Get out the tinfoil, draw the blinds, turn the television to static and brace yourself for the amphetamine-fueled paranoid mind-fuck of San Francisco's industrial wastoids, Chrome!
Their three seminal albums from the late seventies/early eighties, Alien Soundtracks, Half Machine Lip Moves, and 3rd From The Sun have thankfully been re-issued by the Noiseville label who have brought us stellar releases from Skullflower and Wicked King Wicker among others. Led by Damon Edge and Helios Creed, Chrome channeled The Stooges raw garage energy with Hawkwind's mindmelting space rock acid-psych and the electronic proto-art-punk of bands like Debris' and The Styrenes into a spazzy amalgam of sci-fi distortion, glam-punk chaos, and all manner of machine fuckery including television samples, bizarre tape manipulations and random fuzz-filled noise. Inspired by the future-shock visionary writings of J.G Ballard and Philip K. Dick, Chrome were cyber-punk before the term had even been popularized! In fact, they were one of those bands who became much more popular after their demise, when bands like The Butthole Surfers, Big Black and other Touch and Go bands started gaining notoriety in the mid-eighties college rock scene.
3rd From The Sun from 1982 was the band's final outing, after a couple years in the wilderness of label and line-up changes. More accessible songwise then the previous two records we reviewed, 3rd From The Sun still displays the sonic weirdness and alien paranoia that is classic Chrome! Dirge-y and brooding but with a new and crisper sounding rhythm section, this is heavier and more feedback laden with a greater emphasis on Creed's psych guitar than Edge's tape manipulations. They're definitely building the darker atmosphere here, rather than aggressively filling the space, on some tracks feeling like they're going in a more Zodiac Mindwarp direction (read: black leather and sunglasses) that Helios Creed would pursue more fully on his solo records. Definitely the type of sleazy sinister vibe that would fit right in at a strip club owned by David Lynch!
More modern electro funk party jams from these guys. We know lots of folks love em, but we've never been able to really jump on this party train, but who knows, maybe this could be your dance party cup of tea...
Much like the vibrant clothes of eras past that twenty-somethings are currently sporting to wild nights at dive bar dance parties, the soundtrack to those dance parties has become vibrant and '80s-esque, with a '00s spin. It's what you could call synth-wave with a digital flare. In fact, Chromeo's Fancy Footwork is the third ultra-Moogy album we've reviewed for this list -- check out our reviews of Justice and Digitalism... While those two tip their hats to the '80s with uber-synths and samples, they also combine more modern sounds (Daft Punk, Faint, and Fatboy Slim come to mind) to give an overall feel that the Deathstar has just descended on the sweaty dance party. Chromeo, however, has taken a more pure approach in their nod to the '80s, and it isn't the '80s that never stopped being 'cool' (Cure, New Order, Pet Shop Boys, etc). Oh no, Chromeo have managed to create the the sound of Don Johnson walking into the room and eyein' your girlfriend, that kind of '80s vibe in the year 2007. We're talking Rockwell and Ray Parker Jr. kind of '80s folks. We figure this balls-to-the-wall synth resurgence might go as fast as it's come, but will no doubt shape what comes next and will be remembered fondly by many as they look back when the decade has passed reflecting fondly on the raging party they attended when the world was so close to the edge.
A friend played me the song, "Me And My Man", a while ago and I was instantly addicted to one of Canada's best current electro exports, Chromeo. Shockingly, we haven't carried it until now. Well, reminiscent of Eddy Grant's "Electric Avenue", Rockwell's "Somebody's Watching Me" and Egyptian Lover (minus some nasty freakiness), She's In Control features analog synths, some rockin guitar, 808, rhodes and lots of talk-box... yeah! That it's on Vice's label should tell you something on how it rates on the hipster scale, but it's definitely an album for delightfully uncool people too. It's chock full of party tracks like "Needy Girl", "Woman Friend" and "Ah Oui Comme Ca". The production is just good enough not to sound too polished, leaving the songs sounding fresh, like they were put together by two inspired best friends - which is true. It is also true that they are pulling from such a specific type of nostalgic sound, it will easily date itself now... but it's just soooo fun! If you plan on having a kick ass dance-party soon... invite me. If you want to listen to something fresh and totally awesome, you must must must have this!!
Way back in the nineties, when we were first getting into black metal, we discovered an Austrian horde called Korova, that were pretty much everything we wanted in a weirdo black metal band, blasting riffage, soaring baroque keyboards, over the top male/female vox, their sound constantly mutating and getting weirder and weirder, the band eventually introducing electronica and other non-metal weirdness into their sound, and transforming into what was essentially an experimental blackened pop band. Sort of. The band eventually transformed into Korovakill and released a sort-of concept record called Waterhells, which continued the band's descent into sonic madness and progression towards a grim/kvlt-metalhead-alienating whattthefuckness that we of course LOVED. That record came out nearly a decade ago, so we just assumed that Korova/Korovakill were no more. That is until a few weeks ago, when we got an email from a band with the odd moniker of Chryst, who it turns out were the latest incarnation of Korova. We got a copy of the record, and were a bit confused by the bizarre and surreal cover art, the front of which features a plastic model of christ crucified on one of those wind turbines, a silhouette of which forms the 'Y' in the Chryst logo. Flip over the record and there's a strange man with a head of hair, a beard and mustache made from photoshopped clouds, oh and alongside his head is a fish floating in the air. Pretty ridiculous for sure, but once we threw the record on, it all made sense. Sonically, the record sort of sounds exactly how the artwork looks, surreal and over the top, twisted and confusional, and pretty geniusly baffling.
Our first impression was that Chryst sounded like a crazy mash up of Hammers Of Misfortune, Uz Jsme Doma, Hollenthon, Judson Fountain doing that witch voice, Cradle Of Filth, and Orff's Carmina Burana (which they do an a cappela version of at one point!!), look those up on the aQ site and see if it doesn't make perfect sense. And it's really not that far off the mark, the sound is super theatrical, and totally twisted, and not a little bit ridiculous, and in lesser hands it could have been a total clusterfuck, but there does seem to be a method to their madness, moving well beyond the weird metal dabbling of their previous incarnations, and leaving other weird metal contemporaries of theirs like Dodheimsgard, Borknagar, Arcturus in the dust. And creating a sort of modern avant black metal cabaret.
There's really too much going on, and the songs change direction and sound it would take forever to describe the whole record, but let's go through the first few songs and you should definitely get a feel for how fantastically freaky and totally ruling this really is.
