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Repressed and back in print.
Record number two from Leyland Kirby's Caretaker project, whose last record, Persistent Repetition Of Phrases, was a unanimous aQ fave, and was of course one of Wire magazine's top 10 albums of 2008, and was, and still is, one of our best sellers, and it looks like this one is likely to follow suit.
A sonic meditation on memory and loss, The Caretaker, takes old jazz records, various effects, and what sounds like a battery of old beat up Victrolas, and weaves Philip Jeck like soundscapes, but unlike Jeck, the source sounds here are not obfuscated, in fact, in some respects, The Caretaker records are almost like spectral spiritual otherworldly mix tapes, especially on this new one, which sounds like old 78s left to play in a big old auditorium, the room's reverb lovingly wreathing the music in a gauzy old timey haze, the surface noise, hiss and crackle and pop, somehow accentuated by the cavernous space. Better yet, replace the auditorium with an old abandoned mansion. Imagine the great room, animal heads on the walls, old oil paintings, a massive fireplace, charred black, old decaying rugs, all the furniture covered in white cloths, looking like ghosts, cobwebs in all the corners, the floor beneath a layer of dust, and in the corner, an old record player, lit up, its turntable spinning slowly, some old dusty record, to a room full of spirits, a sonic requiem for a time that once was, the music seeming to reflect the ever fading memories, and that's what these songs sound like, some sort of haunted house jazz, old timey seance blues, mournful melodies played on an old piano, muted trumpet, swoonsome strings, shuffling drums, a slow motion big band performing live in the ether, a spectral band playing lament after lament, dedicating it to their lost loves, and loves lost.
An Empty Bliss Beyond This World plays like some archival collection of lost 78's, but where the records' provenance is unknown, timeless music that could have come from anytime, and anywhere, the imperfections and inconsistencies as much a part of the sound as the music itself, all of that hiss and crackle a warm wreath of time-transformed-into-sound detritus, the passing of time mad physical, a sonic memorial to the past. So utterly gorgeous.
One of Wire magazine's records of 2008, the Caretaker's Persistent Repetition Of Phrases was in fact, when we finally got to hear it, incredible. Gorgeous, hazy, mysterious, destined to be one of OUR favorites as well. Unfortunately, when we tried to order it, intending to feature it prominently on the list, we discovered that it was in fact so limited that it was already out of print, not to be repressed. Argghhh.
Thankfully, the vinyl version showed up recently, so we grabbed as many as we could, so we could shower it with the praise it most definitely deserves. CD only folks are shit out of luck, but for now (and we mean NOW, these are crazy limited too) we have the vinyl, so grab one before they disappear.
The Caretaker has two modes, slow shimmery gauzy ambience, and slowed down warped and blurred big band and jazz. Often combing the two into some sort of otherworldly slow motion spectral dream jazz. We've been joking that the Caretaker is sort of like the DJ Screw of the avant underground, seeing as he takes scratchy old jazz records and reworks them Philip Jeck style into, woozy buried drifts of jazz shadows and haunting otherworldly vocals. Most of the jazzier tracks, sound like the soundtrack to some super creepy dream sequence, a la the Shining, like when Nicholson finds himself in that bar filled with ghosts, you can almost imagine, a dusty old saloon, broken mirrors, cigarette burned tables, sawdust floors, a lone figure sitting alone, hunched over in a dark corner, while all around him, nearly transparent figures move about as if still alive, a ballet of phantom familiarity, spirits unaware that they've moved on, going on with the machinations of daily life, their essence flickery and indistinct, like an old filmstrip. And a filmstrip soundtrack is exactly what the music of the Caretaker evokes, warm, effusive, burnished, old timey, antiquated, the sounds are dark and woozy and and bleed together, blurring into fuzzy stretches of lost memory, of suspended time. The music here is the sound of faded old photographs, of old super 8 movies projected on a wall in a dark and dusty old room, of abandoned skating rinks, of boarded up windows, of black clouds filling a slate grey sky, of life slowing to a crawl, before ven more slowly fading away. Absolutely and utterly breathtaking.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES.
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The Caretaker spins really old vinyl for the most part much slower than intended and affects the lugubrious pace with assorted warbly effects. This collage of slo-mo waltzes and antique crackles is punctuated by a spartan use of distorto-breakbeat-crunch. Released on V/VM's label and certainly follows the V/VM - Speedranch - Janski Noise aethetic of neo-dada electronica, yet presented with a very sad overtone. In the end this could easily be some gossamer soundtrack to a deep sea nature show or an alternate score to the ballroom scenes in "The Shining".
Holy cow, this is a weird one. Rock fans may recognize the name Tony Carey, knowing that he was of course the keyboard player in Rainbow (playing alongside Ronnie James Dio and Richie Blackmore!), but then those same folks might find themselves wondering what the heck he's doing on Medical Records, who specializes in new wave / electro pop reissues. Well it seems that after Rainbow, Carey did indeed have a bunch of solo records that did quite well, but in the late seventies, he took up a residence in Germany, and began to work on mastering all sorts of instruments and studio gear, and writing a ton of songs, some of which would eventually end up on these records. Influenced by what he called "Euro-electronica", Carey's version of that sound is equal parts swirling kosmische synthscapes, Italo-disco, proto-techno, and yeah, a little eighties style electro pop.
This two lp collection gathers up two essential and long sought after Carey rarities, Explorer and Yellow Power, Explorer might be the more essential of the two, if just for the opening track "Enjaw J", which is such an amazing song, from its pulsing synth swirl open, a cascade of dizzying melodies, leads into a darkly dramatic groove, with a killer hook, surprisingly melancholic, the song stretching out, and letting the drum machine, and pulsating synths drive this electro-kraut workout, peppered part way through with a strange noisy swell and a splatter of abstract percussion. You'll find this one stuck in your head after one listen guaranteed. The rest of the record is pretty great too, but definitely leans more toward an eighties electro-pop. "Transit To Nowhere" almost sounds like an alternate version of the Sparks' "Cool Places", while "No.8" is a strange abstract slab of minimal electro-dub, and "Queen Of Scots" sounds a bit like A-Ha, a moody and dramatic, with a cool cascading main melody that again, like the opener is crazy catchy. There's definitely a cheesy element to these songs and sounds, but it's kind of what makes them so cool, that and realizing this guy once rocked out in Rainbow!
The other record, Yellow Power, is a sort of companion to Explorer, and shares much of the same sonic palette, but seems a it more thematically linked, to the somewhat problematic title, when you realize some of the song titles are "Peking Duck", "Radio Tokyo" and "Hai Samurai", that one complete with some weird processed vox singing "HAI!"
There are some of the same tracks on both records, it has been theorized that one was demos for the other, but the version are different enough the make it worth it. Yellow Power definitely features more vocals overall, whispers here and there, wailing operatic female vox in the background, and it's interesting to hear some of the instrumental tracks on Explorer with vocals. There seems to be more guitar too, and more studio fuckery, they're both weird, each one weird in a slightly different way. We're digging this a LOT, and we should say, that of all the Medical releases we've reviewed, this is the one our distributor excitedly insisted we get a bunch of cuz it's so weird, and so good, and we most definitely agree.
Super swank packaging, the records pressed on thick 160 gram colored vinyl, one record green, the other blue, housed in a super thick full color gatefold sleeve, limited to 100 copies, each one hand numbered. Includes a bonus insert with a retrospective and interview.
Another primo slice of forgotten Nashville from the always kick ass Omni Recording Corporation. Over the last few months, Omni has brought us discs from Johnny Paycheck, Tommy Cash, Dee Mulling, Lorne Greene, Gil Trythall, as well as the amazing Plantation Gold compilation we made Record Of The Week back on list 314.
