With each subsequent release, Colleen (aka Cecile Schott) finds a new idiosyncratic path in approaching the sounds of her desires. Having an immense love for the sounds of antique medieval and renaissance instrumentation but without the classical training or the presupposed musical discipline required to master them, she has taken artfully slow and gradual steps backwards into the learning process. She first began to sample her friend's classical record collections to create electronic looping compositions, then armed with effects pedals she began playing borrowed instruments and sampling herself. Last year's experiments with augmented antique music boxes has bolstered her confidence into further distilling the electronic "crutches" from her work and learn not only to play but to compose on some of the antique instruments herself. Les Ondes Silencieuses (The Still Waters) is the wondrous result of her latest efforts with studying the viola da gamba, (an ancestor to the cello but with seven strings made of gut instead of four strings made of steel), and the spinet (a baby harpsichord). Sometimes her pieces are accompanied by classical guitar, clarinet and crystal glass, but most of the time the pieces are spare letting the singular instruments sing out their sweet melodies all alone. Haunting and subdued, these post-classical and post-minimalist compositions are unique in the way that gazes backward and forward in musical time without fitting neatly into a specified place. We need a new genre to place her in. Loner Classical? Antique Folk? Whatever you want to call it, this is highly recommended!
It was like AQ was filled with giggling school girls on the day this new gorgeous Colleen release came in. If you have been in the store in recent months there is a good chance you've been here while we listened to Colleen's two albums proper Everyone Alive Wants Answers and The Golden Morning Breaks over and over. There is something so distinctive about the way her records seep into your soul. The delicacy and childlike wonder of her records has made her one of our favorite artists of the last several years. This specially packed cd in the Staalplaat's Mort Aux Vaches series was recorded in 2004 before Colleen recorded Golden Morning Breaks and it saw her making the transition into using and playing acoustic instruments on her own and forgoing the sampling and heavy electronics of her debut. Though even on Everyone Alive... there was something so organic sounding about Colleen's songs and approach that set her apart and above so many of her contemporaries. These songs show her exploring an assortment of different instruments (zither, thumb piano, cello, ukelel, etc) but no matter what her hands are playing there is that constant amazing feeling of tender yearning beneath the achingly beautiful execution. Underlying everything is a subtle tension and haunting quality that takes the songs beyond just pretty and into a whole other category. We guess they call that the sublime. Whatever you call it, all we know is that Colleen is something totally special!
NB: This, like all Mort Aux Vaches releases, is limited and won't last long...
Colleen is the only music maker we can think of who can so perfectly crawl into our hearts, curling up and making it feel like home, with such delicacy and the softest sweetest touch. While not the official follow up to her gorgeous sophomore outing, The Golden Morning Breaks, this is a collection of recordings she made when commissioned by the French national radio station to record music for a special broadcast of Atelier De Creation Radiophonique (Radiophonic Workshop Of Creation). In taking on this commission Colleen decided to use the opportunity to further explore her love of and work with music boxes. Using everything from miniature music boxes hidden in 1940's birthday cards to huge Victorian parlor boxes, she hijacks and tweaks these boxes to create even more melodic, haunting, and beautiful creations. Whether playing them with her fingers or using a mallet, resampling, adding delay, reverb or pitch shifting, Colleen is one of those rare souls who can somehow make the sound of music boxes even more precious, delicate and dreamlike. Luckily she was happy enough with the results that she allowed Leaf to release this under the name Colleen Et Les Boites (Colleen and the Music Boxes). And once again we wish we could commission Colleen to make music for all of our dreams. So totally beautiful!
Really excellent Czech prog rock from 1973. Collegium Musicum were an instrumental organ-bass-drums trio in the best classically-influenced tradition. In other words, E.L.P.!!! This live album (their best release) is full of extended, virtuoso soloing from all three members. Energetic, kinda heavy, sometimes happy, sometimes dark, great music. Full-on '70s prog with a nice Eastern-European vibe. And we love the cover shot! (Not new, but we got a couple and wanted to list it, along with the equally awesome Fermata disc, for the Iron Curtain prog freaks we know populate our mailing list!)
If you've only recently plugged into the Canadian indie music scene, you may know this fellow only as the guitarist of Broken Social Scene, but his music-making past stretches far back beyond his days in that band -- first and foremost as a solo singer/songwriter in Toronto but also supporting and collaborative player with a few fellow Canadians that you may or may not have heard of (Hawksley Workman and Andrew Cash to name a couple). This is his follow-up to 2003's Motor Motel Love Songs which was a collection of early recordings also released on the Arts & Crafts label (home to Broken Social Scene, Stars, Valley Of The Giants and the most recent American Analog Set album). What this all means is that Collett's certainly no rookie. His chops and songwriting quill are sharp, but his manner and mood are comfortingly well-worn and easy-going. Warm and casual and frequently reminiscent of (but not totally a replication of) the sounds of '70s soft (and not so soft) rockers such as Bread, Joe Walsh, and America. The third song "Brownie Hawkeye" even reminded us of the theme to Welcome Back Kotter... which we're not sure is a good or bad thing. Well, we're leaning more towards the latter actually, but it's redeemed by the punchy pop of the sixth song "I'll Bring The Sun" (in our opinion, it's the album's standout and a shining single if there were to be a designated one for this album), Then, Collett turns on a dime and delivers the hushed, achingly pretty "Tinsel And Sawdust". Nice. Sure to please fans of his more well-known Canadian connection or those of the recent '70s soft rock revivalists.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
For this double 7" set, sound artist Joe Colley (who recently dropped his longstanding Crawl Unit moniker) presents an exercise in conceptual minimalism, even if the end results aren't entirely keeping in the minimalist tradition. On each composition, Colley manipulates only two tape loops, allowing them to phase in and out of rhythm, slowing them down, speeding them up, and crossfading between the two. Considering that his source materials are ominous electronic field disturbances and hotwired drones, the cross-pollenization of the two loops creates a sonic friction that is intentionally caustic and mechanical. Even the drones are noxious enough as to create a very tense environment for the mantra of looping crackle and hum.
