Hot on the heels of the great new Jenny Hoyston record that we're in love with comes a little 7" from her main act, Erase Errata. We're so happy that Tomlab is on a mission to save the seven inch, as it will always be one of our favorite music listenin' formats. Nothing better then a little slab o wax from one of your favorite bands. Erase Errata are in top form here as we know they love 45's as much as we do, so they wouldn't dare just put some throwaway tracks on one. These two exclusive tracks explode with the passion and late night urgency that have become trademarks of their sound. Tapping into the early spirit of P.I.L in a way that sounds so fresh and gripping. Songs that you will want to listen to over and over and no better way to do that then by laying down the needle to the wax again and again. Seven inch perfection!
We sung the praises of Erase Errata's previous album Other Animals 'cause of their jagged guitar attacks and high-strung, bratty vocals fronting no-wave / post-punk / post-disco grooves, and those of you who wanted more more more will be thrilled with their sophomore effort At Crystal Palace. It's not a whole lot different than the debut, and this isn't going to be a problem for the majority of EE's fans who will enjoy hearing the same piercing guitar riffs, elliptical basslines, and ass-shaking rhythms over and over again. Perhaps the vocals are less paranoiac and the overall intensity of the album is toned down just a enough to be noticable. Yet the differences are slight. For those hoping Erase Errata would take off on a new tangent, well, maybe next time. Hopefully, unlike their historical precedents -- bands like Pere Ubu, The Slits, and The Pop Group (all of which hold incredible influence over Erase Errata) -- who eventually devolved into lame imitations of themselves, Erase Errata when they decide to do something new, will really surprise us. But as second records go, At Crystal Palace is pretty great.
As Erase Errata is another awesome Bay Area band whose tight, jagged sound defies you not to shake your bee-hind, what we said about the Numbers remix album a few lists back also applies--(Erase Errata), all by themselves, have a firm handle on taking the tools of punk rock and using them as instruments of total dancefloor destruction, making them prime candidates for re-interpretions of their songs that highlight, rather than obliterate, their inherent status as dance tunes-- although it ends up that most of the songs on this disc were actually more danceable *before* being put through the remix grinder. Coming in at opposite ends of the "dance" remix spectrum on this release are Adult and Kevin Blechdom. Adult's fairly subtle remix is the track most deserving the title "Dancing Machine," taking Erase Errata's angular, funky bassline and urgent vocals and coating the whole thing in a crisp synth veneer. Robotic boogie mania ensues. The Blechdom track, on the other hand, is a backwards tape scrubbin' hyper sped-up electronic noise fest, with out-of-control video game bursts, soprano ooh-ing, and a snippet of the song in its original form alluded to in the mix here and there, all topped off with some nice country fiddle (crossed over from Wobbly et al's Wide Open Spaces?). Thoroughly deconstructed and rearranged according to her unique sonic worldview, Blechdom makes the Erase Errata material entirely her own. "Dancing Machine" also includes mixes by Matmos and Kid 606.
MPEG Stream: "Marathon (Adult Remix)" [/audio/adultmarathon.m3u]
We didn't realize how much we had been missing this beloved Bay Area post-punk trio. It's been over EIGHT years since their last album, but the moment Lost Weekend came ringing out our speakers, we were again enveloped into the band's familiar warm & urgent sounds, and after just a few listens we could feel these songs digging deeper and deeper into our brains/hearts/souls in a way we knew wasn't going to stop.
While the previous Erase Errata albums that we love so much were marked with more of a herky-jerky and angular disposition, this is a different and even more potent beast. The songs and playing are more assured, a slow burn is thrown into the mix, and the riffs are as heavy and chunky as they are punchy and catchy. The darker elements of their sound that came to the surface on Night Time, their last lp all those years ago, is present here with even more of a hypnotic and propelling glow.