Apparently Cargill was quite a hitmaker back in the day, his "Skip A Rope", a rumination on racism, was somewhat controversial, but also netted him some serious chart action on both the country and pop charts. But before that, he had apparently struggled to get heard, as a page in the cd booklet proclaims: "Rejected by nearly every label in Nashville"! That all changed after the hit, but this collection focuses on the recordings pre breakthrough, and it's difficult to understand why some of these weren't hits as well.
Lots of Omni stuff is far out and kitschy, but this is just some serious genuine sixties country pop, we've seen it referred to elsewhere as 'countrypolitan', but whatever you call it, this is some gorgeous stuff, simple and heartfelt, lush instrumentation, Cargill's voice is deep and dramatic, his songs touch on some sensitive topics even in these early days, the whole On The Road record a study of the great Depression, tales of poverty, war, loss, death and loneliness. The early tracks are definitely the best, tacked on to the end are some later tracks, recorded in the seventies, and they tend toward the overly dramatic, lush, string laden, shades of Neil Diamond and Tom Jones, some killer moments, but stick to the first 22 tracks, all appearing on cd for the first time, and a handful, stone cold classics.
As always, a massive booklet, tone of rare photos, and lengthy and super informative liner notes.
After numerous releases as Caribou (as well as his previous moniker Manitoba), mainman Dan Snaith has shifted gears from densely packed dreamy pop-tronica to densely packed upliftingly melodious songcraft. Quite a startling change, but a most pleasant one! We always welcome music that helps us stretch out the summertime good feelings a little longer into the autumn months. Caribou's latest album fits that bill perfectly. It sounds to us as if Snaith has been intently studying the works of The Beatles and Brian Wilson in his pursuit of pop bliss. Can't blame him! Who better to be a role model than those folks? Anyways, Andorra is a delirious trip that soars from swirling blown-out pop that also recalls Flaming Lips and Olivia Tremor Control to late '60s harp stroked, tambourine tapped party pop a la Free Design. Like an ice cream cone on a sunny day, as the album progresses it melts slowly, changing form into a pastel puddle of shoegazerness. Songs such as "She's The One" also spurred imaginings of Snaith as the male counterpart to Julee Cruise. Ooooh, so sweetly splendid.
Here's a glimpse of what's to come on Caribou's new full length set to be released on Merge Records next month! The Canadian one man band Caribou has always equally embraced indie pop and electronica in his music making. His latest ep marks a bit of a shift in the balance. Melody Day is the least electronica and most indie pop of any if his recordings to date. Still very soft and pretty, but this time Dan Snaith has opted for Flaming Lips meets Polyphonic Spree swirling luscious pop stylings. Particularly the latter with the title track's sweet, angelic group vocals that sound like a children's chorus. Oddly enough the next track, a remix of "Melody Day" by Four Tet, sounds more like Caribou! Easily fits in with the dreamy pop on Slumberland and Sarah Records as well as the abovementioned artists. Also includes the non-album track "Zoe".
It's been 4 years since Dan Snaith's last record under the Caribou moniker, though he took a detour to record a techno-oriented album under a new moniker Daphni in 2012. Here on Our Love, he returns to form melding the Arthur Russell-ish dance floor excursions from his last outing, Swim, with some of the hazy pop bliss of older efforts Andorra and Milk of Human Kindness, into a slow disco candyland of blissfully moving synthforms, low-key soulful vocals and ear-wormy edits. Our Love may be his most fully realized record, its nuanced sound more polished and less experimentally pulled together from various approaches than previous efforts, marked by a noticeable restraint that keeps the tracks lean, but never lacking. In fact, it's got plenty of dynamic shifting movement and bounce, while retaining a deep emotional core in the songwriting. Admittedly, it took us awhile to get into this, mainly because we weren't sure that its attention to surface detail would penetrate deeper. But once we did we haven't stopped playing it.
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The Torontonian artist Dan Snaith who now goes by the professional moniker Caribou used to prefer to be addressed by the name of a Canadian prairie province. Minor legal battles ensued with the elder musical artist Handsome Dick Manitoba claiming the name, and the rest is history. While Snaith was Manitoba, he released two terrific albums 2003's Up In Flames and 2001's Start Breaking My Heart which have now been reissued under his 'new' name, each with a bonus disc packed with extra material. Snaith has amassed quite an impressive body of work to date culminating in last year's very warmly received The Milk Of Human Kindness. Draws comparisons to fellow electronic popsters such as Jimmy Tamborello's select projects (Dntel, James Figurine, Postal Service) and the whole Morr Music roster (LaliPuna, Isan, Styrofoam), but incorporates a broader palette of more defined styles and influences. Swirling dreaminess occasionally drifting into jazzy and shoegazer territory. Always a pleasure!
Even dating back to the days when he was known as Manitoba, Dan Snaith's music has always been constantly evolving, changing and growing. He's never made the same record twice, and with the latest outing under his Caribou moniker he's probably made the most drastic stylistic change yet, and with the absolute greatest results!
Swim is a much more dance minded record then his last fine outing, Andorra, which was all about psych pop bliss. He's switched things up, using the same rich coloration that always marks his sound but bringing in new and different influences. This time out it sounds like he's been spending a great deal of time with many of the wonderful Arthur Russell releases, and with as we suspect Russell as his guide, has truly understood how to merge the worlds of avant pop and dance floor freedom. With an almost house-like sound done so totally right, he's made one of the most urgent, immediate and enjoyable records of the year. Think Arthur Russell reconstructed by Four Tet, Hot Chip, Junior Boys, and The Whitest Boy Alive and you start to get an idea of the overall sound of Swim. But what has always put Snaith ahead of the pack is that even though he tends to explore different sounds and styles, he always has a knack for writing great songs. It's never style over substance. What makes Caribou so awesome is that he's equally invested in his continual reinvention and explorations of different sounds as much as he is in crafting fucking great tunes. Record of the year contender for sure!
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If you dug the recent Yeti ep from this Canadian fella (Dan Snaith formerly aka Manitoba), you might be cravin' more Caribou right about now. Well, whad'ya know? His new full length just came a-flutterin' in. Dreamy electronic indie pop with plenty of nature themes -- lots of buzzy, chirpy, insect-y sounds and song titles include "Bees", "Barnowl", "Lord Leopard", "Hello Hammerheads" "Pelican Narrows" and of course the "Yeti". Amid the wildlife, he also fits in a respectful nod to the great electronic music innovator Morton Subotnick on the album's second track "Subotnick". Overall, he creates a soft, smudgey pastel hued scene in which he dabbles with dreamy shoegazer and cyclical krautrock influences to good effect.
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The Torontonian artist Dan Snaith who now goes by the professional moniker Caribou used to prefer to be addressed by the name of a Canadian prairie province. Minor legal battles ensued with the elder musical artist Handsome Dick Manitoba claiming the name, and the rest is history. While Snaith was Manitoba, he released two terrific albums 2003's Up In Flames and 2001's Start Breaking My Heart which have now been reissued under his 'new' name, each with a bonus disc packed with extra material. Snaith has amassed quite an impressive body of work to date culminating in last year's very warmly received The Milk Of Human Kindness. Draws comparisons to fellow electronic popsters such as Jimmy Tamborello's select projects (Dntel, James Figurine, Postal Service) and the whole Morr Music roster (LaliPuna, Isan, Styrofoam), but incorporates a broader palette of more defined styles and influences. Swirling dreaminess occasionally drifting into jazzy shoegazer territory. Always a pleasure!
