From his dedication to 'heavy metal fans all over the world' on "Iron" and his recombination of '80s synth pop on "Love Uncut," Coh (aka Russian electron engineer Ivan Pavlov) has presented some unusual concepts to guide his post-techno explorations. Less likely to invoke readings as a piece of irony, the "Netmork" album is a speculation on the hidden language of the telephone, specifically stated as "digitally encoded human emotions running through solid darkness ('mörk') of telephone wires, electromagnetic ghosts of Love and Hate haunting the network after all conversations are made, merging, interacting, turning into each other, disappearing and reborn again." Coh actualizes his concepts through buzzing feedback that gets sequentially darker and more intense over the course of the album. At the album's onset, the electronic squiggles glisten and shimmer with occasional pinpricks of glitched digital feedback, giving way to perhaps those sounds' source material - the indeterminant dialing of a series of numbers on a phone (which made Byram think that Pavlov got bored with the prettiness of those sounds and just called up some friends to get a beer). Instead, the album takes a turn towards the darkside through incrementally building arpeggiations similar to early PanSonic, making for a fine album with an intriguing conceptual framework to match the well-executed electronics.
The glitchy, streaming rhythms from Russian electronic musician Ivan Pavlov (aka Coh) have always been difficult for us to write about because they are so immediate and just simply work so well. Yeah, our purple prose benefits from the context of elfin types scurrying around the forest with contact mics and then overlaying those sounds with some fucking heavy doom riffs that aim to crack the skull of Odin; so when a prolific technician like Pavlov constantly churns out an extremely consistent body of work we can be at a loss for words. Don't dismay, we'll do our best to blather on about this brilliant 24 minute EP. Over the past six or seven years, Pavlov has released tons of recordings for heavy-weight avant electronica labels such as Mego, Raster-Noton, and Eskaton (one of the labels run by Coil); and many of these recordings do essentially the same thing: generate tense yet hypnotic electronic pieces which smartly synthesize a number of electronica references. There's the futuristic Moroder arpeggiations, the erratic digital pixel smears of Stilluppsteypa's glitch-n-drone, the extravagant audio alchemy worthy of comparisons to the best Coil recordings, and the release-and-stop dynamics borrowed from the finest Model 500 techno. Given how druggy these repetitive algorithms are, it's no wonder that the sidereal psychonauts Coil were so taken by Pavlov's work. Like pretty much everything he touches, Patherns is extraordinary.
Of all the glitch guys, as I like to call them -- Noto, Komet, Byetone, and the entire Raster-Noton raster -- Coh's Ivan Pavlov, has always been the one to take the glitch into uncharted territory. See Coh's bizarre 'Love Uncut' record from a while back and his bizarre 'metal tribute' record 'Iron' which was decidedly non-metallic. So while this latest record is not necessarily a surprise, it is surprisingly beautiful and once again shows Coh to be truly original. The glitch takes a back seat on these 4 seasonal recordings. Instead the computer is used Oval-style, to take organic sounds and transform them. 'The Colour Of Beauty, Summer Is Red' is by far the most beautiful track Pavlov has ever recorded, with creaking swells of violin, warm and thick, with a definite 20th century classical vibe, lots of space and dynamics. Dreamy but also ominous. Quite reminiscent of Oval's 'Diskont', but chopped up and spread out into a glacial rhythm of throbs and pulses, dramatic swells and vaccuum like silences. So nice. 'Winter Brooding Underneath' is another winner, a massive drone sculpted from slowly bowed cello, huge, rumbling, slowly-shifting low end, with the timbre of the cello stretched as far as (in)humanly possible into an oscillating sea of lower register vibrations. Breathtaking. 'As Ripe As Autumn's Tears' is a totally spare pleak-scape of single reverb drenched piano notes ringing out into space, bookended by field recordings of rain. Skeletal and lovely. Finally, 'Springs Come Shooting: Make Love, Make War', is a Pavlov guitar solo, clattery and scratchy and noodly, but chopped and recontextualized into some decidedly non-guitar-like sounds. This track is as close as this record gets to actual 'electronica' or 'techno', with a steady, gradually mutating, electronic rhythm sounding a bit like a super lo-fi Kraftwerk.
Comes on MASSIVE 180 gram vinyl in a gorgeous, super thick gatefold sleeve, with a painting for each track.
As we've mentioned in the past, the music of Coh, aka Ivan Pavlov, is quite difficult to describe. Which is probably why he tends to be one of our favorites of the many modern electronic minimalists. He releases records on Raster-Noton, yet his sound manages to both embrace R-N's signature minimal glitch and click, while at the same time subverting it, creating something simultaneously warm and familiar, alien and totally original. Every record is thematically and sonically unique, whether he's collaborating with other musicians, or simply creating a song suite based on some random idea, even a whim, once it works its way through Pavlov's brain into the computer onto disc and into our stereo, the resulting sound is more often then not transcendent, minimal in sound sure, but with maximum impact, his music emotional and personal where others creating similar sounds are cold and clinical.
For Strings, Pavlov has decided to take the sounds of certain stringed instruments, which played some part in his musical upbringing, and in some way to enrich and expand those sounds, to twist and transform, allowing the instruments to be recognizable, and sound like they sound, but to create a whole new setting for those instruments. The focus here is on the 4 instruments that Pavlov played throughout his life: piano, guitar, saz and oud.
The opener is all piano, and sounds the most at home on Raster-Noton, simple melancholy melodies are suspended in smeared shimmers of reverb, the notes stretching, stuttering, blurring into washed out whirs of dreamy chords and long drawn out tones. Sounds bent and stretched, layered and allowed to hover in long expanses of distant high end flutter. Hushed and gorgeous, the digital manipulation deftly applied so as not to distract from the gorgeous hushed drift. Really quite lovely. The piano continues on into the second track, where the sounds are much more manipulated, looped and layered, but this time into a swirl of Melnyk-like flurries, which are augmented by a stuttery techno like pulse, the whole thing skittery and hypnotic, peppered with streaks of buzzy squelch, until the final few minutes when the beat drops out and the various notes are allowed to swirl like sonic snowflakes.
