thick analog synth lines do battle with distorted guitars. This medium sized piece of vinyl features four prime examples of youthful SF synth rock.
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SORRY.
Curious what some of those boys from The Rapture were up to prior to hookin' up with the DFA production team and hittin' the dancefloor? Here's your answer! The Calculators' Circuit Breaking Silence cd and Simplicity & Style 10" have both been out of print for a few years now, but have just been reissued together on one disc by uber hip'n'cool SF label Princehouse Records!
Here's what we had to say about them back then... first the cd:
Popular but now sadly defunct SF synth-wave quartet easily recognized by their white belts and ties. Quite frankly this band rocked with a hearty dose of thick Roland Juno 60 and Moog synth lines. Half this album was recorded by Helios Creed at Half Machine Studios.
and as for the 10":
The now-defunct Calculators certainly fired up quite a new wave frenzy in their short life. Thick analog synth lines do battle with distorted guitars. This medium sized piece of vinyl features four prime examples of youthful SF synth rock.
Although her introduction into the public eye was trumpeted with the news of her being Carl Newman's long-lost niece, and she was subsequently somewhat saddled with the daunting task of filling the mighty shoes of Neko Case as female vocalist for the New Pornographers, Kathryn Calder has proven time and time again that she is a strong creative force in her own right. And she's not only fully defined her roles in the NPs and her own band (the sadly now defunct) Immaculate Machine, but on the solo stage as well. Bright & Vivid is her sophomore solo album, and such a lovely one it is. Far more lush than any of her previous recordings, she continues to explore and incorporate other instruments into the basic indie pop palette. This time synthesizers get the call, and from the opening track "One Two Three", the affair swoons with a dreamy '80s pop feel. Whereas her 2010 solo debut Are You My Mother was a wistful and poignant and deeply personal work, written and recorded during a two year period when Calder was caring for her terminally ill mother; Bright & Vivid's production was comparatively swift. However, the speed in which it came into being by no means indicates that it was in any way rushed. Each song is at once sweetly easy going and richly detailed. For this release, she enlisted the kind support and fine talents of friends Jon Wurster (of Superchunk and Mountain Goats), drummer Barry Mirochnick and guitarist Paul Rigby (both from Neko Case's band). Despite the autumnal hues of the cover art, the title is far truer to the overall feel. Although we've been a bit tardy in reviewing this (it came out a few months ago). we think now is the perfect time to give it a spin. Its blossoming warm tones are ready to sweep aside the grey winter doldrums and make way for spring!
Kevin Shields! There's a name that garners a lot of attention; and it's pretty obvious why Eva Aguila uses that moniker for her scalding noise ventures which she has broadcast up and down the West Coast. We're sure that a few must have stumbled into grimy warehouse noise shows expecting The Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine to be slumming it, instead to find a woman behind a table of pedals and some weird typewriter looking thing, all of which sizzle and shriek with a blaring electricity. So, if the ruse has ever drawn anybody in, were they pissed? Bemused? Hard to guess, but in addition to her activities as Kevin Shields, Aguila also records and performs in the duo Caldera Lakes with Brittany Gould. Here, they swing between deconstructed dream-time, avant-folk meanderings and full-on noise mode. Everything on this tape is swimming in a suitably lo-fi soup that could be the shittiness of this cassette (ostensibly a 'professional' duplication job) or the antique haze purposefully grafted onto the production. Detached folksongs strummed in monotone on guitar, with spluttered events, eerie tones, and haunted voices that drone-on creating a vibe that's not too far from those of Christina Carter or Grouper; but as these tracks proceed, convulsive noises ramp their activity from minor overloads on a four-track into concussion bomb explosions muffled through the constant gauze of tape hiss. Elsewhere, percussive scrabblings trickle through a multitude of delay pedals, forming stoned / hypnogogic patterns in keeping with some of the early experiments by Zoviet France (e.g. Eostre, Signal Gesture Threat, etc.). Static electricity cracks the ether around these phasing delays gradually building into another swelling cloud of ominous charged particles. Limited to 100 copies!
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SORRY.