For a few releases this fellow (given name Dan Snaith) formerly went by the moniker Manitoba -- geography lesson: that's the Canadian province located between Saskatchewan and Ontario -- but he's recently switched over to the name of both a heavily antlered wilderness creature and a mountainous region in another province, British Columbia. Okay, now that classtime is over, let's move on to the music... this electronic-pop-trician has crafted a trio of tracks from playful but not excessively twee sounds that make you think he's been rummaging around in the toybox. But don't worry, none of the toys... oops, we mean sounds are gonna spring out and sock you in the nose. I mean, yeah, the live drums get a little rambunctious near the end of the title track as well as the third, but then it sinks back into his more typical mellowness with acoustic guitar plucking, and rounds from a lil' flute or recorder that's sorta like a mini ode to Wickerman. Furthermore, let it also be known that this has nothing to do with Amon Duul II's classic kraut-psych album of the same name. No, this is a much gentler beast. Dreamy, softly pulsing, gauzy and almost Christmas-y in its shimmery frosted chimey-ness! A promising prelude to his forthcoming album, The Milk Of Human Kindness (due out very very soon).
Long overdue collection from this sort of unsung Northwest indie rock combo, whose music was often described as "chamber rock" since most of their songs are hushed and contemplative, and laced with pianos and strings, all very dramatic and heartfelt, melancholic and dreamy. They did achieve a certain amount of notoriety, sold a bunch of records, but just never seemed to be able to make the jump to the next level, even though their sound was so obviously in line with lots of bands who did. Modest Mouse is an obvious comparison, the lilting vox, the strange harmonies, the bands even toured together, but CW's sound is much more folky and stripped down, the drums often played with brushes, acoustic guitars, the vocals urgent, and plaintive, the melodies sweetly sorrowful, the male female harmonies utterly sublime. A few of the tracks do in fact get weird, but that mostly means some strange effects, or adding a bit of noisiness, but for the most part, the songs here are soft and sweet and delicate, darkly dreamy, mysterious enough to appeal to folks into the darker slower side of underground pop, groups like Low, Galaxie 500, The For Carnation, Ida, Bedhead, and even more accessible indie rock like Modest Mouse or Pinback, but catchy and pretty enough that you'll definitely find yourself wondering why these guys (and gals) weren't more popular. Although two of 'em did wind up in another group that HAS had some success, Band of Horses!
A fantastic collection, gathering up tracks from the group's three out of print full lengths, as well as a couple compilations, lovingly packaged with a HUGE foldout poster/booklet, packed with photos, liner notes and other ephemera, all housed in a swank slipcover. Essential indie pop for sure!
Incongruent is a collection of highly intelligent, mostly melancholy songs sung extraordinarily well by a six-foot man in a frock and wig. One would never know that, of course, from any of the minimal (and "naughty") imagery included with the record... The songs here demand your attention: they're catchy, clever, and heartfelt without being sentimental. Carletta Sue Kay's Incongruent is a record that many will obsess over. An obvious comparison would be to Antony (& the Johnsons). Even though Antony and Carletta's voices occupy completely different sonic ranges, they both approach songwriting with an inherent sense of drama. And, like Antony, there's no campiness here. A bit of humor, yes, and a bit of genderbending, but Carletta is definitely not a drag performer. There's no question of Randy playing some kind of character: Carletta is Randy Walker is Carletta Sue Kay. Carletta/Randy lent his vocal talents to the most recent Magnetic Fields disc Love At the Bottom of the Sea. An honor (for a fan), and homage can be felt in the staccato, precise quality to the storytelling and playing on Incongruent. "For the Birds" and "Just Another Beautiful Boy" provide nice juxtaposition as opening tracks. Lyrically, "For the Birds" is some dark shit, but the band takes you to such a dreamy Willie Nelson kind of place you don't notice until your second time through the record. You also don't notice the song tops well over six minutes until maybe your third. After an introduction that includes some crafty arrangements and production to segue, "Beautiful Boy" kicks in with a nod-your-head pop jangle you never expected. By the end you're humming along with the refrain, but there's no way to sing along once Carletta really opens it up at the end unless you've got pipes like his, and that's pretty doubtful. The opening lines of "Pas la Meme" has CSK wondering how much dog shit is in Paris, delivered with just enough bitterness to make you wonder why Carletta has such antipathy for that city. During the entire record, Carletta's androgynous voice never strays below an alto, and is quite strong even in very high registers. He makes you WANT to listen. At a recent (albeit somewhat compact) show, he held the mic well away from him for most of the performance and his voice was still well above the instruments. "Joy Division" sounds more like the also-mentioned Echo and the Bunnymen (no complaints) but none of the songs are predictable or too traditionally arranged. Aside from "Joy Division" and "Beautiful Boy" there's very little use of percussion on Incongruent, relying on the percussive qualities of the piano and acoustic guitar to provide the pulse. The more rocking, poppier songs are great, but the songs without drums provide a more intimate cushion to caress Carletta's voice. The choice to keep the record more orchestral and less traditionally "pop" was a good one. People have been coming into the store for the past week or so asking for this record and that shows no sign of letting up... HIGHLY recommended!
San Francisco mainstays Carlos finally return with a new record. Their quirky, heavy, punky, poppy sound hasn't changed too much, but they sure sound better than ever. A sparkling production and a batch of killer songs make this record a great pop surprise. The sound is a little Pixies, a little Weezer and a little Redd Kross. A really great record from one of the few San Francisco
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Not only is Wendy Carlos a pioneer of electornic music as we now know & love it. Her transformation from Walter to Wendy led to a new beginning in music making for Carlos. No longer was there just an academic and novelty approached to a new form of music(see "Switched On Bach"), but her music started to take a much more intense and focused eye. Haunting sounds, creepy melodies, something bubbling under the surface. Her work is most heard in film scores she has done over the last few decades..with this, her score for A Clockwork Orange being a seminal moment and a great place to start the voyage into the magical mystery of Wendy Carlos.
One of the most engaging pioneers of electronic music Wendy (formely Walter) Carlos has made some of the most haunting and chilling sounds over the last several decades. The collaboration with filmakers was a very natural progression for Carlos as her sounds so perfectly match the images of equally creative and twisted filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick for whom she scored both The Shining and A Clockwork Orange. This new compilation of her lost scores contains the stunning sounds she crafted for The Shining which never made it to album form before as well as tracks from A Clockwork Orange that were not included on that soundtrack. Dark electronic soundscapes years before labels like Scape or Schematic even existed. The last few tracks are devoted to her score work for several UNICEF films..those don't quite do it for us but wow how much the first 25 tracks from Kubrick's films sure do. Totally creepy and trailblazing.
Lots of radiophonic blorp, orbital bleep, and weird science are to be found on Matt Carlson's solo lp Particle Language. Carlson ranks amongst the more prolific members of the Portland experimental scene, starting out in the heavy-drone trio Bonus and moving onto the Vangelis-esque progressive electronic outfit Golden Retriever and the spasmodic DIY electronics of the Oregon Painting Society. Particle Language follows the retro-clad affairs of Golden Retriever, but his modular synths are dialed into a more cerebral, more academic approach to electronic music, with swarms of spiralling oscillations firing at every conceivable trajectory. Carlson gives the impression that he's set all of his careening, spiralling sounds in motion and allows them to crash into each other with regularity, as if they were all toy robots and remote control cars banging together. The violence of this atonal, electronic cacophony is all comedy, recalling the most playful explorations of Conrad Schnitzler in the '80s and the most angular / obtuse productions of Oneohtrix Point Never.
We're kind of running out of superlatives for these guys, and new ways to describe the deliriously druggy din they whip up. If only there was a psychedelic space rock thesaurus... So bear with us if it sounds like we're repeating ourselves, but in a way, that wouldn't be such a bad thing, because even though every Carlton Melton record definitely stands up as its own album, they all sound linked, which makes sense, as they're all recorded in the same space (the DOME), and are all culled from sprawling mega-jams, but instead of sounding simply 'jammy', it's almost as if these guys are psychedelic shamans, tapping into some alien sonic continuum, that the rest of us just aren't privy to, and CM are the conduit, the portal, channeling mysterious cosmic vibes from the ether, and transforming them into some of the sweetest (and hard rockingest) psych we've heard. The core members of CM are once again joined by unofficial 4th member John McBain from Monster Magnet, and together, whip up another gorgeous blast of wasted zoner dreaminess, and driving tranced out kraut-psych. The opener here is definitely familiar territory, easing us in with a sound that seems like it bled over from one of the other recent records, all softly billowing shimmer, and blurred melodic tangles, abstract and dreamily drifty, a serious kosmische kraut-age vibe, and as always, if these guys had stretched that out to fill up the whole record, we'd have been perfectly happy. Instead though, they mix it up, with "Keeping On" being one of the weirder jams we've heard from these guys, driving and propulsive, drum heavy, with thick crumblingly distorted guitars, and some awesome progged out synths, that give the sound a serious seventies prog epic/opus vibe, that these guys manage to craft into something way darker and meaner, with some seriously kick ass drum pound, and wild psych freakouts, super heavy AND heady.