The next few tracks are like a suite, beginning with what is either a saz or a lute (sorry we can't tell for sure), locked into s super rhythmic strum, and processed into a propulsive minimal almost-techno, which is soon wrapped in thick sheets of low end buzz and glitch, almost synthy sounding fuzz, eventually building to an almost metal riff, all blown out and wreathed in crumbling distorted buzz, finally erupting into a confusional tangle of crunchy riff, processed hum and rumble, and Middle Eastern sounding melodies. This leads directly into a lumbering doomy digitized metal workout, the main riff grinding its way through clouds of swirling effects and smears of squelch and buzz, distant soaring sort-of-strings, all very dramatic, until the guitars fade, leaving just a skeletal rhythm, and super dramatic slow burning electronic swell and skitter.
The next track is all Middle Eastern melody, laced with bits of glitch, a muted electronic throb, a bit like a slightly more techno Muslimgauze, but as the track develops, the sound becomes more digital, the original melody chopped up and wrapped around a propulsive beat before fading out into a shimmer of pixilated piano, which gives way to the record closer, beginning again, with moody, simply strummed strings, before being swallowed whole by a massive buzzing electronic drone, gorgeous and layered and so thick, while the strings below continue to unfurl. The track gets all old school techno briefly, skittery and stuttery, clipped notes, until again, near the end, that howling buzz drenched drone returns, this time all chopped up and even more corrosive and blown out.
It sounds all over the map, and it is, but all the tracks, as disparate sounding as they are, slip in and out of each other so perfectly, a definitely sonic suite, with more in common than just the stringed source material. The second disc features a single 17 minute track, that starts out sounding like Machinefabriek, all dark bell like tones and deep blackened shimmers, soft whirs, stretched out almost-melodies, some strings do pop up part way through, sounding again quite Middle Eastern, and again wreathed in a brittle techno stutter, before a long drawn out stretch of near silence, and a brief coda of soft strings over distant drone. So awesome. Maybe the best thing we've heard from Coh, which is saying a whole lot.
And the packaging. Holy moly! Super elaborate, die cut fold out multi panel printed sleeve, the cds held in place by various slots and slits, revealing the curved silver edges of the discs as part of the design!
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Coh's take on minimalist electronica isn't all that different from his Raster / Noton labelmates (Noto, Komet, and the 20' to 2000 artists) with a pure tone bliss borrowing heavily from neo academic Germanic techno, but Coh has always had a thing for pop music. And with vocal assistance from Annie Anxiety (ex-Crass) and Coil's Sleazy & Balance, Coh's electronic modulations get even closer to a new form of twisted avant-pop.
Ivan Pavlov (aka Coh) has been making a minor career of collaborating with the kingpins of Industrial Culture. Jhonn Balance of Coil had appeared on a number of Coh tracks over the years, Peter Christopherson and Pavlov have recently begun a project together called SoiSong, and now there's this joint venture with Cosey Fanny Tutti. We would imagine that a Chris Carter / Coh duet for old synthesizers would make for a kick-ass record; but for Genesis P-Orridge, hmmm. Anyway, the Pavlov / Cosey album began with a dialogue between the two artists, out of which Cosey supplied spoken word tracks for Pavlov to use as the source material for the album. The first few tracks are tentative collages of Cosey's breathy, sexually charged voice cut up into airy constructions that recall some of the sparse digitally treated voice pieces of AGF. By the middle of the record, Cosey & Coh quite literally say "Fuck It," and the hammering electrical streams of post-Moroder arpeggiation, digital distortion, and effortlessly simple sequencing of monophunk meets electro-crash dynamics. These latter tracks are certainly worth the price of admission, but one has to wonder why the earlier tracks don't pack such a punch. Even if they were meant to be moody and dark, those could have been pushed much farther.
We raved and raved about the new Coheed And Cambria record a few lists back. It even made a couple of our best of the year lists. Totally epic and proggy emo metal core. Heavy on the prog. With ridiculously amazing vocals somewhere between Geddy Lee from Rush, Freddie Mercury, Jeff Buckley and the guy from Shudder To Think. 10+ minute songs, ridiculous time signatures, hooks galore and that distinctive wail. So fucking great! Andee and Jim still listen to it in the store all the time! Andee and Jim -also- loved it enough to go to Bottom Of The Hill and check them out in person. And it was so awesome. Not only was it all ages so the place was packed with kids in their best emo finery, but EVERYONE was singing along to EVERY song at the top of their lungs. Even the kids in the pit. Every 'Woahhhh' and 'La La' was a deafening roar. The best part was the band though. Sort of drunk, a bit sloppy, they were a dishevelled, bearded, un-emo looking mess. Every between song break was met with screams for more, and the band would just deflect the requests with the explanation "We're fucking old. And tired. Let us take a fucking break. I can barely breathe up here." It was so satisfying, being old guys ourselves. The singer even had to go get his glasses to read the set list. So cool! But the real point of this story is, they played a bunch of songs neither of us recognized, but that instantly got stuck in our heads, all of which are thankfully on this here record, and all of which kick serious ass. Not nearly as polished or well produced as the new one, but it hardly matters because the songs are so goddamn good. If you haven't bought the new one, In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth: 3 maybe start there, but you certainly won't regret starting here either. Hell, buy both. You won't be sorry.
