From the same label that brought us recent bouts of brilliantly fucked black metal from Wolok and Lorn as well as classic releases from Blodulv and Glorior Belli comes this killer split, featuring two grim legends from the Swedish black metal underground.
The awesomely named Dimhymn do some impossible to describe black doom classic rock? Or something. Not sure what else to call it. Super blown out distorted black chug, haunting high end guitar licks, and incredibly catchy little bridges, a plodding dirge that sort of lopes along before the music suddenly screeches to a halt and is replaced by some classical piano, only to immediately be stomped on by a huge black cloud. A massive furious riffy freakout, guitars in the red and crumbling all over the place. The drums so hot that the cymbals' sizzle threaten to overwhelm everything. And before you know it the music blinks out again and in its place a haunting alien ambience that bloops and bleeps before once again the blackness descends. The song ends with mournful reverbed trumpet that sort of drifts off into the ether. WHAT THE FUCK? So awesome.
The second track is a huge chunk of black drone, pointillist piano dropped into a bleak soundscape of thick grinding fuzz and insect like melodies.
The final track starts off with melancholy guitar melodies before launching into a SUPER catchy groovy black thrash, with soaring melodies, and massive almost Nirvana like breakdowns, the sound still totally overblown and in the red. And again, the weird reverbed trumpet pops in without any warning, disappearing just as fast. The track ends with more of the classical piano from the first track. Wow. So amazing. We hear lots of weird black metal, but Dimhymn's half of the split has catapulted them damn near right to the front of the fucked black metal line!
Tough to follow up something like that, so fellow Swedes Hypothermia don't try to out-weird Dimhymn, but somehow manage to be just as bizarre but in an entirely different way. Epic fuzzed out glacial dirge, thick riffs spread out in a black smear, the drums a caveman plod, and some of the most fucked vocals ever. From weird, something-caught-in-the-throat sort of strangulated grunts and mewls, to guttural growls that occasionally break into falsetto-y squeaks as if the vocalist hit puberty right in the middle of recording. Sounds funny, but the overall effect is more creepy than anything. The finish the disc off with an epic 16 minute midtempo buzzscape. Looped riffs, totally repetitive and hypnotic, occasionally the drums break into a not-so-fast blast, but for the most part this is drone drenched monochromatic black dirge rock. Almost like a grim black metal Circle, or a blackened Spacemen 3, all stretched out fuzz guitar and endless trancelike riffing. So great.
A pretty much perfect split. Two more impossibly damaged and absolutely essential outsider black metal bands to add to the ever growing list!
Another tres chi chi dance mix by French suave DJ Dimitri From Paris. L'homme onctueux has stylishly stacked two full cds worth of sexy, jazz-tinged clubland tracks for his follow-up to his 2000 collection 'A Night At The Playboy Mansion'. One is designated
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THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Holy shit! This is a frightfully good piece of dark minimalism on par with Roland Kayn, Eliane Radigue, and the late period works from The Hafler Trio.
Dimmer is the collaborative project between Bay Area experimentalist Thomas Dimuzio and LAFMS icon Joseph Hammer, who have toured together on a semi-regular basis up and down the West Coast for the past decade or so. The two previous Dimmer albums were collected and edited from the numerous live gigs, documenting the real-time electronic synthesis from Dimuzio coupled with Hammer's tape loop manipulations. As impressive as Dimmer has been live and on those edited live recordings, we were completely floored by Ascent - their first collaborative venture into the studio. Restricting their sources to vintage analogue gear, Dimuzio and Hammer generate swarms of harmonic drones that they in turn filter through the abstracting tools of choice. For Dimuzio, it's his gear-junkie arsenal of digital samplers and sequencers; for Hammer, it's the humble tape deck. On the first couple of tracks, Dimmer issues deep cosmic tones with strange / strangulated fibrillations from Hammer's tape tricks that elongate, expand, and collapse in accordance with a grand, if slightly sinister vision of miniaturized symphonies for the birth and death of the universe. Gasping drones billowing with toxic fumes stream rapidly out of blackened voids with Dimuzio and Hammer making prolonged descents into near-silence, before rocketing forward with another grandiose swell of ever darkening compaction of processed synth tones. Where the album begins in the shimmeringly majesty of a Klaus Schulze composition, it ends much closer to something monstrous and cavernous like Lustmord. This is easily the best we've heard from either of these two stalwarts of the California avant-garde! Limited to 300 copies.
Dimmer is led by one New Zealand rock veteran Mr. Shayne Carter. I Believe You Are A Star is far darker (yes, dimmer, haha!) and deeper entrenched in a brooding mood than their more recent full length There My Dear which we also just got in stock. Unlike that album, it seems like with this (his first recordings after his old band split) he was consciously trying to distance himself from his Straitjacket Fits past. A shadowy chill-out collection of songs propelled by shuffling drumbeats and grooving fluid basslines.
Not to be confused with the Dimmer that was born from NZ's Straightjacket Fits, this Dimmer brings together two stalwarts of the California experimental community: Thomas Dimuzio and Joseph Hammer. The former skirts the boundaries between electro-acoustic technologies and improvisational abstraction, having collaborated with the likes of Chris Cutler, Matmos, Wobbly, Scott Arford, Illusion Of Safety and countless others. Mr. Hammer is one of the prominent members of the willfully oblique Los Angeles Free Music Society, having participated in such projects as Solid Eye, Points Of Friction, and Steaming Coils. Hammer's instrument of choice is the reel-to-reel tape deck, through which he can muster an uncanny palette of sound, noise, and drone. The two have worked together off and on for a good part of the last decade, with a handful of performances throughout California and a couple of releases - Remissions being their second and collecting some of the best moments from those live gigs.
