Talk about "Black Meddle"! That recent album from Chicago black metallers Nachtmystium got a lot of attention, in part for its (quite honestly) self-proclaimed Pink Floyd influence. But if there's one black metal band in the world who REALLY remind us of the psychedelic hypnosis of late '60s, early '70s Pink Floyd, it has to be Norway's mighty Enslaved.
Here they are with their 10th full length album, and once more, we bow down to them. Man, they make it look easy, triumphing again and again, always delivering the deathly blackened Viking post rock prog metal with such power and utter perfection. Over the years, they've gotten more and more proggy and Floydian, and Vertebrae is the ultimate in that direction - so far. If you liked their previous record Ruun or before that, Isa, you should be well pleased with Vertebrae. It's a progression, no major stylistic shift, just another solid Enslaved album, complete with clean vocal harmonies, black metal rasps, lulling atmospheres, wicked riffing, mathy structures... all coexisting intelligently and emotively in these compositions. The guitars and keys are often bright and shimmering, yet despite the melodiousness, a Nordic grimnity pervades. Indeed, the 2008 edition of Enslaved seems -serious- in a way that some of their quirkier, earlier forays into Viking-prog territory maybe weren't (well, a band wearing tunics and tights, as they used to do, really shouldn't take themselves too seriously). Rockin' and rollin' is still in their blood (take it from Allan, who saw 'em live earlier this year at SXSW, not once but twice, the second time right after Harvey Milk and Torche!), for sure you'll bang your head to much of this, but Vertebrae is also "head" music in the headphones and deep thoughts sense too. Simple, sorta New Agey song titles like "Clouds", "New Dawn", "Reflections", "Center" should be some clue to this. Though "New Dawn", for instance, is actually an example of the storming black metal violence that strikes a balance with Vertebrae's more pensive, post rockish moments.
Not to harp on the Pink Floyd thing too much, but you'd swear that they somehow got ol' David Gilmour to do some guest guitar soloing on album's third track, "Ground". And 'cause they make us think of Pink Floyd so much, that means they also remind us of another amazing Floyd-infused, proggily original metal band, the late (?) great Voivod... But regardless of those comparisons (and also ones we could make to some fellow Scandinavian acts with '70s prog influences, like Opeth and Amorphis), Vertebrae is obviously, and awesomely, an album only Enslaved would, or could, make.
NB. By the way, did you know that Enslaved's vocalist/bassist/most-Viking-looking-dude Grutle, is or was involved in something called Tangerine Funk??
First record in almost ten years from this Italian depressive black metal horde, and it's apparently been in the works for most of that decade! Throned Upon Ashes Of Dusk is a desolate, mournful sonic sprawl, that sounds like it was crafted by candlelight, or in a fire lit cave. Clean spidery guitars unwind over squalls of black buzz, the drums are a simple plod, the opening a doomy death march, but soon, the drums explode into a furious double kick barrage, the vocals into an anguished wail, but the guitars remain blurry and blown out, it's not until a couple minutes in that the sound shifts, and darkens, the riffage becoming more churning and malevolent, a minor key melancholia wrapped in swirls of crumbling caustic distortion, the band perfectly pulling off the rare feat of balancing fierce blackened heaviness, and truly emotional sounding depressive sonic miserablism. The songs are long too, so it's easy to become entranced and enraptured, droned out and hypnotic, all the while the guitars subtly shifting, bleeding into a single black mass for much of the proceedings, but then unfurling a gorgeous achingly lovely lead, transforming the song briefly into something closer to the dour doom pop of Katatonia, or slipping into some super mathy post rockiness, again transforming the sound into a Slinty post-black metal, but always returning to that, bleak, black buzz that is the rotting, broken music hear of Enthroning Silence's sound.
Some of the tracks are more overtly classic black metal, but even then, the riffs, and the melodies, the mood and the vibe, just ooze dark energy, furious blasting blackness recast as droned out sonic sorrow, and more often than not, those tracks are still dotted with doomy stretches, and laced with haunting depressive, slo-mo passages, while other tracks get downright gothic, gorgeously bleak, downer-doom slowcore, that sans distortion, would have fans of Codeine and Mazzy Star and Galaxie 500 freaking out, but here, bathed in black buzz, they become a glorious sort of blackened, buzzing, doom-ed grimnity that will definitely hit the spot for fans of Make A Change, Kill Yourself, Happy Days, Loss, Nortt, Hypothermia, Silencer and all the rest of those depressive black hordes...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Although it doesn't credit 'em anywhere on this disc, there's a bunch of covers here along with the orginals. Covers of Alice Cooper, Captain Beyond, and Bob Dylan...
More reissued vinyl from the metal mavens at Earache, who've been delving into their classic, early '90s back catalog to bring these blasting blasts from the past out again in LP format, on colored wax no less! Here's the debut from Sweden's Entombed, from before they invented "death n' roll" and were merely (ha) one of the meanest, most brutalizing death metal bands on the planet. Essential. Still available on cd of course for the turntable-impaired.
Like last year's comeback album "Uprising", the new disc from these Swedes hits hard. Death n' roll, baby. Their death metal roots (these guys were the most brutal deathsters back in the day, on albums like "Left Hand Path") combined with their most rockin' of
Formerly the undisputed lords of Swedish death metal, over the past few years Entombed's career has taken many turns: first these freaks invented "death n' roll", then lost drummer Nicke Andersen to stardom in the Hellacopters, and even went alt-rock with the unwelcome album "Same Difference", and now it's time for the big comeback! Well, it's not a return to the ravaging death grind of their classic "Left Hand Path" but it's a nasty, greasy, f**ckin' heavy noisy rock-metal juggernaut anyway, enough to get them on the cover of Terrorizer magazine and "Album of the Month" status therein. Damn good indeed. Includes cover of a Deadhorse song!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The French National Institute for Agricultural Research has assembled this massive collection, documenting a multitude of sounds from a variety of grasshoppers, cicadas, katydids, beetles, ants, moths, etc. Structured in the same fashion as the "Sounds of North American Frogs" on Smithsonian/Folkways, "Entomophonia" explains the taxonomic definitions of a specific insect sound and then provides an example of the sound. For better or for worse, all of the text (both spoken and written) is in French, providing a rather odd listening experience to those of us who have forgotten our high school French. More than a educational recording, this sounds more like some weird Ryoji Ikeda or Noto electronic record, with some Frenchman reciting Gilles Deleuze philosophy amidst the buzzing clickery. And it's an unbelievably beautiful package, a full cover slipcase, an enormous and amazing book (with lots of great color photos of the insects, so it has value for the French-impaired). Another entry in the AQ-pantheon of ridiculous but essential field-recordings, along with the aforementioned "Frogs" disc.
