Dead Raven Choir, a one man band, now living in Poland, formerly of Texas, purveyor of damaged free folk, abstract strum and of course utterly grim black metal. We tried desparately to keep up with his non stop cd-r release schedule and his constant flitting from folk to metal and back again, sometimes pausing beautifully right in between, a gnarled hybrid of campfire twang and lo-fi buzz, then there's Wolfmangler too, his country doom outfit! But, as is often the case, most of those cd-r's disappeared in no time flat. So it's Weird Forest to the rescue, compiling 4 LONG out of print cd-r's (Sheath & Knife, Grand Ravishing Extravaganza, Sevenfold Songs Of Death, and Sturmfuckingleider) onto three lps and packaging them in this "dark forest-clad" box. This one is definitely for the true, the grim, the cult, this is utterly dismal, freaked out and fuzzed out lo-fi black metal. But while sonically it may fit somewhere between the foresty buzz of early Ulver, the midtempo droning hypno plod of Burzum, and the thrashy blur of Darkthrone, this is Dead Raven Choir after all, so beneath and amidst all the buzzing and riffing, there are plenty of banjos, mandolins, and lots of percussion, a creepy clattery folk undercurrent, albeit all bathed in hiss and drone and distortion, black metal folk may be more accurate, closer in feel to Abruptum, a black pagan ritual, shrill and noisy and harsh and HEAVY, but in that home-recorded, perfectly underproduced way. Awesome!
This comes packaged in a printed black box, the three lps are housed in thick black sleeves, there are seven inserts, beautifully printed on thick vellum, with liner notes in perhaps the most illegible black metal font EVER!
LIMITED TO 999 COPIES WORLDWIDE!
Oooh. That cover photo of the fog, sheep and trees is nice. A misty meadow for your imagination to wander in as you listen to this, which happens to be the debut "real cd" release from the previously cd-r only label Jewelled Antler. For the occasion, they've chosen an artist from outside their SF-based "collective", their friend Smolken's Dead Raven Choir. (A bit like picking Merzbow, that, since he's so prolific, but still a good choice quality-wise.) Smolken is the guy who has discovered the secret commonality between anguished black metal and emotional folk-minimalism (such as that of Japanese troubadours like Kan Mikami). Some of his releases tend towards the noise and distortion of black metal, others towards the broken Jandekian folk of one man and a guitar. Death To Dead Wolves is yet another haunting/haunted DRC album on the sparser side of that spectrum. If you're already a fan, go ahead and get this one, it's good. If not, perhaps some explanation is in order. Smolken's modus operandi on this disc is to intone poetry (all lyrics here are from the works of 20th century American poet and sometime monk, William Everson) in a heavy Polish accent, sounding rather like a B-movie vampire. Smolken's sinister stage-whisper melds with piano and guitar, all notes struck stark and creepy, with drones and silence both adding to the eerie mix. Electric guitar is utilized, but the playing is in his usual damaged folk style. The final song, "A Canticle To The Waterbirds" is 23 minutes long, the music loosely based on a traditional folk melody. An epic ending to an evocative disc.
Got just a handful of this super limited cd-r from AQ pal Smolken and his folk/metal/ambient ensemble Dead Raven Choir. This one is all dark and skeletal appalachian folk, purposefully plucked steel string notes hovering motionless in the muggy, dusky air, murky reverbed piano, hushed urgently whispered vocals, and creepy, creaking ambience. Dark and intensely intimate. We only have 7 copies so once they're gone they're gone for good.
Yet another Dead Raven Choir cd-r! And again incredibly limited. We actually got the last 8 copies and after they're gone, they're gone for good. This time around, Smolken, who is Dead Raven Choir, tackles the writings of Rainer Maria Rilke, composing a suitably somber folkscape around his weighty words. Jandek-ian guitar clatter, Appalachian folk, tenuous piano, dramatic almost operatic vocals, and creepy dark ambience all coalesce into nightmarish outsider-folk grimness. Two guest vocalists, one male and one female, handle most of the singing, while Smolken takes care of the rest (the rest being string bass, tenor banjo, guitar, piano and some singing). Dark and pretty, sad and somber, and really nice. Each cover is unique, with the top layer carefully singed to reveal the layer beneath, and each cd comes with a different beer label under the tray, which the liner notes explain quite simply: All beer consumption by Smolken!
Holy crap. 30 seconds into track one of this new Dead Raven Choir opus and we're like, what the heck is goin' on? Is this really our Polish pal Smolken, the avant-folk poetry-readin' cd-r makin' black metal lovin' weirdo?? Well it must be, but that track he sure sounds like some sore-throated Japanese man, fronting an intense industrial distorto-drone metallic pipe-fight dirgerock explosion, with the sawing strings of a cello (or bass) suggesting the funereal-folk of another Smolken project, Wolfmangler.
It's not like Dead Raven Choir wasn't scary before, either in acoustic Eastern European Jandek mode or doing the (Cask Strength) black-metal-as-sheer-noise thing, but good grief! In some ways, this is the perfect, sick hybrid of those two approaches, sounding something like a weird-folk version of Khanate or SUNNO))), with blown-out bulldozer bass frequencies utterly overrunning songs that Smolken probably originally composed on acoustic guitar, sitting on a back porch somewhere, staring at the sunset. What could have been sparse folk numbers are instead fully distorted and doomful and get a big thumbs up from us.
Ok, we must admit we wrote all that before bothering to look at the song titles (or read the press-release). Now we know why some of these tunes maybe somehow sounded slightly familiar, or as if transposed from a less-dire domain... he didn't compose very many of 'em at all, instead My Firstborn Will Surely Be Blind is for the most part an album of covers! 7 out of the 10 tracks here are Dead Raven Choir interpretations of some of Smolken's favorite country, folk, and popular tunes by artists/victims as dissimilar as Richard Thompson and Cole Porter (!!). They're all done in Smolken's special skewed style of outsider black metal, as described above, and needless to say most of 'em are darn close to unrecognizable! We liked this a lot to begin with, now we're even more into it knowing we're actually hearing songs by late great country western songwriter Townes Van Zandt (Smolken used to live in Texas after all), alt-country chanteuse Neko Case ("Favorite"), and even obscure New Zealand drone-pop artist G-Frenzy ("From The Stars", a song that originally appeared on an out-of-print PseudoArcana cd-r we reviewed a few years back). There's also a maritime ballad by Stan Rogers, and oh yeah, the vocals on that very first track sound Japanese 'cause it's a song, "Kigi Wa Haru", by PSF-label folk troubadour Kazuki Tomokawa, an sensible choice on Smolken's part since Tomokawa's work aligns closely with that of Kan Mikami, with whom we've compared DRC's starker acoustic guitar n' vocals tracks before.
And if you like this as much as we do, you'll be happy to learn that he has another, all-country-covers album coming up, entitled Lonesome Drinking Metal...
The latest from the ever so prolific Smolken, AKA Dead Raven Choir, who we haven't heard from in a while, at least as DRC, most likely because he's been spending time recording as Wolfmangler. So makes sense that with his return to the Dead Raven Choir monicker, along with him came some sonic vestiges from his time exploring a depper darker blackness in Wolfmangler. Which is fine with us. The darker the better.
Selenoclast Wolves, much like past DRC efforts, is a bleak world of dark twangy dirges, abstract acoustic guitars, strummed, plucked, picked, notes hanging in the grey air, beneath strange spoken soliloquies, slippery upright bass, sweet female vocals, creaking strings, mournful piano, the whole record swathed in a suffocatingly sorrowful ambience. Like Jandek on Peyote, left to wander aimlessly through some alien soundscape, or to trudge wearily through the fiery underworld. A stumbling detuned free folk smotherd in blackness and left to wither and die. So totally creepy and really frikkin' weird.