Emo doesn't get any more epic than this. Start with the name, Coheed And Cambria? What the fuck? And then song titles like "The Velourium Camper Pts. I-III", "Three Evils (Embodied In Love And Shadow)" and "Cuts Marked In The March Of Men". But the music is where things get really weird, and epic. Lengthy and proggy song structures, huge crunchy metal guitars, convoluted and improbable rhythms, and vocals...woah, the vocals. Somewhere between Freddie Mercury, Jeff Buckley, Geddy Lee, the guy from Shudder To Think, and the guy from Cyclefly, with a gorgeously crystalline high tenor, that swoops and soars, not silly like, say, the Darkness, but more graceful and dramatic, and totally gorgeous. The title track is a metalcore masterpiece, but what sets it apart is the clean vocals throughout, the almost-Pinback sounding breakdown in the middle, and the Peter Gabriel like epic reprise, complete with a huge chorus of back up vocals. The record is super varied though, from Get Up Kids style emo romps, to metalcore crunch, to progressive weirdness, to MTV metal, with death metal breakdowns, super sappy pop choruses, complicated and ridiculous instrumental breaks, and a hidden track that manages to be so bizarre and silly and prog with multiple parts, SUPER dramatic vocals, lyrics like "My robot will never die..." and hyper complex instrumental segments, and still sound right at home with rest of the record. Sounds a bit like the bands stab at a grand musical a la the Who's Tommy. This gets played SO much in the store (this hit the spot for Jim's emo sweet tooth) and I (Andee) haven't stopped listening to it at home since I got it. Even saw their video on MTV2 which is really bizarre! But only made me like them more. Thought they'd be skinny little emo boys, but they're sort of bearded, husky, regular guys, and one of them sports a wicked rock-fro that would make Buzz from the Melvins proud!
Alice Cohen is one of the cofounders of the Portland-based Olde English Spelling Bee label and here on her second release offers up an intense sketchbook of sonic seances. Recorded from home, these recordings were originally made as a musical diary, not intended for release. But their home-spun nature revealed, through a process akin to automatic writing, a kind of ghostly songcraft that would otherwise not have been created through a normal studio recording. Swathes of burning guitar, rockish organ and disembodied layers of vocals culminate in shadowy perfumed murk. Bits of fuzzy song-structures peek through the miasma reminding us of times of a more carnivalesque Grouper or a more freeform Azalia Snail. Drifting and shimmery but at times woozily unsteady or blithely romantic in it conjuration. building up to rapturous peaks and then sinking into sullen valleys. Truly exploratory music!
Never heard of Charles Cohen? Neither had we. Which is really not surprising, considering this composer and master of the Buchla Music Easel synthesizer (he's one of the few Buchla masters in the world), managed to remain largely unknown outside of Philadelphia, where he spent the late seventies and eighties composing for dance performances and art installations, famously refusing to record, concerned with the 'ephemerality' of his music, and being somewhat of a recluse outside of his music making. But oh the music he made! In a world and time where pretty much any unheard record is considered reissue-able, very little of it truly is, and yet Cohen's music is so well deserving of a wider audience, especially considering how sonically prescient his music truly was.
A mix of musique concrete, kosmische new age, electronic krautrock, alien exotica and layered dronemusic, the sounds collected here are at once all over the map and unpredictable, but also all somehow also sonically linked. It's impossible to describe two discs' worth of Cohen's music in shorthand, but too daunting two go through each of the 22 tracks, one by one, but imagine, a fluid soundscape in constant flux: murky, lo-fi flurries of percussion wreathed in swirling electronics, almost like some alien gamelan - weird abstract dub, all glitchy and spaced out, almost industrial, but also sort of dreamy and ambient - very Kraftwerk sounding propulsive electro grooves, squelchy and shimmery, but hazy and psychedelically cosmic - Les Baxter like electro-exotica, maybe as envisioned by Nurse With Wound, and that's just the first four tracks. From there on out, it just gets cooler and weirder, more mysterious and even more abstractly beautiful.
"Sonomama" sounds almost like Asian folk music, again as re-envisioned by someone like the Residents, especially the second half when the sounds become more frantic and chaotic. Some tracks almost sound like eighties Carpenter soundtracks, check out the "Velcro Dance", which totally sounds like it could be playing as the credits roll on some old VHS tape, but then seconds later, there's the darkly delicate "Sunrise Women-Men", which almost sounds like Morricone, a wistful, cinematic sprawl, laced with muted melody and occasional percussion, before transforming surprisingly into something way more futuristic! At this point, we essentially are going track by track through the whole collection, but it's hard not to. Every track here is a mysterious gem, sonic surprises lurk around every corner, some short bursts, others, long, slow building epics, some playful and almost goofy, others somber and haunting, even sinister, but again, every second of sound here is utterly stunning.
There's tons more info in the liner notes, lots of rare photos and different writers and fellow composers offering their impressions of Cohen and his music, much of it truly fascinating, but like all great music, even knowing nothing about its provenance, doesn't take away from the magic and power of the sounds here. A truly fantastic discovery, and no doubt a contender for reissue of the year!
We made the recent double cd career retrospective from Charles Cohen, a composer and master of the Buchla Music Easel synthesizer, our Record Of The Week earlier this year. Group Motion is one of the records included in that collection, now repressed and available again on vinyl!
Never heard of Charles Cohen? Neither had we. Which is really not surprising, considering this composer and master of the Buchla Music Easel synthesizer (he's one of the few Buchla masters in the world), managed to remain largely unknown outside of Philadelphia, where he spent the late seventies and eighties composing for dance performances and art installations, famously refusing to record, concerned with the 'ephemerality' of his music, and being somewhat of a recluse outside of his music making. But oh the music he made! In a world and time where pretty much any unheard record is considered reissue-able, very little of it truly is, and yet Cohen's music is so well deserving of a wider audience, especially considering how sonically prescient his music truly was.