From the minute we saw the cover, we knew this had to be something special! I mean we can easily see this psychedelic graphic of a hooded horn-playing figure with a gnarled tree emanating from below being a new record by any number of druggy experimental outfits from psych-folk to pagan eco-metal, but this Smithsonian Folkways reissue is from the Entourage Music and Theatre Ensemble, a modern ambient classical outfit who hailed from Baltimore. Recorded in 1973, the ensemble of musicians performed with a dance troupe making these strange tripped out pieces of abstracted sound and movement heavy on viola, keyboards, percussion and guitar, with an emphasis on interesting harmonics, organic percussion and textured melody. The music is impressionistically gorgeous conjuring all kinds of mental sound pictures, reminding us of a combination of The Penguin Cafe Orchestra and Harry Partch, but also Barton Smith, or perhaps a hippie folk version of Philip Glass. The ensemble was active until 1983 when the founder and director Joe Clark died. They put out two records, this and The Neptune Collection from 1975, both produced by Moses Asch, founder of Folkways Records, and both incredibly amazing!!
We've always wondered why Entrance never got the appreciation they seemed to so fully deserve. But we're thinking might just get set straight with Prayer of Death. Where past releases displayed totally gifted guitar player Guy Blakeslee in a fucked up drugged out modern blues context, Prayer Of Death demonstrates a new urgency and pretty much an entirely new sound. With an over the top (in a great way!) delivery, including an amplified electric orchestra, a paranoid disposition, and death on his mind, Blakeslee has made his most intense and rocking record to date. Maybe it was his move from Baltimore to LA but his flamboyant nature has totally come to the surface and we couldn't be happier. He still plays amazing raga-like guitar, and his sound is still a wander in haunted woods but now he's got ROCK on his radar, all throughout Prayer Of Death. Imagine Sandy Bull joining Queen and you start to get an idea of the fucked up beauty that is this record. You get the feeling something really monumental must have occurred in Blakeslee's life, because these are the sounds of someone with a newfound spirit, not taking anything for granted, making the most out of every note and channeling all the energy, emotion and life into every song he can. We've ALL been digging this record like crazy. So fucking good!
Entrance is the solo project of 21 year old Guy Blakeslee, who has also played bass for Baltimore's Convocation Of... Though this stuff is not much like that band's proggy post-punk, that's presumably why he landed on the same record label as that band. Also maybe 'cause he's performed with Will Oldham and Cat Power, and done a split 7" with Papa M... Anyway, Entrance could be better compared to Guy's friend and touring partner, the wonderful Devendra Banhart (you've all got his album, we know!). Playing solo with just an acoustic guitar and his voice, and maybe a tambourine or somesuch, Guy sounds a bit like Syd Barrett and looks a bit like Marc Bolan. As he proved here not long ago when he played an instore with Devendra, Guy can project his music quite well with no help from amplifiers or microphones! This disc is much in the same spirit as that instore. Rambling lovely string tangle, dramatic late-night laments, violent strumming, and vocal outpourings building on the folk-rock vibes of mystic fellows of decades past. The disc features mostly originals (apparently never played the same way twice, thanks to Entrance's loose, in-the-moment aesthetic and reliance on enthusiasm rather than training technique-wise) but also some suitable covers by blues/folk forebears Skip James ("I'm So Glad") and Bob Dylan ("Tommy Thumb's Summertime Blues"). Basically, Entrance is somewhere between the eccentric folk troubadour vibe of pal Devendra Banhart and the more aggro attitude of the White Stripes' damaged, stomping garage rock n' roll... if you can imagine them in the person of one fuzzy haired guy with an acoustic guitar, which is a stretch. At any rate both are historically minded and inspired, if you know what I mean, making for some timeless music that's immediately understandable.
Released for Record Store Day this year, we were able to get a few extra copies to offer to folks unable to make it down. Two new tracks from the Entrance Band, both covers, one by the Troggs, the other by Love, and both sound pretty perfect for The Entrance Band. In fact if you didn't know the originals, it would be easy to mistake them for EB's own material.
The Troggs' "I Want You" is all dirgey and fuzzy an garagey, with some low slung murky riffage, the vibe slithery and sexy, the music almost sounds slowed down, a little warped and woozy, the vocals wrapped in reverb and draped over the top. The end of the song offers up a cool squall of effects drenched tripped out psychedelic leads.
The flipside finds EB tackling Love's "A House Is Not A Motel", and unfurls some cool warbly psych guitar, under which surfaces some thick bass thrum, the drums skittery, the vocals wreathed in echo and delay, a little bit quavery, the whole thing washed out and hazy, and really, not all that far removed from the original, in a good way.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, hand numbered, in beautiful silk screened covers, like we said this was a Record Store Day release and we only have a handful, so not sure how long these will be around...
One of a handful of new Latitudes releases (Sylvester Anfang II, Wino & Connie Ochs), this three track, 22 minute ep from The Entrance Band, might be the best thing we've heard from these guys (and gal) yet, opener "New Orleans", is a 12 minute heavy psych gem, a thick low slung bass groove, and ethereal vocals, over chugging guitars, and wild loose drumming, and dense squalls of rad effects heavy shredding, totally drugged out, droney, dreamy psychedelic bliss. The 'verses' woozy and slithery, the melodies spidery, the guitars droney and shimmery, slipping into a stretch of muted chuggery before exploding into some epic, soaring, wah wah guitar driven space-psych shred, the rare sort of jammed out heaviness that we could listen to forever. The track a constant push and pull before the slightly more brooding verses and the heart-of-the-sun psych-jam blowouts. And as the track progresses, it only gets heavier and more psychedelic, the groove growing more distinctive and driving, with the rest of the band pulling back here and there, letting the guitar weave lush layered drifts of blown out soaring high end psych shimmer. To be totally honest, we listened to the opening track about 10 times before we made it any further into the record. So we'd say well worth the price of admission for that one alone.
But don't stop there. "Requiem For Juicy" opens with a tangled swirl of woozy guitars, which gradually blur into a sort of raga, before the bass comes in, and the band launch into a dense, brooding, drone driven psych-dirge that's both swampy and soaring, hazy and hypnotic, the guitar going nuts again, pushing the track into total White Hills / Heads territory. And then finally, the band tackle blues classic "Last Kind Words", kicking off with a killer classic blues riff, and unfurling a woozy sprawl of druggy bluesy swagger, the sound landing somewhere between Woven Hand and The White Stripes, which is not a bad place to end up.
Like all Latitudes releases, the cd is packaged in the distinctive white and brown interlocking origami style sleeve, the lp in a luxurious die cut jacket, both with a red foil stamp on the front, and with a printed full color insert. Each format, LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. And each one hand numbered.