These legendary "lost" recordings finally see the light of day, likely for a brief period of time only, as LaMonte Young's lawyers will most certainly issue a cease and desist order on the manufacturing and distribution of this, soon (we assume) making this document of seminal underground '60s NYC experimental art-drone music once again unavailable to the general public. Young's complaint revolves around the poor sound quality of this recording of his lengendary (yet largely unheard) ensemble which also featured the Velvet Underground's John Cale, violinist Tony Conrad, VU-founding percussionist (and mystic cult figure) Angus MacLise, and vocalist Marian Zazeela. The admitedly lo-fi mix (yes, it sounds really crude and crappy, although that has it's own obscure, grating charm, of forbidden music struggling to be heard after many decades of silence) is dominated by the twin mesmerism of Cale's and Conrad's strings with the cryptic pitter-patter of Angus MacLise's percussion occasionally making itself heard. LaMonte Young and his wife Marian Zazeela are credited with vocals, but can't really be heard doing anything at all. Maybe that's why he's so pissed off... Really what Young wants is sole composers credit, which seems a bit ridiculous to us (and to Tony Conrad et.al.)...so, we're stuck with this less-than-sonically-perfect document, for at least as long as Youngs lawyers let us...too bad these old dronesters couldn't have worked things out so that Young's supposedly crystal-clear tapes could have been used. Oh well, the triumph of a man's ego over "his" own art.
Second in a three-disc series of recordings culled from John Cale's personal archive of material from the late '60s. Upon listening to these visceral documents, one realizes that Cale, a founding member of the Velvet Underground, was more likely than
If you're a fan of the noise-loving modern heirs to the Cale droneologist throne, bands such as Skullflower, Pelt, and Sunroof!, you've got to hear this. Recommended.
Can't teach an old dog new tricks huh? Here's a founding member of the Velvet Underground and avant-garde/drone artist in his own right, John Cale, at 61 doing somersaults over his typically dour dirge with an open and eclectic musical palette. Neither truly avant-garde nor contemporary, Hobosapiens might remind one of Eno's Taking Tiger Mountain at points. It offers sonic-scapes of contemplation punctuated by an artful and considered assortment of unexpected instrumentation. This album's a critic-pleaser now but seems as though it's only the beginning of some fresh steps in Cale's music making!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Totally gorgeous vinyl reissue of the three archival cds released by Table Of The Elements a few years back, that documented Cale's early sixties minimal explorations. This new version comes housed in a black lacquered 12" box, beautifully silkscreened, with a hand screened oversized booklet (including extensive liner notes and a libretto) inside as well. In addition to the material from the three cds, there are two bonus tracks also previously released, that appeared originally on the Jack Smith compilations also on Table Of The Elements. Here's what we had to say about the three volumes originally.
John Cale's "Sun Blindness Music" is the first in a trilogy of archival recordings from this founder of the Velvet Underground. Much has been made already about Cale's contribution to both the history of rock and the history of minimalism, so we'll cut to the chase and get to the contents of this album, which features three of Cale's earliest compositions from the mid to late '60s. The title track spans almost 45 minutes, with Cale sustaining clusters of notes on a Vox Continental Organ, before indeterminately hammering down Phillip Glass-esque arpeggiations and then returning to the open ended drone. The two following tracks are quite good representations of '60s minimalism - with the proto-Amon Duul guitar strum of "Summer Heat" and the eerie electronic modulations on "Second Fortress."
Second in this trilogy of recordings culled from John Cale's personal archive of material from the late '60s. Upon listening to these visceral documents, one realizes that Cale, a founding member of the Velvet Underground, was more likely than not the one responsible for the wailing screech and howl that makes such Velvets songs as "Sister Ray" so stunning, and that it was the push and pull of his drone-leanings balanced with Lou Reed's more conventional songwriting that made the band great. Here, the Welshman Cale bestows upon us two pieces recorded with kindred spirit Tony Conrad on violin, and Cale on viola -- their twenty minute "Dream Interpretation" is a wonderful shimmering drone that is at once warm and organic yet also metallic and grating. "Ex-Cathedra", our favorite track here, is from 1967/68 and features Cale simply pumping on Vox organ, conjuring up yet another tense yet melodic, trebly drone that's macabre (isn't the sound of an organ often delightfully macabre?) and strangely lulling. Other tracks include Cale making solo electronic sounds, and a 'duet' with Angus Maclise (another founding member of the Velvet Underground) on cimbalon, an Eastern European hammered dulcimer. The only dud features Cale "playing" piano, innards and all, a rather been-there-done-that idea even in the late '60s.