Polish Texan avant folk experimentalist Smolken has released three cd-rs so far of his Dead Raven Choir output on the Jewelled Antler label. Now DRC makes an appearance on Jewelled Antler side-imprint Pink Skulls, with a disc that is just too nasty and noisy to fit in with the JA aesthetic... With "Sevenfold Songs Of Death" he really indulges his black metal inspired side, resulting in 32 minutes of what might be called noise-folk. It's as if you took all the most raw, distorted, shrill, buzzy, chaotically noisy parts of your favorite black metal albums, cranked 'em up to 11, and tried to pass it off as folk music (supposedly, all words and music here, with the exception of one song, are "traditional"). Sure, Smolken and his friends are playing mandolin and banjo and percussion, but all that's buried beneath so much grinding hiss and drone that if you listen to this at more than the barest, most minute volume you'll endanger your ears/lease/stereo/sanity (not necessarily in that order). A low volume, you can make out the folky melodies and scary vocals. Turn it up at all, and it's like Merzbow meets Abigor meets Kemialliset Ystavat... More evil atmosphere than even Abruptum, seriously. Apparently, this was originally intended for an aborted split release with AQ black metal fave Leviathan, and we'd have to say that Leviathan's probably lucky that he didn't have to go up against this!
The missing number 5 in the Jewelled Antler Library series of 3" cds turns out to be by Dead Raven Choir, the Texas-by-way-of-Poland based folk/improv one man project that the Jewelled Antler powers-that-be seem to be totally in love with of late -- this is their 3rd DRC release this year! As with his previous Jewelled Antler cd-rs, DRC here conjures up some eccentric vocal theatrics and sparse, haunted acoustic guitar playing, like some sort of Eastern European Jandek. And his black metal obsession with wolves continues in the title here as well. Scarily beautiful, with atmospheric piano and unknown other sounds providing a hissing soundscape for his vocal, all three tracks here featuring macabre poetry by Paul Verlaine.
MPEG Download: "Night Scene" [/audio/drcnightscene.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Night Scene" [/audio/drcnightscene.m3u]
Another transmission from the Dead Raven Choir, the work of a Polish ex-patriate Texan who calls himself Smolken. Followers will understand when we say that this falls into the sparse, dramatic folk half of his ouvre, rather than on the black metal noise folk side of things. Whispered, accented vox deliver the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, Hilaire Beloc, Charles Baudelaire, A.A. Milne and others over doleful strings and abstractly strummed guitar. Smolken seems to be a creepy, well-read Eastern-European version of Jandek, and he's a master of atmosphere, going totally over the top with minimal means. Every note played, and every hiss between notes, turns the blood colder. If an album could sound cursed, this is it.
Fans will of course pick this up, but if you haven't yet delved into Smolken's haunted sound-world, perhaps this is the one to try. For one thing, it's the man's first 'proper' cd after many cd-rs and tapes. And one of his best album titles too! The clincher, perhaps, is that aside from Smolken himself, the only other musician to appear on this recording is our friend, Jewelled Antler stalwart Glenn Donaldson (Thuja, Blithe Sons, Birdtree, Skygreen Leopards, etc.). Ever since, he's had a hollow look in his eyes and his beard seems paler and wispier... Or so we imagine.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
One of our all time absolute favorite outsider weirdo black metal records, long out of print on cd, with no plans to re-press, is finally available again, on cassette, for a super limited time. If you missed out on the cd, don't blow it again (and new 2cd coming soon on Andee's tUMULt label)...
When it comes to black metal, our tastes most definitely run� toward the damaged, the demented, the fried and freaked out, the totally baffling, the weirder the better. And there's no shortage of black metal misanthropes, holed up in their caves, or their cabins, or their flats, or their grandfathers' basements, meticulously crafting, ultra personal, maddeningly idiosyncratic outsider black metal. And we are constantly digging for more. The bar has been set pretty high, Benighted Leams obviously, the reigning champions of damaged outsider black metal, then there's Furze and his�'cogent black metal necrosis', let's not forget Emit, Rehtaf Ruo, Necrofrost, Hidden, Vorak, Contra Ignem Fatuum and the elusive Striborg. Phew. That's a pretty heady constellation of bizarre black metal royalty, for sure. So you know, that it is not without some serious soul searching that we would dare declare a record quite possibly the weirdest black metal record ever. But we have searched, and it is thus. Dead Reptile Shrine, from Finland, the record is A Journey Through Darkened Forests and it does indeed sound just like that.
We had practically given up on getting these for the store, Andee had even contacted the band about re-issuing the disc in the states, but luckily we discovered a distributor in Australia who had 30 copies and we took all of them. Now the cd is gone, and while they last we have the tape version... Hmmm. Finland to Australia to the United States, a long journey but it was well worth it we think. Everything about this band is bizarre, the name obviously, the song titles: "A Cave Full Of Corpse Lanterns", "The Snakes Of The Earth Pt. II", "Exekutioner Of The Final Solution", "Above The Ziggurat They Dance", "Clouds Of Doom Gather..." and of course "A Beastcults Procession", the artwork, an appropriately illegible band logo and album title, both peppered with eagles and stars and scorpions as well as loads of squiggles, the band photo of DRC, in a an army jacket, head hung low, hair obscuring his face, in front of what appears to be a huge mound of mud and sticks, with a waving hand emerging from a tiny hole in the mound, and the music, oh the music, so warped and lo-fi, buzzy and doomy and just plain freaky and far fucking out. Wrest from Leviathan bought a copy, and even he could barely handle the Dead Reptile Shrine, which speaks volumes!�
A stumbling, staggering black metal buzz, struggling through walls of haze and fuzz, sounds a bit like a Burzum record with someone constantly fiddling with the pitch control, a warbly seasick black droning whir, with splattery drums, clanging super loud cymbals, and some of the weirdest vocals ever, going from the evil black metal rasp, to an atonal Jandekian croon, to a strange falsetto, to a warm whiskey soaked growl, often within the same song, sometimes within the same line! The entire record is murky and thick with oozing black atmosphere, some songs are loping doom dirges, others race along at breakneck (for DRS at least) speeds, threatening to fall apart completely, riffs sometimes stumble to a halt, before lurching back into action, rhythms stutter, pause, leap forward, the vocals a chaotic swirl around the rickety song structures, minor key melodies and woozy guitars tangle and untangle as the songs slither and slide, leap and careen wildly, there are warbly mumbly soundscapes of droning rumble and otherworldly creaks and groans, tracks of spoken word over chanting monks, an electronic beatscape with garbled growls and haunting clean vocals, even a couple�bizarre acoustic tracks, one with throaty crooned vocals and deliberately strummed steel string guitar, some sort of Jandekian forest folk, with a riff that almost sounds like Nirvana. In fact the forest folk tag is not that far off really. Must be something in the Finnish atmosphere, but without the vocals, huge swaths of Dead Reptile Shrine could be some lost Uton or Avarus recording, or a furtively captured Tivol live session, and yet even with the vocals it still retains some haunting wild woods feral feeling. A Journey Through The Darkest Of Forests is indeed a fearful traipse through a black forest, the overhanging trees blotting out the moonlight, the sounds of the forest a murky buzz, insects and demons, wild beasts and lost souls. A baffling and frightening sonic world that should appeal to metalhead and free folkie alike.�
This tape is super limited (300 copies we think) and will be gone in a flash.... We have a bunch, but we're not sure we'll ever be able to get more...
More damaged demented Finnish madness from outsider black metal weirdos Dead Reptile Shrine. We only got EIGHT copies of this, so we won't bother going into too much detail as we tried to order three times that. Needless to say, this is fucking unhinged and completely brilliant. From the first track, a lurching soundfield of disembodied vocals, a strangled evil mewling, and chunks of downtuned guitar, spread out into a weird slow motion staccato rhythms, it just gets more and more amazingly confusional. After that, the band lurch wildly from slithering doom metal beneath wailing vocals that squeal, howl, wail and moan, the rhythms convoluted, the guitars a rumbling buzz, to thrashing raw grim buzz, still peppered with stumbling drums and bizarre over the top vocals. Might be ultra weird, but it also might be DRS at their heaviest as well...
Again, we only got 8 copies, so be prepared to leave Dead Reptile Shrine-less (or better yet, grab the other DRS cassette we're listing elsewhere on this week's list).