"Spiderwebs" pairs creepy Carpenter-ish cinematic synth with some lazy sun dappled slo-mo dream-psych languor, while "Sarsen" seems to fade into a jam already in progress, one that sounds like it's been going on since the beginning of time, primal and primordial, another muscly hard rocky, drum driven psych-kraut blow out, again laced with swirling synths and dense clouds of freaked out FX, all the while the band locked tight into some serious post-Hawkwind heaviness, and finally, "The Splurge" finishes things off with a sound much more raw and blown out, sounding like it was captured live, lots of reverb and echo, like they're playing in a big concrete bunker, the sounds crumbling and in-the-red, the vibe sorta German Oak-ish, definitely super bunkurfunk mixed into the slow-burn psych, noisy, and trippy and fucking awesome.
Killer psychedelic cover art. The cd is housed in a digipak, while the vinyl comes in two versions, one on green wax, one on black wax with a poster, make sure you order the one you want, they're listed as two different items. (And maybe let us know if you're willing to take the other, if we run out of one...)
We're kind of running out of superlatives for these guys, and new ways to describe the deliriously druggy din they whip up. If only there was a psychedelic space rock thesaurus... So bear with us if it sounds like we're repeating ourselves, but in a way, that wouldn't be such a bad thing, because even though every Carlton Melton record definitely stands up as its own album, they all sound linked, which makes sense, as they're all recorded in the same space (the DOME), and are all culled from sprawling mega-jams, but instead of sounding simply 'jammy', it's almost as if these guys are psychedelic shamans, tapping into some alien sonic continuum, that the rest of us just aren't privy to, and CM are the conduit, the portal, channeling mysterious cosmic vibes from the ether, and transforming them into some of the sweetest (and hard rockingest) psych we've heard. The core members of CM are once again joined by unofficial 4th member John McBain from Monster Magnet, and together, whip up another gorgeous blast of wasted zoner dreaminess, and driving tranced out kraut-psych. The opener here is definitely familiar territory, easing us in with a sound that seems like it bled over from one of the other recent records, all softly billowing shimmer, and blurred melodic tangles, abstract and dreamily drifty, a serious kosmische kraut-age vibe, and as always, if these guys had stretched that out to fill up the whole record, we'd have been perfectly happy. Instead though, they mix it up, with "Keeping On" being one of the weirder jams we've heard from these guys, driving and propulsive, drum heavy, with thick crumblingly distorted guitars, and some awesome progged out synths, that give the sound a serious seventies prog epic/opus vibe, that these guys manage to craft into something way darker and meaner, with some seriously kick ass drum pound, and wild psych freakouts, super heavy AND heady.
"Spiderwebs" pairs creepy Carpenter-ish cinematic synth with some lazy sun dappled slo-mo dream-psych languor, while "Sarsen" seems to fade into a jam already in progress, one that sounds like it's been going on since the beginning of time, primal and primordial, another muscly hard rocky, drum driven psych-kraut blow out, again laced with swirling synths and dense clouds of freaked out FX, all the while the band locked tight into some serious post-Hawkwind heaviness, and finally, "The Splurge" finishes things off with a sound much more raw and blown out, sounding like it was captured live, lots of reverb and echo, like they're playing in a big concrete bunker, the sounds crumbling and in-the-red, the vibe sorta German Oak-ish, definitely super bunkurfunk mixed into the slow-burn psych, noisy, and trippy and fucking awesome.
Killer psychedelic cover art. The cd is housed in a digipak, while the vinyl comes in two versions, one on green wax, one on black wax with a poster, make sure you order the one you want, they're listed as two different items. (And maybe let us know if you're willing to take the other, if we run out of one...)
We're kind of running out of superlatives for these guys, and new ways to describe the deliriously druggy din they whip up. If only there was a psychedelic space rock thesaurus... So bear with us if it sounds like we're repeating ourselves, but in a way, that wouldn't be such a bad thing, because even though every Carlton Melton record definitely stands up as its own album, they all sound linked, which makes sense, as they're all recorded in the same space (the DOME), and are all culled from sprawling mega-jams, but instead of sounding simply 'jammy', it's almost as if these guys are psychedelic shamans, tapping into some alien sonic continuum, that the rest of us just aren't privy to, and CM are the conduit, the portal, channeling mysterious cosmic vibes from the ether, and transforming them into some of the sweetest (and hard rockingest) psych we've heard. The core members of CM are once again joined by unofficial 4th member John McBain from Monster Magnet, and together, whip up another gorgeous blast of wasted zoner dreaminess, and driving tranced out kraut-psych. The opener here is definitely familiar territory, easing us in with a sound that seems like it bled over from one of the other recent records, all softly billowing shimmer, and blurred melodic tangles, abstract and dreamily drifty, a serious kosmische kraut-age vibe, and as always, if these guys had stretched that out to fill up the whole record, we'd have been perfectly happy. Instead though, they mix it up, with "Keeping On" being one of the weirder jams we've heard from these guys, driving and propulsive, drum heavy, with thick crumblingly distorted guitars, and some awesome progged out synths, that give the sound a serious seventies prog epic/opus vibe, that these guys manage to craft into something way darker and meaner, with some seriously kick ass drum pound, and wild psych freakouts, super heavy AND heady.
"Spiderwebs" pairs creepy Carpenter-ish cinematic synth with some lazy sun dappled slo-mo dream-psych languor, while "Sarsen" seems to fade into a jam already in progress, one that sounds like it's been going on since the beginning of time, primal and primordial, another muscly hard rocky, drum driven psych-kraut blow out, again laced with swirling synths and dense clouds of freaked out FX, all the while the band locked tight into some serious post-Hawkwind heaviness, and finally, "The Splurge" finishes things off with a sound much more raw and blown out, sounding like it was captured live, lots of reverb and echo, like they're playing in a big concrete bunker, the sounds crumbling and in-the-red, the vibe sorta German Oak-ish, definitely super bunkurfunk mixed into the slow-burn psych, noisy, and trippy and fucking awesome.
Killer psychedelic cover art. The cd is housed in a digipak, while the vinyl comes in two versions, one on green wax, one on black wax with a poster, make sure you order the one you want, they're listed as two different items. (And maybe let us know if you're willing to take the other, if we run out of one...)
There's no shortage of psychedelic space rock in SF these days: recent Record Of The Weekers Lumerians, the Spyrals (who have a new tape reviewed elsewhere on this week's list), Wooden Shjips, Sleepy Sun, and these guys, Carlton Melton, not a person, but a quartet, who conjure up epic stretches of spaced out psychedelia, and who, unlike many of their contemporaries, seem to be less concerned with the pulse, and the rhythm, and the groove, as they are with the SOUND, and the VIBE, weaving lush, expansive sprawls of effects drenched psychedelic ambience, drifting more often than driving, huge clouds of swirling wah guitars, and minimal spare drumming, which seems to exist more as a pulse, than a beat proper, everything murky and muddy and washed out, at once lo-fi, but impossibly dense and heavy, the band seeming to drift weightless though swirling starlit sonic skies, their sound loose and free and abstract and ephemeral, the whole first side here is a single track, the title track, and it's a fantastically entrancing space drone epic, a sound the drifts and buzzes and flutters and swirls, the sound emerging in swells, building into squalls of warm whirling chaos only to slip back into something more druggy and dreamy and meditative, it's not until the final couple minutes that the song finally explodes, and even then it doesn't really get heavier, the rhythm doesn't get any more intense, instead, it just sounds like the whole band crank it up a notch, the swirling clouds of effects and guitars suddenly become more volatile, and more chaotic, the melodies gradually swallowed up by slashes of distorted guitar crunch and crumbling walls of distortion, the sound gets more dense, and more thick, and the whole time the main groove, now buried beneath the roiling surface, continues on unwavering, the only thing keeping the track from drifting into the heavens and toward the heart of the sun.
