Limited tour-only cd-r of demo versions, live recordings and unreleased tracks from the same sessions that produced their gorgeous Thrill Jockey debut album. We only have about 10 of these and are not sure if we can get more, so act fast.
Highlighting the core tracks of the Dusted Sessions in illuminating stripped down versions, the first track "Dusted County Stomp" establishing itself on a repetitive Hex-era Earth electric guitar riff, before Marielle Jakobsons' violin responds in counter-play in true Henry Flynt-ish fashion. "Yuba Groove" is a faster version of the sprawling majestic central suite "Yuba Source parts I and II". Then there's a live on-radio version of "Exodus Due West", that the band performed on KFJC, a heavier demo version of "Dusted Down", a majestic flute-fronted demo of "Mercy Springs", not really featured on the original album and finally, "Sky Trails" which has a really nice Fripp and Eno "Evening Star" vibe with gorgeously picked guitar and pedal steel. There's even a secret track at the end. Beautiful!
And like we said, SUPER limited. Get one while you can, Date Palms fans!
The Date Palms debut lp on Root Strata, Of Psalms (now sadly out of print) was one of our standout favorite records from last year. A blissful combo of Eastern drone classicism and hypnotic psych fluidity. Now the core Oakland-based duo of Gregg Kowalsky and Marielle Jakobsons follow their debut up with this stunning, no doubt limited, vinyl-only release on Mexican Summer (which comes with a download card).
Composed of two side-loooooong tracks, the structure of Honey Devash is set up in the form of two ragas as their basic foundation but open wide enough to allow a number of key compositional elements to play through. The title track is the morning raga stirring softly at first with slowly energizing phase shifts and bowed violin drones setting up the mood before the heavy bass riff bursts forth into a forward moving momentum aided by percussive elements and all sorts of sonic layering: oscillating bloops, arc-ing violin loops and modal electric piano phrases. Slowly-burning upward toward a white hot light, the gorgeously smoldering momentum breaks off into a purifying hypnotic cosmic bliss punctuated by spacy violin figures before a long slow fade.
The second side track, "Honey Dune" is the evening raga and it cools down with a wide drifting expansiveness lke the end of a long desert heat just before twilight. The mood is less propulsive, more contemplative but beautifully rich with added instrumentation of bass clarinet, tampura and cascading piano motifs. Melodically pretty and explorative, the track gives ample room for each instrument to stretch out and play yet remain tethered to a unifying whole by the grounation vibes of Trevor Montgomery's basslines.
Like some heady hybrid of spiritual Eastern jazz and rockish psych extrapolation, fans of Bruce Palmer, Dadawah, L. Shankar, Brightblack Morning Light, and Spacemen 3 should definitely scoop this up.
This is the perfect soundtrack for hot desert nights, staring at the stars. Sooooooo gooooooood!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ----* ----* Highlights : ----*
Date Palms is the new project of heavy electronic / cassette tape manipulator Gregg Kowalsky and Marielle Jakobsons (Myrmyr, Darwinsbitch) and is a strange, yet fantastic fusing of Eastern style raga drones, and hypnotic Spacemen 3 style bass buzz, which seems like a weird combo, but it definitely works, situating the Oakland duo right between those two not so disparate (as you might think) sounds, the music almost like some sort of slowcore spacerock dronedrift, writ abstract and minimal and Eastern, if that makes any sense. Sure it's on Root Strata, and both Date Palms are individually involved in the avant garde, but this could have easily come out on Kranky, or some other similarly outrock label, and these two could totally tour with a band like Low, or Stars Of The Lid, their slow smoldering drift a perfect fit, but the exotic array of Eastern instruments, and the duo's deft arrangements, and meticulous crafting of this hushed meditative minimal dronemusic, most definitely positions this just as easily outside the realm of 'rock music', and firmly in the world of the 'experimental'.
The opener is a perfect example, beginning with layered drones, the sound is immediately recognizable as some sort of Eastern raga, but the minute the bass comes in, the sound is transformed, and we can't help but hear Spacemen 3, at their most blissed out, and heck, they did make a record called An Evening Of Contemporary Sitar Music after all, which if we're not mistaken contained no sitar at all, the point is, Date Palms are channeling the same sort of druggy psychedelic minimalism, but adding that distinctly Eastern element, this opening track sounds like a way slowed down Moon Duo, with the keyboard swapped for some mysterious Indian instrument, and the guitar swapped for a bass, the groove is glacial, and is the perfect anchor for the more abstract buzz and drift. The bass does dissipate briefly, and at that point it sounds like Indian classical music, but then when the bass comes back in, along with some gorgeous melodic guitar counterpoint, the sound is brought right back to something more Western. The push and pull is dizzying, but subtly so, a fantastic hybrid, that works perfectly, combining to musics that both traffic in repetition and drone, the resulting hybrid is absolutely mesmerizing, the sort of rare sound that would appeal to the space rock bliss out crowd as much as the abstract minimal dronemusic crowd.