It's been a long road for Guy Blakeslee, since his early days as bassist for Baltimore post-punks the Convocation Of..., to the acoustic psych blues of Entrance. The last few years have seen that solo endeavor electrified into the Entrance Band with the addition of bassist Paz Lenchantin (whose recent Songs For Luci lp we reviewed a few lists back) and drummer Derek W. James, and here the trio dish up a solidly rocking collection of songs that very capably venture into more polished territory without losing any of their primal rock energy.
The end result emphasizes the band's impressive instrumentation - make no mistake, Blakeslee can shred, and the rhythm section ain't no slouches either - within a more modern indie approach while still managing to bring to mind some good ol' classic rock. It took a few listens for this to click with us, but once it did, we were sold. Those of us at AQ who have been bigtime Entrance fans from the beginning definitely noticed a much different production, aesthetic and straight ahead rock vibe to this new Entrance outing. In fact, when thinking of "modern rock", you may find yourself questioning why it isn't THIS you're hearing on the radio. The Entrance Band are a modern day power trio, bluesy and psychedelic as hell, with all kinds of snaky guitar licks, thunderous bass, and awesomely grooving drums, with Blakeslee's clear but powerful vocals cutting right through. One certainly gets the impression that they must tear shit UP live. A nice surprise, this one.
Here's one of those few instances in which I would have to scold Drone Records for their adamant adherence to releasing this sort of music on 7"s. The debut recording of Entrelacs -- a collaborative effort between dronologist Michael Northamï and field recordist Yannick Dauby -- is too good for just a 7". The parallel between Entrelacs and Organum are so profound as to bring back to me all of my frustration with Organum's insistence upon releasing just 3 minutes of the most sublime chorales of screeching metals when those sounds want to extend toward infinity like LaMonte Young or Phil Niblock. Entrelacs presents a similarly dynamic sound, that is so perfectly self-contained with its timbral massings from long-stringed instruments and clamorous details of various rocks and leaves. Perhaps no media can really contain these sounds, and I would be making a similar critique even if this were released on CD. This highly recommended single is limited to 300 copies, with this first edition pressed on clear vinyl. VERY FEW OF THESE IN STOCK!!
Entrelacs is the sporadically operational collaboration between longtime aQ fave eco-dronologist Michael Northam and phonographer Yannick Dauby, as Northam is perpetually wandering back and forth between North America and Europe, and with Dauby residing in Taiwan. These recordings actually date back to 2003, made "along a fallen tree in Courbet, Oregon and [at] a conversation with found objects in Paris." The Entrelacs project begins with the collection of found objects, continues through the manifestation of tactile sounds from those objects aided by some use of digital manipulation, and concludes when the objects are returned from where they were found. This lends itself well to the discovery of previously unknown sounds in new regions, especially when these two would perform live. On their website, they site an impressive array of atypical sound making devices that would give Matmos more than a few good ideas for their electro-acoustic madness. Amplified chimney sweeps, bowed escargot, obsidian shards, dried chardons, and needles piercing leaves are just a few of the more interesting ones. We're very curious to know where those bowed snails are in the mix! Underleaf unfurls slowly through a slow crunching of organic materials occasionally jolted with the sharp tinkling of what must be those obsidian fragments. Aggregated masses of those textures blossom throughout the 49 minute track in blurry drones that settle in the background of those tactile sounds, eventually giving way to a bowed metal chorale near the 30 minute mark that has all the right Organum / Andrew Chalk references. Very lovely and very limited stock on this one!
Excellent early solo album from the Who's bassist... the title track is practically proto-metal!
Envelopes are a Swedish band who take a stab at quirky indie-pop. Much like fellowindie popsters Architecture In Helsinki, they mix and match styles and incorporate all sorts of different influences. We hear some Young Marble Giants, Mates of State, The Pastels, etc. Sometimes they seem to have trouble rising above their influences but there are moments where their own endearing spirit really seems to shine. It will be interesting to see how this group evolves. And for those with a sweet tooth for quirky sugary pop you might wanna give this a listen.
This here's the first we've heard from the strangely monickered Envenomist, but already it sounds like something we could do with a whole lot more of. And certainly the sounds here fit perfectly amidst the rest of the Twonicorn roster: Changeling, Brendan Murray, Glass Organ, Bonecloud, Tombi, Taiga Remains, etc...
Three tracks of shimmering steel string buzz, distant moaning train horn drone, thick clouds of buzzing swirl and fragmented melodies, looped krautrock like grit and grim doomy low end swells, thick and viscous, all layered into a harrowing and haunting sonic journey. Veering from FX drenched alien psychscape, to creepy modulated drones, to dense slow moving landscapes of buzz drenched melodies and slithering low end whir, to crackling fields of metallic buzz and warm whorls of thick soft focus ambience....
As with all Twonicorn, gorgeously packaged, pro printed tapes, textured paper sleeves, and of course super limited, ONLY 100 COPIES!! Each tape hand numbered.
Holy shit is this Killer Pimp label kicking our ass. First the recent Dead Letters cd that we made Record Of The Week, then the gorgeous Aidan Baker / Thisquietarmy collaboration, before that there was the A Place To Bury Strangers record, and now this new Envenomist disc! (There are a few others on deck too, to be reviewed soon we hope).
Pretty bad ass for a first batch of releases we think. We'd been dying to hear more from Envenomist, who we haven't heard from since we reviewed the Black Bile tape way back in 2007. Sonically very little has changed, extended soundscapes of shimmery metallic buzz over deep low end thrum, layered into softly undulating sonic swells, ominous and haunting and so cinematic. As we most certainly have mentioned before, movie makers should be looking to the underground music scene for truly original, and in the case of Envenomist, truly frightening music for their films.
The sounds of Envenomist are noisy, but the noise is blurred and smeared, muted and dulled, a soft noise that is so evocative, of ashen skies, burning wastelands, cold barren landscapes, mysterious otherworlds, lost planets, underground caverns, these sounds are so subtly harrowing and haunting, conjuring a sense of doom, of loneliness, of death and destruction, of sadness and sorrow, the long tones build tension, creating a sense of an impending end, to life, to everything, but while creating this palpable sense of dread, Envenomist manages to create a sound that is also beautiful, perhaps blackly beautiful, but beautiful nonetheless, hypnotic and mesmerizing, mysterious and truly creepy, but again, soothing and meditative, a sort of doom-ic new age perhaps, whatever you call it, it's pretty fantastic, and has been a constant late night listen since we first got it in. And another winner from Killer Pimp...
Apparently the trend of post rock and metal cross pollination is not exclusive to North America. Enter Japanese band Envy with their latest album titled Insomniac Doze just released on Temporary Residence. It's sort of a shift in direction for this veteran hardcore band not to mention something of an incongruous, abrasive presence among the label's soundscapers and more traditional post-rockers. As we've witnessed before Japanese bands have a tendency of one-bettering the Westerners' execution of any given musical style. Nay, they frequently blow the top off of a particular genre's conventions. Delivering solid muscular grit instead of flash and incorporating newfound depth and detail, Envy do the deed in a much more controlled yet no less concentrated fashion than many of their wildly untethered Japanese brethren.