As with volume II of this series, there are a few great tracks on volume III that make the price of ths disc worth it, and some throwaways that are of limited interest. The 10-minute "Stainless Steel Gamelan" track is the highlight here, and it's excellent even though it has nothing to do with gamelan per se. It features the Velvet's Sterling Morrison and Cale both "playing" the same guitar at the same time, an experiment which resulted in shimmering atmospherics and metallic percussive pulses, sounds that're as usefully evocative for today's DJ Shadow or Aphex Twin as they are here, maybe 30 years earlier. Also included on this disc is a funny hoedown of a piece wherein Cale plays with tape delay, Angus Maclise pounds various hand drums, and Terry Jennings -- a free saxophonist and crony of Lamonte Young -- sings on soprano sax. There's also a tremendous piece with Tony Conrad on a Vox reverb unit and Cale on electric piano -- it sounds like the soundtrack to a nightmare that won't end.
If you're a fan of the noise-loving modern heirs to the Cale droneologist throne, bands such as Skullflower, Pelt, and Sunroof!, you've got to hear this. Recommended.
We've been meaning to list this for a long time. One of those special records that so many past and present aQ employees hold close to their hearts. This is John Cale's orchestral pop masterpiece! Last list we made his collaboration with Terry Riley one of our records of the week and while this is a different beast all together it definitely shows what a wide range of musical genius Cale had going on during the early '70s. Paris 1919 is most certainly a pop record, but not just any kind of pop record. This is one that immediately transports you to the lavish and lush fantastical worlds these songs take place. Backed by a band featuring members of Little Feat as well as the UCLA Symphony Orchestra, Cale was able to create songs that somehow are as delicate and understated as they are glowing and baroque.
It's a record that always makes us want to wander along pastoral hillsides filled with the greenest grass, a cup of delicious hot tea in our hands as we twirl and daydream through the afternoon. Cale's voice has never sounded better, and it's for sure his most emotive and sensitive statement ever put to tape. It's amazing how many newer bands we love that for sure had to be influenced so strongly by this record. Just listen to The Hidden Cameras, Kelly Stoltz, Jens Lekman, Beck or Belle & Sebastian and you can hear the legacy of Paris 1919 in their songs. Total pop perfection!
Third in a three-disc series of recordings culled from John Cale's personal archive of material from the late '60s. Upon listening to these visceral documents, one realizes that Cale, a founding member of the Velvet Underground, was more likely than not the one
As with volume II of this series, there are a few great tracks here that make the price of ths disc worth it, and some throwaways that're of limited interest. The 10-minute "Stainless Steel Gamelan" track is the highlight here, and it's excellent even thought it has nothing to do with gamelan per se. It features the Velvet's Sterling Morrison and Cale both "playing" the same guitar at the same time, an experiment which resulted in shimmering atmospherics and metallic percussive pulses, sounds that're as usefully evocative for today's DJ Shadow or the Aphex Twin as they are here, maybe 30 years earlier. Also included on this disc is a funny hoedown of a piece wherein Cale plays with tape delay, Angus Maclise pounds various hand drums, and Terry Jennings -- a free saxophonist and crony of Lamonte Young -- sings on soprano sax. There's also a tremendous piece with Tony Conrad on a Vox reverb unit and Cale on electric piano -- it sounds like the soundtrack to a nightmare that won't end.
If you're a fan of the noise-loving modern heirs to the Cale droneologist throne, bands such as Skullflower, Pelt, and Sunroof!, you've got to hear this. Recommended.