The flipside is more of the glorious same, barring a brief bit of solo guitar, an interlude that is bookended by two more heaving walls of krautpsych swirl, the band unfurling droned out minimal hypnorock mini epics, that howl and thrum, buzz and shimmer, songs that obviously could have been stretched way out and turned this into a double lp.
As always, fantastic stuff. Fans of the SF psych/space/drone/kraut rock contingent that aren't already into CM, get with it! And obviously, anyone into White Hills, Hawkwind, Pink Floyd, Cave, The Heads, Heavy Winged, Bardo Pond, White Noise Sound, Spacemen 3 and the like, these guys will definitely hit the spot.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We were all ready to write an epic review of this, a special Record Store Day live record from our of our favorite outfits, local psychedelic spacelords Carlton Melton. We ordered as many copies of the 500 pressed that we could get, but as you might imagine we sold tons and as of the writing of this review, we're getting to where we have less than a dozen. Hopefully lots of you were able to grab one in the shop on the day, and those who didn't, might have seen our lists of Record Store Day leftovers and grabbed one then, but for those of you who did NOT, here's what is most likely your last chance, to grab one of these before they are gone (and by gone, we mean on eBay for crazy money).
Released on Agitated, and recorded in 2012 in Belgium and the UK, these four sides of primo CM display everything we lover about these guys, sprawling droned out atmosphere, clouds of synthy shimmer, spidery guitars, all druggy and dreamy, dense and hypnotic, some serious motorik hypnorock minimalism that gives way to seriously shredding heaviness. Lots of the hits here, from all the records, a bit more live and loose and free, but not much, since most of their records are recorded live anyway, so in that sense, this is almost like a sort of alternate version greatest hits. The first side and a half is seriously blissed out, not really kicking into gear until side two, at which point things get seriously heavy and super rocking, the band channeling Hawkwind into their own swirling spaced out brand of riffy freeform psychedelia. The rest of the record(s) shifts constantly from dirgey churn, to wild psych shredding to droned out mesmer and back again. Killer performances, awesome sound, the recording is massive, if it wasn't for the crowd sound at the end of the second record, this easily could have been a CM record proper!
Once again, CRAZY limited, these are the last copies we'll have EVER. Pressed on super psychedelic green/yellow/clear splatter vinyl, housed in an old school distressed looking heavy sleeve.
Latest batch of deliriously druggy psychedelic space-out from these local gents, and yet another killer collection of improvised slow burn sonic drift, as always, culled from hours and hours of wasted late night amp worship captured in 'The Dome' (a geodesic dome where all the CM stuff is recorded!). The core trio of Andy Duvall, Rich Millman and Clint Golden are once again joined again by unofficial member and (not so) secret space rock weapon, John McBain from Monster Magnet, and conjure up a smoldering sprawl of hazy, heady, darkly dreamy wasted zoner psych drift, on the mellow side of the CM canon for the majority of Four Eyes, the group unfurling lush, billowing clouds of blurred bongsmoke buzz, shot through with prismatic shimmers and lazy sun dappled melodies, all underpinned by hushed motorik drum skitter, gurgling synth thrum, all the sounds gorgeously indistinct, oozing and bleeding into each other, a gauzy cloud of tonal color, sculpted into woozy pulsing rhythms and slow shifting sheets of tripped out chordal mesmer, a lysergic slo-mo psych that's all about tripping / chilling / blissing out.
While opener "Personal Space" keeps the rhythms to a minimum, spending most of its time swirling lysergically, "Glass Home" tethers CM's freeform psychedelic drift to a simple caveman kraut rhythm, the sky above filled with reverb drenched melodic squiggles, and spidery melodies, all over a softly churning backdrop of deep rumbling shimmer, while closer "Mist" pushes the rhythm to the fore, with its Necks via Hawkwind throb, the only deviation from this drugged out mellow mesmer comes in the form of "Road Swagger", which does indeed display some rhythmic swagger, easily the most rocking of the bunch, like a super charged Spacemen 3, the drums driving and muscly, the guitars thick and almost metallic, still plenty drowsy and druggy, but with some sonic heft that positions the sound closer to the Heads or White Hills, that the more Bardo Pond-y bliss out of the rest of the record.
As always gorgeous stuff, and like all their records, seemingly cut from the same sonic cloth, as if Carlton Melton are permanently engaged in a jam for the ages, that dome actually some sort of space station, drifting through time and space, traversing sonic starfields into the endless blackness of the universe, playing endlessly to appease whatever gods truly rule over all, these songs the sound of a group, drifting further into oblivion, each record a mere glimpse into their epic cosmic journey.
Pressed on 180 gram vinyl, and LIMITED TO 600 COPIES!!!
One of two brand new Carlton Melton releases this list, the other being their strange and culty split with Qumran Orphics. This one an amazing 7" on a cool brand new deluxe 7" label, Valley King (we also have a new Sweet Apple 7" on the same label to be reviewed later). Housed in a mini-gatefold sleeve with insert and sticker, with gorgeous artwork by Alan Fobres who also did Carlton Melton's Pass It On LP as well as their split with Empty Shapes.
"Handling Snakes" is a jolt of heavy hypno-blues a la Wooden Shjips but even heavier with wailing riffs and pummeling drums. The B side, "The One That Got Away", is more majestic and broodingly heavy with searing and weaving guitar lines and molten textures.
It's over before you know it, but it's just long enough to hit the spot. Limited to 500 copies. Grab this taste of radness while you can!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We only got a handful of these, direct from the band, and since there are only 100, odds are we won't be able to get more. Which is too bad, cuz it's pretty great. Carlton Melton doing their thing in the UK during 2012's Photos Of Photos European tour, hazy, druggy expanses of extended psych drift, sun dappled slow build epics, some pounding drum driven kraut-psych workouts, a handful of CM classics reworked live, swooping easily from hushed prettiness, to fierce, fiery heaviness, wild tangles of psych guitar draped over squiggly spaced out synths, simple motorik rhythms locked tight, anchoring the group's otherwise heavenward drift. Dense and droney, darkly rocking, psychedelic and epic, essential psychedelia for sure, and CM fans won't want to miss out. Sad thing is lots will, so those quickest on the trigger will nab one. And as if you needed to be told, one per customer.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, the tapes silver/purple glitter, with 12 different labels, each housed in a cloudy plastic clamshell case with a full color sticker.
If you got the chance to record and play music in a Geodesic Dome off the coast of Northern California, wouldn't you form a band just for the occasion? Well that's the modus operandi of this strangely monikered band made up of former members of Zen Guerilla and friends, who ventured up to Point Arena (an area rife with Utopian minded dwellings including the Sea Ranch) for this once in a lifetime opportunity. But don't expect this to sound like Zen Guerilla's trashy MC5-inspired garage R&B, instead Carlton Melton experiment with a sound more sonically befitting to the dome's acoustic resonance, Space Rock! Equally krauty, droney, and at times cosmically ramshackle, Carlton Melton channel White Hills, Wooden Shjips, Cave, bits of Kinski, Steve Hillage, and of course the less proto-metal leanings of Hawkwind with dual guitars, bass and organ hypnotically riffing through the domed stratosphere. Trippy and Limited!!!!!