We're always �going on and on about the weirdest, most fucked up black metal bands ever, even elsewhere on this list, we review the new one from Tasmanian one man band Striborg, and declare it maybe the weirdest yet. But there's weird, and then there's Dead Reptile Shrine, who beyond being weird, are barely even black metal, the metallic elements far outweighed by the fractured folk and total whatthefuck elements, and the blackness, well that infuses pretty much every sound they produce, just not in the way most folks are used to or most metalheads want. Instead, DRS do their own thing, and their own thing is some fucked up mix of dark dronemusic, detuned free folk, stumbling chaotic black metal, some orchestral bits, tortured vocals, all wound into a confusional world of black rituals and mysterious sonic otherworlds. While we anxiously await the forth coming double cd on tUMULt, we have THREE new tapes to tide us over, two reissue of long out of print rarities, and another brand new album, to be released soon on cd and vinyl as well, but for now on the oh so cult cassette format. Each of these is limited to 400 copies, we got a bunch, 30 or so, but odds are those will go fast and we probably won't be able to get more.
Burning Black Intensity is the new album, and offers up a taste of what will be found on the soon to come sprawling tUMULt 2cd full length, and if BBI is any indication, then two whole cds of this stuff is going to DESTROY. This record begins with some creepy, orchestral Peter And The Wolf type sounds, strings and percussion, sampled we assume, while DRS croon over the top, offering up wavery clean vocals, strange incantations, and various other vocalizations, the result is truly twisted. This goes on for several tracks before the band launch into some black metal, but DRS black metal is a whole other thing, the drums buried in the mix, barely audible, the guitars strangled, and gnarled, buzzing, blurred and murky, dueling vocals, one a high howled screech, the other a rumbling demonic gurgle, both drenched in reverb, both howling maniacally, and relentlessly, while the guitars churn and the drums stumble, the whole thing lurching drunkenly, super raw and primitive and lo-fi and fractured and FUCKED for sure. The next track demonstrates that no matter how weird it gets, everything they do is deliberate, the guitars are thick and fuzzy, the drums simple but propulsive, the riff a near static black groove, the bass, pulsing and undulating, more typical black metal vocals screeching over the top, while way in the distance a voice shrieks hysterically, the two vocals all tangled up, the guitar spewing forth a super mesmerizing singular riff, totally hypnotic and trancelike, the vocals growing more and more unhinged. The next track is a murky muddy Wold style soundscape, melodies and guitars smeared and blurred into bleary eyed streaks of sound, the vocals an ominous rumble, the drums a chaotic blast beat, while the guitars swoon woozily, the whole track dizzy and druggy and weirdly dreamlike, the vocal eventually growing more and more warped, almost cartoonish, sing songy and almost operatic, wrapped in fluttery flutes and more distorted soft buzz.
Needless to say, this is brilliantly twisted stuff, totally wacked, outsider blackness, as true as any of the more classically TROO black metal, but unlike those, DRS are true only to themselves, any resemblance between their music and other black metal is not only coincidental it's a fluke, as most of this sounds like nothing you've ever heard.
We're always going on and on about the weirdest, most fucked up black metal bands ever, even elsewhere on this list, we review the new one from Tasmanian one man band Striborg, and declare it maybe the weirdest yet. But there's weird, and then there's Dead Reptile Shrine, who beyond being weird, are barely even black metal, the metallic elements far outweighed by the fractured folk and total whatthefuck elements, and the blackness, well that infuses pretty much every sound they produce, just not in the way most folks are used to or most metalheads want. Instead, DRS do their own thing, and their own thing is some fucked up mix of dark dronemusic, detuned free folk, stumbling chaotic black metal, some orchestral bits, tortured vocals, all wound into a confusional world of black rituals and mysterious sonic otherworlds. While we anxiously await the forth coming double cd on tUMULt, we have THREE new tapes to tide us over, two reissue of long out of print rarities, and another brand new album, to be released soon on cd and vinyl as well, but for now on the oh so cult cassette format. Each of these is limited to 400 copies, we got a bunch, 30 or so, but odds are those will go fast and we probably won't be able to get more.
Isth Naral Ja was one of two full lengths released in 2002, but whereas N.t.K. was a proper DRS release, Isth Naral Ja was a three track, 65 minute, all ambient record, originally given away with another disc, and later reissued, but both times in incredible limited amounts. While much of DRS's output is truly twisted, sometimes to the point of sounding a bit goofy to the untrained ear, the sounds found on Isth, while still twisted, are woven into what seems to be a much more serious soundworld. Epic sprawling expanses of whirring low end, deep throbbing bass, strange disembodied voices, fractured truncated guitar melodies, very haunting and peculiar, incantations surface throughout, long long long streaks of sound, trance inducing minimal rumbles, hissing almost industrial high end, long stretches of hushed murmured blackness, that bass pulse creepy and recurring, the whole thing very cinematic and evocative of some grim black wood, or some abandoned house, or some vast black sea, seemingly serene on the surface, but with who knows lurking beneath.
Isth manages the difficult task of being twisted and strange, haunting and mysterious, still embodying the musical ethos of Dead Reptile Shrine, while pushing the sound into new directions, without losing any of its power, any of its mystery, its blackness.
Whereas other DRS records are most definitely an acquired taste, this disc, while definitely still essential listening for DRS fans, would most definitely please the abstract drone and cd-r crowds. Tunnels, Bones Of Seabirds, Drommer, Expo '70, Nordvargr, Acre, Bonus, Encomiast, Starving Weirdos, Metal Rouge, Trollmann, folks who dig any or all of those might just dig this particular chunk of Dead Reptile Shrine black ambience.
We're always �going on and on about the weirdest, most fucked up black metal bands ever, even elsewhere on this list, we review the new one from Tsmanian one man band Striborg, and declare it maybe the weirdest yet. But there's weird, and then there's Dead Reptile Shrine, who beyond being weird, are barely even black metal, the metallic elements far outweighed by the fractured folk and total whtthefuck elements, and the blackness, well that infuses pretty much every sound they produce, just not in the way most folks are used to or most metalheads want. Instead, DRS do their own thing, and their own thing is some fucked up mix of dark dronemusic, detuned free folk, stumbling chaotic black metal, some orchestral bits, tortured vocals, all wound into a confusional world of black rituals and mysterious sonic otherworlds. While we anxiously await the forth coming double cd on tUMULt, we have THREE new tapes to tide us over, two reissue of long out of print rarities, and another brand new album, to be released soon on cd and vinyl as well, but for now on the oh so cult cassette format. Each of these is limited to 400 copies, we got a bunch, 30 or so, but odds are those will go fast and we probably won't be able to get more.
N.t.K was one of two full lengths released in 2002, originally a super limited cd-r, and yet another piece of the missing pieces puzzle that is the bizarre soundworld of Dead Reptile Shrine. The opener is a super creepy slab of ritualistic drone, the low end drenched in hiss and disrtortion, the vocals a harsh whisper, seriously haunting and intense, a murky mystery that soon gives way to a more 'traditional' DRS, a fractured buzz drenched fragmented black metal, ultra lo-fi, the guitars so distorted they almost sound like a solid hum, the drums a buried muffled thump, the vocals harsh and venomous, until they shift gears and become swoonsome wailing, the sound more Urfaust or Jandek, a wailing clean voice that goes from deep bellow to off kilter howl, as fucked up and out there as the music behind it. Later, the sound veers into all sorts of unimaginable territories, one track offers up a weird almost bouncy stumble, with sing songy clean vocals, underpinned by a super creepy death metal gurgle, the track like some blackened chunk of French outsider new wave, the vocals slipping from hysterical shriek a sort of creepy scatting, another track unleashes some super grim, old school raw plodding black metal, like Darkthrone and Von, but filtered through a broken boombox and a fractured psyche, while still another is a gorgeous black folk drift, all muted strum and mumbled melody, before it suddenly transforms into a stuttering dizzying off kilter doom, with some deep demonic vocals that sound almost like Darth Vader, and another sounds almost like crusty punk, pounding riffage and simple drumming and weird nasally punk rock vocals. It's all over the place, but some twisted black thread holds it all together. We've mentioned it time and time again, but the music of Dead Reptile Shrine is not for the faint of heart, or even the black of soul, it's for the twisted, the warped, the musical misanthropes, in search of sounds mysterious and baffling, and no band was ever more of both than DRS.