The opener "The Awakening" starts off like some traditional black metal, some killer buzzing riffage, pounding drums, howled demonic vokills, then it switches gears, into a furious blast, still pretty straight ahead except for the weird insectoid theremin melody, and then the deep dramatic crooned vox, but still well within the realms of black metal for sure, that is until the background vocals come in, a weird falsetto choir, and the strange extra percussion, the productions seeming to shift, until everything stops, leaving just a haunting stretch of chimes and harmony vocals, only to lurch right back into that blasting metal, only to have the track start changing speed, slooooowing waaaaaay down, then speeding back up super fast, then slooooooowing doooooown again, and finally finishing off in a blaze of hyperspeed buzz, which leads directly into the super dramatic synth/vocal opening of "I Are You", which is where those croaky shrieky Judson Fountain witch-like vox surface for the first time, then some orchestral percussion, some strange pseudo operatic vocals, and then the band launches into some furious blackness, with some insanely fast drumming, and those operatic vocals continue within the buzzing and blasting, a strange mix, but it definitely works in some weird way.
Then there's "Leaving The Ashes" with its buzzing cold wave synthy opening, which leads to some seriously ruling keyboard/vocal heavy epic power metal replete with horns, which abruptly shifts into "Storming Outside", a furious blast of punky heaviness, rife with slippery atonal guitars and more moody vox, all wreathed in swirling maniacal synths.
And so it goes, not necessarily getting stranger and stranger, merely keeping the already off the charts level of weirdness throughout. Most of the tracks are quite short, more like movements, all woven together into a single flowing epic, the sound shifting constantly and relentlessly, lots of black buzz, and the black metal parts are definitely black enough for the true grim hordes, but even those parts are twisted all up into new freaky fantastical shapes, but as should be obvious by now, for every bit of black blast, there's plenty of other stranger sounds, that range from carnivalesque cabaret to strange almost sun shiney Beach Boys vocal flecked freakfolk/Appalachia, but ultimately the key to this fractured fucked up schizophrenic avant metal opus, is that every part, be it straight ahead (relatively) or twisted beyond recognition, is impossibly catchy, so the ADD arrangements become an embarrassment of sonic riches, with your initial disappointment when a part ends, mitigated by the beginning of a new, equally kick ass part, which is most definitely a rarity in most music, metal especially.
Absolutely recommended for all the aQ-ers out there who love their metal demented and damaged and totally ridiculously over the top, and for the metal shy, this might just be the sort of gateway record that could very well lure you over to the dark (weird) side� Here's hoping!
While this is the reissue of the second Chrystal Belle Scrodd record which was originally released in 1986, Belle De Jour features some of the earliest recordings that Diana Rogerson produced with her husband Steven Stapleton (aka Nurse With Wound). Belle De Jour opens with three short pieces of bowed cymbal scrapes and metallic screeches bathed in variable layers of reverb sounding not too far off from the early Nurse With Wound album Homotopie For Marie. However, things get really going later on in the disc when Rogerson and Stapleton present "Deadroads / A Gothic Western," which gets off to a groovy start with an infinitely looped '60s go-go rock riff twisted into something that Brainticket would have been proud to have birthed, complete with hallucinogenic guitar freak-outs and Diana ranting in a cavalcade of voices through an impossible to follow stream of consciousness narrative. The thunderous "Riding The Red Rag" follows this piece with Diana's cold-stare vocals haunting above a thick atmosphere of drones and heavily reverbed cracks from a kick drum. Unfortunately, this reissue confuses some of the names of the tracks, as "Riding The Red Rag" is misnamed as "The Demon Flower," and the equally impressive creepfest "Black Mother Mountain" is listed as "Riding The Red Rag." This may probably only upset the die-hard NWW completists; but it certainly does not distract from this amazing reissue of damaged art-rock / post-industrial mantras. Recommended.
Diana Rogerson began her art career in the early '80s collaborating with Jill Westwood in Fistfuck, which has long been referred to as the "female Whitehouse" because of their infamously humilitating performances, intense sonic actions, and degrading films. Some of soundtracks to those films were actually not scored by Fistfuck but by Chrystal Belle Scrodd, the moniker of Rogerson and her future husband Steven Stapleton of Nurse With Wound. Throughout the early Nurse With Wound recordings, Rogerson made her presence known, thanks mostly to her eeriely zombified vocal delivery which blended perfectly within NWW's surrealist collages of decontextualized sounds and darkly lysergic atmospheres. By 1985, the two conspired to release the first Chrystal Belle Scrodd record as a separate entity from Nurse With Wound. While Stapleton's fingerprints are all over the Chrystal Belle Scrodd recordings, the direction and peculiarties of the debut recording speak much more of Diana Rogerson's sensibility, that's only slightly more indebted to psych-art-rock structuralism than Nurse With Wound. The Inevitable Chrystal Belle Scrodd Record opens with an oblique rhythmic tumble of Egyptian reeds, cat-scratch guitar feedback, and all-thumbs bass fumbling that dissolves into a quiet rumble on top of which Rogerson offers one of her trademark, emotionally detached mantras with plenty of double entendres and overt sexual declarations. Later on, Rogerson and Stapleton get a bit more abstract with nightmarishly kaleidoscopic twists of children's voices, twinkling bells, throbbing ritual drums, and discordant horns soaked in a metallic reverb and haunted drones.
Latest slab of sonic wonder and weirdness from UK tape label The Tapeworm, this one from a duo called Chugga, a name that probably doesn't ring a bell, but most folks will probably know their partner in retro-sonic crime, musician/sound artist Terre Thaemlitz, the three have cobbled together this fuzzy, buzzy, old school assemblage of seventies disco groove, synthfunk, drug dub exotica, and while it most definitely sounds dated (it was recorded in the nineties after all), it's MEANT to, but real dated, as in seventies, not nineties, and it sounds pretty good alongside other contemporary retro groovers like Zomby, Martyn, etc.
Thick rumbling subsonic bass, woozy porno wah guitar, liquid basslines, simple stripped down drums, spaced out sci fi synths, cheesy electronic percussion, all woven into super rad instrumental grooves, some new wave-y and propulsive, others laid back and sexy and sultry, still others ethereal and skeletal, clouds of tangled melodies drift over warm low end rumbles, Latin percussion wrapped around lazy unfurling melodies, orchestral disco stabs, strings, organs, the songs slipping from lush and over the top, big production, to spaced out and sinister, spare midnight grooves. Killer old school dancefloor destruction for sure.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES!!!