Anthem collects two sets of long out-of-print 3" inch singles from Joe Colley's earlier days, right after he shed the Crawl Unit moniker in the early oughts. There's the titular track which was originally released on C.I.P, which came out in 2001 and which we had been able to stock back in the day through Mr. Colley himself. The flipside contains all of the material from the uncomfortably packaged triple-business-card cd-r entitled Triptych For Paranoia Calibration, released through the terminally underground California noise label Banned Productions. The first side, subtitled "Static For Empty Life", lifts itself out of deep rumblings with streaming, cold gray ribbons of electrical fizzings that subtly phase across the stereo field. These physically active drones build up to a sublime chorus of electrical field hummings, that deflate into silence before throbbing mechanical stabs of low-bit-rate noise drive to the end of the piece. Where moments of "Anthem" are relatively placid and almost pretty (for a Joe Colley track, that's saying something!), "Triptych" is a torturous affair of brutalist squiggles, damaged circuit-bending techniques, mistreated electronics, and dead-line tones, all of which get caught in out of phase tape loops. Brilliantly toxic work, as always. Limited to just 200 copies.
While he may have permanently dropped his industrialist moniker Crawl Unit, Joe Colley continues to impress with his ominous compositions of mistreated electronics, tonally pleasing feedback mantras, and abrasive physicality. "Anthem: Static For Empty Life" lifts itself out of deep rumblings with streaming, cold gray ribbons of electrical fizzings that subtly phase across the stereo field. These physically active drones build up to a sublime chorus of electrical field hummings, which abruptly jump-cut to throbbing mechanical stabs of low-bit-rate noise. Often alluding to less specific metaphors of urban decay or social collapse, Colley's aesthetic choices are just as strong as work by John Duncan or Francisco Lopez. It's a bit of shame that it's 18 minutes long, but it does make for a great ride!
If you hold the cover at just the right angle, a misanthropic and self-loathing text emerges from what might appear at first to be simply just another austere, all white package housing another austere album of micro-glitch minimalism. This well-executed design strategy (courtesy of Randy Yau) works to complement Joe Colley's subversive agenda, which even ends up undermining his own intentions. For all of the macho posturing of the text (e.g. "REMEMBER HOW WE DESTROYED THE THINGS THAT MADE US HAPPY AND HOW WE STILL DO? LETS DAMAGE EACH OTHER BEYOND REPAIR..." and so on) and the opening 8 second jolt of unneccessary noise, Colley's sound constructions speak of an inquisitive spirit. Throughout this record, Colley pokes and prods various sonic-making situations that often hold fascinating textural detailings. The most obvious example of this is found in his recordings of water being absorbed by modelling clay, which results in a dense chorus of tiny squeaks and squiggles. Colley almost allows himself to be seduced by these sounds; but just before he does, that misanthropic urge deep within his being instructs him to obliterate those curious textures though harsh digital noises, piercing arpeggiations, and noxious jump-cuts. This strategic hammering of sound certainly keeps the listener alert to what may be coming next; thus making the intricate detail work far more enjoyable... if "enjoyable" can in fact be a description attributed to Colley's solo output or his earlier work as Crawl Unit.
A few months ago, the French label Ferns published a brilliant 3" CD from mnortham who created an homage to his father, the race car driver, through a ecstatic droning collage of racetrack recordings. The very next release from the label happens to be from the Bay Area's Joe Colley, who in turn, composed a unsettling piece dedicated to his father as well, the beekeeper. We simply could not help notice the coincidence of the fatherly inspiration found on these two recordings, and wonder if the next couple (i.e. Small Cruel Party and Giancarlo Toniutti, if you must know) will follow the same pattern in creating sonic portraits. As you probably could ascertain, Colley's Hive is sourced from beehives, with many of the recordings processed and mangled. With the resultant sounds being much less destructive / misanthropic than those heard on Psychic Stress Soundtracks or Desperate Attempts At Beauty, Colley pursues a relatively subtle composition through the anxious energy of bees rattling within a hive and swarming drones that have been hushed into a peculiarly dreamy cloud of soft white noises. Hive is incredibly well executed, but the lack of anything overtly abrasive, toxic, or downright meanspirited in a Colley piece can be a little unsettling, as we had braced ourselves for the swarm of bees to erupt from the speakers in a nightmarish attack of razor-sharp distortion. But after the second and third listens to Hive, we sank into the rich buzzing sounds wondering if this is how it sounds to have a colony of bees placidly crawling over one's head. Very nicely done.