"Sky Wire" builds insectoid buzzes and creepily harmonic drones out of the interplay between Hammer's rough-hewn tape manipulation and Dimuzio's deftly rendered swells, somewhere between Machinefabriek and Christoph Heemann. "Sun Dog" grafts blackened noise onto an electrocutioner's hum, with Hammer's start 'n' stop tapes popping into view like a detached Burroughs cut-up. Both "Gases That Emit Light" and "Giant Eagle" continue along these same strategies with eerie clouds of drones that fold and collapse between harmonic resonance and dissonance with unsettled bursts of soft focus noise. This is really exceptional stuff, and certainly some of the best that we've encountered from either artists individually.
As we've mentioned a few times before, we were pretty geeked when former member of New Zealand's Straitjacket Fits Shayne Carter stopped in for a surprise visit while on tour with his band Dimmer last year. We missed their gig, but fortunately he brought in a couple cds for us to enjoy. After listening to them, we were kicking ourselves even more for missing them live. Sorry for the delay, but it's taken this long for us to get our hands on them to pass along to you! The songs on this their most recent release There My Dear sound as if they were carried to our pop-loving shores by a gentle ocean breeze. Not too soft though, this wistful, yearning pop isn't without a hearty gust or two! You can definitely hear some similarities to his old band, but Carter's sensitive gent vocals and easygoing stride are also quite reminiscent of The Style Council or the Tindersticks pitched up to a higher register. Really good!
Okay, true grim metalheads, scoff all you like, but we can NOT stop listening to this. Not because it's a great black metal record (although it sort of is), in fact, this is barely black metal at all really. There was a time where Dimmu Borgir were Norwegian black metal royalty, but they committed the ultimate offense, which was to become popular, as in mainstream popular. And instead of fighting that popularity, they embraced it, and in the process became even MORE popular. In fact, the new record, at least special versions of it, are only available in your local mall via Hot Topic! And if there's anything less kvlt, we'd be hard pressed to think of it. But. And this is a very big but, for what DB has shed in true black metal cred, and classic black metal sound, they've made up for by transforming into something totally other and else. Sure there's still some blasting beats, some buzzing riffage, sick vokills, but where DB used to employ orchestras and orchestral filigree for bombast, and sheer epicness, that orchestral side of DB seems to have lapped their BM side, and now they sound like a black metal score to the most amazing pirate/adventure/action movie that could never live up to such an epic over the top soundtrack. Which means this is fucking FUN, and ridiculously bombastic, and now the guitars take a back seat to the strings, and you know what? It suits them.
Check out "Born Treacherous", which sounds remarkably like their Norwegian brethren Khold, sort of groovy and grungy, but then the strings come in, and the flutes, the horns, the percussion, but before the can launch into it, the explode into some serious black metal, but even then, that buzz and blast is wrapped in strings and soaring dramatic swells, and there are plenty of stops and starts so the strings can soar dramatically. This is power metal writ WAY over the top, super intricate and proggy and pretty brilliantly orchestrated, but it's not until about halfway through that the brilliance is driven home, by a dizzying breakdown, a super dynamic stop/start interlude, with creaking ship's riggings, chantlike vocals, sampled spoken word, grunting pigs, choirs, even Tuvan throat singing, and then it comes together, descending pizzicato strings, dense swirling swells, launching directly into another almost trad sounding burst of black metal, but again soon the orchestra takes over. It's overwhelming and exhausting and totally thrilling. If we were designing a video game, this record would be the soundtrack, it's so evocative and over the top and you can't help but feel like you should be battling or swashbuckling or something.
And beyond the music, DB always had the craziest outfits, the biggest spikes, the most ridiculous costumes, and for this new record they've totally outdone themselves, ditching black entirely, now clothed entirely in white leather, all dusted with what seems to be powder, strange rams horn helmets, long white leather dusters. Check out the video for "Gateways" on YouTube (it's also included as a bonus here, the special 'cross' digipak version of Abrahadabra, which we'll have til they run out), it's easy to see why these guys are so popular, in fact, it makes us wonder why they're not ever MORE popular. Fuck the boring jeans and sneakers shoegazers, if we pay $20, we want flames, and bigger than life characters, and ridiculous drama, and that's pretty much what you get with Dimmu Borgir, especially on Abrahadabra. AWESOME!
Epic, gothic black metal in the Cradle of Filth vein.
"Eliza, the whore of the night/attends the sabbath, the theatre of lust/The hunter is in the ring, caressing folds of flesh/Diabolical intercourse profound." Words and music with no equal?...from Norway's answer to Cradle of Filth, and one of the most popular metal bands in Europe at present. This ep contains new songs, an Accept cover (!), and some live cuts, eight tracks in total.