As much as we love all the indie rock and noise pop that's been coming out of China, and we do, hell, check elsewhere on this list for a couple new Chinese bands, we tend to become super obsessed with the more out there, experimental groups and records that have also been coming from the same scene. We made the latest record from White+ our Record Of The Week a while back, the sound like Yellow Magic Orchestra crossed with Neu!, or so the label suggested, to our ears it was way more far out and psychedelic. Out latest discovery / obsession comes from this Beijing based experimental four piece called Chui Wan, who according to the label, count Beach Boys, Arthur Russell, Les Rallizes Denudes and the Sun City Girls among their primary influences, but as always, there's no way a band could possibly sound like that, and Chui Wan, to our ears at least don't really sound like what we imagine that band math would produce, but that's not to say we don't dig it, we do, a LOT, in fact this is one of our favorite of all the Chinese records we've gotten in recently, but the sound is a bit harder to pigeonhole, the opener is a sort of loping, instrumental jangle pop jam, all blooping basslines, shimmering guitars, and motorik rhythm, surrounded by burbling cascades of swirling melodies, and chiming spidery guitars, so we were kind of prepared for a whole record of that, but then the second track swoops in, all distorted guitars, and driving drums, not to mention some strange echo drenched vocals, lots of swirling psychedelia, the track veering from spaced out mesmer to heavy, chaotic freakout, with brief bits of mathy angular pop, it's a weird mix, but it somehow works, at times sounding like a warped WTF version of Television, maybe with a little Boredoms mixed in, with plenty of spaced out psych jamming, and hypno-kraut grooves.
And amidst all this krautgroove and psychedelic drift, the band add swoonsome viola melodies, soaring ethereal vocal harmonies, plenty of almost proggy arrangements, subtly deployed samples, Eastern melodies, swirling electronics and FX, with some tracks sounding like psychedelic ragas, others blossoming into horn flecked almost-klezmer, and still others field recording laces tribal dirges. The record finishes with a nearly eleven minute closer, that's like some sort of doom-prog / kraut-folk, epic and majestic, weirdly recorded so the sounds are all blown out and crumbly, the arrangement strange too, in constant flux, the whole final half of the song peeling back all the noisiness, leaving just a gorgeous sprawl of processed horns, pointillist pianos, swirling synths, layered electronics and strange samples, super heady and hypnotic, tripped out and utterly mesmerizing.
WAY recommended, for fans of space rock, psych rock, experimental avant pop, and the weirder side of the new wave of Chinese indie rock...
- MPEG stream: 1
- MPEG stream: 2
- MPEG stream: 3
- MPEG stream: 4
- MPEG stream: 5
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
If you're in the mood for newsy, chatty indierock gossip with a capital G, then you can do no better than Chunklet. We love it. The featured article in this issue is the "Asshole Top 100". First place: the Butthole Surfers; second place: Courtney Love; third place: the guys who ran Cargo Records/Distribution into the ground. Accompanied by extensive and catty explanatory footnotes, the thing is hilarious and no-holds-barred. Steve Albini is also interviewed on how he feels about showing up on the list (doesn't care at all). Other things Steve has to say:
"People are now concerned about how they are perceived by others far more than they used to be. Part of being in a band used to mean that you were self defining, and now it seems there's much more emphasis on being part of an economic base and being part of a scene or movement or whatever. That makes people sensitive to what other people have to say about them. People see this as sort of a career path and want to maintain a profile within that community. There are fucking punk rock publicists now."
Other articles on emo, Will Hart of Olivia Tremor Control, David Cross (Mr. Show), John Reis (Rocket from the Crypt), the infamous Band-A-Minute list (short band reviews a la: "A Minor Forest: We're only getting away with this because we're on Thrill Jockey" and "Modest Mouse: See a retarded boy singing Pixies songs"), and a big thing on Charles Bronson written by AQ-fave Andy Earles of the wonderful Cimarron Weekend zine (and when's a new issue of THAT coming out, we wonder with baited breath?)
Note: in great demand and selling super quick, consider buying this now before we run out forever.
Yet another amazingly alienating, mildly offensive, totally hilarious issue of the mighty CHUNKLET magazine. You may remember the last Chunklet and it's 'biggest assholes in rock' theme, well there's even more shit-slinging this time around as Henry Chunklet compiles 'The Shit List', a random assortment of shitty shows, shitty bands, and shitty people. And some bands contribute their
Here it is, the next in Henry Owings' line of increasingly hard-act-to-follow Chunklets (issues 15 and 16 were The Shit List and The Biggest Asshole). The cover story this time? Pay To Not Play. An unbelievably complex, stipulation-laden, sliding scale offer to pay bands to break up. Not in a band? No problem 'cause Chunklet's got an offer for you too. It's the Tattoo Challenge - select a band name from the long list they've provided, and they will custom design a tattoo for that band AND pay for it to be inked onto your body. Note: you *really* need to see some of their samples. But wait! There's more... truckloads! An extensive Mr. Show tour diary. An even more extensive Mission Of Burma feature (a whompin' 18 pages). Interviews with comedians Patton Oswalt, Janeane Garafalo, Dave Attell and Fred Armisen. All written with Chunklet's irrepressible biting wit. Whew! Hold your horses, we're not done yet. A full-color rock club safety fold-out - amazingly replicating those airlines pamphlets that you find in the seat pocket in front of you. Musings on punk rock action figures and hipster handshakes, a crossword puzzle, old faves Jaded Robot, Letters To The Editor and Whatever Dude, plus comics from our own Cup and her I Am Spoonbender bandmate Dustin. This hefty mag is even more astonishing with the knowledge that the entire issue vanished just prior to its completion when Henry's home was broken into and his computer stolen. An immensely engrossing and highly entertaining read.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Is there any better bathroom reading for indie-rockers? Chunklet's wise-ass mixture of music and comedy is always welcome in our WC. This ish is has "Overrated" stuff as its theme, which means you get lists of overrated musicans, bands, albums, trends, drummers, and other completely random things complete with snarky commentary. Now hopefully they don't really mean it when they say that [insert your favorite, canonically-accepted record here] sucks, but it's still funny. Or just turn the page, there's lots more in here: Rock sniglets. Bob Odenkirk. Sarah Silverman. Adopt-a-Gutter-Punk. Why student loans are for suckers. Chunklet's pie chart of potential major label droppings. Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Pen Rollings. The Chunklet Guide To Open Mic Comics. 10 Ways The Beatles Differ From Fountains Of Wayne. Offensive Bumper Stickers part 1. And so much more.
Hard to believe it's been THREE YEARS since the last issue of Chunklet. Since then Chunklet has expanded its rock empire to include all manner of comedy, sludge rock, releasing lps, hosting events, all that jazz, so it's no big surprise it took as long as it did, but hell, it's here now, so no more whinging. Just a quick run down of what you'll find in this lastest issue of the snarkiest, snottiest, band hating, hipster crushing music mag in the land!!!