Some 10 years ago, there was Joe Colley hulking over a four-track on the floor of 964 Natoma - a performance space in San Francisco that hosted the monthly Field Effects series by Aaron Ximm (aka Quiet American). Ximm populated the very large loft in that converted autobody shop into one of the best places to experience live music, by encouraging the audience to sprawl out on futons, couches, bean bags, and pillows in order to better zone-out and focus on the sounds at hand. While much of the work that Ximm would curate focused on sound ecology and phonography, he would bring in some more intense acts such as R.H.Y. Yau & Scott Arford's legendary Infrasound, Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson, and Joe Colley. At the time of this performance in 2002, Colley was just starting to record under his own name after a stint using the far more abject moniker Crawl Unit. As the explosive and negating power of his earlier noise constructions matured into complex, more conceptual pieces, Colley began to develop into something akin to the Bruce Naumann of sound art - with repetitive, occasionally self-destructive actions that investigated psychological, behavioral, and cultural codes.
"Lonely Microphone" is a reconstruction from the original tape-piece that Colley presented at 964 Natoma; and our memory of the night doesn't recall much more than the view of the lumbering Colley crouched over his gear and the impact of his signature jolts of sonic juxtaposition. Here, Colley masterfully puts together an album that looks to the woolly electronic scrabblings of David Tudor, the expressive environmental collage work of Eric La Casa, and the dead-line feeds of CM von Hausswolff. Ugly buzzes from gutted consumer electronics, terse piezo chirps, blasts of wind-shearing noise, monstrous din from some infernal machine belching beneath the San Francisco urbane crust, and plenty of watery field recordings threatening to short out Colley's haphazardly constructed microphones and hand-soldered circuits. That sense of threat is a constant in Colley's work, the threat of disaster, the threat that nothing will be resolved, the threat of another dead end, the threat that 'no' might be the only answer. "Lonely Microphone" is one of the more subtle presentations of Colley's work, and more self-contained than the post-structuralist ellipsis of his opus "Disasters Of Self." Recommended as with pretty much everything he's ever done.
Once known as Crawl Unit, the Californian misanthrope Joe Colley has never been as prolific as many of his contemporaries such as Francisco Lopez, Daniel Menche, and The Hafler Trio. While this is not to say that none of those artists exhibit much in the way of quality control (quite the contrary!), Joe Colley's constant fussiness coupled with a self-identification with failure lends his recordings to readings as these fringe elements of sound research touching on psychological issues into the nether regions of the human psyche as well as mechanical engineering gone awry. It's been a little over two years since Colley's previous album Desperate Attempts At Beauty, and we have to say that Psychic Stress Soundtracks is a step up from that impressive piece of work. Refreshingly devoid of digital effects and techniques, the Psychic Stress Soundtracks feature five lengthy compositions in which a handful of surplus electronics, motors, and mechanical objects have been rewired to exaccerbate their collapse. Within the hiss of circuits meltings and gears jamming, Colley coaxes a toxic array of hums, clicks, pings, and drones, and in turn, sculpts them into an amazing set of electro-shock minimalism confounded by numerous compositional detours and ruptures. This is well worth checking out!
Earlier in 2006, Joe Colley won an Award of Distinction at the 2006 Prix Ars Electronica in Digital Music for his album Psychic Stress Soundtracks. The jurors of Ars Electronica grafted a political sentiment onto Colley's work by drawing parallels between Psychic Stress Soundtracks and the use of extreme sound as a method of interrogation pushed to the brink of what can be defined as torture under the Geneva Convention. While Colley's previous work has intentionally blurred the boundaries between noise, sound research, and psychology, all of his investigations (including Psychic Stress Soundtracks) appear as exercises in self-negation and existential failure manifested through maltreated electronics (as opposed to what those at Ars Electronica saw in his work as a mimetic work of external horror). Waste Of Songs is a blunt follow up to Psychic Stress Soundtracks, and true to Colley's demeanor, he's not particularly inclined to resolve any questions about the intentions of his album or its relation to the outside world. Rather, it's another brilliantly executed album of his own "negative reactions to an environment" as realized through jittering electronic feedback, overdriven servo-motors smoldering with too much voltage pushed through their dynamos, volatile drones extracted from the ether, and field recordings rendered toxic with choice use of DSP treatments. The exact synthesis between Xenakis' precision and Wolf Eyes' malaise; yeah, that's close enough to describing this. Highly recommended.
This is not a split release as Joe Colley is the individual behind Crawl Unit, and perhaps should be seen as an indication that Joe is phasing out his Crawl Unit moniker. Regardless, "Sound Until The World Ends" is another great addition to the often overlooked / underappreciated catalogue of Mr. Colley, whose work has always been as good / if not better than Francisco Lopez, Zbigniew Karkowski, and other manipulators of physical sound. This vinyl only LP (as is the case for everything released so far on ERS) is broken into discrete sections which begin quite benignly with low-end drones and the delicate flutter of delay pedals feeding back upon themselves. But any tranquility these sounds offer quickly dissipates amidst noxious distortions and chopped white noise that steadily build up into a crescendo and quickly drop off into an abyss of deep tonal floats. This is the pattern that Colley follows through 4 or 5 sections throughout the record. Constructed at Colley's base of operations in Sacramento during the much ballyhooed California power crisis in the summer of 2001, "Sound Until The World Ends" alludes to the hyperboles of apocalyptic literature (found in the title and the pseudo-luddite note that this album was "mixed by hand (without a computer)". Given how incredibly hot Sacramento can get in the summer, such references may be warranted. Nevertheless, this is a great album.