Newest and possibly best (certainly best in a while) record from black metal's second biggest 'sell outs' (first place belongs to Cradle of Filth of course). Not sure how this band managed to alienate the true black metallers (other than by getting popular)
The Bay Area stalwart Thomas Dimuzio has long been known for his improvisation chops with electronics and live sampling strategies, sporting a discography littered with the who's who of the avant-garde elite (Fred Frith, Chris Cutler, Matmos, Dan Burke, Wobbly, Joseph Hammer, Negativland, Psychic TV, amongst a litany of others). His albums can be filled with wildly colorful bursts of electrical jitter and post-Bayle clusterings; and at others, they can embrace the slow-motion rippling of the finest by the holy minimalists of the last century. Amid Zero Echo falls into the latter category, one that he has mastered within the Dimmer collaborative project with Joseph Hammer in particular. Guitars are what we are told to be the source material for this double 10" released on the ever reliable Substantia Innominata subsidiary of Drone Records. The four sides to this album each sport low rumbling dronecraft with variable hues and swarms, with streaks of machined feedback and motorized abrasion peppering the gravity-suck drone heaviness. Dimuzio tracks through his bleak / black spaces with glacially paced metallic buzz, evanescent mysteriousness, and some downright gorgeous chordal smolder that falls somewhere between the form destruction dronework of RST and the vacant space orchestrations from Thomas Koner.
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Awesome solo piano recording from this NZ legend. Only 4 copies in stock.
NOW ON VINYL!!
Good ol' Dinosaur Jr.! Looks like Dinosaur Jr.! Sounds like Dinosaur Jr.! Yes, regardless of its title the band's first studio album in ten years -- and first with one Mr. Lou Barlow who left the band back in '89 -- doesn't venture far from their trademark sound of old. In fact, we might even attest to it being on par with any one of their most beloved records. Lofty praise, innit? File under: perfect-driving-in-car-record!
Perhaps taking a cue from a classic Mr. Show sketch, despite the infamous animosity amongst band members in the past, Lou, J and Murph use that tension to sing! Indeed they don't necessarily set their differences aside, but instead put that palpable friction to good use, coming together once more to rock as only they can! Bent and broken guitar chords butt into J's unmistakable sodden whimper vocals. Loud, cacophonous rough-housing meet some of the sweetest romantic sentiments often within the same song. Awwwww! Few other bands can alternately snuggle and sock you in the gut... and have you enjoy it. Just check out the lone song that was co-written by Mascis and Barlow (Mascis wrote the other ten). Damn good. Don't know if the guys like each other any more than they used to, but we sure have a soft spot for 'em. Heck, they even brought back their signature colors -- fuchsia and lime!
After so many disappointing reunion records recently (like, say, The Stooges) it's quite something that this one isn't just not-disappointing, but SO GREAT. Wow.
Available on vinyl for the first time since the original lp on SST way back in 1988! Limited to 2000 copies on Baked Goods, the label of Dinosaur mainman Jay Mascis.
Wow. Never thought we'd be reviewing a Dinosaur Jr. record. I mean, they are one of those bands that were always around. We all loved them. Had all of their records (at the time). Had the cassettes on the floor in the frontseat of the car, just a quick lean from the driver's seat, ready to pop in for the next long drive. They definitely stopped being relevent (and -good- some might argue) after Bug, their third record. But for three or four years there, Dinosaur Jr. took everything we loved and stuffed it into one perfect little indie rock package. Punk rock snarl, metallic crunch, indie jangle, squiggly guitar solos (!), and a Neil Young like whine in the form of frontman J. Mascis' stoned drawling vocals. You can definitely hear the influence Dinosaur had on Nirvana, Polvo, Swervedriver, and about a million other late eighties rock bands! Lou Barlow, bass player for Dinosaur Jr., would go on to send indie rock from the studio back to the practice space and launch a million bedroom rockers with his home recorded 4-track project Sebadoh (whose first official release was actually a track on the second Dinosaur Jr. record You're Living All Over Me) while Mascis (formerly of punk sludge outfit Deep Wound and metal weirdos Upsidedown Cross) would go on to more commerical success before dropping off the face of the earth and giving up music altogether. But for those first three records, Dinosaur Jr. were the shit. And damn if these records don't sound just as good now almost a decade later! All three re-issues have liner notes by Byron Coley and bonus tracks!
Bug was what you would call Dinosaur Jr's breakthrough. Or maybe sell out record. But who really give a shit what you call it. This was the ultimate kick ass indie rock record. Period. Heavy and catchy, melodic and weird, totally derivative and totally original! The song "Freak Scene" is what did it. A perfect pop song if there ever was one. AND the best use of expletives in an indie rock song ever. Even people who didn't know the song, would sing along to -those- parts: "So fucked, I can't believe it", and "Just don't let me fuck up will you, cuz when I need a friend it's still you", at the top of their lungs. And why not? Every inch of that song was a stone cold hook, the chorus, the verse, even the guitar solos. Track two, "No Bones" is maybe as Neil Young as Dino Jr. got, a totally unforgettable riff, and perfectly drawled vocals. Then there was "The Post", a doomy dirge that somehow morphs into into a perfect little pop ditty, wrapped around one of the most kick ass rock riffs ever and some wicked leads on top! This is maybe the first (and only?) truly perfect Dinosaur Jr. record. The sound is still buzzy and heavy, guitars are big and distorted, but the pop songs are just too strong to stay buried and against all odds, and often battling crushing guitars and freaked out noise, they rise to the surface and shine brightly through swirling shroud of distorted psychedelic haze. So so so great!!!