A mix of musique concrete, kosmische new age, electronic krautrock, alien exotica and layered dronemusic, the sounds collected here are at once all over the map and unpredictable, but also all somehow also sonically linked. Imagine a fluid soundscape in constant flux: murky, lo-fi flurries of percussion wreathed in swirling electronics, almost like some alien gamelan - weird abstract dub, all glitchy and spaced out, almost industrial, but also sort of dreamy and ambient - very Kraftwerk sounding propulsive electro grooves, squelchy and shimmery, but hazy and psychedelically cosmic - Les Baxter like electro-exotica, maybe as envisioned by Nurse With Wound...
A truly spellbinding, yet mysterious gem, with sonic surprises lurking around every corner, some short bursts, others, long, slow building epics, some playful and almost goofy, others somber and haunting, even sinister, but again, every second of sound here is utterly stunning.
There's tons more info in the liner notes, lots of rare photos and different writers and fellow composers offering their impressions of Cohen and his music, much of it truly fascinating, but like all great music, even knowing nothing about its provenance, doesn't take away from the magic and power of the sounds here. A truly fantastic discovery, and no doubt a contender for reissue of the year!
Chris Cohen might not be a household name for most folks, but if you live in SF you might remember him from when he played in the mighty Deerhoof, as well as Curtains, and the Natural Dreamers. He's also played with, White Magic, Cass McCombs, Danielson, Haunted Graffiti and a bunch of others. Overgrown Path is his first solo record under his own name, and is a gorgeous collection of psychedelic pop, not nearly as weird as we were maybe expecting, but really all the better for it. The instrumentation is lush and lovely, produced like a classic orchestral pop record, with some cool sonic twists, and Cohen's voices is warm and honeyed, deep and soulful, but slipping easily into a near falsetto, and the songs here, classic sounding and catchy, obviously indebted to classic pop outfits like the Zombies, Big Star, Beach Boys, Bee Gees, etc, but here given a little modern / avant tweak. Opener "Monad" is impossibly lovely, rich, piano chords, over softly swirling guitars, Beach Boys like drumming, blooping bass, then Cohen's dreamy vox, sunshiney guitar melodies, and the chorus/bridge, which finds the sound fracturing into something much more psychedelic, all swirling and woozy and subtly spacey, not to mention the warped droney outro. "Optimist High" is another chunk of near perfect pop, the sound warm and washed out, and dreamily prismatic, definitely reminding us of modern retro poppers like the New Lines and Zumpano, and here, on a track like this, the only thing giving this away as a modern recording, is the recording itself, otherwise it could be some lost Emitt Rhodes B side or something.
The whole record has a definite sixties/seventies singer/songwriter vibe, some tracks darkly groovy, others chiming and jangly, and still others brooding and melancholy, all of them lush and lovely and so absolutely dreamy. A new soft pop fave for sure!
A totally over the top, drug drenched, swirl of chaotic visuals known as The Invasion Of Thunderbolt Pagoda, a 1968 psychedelic film created by Ira Cohen, with a completely gorgeous abstract soundtrack by Angus Maclise, Tony Conrad, Henry Flynt among others. Recently screened at the Whitney Museum, available here for the first time on DVD, color corrected (and OH! the colors...) and transferred from 16mm.
Creepy sepia toned footage of a barefoot little girl walking through the woods, jungle tribes digging in the mud, unearthing a mysterious bug eyed shaman, intercut with tripped out kaleidoscopic collages of blinking eyes and naked ladies dressed up like ancient forest dwellers or aliens, all engaging in strange rituals and some super strange spasmodic dancing. And that's just the intro!
The actual film is a dizzying blend of wild costumes, incredible makeup and super saturated colors, filmed through all sorts of distorted funhouse mirror lenses or filmed through rippling water, or sheets of mylar, everything twisting and shimmering, shapes shifting, bodies writhing, cartoonish animal costumes, a totally over the top acid fried TRIP. Take a step back and it's a bunch of wild drugged out hippies, spending a weekend drugging and drinking and dressing up, but look deep, and it's easy to get sucked in ad get lost in the spinning dizzying whirl of colors and characters. The soundtrack is incredible, a buzzing raga like expanse of slowly mutating, endlessly drifting vocal shimmer, sounding a lot like AQ faves Grouper or Valet. Worth it even if you just wanted to turn your TV off and listen to the druggy dreamy sounds, but then you'd miss out on the retina melting visuals, as close as some of us will ever get to a bonafide acid trip for sure.
Gorgeously packaged, with TONS of extra goodies. Two alternate soundtracks, one from Sunburned Hand Of The Man, the other from Acid Mothers Temple SWR, a new short film by Ira Cohen created from never before scene 16mm outtakes, with a new soundtrack, a slideshow of mylar photographs with a soundtrack by Angus Maclise and director's commentary by Ira Cohen.
Also includes a big booklet, packed with tons of tripped out imagery including stills from the film and mylar photos by Ira Cohen. Also poetry by Maclise and Cohen, as well as liner notes and critical texts. So awesome. And we've just recieved the last ten copies we're gonna ever be able to get, so buy now or never...
Doesn't it seem that Mr. Leonard Cohen has always been there? Ever the wise elder statesman, he enters his seventh decade with this new album! His voice still offers comforting solace, gentlemanly charm and occasionally a saucy wink. Over the years, his intimate speak-sing delivery has become increasingly more spoken than sung, however his omnipresent background singing ladies remain as elegant and ageless as ever.