Finally available on vinyl!!
We've long been fans of Japanese rockers Envy, since they were furious hardcore thrashers, but over the last few records, they have been going through a pretty serious transformation, trading in much of their fury and aggression for deep introspection, their punk rock for post rock, and it definitely suits them. This latest ep, a split with the mighty Jesu, finds the band taking their sound even farther out, almost as if the songs were written specifically for Jesu. The first track is the perfect example, we actually weren't paying attention, and almost assumed it was in fact a Jesu track, the spoken Japanese vocals being the only giveaway. Beginning as a slow drift, the drums programmed, a nervous electronic skitter, before the band explode into some sort of droneblissdirge, distorted guitars, a thick wall of sound, laced with dreamy melancholy strings, Jesu fans who have been hankering for something else similar to get into might have just found their match!
The second song starts out all moody and meandering and post rocky, spidery guitar melodies, simple jangle, a bit maudlin and melancholy, the vocals breathless and buried, all very Slinty, a little Mogwai, well, actually a lot of Mogwai, some Explosions In The Sky, until with about a minute left the band explode in a frenzy of heaviness, a nearly hardcore blow out, but strangely, still cozied up to the drifty dreaminess of the first half of the song, like someone snuck in and added strings to some Converge jam, the results are truly unique and pretty kick ass.
The third song is almost the biggest surprise of the bunch, a big crunchy guitar super catchy indie rock jam. The only thing keeping it from being all over the credits of every teen movie is the growling monstrous barking vocals, but beyond that, the song is glistening and soaring, hooky with a total old school pop punk chorus, albeit dowsed in crunch distorted guitars. A bit schizophrenic perhaps, but has us dying to hear the next Envy full length. Lookout Explosions, these guys are definitely about to steal your post rock thunder, and in the process get it all tangled up with some indie rock and dronemetal to boot!
Jesu fans are a pretty loyal bunch, so most of you don't even need to know what this sounds like, and probably could care less about the band sharing this split, but what the heck, for those of you who are interested or are new to the slowly expanding Jesu universe, these two tracks, are a bit of a departure, but enough like 'classic' Jesu to hit the spot. The first track begins with a skittery lo-fi breakbeat, super old school, takes a few minutes but eventually crumbling distorted guitars tumble into the picture, and soaring fuzzy dirgepop melodies, the vocals breathy and eighties, a lot New Order, and barring the super obtuse song structure, this first track wouldn't sound at all out of place on the most recent M83 record. Very new wave-y, dreamy and melancholy, but with some definitely strange sonic shit going on, soaring high end streaks, the rhythms getting all chopped up and stuttery, some pulsing buzzing synths. It's not until halfway through that the guitars kick in, and they don't soar majestically, instead they're sort of simple and repetitive, and they're soon pushed to the background by the various other sounds, layer after layer of warm fuzzy swirls, until the end, when the drums drop out and the guitar unfurls lazily in a sea of static and crumbling sonic grit, a warm sun baked lo-fi fade out. Cool stuff. Definitely not the same old Jesu which is precisely what keeps it interesting, and makes every record a bit of a surprise.
The second track, and the record closer, begins with deep synthy bass, and glistening sonic twinkles, another slowed down stripped down breakbeat, skittering along beneath drone-y synthesizers, and softly effected vocals, once again channeling classic eighties dream pop. Until once again the track explodes into a murky blow out, the drums now a furious blast, the guitars woozy and super distorted, almost like Jesu speed metal, but never losing it's prismatic dreamlike bliss.
Great stuff from both bands. And while we're dying for more Envy, the more Jesu's sound slips ever closer to the eighties, the more we want the next split to be with sonic brethren M83. Or heck, at the very least Jesu should cover some New Order or Smiths...
We've long been fans of Japanese rockers Envy, since they were furious hardcore thrashers, but over the last few records, they have been going through a pretty serious transformation, trading in much of their fury and aggression for deep introspection, their punk rock for post rock, and it definitely suits them. This latest ep, a split with the mighty Jesu, finds the band taking their sound even farther out, almost as if the songs were written specifically for Jesu. The first track is the perfect example, we actually weren't paying attention, and almost assumed it was in fact a Jesu track, the spoken Japanese vocals being the only giveaway. Beginning as a slow drift, the drums programmed, a nervous electronic skitter, before the band explode into some sort of droneblissdirge, distorted guitars, a thick wall of sound, laced with dreamy melancholy strings, Jesu fans who have been hankering for something else similar to get into might have just found their match!
The second song starts out all moody and meandering and post rocky, spidery guitar melodies, simple jangle, a bit maudlin and melancholy, the vocals breathless and buried, all very Slinty, a little Mogwai, well, actually a lot of Mogwai, some Explosions In The Sky, until with about a minute left the band explode in a frenzy of heaviness, a nearly hardcore blow out, but strangely, still cozied up to the drifty dreaminess of the first half of the song, like someone snuck in and added strings to some Converge jam, the results are truly unique and pretty kick ass.
The third song is almost the biggest surprise of the bunch, a big crunchy guitar super catchy indie rock jam. The only thing keeping it from being all over the credits of every teen movie is the growling monstrous barking vocals, but beyond that, the song is glistening and soaring, hooky with a total old school pop punk chorus, albeit dowsed in crunch distorted guitars. A bit schizophrenic perhaps, but has us dying to hear the next Envy full length. Lookout Explosions, these guys are definitely about to steal your post rock thunder, and in the process get it all tangled up with some indie rock and dronemetal to boot!
Jesu fans are a pretty loyal bunch, so most of you don't even need to know what this sounds like, and probably could care less about the band sharing this split, but what the heck, for those of you who are interested or are new to the slowly expanding Jesu universe, these two tracks, are a bit of a departure, but enough like 'classic' Jesu to hit the spot. The first track begins with a skittery lo-fi breakbeat, super old school, takes a few minutes but eventually crumbling distorted guitars tumble into the picture, and soaring fuzzy dirgepop melodies, the vocals breathy and eighties, a lot New Order, and barring the super obtuse song structure, this first track wouldn't sound at all out of place on the most recent M83 record. Very new wave-y, dreamy and melancholy, but with some definitely strange sonic shit going on, soaring high end streaks, the rhythms getting all chopped up and stuttery, some pulsing buzzing synths. It's not until halfway through that the guitars kick in, and they don't soar majestically, instead they're sort of simple and repetitive, and they're soon pushed to the background by the various other sounds, layer after layer of warm fuzzy swirls, until the end, when the drums drop out and the guitar unfurls lazily in a sea of static and crumbling sonic grit, a warm sun baked lo-fi fade out. Cool stuff. Definitely not the same old Jesu which is precisely what keeps it interesting, and makes every record a bit of a surprise.