Wow. Never thought we'd be reviewing a Dinosaur Jr. record. I mean, they are one of those bands that were always around. We all loved them. Had all of their records (at the time). Had the cassettes on the floor in the frontseat of the car, just a quick lean from the driver's seat, ready to pop in for the next long drive. They definitely stopped being relevent (and -good- some might argue) after Bug, their third record. But for three or four years there, Dinosaur Jr. took everything we loved and stuffed it into one perfect little indie rock package. Punk rock snarl, metallic crunch, indie jangle, squiggly guitar solos (!), and a Neil Young like whine in the form of frontman J. Mascis' stoned drawling vocals. You can definitely hear the influence Dinosaur had on Nirvana, Polvo, Swervedriver, and about a million other late eighties rock bands! Lou Barlow, bass player for Dinosaur Jr., would go on to send indie rock from the studio back to the practice space and launch a million bedroom rockers with his home recorded 4-track project Sebadoh (whose first official release was actually a track on the second Dinosaur Jr. record You're Living All Over Me) while Mascis (formerly of punk sludge outfit Deep Wound and metal weirdos Upsidedown Cross) would go on to more commerical success before dropping off the face of the earth and giving up music altogether. But for those first three records, Dinosaur Jr. were the shit. And damn if these records don't sound just as good now almost a decade later! All three re-issues have liner notes by Byron Coley and bonus tracks!
Dinosaur was not only the name of their debut record, but was actually the name of the band before they added the Jr. (after the release of Bug and a threatened lawsuit from SF hippy leftovers Dinosaur). Sloppy and chaotic, noisy and snotty, Dinosaur is the record that introduced us to what would become a hugely important band, and who by melding melody, punk rock blast, and metallic crunch would end up being massive influences on a decade of indie / college rock. Mascis' lazy, whiney nasal drawl is definitely present, but hasn't become the focal point it would be on later records. Lots of reverb, big distorted guitars, a beautifully clumsy, strummy indie rock with plenty of wah guitar, bursts of angstful harcore grrrr and the occasional metal guitar freakout. Diamonds in the rough include the glimmer of Dinosaur to come in "Repulsion" and the indie jangle love song "Severed Lips" that definitely made it on every indie geek's mixtape in 1985. Bonus track: "Does It Float (live)".
NOW ON VINYL!!!
It's weird to think that in the current climate of rock reunionism, there's probably not a single band you loved when you were younger that you can't imagine reuniting, touring, even making a record. It's even weirder to think that once that band did get together, they might make a record the rivals any of their classics from decades earlier, and while Farm is no Bug or You're Living All Over Me, it's really not that far off. Especially considering what you might expect from a band making a new record nearly 25 years since their debut. Even harder to believe with a band like Dinosaur Jr, whose acrimonious (to say the least) breakup had most of us assuming they would never speak again, let alone write and record and tour.
But here it is, record number two since the original Dinosaur lineup reunited. 2007's Beyond was great, and Farm just rules. It's heavy, catchy as hell, the band are tight, Mascis' voice sounds exactly the same, his leads are wild and all over the place, and while we never thought we'd be hankering for some seriously jammed out guitar rock, Dino Jr. makes us wonder how we did without it for so long. Some of the tracks on Farm ("Pieces") are so catchy and so rocking, they sound like they could have been Bug outtakes. Farm is even more like an old Dinosaur Jr. record as bassist Lou Barlow (Sebadoh, Sentridoh, Folk Implosion) contributes a couple of his old songs, and unlike the old days, when his tracks were gorgeous sad boy 4-track loner folk gems, his two tracks here are dense and intense, super heavy, super catchy melancholy rockers, that sound like kick ass Sebadoh jams, and have us hankering for a new record from those guys too!
We're getting tired of reunions like everyone else. Not every band we loved needs to come back from the dead, and most already have a catalog that's pretty perfect without adding some modern sub par attempt at relevance, but fuck, it's tough to argue with a record as good as Farm, and a band who still kick as much ass as Dinosaur Jr.
WTF?! Dinosaur Jr Live In The Middle East? Well, sort of... not in the geographical region, mind you! No, the Middle East in question here is a music venue in Boston, MA, and it is only one of the many locations at which the footage on this dvd was actually shot. It documents Dinosaur Jr's triumphant December 2005 reunion tour on which the original lineup dusted off all the old faves and tore into them with all the electricity, volume vim and vigor that we were hoping for. Lots of behind the scenes footage and bonus interviews with fellow veteran rockers Steve Albini, Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Kevin Shields, Mike Watt, Sonic Boom and uhhh, Matt Dillon.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Available on vinyl for the first time since the original lp on SST way back in 1987! Limited to 2000 copies on Baked Goods, the label of Dinosaur mainman Jay Mascis.