We talk quite a bit about our favorite weirdest black metal bands here: Furze, Necrofrost, Spektr, Striborg, Circle Of Ouroborus, Benighted Leams. Urfaust, Rehtaf Ruo, Wold, the weirder the better. But one of the weirdest, and most amazing, hails from Finland, the home to most of our favorite weird music, black metal or otherwise, and goes by the curious monicker Dead Reptile Shrine.
With only one full length (now sadly out of print, with no plans to repress) and one split (with fellow Finnish BM weirdoes Torturium), and a bunch of impossible to find cd-r's, this might just be the year of the Dead Reptile Shrine. A new cd coming on Skulls Of Heaven (the label run by the guys in Davenport) as well as a new DOUBLE cd coming out on our own Andee's tUMULt label, but until then, we've got this super limited tape to tide us over.
Sabbat is not so much a proper DRS album as it is some sort of black pagan ritual, a sonic incantation to the dark spirits, incorporating feedback, samples, bits of metal bowed and struck, percussion, as well as random bits of electronic interference and damaged tape manipulation.
On first listen, this could be lumped in with other noiserockers, Merzbow, Wolf Eyes and the like. But this is Dead Reptile Shrine, their approach to noise is unlike the others', this is black, but not black metal, this is some pagan ritual performed in a forest clearing, beneath a sky rife with falling stars, the moonlight painting the trees silver, the sound coming out of busted amps and rusted speakers, glowing like some portal to hell. Thick squalls of detuned guitar and amp buzz, blown out fuzz and murky low end rumble, twisted into strange and haunting shapes, beneath it all, a gentle stream of plinking plonking FX, whispery whirs and outer space warble, rhythms surface and drift apart, drones explode into jagged shards of white noise before settling back into a cavernous throb. Strange incantations, snippets of schoolyard song, intercepted radio broadcasts, all tangled up into super distorted riffing, and bursts of abstract guitar growl. Freaked out and FUCKING AWESOME!!!
LIMITED TO 166 COPIES. Not sure if we'll be able to get more once these are gone....
We've established that Finland is a strange place. And it's a strange place that produces some seriously strange sounds. None stranger we think than weirdo (sort of) black metal horde Dead Reptile Shrine. And placing them at the top of the fucked up and freaky Finnish music heap is definitely saying something. Especially when you consider that means they are outweirding: Circle Of Ouroborus, Aanal Beehemoth, Circle, Aavikko, Cleaning Women, Jumalhamara, Keuhkot, Nightsatan, Oranssi Pazuzu, Ride For Revenge, Will Over Matter, and that's just scratching the surface. And those last two should really make it clear just how baffling these guys are, cuz as far as we're concerned, Ride For Revenge / Will Over Matter are like the pinnacle for fucked up Finnish weirdness, that is except for Dead Reptile Shrine.
The Sun Of Circles And Wood was originally slated to be a double cd on Andee's tUMULt label (and hopefully still will be), is now available as a massive double lp, released by the super cool Weird Forest label. And if you think Weird Forest is kind of a strange label for a Finnish black metal band, you probably haven't heard Dead Reptile Shrine, who are only sort of a black metal band much of the time, in fact, they are like Circle Of Ouroborus in that respect, beloved by almost every black metaller we know, but sonically, often about as far removed from actual black metal as you can get.
Just check out the 11 minute opener, "Summoner Of Clarity", which does contain some riffs, some subtly blackened buzz, but it sounds more like some sort of twisted No Neck Blues Band / Avarus jam than any black metal we've heard. the riffing chugs along for a minute before fading out, and then returning a few seconds later, seeming to offer more texture than anything, while multiple voices moan and chant, intoning ominously over pulsing electronics, a fuzzy low end synth, rumbling and undulating, peppered with haunting melodies, atonal and abstract, there are bird sounds, bits of buzz and hum, the sound seeming to melt into a woozy swirl, we just realized those bird sounds were actually just the vocalist 'caw'ing, the synths shimming, weaving dreamy crystalline melodies over that buzzing pulse, and those haunting vox, it never explodes into a burst of black buzz, or a churning doomy pound, it just sort of hums and shimmers and eventually blinks out. And the Dead Reptile ritual has begun!
Probably a bit of overkill to go track by track, there are TWENTY after all, spread out over 4 sides, and while the next track opens up with some serious guitar buzz, it's abstract, and the riffage sprawls and oozes and weaves a bombinating backdrop for more strange chanting. It occurs to us that really anybody who loves Circle Of Ouroborus, should really love these guys too, especially if they're after something a bit less overtly folky, and more weirdly ritualistic. And when the band does dip into some 'proper' black metal, like on "Blasphemous Cover" it sounds downright demented, blorpy basslines, detuned guitars, stumbling off time drumming, maniacal strangled mewling vocals, the song lurching and lumbering, like a black metal Shaggs, so totally 'off' and twisted and whatthefuck it almost makes your eyes water.
Elsewhere the band explore some meandering clean guitar doom, which definitely suits them, again all woozy and stumbly, definitely reminiscent of German 'wooden metal' outfit Varghkoghargasmal, the song still driven by chanting, and some demonic croaked vokills as well, the guitars warm and buzzy and almost krautrocky, but still totally fractured and fucked up.
And so it goes, the record veering wildly all over the sonic map but definitely dipping heavily into black metal, at least various twisted Finnish outsider strains of black metal. "Forcefield Across Odensland" is a sort of buzzing post rock, with some seriously fucked up vocals, and some of the most awesomely constantly shifting tempos ever, "Walking Under The Winter Sun", is a blast of blown out blackness, oozing with strange effects, sounding almost like black metal Butthole Surfers, but insanely blown out and lo-fi, "Beholding The Necrocult Relic" is a gorgeous stretch of medieval sounding synthscapery, "Solstice D'Hiver" might be our favorite 'black metal' jam here, the drums tinny and lo-fi, the guitars so muted they're barely audible, the vocals, crazy, on of them a wild falsetto shriek, all over this strange skeletal muted barely there blast. So weird and so INCREDIBLE. And that's just the first lp!
The second one starts out all loping slowcore post rock, with some ominous dramatic crooning vox, some spidery guitar melodies, still more chanting, lots of feedback, before launching into a cool droned out raga, all deep vocal drones and sitar like buzz, which leads directly into some stumbling demented, strangely melodic doom, which in turn leads directly into some blurred blackness, that is about as traditionally old school black metal as these guys get, mostly cuz it's all a buzzing black blur. From there on out, it's a series of twisted blackened missives, slipping (un)easily from abstract experimental ambience, to churning punky chant flecked blackened noise, from weird almost new wave sounding lo-fi dirgery, to tripped out almost dubby spaciness, and from chaotic abstract ritualism to stumbling, atonal, almost catchy weirdo new wave blackened pop, which finishes things off.
Needless to say this stuff is fucking NUTS, and absolutely RULES. Circle Of Ouroborus fans line up, and anyone who like us, loves Finnish weirdness, and demented blackness, this is about as good as it gets!
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!! Housed in a super swank, full color gatefold jacket.
Apolgies to all who fell under the spell of the beautiful and bizarre Dead Reptile Shrine. As we mentioned in our review of their cd a few lists back, we were only able to get 30 copies, and judging from the universal freakout we probably should have had 100 or so. We're still trying to track more of those down, thanks to the folks who have been waiting patiently. But to tide you over, we got a whole bunch of this brand new release, a super limited (of course, only 500 copies) split lp with their Finnish black metal brethren in Torturium.
Hard to describe Dead Reptile Shrine. Weird. Wonderfully weird, check the review of the DRS cd elsewhere on the AQ site for the full skinny, needless to say, fans of the demented damaged side of black metal a la Benighted Leams, Striborg, Furze, Urfaust and the like will fall hard for Dead Reptile Shrine.