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Live Leonard, a wonderful previously unreleased performance from his 1979 world tour. Recorded in England. If you've never heard Cohen's sad-eyed, deep-voiced, world-weary storytelling songs, now is the time. Features "Bird On The Wire" and other classic
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For some reason, this 1988 kinda comeback album from poet n' ladies man Leonard Cohen has always been one of our favorites, although he made his fame with records in the late '60s and '70s. Just gotta love its quirkiness (he's eating a banana on the cover for some reason) and its lush, quasi-electronic '80s production. And Cohen's cynical wit is in fine form here as it ever was. Songs such as "First We Take Manhattan" and "Everybody Knows" are clever and dark, the entire album delivering a sort of moody noirish cabaret, with a wink. Favorite track: "Jazz Police", goofy fun but somehow disturbing too.
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This is Leonard Cohen's first release in 9 years. Rumour is, he spent a good amount of that time in a Zen monastery. His voice still has that same soul shattering, breathy deep quality that it always had. The years have treated him well it seems. This
A sort of companion to Cohen's recent Magic Trick solo full length on Captured Tracks, which was less a solo record, and more of a new band record, that new band being his 'Magic Trick' who also back him up here, on this double 7", and like the full length, the sound is definitely closely related to that of his other band the Fresh & Onlys, a gorgeous collection of lush mini pop epics, that range from classic jangle, to woozy balladry, reverb drenched countryish twang to fuzzy indie jangle, bouncy, hazy folky strum to gloomy post punk pop. And the thing is, whatever Cohen and crew decide to do, somehow it works, and sounds amazing, Cohen's deft popsmithery is pretty much unrivalled these days, with a release schedule that by all rights should have made us sick to death, but instead, we can barely get enough, every new record, a new collection of perfect(ly imperfect) pop, that will remain stuck in our heads until the next batch.
There are lots of highlights here, the raspy voiced, shimmery strummy drift of "Delicate Creatures", the Johnny Cash-esque, swaggery twang flecked shuffle of "Doctor, Doctor", the gloomy new wave-y brooder "Purpose In Life", and the sixties dream folk jangle of "Rock Bottom"... Like we said, it's all good, and even still we find ourselves, hankering for more. Luckily we probably won't be waiting long...
We often marvel at how songwriters can keep churning out the hits, especially someone like Tim Cohen, who not only writes all the songs for the Fresh & Onlys, who have averaged close to 5 releases a year since their inception, but somehow, even after all of those records, has so many songs, that he also needs to release solo records, and that's not even counting all his various other groups and side projects. But as we've said in the past, if it ain't broke don't fix it. And yeah, it can sometimes be frustrating keeping up, especially if you're a completist, which many of us record nerds tend to be, but heck, the extra effort is most definitely worth it.
Cohen's newest solo full length continues his winning streak, with another collection of weird wonderful pop, folk flecked, with strange arrangements, lush harmonies, and incredible hooks, take the opening track, "Oh Oh Oh", with its cool drum/handclap rhythm, urgently strummed acoustic guitars, and rough crooned vocals, and then with about a minute left, the song shifts gears, and multiple vocals join in, for a gorgeous harmony refrain. Then there's "Wonderful Life", that sounds like some classic fifties jam, except for the weirdly gloomy basslines, the woozy keyboards, the reverbed guitar twang, and the super dynamic start stop breakdown. "A Mind Of Their Own" is all horns and harmonicas, "Laughter" evokes just the opposite, dark and brooding, with a distinctly Scott Walker vibe, "Send No Sign" is another old fashioned classic pop sounding number, all walking basslines, jangly guitar, but then there's some cool surprisingly prog sounding keyboards, and then more horns, super dramatic and EPIC, and that's sort of the magic of Cohen's songwriting, especially on his own, on the surface, what sounds super familiar, classic even, is quickly, often subtly subverted, and transformed into something else entirely, but something else, that impossibly STILL sounds familiar and classic, even though it's so obviously not. Another fantastic collection of fantastically twisted and (im)perfect pop from one of favorite modern songwriters...
Yet another new release from the uber prolific Mr. Tim Cohen, who, when he's not fronting aQ faves the Fresh & Onlys, jamming out massive space drug epics with 3 Leafs, or blasting away mysteriously as black metal one man band Amocoma, finds time to make solo records too, like this one, with his OTHER band Magic Trick. And as you might imagine, the sound of TC's Magic Trick doesn't veer to far from the sound of the F+O, if anything, the sounds and songs here are more varied, less overtly garage rocky, and more personal, like experiments, but experiments suggests there's some risk of failure, some chance said experiment will fail, and as we know by now, Cohen's deft hand at popsmithery makes that pretty unlikely. And TCMT does seem to extend his streak, with another collection of perfect(ly off kilter) pop songs, from simple shuffly jangle, to pulsing electronic moody new wave, from brooding dour acoustic folkiness to sixties style sunshiney Spector-ish fuzz, often weaving all of those disparate sounds and styles together. Hazy reverby guitars drift under deep crooned vox, muted electronic pulses drive a warm liquid basslines, synths swirl and soar, female back up vox offer up angelic harmonies, Cohen's vocals getting better and better, rough and ragged one second, warm and smooth the next, and often slipping into a sweet falsetto, the songs too, with every record seeming to become more and more well crafted, a practically perfect assemblage of unlikely parts, surprising melodies, lush textures, quirkly electronics, multiple vocal parts, but none of those distracting from Cohen's vision, just adding to it, woven into a smooth, warm, shimmery, jangly dream poppy whole. Nice!
As if fronting super hyped garage rockers the Fresh & Onlys wasn't enough, or being the one man in one man weirdo black metal horde AmocomA, or playing in Black Fiction and Three Leafs or any of a number of other local bands, or even being the back up band for psych rock legend Rodriguez, well, apparently none of that is enough, as here's a brand new full length from Mr. Tim Cohen, he of all the above mentioned rockness.