The rest of the record follows suit, the warm liquid basslines introducing a looped style mesmer, while all around, the duo introduce various bits of percussion, tinkling chimes, processed tape loops, sympathetic overtones and harmonics, on at least one track, the sound grows particularly fierce, the drone and drift wrapped in a squall of tangled psychedelic guitar, but that leads directly into the most blissed out of the bunch, the nearly 14 minute centerpiece, a smoldering drift where the bass part is so slow it almost sinks right into the background buzz like another layer, this time the processed guitar shimmer definitely evokes Sound Of Confusion era Spacemen 3, a gorgeous blurred dronescape that is utterly hypnotic, and 14 minutes is not even nearly long enough. The record closes though with what to us is the strangest of the bunch, definitely the most traditionally melodic, with a proper 'riff', the bass pronounced and fuzzy, and the melody played on an organ, the vibe almost classic rock, weirdly enough, but again, slowed waaaaaaay down and stretched waaaaaaay out, resulting in another gloriously abstract bit of raga drone slowcore drift.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
Date Palms make their long awaited Thrill Jockey debut and we couldn't imagine a better way to celebrate the Summer Solstice than with this Oakland outfit's sun scorched desert ragas. The band headed by Marielle Jakobsons and Gregg Kowalsky have expanded their sound since their last release on Mexican Summer, adding flute and guitars (both pedal steel and electric) to the mix of violin, keys, tambora and bass. This was recorded in one long session last year during the solar eclipse, and it has the feel of shimmering sky worship as it finds kinship with the earth along an arid expansive plain. In the three part "Yuba Source" suite that makes up the bulk of the first half of the album, the tamboura and keys buzz in a cloudy atmosphere while the violin and pedal steel soar above, the loping basslines keeping everything grounded but moving, building to a heavily dense concentration of sound. On other tracks, Kowalsky's electric piano riffs dominate reminding us of Brightblack Morning Light or Bruce Palmer, bringing spiritual jazz vibrations to a kaleidoscopic core. Prismatic drones and flute trills simmer like sounds of night lit by flickering campfires, with bass tones like falling stars, plummeting earthward with dramatic emphasis. "Night Riding the Skyline", the longest track on the second half of the record, brings in scorched acid guitar and plodding drum machine rhythms for a distant night journey into the sand dunes. Probably their most complexly composed and deepest record to date, each song connected to each other, but remaining distinct and distinctive on their own. Highly Recommended!
The lp for a limited time comes on dusted pink vinyl, black vinyl after that and always with a download card.
We're huge fans of NZ guitarist Craig Williamson and his space raga rock outfit Lamp Of The Universe, whose sound is actually light on the rock, and heavy on the space and the raga, with buzzing sitars, and loping krautrock grooves, blissed out ambience and wispy clouds of spaced out FX. But way back in 1999, before the birth of LOTU, Williamson was doing time in a little band called Datura, who shared some sonic sensibilities with his later outfit, spacey, groovy, buzzy, but Datura rocked, we mean ROCKED, some serious stoner rock�Hawkwind / Monster Magnet worship for sure. Big�ol' wah wah guitar riffs, pounding drums, downtuned fuzz guitars, BIG BIG amps unleashing thick walls of sun baked drug drenched sound. The kind of sound we could gladly listen to forever. But...
...It's the vocals that will make it or break it for you. Super throaty rock croon, very reminiscent of Kyuss, some folks here thought it sounded a little too bar rock, or like the one rock guy on every season of American Idol, channelling some Eddie Vedder with that "yyyyuuuuuaaaayy" sort of classic rock yowl. But if you were into Kyuss, or any of the first wave of stoner rock bands (Beaver, Dozer, tons of other Man's Ruin bands) or any bands on the Small Stone label, this will definitely push those space rock, desert rock, stoner rock, slow groove, blown out guitar, beer and pot laced laid back groove buttons for sure.
Germany's Daturah return with a second album of magnificently, majestically moody post-rock. As before, it's mostly instrumental, with just some spoken voice samples (Godspeed style) buried in the mix, occasionally punctuating the sweep of Daturah's spacey songs. Mostly it's repetitiously reminiscent of Mogwai and Isis and Sigur Ros and Pelican and the like, with five long songs (nine and a half to thirteen plus minutes) going on and on, all very sad and pretty. The guitars swell and chime, drums metronomically keeping time, and as we mentioned time does pass, during which Daturah's quiet parts yearn always for the crush to come, when they heavy it up - sometimes almost achieving a black metal buzz (burz?), or hint of one, that could make you think you were listening to part of a recent Katatonia album for a moment or two. Atmospheric and/or heavy, and always melodically, melancholically tremulous, Daturah slowly dive in and out of the loud-soft dynamics thing with grace and gravitas, if not utter originality. Nice, though.
Oooh. Nice one here for fans of Mogwai and Mono and the like... Germany's Daturah are quite adept at that style of dynamic soft-loud mesmerization, being both gently melodic and heavy too. It's easy to lose oneself in this lulling but loud set of really pretty post-rock.
Daturah bring the depresso-drone hammer of melancholy down with some force on these three stretched-out, mostly-instrumental epics. Some half-buried voices are to be heard, tranmissions lost in shortwave ether, drifting in the mix, a la Godspeed or Nadja. But the focus is on the magnificent oceanic swells of guitar. On "Warmachines" they really manage to rock out, whereas other parts of this are suffused with light, lightness.