It goes without saying that a lot has happened in the 8 years since their last release. The face of San Francisco has changed, as has much of the lives of the three members of Erase Errata. While not all the members of the band live in the Bay anymore, there is something forever San Francisco about their sound and energy. The band's vocalist/guitar shredder Jenny Hoyston moved to Texas but the legacy she left in the city working and booking shows at El Rio makes us remember a more inspired and hopeful time in the city. The band's drummer, Bianca Sparta, became a proud mama, and it's no accident that the record's title Lost Weekend is the name of our all-time favorite video store of the same name, which is located right across the street from aQ, as Bianca worked their for years.
On this record the band taps into a psychedelic groove that's both swirling, steady, direct, and deep cutting, but with room to twirl and freak out. They continue to show how they are masters of musical economy as there is not a wasted note or second on the album, yet it feels like the most expansive and wide reaching set of songs they have created yet. We've been listening to Lost Weekend alongside classic albums by bands like Wire, The Fall, The Ex, Sonic Youth, and Siouxsie & The Banshees and the quality and space those bands were able to tap into so very much resonates on this album too. It's kind of crazy how much this record has grabbed a hold of us, as we find ourselves listening to it over and over and over and still not getting sick of a single second. Much like Deerhoof, another of our favorite all-time bands that began during what is a very special era for many of us in the city, the second you hear an Erase Errata song you know it's them. It goes beyond just their distinct playing, tuning, and style and into those intangible qualities like spirit, soul, and electric energy. They have kept the potent intensity of what we love about punk rock but have always found a way to transcend the limitations of genre and create music that rings with relentless and purposeful intention.
It's been a few years since Erase Errata's dazzling "Crystal Ships" and since then they've lost band member Sara Jaffe, toyed with the replacing her with another person, then wisely decided to forge ahead as a trio and keep the original EE spirit alive. This is their first outing for Kill Rock Stars and it's definitely a perfect fit. As their politics and guitars are sounding as sharp, angular, and urgent as ever. While they have always held their politics close to their hearts, on Nightlife they are even more up front and in command with pointed words backed up by tough sounding guitars. This is a much leaner meaner sounding Erase Errata. While many of their contemporaries have gotten softer, fluffier, more primed for MTV, we're happy to say that EE is keeping it real and as always with them so irresistibly passionate. Punk rock may have fallen in the hands of some pretty half hearted unimaginative folks over the years but Erase Errata are here to show us that the possibility and potential of punk can still pack a brilliant punch!
The highly anticipated debut full length from four Oakland/SF gals with little intention other than to make furious, loud music that demands your ears and shakes your ass. In this day and age, it's hard to make a strong distinction in a punk context and
This is a nice handmade zine with a sewn spine by Sara of Erase Errata giving the insider story of their European tour.
Two songs each from Erase Errata and Numbers on the mildly annoying 3" cd format (maybe I have an unhealthy attatchment to my record player, but these brief tunes would've fit beeyootifully on a 7"...) Numbers are great, and "Goin' Insane" and "Palo Alto" give you all the crunchy moog basslines and shouty, distorted boy/girl vocals you could ask for in a space so tight it's claustrophobic, but Erase Errata... damn, they are SUPER hot!
Strong, continuously inventive basslines & super tight drumming form the backbone, enhanced by guitar that provides jagged texture rather than structure. Then the vocals: commanding, Mark E. Smith style commentary that might, for a brief moment, turn into full, vibratoed song before turning back into a sharp, observatory talk/rant. Kick ass. The brevity, skimpy packaging, and questionable format may work against my ability to recommend that you shell out $6.98 for this release, but let me say that the songs from two of the Bay Area's finest definitely deliver.
Here's the soundtrack to David Lynch's infamous, career defining early cult film Eraserhead. It's a work that lead actor Jack Nance was so dedicated to that he kept the same extreme cumulonimbus hairdo for the five year duration of its filming! It's a work so claustrophobic, nightmarish, perverse, anxiety ridden, bleak and black humor heavy that it continues to this day to be unsurpassed in many strange and wonderful ways.