An interview with Mr. Show's Paul F. Tompkins, hirsute comedian Zach Galifianakis, a drug awareness chart, so all you druggies can figure out what the heck you're taking and why, the online music journalist application form, an article on prank calls, the sport of gods, WHIRLYBALL!, comedian Jon Glaser, a Sublime Frequencies interview, and finally, page after page after pager after page of ridiculous shit, a brief list to follow now: How To Read This Issue Of Chunklet, Rocktoids, Rock Sniglets, Dear Rock Star..., Bro-Cabulary, Ten Things All Suicide Girls Have In Common, Silver Jews Lyrics I've Used As Pick-Up Lines, Know Your Rock Girlfriend Stereotypes, Yesterday's Southern Rock Today, Actual Protest Signs We've Seen, Nine Things About Canada We Politely Shun, Glad You're Dead!, We Will Not Listen To Bands That..., Things To Tell A Band Instead Of The Truth, Record Store Names, Music Mag Mix 'n' Match, Local For Life, Your City Really Stinks, Rockopoly and on and on and on and on, millions of tiny lists and jokes and disses crammed into every corner of every page, basically the ultimate bathroom reading for the hip rock household. We've had our copies for weeks now, and have barely cracked the surface. As always, funny as fuck, sure to piss people off and eminently re-readable...
Holy shit, this is a rare occasion indeed! A new issue of the beloved, wickedly irreverent Chunklet Magazine has arrived less than a year after the previous one! Normally a single issue might take years to make -- no exaggeration! C'mon, humor this scathing and subject matter this obsessively reported doesn't happen overnight! Henry Owings, Brian Teasley and co. have been busy lil' beavers honing their 'taking the piss' skills to new heights. The few occasions where their acerbic fount o' witty take-downs falters though is when they open up the floor to the bulk contributors forum (i.e, folks who don't quite get that there's more to the Chunklet magic than aggressive mean-spirited bile-spewing a la Vice Mag), then it has a tendency to come across as a bitch session. No, much like the late comedian Bill Hicks (whose dvd is also reviewed in this week's AQ List and whom we're sure is an old fave around the magazine's headquarters), the thing to take note of is that the core of the material is not just about negativity and shock value -- yes, there's a dismay and disgust towards the state of things, but there's also underpinings of hope and positivity lurking underneath it all. Aww, shucks.
Anyways, for the faint-hearted, the overwhelming Issue #19 might be too much too soon, but for the steely hardcore fans of the mag, #19 is simply Part Two of Chunklet's exploration of all things over-rated. So, who and what are the crosshairs this time? Records that were released after 1991 (fyi: Issue #18 skewered pre-'91 releases), guitarists, drummers, music production techniques, record cover art, cities, actors, filmmakers and film genres. Elsewhere in the issue you get Chunklet's ever-loyal coverage of current comedians (Eugene Mirman, The Naked Trucker aka Dave "Gruber" Allen from the Freaks & Geeks tv series and David Koechner also from F&G as well as the movie Anchorman, and the comedy troupe Stella), a great article on the 'King Of Record Collectors' Joe Bussard (if you've checked out the awesome Down In The Basement compilation of selections from his rare record collection, you know who we're talkin' about!), the truly ear-punishing/spirit-crushing Torture Tapes Experiment, articles on Tim Kerr and his stuff, "Seven Degrees of Winona Ryder", "real" offensive bumper stickers, rock venue bathroom graffiti and unintentionally funny people. Oh yes, and AQ's own Chunkleteer Cup contributed her illustrated interpretation of a play written by Henry's eight year old niece Mary! Plus you get all the mag's regulars (Rocktoids, Whatever Dude, Rock Sniglets), as well as Chunkie's unconventional versions of conventional magazine sections such as Crossword and Letters To The Editor. Sometimes shocking, sometimes fucked up, sometimes downright caustic, but almost always hiiiilaaaariioooous! Another hearty fun addition to your bathroom library!
Cool 5 song collection from Japan's serial killer obsessed stoner sludge rockers Church Of Misery. The first four tracks were recorded over the last few years and of course concern all your favorites, the Boston Strangler, Ted Bundy, the Candy Man, and El Topo. Crunchy and fuzzed out loping stoner rock ala Fu Manchu, Nebula, Heavy Rocks-era Boris. Fucking great stuff. The fifth track is tagged on to track four and is ostensibly an improvisation. Titled Invocation Of My Demon Brother. Not sure if it's some sort of homage to Kenneth Anger, but to these ears it just sounds like more of that sweet sweet crushing tarpit sludge.
Okay stoner metal serial killer obsessives, you know who you are, even if you're loathe to admit it, time to rejoice as the masters of SKSR (serial killer stoner rock) return, Japan's Church Of Misery.
This ep focuses on UK killer Dennis Nilsen, a serial pedophile and killer, which prompted a conversation about what these guys would do when they ran out of killers to immortalize, but we were saddened to realize that it's pretty unlikely that will ever happen no matter how many records these guys put out.
But fuck it, you don't need to be obsessed with killers to dig this shit, just killer riffs. And the riffs as always are indeed killer. Huge bassy, sludgey, groovy, in fact the opening track on this 12" is so groovy it almost sounds like a more metal ZZ Top. Sabbathy to the Nth degree, lumbering rhythms that either plod or swing depending on the track, the vocals a growly croak buried way down in the mix, sounding not unlike Michael Gerald from Killdozer, super dynamic and stoned. Lots of break downs where just the bass and drums groove, before the riff swoops back in. Wild leads, lurching stop start bits,wild almost space rock outros, and of course, plenty of clips of Dennis Nilsen talking as well as various news reports. Technically this is a full length, even though the B-side is a single super extended stoner metal drug jam, and thus is only three tracks. Sabbath, Kyuss, Green Machine, Acrimony, Solar Anus, Ox, Bongzilla, if that stuff is your cup of THC laced tea, then you are definitely gonna want this.
Beautiful matte finish gatefold sleeves, and of course super limited, only 500 or 600 copies, and CoM records always go crazy fast.
BACK IN PRINT! Previously this was an import from the Japanese label Leafhound, sadly now defunct. But fortunately someone has just reissued it, domestically! Here's what we said about this essential anthology back when we first listed it in 2004:
Will the Japanese stoner sludge serial killer onslaught never end?? We sure hope not. We're finally able to list this double cd collection of old, rare, unreleased and out of print tracks from one of the heaviest bands in Japan. Corrupted may have the market cornered on sludge, and Boris definitely has the drone-dirge segment all sewn up, but that leaves Church Of Misery to duke it out with the equally brutal Green Machine for the groovy, druggy, sludge-y stonery BIG RIFF contingent. Early Works definitely helps the cause, with two discs bursting with splattery serial killer soundbites, plague-of-locusts riffery, skull crushing drumming, and a truly hellish howl of a lead vocalist. Plus unlike many of their metallic brethren, CoM can indeed SHRED, and whip out squiggly acid soaked leads at the drop of a hat, giving the proceedings a classic psych-rock / drug-rock feel, on top of the already suffocatingly heavy sludge already oozing from every crack. Disc one collects the long out of print split with sHEAVY, featuring odes to Manson, Charles Whiteman, and Jim Jones, as well as the Taste The Pain mini-album with songs about Dahmer, Graham Young, and Ed Gein, as well as an insane version of Iron Butterfly's "In A Gadda Da Vidda." Disc two collects lots of random compilation tracks including a Trouble cover, a Black Widow cover, a Death SS cover and an unreleased track. Church Of Misery are so amazing, it's too bad that their singleminded obsession with serial killers, and their continued use of serial killer soundbites keeps them from appealing to a wider audience. It is too bad, but who can argue? The music is strangely and perfectly suited to CoM's tales of murder and mayhem, victims and killers.