'70s/'80s funk icon Bootsy gets a double cd best of set courtesy Rhino, 25 cuts of psychoticbumpschoolin' from the Bootzilla. Includes personal fave "Mug Push". Would-be funkateers lacking these tracks need to rectify that lapse immediately.
"Got the munchies... for your chocolate star"???
Mug push!!
The work of the woman who was without a doubt one of the most smoking soul sisters to come out of the James Brown camp, this 1974 album finally gets the new vinyl reissue it deserves. With 'The Minister Of New New Super Heavy Funk' Mr. James Brown on board as producer, Check Me Out If You Don't Know Me By Now shows off the fiery hot vocals of Lyn Collins, with the undisputed cream of the crop of funk and soul players backing her up. With burners like "Rock Me Again & Again & Again & Again", poppy nuggets like "Mr. Big Stuff" and emotionally rich tracks like "Put It On The Line", this is an album that displays Collins' amazing range all the while keeping an authentic core that rings so strongly through each of these songs.
An absolute must have for fans of Betty Davis, Betty Harris, Marva Whitney and the rest, and it seems likely that modern day folks who are keeping it real like Sharon Jones & The Dapkings have listened to this album a LOT. So damn good.
Hot damn! Lyn Collins has always been one of our favorite funky soul singers who for some reason never gets the widespread attention she so totally deserves. If you aren't familiar with her, all we really have to say is that she was discovered by James Brown and was a major part of his live revue, as well as being cousins with Bootsy Collins, and she manages to be just as cool as that combination sounds. Even if you think you haven't heard Lyn Collins you probably have, as the title track to this album was sampled by '80s hip-hop one hit wonders Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock on their perpetual party jam "It Takes Two." But those who know the power of Collins' voice are aware that she has laid down some of the most fierce and moving soul and funk tracks of the '70s. With James Brown at her side as producer and writer of several songs here, Think (About It) has the deep grooves of the best of the JB's records but with a strong and sassy female perspective, Collins belting powerfully over such righteous songs. The album is mixed with uptempo funk filled burners, a few slower ballads, some nice doo-wopish moments and her take on the Bill Withers classic "Ain't No Sunshine."
She is usually one of those artists that just ends up being heard via a track on a compilation but she is someone who for sure deserves to have an entire album in any music lover's collection.
Some experimental music is more experimental than other experimental music. Nicolas Collins' Devil's Music, it's safe to say, was (and is) an Experiment. One that tests a theory described in the liner notes: "I have long assumed the radio to be the world's cheapest, yet most powerful synthesizer: you can find any sound out there; the only question is, can you find the sound you want when you want it?" Naturally, the results of this experiment fall into that realm of unusual sounds that would be reissued by Japan's ever-eccentric EM Records label, and glad we are of EM's diligent efforts to dig up such artifacts!
Devil's Music hails from the heyday of sampling music (late '80s), so it bears some similarity to the works of Christian Marclay and Steinski, but Collins is (as per his theorizing) using radios, not turntables. It also reminds us of stuff by John Oswald, the Tape-Beatles, and other "plunderphonic" artists, but in John Cage like fashion, Collins has introduced an element of chance into the genre of sample-basic music making. Inspired also by hip hop DJs, Collins' music here is performed live, in a spontaneous, improvisatory mode, at the mercy of whatever he can snatch from the local airways at that very moment to weave into his stuttery sound-collages. Every performance was thus very different in audio content, if not structure and rhythm.
Further explanation, from the liner notes to the original Devil's Music LP (1986): "[F]ragments of radio broadcasts are digitally sampled, looped, re-triggered and occasionally reversed or de-tuned. All material is taken from FM and AM transmissions occuring at the time of the performance. The performer plays off of certain musical ground-rules intrinsic to the sampling system (which consists of two modified inexpensive effect devices) to develop the quirky rhythmic interplay that characterizes the piece."
Conceptually (and chaotically) interesting, definitely, but difficult listening too. You know best your own tolerance for this sort of thing. People into rhythmic noisiness ought to like it. The density of this "music", and the element of repetition, makes it mesmeric, maybe. But for many, it might be maddening - ferinstance, hearing some anonymous announcer man say "outdoor swimming pool" over and over and over again, nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nineteen style, amidst a barrage of (drum machine?) beats, before the track shifts, ADD-like, to another non-sequitur sample randomly snatched from the airwaves, is sure to drive some folks nuts!
Though the first side of Devil's Music is supposed to be "dance" oriented (he tuned into his favorite of New York's urban dance stations, like a DJ looking for breaks), the inclusion of voices from radio advertising tends to dominate. The second side of Devil's Music is maybe a bit more, um, musical seeming in its source material. "More rock, less talk" would be the motto, except it's not rock, actually easy listening and classical radio stations being plundered. Both sides are featured on the first disc of this two disc set, along with a previously unreleased 1988 tape music piece utilizing lots of voices scanned from police band radio, ship-to-shore transmissions, taxi dispatch, etc., which aren't all cut up and stuttery like on Devil's Music, but patched together into more of a "narrative" exercise.