Wow. Never thought we'd be reviewing a Dinosaur Jr. record. I mean, they are one of those bands that were always around. We all loved them. Had all of their records (at the time). Had the cassettes on the floor in the frontseat of the car, just a quick lean from the driver's seat, ready to pop in for the next long drive. They definitely stopped being relevent (and -good- some might argue) after Bug, their third record. But for three or four years there, Dinosaur Jr. took everything we loved and stuffed it into one perfect little indie rock package. Punk rock snarl, metallic crunch, indie jangle, squiggly guitar solos (!), and a Neil Young like whine in the form of frontman J. Mascis' stoned drawling vocals. You can definitely hear the influence Dinosaur had on Nirvana, Polvo, Swervedriver, and about a million other late eighties rock bands! Lou Barlow, bass player for Dinosaur Jr., would go on to send indie rock from the studio back to the practice space and launch a million bedroom rockers with his home recorded 4-track project Sebadoh (whose first official release was actually a track on the second Dinosaur Jr. record You're Living All Over Me) while Mascis (formerly of punk sludge outfit Deep Wound and metal weirdos Upsidedown Cross) would go on to more commerical success before dropping off the face of the earth and giving up music altogether. But for those first three records, Dinosaur Jr. were the shit. And damn if these records don't sound just as good now almost a decade later! All three re-issues have liner notes by Byron Coley and bonus tracks!
You're Living All Over Me was the transitional record, where Dinosaur Jr. started sounding, well. like Dinosaur Jr. With Mascis' Neil Young like drawl way up in the mix, swirling squalls of wah guitar, and most importantly, KILLER songs! Not even remotely punk rock anymore, this was the sound that would define late eighties indie rock. "Little Fury Things", the opening track is the perfect Dinosaur microcosm, starting off with a blast of noisy guitar feakout, a jangly strum takes over, and Mascis belts out a melody that remains stuck in our heads even to this day before the whole thing is subsumed by a suffocating swirl of guitar noise. The rest of the record is practically perfect, veering from loping heavy guitar grooves, to slow shimmering jangle, to full on Crazy Horse instrumental guitar jam. In fact YLAOM is the record that turned Mascis into the first indie rock guitar god. Live, every track would stretch out into endless psychedelic jams, while on record, those jams were compacted and stuck between perfect pop choruses and plaintive, sad boy verses, which again became the blueprint for every indie rock band that followed. YLAOM also included the track "Poledo" which while technically a Dinosaur Jr. track, was performed and recorded by bassist Lou Barlow at home, and was the first officially released Sebadoh song (or songs, as it actually sounds like several song fragments strung together), a mumbly lo-fi acoustic dirge, interspersed with tape hiss, noisy interference, found sounds and bursts of white noise. Weirdly, the first cd version of YLAOM included the Peter Frampton cover "Show Me The Way", replaced here by their infamous cover of the Cure's "Just Like Heaven" with its dirge-y blast of a chorus and wailing guitars, and which, in a testament to Dinosaur's songwriting brilliance, sounds like it could be a Dinosaur original.
Available on vinyl for the first time since the original lp on Homestead way back in 1986! Limited to 2000 copies on Baked Goods, the label of Dinosaur mainman Jay Mascis.
Wow. Never thought we'd be reviewing a Dinosaur Jr. record. I mean, they are one of those bands that were always around. We all loved them. Had all of their records (at the time). Had the cassettes on the floor in the frontseat of the car, just a quick lean from the driver's seat, ready to pop in for the next long drive. They definitely stopped being relevent (and -good- some might argue) after Bug, their third record. But for three or four years there, Dinosaur Jr. took everything we loved and stuffed it into one perfect little indie rock package. Punk rock snarl, metallic crunch, indie jangle, squiggly guitar solos (!), and a Neil Young like whine in the form of frontman J. Mascis' stoned drawling vocals. You can definitely hear the influence Dinosaur had on Nirvana, Polvo, Swervedriver, and about a million other late eighties rock bands! Lou Barlow, bass player for Dinosaur Jr., would go on to send indie rock from the studio back to the practice space and launch a million bedroom rockers with his home recorded 4-track project Sebadoh (whose first official release was actually a track on the second Dinosaur Jr. record You're Living All Over Me) while Mascis (formerly of punk sludge outfit Deep Wound and metal weirdos Upsidedown Cross) would go on to more commerical success before dropping off the face of the earth and giving up music altogether. But for those first three records, Dinosaur Jr. were the shit. And damn if these records don't sound just as good now almost a decade later! All three re-issues have liner notes by Byron Coley and bonus tracks!
Dinosaur was not only the name of their debut record, but was actually the name of the band before they added the Jr. (after the release of Bug and a threatened lawsuit from SF hippy leftovers Dinosaur). Sloppy and chaotic, noisy and snotty, Dinosaur is the record that introduced us to what would become a hugely important band, and who by melding melody, punk rock blast, and metallic crunch would end up being massive influences on a decade of indie / college rock. Mascis' lazy, whiney nasal drawl is definitely present, but hasn't become the focal point it would be on later records. Lots of reverb, big distorted guitars, a beautifully clumsy, strummy indie rock with plenty of wah guitar, bursts of angstful harcore grrrr and the occasional metal guitar freakout. Diamonds in the rough include the glimmer of Dinosaur to come in "Repulsion" and the indie jangle love song "Severed Lips" that definitely made it on every indie geek's mixtape in 1985. Bonus track: "Does It Float (live)".