The Two Sides seems to focus on another side of Cohen we've only gotten little glimpses of, and that's the classic popsmith. And yeah, classic pop sounds infuse pretty much everything he does (heck, even AmocomA has a distinctly pop vibe), but this is definitely his 'pop' record, a sort of lo-fi, ramshackle, home brewed psychedelic Pet Sounds for the current landscape of FM radio revivalists, a la Ariel Pink, Ty Segall, etc. But where Pink is truly drug addled and twisted, and Segall tends towards the slightly more rocking, Cohen here is emotional and sincere, the lyrics plenty twisted and bizarre, the music fractured and freaky, but it's all wound into something definitely classic sounding, Beach Boys, Beatles, of course, but more than the sound it's the vibe and the feel, as folky as it is classic rock, poppy all over, slipping effortlessly from moody and brooding almost Nick Drake sounding intimacy, to surprisingly lush almost radio ready old school FM pop. The vocals drift from softly sung spoken to soaring falsetto, wrapping themselves up in sweet harmonies, the musical backdrop more subtle than one might expect, intricate acoustic guitars, muted percussion, everything stripped down and wreathed in reverb and delay, a low key fuzzy psych pop, that will definitely appeal to the current crop of retro lo-fi drug poppers, but is way less willfully obscure, tapping into something a bit more classic, a bit more timeless.
Super nice packaging, thick eye popping sleeve, inside a printed lyric sheet, as well as an insert, with the code so you can download the whole record, as well as a bunch of digital only bonus tracks!
The time has come. That very special time, that only comes once in a long, long while. Open the gates! Unfurl the red carpet! Prepare thyselves! It's time to induct yet another record, into the eliteand exclusive pantheon of Andee's favorite flute records. The Pantheon currently looks about like this: Phill Niblock's Four Full Flutes, Eberhard Blum's Berlin To Buffalo, Comus' First Utterance, Koukiji Kougezan's The Live [11th] Final Hyakusenmansyuuraku, Byard Lancaster's It's Not Up To Us, the first four Osanna records, Za Frumi, Alan Silva, Jethro Tull and pretty much all Roland Kirk and Eric Dolphy. Well, you can now add French flautist/double bassist Jean Cohen-Solal to that list. Flute Libres & Captain Tarthopom collects Cohen-Solal's first two ridiculously rare albums originally released in 1971 and 1973, on one cd. Long considered progressive rock masterpieces, these two records feature Cohen-Solal's ultra personal take on classical, jazz and avant garde, even mixing in some psychedelic rock and ambient minimalism to the mix. The disc starts off with a jazzy psych rock workout, sort of funky, with a boppy rhythm and wailing flutes, very catchy and cool. But from that point on, the record travels down a much darker path, as the jazz and funk and rock dissipate into spacy, shimmery soundscapes, reminiscent of Tangerine Dream, Pink Floyd or even Taj Mahal Travellers, with warm melodic swells, shimmery washes of cymbals and gongs, and lonely notes, flute and double bass, swathed in reverb or wah, and sent to drift through the ether. Things rev up later on, adding shuffling jazz rhythms, dizzying flute melodies and faraway freakout guitars, channelling Magma and Focus, weaving meandering, propulsive and progressive, spacerock and jazzrock mantras. So good.
We at first balked at getting this 1993 recording by the great Sun Ra disciple Phil Cohran, because (and this just may be our own particular bias) more often than not we find that great and vital jazz artists from the sixties and seventies rarely stay quite as vital as time goes on. Or perhaps it's not the artist, but the technology of instruments and recording production as well as the aging and general mellowing of the culture that seem to give the music a less fresh vibe in our minds. But we were surprisingly blown away by African Skies, a live performance at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago as a memorial tribute to Cohran's former mentor and friend who had just passed away.
Ranking up there with the best of Cohran's recordings, African Skies is a beautiful cosmic jazz masterpiece utilizing mostly acoustic instruments such as harps, flutes, upright bass, francophone, bowed piccolo bass, and trumpet with some occasional ensemble and solo vocals. Looking at the back cover, this performance looks amazing too, with performers in traditional African garb playing these amazing large harps under a surrounding backdrop of projected galaxies. The pieces are minimally arranged with hypnotic rhythms and blithe flourishes. Occasionally a plaintive trumpet makes its presence known, or a woman vocalises soulfully, but it's really all about the fluidity of the sonic undertow that is vibrantly repetitive, and elusively graceful. Cohran doesn't try to mimic Sun Ra, but to emphasize the strongest qualities that he took away from the master: Beauty, Majesty and Reverence. Highest Recommendation!
Now on vinyl!
We love Philip Cohran, and while he doesn't get the same level of attention and widespread adoration as folks like Pharaoh Sanders, Rashan Roland Kirk, or Alice Coltrane, there is no doubt his music belongs in that special elite class of spiritual jazz geniuses, as his records are filled with such deep vibrations and such endless creativity.
In the past we have gushed over the reissues of his albums On The Beach and The Malcolm X Memorial, two records that truly transcend stiff and narrow definitions of genre, as we've seen many jazz-shy folks get swept away by those amazing sounds!
The Spanish Suite was never released before, so this is the first time most folks have gotten to hear it, a long form piece composed and created in the late '60s by Cohran and his collective of amazing Chicago musicians, many of whom have super impressive musical resumes, from Sun Ra to the great early incarnation of Earth Wind & Fire. The Spanish Suite demonstrates an effortless infusion of Latin elements into deep African grooves of forward thinking jazz, executed with total perfection. A little like Miles Davis' masterpiece Sketches Of Spain stretched out and taken to some outer dimension. Patience is a virtue with this piece as it starts out nice and somewhat traditional sounding for the first little while until it morphs into some contemplative and expansive spiritual jazz exploration, the sort of thing that Cohran has definitely mastered. Highly recommended!
NOW ALSO ON VINYL, YAY!!