The second disc here consists of yet more delirious variations on the Devil's Music concept, realized at live concerts in Europe and the USA, originally released on a 1987 cassette release entitled Real Landscape. And also, in addition, on this disc you'll find a computer program Collins wrote recently that's essentially a software "recreation" of his original hardware set-up and compositional strategy so that YOU can plug a radio into your computer and try making the Devil's Music yourself!! There's both Mac and PC versions provided. (Not included on the vinyl format, obviously.)
And there's extensive liner notes (complete with footnotes) from Collins about his ideas, methods, and equipment (with color photos of the latter, for all you tech geeks). EM, as always, has certainly done a thorough job with this release, which deserves the attention. Difficult listening it may be, but put into historical context, you can see how some consider Collins a bit of a techno pioneer, and certainly hear how his work foreshadowed the digital "glitch" music of Oval and Lesser and the like later on.
Sad old songs sung in the beautiful, pure voice of the incomparable Shirley Collins, the UK's "first lady of folk". This cd is a reissue of her very first album from 1959, recorded by her then-boyfriend Alan Lomax (with whom she travelled the American South
Traditional English folks songs recorded in the sixties and seventies by Shirley and her sister. Guitar, flute-organ, and one of the clearest voices we've ever heard. So beloved by David Tibet of Current 93 that he was involved with reissuing this...
There's been quite a few Shirley Collins reissues lately, and they're all pretty great if you've got a soft spot for this British singer's sweet voice and the trad folk she celebrates. We should get 'em all reviewed one of these days, but we thought that we absolutely had to provide a little write-up for this one, originally released on LP in 1964. Amidst the many wonderful Collins discs, this one is just a little bit different and special because it finds her collaborating with pioneering jazz/folk guitarist Davy Graham. It was some record company's notion of getting folk vet Collins and up-and-coming guitarist Graham (a fellow turned on to both Thelonious Monk and Indian raga) to make a "folk-swinging" record, but one that worked out well, even if they were somewhat of an odd couple -- Collins a responsible young mother with two children, the younger Graham a decidely bohemian character with vices that extended beyond merely smoking pot. But despite their differing lifestyles, Collins and Graham's Folk Roots, New Routes is quite a wonderful one-off work, blending old fashioned folk and modern jazz and strains of non-Western music into arrangements both innovative and lovely.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This compilation of unreleased recordings and demos from 1966-1979 was released as an addition to the Fledg'ling label four cd Shirley Collins box set Within Sound. This 22 song set of traditional fare accompanied by sister Dolly on organ is sweet but a bit lackluster, perhaps for completists only. While this is meant to be a tribute to Dolly who passed away in 1995 (as well as a final career rounder for Shirley herself), for anyone new to the Collins sisters stunning musical power, we recommend 1970's apocalyptic folk epic and Current 93 fave, Love, Death and the Lady as a more proper introduction.
One of four new Root Strata cassettes we got in this week, William Fowler Collins debut release for the label is easily the darkest of 'em all. Trading in his electric guitar for a wholly different instrument, the shruti box (a hand-pumped acoustic drone instrument), Collins nevertheless manages to create a chillingly holistic composition that surges and delves into otherworldly realms while keeping the filtered feedback and power drones of his previous works intact. We have been huge fans of his work since his first release Western Violence and Brief Sensuality, and fans of his most recent dark desert doom epic Perdition Hill Radio released on Type last year will definitely need to get this. "Part I" has more of a cosmic upward momentum as the sped-up pulsations of the instrument seem to shimmer and float toward the sun. It's not necessarily heavenly as the composition seems to lose all air as it simmers and takes on more heat. On "Part II" however, things take a more earthbound turn. The drones grow thicker and more wooly, ringing with denser tones and urgent almost molten tonal pulses and sawtoothlike sparks of white noise. We can't help but think of Icarus, before and after his fall. A truly doomed epic. Limited to 100 copies. It'll be gone before you know it, so don't hesitate!
We were big fans of William Fowler Collins' debut album, Western Violence & Brief Sensuality, so we're very happy to see that his follow-up, Perdition Hill Radio is being released on one of our favorite experimental labels, Type. Fitting right at home between Koen Holtkamps's dreamy effervescent drift and Svarte Greiner's darkly spectral shipwreck atmospherics, Collins offers an intense nocturnal Western counterpart to the unrelenting Southwest heat of his debut. And from the image of a dim moon behind a dark looming hill on the cover, it's obvious this is a much more doom-laden outing than before. Like slow motion black holes opening in the dark desert sand, the guitar drones that Collins conjures undulate and pull us down into a nether world of enveloping starless night, the air electric with magnetic activity and static radio transmissions that churn and dissipate in an infernal ebb and flow of sonic waves. Like moving indiscernible shapes in the dim light, uncertain sounds peek out through the din, prowling animal growls, ghostly disembodied dialogue like EVP transmissions buried under sheets of noise that at times conjure images of passing trains, horse-led stagecoaches, mysterious Native American rituals, and swarms of flies. The song titles like "Grave Robbing In Texas" and "Slow Motion Prayer Circle" only add to the dread and mystery of what those fleeting sounds could allude to. On the album's 21 minute centerpiece, "Dark Country Road", the far-off echoing twang of a slide guitar can be heard fading into the distance before a mountainous dronescape rises out of the still air and crests tunnel-like into an inky pool of uneasy shimmer for much of its length (the vinyl version ends in a locked groove!). Only on the last song, "The Ghosts of Eden Trail", does the sound brighten up into a beautifully levitating and expansive drifting ambience offering just a glimpse of torturing hope. The limited double vinyl version contains a side-long bonus track, "Saturnine Reverie" not on the cd. We have often said that Earth's later records are Cormac McCarthy novels in song, but Perdition Hill Radio is the closest comparison to an imagined soundtrack for The Road that we have ever heard, and that of course means this has our highest recommendation!!!