Wow. Never thought we'd be reviewing a Dinosaur Jr. record. I mean, they are one of those bands that were always around. We all loved them. Had all of their records (at the time). Had the cassettes on the floor in the frontseat of the car, just a quick lean from the driver's seat, ready to pop in for the next long drive. They definitely stopped being relevent (and -good- some might argue) after Bug, their third record. But for three or four years there, Dinosaur Jr. took everything we loved and stuffed it into one perfect little indie rock package. Punk rock snarl, metallic crunch, indie jangle, squiggly guitar solos (!), and a Neil Young like whine in the form of frontman J. Mascis' stoned drawling vocals. You can definitely hear the influence Dinosaur had on Nirvana, Polvo, Swervedriver, and about a million other late eighties rock bands! Lou Barlow, bass player for Dinosaur Jr., would go on to send indie rock from the studio back to the practice space and launch a million bedroom rockers with his home recorded 4-track project Sebadoh (whose first official release was actually a track on the second Dinosaur Jr. record You're Living All Over Me) while Mascis (formerly of punk sludge outfit Deep Wound and metal weirdos Upsidedown Cross) would go on to more commerical success before dropping off the face of the earth and giving up music altogether. But for those first three records, Dinosaur Jr. were the shit. And damn if these records don't sound just as good now almost a decade later! All three re-issues have liner notes by Byron Coley and bonus tracks!
Bug was what you would call Dinosaur Jr's breakthrough. Or maybe sell out record. But who really give a shit what you call it. This was the ultimate kick ass indie rock record. Period. Heavy and catchy, melodic and weird, totally derivative and totally original! The song "Freak Scene" is what did it. A perfect pop song if there ever was one. AND the best use of expletives in an indie rock song ever. Even people who didn't know the song, would sing along to -those- parts: "So fucked, I can't believe it", and "Just don't let me fuck up will you, cuz when I need a friend it's still you", at the top of their lungs. And why not? Every inch of that song was a stone cold hook, the chorus, the verse, even the guitar solos. Track two, "No Bones" is maybe as Neil Young as Dino Jr. got, a totally unforgettable riff, and perfectly drawled vocals. Then there was "The Post", a doomy dirge that somehow morphs into into a perfect little pop ditty, wrapped around one of the most kick ass rock riffs ever and some wicked leads on top! This is maybe the first (and only?) truly perfect Dinosaur Jr. record. The sound is still buzzy and heavy, guitars are big and distorted, but the pop songs are just too strong to stay buried and against all odds, and often battling crushing guitars and freaked out noise, they rise to the surface and shine brightly through swirling shroud of distorted psychedelic haze. So so so great!!!
Bonus tracks: videos for "Freak Scene", a sill assemblage of wacky band hijinks and some poor kid getting his head shaved, and "No Bones", a gorgeously arty live video, that perfectly captures the mood of the song!
It's weird to think that in the current climate of rock reunionism, there's probably not a single band you loved when you were younger that you can't imagine reuniting, touring, even making a record. It's even weirder to think that once that band did get together, they might make a record the rivals any of their classics from decades earlier, and while Farm is no Bug or You're Living All Over Me, it's really not that far off. Especially considering what you might expect from a band making a new record nearly 25 years since their debut. Even harder to believe with a band like Dinosaur Jr, whose acrimonious (to say the least) breakup had most of us assuming they would never speak again, let alone write and record and tour.
But here it is, record number two since the original Dinosaur lineup reunited. 2007's Beyond was great, and Farm just rules. It's heavy, catchy as hell, the band are tight, Mascis' voice sounds exactly the same, his leads are wild and all over the place, and while we never thought we'd be hankering for some seriously jammed out guitar rock, Dino Jr. makes us wonder how we did without it for so long. Some of the tracks on Farm ("Pieces") are so catchy and so rocking, they sound like they could have been Bug outtakes. Farm is even more like an old Dinosaur Jr. record as bassist Lou Barlow (Sebadoh, Sentridoh, Folk Implosion) contributes a couple of his old songs, and unlike the old days, when his tracks were gorgeous sad boy 4-track loner folk gems, his two tracks here are dense and intense, super heavy, super catchy melancholy rockers, that sound like kick ass Sebadoh jams, and have us hankering for a new record from those guys too!
We're getting tired of reunions like everyone else. Not every band we loved needs to come back from the dead, and most already have a catalog that's pretty perfect without adding some modern sub par attempt at relevance, but fuck, it's tough to argue with a record as good as Farm, and a band who still kick as much ass as Dinosaur Jr.
While they last (not long we're guessing), we have the deluxe version, with a 4 song bonus track, which includes two Dino originals, a Zombies cover, and a cover of a psych pop classic by Elyse Weinberg.