The second track, and the record closer, begins with deep synthy bass, and glistening sonic twinkles, another slowed down stripped down breakbeat, skittering along beneath drone-y synthesizers, and softly effected vocals, once again channeling classic eighties dream pop. Until once again the track explodes into a murky blow out, the drums now a furious blast, the guitars woozy and super distorted, almost like Jesu speed metal, but never losing it's prismatic dreamlike bliss.
Great stuff from both bands. And while we're dying for more Envy, the more Jesu's sound slips ever closer to the eighties, the more we want the next split to be with sonic brethren M83. Or heck, at the very least Jesu should cover some New Order or Smiths...
Another blast of glorious noisy weirdness from the Grey Daturas' Diagnosis...Don't! label, this time from the strangely name EOH (named for Rob from the Daturas' son Max's imaginary friend! cool), a trio of drinking buddies (featuring Rob from the Daturas) who channel their drunken unruliness into recording session after recording session. This 20 minute chunk of dark drones and abstract free noise was culled from hours and hours of wild drunken recording, and the results are surprisingly cohesive and listenable. Still dense and noisy and intense, but with a soft touch. More whisper than roar, more drone than screech. A Wolf Eyesian industrial murk march. Dense swirling layers of thick pulsing guitar distortion, wavering and warbling in thick sheets laid over everything, peppered with occasional cymbal crashes and what sounds like some sort of throat singing. This is some seriously massive ur-drone shit. Huge industrial wastescapes, abstract spare stretches of low end rumble swirling like black fog over ruined landscapes of damaged amplifiers and detuned guitars. Haunting, and desolate but strangely lovely. Essential listening for the drone obsessed among you.
Packaged in thick textured paper grey mini 3" sleeves, with a printed (band name, label info, liner notes) Japanese style obi. Nice.
And as always, this is SUPER LIMITED, and odds are we won't be able to get more. We did get a whole bunch, but don't let that keep you from ordering it now or you'll be kicking yourself when these are gone...
Eostre is the name of an old Germanic fertility goddess; but in more recent times, it was pegged as the title for a :zoviet*france: album. Given the disquieting tone of lurched drum machine, industrial monochromaticism, and rudimentary synth offerings, this latter reference is much more apt as a launching point for the Belgian project helmed by one Sebastien Schmit. The structures to the pieces on They Were Made Of White Cloth are built from dissonant sequences of clanging rhythm and blorping radiophonia that hold plenty of similarities to the more zombified work of super early Cabaret Voltaire, with the tape collages spinning their way off the reels and the guitar+synth combos swarmed into a sinister buzz. There's plenty of unexpected turns on the album, such as the pummelled beat of "Tree Bark" that hedges against a squall of kosmische step-sequencing; and there's the salacious clattering of computerized randomness lumped onto an un-nuanced, Dilloway plod of dour proportions on the album's two part "Durch Die Meere". The whispering vocals pushed to the foreground provided an unsettlingly voyeuristic feel to a good portion of these oil-stained, retro-garde works of modern day minimal wave. Limited to 100 copies!
Woah. The "what the fuck?!" meter is going off the scale here. Ephel Duath -- no, we don't know what that name means exactly -- are from Italy and this is their second album. They're a black metal band. So far, so good, so what. Then take a listen. THIS is black metal?? More like metalcore (the screaming vocals), prog (the schitzo song structures), and/or jazz (the horns, the drumming). Let's talk about the drummer -- the dude's a jazz drummer pushing 50, who never played a metal "date" before. Well, he shows up quite a few metal drummers with this performance. And, to backtrack, yes we said horns. Total Miles Davis In A Silent Way trumpet, y'know... Then there's also everything from prettily melodic sensitive male vocals to skittering electronic beats to funk bass to ambient synth drone to, oh yeah, epic symphonic black metal thrown in. Could be a mess, yet somehow, somehow, it works, for us anyway. They just have a knack for mixing all these ingredients just right so that the results stick in your ear. Call 'em songs, even though they don't sound much like most songs out there. So, if your listening diet contains some or better yet all of the following, you're pretty much meant to buy this Ephel Duath disc: Arcturus, Naked City, Maudlin Of The Well, Mr. Bungle, Melt Banana, Yakuza, Neurosis, Sigh, Dillinger Escape Plan, Radiohead, Opeth, Emperor... Yeah, Opeth with jazzy trumpet and more of an ADD, John Zorn styled songwriting approach, that might be a good shorthand description of this Ephel Duath thingie.
Along with the new Gnaw reviewed below, there's another despairing dose of heaviness from the Seventh Rule camp this list, the debut of Portland, Oregon's Ephemeros, a band playing "funeral doom metal" to strict perfection. They definitely know what they're doing, Ephemeros featuring members or ex-members of such bands as Graves At Sea and Uzala, among others. The two word review would be thus: UTTERLY CRUSHING. To elaborate further, this disc is super slow and dirgey, deceptively simple but well-crafted, the guitars generating moments of morose melodic beauty, the guttural vokills a sorrowful, anguished roar. Ephemeros employ effective loud-soft dynamics that see utterly crushing (there's those two words again) riffs obliterating, over and over, all before them - all life, all hope. Those in the mood for this sort of thing will appreciate just how good Ephemeros is. They really nail it, being more musical than you'd expect at first, their performance also very convincing on an emotional level as well. The disc contains three long songs clocking in at 40 minutes total - and they may as well be ONE long song, but it never gets boring. Bravo.
For fans of other excellent Seventh Rule sludge like Atriarch, Stoneburner and Batillus. Also, such like-minded doomlords as Samothrace and Thou.
First proper release from this French blackmetal horde, released on a new black metal label run by the guy who runs Turgid Animal, home to Skullflower and various other noiseniks. But this is not some noise / black metal hybrid, no Epidemia Mortaliis are grim and true and raw, and as with most black buzzers, owe much to their mighty Scandinavian forbears, but the cool thing about EM is they have their own distinct and slightly skewed take on black metal, which results in a sound both buzzing and brutal, but also stumbling and weirdly lo-fi.
The newest demo, has the band slipping from frenzied blast, to loping dirge, and back again, the vocals hysterical and over the top, the drums super loud in the mix, the arrangements convoluted and complex, the guitars mournful and thick, but sort of low in the mix, which gives the songs a sort of off kilter, damaged vibe, the drum fills and the cymbals drowning out the rest of the musicians when ever they kick in, but the riffing is awesome, weirdly woozy, also adding their own seasick vibe to the proceedings, and there is some really fucked up stop start parts, that sound almost like black math rock. It's not full on fucked up enough to appeal to the folks only into damaged freaked out blackness, but it is plenty weird enough to keep it from sounding like every other BM band.