If you like Mogwai, Mogwai, Explosions In The Sky, Pelican, Growing, Cult Of Luna, Isis, etc., this is 45 minutes of music you'll also like, we're pretty sure!
The liner notes state that this is "an homage to young hares and their fascination with bells." Well, we learn something new everyday, as we had no idea that cute, little baby rabbits had an affinity for bell tones one way or the other. The field recordist and sound sculptor Yannick Dauby offers forth this lovely piece of manipulated, dulcet bell tones, but does he intend this piece to be the equivalent to Raymond Scott's Soothing Sounds For Babies, but for rabbits? It is certainly soothing to these human ears, regardless of the lapine allusions. Semi-melodic phrases from various chimes and bells are multi-tracked and processed with degrees of pitchshifting, reversed playback, echo, and reverb, removing it from the context of a field recording of a set of windchimes, and situating it into a far more abstract musical one. Dauby's pace is suitably slow and somewhat sensuous in its langour, all suspended within a sedate fog of droning mystery. Not too far from some of the Mirror records that Andrew Chalk and Christoph Heemann released back in the day. This is a super limited release - just 100 copies - from the folks at Invisible Birds, who as always do a classy job on the artwork.
A French born composer now living in Taiwan, Yannick Dauby comes from the same school of concrete-centric field-recording as Eric LaCasa, Tarab, Jean-Francois Laporte, and to a lesser extent Francisco Lopez. As such, Dauby pulls his compositions together from a near constant investigation of the environment, with the chorales of frogs and cicadas situated next to the thrum and hiss of heavy industry. Where LaCasa in particular is interested in matching particular textures and frequencies into sympathetic collages of intertwined sounds from any number of sources, Dauby has more of an interest in emphasizing a divergence in his sounds, juxtaposing comparatively dissonant field recordings to force them into a dialogue. So you'll find rasping blurts of locusts buzzing above a constant hum of some unnamed high-speed electrical dynamo, which gradually fades against a backdrop of metallic clinking, that almost sounds like the ambience of an ancient blacksmithery, becoming a smart counterpoint between two forms of human innovation. Dauby's composition is one of slow evolution with his numerous passages of water (thunderstorms, streams, subterranean dripping), the din of distant traffic, various bird utterances, windstorms, and clattering squeaks and whirls from industry effortlessly moving in and out of each other. All of these field recordings originate from France and Taiwan, although Dauby is very cautious not to make either locale too obvious, even when the chatter of children intermixes with that of incessant insect noise. It makes for a great, psychogeographical listen!
For many years now, Yannick Dauby, Hitoshi Kojo, and Michael Northam have collected environmental sounds with varying degrees of obfuscation and abstraction, often melding such sounds with sympathetic electro-acoustic noises, textures, scrabblings, and lots of heady drones. Northam's work is certainly the most well documented at least here at aQuarius (most recently through his ongoing collaboration with holy minimalist CC Hennix), although we have stocked much of Kojo's work in his various projects (e.g. Spiracle and Juppala Kaippo). The Frenchman Dauby (currently residing in Taiwan) is the purist amongst the three, prefering to contextualize untreated field recordings within his compositions, which is especially true for his most recent body of work. Kojo treks back and forth between tactile, growling harmonics and playfully dream-time minimalism, often sourced from his field recordings; and Northam's recently forays into psychedelic ragas morphed out of a conceptually rigorous and industrially grim sound design. Corgilon seems to have emerged from several recording sessions that convey the introspective mystery of a private ritual, with all three participants generating bright tones from various bells and pieces of scrap metal along with the organic crunch of stick, rock, and sand. The tactile sounds find themselves at the foreground at the beginning of the record, only to be slowly consumed in reverberant drones and golden ambience. If this sounds like something that might emerge out of any given Jewelled Antler offshoot, you're awfully close to the earthen mysticism found here. Limited to a mere 300 copies.
If anything, the Estonian countryside is quiet. The clockwork schedule of the network of rural buses and the cackle of a black swan racing high above the trees is about all that you'll hear. I (Jim) had the pleasure of experiencing this Estonian quietude a few years back, and I have to say that Yannick Dauby's collection of field recordings is way more active than any i actually encountered. Estonia is known for its avian diversity, although when I was there during the brief transition from summer into winter (literally, three weeks!), the birds had all flown south... so Dauby must have been there in later spring or summertime as he does capture a number of chittering sounds from those birds passing through from Russia and Finland to Southern Europe and North Africa (or vice versa). Between these avian recordings, Dauby documents another common denizen of the Estonian countryside - the giant chunks of metal dumped unceremoniously by the Soviet agricultural industry. Even without much wind, these abandoned grain silos and oil tanks resonate with thick rumblings and subtle overtones, which Dauby dutifully records with contact microphones. These thrumming drones recall the Alan Lamb wire recordings as much as they do Thomas Koner's deep gong recordings.