A killer live DVD from our favorite Japanese, serial killer obsessed, stoner groove doom lords, Church Of Misery. We've gone on and on in the past (and elsewhere on this list, their debut was just reissued) about how much we love these guys. Some impossible mix of Sabbath, Electric Wizard, Eyehategod, Antiseen and Boris. Heavy as fuck, groovy and spacey, blown out and super psychedelic. Live it's everything we would have hoped for. A band of crazy Japanese hippies in ripped concert shirts, bell bottoms, berets, dreadlocks, furry coats, big ol' silver rings on every finger, flying V's, on a tiny stage, heads banging, hair swirling, in a closet sized dark club, packed to the gills with a heaving, sweaty, head banging crowd. The sound is amazing. A truly MASSIVE guitar sound, huge blown out crumbling riffs, the band a whirlwind of lurching groove, and a bass player who wears his bass lower than anyone we've ever seen (even the Ramones!). SO low in fact, that the body of the bass is at shin level and he ends up sort of playing way up on the neck. Awesome! Three live shows filmed over the last two years, a handful of CoM classics as well as some free form freaked out space jams. Also included are videos for "Filth Bitch Boogie" and "I, Motherfucker" (best song title ever maybe), both look quite similar, filmed in creepy black and white, on fuzzy degraded film stock, haunting shots of two emotionless girls making out, dead bodies in forests, plenty of violence and gore (mostly perpetrated on the band themselves) and of course the band trudging through mysterious woods all very Sabbath-like. So cool.
Packaged in a blood red Japanese style DVD case. NTSC and ALL REGION!
What do you get when you combine 4 hairy Japanese stoner dudes, an immense love of Black Sabbath, obsession with serial killers, and thee best heavy music festival that Europe has to offer? Church Of Misery Live At Roadburn 2009, of course!! Among our friends who regularly make the pilgrimage to Holland's annual Roadburn fest, the Japanese sludge merchants' several live performances there are legendary. Of course, the thing about Roadburn is they get bands to play who are great to begin with, and they tend to sound even better there... so for one to get singled out, gotta be amazing! Naturally, listening to this live album isn't the same as having been there. But it'll give you an idea, and any fan of CoM will be chuffed. 'Cause they did rip it up at Roadburn, and the recording is killer.
They do 8 songs, which tend to blend together here into one dope hazed, fuzzed out sludge fest, but actually represent two tracks from their most recent studio album Houses Of The Unholy, one from their 1998 debut ep Taste The Pain, one from 2001's Master of Brutality, three from 2004's The Second Coming, thus spanning their career quite nicely... and then they wind things up with their 11 minute long cover of "For Mad Man Only" [sic], a raving proto-metal classic from '71 by May Blitz also covered once upon a time by good ol' Fudge Tunnel, that's in fact how we first heard of May Blitz...
But anyway, yeah, CoM fans, get yourself to Roadburn next time they're playing, and in the meantime, jam out to this, sheer Sabbathoid stoner sludge, heeeaaavvvy and hairy and psychedelic, for sure! Also a good intro to this band for anyone uninitiated.
The first actual full-length from these serial-killer fixated Japanese doom-mongers. Super sludgy psychedelic doom metal like a sloppy Sabbath with samples from documentaries about John Wayne Gacy and other famous murderers mixed into the musical mayhem.
Originally released in 2004, this long out of print (at least on cd), classic slab of serial killer obsessed, stoner sludge, downtuned heaviness from these Japanese doomlords finally gets a spiffy new cd reissue via Metal Blade!
Seven massive slabs of pounding, pummelling ultra heavy stoner groove. Crunchy and throbbing, pummelling and MASSIVELY HEAVY rock and roll. Fuzzed out, drugged out, super distorted and punishingly heavy. Quite possibly, you will have your stoner / doom metal credentials REVOKED if you don't go nuts for this, although odds are most of you already have a little thing for these freeks. As always, each song is based on an infamous serial killer, this time around, the subjects of CoM's worshipful sludge are Ted Bundy, Mark Essex, Andrei Chikatilo, Aileen Wuornos and more! And it's just as sonically depraved as that sort of subject matter demands. Churning riffage, knuckle dragging drum pound, howled vox, thick sinewy bass grooves, all peppered with plenty of ultra creepy samples and snippets from various newscasts, detailing the killers' grim transgressions, all set to some fantastically punishing, ribcage rattling, slo-mo lumbering Sabbathy swing.
Fans of Boris, Green Machine, Eternal Elysium, Bongzilla, Eyehategod, Sleep, High On Fire and other heavy groovies should already have a shelf full of CoM records, but if some reason they (you?!) don't this is as good a place to start as any...
Breaking news!!! In what must be one of the most shocking and unprecedented moves in heavy metal history, Church of Misery have returned with the first installment in a totally unexpected space disco cabaret rock opera concept album trilogy based on the life and writings of Charles Dickens! Just kidding. It's doom metal about serial killers of course! And would you have it any other way?? That's right, Japan's most chemically imbalanced Sabbath worshippers have lurched back onto the scene in their finest bloodstained bellbottoms to exhume another immense slab of dirty, depraved and delirious DOOM. Thy Kingdom Scum is equal parts psychopathic and psychedelic, savage and spacey, way gory and way groooooovy, man. The riffs are lumbrous but with a distinct sense of hip swaying boogie-woogie, the drums a joyously off-kilter clatter, and Hideki Fukasawa's vocals are totally out of control - an unrestrained howling caterwaul, lending the songs a legitimate sense of menace when they could have just as easily been sunny summertime stoner jams otherwise. Fun and frightening all at once, and very far out. Imagine one of the wildest, most life affirming drug-den parties you could ever attend, only there's about a 50/50 chance that a Hell's Angel might sacrifice you at the end of the night in some sort of sordid Satanic biker blood ritual. Or maybe that moment right before your psilocybin trip dramatically shifts from a blissed out love-in to something much worse. The feeling of elation is still there, but the nightmare is starting to creep in... But you might as well enjoy it before that bad trip really starts, right?
PS Includes a Quatermass cover - the only song here not about a serial killer (we assume).