On this 12", DRS fill their side to overflowing with what might be described as Jandekian black metal, super lo-fi, tortured riffing, howling anguished wails over mumbled sing songy vocals, the whole thing produced in this really strange way that makes it sound almost like Darkthrone recording in a submarine fronted by dueling vocalists Mark E. Smith and Blixa Bargeld. Woah. There's a brief interlude of creepy ambience, like the muffled sound from some forties news reel filmstrip, all crackly and antiquated, sounding a bit like Jeck or Basinski, but surrounded on every side by deep ravines of ultra personal black metal stumble and rrrroooaaar.
Fellow Finns Torturium are a bit more traditional, with a blown out super distorted Viking tinged old school thrash sound, with creepy stretches of reverb drenched ambience and completely INSANE shrieking vocals, somewhere between, Urfaust, Weakling and Bathtub Shitter (!). Occasionally proceedings stumble and slow to a drowsy druggy sludge, there's even a bit that sounds quite Eastern with weird modal guitar figures over warped and warbling riffs. Killer stuff.
Packaged in a cool black and white sleeve, with a full size insert / lyric sheet.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. WE GOT 30, AND WON'T BE ABLE TO GET MORE.
Dead Science follow up their fine debut album Submariner with this considerably less drugged-out five song ep. Still very somber and edgily dramatic with a bit of a gypsy carnivalesque feel. They end the cd with a haunting cover of Terence Trent D'Arby's "Sign Your Name".
Eeep! Someone get Dead Science's lead vocalist Sam Mickens a cold flannel to cool his fevered brow. Breathless torment and angst spill forth from his lips as his strange nightmares carry over into his waking state. The fourth song is even titled "Sam Mickens' Dream"! If you like an ample dose o' drama in your musical selections, this new album from Dead Science might be your perfect cup o' downers. Much less psychedelic and post-rock leaning than Submariner, the Seattle, WA trio's last full length. Fans of Frog Eyes and Xiu Xiu should definitely check out Dead Science!
Dead Science craft subdued, trippy rock with the incense plumage of Zeppelin, some jazzy post-rock, and an ample dose of Radiohead. Each song smolders slowly with the slinking guitar and stand-up bass weaving themselves languidly around the lilting, murmurred male vocals. Customers have likened the voices to a drowsy/druggy hybrid between Robert Plant, Joe Pernice and Thom Yorke, leaning heavier on the latter as the album progresses. It's not until the second to last song "Tension At Pitch" that the band's glowing embers totally catch ablaze. Would probably fit quite nicely alongside Pleasure Forever and Black Heart Procession for a late evening's entertainment - very heavy on mood and high on drama.
If you have a penchant for arty pop that's filled with theatrical flourishes and hand-wringing croon-swoon emoting a la Antony & The Johnsons, Scott Walker, Xiu Xiu and Frog Eyes, then you should definitely chance a visit from Dead Science's latest affair Villainaire. Mind you, it is considerably more aggressive than any of those artists' music. It's a stormy shroud of a listen not for the faint of heart. Unquestionably it's the band's most composed and fully realized album to date. Menacingly jagged post-punk and forebodingly atmospheric post-rock thunderheads run headlong into a delirious whirlwind of orchestral string arrangements and free-jazz-ish skronk. Yes, you might think it to be a seemingly incongruous meeting of styles, but Dead Science's pervading shadowy dramatics brings them all together. With special guests Craig Wredren of Shudder To Think and Katrina Ford of Celebration.
Fans of all that's heavy and fuzzy and krauty and psychedelically wasted, today is a good day, rejoice, for not one but two new releases from the UK's superior quality Cardinal Fuzz label have landed! One is from Bay Area locals Lumerians, yay, and then also here is the second full-length from Manchester, England trio the Dead Sea Apes, featuring seven new instrumental tracks, artfully constructed for maximum might and moodiness, conjuring dark desert landscapes and psychedelically dosed Western soundtracks...
The record opens with the stately stoner drone of "Threads", that sounds a bit like a tranquilized Earth playing the intro to Slayer's "Seasons In The Abyss" or something, slightly sinister and very much spaced out. The slo-mo majesty continues on track two, "Planetarium", which builds and builds over a base of echoing rhythm. Then there's the twangy but fuzzy, backwards effected beauty of "Turpentine", and the sheer, swirling, shoegazing, amp worshipping power of "Regolith"... and so it goes, this album a glorious collection of droned-out ragas and hypnotic heaviness, reminding us at various moments of such other aQ faves as Circle, Gnod, Carlton Melton and Barn Owl. It winds up with the eight and a half minute "Wolf II" (a reworking of the song "Wolf Of The Bees" from their previous record, Lupus), a slowly unfurling post-rock journey of quietly brooding reverie and, ultimately, cathartic crush.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES! And as with all Cardinal Fuzz titles, in high demand.
We loved the first Dead Sea Apes on UK space/psych label Cardinal Fuzz, a collaboration with another outfit called Black Tempest, which found those two groups conjuring up some seriously heady psych-drone drift, and while we loved what we were hearing, we were also sort of curious to hear what Dead Sea Apes were all about on their own, especially considering we had heard them described as 'post rock', but the sound here definitely still falls squarely within the realms of fuzzy, murky spacey psychedelia, with long stretches of rumbling drones, dense swirls of spaced out FX, minimal motorik drumming, super hypnotic and totally trance-y.
The opening one-two punch is a doozy, "Pharmakon" is 7 minutes of dense dark swirl, laced with sitar like drones, and weird low end pulsations, the vibe modern minimalism meets murky ritualistic doom, a shimmering black ambience, that seems to slowly blossom into a roiling soft focus ur-drone, leading directly into "Knowledge And Conversation" which takes that sounds and harnesses it to something more akin to Date Palms take on Spacemen 3, woozy, warbly, drowsy and dreamy, laced with spidery guitars and Morricone like twang, swooping backwards FX and skittery shuffling rhythms, almost like a heavier, meaner, druggier Necks, the track a languorous slow build, that eventually reaches a sort of critical mass, but doesn't explode so much as get more dense and tense, rife with shards of keening high end and driven by pounding drums.
The rest of the record drifts back and forth between short little sonic sort-of-interludes, to sprawling spaced out epics, some tracks atmospheric and dusky, sounding not unlike Earth or Barn Owl, others abstract and dubbed out, sounding almost like some sort of experimental noise rock/dub hybrid, and still others delicate and haunting, aching melodies wreathed in blackened swaths of thrum and whir, driven by slow motion loping basslines, and washed out guitar shimmer.
Gorgeous stuff. Cardinal Fuzz fanatics, and we know there are a lot of you out there, should probably grab one of these before they disappear, and really, anyone into dark atmospheric psychedelia and brooding spaced out psych rock, this will definitely hit the spot.
One of two new releases from UK psych/space rock label Cardinal Fuzz, who released the Cosmic Dead 2lp, reviewed elsewhere on this week's list, as well as killer lps from two Swedish psych combos, the Hills and the Janitors, reviewed a few weeks, back, and like all of those, the oddly monikered Dead Sea Apes & Black Tempest, which is in fact a collaboration between a UK post rock outfit (Dead Sea Apes), and a space kraut synth wrangler (Black Tempest), who together traffic in the same sort of druggy psychedelic drift as their labelmates, their sound spending much of its time on the spacier side of the sonic spectrum, but full capable of space rocking with the best of them, which they do here. But it's a gorgeous, hypnotic slow build to get there, the three lengthy tracks here unfurl epic Necks-like landscapes of mesmeric shimmer, of minimal hypno-rock minimalism, brooding chordal swells, softly pulsing synths, streaks of feedback, and abstract drumming, the first half of the 12 minute opener "Grey Alphabets" is spent unfurling a lush swath of hazy, druggy, shadowy dreaminess, very epic and cinematic, shades of Godspeed for sure, the drums gradually more driving, the sound blossoming and expanding, building to a noisy climax, but instead of exploding into full on rocking, it sort of hovers there, churning ominously, before dialing back the rumbling guitars and soaring chords, leaving just a wash of shimmering electronics, and keening chiming guitars, all beneath clouds of cymbal shimmer, and some gorgeously atmospheric ambience.