Disc one of this two disc set features Dauby's "songs for birds and metal" while the second features reworkings of Dauby's source material by John Grzinich and Murmer (aka Patrick McGingley), both of whom have exceptional catalogues of electro-organic compositions based often on phonography. Grzinich's two lengthy pieces are quieter and more subtle, focusing on the patter of dripping water and melting ice with flickering drones and harmonics forming arctic halos around those aquatic textures. The two Murmer tracks intensify things comparatively against Grzinich's lowercase work, with thick drones amassed around what sounds like somebody trekking through the deep snow. Those Coleclough / Koner drones manifest ominous black clouds and unsettled vibes, not heard elsewhere on the album and turning that Estonian quiet into something haunting. All in all, a magnificent piece of manipulated field recording and sound ecology.
The ultimate in suave chic pop. Positively groovy. Ideal music for the Euro-fashion show runways including the catfights backstage. One part Heaven 17. Remember "Let Me Go"? Well, check out the track entitled "So Gut". One part Charles Wilp. One part Human League. One part Pizzicato 5 (see "Whole Lotta Weasel"). One part dorky weirdness. Well shaken, and topped with an avalanche of cocktail fruit, olives and canapes. So very very fun.
The duo known as Dauerfisch bring to you a campy array of lounge-y numbers on a label known for it's suave, glitzy euro-pop. Many a well-turned heel and finely cut suit. Tres sexy. Recorded in Berlin. Yes, fans of StereoTotal, Air and Pizzicato Five, try this one on for size.
Gonna try to make this review a short one, not because this record isn't great, because it is, but just because it's only eleven minutes long. That's right, eleven minutes. Ten songs in eleven minutes. That should give you a clue as to what you're in for. Somehow though it doesn't seem like a rip off since the Daughters jam more parts and notes and insanity into a minute long song than most bands fit in a whole record. Ultra spastic, maniacal grinding prog metal punk is what we're talking here. A la the Locust, An Albatross, Horse The Band and all those bands that take twice as long setting up as they do playing their entire set! Just set your cd player on repeat and listen to Canada Songs over and over and over and over. You'll want to anyway this record is so good. From the same label that brought us the great Circle Takes The Square record from a few lists back!
Not sure why we never reviewed the last Daughters record, Hell Songs, it was a doozy, a gnarled chunk of chaotic noise rock, which ended up being the bands swan song. At least temporarily. After a hiatus of several years, the Daughters are back, and sonically very little has changed, a lurching pounding din that would fit pretty comfortably right between your Jesus Lizard and Botch records (sonically, not alphabetically), wild streaks of angular guitar, pummeling drum damage, howled mush mouthed vocals, a whirling dervish in sound, slipping from full on psychedelic noise rock freakout, to loping post rock lurch, effects all over the place, super dynamic, lots of stop / starts, plenty of metallic chug, throbbing fuzz bass, twisted guitar harmonies, stuttery glitched out production, and some subtle but KILLER hooks, shit this twisted and noisy and off kilter shouldn't be this catchy, but these guys always had a knack for slipping some pop into their noise, and if anything, some time away seems to have reinvigorated them, these jams sounds as heavy and freaked out and KICK ASS as ever. We only listened to this a couple times since it came in, but we've been spinning it over and over and can't seem to stop, which says more than we ever could. RECOMMENDED.
We've heard tell of record for a long time, but this is the first occasion that a cd reissue has wound up in our bins. It's about time 'cause it is indeed a pretty cool little album! Multi-instrumentalist Wolfgang Dauner was an innovative German jazz musician who in the late '60s started to move into more experimental and "krautrock" territory. The Oimels, originally released in 1969, was supposedly his attempt at a "pop" album...
It starts off with the funky, quirky instrumental "Oh, Baby, I Don't Love You Anymore", wherein ivories are tickled, flutes are flaunted, and there's some silly serious stabs of fuzz guitar from Siggi Schwab (an MPS label vet that you've heard before if you're familiar with the Vampyros Lesbos soundtrack!). Reminds us a bit of that bizarre exploito-kraut "party album" by Staff Carpenborg & The Electric Corona we reviewed a couple years ago. Neat enough, should appeal to the same folks digging those "In-Kraut" and "Instro-Hipsters" compilations... but with an extra dose of something. Uh, LSD?
Sitar twang is added to the next track, the faux-Eastern hippy jam "Take Off Your Clothes To Feel The Setting Sun", the vocals blissfully, mantrically suggesting that one disrobe as per the song title. That's followed by another bright n' slinky lounge instrumental, "My Man's Gone Now", that would have Austin Powers sayin' "Groovy, baby" and whooping it up. So far, so good... a groovy jazzy album yeah, with some freaky pop leanings, but a psychedelic krautrock classic? Well then you hit the positively CRAZED track four, "Come On In On In" and you realize that The Oimels are seriously trippin'. It's a hard one to describe, totally unhinged, almost hyperactively punked-up like The Monks, with chaotic chanting vocals and infectious rhythmic glee. Wow, wild! Ok, now we're convinced. And as the album continues, the freakiness does too. It's such a weird blend of smooth jazz grooves and psychedelic spasms. Dauner and his Quintet were definitely on to something (or on something) with their sound. Some of the other surprises in store for listeners include a swingin' version of "Greensleeves", and, to end the record, a pretty amazing cover of "A Day In The Life" by the Beatles. The elegiac mood of the original is maintained, enhanced even, yet also subverted with insane atonal fuzz-jazz soloing.