The latest from William Fowler Collins finds this prolific soundscaper and dronologist once again delving deep into the shadows, conjuring up a world of permanent darkness, grim and austere, a black ambience that the label compares to Eno, but only if there is some alternate universe Eno, all clad in black, and hunkered down, beneath an ominous array of machines, that look to be designed by HR Giger, and whose sounds could have been designed by Giger as well.
The five part songsuite opens with a sprawl of thick whirring grey noise, a blurred droned out gristly thrum, that is suddenly snuffed out, leaving just plaintive piano, plinking out a melancholy melody, suspended in the ether, stately and hauntingly morose.
From there the sound shifts into a black ambient drift, beginning as a minimal murmur, slowly gaining momentum, piling layer upon layer, the sound growing more caustic and clattery, building to a chaotic coda, before slipping back into a hushed blur. The third movement conjures up some seriously sinister cinematic drones, deep rumbles, like some demonic orchestra tuning up, cavernous and ominous, which gives way to the even MORE minimal and ominous fourth movement, a deep Teutonic rumbling, laced with strange bits of abstract sound, the track gradually and VERY subtly growing more melodic, before finishing in a blaze of grinding chaotic white noise.
From there on out, the record seems to be winding down, the fifth part sounding like The Caretaker, a washed out sprawl of hazy occluded melancholy, buried melodies, and slow shifting textures, a haunting bit of old timey abstract sonic mesmer, which leads to the final track, the most minimal of the bunch, a hushed bit of barely there drift, a barely audible thrum, over more murky melodies, volume cranked it's quite lovely, but definitely a strangely subdued final movement, at least until the last couple minutes (be sure to lower the volume if you had it cranked), a furiously blown out in-the-red blast of face melting howl and LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
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Known as "The Land of Enchantment", the romantic appeal of New Mexico also harbors a thinly veiled sinister quality. Despite its prominence as an epic desert monument heralding incredible vistas and inspiring a nature-based spirituality from its large population of Native Americans, New-Agers and even Catholic Hispanics who flock to the sanctuary of Chimayo every year to take a bit of holy soil said to be blessed with healing powers, the western expansion of the US has also brought to the land massive genocide, toxic pollutants, and covert Government operations. On William Fowler Collins debut CD, the former Mills College graduate who recently relocated to New Mexico, explores the paradoxical perspective of his adopted home through his experimental guitar compositions that are equally beautiful and jarring. Collins' varied use of the guitar with the help of filters and computer programs evokes a wide range of electro-acoustic tropes, many reminiscent of field recordings. The bristling sheets of loud distorted drone that open "Dawn at McDonald Ranch" come across like an air-raid siren or a swarm of locusts before it diffuses into waves of pensive yet gossamer shimmer. The industrial crackle and whirring machine drones of "Untitled Dream 2" recall the metallic toxicity of Superfund sites, and the staticy build-up of broadcast transmissions retains a warm shifting undertone that eases the tension slightly by invoking the bucolic domiciles where such threats live in uneasy harmony. Images of magnetic storms, train engines, electrical lines, and the high-powered industry that Collins evokes through his guitar work are tempered by quietly restrained passages that harbor introspective reflection over the vast and contradictory landscape of mountains, arid deserts and broken mesas. Having previously played with Matmos, Aero-Mic'd, and in his former band Mire, it's nice to see Collins coming into his own on this amazing and accomplished debut. Fans of Tim Hecker, Steven R. Smith, and Flying Saucer Attack should check this out. Recommended!!
THREE, count 'em, three new releases from Utech Records on this week's list, all of them collaborations, this one here with a sonically Southwestern focus, teaming up New Mexican soundscaper William Fowler Collins with Arizona blackdronedirgedoom outfit Gog (both big AQ faves), for some sprawling, smoldering epic black expanses of slow building glacial dirgery and blurred blacknoisedrift. Three epic jams, separated by brief sonic explorations, the longform compositions find Collins and Gog conjuring up swirling black rituals, of hazy rumble and softly churning low end thrum, the sound growing subtly more crunchy and caustic, gradually transforming from hushed ominous shimmer to thick, heaving, roiling heaviness, crumbling avalanches of smeared soft noise, wreathed in strange high end shimmers and shot through with convulsing layers and buried melodies.