The second track finds the Dead Sea Apes taking the lead, getting all Mugstar, unwinding a sprawling, hypno-rock space-prog epic, while Black Tempest adds all sorts of sonic colorations, the vibe is tense and intense, the sound lush and layered, the drums driving and propulsive, the whole thing tranced out and super psychedelic, building to some seriously howling heaviness, the drums super chaotic, the guitars in wild tangles, the synths swirling ominously, this track too has a sort of Circle / Necks vibe, mostly a single part in different variations, looped and circular and totally hypnotic.
The final track is way more spaced out, a woozy bassline drifting beneath a sky full of smoldering rumbles and arcing shards of high end, feedback and FX, a heady kosmische swirl, anchored by that low slung minimal groove, the drums eventually come in, but super sparse, a crash here, a pound there, the vibe sort of slowcore, washed out and wasted. It does eventually gain momentum, the sound getting super dubbed out, the bass and drums locked into something seriously groovy, still wreathed by the constantly shifting cloud of sound, and culminating in a final blast of blown out psychedelia, before settling into one final stretch of drowsy drift.
Essential listening for fans of druggy drifty abstract psychedelia, odds are if you dig the usual suspects: Carlton Melton, White Hills, Spacemen 3, Moon Duo, Bardo Pond, Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound, you're gonna dig this too, big time!
Like the Cosmic Dead (and all the other Cardinal Fuzz releases), this is EXTREMELY LIMITED, and will be sold out and gone for good before you know it, so don't dawdle. Housed in a swank psychedelic black and silver jacket.
We've long been obsessed with a black metal band simply called The Stone, from Serbia, but we've never been able to get enough of their records to list, and we recently got turned on to a Stone side project called May Result, who we'll have to track down for the list one of these days. And this, the debut from Dead Shell Of Universe is yet another offshoot of The Stone, but these guys are doing something much more dissonant, and frankly a little French sounding. Which as far as we're concerned is most definitely a good thing. Avant post black metal or whatever you want to call it, spaced out spidery post rock guitar lines, furious buzzing dissonance, frenzied blast beats, and super twisted and complex arrangements. Hearing a little Deathspell, yep, and also a little Spektr and some Blut Aus Nord too, but with less of an industrial angle and more of a blackened twisted psychedelic vibe.
Three songs, the shortest one just about 9 minutes, the longest a little over 13, each one a multi part epic, that deftly shifts from grinding black fury to midtempo downtuned crunch, with vocals that go from wild banshee shriek to haunting Viking croon and back again in the midst of mere seconds. The riffing is super tight and definitely catchy. The first track does splinter off into woozy atonal near ambient interludes, the drums spitting out skittery almost tribal flurries, sometime slipping into some strange woozy doom, shot through with strange chords and slippery melodies, before erupting into another blast of blackened chaos.
The second track is even more complex, with some of the most amazing drumming in ages, furious and impossibly fast, skittery and off kilter one second pounding and precise the next, locked in tight with the riffs as they continuously stop and start, change tempos in a heart beat, explode into blasting buzz and dissipate into a spaced out sort of doomy lurch, finishing off with what can only be described as classic Satyricon pulled apart into a strange looped clanging chords, while beneath the drums never stop their relentless pound. The record finishes off with a strange sort of industrial dirgescape, all glitched out electronics submerged in strange metallic rhythms and shortwave buzz, distant downcast piano, soaring faux strings, climaxing with a squall of processed cymbal sizzle, chopped and looped voices, and wavery layered drones.
It's really only two proper songs, but they're so dense and so packed with parts and riffs and rhythms and changes and textures, that we're not sure we could handle any more than 2. But whenever they're ready we're happy to try. Now to track down The Stone...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We love Stars Of The Lid. So it should come as no surprise that we love The Dead Texan as well, since the Dead Texan just so happens to be Adam Wiltzie, who is one half of Stars Of The Lid. Wiltzie no longer lives in Texas (hence the dead Texan monicker) but has continued in his new European digs, to craft utterly sublime, slow creeping, gorgeously cinematic ambience. This could just as well have been a Stars Of The Lid Record, with the difference being that instruments here are more readily identifiable. In SOTL, the sound was huge murky smear of indistinct instrumental impressions and abstract ambient. You'd be hard pressed to believe that those sounds were made with a 4-track and a guitar. But as The Dead Texan, Wiltzie takes simple guitar figure or mournful piano melodies and lets them unfurl lazily, in a spare landscape of distant rumbles and warm purrs. Occasional abstract female vocals and otherworldy chimes add to the dark sweet mystery of the Dead Texan. Disc two is a DVD featuring animations by artist Christina Vantzos (who also contributed vocals) that perfcetly visualize Wiltzie's sweet swooning gloom. Simple, quavering lines slowly grow into innocent drawings of figures and shapes, filled with bold swatches of color and texture. The strongest and most moving pieces are the bonus videos that feature grainy, home video footage of a family playing on the beach, all within Vantzos' simple lined frames and set to the sweet strains of the Dead Texan.
Mark Spybey (Zoviet France, Download, and innumerable collaborative projects) and friends -- among them some members of Legendary Pink Dots -- meld together their individual sonic imaginations, seemingly shatter the outcome, and piece it all back together again to bring you this long-titled, meticulously beautiful work. Constructed from recordings made in Canada, Cuba, and Germany (the latter by krautrocker Michael Rother of Neu!, Harmonia and Cluster). It was produced and engineered by Spybey along with the multi-talented Frank Vershuuren (LPD engineer) and Darryl Neudorf (who's worked with such divergent artists as Neko Case, Twilight Circus' Ryan Moore and the New Pornographers). At times, swirling and crystalline. At others, sputtering, heavy, and percussive.
2nd album from this band featuring Jack White III of The White Stripes and Alison Mossheart from The Kills. Doubtless you've heard all about 'em already, right? We never actually reviewed their first record, dunno, seemed like fairly ordinary blues rock stuff to us, didn't really understand why Jack White would want to bother (though it must be nice to play in a full band, and not just be a two-piece, and presumably Mossheart might think so too). A lot of folks liked it though, and we did think it was pretty neat that they did a cover of Pentagram's "Forever My Queen" on a 7" single around the same time.
Now this supergroup (the lineup also includes a guitar player from Queens Of The Stone Age who isn't Josh Homme) is already back with another album. Again it's heavy blues rock, nothin' wrong with that, but they've gone "funkier" this time 'round. Imagine maybe a dancier White Stripes, with some non-horrendous Chili Peppers goin' on as well... Ok, you're gonna think we're being snotty or something by saying that, but actually a) some of us here still really love the Chili Peppers, and b) this definitely has its moments. If you're in the mood for some cowbell knockin', house-rockin' alt rock action, with tons o' fat distorted guitar and organ vamping, Dead Weather have the jagged grooves for you. In fact, this makes us wanna go back and give their debut another spin. Also, speaking as White Stripes fans, it provides a bit of a fix. Probably don't need to say much more, you'll be hearing this on the radio after all (which is no bad thing).
HUMOROUS SIDE NOTE: Alison Mossheart once sang for an emo pop punk band from Florida called Discount, and our very own Andee, when he was drumming for J-Church years ago, toured Japan with a then 15 or 16 year old Mossheart and Discount, who were opening for J-Church. Who would've thought then, that she would end up where she is now...
Jack White's blues rockin' new band, with the girl from The Kills and some other folks.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
'Ambient' music soaked in cheap cologne.