We're now definitely interested in hearing Dauner's other progressive jazz and fusion albums of the era, if we can find 'em...
We've been loving Davenport for a good long while now, but they were one of those bands who hovered ghostlike in the world of ultra limited cd-r's and limited-to-50-copies lathe cuts and thus we were never able to get more than a few copies of any of their records until now. Free Country is the first proper cd release we've had from this gorgeously mysterious outfit and the title couldn't more perfectly reflect the music inside. Completely free country, loosed from the restraints of typical twang and instead posessing some haunting otherworldly magic, occupying an impossible space somewhere between Jackie-O-Motherfucker, Scott Tuma, the No Neck Blues Band, Souled American, Avarus, Smithsonian Folkways and all of the wraith like purveyors of whir and drone we dig so much. This is still, somehow, some bizarre strain of country music, but it's filtered through foresty folk and free noise and tribal clatter and all the other stuff that informs what is sometimes referred to now as new weird America. It's really hard to describe. Nashville via Finland via the American Southwest maybe? Harry Smith's Anthology of abstract free folk and minimal country? Drone country? They all hint at the sweet mystery of this record but fall just short of truly describing how fucking beautiful it really is. Free Country is a series of dark, droning, sweetly melancholic sonic abstracts, all cobbled together from warm washes of organ, swirls of tone generators and simple muted percussive thumps, skittery casios and simple twangy guitar melodies, keening fiddles, grizzled old-blues-guy vocal samples, smears of impossibly lovely ambience, stretches of whispery almost-krautrock like rhythms, delicate piano tinkle and blurry synthesizer squiggle, mumbled sad boy vocals all marble mouthed and introspective (sounding a bit like This Heat vocals), streaks of fuzz guitar and plenty of reverb and delay and a production that deftly manges to combine outdoorsy campfire whispiness with big cavernous throb, making every thing sound warm and dense but airy and free, like a thick cloud of steam when you first open the door of a hot shower, the melodies and fragments of song smeared and indistinct, quickly fading as if drawn on a fogged up mirror with your finger. Gorgeous.
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.
A few lists back we reviewed the most recent Davenport cd, a gorgeous slab of droney dreamy outsider free folk twang. It was great to finally be able to spread the word about a band we'd been digging for ages via super limited cd-r's and lps, always unfortunately too limited to get enough for the list. And as if on cue, a few weeks later, after mentioning the bands penchant for limited runs, we get a new SUPER limited lp, so limited it's already out of print in fact. But we did manage to get a bunch, but a bunch means like 20. so don't snooze on this one!
A little less overtly twangy than the Last Visible Dog cd, the lp is a more abstract, much dronier, more mysteriously abstract affair. Creepy and skeletal, ominous and darkly dreamy. Warm swells of rumble and deconstructed twang. Occasionally the mist parts revealing a strange pagan gypsy hoedown, a wondrous forest ritual, keening fiddles, softly strummed detuned guitars and strange sing songy vocals. But thos brief glimpses are soon obscured by more droney murk and rumbling fuzz. Really cool.
Packaged in swank hand screened sleeves. The first half of the orders for the 20 or so we have will get the colored vinyl version, the rest will get the black vinyl. If you will not be happy with the black vinyl DO NOT ORDER THIS, just feel lucky if you end up with a red copy, although as far as we're concerned black is WAY cooler than red, when you really think about it...
Ultra limited release from the Davenport Family, the extended lineup of free folkers Davenport, released on the Meudiademorte label.
This is a single 35 minute jam, and it is a monster, sure there's the usual, clattery percussion, distant folky jangle, shimmery ambience, but shit here gets way more fierce and scary. Some massive slow motion stripped down folk doom. Epic sludgy rhythms, a plodding crashing thud, demarcating a harsh landscape of wild tribal drumming, strange echoe-y vocals, streaks of guitar feedback, like some krautrock free folk doom metal Taj Mahal Travellers or something. Everything blown out and abstract, hung loosely around a relentless rhythmic death march, trawling through dense clouds of damaged FX, dubbed out drums, clattery percussion and huge bassy throbs. Tribal and primitive, spacey and majestic, pounding and surprisingly brutal for a bunch of hippy free folk misfits. Awesome!!
LIMITED TO 230 COPIES!!! We got about 20, after these are gone they are gone for good.
For whatever reason, we had never really listed anything by this local singer/songwriter before now, but this new 7" definitely has us kicking ourselves, although we're led to believe it's a bit of a departure. But holy crap, is this great, total old school seventies/eighties Yellow Pills style classic power pop. The A side is such a stunner, sounding like it was from some old power pop comp alongside Dwight Twilley Band, Cheap Trick, the Knack and heck even Rick Springfield. Crunchy guitars, reverby vox, hand claps (of course!), kinetic and energetic and a little bit new wave-y with hooks galore and a killer chorus. We've listened to this about 20 times in the last week.