We at first balked at getting this 1993 recording by the great Sun Ra disciple Phil Cohran, because (and this just may be our own particular bias) more often than not we find that great and vital jazz artists from the sixties and seventies rarely stay quite as vital as time goes on. Or perhaps it's not the artist, but the technology of instruments and recording production as well as the aging and general mellowing of the culture that seem to give the music a less fresh vibe in our minds. But we were surprisingly blown away by African Skies, a live performance at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago as a memorial tribute to Cohran's former mentor and friend who had just passed away.
Ranking up there with the best of Cohran's recordings, African Skies is a beautiful cosmic jazz masterpiece utilizing mostly acoustic instruments such as harps, flutes, upright bass, francophone, bowed piccolo bass, and trumpet with some occasional ensemble and solo vocals. Looking at the back cover, this performance looks amazing too, with performers in traditional African garb playing these amazing large harps under a surrounding backdrop of projected galaxies. The pieces are minimally arranged with hypnotic rhythms and blithe flourishes. Occasionally a plaintive trumpet makes its presence known, or a woman vocalises soulfully, but it's really all about the fluidity of the sonic undertow that is vibrantly repetitive, and elusively graceful. Cohran doesn't try to mimic Sun Ra, but to emphasize the strongest qualities that he took away from the master: Beauty, Majesty and Reverence. Highest Recommendation!
It's always a good day when we hear another new archival Phil Cohran and The Artistic Heritage Ensemble release. Not sure how much material is still out there to be released, but please keep it coming! Issued for the first time, this killer live recording from 1968 is one of his most intense, cosmic and out ensemble pieces to date, getting into some serious Sun Ra interstellar spiritual energy territory, as they delve into deep themes of the legacy of slavery, the atom bomb and the end of creation. Woah. The opener, "Motherless Child", sung by members of The Spencer Jackson Family, is slow and sorrowful, with just voice and a low rumbling of horns and drums that cascade around the singers instead of supporting them melodically, which leads into "The Creation of The Beast", an elephantine procession that revels in a sort of triumphant malevolence of marching brass and swirling leering horns. "The Window" is the most sedate of the five pieces, featuring a sparse but ominous frankophone riff that gradually interweaves with lilting horn motifs, while the longest and final track, "Armageddon" delves full throttle into the powers of the ensemble with battling and frenzied horns in a culminating fury of sound and vision that is as majestic as it is searing. Magnificent!
We love Philip Cohran, and while he doesn't get the same level of attention and widespread adoration as folks like Pharaoh Sanders, Rashan Roland Kirk, or Alice Coltrane, there is no doubt his music belongs in that special elite class of spiritual jazz geniuses, as his records are filled with such deep vibrations and such endless creativity.
In the past we have gushed over the reissues of his albums On The Beach and The Malcolm X Memorial, two records that truly transcend stiff and narrow definitions of genre, as we've seen many jazz-shy folks get swept away by those amazing sounds!
The Spanish Suite was never released before, so this is the first time most folks have gotten to hear it, a long form piece composed and created in the late '60s by Cohran and his collective of amazing Chicago musicians, many of whom have super impressive musical resumes, from Sun Ra to the great early incarnation of Earth Wind & Fire. The Spanish Suite demonstrates an effortless infusion of Latin elements into deep African grooves of forward thinking jazz, executed with total perfection. A little like Miles Davis' masterpiece Sketches Of Spain stretched out and taken to some outer dimension. Patience is a virtue with this piece as it starts out nice and somewhat traditional sounding for the first little while until it morphs into some contemplative and expansive spiritual jazz exploration, the sort of thing that Cohran has definitely mastered. Highly recommended!
Finally, this avant Afro-jazz classic has been repressed, repackaged and re-released on vinyl. On The Beach compiles tracks from the late '60s output of Philip Cohran, one of the founders of Chicago's AACM and an early member of Sun Ra's Arkestra. While Sun Ra looked toward outer space for inspiration, Phil Cohran (himself an astronomer and mathematician) and his ensemble found manifestations of cosmic spirituality here on earth. Mining different musical traditions such as jazz, rhythm & blues, European classical, "Eastern" music, but most specifically reaching into elements of African experience and heritage, the ensemble builds complex rhythms around melodic elements usually provided by Cohran's "frankiphone", a gorgeously buzzing bell-like electrified thumb piano of his own design.
On "Unity," which appeared on the excellent Oulele comp a few years ago, the percussion-heavy groove is anchored by the steady droning of Cohran's violin uke. The results go beyond "jazz," even when adding modifiers like avant- or afro-. This is soul music on a higher plane. So beautiful and powerful, this work fits into a larger picture that includes the afro-centric work of John Coltrane, Art Ensemble of Chicago's free-funk explorations with Fontella Bass, and Fela Kuti's consciousness raising jams. Members of the Artistic Heritage Ensemble went on to play with the likes of Miles Davis and Earth, Wind & Fire. Incredible and Essential!
Philip Cohran is a true unsung hero in the history of cosmic jazz. He played with Sun Ra in the late '50s and '60s and was a cofounder of the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians). In the late '60s he ran the Afro-Arts Theater in Chicago, which was the location of this mesmerizing concert that Cohran performed with the Artistic Heritage Ensemble as a tribute to the late Malcolm X. Originally released on LP on Cohran's Zulu label, the record has been out of print for ages and commanded big dollars from those lucky enough to track down a copy. Lucky for us this amazing performance is now available on cd for the first time. The first track starts a reeeal slow before the fire starts to burn hotter and hotter as the performance goes on. With an ensemble that included trumpet, trombone, tuba, conga, guitar, bass, percussion, sax, cornet and vocals from Sister Ella Pearl Jackson, this is some seriously forward thinking jazz, just dripping with soul and consciousness. Like the more melodic moments of the Art Ensemble Of Chicago and early Sun Ra, this is totally essential and one of the best jazz reissues we've heard in quite a while!