The field of psychedelic hypnno-drone rock in San Francisco keeps getting wider, and more amazing. Along with Wooden Shjips, Sleepy Sun and The Lumerians comes the slow growth space rock of Carlton Melton. We raved about their first self-released cd-r, Live at Point Arena, CA recorded in a genuine geodesic dome, and we're psyched that they have returned with a vinyl only follow-up! While the first cd-r had a more rough around the edges shambling momentum to it (after all, the band had pretty much formed just to record in the dome!), Pass It On has a more penetrating and focused feel. Recording in the dome once again, the songs have the slow motion but still very heavy vibrations of White Hills, Moon Duo, Hawkwind and Pink Floyd. In fact, the album begins with a heavy cover version of Pink Floyd's "When You're In" from Obscured By Clouds, which builds with intensity setting up the stoned pillowy cushion freefall of follow-up track "Found Children". "Off The Grid" takes a more divergent path through the woods with freaked out tribal rhythms and strange loping pulsations and alien guitar swells. Side two begins with a reworking of a track from the Point Arena cd-r called "Fucking Funky Shit" now renamed "Digging In" that utilizes its bass and drum rhythmic foundation as a means for the guitars and organ to arc off into the stratosphere before descending into the final track "Sequoia", which burrows deep into the earth with a smouldering drone that leaves us, for the lack of a better analogy, cosmically wasted. On redwood colored vinyl. Recommended!
We can't be sure if this is something we actually heard from the band, or if we're just making it up, but really either way, true or not, it does paint a pretty good picture of the sprawling druggy psychedelic jamscapes of local space psych cosmonauts Carlton Melton - and it's that CM records are basically the product of a copious intake of various substances, before holing up in their geodesic dome / recording studio, to jam epically for hours on end, days sometimes, only later sifting through the reels of tape, and hours of bong-ed out headtrip cosmic heaviness. Could be true, should be true, probably is really, cuz how could sane and sober minds produce this sort of psych-bliss space-drone nirvana!?! Regardless of its provenance, we're just glad we're privy to another chunk of CM's heady heavy psychedelia.
This new record finds previous CM special guest John McBain, of the mighty Monster Magnet, seemingly signed on as a full on Melton (even though he's still listed as a special guest), as he's on every track here, and can only imagine that he helped push CM's sound into realms heavier and spacier. And indeed, that's what's going on here. Opener "Nor' Easter" is a brooding sprawl of lumbering dirgey dreamy heaviness, all thick swirls of tripped out shimmer, softly roiling riffage, lazy loping motorik krautrock-ish beat buried in the mix, spidery melodies and woozy washed out shred, woven into the heaving swells of warm lugubrious thrum and churning soft focus space rock crush.
The title track finds the band getting all new age-y, ditching drums, riffs, pretty much everything except warm woozy swirls of shimmery melody, slow shifting layered pulses, whirling, whooshing synths and sparkling glimmering FX, maybe the prettiest thing we've heard from these guys, all dreamlike and kosmische, a little soundtracky, lush and layered, total trip out bliss out.
"Space Treader" is another slow builder, all brooding and moody, thick swaths of buzz and fuzz, a slowly developing propulsive heft, and some Queen like (!) melodies/leads that infuse the track with a gorgeously super melodic vibe, those melodies soon mirrored by synth melodies, that push this track too in a much more kosmische direction, before devolving into a murkier bit of deconstructed riffing, and droned out slow fading FX flecked drift. The record proper finishes off with "Wingspan", which sonically sounds like the title track part two, a symphony of synths, all blurred and smeared over a barely there rhythm, and a loose framework of soft psychedelic grooves, more spidery melodies, and chiming harmonics, drifting in a starfield of synth swirl and bleary jangle, woozy and wonderfully tranced out.
The cd (and the download that accompanies the vinyl) includes two bonus tracks, two of the three tracks from the recent Smoke Drip 12" (good news for you cd nerds who missed out). The first track is the sprawling 22+ minute, originally side-long epic "Adrift", and the band spend the first few minutes just sort of, well, adrift, a simple motorik drumbeat, spidery tendrils of electric guitar, some sitar-like buzz, all wreathed in a swirling cloud of synth shimmer, it's the sort of hazy zoned out psych-drone mesmer that we can't get enough of, and we like to think the original was closer to 3 or 4 hours long, this being just the best 20 minutes, a totally tranced out hypnorock groove, that's druggy and dreamy, a slo-mo swagger that sounds like Hawkwind on tranquilizers, there doesn't even need to be any sort of build or explosive blown out climax, cuz once you're lost in these sounds, you're a willing celestial traveller, drifting on CM's beams of sonic light, headed for the heart of some black sun. But the band do crank it up, the guitars growing wilder near the end, and louder, but never letting totally loose, instead just slipping right back into the same mesmeric groove, and playing us out to the very end.
And then the second, "Smoke Drip" itself, which like much of Photos, ditches drums completely for a heady sprawl of psychedelic ambience, multiple guitars, synths and manipulated tapes, are let loose in a sun dappled spray of softly tangled melodies and smoldering buzz, abstract riffage and swoonsome swells of FX drenched thrum unwind into slithering sonic tendrils and lush layered psychdrone shimmer.
Ok, this is where cd people can stop reading, cuz that's all you get. But for you vinyl folks, at least for this first pressing, while they last, the record proper comes bundled with a whole bonus 12", with two extra tracks (30+ minutes total). The first is a remix from John McBain, of CM's "The One That Got Away", which strips down CM's sound, adds some programmed percussion, and over the course of 14 minutes, transforms the original into something WAY more druggy and trippy, the first few minutes, a lazy meander through a hazy landscape of melody and slowburn psych thrum, before the sound grows a bit more ominous, the buzz cranked up, the sounds smeared and blurry, the Spacemen 3 vibe HUGE, plenty of warped effects, swooping backwards melodies, processed stuttering melodies, muted murky riffage, all wreathed in a warm sun dappled gauze, the whole thing deliriously dreamy and druggy, and sorta makes us wish McBain would remix CM's whole catalog! The bonus 12"s finishes off with a live track from CM's recent trip to Roadburn in Holland, a 16 minute blowout of heavy, churning, retro-riffing, hard rocking, shred laced, bombastic bloozy hard psych, that KILLS.
The vinyl version with the bonus 12" is most definitely EXTREMELY limited, we're getting a bunch, but odds are those will fly out of here, so be prepared to settle for the single lp version when that time comes...
What's better than a new record from SF psychedelic space rockers Carlton Melton? Howabout a new record from SF psychedelic space rockers Carlton Melton with John McBain from Monster Magnet?! That's right, McBain, from the original space lord motherfuckers teams up with our beloved local psychlords for three long tracks of improvised spaced out psychedelia, recorded as always in a geodesic dome, where the band go to get lost, and conjure up the sonic spirit smoke that somehow becomes Carlton Melton. Hours of drug addled jamming and sonic experimentation bottled up and distilled into these sprawling smoldering slow burn epics.
The A side here is a sidelong blowout called "Adrift", and the band spend the first few minutes just sort of, well, adrift, a simple motorik drumbeat, spidery tendrils of electric guitar, some sitar-like buzz, all wreathed in a swirling cloud of synth shimmer, it's the sort of hazy zoned out psych-drone mesmer that we can't get enough of, and we like to think the original was closer to 3 or 4 hours long, this being just the best 20 minutes, a totally tranced out hypnorock groove, that's druggy and dreamy, a slo-mo swagger that sounds like Hawkwind on tranquilizers, there doesn't even need to be any sort of build or explosive blown out climax, cuz once you're lost in these sounds, you're a willing celestial traveller, drifting on CM's beams of sonic light, headed for the heart of some black sun. But the band do crank it up, the guitars growing wilder near the end, and louder, but never letting totally loose, instead just slipping right back into the same mesmeric groove, and playing us out to the very end.