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Don't miss out on this very limited UK import. Only 500 were pressed. Three songs from this San Francisco duo. Chris and Mike create layer upon layer of electronic textures, thoughtful, hushed vocals and lovely, tentative guitar melodies. We should note that this record has a much more aggressive electronic presence from Chris (alias OST/Rook Vallard) than the fragile, pretty Jewelry cd-ep.
Sounding a lot like indie rock fave Smog (if Bill Callahan would only keep up with the state of music today, instead of sounding more and more dated with each release), Church Steps cloak the most heartfelt sensitive-guy vocals in a shimmer of melancholy.
Cover art by beloved local artist Jo Jackson.
Local out-there electronica label Dial is the latest label to explore the lathe cut technology from the New Zealand lathe press run by Peter King. The Church Steps are Chris Douglas (aka O.S.T. and Rook Vallard) and Mike Donovan (label bossman of Dial) drifting rather sad melodies of electronic bells alongside downtempo beat skitter, not unlike Markant or Boards of Canada. As good as it is limited.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This split release is between the wonderful SF-based, lo-fi melding of dreamy electronics and melancholic, sensitive boy strummery known as The Church Steps and the very mysterious group called Gang Wizard. A limited lathe-cut 7" pressing which - you may or may not know - is not the sturdiest of music formats. So we definitely recommend transferring the songs onto a more durable medium for extended listening enjoyment.
The Church Steps are Mike Donovan (on guitar and vocals) and Chris Douglas (electronic sound-meister aka OST). The duo's brilliance lies in their coming at the music from opposite directions, meeting in the middle where few dare tread. Mike writes and sings quietly pretty sometimes melancholic songs. Some so quiet and personal that it almost seems that he's singing them to himself more than anyone else. And while on his own releases Chris is a well documented eardrum shredder/pummeller, here he takes it down a few notches and applies a very nice counterpart to Mike's lo-fi meditative guitar lines. Lightly abrasive textures and occasional beats almost like a very fine metallic sandpaper swirl over and around the often murmured vocals.
The duo's artistic vision is completely realized, an irresistible mix of Smog-like loner vocals mixed with epic yet quiet electronica, like ambient-era Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada and Portishead. So good! Better than, yet similar to, Wisdom of Harry!
The Jewelry EP is five songs in all, a perfect "jewel" of a record and a fine intro to Church Steps. Released on Mike's own Dial label (home to releases by Blectum From Blechdom, Iran, OST, and Hot Fucking Jets).
Here's an old AQ fave, happily back in print on cd! Psychedelic rock from Israel, circa 1968, the original lp a rare collectible, and a classic. With Middle Eastern touches, backwards FX, lovely melodies, and twanging guitar solos, Churchill's should appeal to all fans of international sixties psych. Influenced by the Beatles and other British rock groups of the era (in fact, Churchill's later on became very Led Zep-ish, and covered "Living Loving" on a 7" single!), the Churchill's debut was apparently recorded as the soundtrack music for a pair of obscure films entitled A Woman's Case and The Dress. But the album is definitely a collection of songs, not instrumental/incidental music. And great songs they are. Some soft and mellow ("When You're Gone"), others weird and wigged out ("Straight People"). No doubt drugs were involved. One of the best tracks is the melodic, mandolin-fueled "Subsequent Final", an East-meets-West stunner indeed, pretty much worth buying this disc for just by itself, though you get lots more treats besides, in fact, this new reish includes TEN bonus tracks, unlisted for some reason, but we think they're songs from various non-album singles, as they do include their version of "Living Loving".
Israeli psychedelic rock band from the late '60s/early '70s who started off playing covers of Beatles and Led Zeppelin songs and then slowly worked original after original into their set. They became famous. The Churchill's peak was with their absolutely stunning, mandolin-fueled song "Subsequent Final" which alone is worth the price of this disc, one of Windy's favorite songs ever. Their first self-titled LP is now one of the rarest and most collectible albums from that period, so aren't we lucky to have this cd, which also has 4 bonus tracks (including the aforementioned Beatles and Zep covers). Now with the Jericho Jones (Churchill's successor band) album on a second disc. Here's our review of that: Late '60s Israeli psych rock group Churchill's is well liked here at AQ -- indeed, it's one of Windy's all time faves -- so we were quite curious about this band Jericho Jones, which was the hard rockin' '70s incarnation of the Churchill's line-up. Recorded in England, this is essentially the second Churchill's album, but with a new singer and a new name 'cause they didn't want to offend the Brits. And also, how could a record called "Junkies Monkeys and Donkeys" not be good? Released in 1972, it's very 'of the period', and pretty much what we expected. The Churchill's were into Led Zeppelin (they covered "Living Loving" after all), and this sort of bluesy hard rock psych is a logical progression of their pop psych sounds. "Junkies Monkeys and Donkeys" is nothing incredible, but manages to rock hard (they almost sound like Bad Company) as well as having mellower moments of melodic bliss. Some good songs, some forgettable ones. We'd say "get the Churchill's disc first" but you can only get the two together now it seems.
Yay, this old AQ fave, now reissued on vinyl!
The Churchill's is psychedelic rock from Israel, circa 1968, the original lp a rare collectible, and a classic. With Middle Eastern touches, backwards FX, lovely melodies, and twanging guitar solos, Churchill's should appeal to all fans of international sixties psych. Influenced by the Beatles and other British rock groups of the era (in fact, Churchill's later on became very Led Zep-ish, and covered "Living Loving" on a 7" single!), the Churchill's debut was apparently recorded as the soundtrack music for a pair of obscure films entitled A Woman's Case and The Dress. But the album is definitely a collection of songs, not instrumental/incidental music. And great songs they are. Some soft and mellow ("When You're Gone"), others weird and wigged out ("Straight People"). No doubt drugs were involved. One of the best tracks is the melodic, mandolin-fueled "Subsequent Final", an East-meets-West stunner indeed, pretty much worth buying this disc for just by itself, though you get lots more treats besides!
One listen to this and you can see why the likes of Andy Votel and Demdike Stare would rush to release this radiophonic electronic gem on a newly created subsidiary label, Dead-Cert, (a subsidiary of an already subsidiary label Pre-Cert which released lps by Slant Azymuth, Apple Head, and Anworth Kirk). Dead-Cert's mission statement, we've been told, is to reissue albums that virtually no one has heard before and this by all means is one of the rarest of that ilk. Recorded in 1970 for an art installation by Harold Paris in Brussels, there were only 50 copies of Voices of Packaged Souls made, and were given away at the opening. Unlike the material on the recent Suzanne Ciani archive reissue, Lixiviations, Voices of Packaged Souls is 13 experimental sound pieces made on the modular Buchla synthesizer, each one introduced by a male narrator in both English and French, with mystically ominous titles: "First Voice: Sound of Hair Bleeding" "Eight Voice: Sound of Bones Growing", "Seventh Voice: Sound of an Eye Tearing", "Fourth Voice: Sound of Wetness", "Tenth Voice: Sound of A Lighted Window", that suggest a clinical litany of library sounds and actions, similar to the remote feel of a Demdike Stare recording. But what separates this from just a standard bloop-bleep electronic record is the impeccable sound design, with high relief-textural dynamics that jump around the audio spectrum, sometimes sounding right against your ear and other times receding away from you. Would have been neat to see this sound / sculptural installation in person.