This is a second pressing of "On The Beach," compiling tracks from the late '60s output of Philip Cohran, one of the founders of Chicago's AACM and early member of Sun Ra's Arkestra. While Sun Ra looked toward outer space for inspiration, Phil Cohran (himself an astronomer and mathematician) and his ensemble found manifestations of cosmic spirituality here on earth. Mining different musical traditions such as jazz, rhythm & blues, european classical, "eastern" music, but most specifically reaching into elements of african experience and heritage, the ensemble builds complex rhythms around melodic elements usually provided by Cohran's "frankiphone", a georgeously buzzing bell-like electrified thumb piano of his own design.
On "Unity," which appeared on the excellent Oulele comp a couple years ago, the percussion-heavy groove is anchored by the steady droning of Cohran's violin uke (I presume another of Cohran's designs?). The results go beyond "jazz," even when adding modifiers like avant- or afro-. This is soul music on a higher plane. So beautiful and powerful, this work fits into a larger picture that includes the afro-centric work of John Coltrane, Art Ensemble of Chicago's free-funk explorations with Fontella Bass, and Fela Kuti's consciousness raising jams. Members of the Artistic Heritage Ensemble went on to play with the likes of Miles Davis and Earth, Wind & Fire.
The cd is lovingly packaged in a hand letterpressed sleeve and contains two more tracks than the vinyl version.
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.
The year 2000 looks to be a busy year for Coil, after so many moons of sonic hybernation. "Astral Disaster" is the follow up to "Musick to Listen to in the Dark" and is equally as limited (only 2000). But that number is better than the original edition of "Astral Disaster" (a vinyl edition of only 99 copies!!!). Originally recorded on Samhain under the Thames River, "Astral Disaster" has been reworked into four lengthy pieces of Coil's techno-pagan ritual music that falls between the Coil aesthetic of the Solstice series of 1998 and "Time Machine"'s droning.
This album gives us chills; and for those of you acquainted with the turbulent history of Coil, you will probably have the same jaw-dropping reaction. Almost two years ago, Coil's psycho-pharmacologically inclined founder Jhonn Balance tumbled over a bannister in his home whilst on a several week long vodka binge. When his partner Peter Christopherson found him shortly thereafter, he was unconscious. Despite a quick response from the local authorities, Balance died from his injuries. Death has always surrounded Coil: from the post-industrial recordings of Scatology and Horse Rotovator, when themes of AIDS, the apocalypse, death, and homoeroticism all melded into a nightmarish kaleidoscope, through the later records which held an amorphous mysticism pushed to the brink by Balance's prodigious chemical abuse. But as Balance growls that "most accidents happen close to home" on Black Antlers' "Sex With Sun Ra," the words strike with such a clarity as to make us wonder if Balance himself had any foresight into his own demise. As potent as the lyrical content is for Black Antlers, it's Coil's exquisitely darkened electronica which makes Black Antlers a such an exceptional recording. To be completely honest, we've not always loved much of Coil's material after the seminal 1991 recording Love's Secret Domain; but their final recordings (Black Antlers, Remote Viewer, and The Ape Of Naples -- all of which had been completed / reworked by Christopherson after Balance's death) show just how great they really were. Black Antlers is riveted by blood-stained electronics, tensely rendered arppegiations, and sinister atmospheres that often teeter into melancholy. And yet another minor-key, marimba-driven version of "Teenage Lightning" appears on Black Antlers (marking at least the fourth time that Coil has returned to this song). Altogether, Black Antlers is a brilliant if tragic affair.
A version of Black Antlers appeared a couple years back as a limited edition cd-r, but for this 2006 cd edition, Christopherson has expanded that supposedly rougher mix with additional material and a polished production.
Something we ordered, like 5 years ago from Japan. Never listed it. Just found we have a couple copies in the closet. That's right, TWO copies! But wait, don't get too excited. This isn't THE Coil. Nope, not the British industrial duo. This Coil is a Japanese band, led by guitarist Kido Natsuki, whom you might know as a member of Ruins drummer Tatsuya Yoshida's ultra-tech Korekoyjinn unit. Kido was also integral to Magmoid proggers Bondage Fruit, and in the band Black Stage with Keiji Haino, amongst other musical endeavors. Like Korekojinn, Coil is a power trio, and all-instrumental. But, well, while they're certainly proggy and mathy and technically accomplished, they're also kinda, um, well, funky! As in funk music. Or at least, fusion. So check out the sound samples if you're curious.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This has been a very productive year for Coil, with mixed results coming from so much activity after the long hibernation. "Constant Shallowness Leads To Evil" is a drastic turn for Coil away from their lunar drones and towards a more abrasive sound, with what sounds like manipulated recordings of rumbling diesel engines or malfunctioning amplifier tremolo. The clatter of cutlery and an intrusion of John Balance's seductive voice breaks up (adds to?) the dissonance of this noise production. Definitely better than the last couple of offerings from Coil, but their quality control could still see some improvement overall...
Packaged in one of those plastic clam shell cases (a la the 20' to 2000 series).
We here at Aquarius haven't agreed with the critical acclaim that's greeted the recent output of Coil; however, we do agree that their second proper album "Horse Rotovator" should still be viewed as one of the great electronic albums of the 1980s. Immersed in Industrial Culture's transgressive ideologies, and thus intended as perversions of contemporary media and politics, Coil produced
With bands like Peaches and Trans Am trawling the '80s solely for the purpose of irony, Coil's work from that decade may appear today as excessively bombastic, too homoerotic, or downright dated. However, "Horse Rotovator" and the criminally unavailable "Love's Secret Domain" undeniably stand at the apex of Coil's extensive career.