The title track on the flipside ditches the drums completely for a heady sprawl of psychedelic ambience, multiple guitars, synths and manipulated tapes, are let loose in a sun dappled spray of softly tangled melodies and smoldering buzz, abstract riffage and swoonsome swells of FX drenched thrum unwind into slithering sonic tendrils and lush layered psychdrone shimmer, which gives way to the closer, which has McBain credited with "Dome Treatment", and is the densest and heaviest of the bunch, the riffs muddy and murky, a churning almost Stooges-y vibe, the drums weirdly chaotic and splattery, the track never locking into a groove, instead seeming to remain unhinged to any specific rhythm, the sounds super twisted, the production all over the map, with the drums sometimes leaping to the front of the mix, bit just as often disappearing beneath an avalanche of crumbling scrabbling guitarnoise, the strange skittering making us imagine Aussie jazzdrone outfit the Necks trying their hand at space rock, which we imagine would not be a bad thing at all. Loose, wild, chaotic, and borderline unhinged, everything doused in distortion, and woozy warped effects, a dizzying, disembodied dose of fucked up space psych drug-DOME bliss!!
Housed in super striking psychedelic jackets, with thick printed inner sleeves, and pressed on milky clear vinyl!
aQ Hits is a new collection from beloved SF psychedelic space rock minimalists Carlton Melton, and is our second annual official aQuarius recOrds Record Store Day release. Last year's was a live disc called Black Valleys, a document of a killer aQuarius instore by NY psych rockers White Hills, and that one sold out in a flash. This year's looks to do the same - if you like White Hills, you like Carlton Melton, right?!
It's a super limited (just 300 copies) compact disc, collecting a handful of rare, and now out of print vinyl tracks, from various singles and split lps from the last couple years, including one super extended version.
Let's run through the various tracks... "Bottle Of Heat [Extended Version]", is, as you can probably tell from the title, the aforementioned alternate cut, which takes "Bottle Of Heat", originally released on the 2011 Agitated Records 12" comp I'm So Convoluted!, and offers up the unedited full-sprawl recording, stretching out to more than 19 minutes, thick smoldering clouds of soft focus psychedelia, drifting and blissed out, free form and abstract, a meandering epic of lush chordal swell and shimmery FX drenched swirl, all over a shuffling hypnotic and motorik kraut-psych beat. "Handling Snakes" is the A side from the group's Valley King 7" single, and is a jolt of heavy hypno-blues a la Wooden Shjips, but in the hands of Carlton Melton, somehow even heavier with wailing riffs and pummeling drums.
The next two tracks are from Carlton Melton's split 12" with Empty Shapes, originally released on Mid-To-Late Records in 2010: "Call and Response" is an epic (and originally nearly side-loooong) blowout, beginning with a heavy rumble of monolithic sludge eventually progressing into a slow wave of burnt-out blues riffage a la early Comets on Fire, that churns and steeps into a gnarly brew of molten fuzz. While "Purer", is more cosmic and dreamy, built on a layer of percolating synth drones that give way to a more uplifting space rock jam trajectory, total heart-of-the-sun zoner blissout.
And finally, the last two tracks are from CM's split 12" with Qumran Orphics, also originally released on Mid-To-Late Records, that one in the beginning of 2011. "March Of The Cicadas" is a glorious ten minute slab of psychedelic heaviness, that sounds exactly like the title implies, a slowmotion dirge over martial rhythms with buzzing electronic hisses and stratospheric guitar leads. And things finish off with "Murder Ridge", a noirish Bardo Pond-like spiral of burning sonic embers and sustained decay, a gorgeous hazy stretch of blurred lysergic drift, the perfect final movement, psych-drone comedown.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES, each one hand numbered, the artwork is printed on metallic silver cardstock, everything housed in a slim dvd style case, only available here!
We sold tons of the last Carlton Melton full length, Pass It On. In fact we even sold a copy to J. Mascis who made it his top favorite record of 2009. No small feat, there! So the dudes are on a roll, and just before their first big tour, they release this awesome split with the equally heavy Empty Shapes from Delaware.
The Carlton Melton side is two tracks. The first, "Call and Response" is nearly side-loooong and begins with a heavy rumble of monolithic sludge eventually progressing into a slow wave of burnt-out blues riffage a la early Comets on Fire, that churns and steeps into a gnarly brew of molten fuzz. The closer, "Purer", is more cosmic and dreamy, built on a layer of percolating synth drones that give way to a more uplifting space rock jam trajectory.
This is the first we've heard from Empty Shapes, a 5 piece from Delaware, who contribute 3 tracks to their side. The first, "MLK" is a sprawling cloud of noise a la Bardo Pond, levitating around a repeating head-nodding riff with all kinds of instrumentation stretching the form and shape of the murky haze. "Hell of a Night" and "Lord" bring vocal elements into the works, but heavily effected and damaged, sometimes emotive yet incomprehensible channeling a primitive psych-blues through some New Zealandish free-rock space clutter!
Limited to just 300 on brown and white swirled vinyl! Dope!
Local psychedelic space rock heroes Carlton Melton team up with UK psych drifters Kandodo 3 (which is in fact Simon Price of aQ fave the Heads, gone solo, but now seemingly a trio, thus having appended a 3 to the moniker) for this heady slab of cosmic trippiness. CM start things off with three lengthy tracks. The first, being a loping sprawl of head nodding krautrock style mesmer, the drums locked down, pulsing away beneath clouds of shimmering guitars and slow shifting chunks of effervescent riffage. It's the most straight ahead rocking CM track we've heard in a while, but fear not, the follow up gets a bit more abstract, sounding like some blown out electric blues Appalachia coming apart at the seams, dense tangles of buzz and strum gradually unfolding and unfurling, a bit twang flecked and still plenty zoned out. The final track defaults more toward the rocking side of the spectrum, this time a bit nosier and more swinging, channeling some serious classic sounding spacerockiness, although somehow via some interplanetary alien jam band, their hypno-rock churn wrapped in all sorts of slippery slide guitar, conjuring up a sound that's like some twisted Allman Brothers / Hawkwind hybrid, which you know is a very good thing indeed.
The now expanded Kandodo 3 fill up the entirety of their side with a single track, one that seems to ooze from the darkest corner of the sonic cosmos, some seriously dense, trippy blissed out dronemusic, a softly pulsing, layered, chordal thrum, that grows gradually more and more wispy, until it's finally just a barely there shadowy swirl, over which a groovy bassline emerges, before it's joined by some tribal percussion, and streaks of guitar buzz drift in from every direction, a hazy cloud of druggy shimmer, over a woozily rhythmic churn. The guitars eventually grow more fierce and less distinct, moving from behind the shadows, the sound more of a Spacemen 3 style druggy drift, chiming harmonics and fragmented bits of melody swirl in the foreground, while that background churn collapses into a roiling black hole of softnoise churn, over which those guitars continue to glow and glimmer, before eventually settling back into one final stretch of tripped out psychedelic grooviness.
Pressed on transparent blue vinyl, with cover art by Kandodo 3's Price. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
We've said it before, and we'll say it again, sometimes it feels like some records were just made specifically for aQ. And this is one of em. So thanks Trensmat, for picking two of our favorite bands, and putting them together on one record, with exclusive (and killer) tracks from both. SF's very own Carlton Melton, offer up a gorgeous bit of thick psychedelic haze called "Company", a serious slow burner, and maybe one of their heaviest yet, a simple stripped down beat anchoring thick undulating layers of blurred guitar buzz, shot through with warm spidery melodies, a brooding chunk of pulsing hypnotic sonic mesmer with a seriously blown out heavy heavy explosive finish. Be sure to download the bonus material (the link's on the sleeve) to get the epic nearly 12 minute long version, which is how this was meant to be heard, sprawling and druggy and EPIC. Too short for us even at twelve minutes. Also with the bonus download you get another track, "Death Whisper", which is another murky brooder, a hazy minimal lo-fi raga, which lopes and lumbers dreamily through fields of buzz and static and dreamy chordal swirl.