And the flipside ain't so shabby either, more mellow, a dirgey slow jam, total eighties prom slowdance, with a heavy John Hughes vibe, new wave-y bassline, reverbed, dramatically crooned vocals, awesome melodies, and classic sounding hook, very much like M83's take on eighties teenage soundtracks, but way more genuine.
Great stuff for sure! Comes with a download code too!
Ace Of Spades is a cd-r series of live recordings showcasing the intimate acoustic music of a variety of local indie artists. The series so far boasts consistently strong performances from all participants (well played and well recorded at Mama Buzz Cafe in Oakland).
Volume 8 was recorded on April 17th, and features a hearty gathering of Paul Panamarenko Band, Bart Davenport, the Moore Brothers (their four sweet songs on their very own make this well worth gettin'... you might also wanna check out their wonderful studio album Now Is The Time For Love!), Laura Weinbach, Matthew Herz, Vernal Falls and Helen Chaya.
David & The Citizens have received bountiful accolades in their home country (including a nomination for 'best pop band' in Sweden's Grammy Awards!), and it's easy to hear why. The Swedish sextet make some dandy rustic indie rock with a twist. They've infused the songs on their latest album Until The Sadness Is Gone with Klezmer elements as well as some gorgeous string arrangements courtesy of the Ebrelius Quartet. A crafty yet unassuming bittersweet beauty. Recommended.
Conceived of as a showcase for his invented amplified concert instruments, such as "Multishozgy," "Concert Aeolian Harp," and "Bowed Diaphrams," Englishman Hugh Davies appears in a variety of duos and trios. Tinkery improv loveliness ala AMM's quiet, reflective bits.
Especially in summer time there is nothing better then pulling out some old Kinks records and letting the Davies brothers take you on all the right breezy twists and turns. All these years later Ray Davies is still alive and well and making music. OF course not quite as great as classic Kinks albums but we'll still take this over a new Paul McCartney album.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Painstakingly constructed, emotional, epic songs played out on piano and guitar, drums. Although this record gets raves from just about everybody, I didn't really get it until I saw Davies live at Terrastock I, where he slayed with his songwriting prowess. Davies used to be in Australia's Moles and more recently Cardinal, with now-similarly-solo Eric Matthews.
For whatever reason, some of us never really paid much attention to these Puerto Rican garage rocking punks, and then suddenly, they're the next big thing, or maybe not even 'next', they ARE the big thing, hyped to high heaven, the big ticket at SXSW, everyone clamoring and singing their praises, we have to admit that just made us more skeptical, but we're happy to admit when we're wrong, and boy were we wrong, these guys rule. And this record is so killer, a dizzying mix of stripped down garage rock pound, super hooky jangle pop, droned out druggy shoegaze, a little Stooges, a little Stones, a little Jesus & Mary Chain, some old school punk rock, some reverbed sixties wall of sound Spector-ish pop, some modern garage rock, all tangled up into super strange, but undeniably classic and catchy sounding fuzzy, groovy, garage rock jangle pop. The production is strangely lo-fi, but suits D666's sound, the tracks shift gears constantly, rambunctious and punky one second, washed out and hypnotic the next, there are streaks of feedback all over the place, the sound slips from stripped down and buzzy to lush and layered and back again often in the same song, there are loads of killer hooks, lots of subtle psychedelic shadings, pounding blasts of punkish power pop that blossoms into totally classic old school power pop, and then into some snotty snarly fuzzy noise pop, and then some bouncy old school garage rock, and finally some fuzzy sixties style dream pop, all simple chords, sweet vocals, tambourines and hand claps. These guys definitely sound like they'd be a blast live, and it comes across loud and clear on record, and it definitely makes sense they're on In The Red, and odds are if you dig Thee Oh Sees and Ty Segall and the like, you'll probably love these guys too.
NB: Stick around for the hidden track, a short blast of cheesy, drum machine driven electro punk, with gang vocals, and eighties synths, and it sounds like a commercial. Pretty funny...
Imagine if the Dead Boys, the Stooges or Black Lips were from Puerto Rico and you'll begin to have an idea of the raucous fun and mighty punch that Davila 666 pack into their In The Red debut. It takes a lot to really move us when it comes to modern day garage rock as we find much of it a bit stale and burnt out, but god damn we can't stop listening to this record! There is such a pure excitement to these sounds, and enough of a range in Davila 666's music to truly make them stand above the crowd. It's not just the novelty of singing in Spanish, but you can tell these are guys who have an awesome appreciation for a wide range of garage sounds from the punk to the pop, and the few slower tracks on here are like some lost 4-track tapes of sessions produced by Phil Spector in a Puerto Rican garage in the late '70s. This is the band you would dream of seeing play at a house party, it could make even the most jaded and sullen of souls jump with joy. Luckily all you have to do is throw this on and the party comes right through the speakers. So damn good!