The second half, which is the older demo, has weirdly enough a much better production, the guitars way higher in the mix, the songs too are much faster and more furious, the guitars wild and dense and layered, but the band still does all kinds of cool weird shit, slipping some Ved Buens Ende sort of mathiness into their black buzz, and the guitars again, all over the place, buzzing, sliding slippery and tangled, crunchy and crumbling, the vocals too, even more freaked out than on the newer demo, thick with distortion and reverb, a howling hellish falsetto, another layer of creepiness over an already creepy buzzscape. Definitely wild and weird enough to appeal to the black metal crowd into insane tortured vox. Much more melody on the older demo too, but woven subtly into the band's grim black assault. Nice droning haunting intros and outros on both demos, some backwards weirdness and some dense dark ambience. Definitely kicked our ass right away, but every listen has us digging this more and more...
We first discovered Epileptinomicon years ago, when some mysterious cd-r's showed up in the mail, all handmade, with very little info, but how could we not be intrigued by a band called Epileptinomicon? So we threw it on and were totally blown away, dark, and droney, heavy and dense, spaced out and psychedelic, a little krautrocky, lo-fi, but definitely well crafted, some seriously blackened ambient dronemusic for sure.
So we tried to get in touch with this Epileptinomicon, but had no luck, emailed went unreturned, no trace on the web, Google searches turned up two mentions on the aQuarius site. So we assumed the worst, and gave up. The at last year's aQuarius / WFMU South By Southwest showcase, who should show up, but none other than Epileptinomicon, so we hung out, agreed to keep in touch, and arranged for us to order a bunch of records for the shop. Well, then what do you know? The mysterious Epileptinomicon disappears again, no word, no sign, no nothing.
But finally, the connection has been made, via of all people, recent aQ thrash faves Speedwolf, who live in the same town as E-con, and are weirdly enough touring together with 'em, so we now have a limited selection of two different Epileptinomicon cd-r's the first one, titled II, that we initially heard years ago, and a more recent tour disc, both of them awesome. And unfortunately, both extremely limited...
Changeling House Summer is the more recent of the two E-con discs, and shows a whole new side to what we remember as more of a drone / doom / ambient sound, that stuff is still present, loads of low end, thick rumbles, and dense shimmers, but there seems to be more of a focus on rhythm, from simple minimal pulses, to strange skeletal skitters. Reminding us of current synth drone outfits like Oneohtrix Point Never, Emeralds, Pulse Emitter, Emaciator and the like, but more slow and low and blackened.
"Changeling House" is sprawling field of murky drones, and muted melodies, that seems to be peppered with bits of glitch and crackle, until those glitches and crackles coalesce into a strange rhythm, brittle and almost techno like, the sound reminding us of a much more raw, blackened Chain Reaction, the 'beat' looped and hypnotic, over a churning sea of crumbling distortion, and swirling fragmented melodies. Some sort of murky alien dancemusic perhaps, or more accurately, some minimal rhythmic space doom. The pulses spread further and further out, the background noise grows considerable smoother, and suddenly, the track has returned to its initial dronestate, where it hovers before blinking out.
"Summer House" is more obviously recorded live, and begins with a scraped rhythm, and what sounds like a fucked up human beatbox, before both are joined by thick throbbing bass, so dense and blown out it nearly swallows the rest of the sounds whole. And so it remains for the remainder of the track, that rhythm locked solid, looped endlessly, while all around it the low end rumbles grow more and more aggressive, as well as bursts of crackle and hiss, muted feedback squeals, all in a never ending tangle, constantly shifting and mutating, before dissipating in a burst of super distorted buzz.
Finally, there's the 22 minute closer "Perfect Hell", another sprawling expanse of whirling layered low end, grinding guitar buzz, shards of feedback, but with much more melody this time, a glacial tarpit dirge, but infused with all manner of subtle melody. The second half of the track finds an extra element introduced, a groaning, creaking drone, wreathed in effects, that slips from hushed rumble to strangely gnarled slow motion squiggle, underpinned by a glitch driven rhythm, subtle, simple, and weirdly haunting.
CRAZY LIMITED, we got a bunch of these, but not sure how long they'll last, in cool hand stamped xerox sleeves, the discs themselves also stamped.
We first discovered Epileptinomicon years ago, when some mysterious cd-r's showed up in the mail, all handmade, with very little info, but how could we not be intrigued by a band called Epileptinomicon? So we threw it on and were totally blown away, dark, and droney, heavy and dense, spaced out and psychedelic, a little krautrocky, lo-fi, but definitely well crafted, some seriously blackened ambient dronemusic for sure.
So we tried to get in touch with this Epileptinomicon, but had no luck, emailed went unreturned, no trace on the web, Google searches turned up two mentions on the aQuarius site. So we assumed the worst, and gave up. The at last year's aQuarius / WFMU South By Southwest showcase, who should show up, but none other than Epileptinomicon, so we hung out, agreed to keep in touch, and arranged for us to order a bunch of records for the shop. Well, then what do you know? The mysterious Epileptinomicon disappears again, no word, no sign, no nothing.
But finally, the connection has been made, via of all people, recent aQ thrash faves Speedwolf, who live in the same town as E-con, and are weirdly enough touring together with 'em, so we now have a limited selection of two different Epileptinomicon cd-r's the first one, titled II, that we initially heard years ago, and a more recent tour disc, both of them awesome. And unfortunately, both extremely limited...
II was the very same disc that just showed up in the mail, the one that originally got us so psyched on these guys (this guy), it ended up getting played all the time in the shop, and even on Andee's radio show, after a loooong while, it was weird to return to this, in some ways if felt like we had already listed it, when in fact, we never got enough to review until now.
The sound here is a sort of abstract minimal drone drift, with a bit of lo-fi dub going on. Slow smeared tones, layered over one another, a strange muted pulse way off in the distance, all beneath slow wheezing barely there melodies, and a strange reverbed dubby little percussive thump, that seems in its own way to drive the whole track. Headphones help, an immersive sound world, of drift and shimmer and throb, ambient for sure, space-y as well, but weirdly (and very subtly) propulsive. The sound is murky and muddy and muted, until about halfway through when a shimmering crystalline guitar surfaces, a simple strummed chord that is dosed in delay, sent echoing into the ether, adding a distinctly pop element to what was otherwise something black and bare, and only minimally melodic.
The second track, the 17 minute "Lunar Menagerie", begins again as a hushed, stuttery underwater sounding bass pulse, and for the first 7 or 8 minutes remains underwater, or perhaps it's meant to emulate the sounds on the surface of the moon, either way, it's a gloriously rumbly, soft swirling sea of tangled synaptic misfires and heartbeat pulses, launched into the cosmos and allowed to reflect and refract starlight into gorgeous prismatic pulses. The second half of the track gets way more psychedelic, with a guitar unleashing strange squalls of swirling notes, wailing streaks of high end sound, like some classic psych rock guitar solo, removed from its track, untangled and unfurled into the weightlessness of space, where it floats and tumbles, spinning out bits of melody and warmly textured fragments, and inadvertently channeling other psych drone explorers like Expo 70. Gorgeous stuff.