Beautifully spooky! And beautifully packaged, too.
Perhaps most widely known as one of the bigger stars of New Age music's MOR commercial peak in the mid-eighties (think Mannheim Steamroller's Fresh Aire series and Ray Lynch's Deep Breakfast), most folks don't necessarily consider the Private Music label's pop new age princess Suzanne Ciani as being a second generation electronic music pioneer or a highly inventive classically trained synthesist. But this fantastic new anthology of early works from Ciani's archive on B-Music/Finders Keepers is aimed at changing that perception.
Fact is, Ciani has had a hand in many of the innovations in electronic music from the late sixties to the early eighties, in what has been a largely male-dominated field. A classically trained pianist, she met Don Buchla through a mutual artist friend and mastered the Buchla Synthesizer (pictured on the cover) and soon began seeking out projects for art galleries, experimental films and pop music (Meco's Star Wars theme for example), before moving to New York and becoming a valuable asset in the experimental underground and commercial advertising fields. She supplied the sounds for Xenon's pinball machines as well as doing sound effects work for films The Stepford Wives and The Incredible Shrinking Woman. Her company Ciani Musica became a testing ground for many of electronic and computerized music's new developments where she built up an incredible portfolio of recording experiments that make up the bulk of this collection.
Alongside advertising spots for Atari, ITT, Almay, and Coca-Cola, are longer compositions of electronic grandeur that point to her later new age music career, but are also steeped in electronic music's recent past. Percolating oscillations, robotic breathing, percussive mechancial rhythms, and long-form and layered computerized tones are assembled into warm and engaging pieces that aptly put Ciani in the same league as Laurie Spiegel, David Behrman and even the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. This is an exciting anthology that sheds light on an overlooked period of electronic music innovation and one of its most vital players. Recommended!
Many a Cibo Matto fan wept when Yuka Honda and Miho Hatori decided to go their separate musical ways back in 2001. Sure, each of their solo endeavors has been engaging and impressive in its own right, but there was a special groovy chemistry (not to mention a penchant for food obsessed song lyrics) between the two ladies that oomph'd their music into an irresistible confection. Very distinctly Japanese in both its meticulous craft and adorable, effervescent charm. With an appeal that reached far beyond the initial NYC art school / hipster Hello Kitty set, they could just as effortlessly disarm the big boys with a candy coated rap, bust out a shuffling jazz-inflected romp, 'love u down' with an r'n'b soul styled ballad, and lure the indie pop kids onto the dancefloor long before the dance-punk frenzy. Along the way, they also dabbled in Tropicalia, downtempo, lounge, Bacharachian dream pop among other things.
Super puffed with nineteen tracks including two previously unreleased ones ("Sword And A Paintbrush" and a Dan The Automator remix of "King Of Silence"), rarities and b-sides, Pom Pom is indeed an essential for CM fans, and it makes for a thoroughly cool CM primer for those that missed out the first time around. Yes, you get to have your "Birthday Cake", "Sugar Water". "Know Your Chicken", "Beef Jerky", "Artichoke", "Apple" and "White Pepper Ice Cream", and eat it too!
Pronounced 'chee-boh mot-toh'. 2 Japanese expatriates living in NY make a tasty and very fun racket (that you can dance to) with synthesizers, numerous recognizable or tantalizingly familiar samples, and lyrics solely about food: white pepper, beef jerky, etc.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Battlecruiser is a new label from AQ pal Campbell Kneale who runs the impeccable NZ cdr label Celebrate Psi Phenomenon. Battlecruiser is basically an outlet for a bunch of New Zealand noise guys to fufill their secret desire to be metal gods! Who can argue with that? Cool band names, distorted guitars, demonic vocals and all that good stuff! Metalheads might have to stretch their definition of 'metal' to really get into this stuff, but the rest of us, metal and unmetal alike will find lots of beautiful crushing far out noisy weirdness on these evil lil' 3" cd-r's!
Cicadashrine's sonic world slowly reveals an epic ambience, with distant crushing chords over a rumbling bed of throbs and pulses. Eventually the ROCK kicks in, not so much metal as industrial sludge grind. Reminds us of Flipper or Prong or OLD or even the Melvins. Super slow motion riffs, downtuned so that the riffs themselves feel like they might crumble into pieces, inhuman vocals buried so far down in the mix that they just sound like another downtuned guitar, bass strings so loose they're slapping against the bass, adding even more rumble and sludge to the mix. Sheets of caustic feedback separate the riffs, but just barely. The whole thing is like a metallic bulldozer driving through a tarpit! One twenty minute pit of despair.
Enter Forced Nostalgia - a label mining the post-punk underground of dark electronics. Judging from this release and their upcoming programming for "a wayward selection of often unreleased, mostly unheard and overlooked material from tape music to industrial, from bossa-pop to proto-techno, and from drone to out and out analogue experimentation," Forced Nostalgia looks to be something wholly different from Vinyl-On-Demand, Minimal Wave, and Dark Entries. The bands here are two terminally obscure Italian industrial outfits who made these recordings in the early '80s with a clear aesthetic framework set forward by the Industrial Records model of Throbbing Gristle, SPK, Clock DVA, and Cabaret Voltaire. Cicciolina Holocaust's woozy cornet buried in the mix of murky rhythms and electronic arpeggiations certainly draw their inspiration from the early productions of Chris & Cosey (think Heartbeat and the collaborative single with John Duncan) and of course there's plenty of TG to be heard in the mix. There are a couple of exceptional minimal wave numbers with clockwork nocturnal techno modulations and super creepy windswept dronings, all of which have been expertly remastered and sound really amazing on this piece of vinyl. Sermonizer harkens from the same realm of spooky electronics, with weirdly plucked guitars working through tape-delay splutter which is more Illitch than TG. Cold radio detunings, dark meanderings of synth warble, and highly sexualized moans and groans flush out Sermonizer's contribution to the split. All of these tracks seem to have come from private cassettes handed out back in the day. This is an amazing find and whets our appetite for what else Forced Nostalgia will be offering in the years to come.