Geez, how did I miss this release from last year? If you like the euro-pop quirkiness of Stereo-Total and/or Charles Wilp as I do, press 'play' on this baby. A very eclectic array of musical styles (lounge, retro-synth pop, strummy acoustic, Bacharach, polka, etc), but the bottom line is kitchy playfulness. Camille's smooth, warm voice really brought to mind a hybrid of Karen Carpenter,
As heavy psych guitar power trios channelling the lost '70s krautrock vibe go, well, these guys are the current champs of the US of A (and rival the heavy hitters like Acid Mothers Temple from Japan as well). Of course, they're from the hippie coast up north here in California, though their guitarist/mastermind Steven Wray Lobdell has connections in Germany -- he plays in Faust too y'know! This latest DRT album takes their spacey, drugged out, droney psychedelia into some aggro areas, while remaining totally dreamy at other times. The single misstep occurs early in the album -- we'll be hitting the 'skip' button at track two in future after hearing it once, as it's based on a pseudo-beat poetry spoken word thing by The Baseball Astrologer. He's a cool old dude, sure, with some right-on sentiments about "America, my violent stupid friend" but we prefer the music to do the talking. Which it does on the rest of the disc, instrumentals stretched out to the horizons of your inner consciousness, man. The centerpiece to the album, "Mellowed For Over 80 Million Years", takes the listener on a 15+ minute blissed out trip, while other tracks are much heavier and freakier. It's mind-expanding, lava-lamp goodness. Recommended.
Out of the misty Pacific Northwest, underground psychedelic guitar god Stephen Wray Lobdell (heck he's been playing guitar for legendary krautrockers Faust, that's close to godhood, right?) and the other three guys in the strangely named Davis Redford Triad enter our waking dreamspace yet again with "Code Orange". The Triad is Lobdell's primary venue for his way-out instrumental drone guitar psych -- think Japan's Fushitsusha or SF's Comets On Fire. Chugging, chiming, wailing, haunting, heavy effin' cosmic beauty. This disc is a "live collage" from the band's tour in the spring of 2002, and features not only favorites like "Solar Aquarius" and "Apocalypse Greeting Card" from their two studio albums, but also adaptations of some Lobdell compositions originally found on his lovely "Automatic Writing" solo album -- suitably amped up for Triad performance -- AND three totally new songs as well!! Numbered, limited to 500, consider this a (must-have for fans) teaser of sorts for the Triad's upcoming studio full-length "Blue Cloud" on Holy Mountain this fall. Now, how'd Holy Mtn. honcho John Whitson manage to get our gov't to bump the official "panic rating" up to Code Orange for real the very same week this was due for release? I don't want to think about it, we'll leave that to the FBI. Maybe Tom Ridge is a mystical dude. Anyway, the, um, coincidence is an "Apocalypse Greeting Card" us, indeed.
This excellent droney guitar-psych band's second album, after their acclaimed vinyl-only Holy Mountain debut a year or two ago, "The Mystical Path of The Number 86". Making the move to cd hopefully will increase the chances that more folks will be lucky enough to check them out. The Triad (Davis Redford is not a real person) features, and I mean really features, the oceanic guitar playing of one Stephen Wray Lobdell, who has been responsible for that instrument on the last few Faust recordings and live tours (maybe that's where he got the German for the title). So, fans of Faust's fine "Ravvivando" as well as the likes of Doldrums, Ghost, Nurse With Wound, and similar, krautrocky things should bend an ear towards Lobdell's combo for sure. Lovely stuff, all dreamy and Eastern-tinged. It's epic, and it'll take you places.
Psychedelic rock music inspired by and/or the cause of various psychological anomalies and psychic phenomena! Seriously. The Davis Redford Triad is the fully levitational drone-rock unit centered on the outer-mind guitar explorations of Steven Wray Lobdell (just don't call him Stevie Wray!). He's the bearded hippy with the brow, holding the dog in his lap, both of whom stare out at you from the back cover of this release. You may also know him from his other projects (Baseball Astrologer, Sufi Mind Game, and the lovely acoustic solo set "Automatic Writing By The Moon", also on Holy Mountain). Oh, and of course he's also the guitarist in Faust! Yes, although Lobdell's from the Pacific Northwest, he somehow ended up playing guitar with those re-united krautrockers on their last few albums. Faust of course wouldn't hire just any old long-hair to play guitar, and our favorite 'new Faust' album "Ravvivando" wouldn't have been nearly as excellent without him.
We really liked the Triad's second album, 2000's German-titled but Eastern-tinged "Ewige Blumenkraft" but really, *really* liked their much heavier first LP, "The Mystical Path Of The Number Eighty Six". Originally released in 1997 as a limited edition vinyl artifact, the Triad's debut album has long been in need of compact disc reissue, and at last here it is. This classic has now re-emerged in remixed and re-sequenced form, and includes a theremin track mysteriously missing from the LP version...