John Cale's "Sun Blindness Music" is the first release in a planned trilogy of archival recordings from this founder of the Velvet Underground. Much has been made already about Cale's contribution to both the history of rock and the history of minimalism, so
As on the archival recordings of The Dream Syndicate excavated by Table of the Elements, the recording quality of "Sun Blindness Music" is not all that good, but at least here it's much more listenable.
This is John Cale's first Solo recording, digitally remastered and with 2 bonus tracks. Originally released in 1970, this record was recorded shortly after Cale left the Velvet Underground to strike out on his own musically (away from Lou Reed mostly) and to
More music needs to be like this! Open and unfettered yet baroquely mysterious and cryptic; taking strange careening detours that cast endlessly distorting sonic reflections. Minimal but complex, driving and repetitive, yet sloppily unraveling with a ponderous noisy pop undercurrent that is both reverent and perverse. Is this a rock record led by a chamber ensemble? Or an avant-garde composition ambushed by lurching bass and drums? Or both? Makes sense that this album is called Church of Anthrax and both of its high priests are one time Velvet Underground and Dream Syndicate members John Cale and the guru of minimalism Terry Riley.
This one time collaboration from 1971 has just been re-issued and it's never sounded better! Touching on experimental jazz, minimalist composition, free rock and baroque pop yet remaining elusive and restless, never settling neatly into any one genre. It was recorded at a time when such cross-pollination of sounds was not only new but very necessary. John Cale plays all sides of his musical personae returning to his avant-garde roots with LaMonte Young in the Theater of Eternal Music but infusing it with the noisy economy of The Velvet Underground and the poetic pop of his subsequent output. While Terry Riley allows his more purist minimal aesthetic to become looser and emotive, paving the way towards his soundtrack works a few years later. Add to it the shambling drums of Bobby Columby from Blood Sweat and Tears (uncredited here) and the strange guest appearance of little known singer, Adam Miller (probably best known for the sesame street song, "We all Live in the Capital I") and what we have is this truly odd and hypnotically amazing document. Something that sounds more Germany than New York, like a collaboration between Can and Ralf and Florian of Kraftwerk or between Faust and Cluster. Or more contemporarily and unlikely, say between Wooden Shjips and Shogun Kunitoki with a guest vocal appearance by Thom Yorke of Radiohead!
The title track opens with a deep low multi-horned drone before the bass and drums kick into what begins to sound like a more driving version of The Kinks'"Powerman". But instead of going into a formal song structure, the riff repeats with Riley's pipe organ laying circular filigree riffs over the top, maintaining a constant lurch forward, and glassy saxophone stabs and atonal guitar rising from underneath creating an uneasy rhythm that slowly unravels into a propulsively droney stew. The air clears for the beautiful "Hall of Mirrors in The Palace of Versailles" with Cale on piano and Riley on solo saxophone trading off building and lilting riffs that rise and coalesce into shimmering tones. It's the moment that feels unique to each of them: the melodic minimalism of Cale's Dream syndicate days, and the all night time-delayed sax pieces of Riley's "Poppy Nogood and The Phantom Band". But with its mirror imagery and gorgeous repetitions, it feels wonderfully cinematic like a lost score for Alain Resnais' "Last Year at Marienbad". The next track, "The Soul of Patrick Lee" is perhaps the strangest because it's the only one with vocals, which wouldn't be unusual for John Cale as he wrote it and it sounds like him, but oddly he relegates the singing duties to his friend Adam Miller, an obscure singer-songwriter who wrote a Partridge Family tune and sang the above mentioned Sesame Street song. This track provides a breather of sorts, a short baroque folk ballad interlude between the other longform pieces, but it's like a haunting theme that adds to the mysterious soundtrack feel of the whole record. "Ides of March", the longest piece, features chugging piano riffs and skittering drums over a looped but drunkenly lopsided groove that wavers in and out of sync, building in a weird way where all the notes that seem off finally becoming locked in and right. Closing the record is the short "Protege" which ups the vampy piano riffs and Moe Tucker like drums before careening into a swift blast of noisy distortion. A sudden ending to this curious record that leaves us wanting more. Thankfully there's the repeat button!