Ciccone Youth was a one-off Sonic Youth side project, in which the band was paying homage to their favorite pop icon of the day: Madonna. If memory serves correctly, The Whitey Album was originally supposed to be a full on collaboration between Mike Watt (Minutemen, Firehouse) and Sonic Youth, in which the band just did all Madonna covers. Tongue in cheek, stoned ideas may be good on the couch with a bong while mocking how bad MTV is, but executing them is a recipe for artistic failure. So, The Whitey Album evolved beyond the Madonna cover album and into a pretty darn good example of how Sonic Youth could beef up avant-trance rock with mack-truck riffs, propulsive rhythms, and cheeky drum machine programming. Released just before Sonic Youth's unquestionably brilliant Daydream Nation, The Whitey Album enjoys many of the dynamic atonal noise/drones and screwdriver-in-the-guitar-strings tricks employed elsewhere in their early catalogue. As adventurous as much of The Whitey Album is, it's most memorable for the covers: Mike Watt does make an appearance all by his lonesome in covering Madonna's "Burnin' Up," Kim Gordon takes the vocal duties in the purposefully flat karaoke cover of Robert Palmer's "Addicted To Love," and Thurston Moore gets the honor of singing Madonna's "Into The Groove." If only all joke bands sounded this good!
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.
We'd never heard of Luciano Cilio before, but of course Jim O'Rourke has. The ubiquitious O'Rourke (Wilco/Sonic Youth/you name it) contributes liner notes to this beautifully presented deluxe digipack cd reissue of what amounts to the collected works of Cilio, an Italian avantgarde composer from the '70s whose music is indeed experimental but less academic than you might expect. But even without O'Rourke's endorsement, a listen to the cd should reveal to you that Cilio was exquisitely talented, and maybe something of a genius. This disc is a simply fantastic document of what we might consider a hybrid of 20th century classical, minimalist psych-prog, and folk music, not entirely of this world. The all-white cover perfectly echoes Cilio's lovely, quietly haunting compositions for acoustic guitar, cello, piano and flute, sometimes visited by wordless female vocals. Achingly melancholic, immensely deep, truly beautiful. Limited to 500 copies, this cd consists of Cilio's sole album, Dialoghi del Presente, originally released on EMI in 1977, along with several previously unreleased tracks. Apparently he more or less abandoned music after the album's release, and sadly committed suicide in 1983. Allan's favorite new long-lost reissue after the Flamen Dialis disc reviewed on list #194...
Longtime regular aQ customer Joshua Maremont commented that Cindytalk's Camoflage Heart is a record which was only really meant for about 30 people. Not that only 30 copies of this record were released, or that it is so terminally obscure and willfully difficult that it by design has a marketing ceiling of an elite few. What he's on about is that Camoflage Heart is such a personal document of self-realized torment, pain, and sorrow that when Cindytalk embarked on the project, it's hard to imagine that they had any delusions about the intensity of this album and the potential for these songs to alienate beyond a limited few.
At the helm of Cindytalk is transgendered vocalist Gordon Sharp, who to this day is probably still best known as one of the multitude of vocalists who appeared in This Mortal Coil. In many ways, Sharp is the masculine equal to the Cocteau Twins' Liz Fraser in delivering expressionist falsettos, trills, and banshee wails in an eerie, yet heavenly fashion. He's one of those few vocalists who can make the lyrics embody their content by shaping the words into emotionally charged sound. In fact, Sharp and Fraser had come together for a duet back during the Cocteau Twins' Peel Sessions of 1983. In his 4AD lineage, Gordon Sharp's first band was the criminally overlooked punk-glam ensemble The Freeze, where his Marc Bolan strut matched the nightmarish lyrics on top of some truly fantastic Bowie / Buzzcocks sparkplug riffs. Sharp, alongside fellow Freeze band members John Byrne and David Clancey, found shortcomings in the glam punk agenda, and sought a wholly new direction that became Cindytalk.
While undeniably dark and theatrical, Cindytalk cannot be pigeonholed as an '80s goth band, even in comparison to such off-kilter groups like The Virgin Prunes, Princess Tinymeat, or Sex Gang Children. Camoflage Heart was Cindytalk's first album and originally came out in 1984; and it's an album like those This Heat albums which is quite unique in terms of production and aesthetic. The album opens with the militant drum machine of "It's Luxury" setting the stage for an explosion from a monotone guitar riff, coated in amplifier grit, distortion, and detuned heaviness that comes across as a mix between late-'80s Skullflower and The Cure's Pornography. At this moment, Sharp's voice also erupts into the mix crooning with a downtrod beauty to this industrial dirge, spitting and swooning at the same time. The next track "Instinct (Back To Sense)" is more of an ambient interlude with distant heartbeat rhythms, haunted with impressionist piano trickles and Sharp's siren song buried between an atmosphere of smoke and mirror. Two more explosive tracks -- "Under Glass" (featuring Mick Harvey from the Birthday Party for a disjointed stutter of abject rock) and "Memories of Skin and Snow" -- are examples of loud / quiet / loud dynamics, later embraced by the likes of Slint and Mogwai to equally profound effect. "Everybody Is Christ" is often viewed as the pinnacle of Camoflage Heart with its harsh arppegiation of electronics cast against Sharp's heavenly voice. Soon after, the album disintegrates in a cascade of delicate piano, voice, and grim drones.
As Cindytalk had suffered through the fate of several record companies going out of business (first Midnight Records then World Serpent), their work might have been forgotten had it not been for this reissue. Thankfully, that oversight can now be remedies with this long overdue reissue.
Prior to Hold Everything Dear, the resurrected Cindytalk had been the work of Gordon Sharp sitting down at his computer by himself to experiment with digital glitches and abstracted electronic drones. The Crackle Of My Soul from 2009 felt more like the first fruits of Sharp wrangling with his ideas in a digital environment with a few too many compositional rough edges that were in need of refinement. Up Here In The Clouds was a marked improvement through the glassine drones and fizzing noise; but Hold Everything Dear is the first Cindytalk album that truly feels like it has a connection to those brilliant post-punk records from the early '80s. While Sharp hasn't returned to the noise-rock abjection of Camoflage Heart and he has yet to sing on any of these recent albums, the fragmented smears from bowed metals, haunted clanging bells, watery field recordings, and impressionist piano of Hold Everything Dear harken to those post-noise ambient constructions found on the Eno-esque album Wind Is Strong and which concluded In This World. Many of the cavernous sounds on the album are probably sourced from the late Matt Kinnison, who had been Cindytalk's bassist since 1982 and who died in 2008. Sharp has cast a bleary atmosphere throughout the album through subterranean passages of sodden drones, cobwebbed dark elegance, and decayed textures. Sharp pocks this album with plenty of piano interludes whose somber half melodies and shadowy ambience are pulled from the same mold as those earlier piano works. They were beautiful then, and they are still beautiful now.