It's a really good late night listen, as Lobdell & co. conjur a kosmic kraut vibe via deep, droney instrumental psych jams on guitar and organ, with drums on one track and some electronics thrown in. But mostly guitar, lots of guitar! It's essentially a solo album. Fans of Kejiji Haino (another Faust collaborator) and his band Fushitsusha should dig this...though Fushitsusha can be a lot more abrasive. Lobdell's clouds of distortion are rather more 'round' and pleasant than the extremes of Haino's skree. Yet amid the Triad's transportational anthems you'll find some abrasive distorto-grind to be sure (right in the very loud, very dark first track actually). Other comparisons could be made to guitarists like Caspar Brotzman (at his most Hendrix-feeling), or Blue Cheer's Randy Holden (at his most abstract)...
Truly essential for anyone into heavy drone-psych guitar from Bardo Pond to Population II to Fushistsusha. Even if you have the original vinyl, you should check this cd out, as it's quite a bit different. And look for a new Triad release in the fall.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Psychedelic rock music inspired by and/or the cause of various psychological anomalies and psychic phenomena! Seriously. The Davis Redford Triad is the fully levitational drone-rock unit centered on the outer-mind guitar explorations of Steven Wray Lobdell (just don't call him Stevie Wray!). He's the bearded hippy with the brow, holding the dog in his lap, both of whom stare out at you from the back cover of this release. You may also know him from his other projects (Baseball Astrologer, Sufi Mind Game, and the lovely acoustic solo set "Automatic Writing By The Moon", also on Holy Mountain). Oh, and of course he's also the guitarist in Faust! Yes, although Lobdell's from the Pacific Northwest, he somehow ended up playing guitar with those re-united krautrockers on their last few albums. Faust of course wouldn't hire just any old long-hair to play guitar, and our favorite 'new Faust' album "Ravvivando" wouldn't have been nearly as excellent without him.
We really liked the Triad's second album, 2000's German-titled but Eastern-tinged "Ewige Blumenkraft" but really, *really* liked their much heavier first LP, "The Mystical Path Of The Number Eighty Six". Originally released in 1997 as a limited edition vinyl artifact, the Triad's debut album has long been in need of compact disc reissue, and at last here it is. This classic has now re-emerged in remixed and re-sequenced form, and includes a theremin track mysteriously missing from the LP version...
It's a really good late night listen, as Lobdell & co. conjur a kosmic kraut vibe via deep, droney instrumental psych jams on guitar and organ, with drums on one track and some electronics thrown in. But mostly guitar, lots of guitar! It's essentially a solo album. Fans of Keiji Haino (another Faust collaborator) and his band Fushitsusha should dig this...though Fushitsusha can be a lot more abrasive. Lobdell's clouds of distortion are rather more 'round' and pleasant than the extremes of Haino's skree. Yet amid the Triad's transportational anthems you'll find some abrasive distorto-grind to be sure (right in the very loud, very dark first track actually). Other comparisons could be made to guitarists like Caspar Brotzman (at his most Hendrix-feeling), or Blue Cheer's Randy Holden (at his most abstract)...
Truly essential for anyone into heavy drone-psych guitar from Bardo Pond to Population II to Fushistsusha. Even if you have the original vinyl, you should check this cd out, as it's quite a bit different. And look for a new Triad release in the fall.
There's really no doubt about it, Betty Davis was the true queen of funk! While she was only Mrs. Miles Davis for a very brief time, the influence she had on him was considerable, introducing him to rock and funk culture which undoubtedly led to his amazing funk filled '70s era that resulted in records like On The Corner and Agharta. Then there's her own amazing albums. Her first two records in the early '70s, a self-titled one and They Say I'm Different (both finally back in print on cd, by the way) really are the blueprints for raw, nasty, super charged soul filled funk and they still hold up so well even after all these years, and anytime we play them for someone who has never heard them before, they invariably are instantly blown away and want to learn all they can about the force of funky nature that is Betty Davis.
Little is known about much of her musical output outside of those legendary two albums, well there was a record called Nasty Gal released later in the '70s that has its moments but just didn't quite get to that magical place those first two records did. So when we found out there was a lost album from 1976 finally being released we were both way excited and a bit nervous as we love Betty Davis so much that we didn't want her legacy to be dampened at all with another sub par album. Luckily we didn't have anything to worry about, Is It Love Or Desire is one damn smoking set of fully on fire funk! There is such strength and conviction that in Betty's voice, every word she sings oozing with sez and power and intensity. If you've never heard any of her albums before we INSIST you get those first two records immediately - they are truly holy grails of funk, so it is pretty impossible to match that level of greatness, but this one really comes damn close.
There is such a raw and hedonistic salaciousness to these songs. You can picture some hedonistic no holds barred seventies coke party with this blasting in the background as the perfect soundtrack. These jams are almost abstract in their sheer funkiness, the band vamping, Davis and an equally badass male vocalist trading off exclamations and exultations of the FUNK. So crazy to think how early in the game Davis was getting to such a raw, deep and nasty side of things, WAY before folks like Rick James, Grace Jones, Chaka Kahn, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Missy Elliott, Trina, Lil' Kim, and Beth Ditto would all become mega stars channeling the same sort of energy. Funk lessons don't come with more fire and sexual swagger then when Betty Davis is on the mic, take out your pen and paper because school is in session!
PS Make sure to check out the amazing photo spread in the cd booklet for some seriously scandalous photos!