As me mentioned, EXTREMELY LIMITED, two versions, one in a hand made paper sleeve, the other in a dvd style case, they're both essentially the same, it's random which one you'll get, and odds are we'll be out of both before you know it.
Hey, cool! A reissue of the third, and we think probably best, album from these hard rockin' krautrockers (krauty hard rockers?), originally released on US label Billingsgate in 1974 (and recorded on the South Side of Chicago, while they were on tour in the States). The band were of course German, but vocalist/guitarist Cliff Jackson was a Brit. So, some internationally-connected krautrock here. It's also krautrock on the proto-metal side of things, for fans of the progressive heaviness of Captain Beyond, Lucifer's Friend, Leaf Hound, Toad, Cargo, and suchlike. And while Epitaph's choogle is not always super dooper heavy, 'cause they have a sweetly melodic popsyke side to 'em too, it's definitely (twin) guitar oriented, the two lead players getting a bit Allmans-y here, also reminding us of Wishbone Ash. Good stuff, often quite mesmerizing, when the guitars get to chiming and intertwinin', as they so often do on tracks like the rollicking, ripping "Tequila Shuffle", the Zep-leaning "Woman", and album-ending nine minute heavy riffing prog workout "Fresh Air".
This reissue is nicely packaged, and features a bunch of previously unreleased bonus tracks: 3 from 1976's 'The Lost Tapes', and 4 live one from a year 2000 reunion concert, including a drum solo!
Not to sound all old and grumpy, but they really don't make perfect hip-hop albums like they used to. Yeah, there is still some great hip-hop going on but so much of it seems to be 'single' based and not so much about a tight coherent album from start to finish. But man there was a golden era of hip-hop glory when groups like Public Enemy, Eric B & Rakim, The Beastie Boys, and Boogie Down Productions were making such fucking amazing jams, the sort of records you could listen to from start to finish over and over again. One of the most madly respected groups from that era is EPMD. We couldn't be more stoked that this Long Island duo's classic 1988 album Strictly Business has been reissued. It really is one of the best hip-hop albums of all time. There is something so immediately unique and recognizable about Eric Sermon and Parrish Smith's laid back yet totally intelligent, playful and infectious rapping skills and their use of such awesome samples and beats. One of the things that made this era of hip-hop so damn great was that the source material that they were sampling, chopping and making beats from was drawn from so many of the amazing warm soul records from the '60s & '70s. Zapp, Kool & The Gang, James Brown, George Clinton, they knew how to take from those greats and make something totally brand new which was the bread and butter of the EPMD sound.
What also makes Strictly Business such an all-time classic and different from so many of today's hip-hop albums is that there is absolutely NO FILLER. No stupid skits, no throw away tracks, every single one of the 10 songs totally kills and never overstays its welcome. It was so awesome when this reissue came into the store and just about everyone working here freaked out and we must have played it like ten times in just the first couple days, never realizing before we all shared such a feverish love for EPMD.
While it's a bit annoying that this remastered reissue has a big 'Snoop Dogg Approved' banner on the cover, his name bigger than anything else, we guess we don't mind too much if his endorsement helps a whole new generation get into the greatness of EPMD.
Tight, technical black metal from this American band. I think they hail from the not-so-frosty forests of Alabama or some such unlikely place. This is the second album for The End and it successfully earns them a place at the head of the US of A's black metal battalions, being as it's so dark, fast, chunky, chaotic, majestic, brutal and very very metal.
Continuing their campaign to recreate the hi-energy fun of the '80s, The Epoxies follow their energetic self-titled album with this equally feisty single. Two songs to keep the party goin' a little while longer: one original and one suitably likeminded cover of Alice Cooper's ultra catchy, yet considerably darker lyric-wise "Clones". Uncomplicated, short and to the point, Roxy Epoxy sings her heart out over a slew of straight-ahead, snappy keyboards and punchy pop guitars.
Yup, the '80s have been 'back' for a while, haven't they? Each day an old new wave-y trend rears its head, but you might question if some of 'em should've been left alone and undisturbed. While many elements of the Epoxies' aesthetic might fall in that category -- theirs is an almost cartoonish rendering of '80s schtick, decked out in plastic sci-fi goggles, duct tape, blinding neon hues, quirky pseudonyms (Shock Diode, Ray Cathode, FM Static and Doctor Grip... ahh, there was always, inexplicably a token doctor in '80s band lineups, wasn't there? but he was always the keyboard player... this guy's the drummer! wtf?) and a key-tar (y'know the keyboard that you wear like a guitar) -- it's hard to resist their sincere, high spirited, retro-futuristic romp... and why should you anyways?! Their effervescent self-titled debut a couple of years ago kept spirits high around these parts for quite a while. Very inspired by the likes of Blondie, Kim Wilde, Josie Cotton. Now, it might be just our imagination but it sounds as though the band have 'Fat'tened (haha!) and punked up their sound even more for their debut on Fat Wreck Chords. Fat Mike even produced it! So they're not as alien a presence among the rest of that label's roster as we'd anticipated, and actually pulls them more in line with the likes of the Muffs. Stop The Future oozes with suburban-teens-hangin'-out-at-the-mall nostalgia. With lead singer Roxy singing about radiation, TV sets, living on video, and dreaming of microwaves, it's ripe for a new John Hughes movie soundtrack. One thing that's particularly noticeable is that she's singing in a broader range, taking a deeper tone on a few songs, providing a darker counterpart to the boys' still peppy as fuck backing vocals, crunchy guitar, bass, bubblegum synths and drums. Gotta give 'em props too for covering the Scorpions' cool tune "Robot Man" so thoroughly that Roxy even sings the word "vision" as Klaus Meine does... "wishun"! Yay! The album's final song takes a turn into an unexpected different but no less '80s-y zone -- very Erasure style synth pop! We'll leave it up to you to decide if that's a good or bad thing. They're certainly a band you've gotta see live to experience their totally rad fun energy, but this album does come very close. A great summer album!