Som ething Borrowed, Something Blue is Deadbeat aka Scott Monteith's follow up to his 2002 release Wild Life Documentaries. People will still undeniably draw comparisons to Stefan Betke's dub project Pole, but by now the world of Teutonic dub has unfolded everywhere since Betke's initial releases. So while that albatross is likely to follow Monteith for many a mile yet, it's safe to say he's charting waters leagues beyond the original Pole territory. And let's face it, there's much worse things an electronic artist could be compared to. The remaining Pole-esque vestiges on Something Borrowed remain the trademark square wave bass line, the dubbed out organ and -- of course -- the mock-Jamaican rhythms. There's much less dependence on the micro-rhythm sound palette, which gives Something Borrowed much more full sounding rhythms. Along with the addition of some very pretty and sparsely played piano on one track, there's a great deal more organic sound matter thrown into the mix here and Monteith makes good use of longer track times -- most between 7 and 10 minutes -- to experiment more with developing compositions including some pieces which pleasently drift off into rhythmless grainy soundscapes.
We've long loved Paul St Hilaire, aka Tikiman, THEE voice of minimal dub geniuses Rhythm And Sound, his gorgeous, otherworldly croon adding some serious soul to R&S' darkly digital world of gristly dubbed out, slow skitter creep, and really, if there was ever one of those 'could sing the phonebook' voices, it's St Hilaire's. Years back, St Hilaire performed with Deadbeat, aka Scott Monteith, another aQ fave, a dub scientist in Berlin by way of Canada, whose sound was and is equal parts Rhythm & Sound skeletal dig-dub, and Pole style click and pop minimalism. Over the years, Monteith and St Hilaire stayed in touch, even playing the occasional show, but this is the first proper recording the two have made together, and it's a total stunner. And as you might imagine from the above, it's pretty much just what you'd expect, a sprawling collection of gorgeous super spare electro dub, a lot like Pole crossed with Rhythm & Sound. But that sound is stretched way out, some of the tracks here almost house-y, some very Kompakt sounding, but regardless of the sonic influence or inspiration, Monteith and St Hilaire make the sound totally their own, conjuring up some spiritual musical magic that makes The Infinity Dub Sessions totally divine. Especially the first track, which is worth the $18 price tag all on its own. Maybe the most perfect, and perfectly mysterious and moody modern dub track we've heard, all woozy, thick bass rumbles, wreathed in static, deep mesmeric swells, laced with dubbed out upstroke chordal thrum, as well as the occasional dubstep style bass wobble, little bits of glitch and squelch scattered throughout, super minimal melodies drifting like bongsmoke in the background, even instrumental, this would be totally hypnotic and irresistibly mesmerizing, but add St. Hilaire's gorgeous croon, and it becomes something even more transcendent.
Nothing else is quite as dark and bass heavy, but all the tracks are tranced out, softly swirly and psychedelic, the sound simultaneously minimal and skeletal, but also deeply lush and layered, ranging from the super percussive churn of "Dopa", with some seriously twisted, echo drenched vox, to the more reggae sounding "What The Heck Them Expect", St Hilaire's vocals the focal point, the background music a dark, languorous groove. "Working Everyday" is a dubby, dreamy sprawl, all soft focus and prismatic, billowy chords drifting atop a lazily propulsive rhythm, while "Rock Of Creation" is a hazy techno-dub ballad, a field of gristly and crackle the framework for shimmery synths and hushed melodies, St Hilaire crooning seductively amidst ethereal clouds of sound. The final three tracks have a huge Kompakt vibe, but imagine if Kompakt was headquartered in Kingston, Jamaica, with The Infinity Dub Sessions a chronicle of St Hilaire and Monteith's mobile sound system, the streets of Jamaica sonically transformed into some otherworldy dream-dub dancehall.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Three years ago, the big rock n' roll sleeper hit here at Aquarius had to be the awesome Agents Of Oblivion album, featuring two crucial ex-members of the late lamented cult band Acid Bath. Heavy, poppy, psychedelic rock with vocalist Dax Riggs crooning beautifully over it all. We shoulda made it record of the week, we all thought in retrospect. Windy had it in heavy rotation in her Trans Am for ages! We were really bummed to hear that the Agents, like Acid Bath before 'em, broke up not long after the album's release. But, fortunately, there's more to the story. Rumors filtered in that Dax and a new crew of New Orleans n'er-do-wells had formed a new band with the unlikely name of Deadboy and the Elephantmen to carry on where the Agents left off. Allan confirmed this when he happened to visit N.O. two years ago and was lucky enough to catch a live performance from this new band. They had a demo out then, and we anticipated a full album release on some big label to appear soon...we waited...and waited...and now, *finally*, here's the Deadboy debut, a self-released cd 'cause those big labels dropped the ball apparently. Mystifiying, 'cause Dax is a rock star if ever there was one, and these guys should be HUGE. Totally accessible yet morbidly underground, we hear everything from some voodoo Alice Cooper darkness and drama, to a little Aerosmith swagger, to the heaviness and angst of Alice In Chains of course -- Acid Bath was always a AIC meets EHG (Eyehategod) hybrid, in a really good way. Radiohead's "Ok Computer" is hinted at too, and Jeff Buckley, as the music combines weirdly sensitive melodicism and dark atmosphere inspired by their hometown's swamps and cemeteries. Dax is as impressive as ever, he really *sings*, drawing out vowels over a dozen notes. His vocals are oddly warm and comforting but also anguished and intense. While the songwriting on this album does not quite match the relatively flowery yet heavy tunesmithery of the Agents of Oblivion album, and neither does the instrumentation call attention to itself, that's not necessarily a bad thing as it lets Dax' voice take center stage and he... just... wails. Sometimes despairing, sometimes incantatory. Oh the angst! For fans of Alice in Chains, Acid Bath/Agents of Oblivion (of course), Mark Lanegan of Screaming Trees, and Woven Hand.
There's quite a bit of tortured artist in the career of Deadboy's Dax Riggs. Even back in the nineties, fronting grind-glam-sludge lords Acid Bath, Riggs singlehandedly supplied the glam, a crooning superstar trudging through swamps of Eyehategod sludge and NOLA stoner doom groove. The combination was electric, ask anyone here how much we absolutely loved Acid Bath and their dark psychedelic tales of butterflies and codeine, death and broken hearts, told in haunting vignettes equal parts druggy acoustic dirge and crushing downtuned groove. It was only a matter of timee though before Riggs outgrew the confines of a metal band and thus was born the Agents Of Oblivion, a slow burning smoldering hard rock band, delivering intensely emotional ballads wrapped in thick guitars, incredible hooks, a sweetly psychedelic haze and Riggs' even more prominent velveety croon. Totally channelling the spirt of Bowie and Bolan, Riggs was a serpentine superstar, howling and cooing, above a thick rich web of warm groovy sound. But still, Dax Riggs Superstar remained an acquired taste, a completely underground phenomenon. The Agents splintered and Deadboy and The Elephantmen were born, the sound was nearly the same, some of the members too, as they self released another amazing record that sort of just disappeared. But now it's 2006 and Deadboy is reborn, as a two piece, the Elephantmen replaced by Riggs's girlfriend Tessie Brunet, and on Fat Possum of all labels, which makes absolutely no sense until you hear We Are Night Sky. The record starts off with a wild rock stomp, equal parts the White Stripes and labelmates the Black Keys, with Riggs' voice swooping all over the place over an impossibly hooky riff, and lots of strange start stop dynamics. At first we were a little bit bummed, this was NOT at all what we wanted from Riggs at all, but the more we listened, the more we got sucked in and now that track is an everyday play. The record definitely veers back into classic Riggs / Agents territory after that with delicate acoustic guitars, hushed vocals, Brunet's sweet harmonies in the background, each track a psychedelic swirl, all drifty and druggy and folky and oh so lovely. But before you know if, a fuzzed out riff kicks in and we're back to serious blown out bloooz rock territory, huge swaths of swaggering Stripes / Keys / Crows rock and rhythm and bluees, always with that distinct NOLA stoner groove, no matter how subtle, we can tell it's there, muted murky riffs explode above Tessie Brunet's simple solid drumming as her sweet understated background vocals balance Riggs all out histrionics. The whole record continues to sway back and forth dizzily, between Riggs' two distinct musical personalities, his big, foot stomping guitar flailing rock Hyde, and his druggy gentle folky strum Jeckyl, both equally appealing. Still dark and druggy and warped for sure, but just accessible enough to give all those hippy rockers into the Black Crowes and the Black Keys and all day festivals something a little bit weirder and a little bit harder to stick in their ears!