Former aQ Record Of The Week-ers Mugstar offer up another fantastically epic psychedelic space jam, thick driving buzzing bassline, dense busy drumming, shimmery guitar jangle, churning moody riffage, a sinisterly slow build, that manages to grow more tense and ominous and intense, without ever actually getting louder or exploding into a crashing cacophonous climax, instead, weaving a dense sprawl of churning psychedelic krautrock-style hypnorock that almost sounds like a more muscly Circle. And with the bonus download, you get a second track, the hushed minimal "Never (Part 1)", which is all sun dappled and dreamy, hushed and hazy, all soft swirls, skittery rhythms, whirring organs, definitely shades of Spacemen 3 or Loop, a sort of druggy blissed out spacepsych drift. So great.
Nice full color sleeves, and as mentioned above, a download with tons of bonus material, SUPER LIMITED of course. Already sold out at the label, which means these are the last copies we'll ever be able to get.
Brand new split of heavy freakiness from one of our favorite local bands Carlton Melton teamed up here with new-to-us bizarre shamanistic cult collective Qumran Orphics.
The Melton side is two 10 minutes slabs, the first, "March Of The Cicadas", sounds exactly like the title implies, a slowmotion dirge over martial rhythms with buzzing electronic hisses and stratospheric guitar leads. The closer, "Murder Ridge" is a noirish Bardo Pond-like spiral of burning sonic embers and sustained decay.
The Qumran Orphics side is a stranger beast altogether. Recorded from a live set at the Blank Club in San Jose, Qumran Orphics is led by KFJC DJ Cy Thoth (host of the show Firebunker, that plays lots of our favorite metal and experimental sounds), backed by an array of simmering guitars and shifting droning electronics. Like a strange and unfurling Crowleian ritual, Cy Thoth croakingly intones bizarre utterances one might hear in an H.P. Lovecraft story. It's a wild and charged performance. Not sure where this project will go next, all info on the group is rather scant or cryptic, but we're definitely curious!
Super limited to 259 copies, pressed on smoked wood and blood colored swirl vinyl. These probably won't last long....
Thomas Carnacki is the pseudonym of Berkeley's Gregory Scharpen who can be found lurking around the theater departments of various troupes as a sound designer and creative foil. On occasion, he's also been a member of the live ensemble for irr. app. (ext.) and has even taken the stage during a couple of Nurse With Wound gigs. Far Voyage From A Placid Island collects four of the compositions that Scharpen has created for stage in collaboration with a handful of eccentric Bay Area musicians. The first piece finds Scharpen working with Jesse Quattro for massing of breathy aerations, deep bellowings, and subterranean creakings above a sustained dark timbral hum. At first this piece has all of the acoustic richness of the brilliant Andrew Chalk / Jonathan Coleclough record Sumac bundled with horror film grimness and hymnal vocals from Quattro swathed in reverb. Scharpen's collaboration with Jesse Burson (who is the dapper gentleman from Big City Orchestra) is a much more cacophonous affair collaged from slurps and creaks that sounds like a sucking chest would above chiming bells and shards of glass. Jon Brumit (who you may remember from his exceptional album of recordings from things found at the SF landfill) and Scharpen bring crackling vinyl from 78s (you know how much we LOVE that!!!) to wintery ambience and eerie blurts from distant horns. The final track is a solo work, again featuring that unnerving horn sounds in the distance with cyclical metallic drones that bring Nurse With Wound's Homotopy To Marie to mind; a more accurate comparison would be Metgumbnerbone, but who the hell has heard of them? Very well done indeed!
No Reserve is a limited run release of a radio broadcast care of KALX in Berkeley from the eccentric Thomas Carnacki, whose ooze-riddled sound collages are buttressed by the likes of Gregory Hagan (Common Eider King Eider), Jim Kaiser (NFOrchest, etc.), and Jesse Burson (Big City Orchestra). Carnacki's live performances are notoriously last-minute affairs with the ringmaster collecting his resourceful motley crew of sullen noise makers a few days before any given performance, almost always resulting in spontaneous madness of illogical sounds and colliding electro-acoustics. Strangely, the gigs almost always work wonderfully, and such is the case for this KALX transmission.
At the onset, the quartet finds themselves in a claustrophobic space, with metallic exhalations and looping scrapes reflecting all of the optimism of a bombed-out bunker. Gritty pulsations of electronics build out of residual drones, oscillating two and fro, with a thick clatter of that bunker-powered reverb settling at the bottom of the layering of sounds. Hagan's violin, which adds to those sadder-than-sad moods to Common Eider King Eider, creeps to the foreground at various intervals, amidst the cooing electronics, the crumblings of sand, rock, and debris, and the funereal tolls from a resonant bell. Think early HNAS, Cranioclast, and Nurse With Wound, and you'll be close to the unsettled atmospherics of Mr. Carnacki and his so-called Anti-Memorial Orchestra and Choir.
As described by the eloquent Thomas Carnacki, Oar Of Panmuphle is the 'long-threatened' full album for Mr. Carnacki - the pseudonym of sound designer and audio wrangler Gregory Scharpen who has worked with the likes of irr. app. (ext.) and Nurse With Wound for both projects' live presentations. Not surprisingly, his sensibility of off-kilter collage-based composition is not too far from either irr. app. (ext.) or NWW; but after a couple of teasing short-program discs, it's quite nice to witness a fully formed Carnacki presenting slow-motion, carnivalesque incantations of ectoplasmic horror spiced up with a few strange interludes of comedic appropriation. Clattering machines glide into a murky cut-up of organ-grinding Victoriana muffled by plenty of reverb and shadow to begin the album, leading into a similarly saturated loop from a Screaming Jay Hawkins track, with disembodied whispers, slapstick sound effects, and mechanical howls bounding maniacally alongside the purloined rhythm. With the wind-up springs and wooden percolation of noises on "Bedtime Story For The Most Fragrant Room In The Ward," Carnacki sets a perfectly spooky mood of mechanical toys coming to life and setting forth on an evil plot to revolt against their human creators, before snapping to another lifted sound segment - this time from Jon Ronson talking about his journalistic investigations into psychic assassins. The rest of the album drifts eerily with shapeless clouds of darkened thought with flourishes that hint at a hauntological semi-musicality but always slanted toward the odd and the surreal. Fans of Andrew Liles, irr. app. (ext.), and Nurse With Wound would be well served to check this album out.
Greg Scharpen is an artist who's never without a project at hand. While the bulk of his artistic career has been spent in the sound design realm of East Bay theater and dance troupes, he also dons the Thomas Carnacki pseudonym to conduct various exercises in audio surrealism. Over the years, Scharpen has been a noted contributor to the irr.app.(ext.) live presentations and has even made appearances in the Nurse With Wound's rotating cast. These two figureheads of paratactic collage and bizarro-world atmospherics loom large in the audio vocabulary of Mr. Scharpen, and that of course is a very good thing! The Disappearance Of This Terrible Spool is just the second release by Carnacki / Scharpen, following the 2006 album Far Voyage From A Placid Island. Thus it begins with deep swells of thick reverberations that ascend towards a clatter of indeterminant gizmos, only to collapse into a maudlin half-melody of vibrato drone and lost-at-sea undulation. Think Nurse With Wound circa Shipwreck Radio, and you would not be all that far off. The somber tone of this first track continues through the second, due in part to the central role of a mournful violin performed by Gregory Hagan also of Common Eider, King Eider. The final two tracks embrace the disjointed, disembodied, discombobulated cut-n-paste collage techniques with spluttering electronics and truncated gaspings for air - again NWW, irr.app.(ext.) or HNAS comes to mind. A tad brief at 24 minutes, but not a minute is wasted within!