Dinosaur Jr. continue to be one of the few reunited bands, whose new stuff, sounds pretty much as good as their classic stuff. That might be a bit of an overstatement, considering this is the band that was responsible for "Freak Scene", "Bulbs Of Passion", "Repulsion", "The Wagon", "Little Fury Things" and a bunch more, over great record after great record, but ever since they got back together, and released Beyond, it was like they never left. (We were totally prepared for the worst, but they just totally blew us away with that album.) And I Bet On Sky is just the latest great record from these guys, their third since reuniting, and just like Farm before it, which we also loved, all the things we love about the band are present and accounted for: crazy catchy songs, fuzzed out guitars, J Mascis's buzzing leads and whining plaintive vox. The first track on I Bet On Sky, is uncharacteristically jangly, with what sounds like a Mellotron offering up a string-like shimmery backdrop, then the vocals come in, and it's like some sort of minimal stripped down Dinosaur, there's even piano, plonking out a simple melody; gradually, Mascis' guitar swoops in, and unfurls wild soaring leads over the top, all the while, the song stays locked into that single loop/groove/riff/melody. It's a weird one, but impossibly catchy, and great opening track. Next, "Watch The Corners" is much more standard Dinosaur, chugging guitars, lilting melody, Mascis's Neil Young like croon, killer rhythm section, a super rad chorus, with weird harmonies, and super dynamic start/stop arrangement, and of course hooks galore. The rest of the record is pure Dinosaur Jr, which also means super varied, strummed acoustic guitars, under crunchy distorted riffage, all washed out hazily psychedelic, woozy, tangy almost slow-core, plenty of wah wah guitar, some serious rockers too, and some unlikely surprises (one aQ-er thought one of the tracks sounded like Steve Miller Band!), but for the most part, fans are gonna want this, and are likely gonna end up loving it. And while it might not be the very best place to start, it's still good enough that Dino newbies could find themselves hooked, with the added bonus of one of THEE most amazing back catalogs in indie rock to subsequently discover!
Our heads are nearly exploding from getting not only The Beach Boys Smile Sessions box, but also this beautifully elaborate quadruple lp, in a hand pulled screen printed box set containing the 24->24 Music sessions of Arthur Russell's Dinosaur L project complete with remixes and extra Russell related Sleeping Bag Records singles! Both sets have more in common than you might think in the way they show what fastidious creators both Brian Wilson and Arthur Russell were, in that they both sought to take their musical visions to the limits and didn't know really when to finish. And in both cases, under different circumstances and contexts, had to have others come in and pick up the pieces.
It's really funny scanning back over all of our past Arthur Russell reviews. The first couple from 2004 suggest that a lot of people were into this, "but no one at aQ has become a big Arthur Russell fan", although since then there have been more than a few of us here who have become HUGE fans. While we admittedly have gushed over nearly every release, the Dinosaur L sessions have always been our favorite of Russell's work, probably because it is the one project that went beyond just being a singles project and it also unified his avant experimental leanings with his love for disco and extended dance forms.
Not to be confused with Dinosaur, the single project that Russell worked on with The Gallery's Nicky Siano and David Byrne for Sire Records in 1978 (the single, "Kiss Me, Again" was Sire's first disco single release!). Dinosaur L was born of a performance at the Kitchen in 1979 where Russell compiled a band of downtown regulars including Peter Gordon and Peter Zummo with a congo player and a drummer with Russell on cello, and presented orchestrated disco music as an avant classical performance. The move was a bold and calculated political statement, thumbing their noses at the snobby attitudes of the new music scene towards club music, to which Russell claimed no such hierarchical distinctions. But the performance created strong divides in the downtown scene even though they were largely more bemused bafflement than outright hostility. Emboldened by the reaction, Russell next step was to get these performances on tape, using most of the same musicians and enlisting vocalists like Jill Kroesen, Julius Eastman, and Marie-Chantal Martin, as well as various members of little-known New York new wave and punk bands. While the original performance project allowed the musicians to work freely and expansively, the overall music was highly composed, which adds a strange element of chance to the proceedings, allowing the pieces to include many deliberately wonky and unpredictable twists and turns. The vocals adding both a disaffected no-waveish delivery from Jill Kroesen on "#5 (Go Bang!)", as well as strange operatic fits on "#3(In the Corn Belt)" and Yoko Ono-ish yelps on "#1 (You've Gotta Be Clean On Your Bean)", make this the perfect punk and disco hybrid that delivers highly on both counts. The entire original project consisted of 4 extended cuts with two shorter interludes, the last song, "#6(Get Set)", going the deepest in to no-wave guitar territory but maintaining a forward thrusting momentum through its strange and beguiling devolution.
You probably wouldn't unleash such a leftfield dance classic like "#5 (Go Bang!)" on an unprepared dance audience unless you had the timing exactly right, with the crowd all extremely revved up and sweaty. We imagine that was the thinking when stalwart downtown DJs like Larry Levan, Francis Kevorkian and Walter Gibbons each took their editing chops to the Dinosaur L sessions and made them a bit more dance-floor friendly. Stripping out certain vocal parts, adding others, allowing tension to build up and release, each producer taking a different approach to Russell's maximalst visions with the composer's full approval. Russell thought the remix process was just another form of extended creation, and while he favored some remixes over others, he was very generous in handing his creations over to the club DJs he was affiliated with for further manipulation. Included in the set are 3 remixes of "Go Bang!" which are all highly different and all very worthy. The Francis Kevorkian mix is probably our favorite, taking a dub like approach with a tight focus on the rhythms yet utilizing dream-like atmospherics. There are also two Larry Levan remixes from other Dinosaur L sessions. The last three sides are devoted to various Sleeping Bag Records singles from Russell related projects like Felix ("Tiger Stripes"!), Indian Ocean, The Sounds of JHS 126, and Bonzo Goes To Washington.
Packaged in a deluxe screenprinted box with each record housed in a hand-pulled screen printed mat sleeve, and a 20 page booklet with liner notes, production information and testimonials from all the musicians and Djs involved. So unbelievably fantastic!