Truly heavy hardcore/metal. Andee, for one, believes that this band rules and/or kicks ass.
Gay gangsta rap. Gayngsta rap. That's right. You may not have known it, but the gay gangsta rap scene is apparently blowing up all over the place. Assault With A Deadlee Weapon is Deadlee's second album and first for AQ pal Matt Wobensmith's new label A.C.R.O.N.Y.M. (he used to run Outpunk back in the day). Deadlee is a hard-ass East LA "homothug", complete with a sneer, tough tattoos and doo-rag. His lyrics? Over-the-top violent sex and gang-banger tales, mixed in with stories of personal strife and gay identity. In fact, the record starts out with some un-named record exec telling Deadlee she has no idea how to sell his stuff because it's so "offensive". And well, it's definitely not an easy listen, but it is pretty fascinating. Sonically, the whole breakbeats over metal riffing sound is very reminiscent of Cypress Hill or the Boo Yaa Tribe. But the lyrics....There's Deadlee's dissing of 50 Cent and DMX in "Suck Muh Gun"? And the tongue-in-cheek "No Fags Allowed", a song whose subtlety is definitely lost if you don't know what you're listening to? Guests on this album include a who's who of the "homohop" scene, including Johnny Dangerous, Tori Fixx and lots more.
The Deadly Snakes' Porcella rides the line between authenticity and irony like a mechanical bull. It's like the cover art...you've got some Van Gogh-like paint dabs in a lovely shade of sunrise pink, but flip to the back cover and hello, what's this? A severed pigs head! Scary! The pig/meat theme continues (hence, "Porcella") on the inside artwork as well.
Our first impression of this album was that these guys sound like they are playing their first gig in the coolest college bar in a 5-people-short-of-an-official-city town and ROCKIN' the place. We were all set to paint this band as as a slightly tipsy southern bar rock outfit (though they're from Toronto originally), but then on tracks four and five this late '60s jangle and pipes and a triumphant horn sneak in and things go sort-of Elephant 6-ish. The variety comes from the switch back and forth between a couple of different songwriters and vocalists, primarily Andre Ethier and Age of Danger (that's his name). The mix of
rambunctious, bluesy, modern cowboy boot rock and best-on-a-record-player pop is a little weird to get adjusted to, but these guys do bring something nice (meat, apparently) to the indie rock table.
For everyone disappointed by the lack of proper, big beat, banging Daft Punk style dancefloor destroyers on the recent Tron soundtrack, well this is for you. The latest from Deadmau5, an electronic musician who performs costumed, much like the above mentioned Daft Punk. But where Daft Punk are some sort of futuristic spacemen, Deadmau5 wears a giant, lawsuit baiting mouse head, and sonically, Deadmau5 explores a soundworld not all that dissimilar to those of his electronic music compatriots, Daft Punk, Basement Jaxx, Chemical Brothers and the like. Big beats sure, but with a dark melodic element that elevates this beyond pure dancefloor fodder.
"Some Chords" might be the electronic jam of the year (last year?), with its haunting moody intro, thick corroded/distorted synth sound, woozy minor key melody, and dubsteppy vibe (not to mention that dubstep bass wobble/warble), hypnotic, and dark, and rhythmic, and surprisingly cinematic.
Those same elements inform the rest of the record, fat fuzzy basslines, wheezing synths, big ol' block rocking beats, but with plenty of unlikely filigree, from strange Darth Vader like heavy breathing to dark moody piano to Jamaican style toasting, to ravey synth stabs. The songs with vocals are definitely on the pop side, sing songy, sounding like Double Dutch chants, playful and fun and funky, but it's the instrumental jams that are the fiercest, and must send dancefloors into fits. "One Trick Pony" manages to merge the two, with a totally pop verse, but when the vocals drop out, it's one of the hardest dubstep jams we've heard in ages. "Raise Your Weapons" sounds like a soulful radio ballad, crooning female vocals over dark minor key piano, but then suddenly, the vocals get all dubbed out, and the song gets super dense and heavy, and those throbbing dubstep basslines, squelchy synths and crushing stuttery big beats come tumbling out.
For fans of the poppier side of dubstep, Zomby, Rusko, Martyn, Roska, Guido, Mount Kimbie who aren't averse to some chest rattling big bass, and of course the above mentioned big beat electronicians (Daft Punk, Basement Jaxx, etc...)!
Not sure how many folks remember the band Three Studies For A Crucifixion, they were a kick ass math-grind-metal band from a few years ago. Super dense and complex. Not sure what happened, they sort of just disappeared. Well, now we've got Deadsea (not to be confused with the Dead C) which features at least one member of 3SFAC, and takes that dense math metal even farther into blackened prog territory. Four lengthy tracks, a million parts per song, incredible time signature shifts, bizarre and convoluted song structures, crazy complex guitar riffs, leads and guitar harmonies. Imagine a much more fucked up Mastodon, with plenty of Iron Maidenisms, a whole bunch of Sabbathiness, lots of Carcass-y bits, a healthy dose of Voivody parts, some serious Champsy workouts and even some full-on buzzy black metal. Sounds like a mad metal hodge podge, but when it's all this deftly assembled it becomes some massive and massively mighty metal beast. Then there's some out of the blue clean vocals that take a little getting used to (a bit like Opeth's more melodic moments), but eventually seem to fit right into Deadsea's fractured musical vision. By all rights this is the band metalheads should be bowing before as much as the mega-hyped Mastodon, but for now, they'll just have to remain our little metallic secret, but not for much longer we'd wager!
The return of Deadsea, not to be confused with New Zealand noise rockers the Dead C. But of course the second you laid ears on this, there would be no confusing the two. Not a chance.
Deadsea were born out of the late great tech grind outfit Three Studies For A Crucifixion, and while the grind is pretty much gone, Deadsea are for sure technical, so much so that much of their music is utterly dizzying in its complexity. Maybe that's the reason these guys aren't huge already. Cuz man, if there was any justice in the world, these guys would be touring with Mastodon or Neurosis or playing Ozzfest or something. Not only are Deadsea heavy as fuck, but the songs are crazy catchy, over the top proggy, an impossible blend of Iron Maiden, Carcass, Voivod, with a million parts, tons of awesome harmonies, incredible drumming, insane riffing, tracks shift from thrashing fury to groovy chugging to woozy breakdown to mathy freak out to sludgey doom all in the blink of an eye. Some tracks get all Champs-like, others are almost Southern sounding. The vocals are generally a guttural sort of shout, but here and there they will soar majestically, usually coinciding with a similarly soaring guitar line.
This is just epic and majestic and brutal and blasting and heavy and we hope that the rest of the world catches on soon, not just for the band's sake, although hell, they deserve it, but for all the heavy music obsessives out there whose lives are less full, and whose iPods are that much shittier, and whose headbanging can only be less frenzied for being without Deadsea. Easily remedied though. So do it!!!
I think this one is going to have to be filed under 'guilty pleasure'. And if you're like me, that file just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. First off, there's a few things were going to have to try and overlook. First the atrocious cover painting. Just lame. Bad paint by numbers or something. Ok, two, Deadsy is fronted by Elijah Blue, who you may know as CHER'S SON. Eeeek. And of course there's the blatantly top 40 gothy-retro-electro rock sound that can't help but remind us of Marilyn Manson and Orgy. That said, this record is still a retro rocking good time. Huge thick slabs of synths and moogs, with soaring keyboard melodies and rumbling distorted synthbass, vocoders and overly dramatic vocals and some pretty wicked songs. Their cover of Rush's 'Tom Sawyer' is funny for a minute but their cover of Sebadoh's 'Brand New Love' (the best song Sebadoh ever wrote) is practically perfect. I so want it to be a huge MTV hit, for Deadsy yeah, but especially for Sebadoh! They also do a pretty cool Gary Numan cover. I imagine you'll probably be seeing these gothy glam retro electro-rockers all over MTV soon so now's your last chance to enjoy this guilty pleasure before it's a REALLY, REALLY GUILTY pleasure!