If you've still got a lil' soft spot in your heart for the energetic, bubblegum-snappin' new wave sparkplugs like Josie Cotton or Kim Wilde, you don't wanna miss the Epoxies from Portland, OR. They are a bazooka blast of '80s good times. Brightly hued, skinny-tied, stripe-y legged, duct-tape accessorized and kooky pseudonymed. So very John Hughes teen movie soundtrack perfect, you can almost imagine them rockin' out a version of Karla DeVito's Breakfast Club hit "We Are Not Alone". No, they're not bringing anything new to the table, but they certainly write ultra-catchy, snappy tunes. Super earnest, enthusiastic and a bit geeky, it's as if a time machine plucked them right out of '85. Full of punchy-crunchy guitar, squidgy-weeny keyboards and sorta-yodelled oh-eee-oh-eee-oh backing vocals. Lead singer Roxy Epoxy possesses such the perfect pipes to capture the poppy, punky spirit - running from Dale Bozzio's hiccup-squeak to Ms Wilde's more throaty delivery - that we can forgive the somewhat off-kilter boy vocals of keyboardist Fritz M. Static. Heck, if the Muffs hadn't already beat them to it, they'd probably do a bang-up job covering "Kids In America". C'mon, can't ya feel that ol' herky jerk pogo dance a-twitchin' in your bones? Don't deny it. Join me on this one!
After a handful of weird and wonderful unearthed sonic rarities rescued and reissued by the Dead-Cert label, run by aQ faves Demdike Stare and Finders Keepers label head honcho Andy Votel, which included rare experimental radiophonic electronic recordings from Suzanne Ciani, an early eighties souvenir recording from a sculptural installation project that utilized stainless steel sculptures, and a reissue of a rare eighties Folkways release that mixed modular synth, tape manipulations, field recordings and traditional Persian string instruments, comes this collection of early space music / new age from the boyfriend / girlfriend duo of Kat Epple and Bob Stohl, who would later go on to some measure of cult fame with their group Emerald Web, but these recordings predate the formation of that group, documenting some of the earliest recordings from Epple and Stohl, a couple of the first musicians to combine synthesizers with organic instruments like flute, guitar, percussion and of course the human voice. The liner notes mention the music of Epple and Stohl, as well as their subsequent group Emerald Web, fitting more in the 'space music' scene, than the new age scene (which definitely embraced them), and we can definitely see that, the sounds here are cosmic and expansive, darkly psychedelic. Shades of current groups like Expo 70 are all over Sanctu Spiritus, deep swirling ambience, the synths fuzzy and buzzy (or are those effected guitars?). This record consists of five long tracks, each a sprawling, smoldering drift rife with deep low end pulsations, sizzling arcs of melody, drifting through soft clouds of washed out chordal shimmer, the vibe softly psychedelic and mesmerically melancholic.
Which is not to say much of the music here is not new agey, it most definitely is, but it's less relaxation massage style new age and more interdimensional cosmic drift new age, with glimmering fields of softly cascading synth textures, tinkling chimes, harp like shimmery strum, fields of fluttery flute, super chilled out and almost jazzy in places, a little folky in others, some seriously dreamy zoner drift for sure, and for every bit of new age fluff, there's some brooding, ominous moaning low end, like the brief closer on side one, a seriously dark ambient drift that's surprisingly menacing considering the context, foghorn like tones over the muted rumble of what sound like reverberating metal, thick slow moving sonic swells, and dense almost noisy crescendos.
But then the second side shifts toward something more airy and ethereal, the first half soft and swirly and slowly unfurling, but by the second half, clouds begin to gather, the same new agey drift now wreathed in shadow, moodily brooding, a cosmic dark jazz drift wreathed in the subtle sound of whipping wind, and slow moving fields of shimmering sci-fi FX.
LIMITED TO 700 COPIES!!!
Magic with a K, audial indulgence describes Equimanthorn's Second Sephira Cella. It's sonick Sumerian mystery from several necromantically exalted members of the Texas occult metal act Absu, including Emperor Proscriptor Magikus, whose absurd genius has been trumpeted here before. Is Equimanthorn also an "act"? Or it in fact something more serious? Whatever it is, it's certainly NOT a black metal album. No metal on here at all, actually. It's all quite atmospheric (but musical), creepy, ritualistic material... The resemblance to, say, Absu is all in the lyrickal text, the ancient sorceries evoked and invoked. Ridiculous it (probably) is, but at least these adepts have done their homework. You can argue with them about the significance of the Sixth Throne Of Asaru or the Rule Of Utukagaba but I'll stay out of it. Professing a belief in supernatural arts or not, the sheer sonics should seduce many a listener. Divided among the three members of Equimanthorn (Proscriptor, Equitant, and Ekimmu Abstractum), the tracks here are all deep and dark ritual soundtracks, resplendent with droning synths, 'unseen voices', mellotron, 'six-fold bows', and varieties of exotic Eastern instrumentation. We're reminded of such diverse artists as Goblin, Laszlo Hortobagyi, and a host of World Serpents... The music and its meaning are well matched. Equimanthorn is at ease with obscure, occult Esoterica in a way that, say, The Secret Chiefs 3 would like us to think they are but never will be. Advanced, impressive, and -- regardless of any reality-altering aspects -- excellent, candlelit entertainment.
And here's the second, more-or-less simultaneously released disc from Absu's Equitant, that we mentioned recently when we reviewed its companion, Zeit. In case you missed that review, here's the deal: Absu is the amazing Texan black metal band. Equitant is their guitar/bass player. But Equitant's solo albums (these two anyway) are NOT black metal. So much better than that -- they're ELECTRO music. As in, '80s Euro-disco-industrial Kraftwerk worship. Dark and moody dance floor fodder, as well as atmospheric soundscapes ("Winds Of Phobos"). It's all very dramatic, yet we suspect a bit tongue in cheek...but who can tell with the Absu crew? In any event, we're enjoying this, probably as much as Equitant enjoyed doing the photo shoot for the picture inside the digipack -- check him out in his shades, white shirt and pants and silver bracelet...sexy! So if you're up for a trip from "Germany To Detroit" (one of the song titles here) in the '80s, via the unexpected imaginings of an otherwise black metal guy in Texas right now, both Equitant albums are quite recommended!
One of those "believe it or not" type records, this one. Ok, you know the Slayeristic Texan occult black metal horde known as Absu? If you've been paying attention to our black metal recommendations, you should. Well Zeit is Absu guitarist/bassist Equitant's solo project. But it's not metal. Nor dark ambient. Or ritualistick okkult conjurations, as with another Absu side project, Equimanthorn. Nope. It's, like, ELECTRO. As in, retro '80s synth beat stylings. All cold and mechanical and dark and driving. Totally Teutonic, Kraftwerk worship, full of spacey atmospheres and robot rhythms. There's some John Carpenter in here too. And also some heavily effected, Vocoder'd vox, in part courtesy of Absu drummer and AQ fave solo artist in his own right, Proscriptor (who released this on his own label, Tarot Productions). We'd never have thunk Equitant would make music meant for the dancefloor of some smokey European nightclub, but he's done it, and done it very well indeed. Such quality at least we'd expect from a member of perfectionists in every detail Absu. So if you've got a taste for autobahn-ready electro darkness, tune in to Zeit. (There's also a second Equitant album, Konstructeur, that was released simultaneously, we'll list that soon too but we do have a couple of 'em in stock now).