"Abandonment" is a creepy bit of subterranean murk, driven by a haunting heartbeat like pulse, the swirling surrounding sounds becoming more and more active, those sounds in turn wreathed in a staticky hiss, building to a swirling psychedelic squall of blurred feedback, keening high end and dense spirals of heavy hiss, before gradually fading back out to a whisper, all the whole, that strange pulse giving the black hissy drift some glacial propulsion. The final track, a massive nearly 18 minute stunner titled "Of Ash And Wind ", begins again, with some distant rumblings, some foghorn like melodies, some groaning and creaking, and deep dark rumbles, but unlike the other three tracks, this one is not a slow build, instead, the sounds ooze and drift and congeal into a creepy pitch black bit of cinematic stasis, definitely headphones required on this one, a softly churning stretch of slow motion shimmer, a deep blackened crawl, laced with strange bits of static and industrial crunch, but those sounds so minimal that minus headphones they just bleed into the surrounding blackness.
Gorgeous stuff. A heady bit of ultra minimal ritualistic black noise / dark ambience that will sound right at home alongside the rest of your ever expanding Utech collection...
Fantastic packaging as always, this time a super intense/beautiful cover image by photographer Max Aguilera-Hellweg.
Having put their post-rock orchestrations on hold for the time being, the members of San Francisco's Tarentel have been exploring a number of divergent musical ideas. Guitarist Jefre Cantu has spent his sabbatical from the group exploring the arenas of digital abstraction in tinkering around with Max / MSP. Sometimes Cantu has been found working under the moniker Joshua Torres for more rhythmic pursuits and under Colophon for the atmospheric work. "Spring" - a 10" released on the promising Dreams By Degrees label - is the first recording that Cantu has done for either project, blurring spartan piano clusters and acoustic guitar samples from the other Tarentel guitarist Danny Grody. Following the lead of fellow dreamy code-slingers Ekkehard Ehlers and Stephan Mathieu, Cantu transforms his source material into a beautiful pixelated ambience haunted with residual melodies and distant rhythms. While this artful 10" is a very nice addition to anybody's collection of Ehlers and Mathieu, its scary to think about how good Tarentel will be if they manage to synthesize Cantu's newfound laptop abilities with Tarentel's rock expansiveness.
Our in-house mycologist (how many record stores can claim one of those?) identified the cover star of this album as an Amanita muscaria, a very colorful and toxic mushroom found throughout the globe. While deaths are uncommon to this particular mushroom, it's also known for its psychoactive properties whose chemical compounds are not actually processed by the human body. So, after consuming one of these mushrooms, you can drink your pee and trip for days. Well, that's what Nick the resident mycologist tells us.
The cosmic trip from Colored Mushroom & The Medicine Rocks comes by way of Cleveland, starring the seemingly ubiquitous John Elliott (Emeralds, Mist, Imaginary Softwoods, Outer Space, etc.) with three other dudes who got together Christmas time of 2009 jamming out a bunch of tapes. This hyper limited LP is a best-of collection from those tapes, whose linear structures of percolating synths, post-Suicide drum machinations, and shimmered tone resembles much of the zoned out work from early Emeralds crossed with the glistening properties of those Mist LPs. Given that this album was released right before Emeralds embarked on a huge US tour opening for Caribou, most of these lps had been sold out on the road. It remains to be seen if we'll be getting any more copies from this pressing which counted less than 500 copies...
We love when folks usually associated with a certain sound and style step out and show off a different part of their make-up. Best known as the drummer for the mighty Comets On Fire, Utrillo Kushner lets his breezy sunny side shine through with his new project Colossal Yes. Perfect for those lazy days when all you wanna do is lay in the grass and stare into the rays of the sun. With really well crafted songs that incorporate lush piano into a more traditional folk/rock mix, this has made us think of the prime pop of Elephant Six related bands, early Mercury Rev, a dash of Beachwood Sparks' relaxed twang, a hint of Vetiver, the blissed out mellow hooks of Mojave 3 and the warmth of early 70's Beach Boys. There is a level of confidence in the playing that helps make this record flow so seemlessly and rise above so many others outfits going for this same sound and style with less satisfying results. Nice stuff!
Here's ten more piano-pop gems from Colossal Yes. Both catchy and somehow laid back, this is a record for outdoor barbeques and conversations with old friends. Not overly sappy, the record walks right through sweetness and sentimentality and emerges on the other side without the ickyness of either. The ubiquitous vocal/piano/guitar combination is fleshed out nicely with the occasional flute, organ or horn, especially noticeable in "They Feast on Us / We Feed on Them" and the penultimate jazzy track, "Outskirts of Radiant". Listening to the album on headphones (always recommended) allows the give and take between guitar (panned left) and piano (panned right) to stand out. Although at times the mix feels like the piano and guitar are fighting amongst themselves for sonic hegemony, they usually compliment each other in a way that shows quality musicianship and songwriting.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
After a couple of EPs, Colossamite has released their first full album of mutant hardcore/jazz-rock. This collective features Nick Sakes, the former vocalist for the Dazzling Killmen, and Chad & Ed from the Iceburn Collective. Odd angular guitar riffs and irregular time signatures played through a precisely calculated intensity. Very nice!
A brief but exhausting 9 minute burst of muscular noiserockskronk from these ex-members of Dazzling Killmen. Includes an unrecognizable Die Kreuzen medley--and, of course, a small frisbee.
Another entry in the ever expanding field of sound making we've dubbed doomdronedirge, from a group called Colossloth. It's a sound we've come to love, we just can't get enough of that creepy downtuned crawl, that sprawling rumbling ambience, it's doomy, but not metal, heavy, but not riffy, it's more like dronemusic infused with a degree of menace, an ominous blackness, think Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, Wicked King Wicker, R.Y.N., Amort, Haptic, Grief No Absolution, and yeah even SUNNO))) to a certain degree.