Here is one third of a triple dose of bizarre that's just arrived at AQ! What's so bizarre? Well, first off, the pairing of buoyant sixties pop tunes featuring a young lad's sweet voice with the incongruous sepiatone vintage porn pics on the record sleeves. If we were to stop our description there, these would be pretty darn odd enough, but let's continue shall we? The almighty catch is that the voice in question just happens to be the one that would go on to sing for Elf, Rainbow, Black Sabbath, and Dio! Yes, these singles are early sixties recordings by none other than Ronnie James Dio himself! We all know he's an old guy, and had heard rumours for years that his recording career began way back in 1957...well now we pretty much have the proof in the form of these three singles, reissues of tracks circa 1962 done by Dio and his teenage cronies. This is not just pre-Heavy Metal Dio, this is pre-Beatles! Poppy, doo-wop, sock hop styled stuff in the vein of Dion, Richie Valens, that sort of thing. These singles with their risque covers come randomly assorted between plain black and nice thick swirly colored vinyl. Quite a curio. And as you might imagine, we have only a few in stock!
Here is one third of a triple dose of bizarre that's just arrived at AQ! What's so bizarre? Well, first off, the pairing of buoyant sixties pop tunes featuring a young lad's sweet voice with the incongruous sepiatone vintage porn pics on the record sleeves. If we were to stop our description there, these would be pretty darn odd enough, but let's continue shall we? The almighty catch is that the voice in question just happens to be the one that would go on to sing for Elf, Rainbow, Black Sabbath, and Dio! Yes, these singles are early sixties recordings by none other than Ronnie James Dio himself! We all know he's an old guy, and had heard rumours for years that his recording career began way back in 1957...well now we pretty much have the proof in the form of these three singles, reissues of tracks circa 1962 done by Dio and his teenage cronies. This is not just pre-Heavy Metal Dio, this is pre-Beatles! Poppy, doo-wop, sock hop styled stuff in the vein of Dion, Richie Valens, that sort of thing. These singles with their risque covers come randomly assorted between plain black and nice thick swirly colored vinyl. Quite a curio. And as you might imagine, we have only a few in stock!
Here is one third of a triple dose of bizarre that's just arrived at AQ! What's so bizarre? Well, first off, the pairing of buoyant sixties pop tunes featuring a young lad's sweet voice with the incongruous sepiatone vintage porn pics on the record sleeves. If we were to stop our description there, these would be pretty darn odd enough, but let's continue shall we? The almighty catch is that the voice in question just happens to be the one that would go on to sing for Elf, Rainbow, Black Sabbath, and Dio! Yes, these singles are early sixties recordings by none other than Ronnie James Dio himself! We all know he's an old guy, and had heard rumours for years that his recording career began way back in 1957...well now we pretty much have the proof in the form of these three singles, reissues of tracks circa 1962 done by Dio and his teenage cronies. This is not just pre-Heavy Metal Dio, this is pre-Beatles! Poppy, doo-wop, sock hop styled stuff in the vein of Dion, Richie Valens, that sort of thing. These singles with their risque covers come randomly assorted between plain black and nice thick swirly colored vinyl. Quite a curio. And as you might imagine, we have only a few in stock!
Top Ranking Santogold, mixed by Diplo, is a full blown Santogold medley. So if you were into her latest release, you'll definitely be skankin' to this ragga, pop, dub influenced mega mix which ties some of the Santogold favorites, b-sides, remixes and mash-ups together into a rude 35 track mixture of gold goodness. The mix runs seamless from start to finish with plenty of overlapping blends that somehow someway work wonders together. Picture Santogold vocals, singing/rapping over the likes of dubstep wonders Benga and Skream's shakey slumpers or the Celtic synth grooves of electro pop jam band Ratatat, with added appropriate yet unsuspected jams from Devo, The Dixie Cups, and The Clash mashed against Cutty Ranks, Sister Nancy, and Three Six Mafia betwixt and between, what!? Oh and did we mention, a little Sir Mix-A-Lot action for good measure? Trust us, the line-up looks semi-disaterous but Diplo definitely makes it work effortlessly. We dare you to stay in one place while this album is a bumpin'! Recommended!!
Featuring drummer Alexander Neilson (of w/ Richard Youngs fame).
The first in a four part lp reissue series compiling the early eighties singles from legendary (and surprisingly unknown and sadly underappreciated) NZ musician singer/songwriter Bill Direen, who in a perfect world would be held in the same regard as his countrymen Alistair Galbraith, Chris Knox, Peter Jeffries and the rest. The tracks here, originally released as a 7" limited to just 100 copies, are some primo eighties NZ underground post punk / garage pop, all 4-track Velvets jangle and Wire-y angular post punk, crunchy and droney and hypnotic, driven by minimal drum pound and economic arrangements, the songs here exude a brooding mesmer, even at their most kinetic, fusing classic seventies power pop to indie rock jangle and lo-fi psychedelia, pretty fantastic stuff, and well worthy of a wider audience. Sadly, these reissues, for as sonically pleasing and long overdue as they are, will very well price out a lot of folks, as it's 4 songs, 8 minutes, at 45 rpm, essentially a 7" cut deep and loud for maximum fidelity, which we totally dig, but realize that buying all four volumes will get you about 30 minutes of music for nearly $90. We'd say it's worth it, but here's hoping someone will take all these newly remastered singles and cram em all onto an affordable cd. Until then though, this is reservedly recommended!
LIMITED TO 350 COPIES!!