Colossloth add their own twist to the proceedings, injecting their sound with a hit of industrial ambience, and some haunting piano, the result is entrancing, totally bleak and beautiful, a single epic doomscape, split into two side long drifts, all simple looped pounding rhythms and layered feedback, laced with muted bits of crunch and whir, rumble and creak, while throughout, a piano plays out a mournful melody, strings are plucked, melodies surface and unfurl before slipping back into the miasma, a mysterious minor key sonic dirge, some sort of funereal martial industrial doom drone trudge, mesmerizing and cinematic, this would be the perfect soundtrack for some Italian horror film, with the main character, in some sort of fugue state, hallucinating, wandering through an old empty house and out into the black forest...
Gorgeous and creepy and intense, but also weirdly pretty, the hushed melodic creep constantly battling with the crunch and hiss of the gloomy industrial drift, woven into a perfectly ominous dirgedronedoomdreamscape. AWESOME.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!!!
Customers have been bugging us for a while now to track down some music from German psychedelic stoner rock outfit, and boy are we glad we did. Huge Hendrixian guitars, sun baked and lysergic, like someone snuck into Kyuss's old practice space and swiped THAT guitar tone, but then somehow managed to make it even MORE druggy and fuzzy. Furious blown out space rock jams, that are HUGE and THICK with snarling psychedelic guitars and pounding drums. But Color Haze balance these drug fueled freakouts with long stretches of jazzy shuffle, shimmering cymbals, muted riffing, simple throbbing bass, but it only sets you up to have you head caved in when the hammer falls. And fall it does, hard and heavy and so gloriously downtuned and freaked out.
And the Hendrix thing is actually not all that far off, we might mention Santana too. Color Haze are a weird mash up of epic heart-of-the-sun space rock a la Monster Magnet and Hawkwind, super overblown acid fried stoner rock a la Kyuss, but with plenty of that classic Hendrix guitar fuzz, and dreamily psychedelic Santanian stretched out jams.
Not sure exactly what it is about these guys, but when they lock into a jam, we get totally lost, completely carried away, and when the track finally winds down, we sort of shake out head, all bleary eyed, and try to remember where the hell we are and how we got there. Which probably tells you all you need to know about the potency of these super stoned, drug drenched, space rock freakouts for sure.
We recently reviewed a batch of badass Buffalo reissues courtesy of Aztec Music, an Australian label that's been mining the rich ore of that country's rock n' roll history back in the '60s and '70s. Of the other Aztec releases we've checked out so far, the two albums by a band called Coloured Balls stand out as being crucial to connoisseurs of loud guitar rock. This one's their debut from 1973, and it reveals a high energy band revelling in the oldies rock n' roll of years past (witness their cover of "Whole Lotta Shakin'") while revving up the raw, anti-hippie energy that would explode in the UK circa '77... Yeah, while Buffalo were a proto-metal outfit, sort of the Aussie uncles of Monster Magnet, the Coloured Balls, while heavy, we'd have to describe as being more punk, or proto-punk. And there's a definite dose of boogie bar band bluesiness a la George Thorogood, or better yet, UK blues rock greats the Groundhogs, circa their progressive masterpiece Split. But with much more of a hooligan, kick-yer-head in edge, that's for sure. Some other early '70s acts with similar tendencies with which Coloured Balls could be aligned include the Pink Fairies, the MC5, Crushed Butler, and, not long after, AC/DC.
Apparently they had a lot of trouble with their "anti-social" image (sorta skinheadish "sharpie" haircuts, violence at their shows) but this music's got a lot more going for it than that. The recording simply sounds fantastic, powerful. Real rock n' roll guts and gusto, played by guys who knew what the heck they were doin' -- Coloured Balls were the brainchild of an already-veteran guitar hero named Lobby Loyde, who is all over this album (as well as a bunch of other Aztec reissues as well...).
And we gotta hand it to Aztec, they do a great job in the reissue dep't. This digitally remastered cd comes in a beautiful digipack, with a thick booklet full of pictures and liner notes, including a pro-Balls blurb from Pavement's Stephen Malkmus of all people. There's even also an essay explaining the "sharpie" subculture phenomenon of the times. Plus, the cd features a slew of bonus tracks: six songs from singles, plus a sixteen minute, freeform freakout of a live track from '73 entitled "G.O.D." aka "Guitar Over Dose"!
The late great Aussie underground guitar hero Lobby Loyde lead this crew of hard rocking "sharpies", who made two albums of boogie bar band proto-punk in the early '70s: the classic Ball Power from '73, and this, their not-quite-as-great-but-still-cool 2nd album from '74. The album and its title track may be called Heavy Metal Kid, however it's NOT heavy metal. (Not any more than the unrelated '70s band Heavy Metal Kids was.) But, that title track is an up-up-uptempo proto-glam stormer! Elsewhere, the Balls offer up a high energy mix of '50s style stompers and FX-laden psychedelic fare (such as "Back To You"). ZZ/DC?
Remastered from the original master tapes, pressed on 180 gram vinyl, gatefold sleeve, with lyrics insert & obi, limited!!