Many movie soundtrack cds these days are just glorified rock compilations. Not this one! It's a genuine soundtrack, and a strange and beautiful one at that. Filled with intrusive industrial scrapes and discomfiting silences, the soundtrack unquestionably plays an integral role in brewing up the unsettling atmospheres that Lynch navigates with an unchartered dream logic. Unfriendly cold sweat drones, prickly electrical charges, choked guttural gurgles, distant echoes of carnival organ melodies and dialogue snippits lurch in and out of focus, but out of all this grey dankness emerges the Lady in the radiator's "In Heaven (Everything Is Fine)". So good.
We had never heard these guys before, but we've been digging this a LOT, another black metal band from Australia (released on the same label as the new Pestilential Shadows, reviewed elsewhere on this week's list), their sound definitely beholden to the classic Scandinavian sound, certainly hints of Emperor and Mayhem abound, as well as Marduk and Dark Funeral, that sort of classic black metal, that few bands can pull off, and even fewer with this sort of power and grim black energy, the band spending much of their time chugging and churning instead of blasting, those more midtempo stretches super intense and moody, the riffs gnarled and twisted and a little bit Deathspell-y for sure, but when the band do explode into a blast, it's dense and furious and heavy as fuck, the guitars an insectoid buzz, the drums furious and impossibly fast, the band careening wildly, the sound dissonant and sinister, the balance between blasting raging fury and moody melodic crush near perfect, with hints of classic metal, lots of cool droned out heaviness, but all woven into what is essentially a modern slab of classic black metal. And most definitely a new favorite with the metalheads around here...
Mexico's answer to the Ruins, it seems: a bass/drums duo (with occasional violin and other instrumentation) playing a frenetic style of way-out there prog rock, and sharing a definite Magma influence. Aggravating, perhaps, if you're not in the mood, but otherwise dark, heavy, hyper, and enjoyably convoluted.
One of two new tapes on this week's list from local label Black Horizons, the other being a new one from local psychedelic drone folk drifters Common Eider, King Eider, and this one, the first we've heard from Victor Eremita, the moniker for a mysterious Swedish soundscaper, who delivers a cold, haunting, minimal ritualistic industrial music, all murky pulses, abstract scrapes and creaks, whirring shimmers, at times sounding like super abstract house music slowed to a crawl and then fused to Ghost Orchid style EVP recordings, at others, like some haunting machinemusic, a softly churning barely there rhythm, wreathed in clouds of keening high end thrum, and blurred layers of rumble and whir, haunting but not so much harrowing, as ominously entrancing.
A dreamworld of rusted automatons, animated by some dark spirit, and compelled to create this soft focus din, an otherworldly sonic ritual, an ethereal, skeletal krautrock style churn, blurred and smeared into soft focus streaks of haunting mesmer, which are ghostlike and spectral, and seem to have been conjured from a realm free of human interference, their presence less musical, and more spiritual, the remains of a mad sonic scientists lab, imbued with the dying spark of his soul, which has somehow kept everything barely working, a strange workshop, a perpetual musical motion machine, gradually running down, captured here in the throes of slow expiration, and a gradual drift to the other side. Haunting and darkly lovely.
And as with all Black Horizons releases, super swank packaging, this time the tape is all clear, with no sticker or printing, housed in a silver and black printed vellum J-card, which holds several printed cardstock inserts. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
Upon their release, Paid In Full (1987) and Follow The Leader (1988) were instant classics. Pioneering the recipe of simple beats, perfect samples (including a first use of James Brown) and powerful bad-ass rhyming with super smooth flow, EB&R led hip-hop into new territory and have since not quite been matched in their effortless style and effectiveness. If you've lost your cassette tape versions of these classic albums and didn't go for any earlier overly expensive reissues, here's your chance to get 'em pretty true to the original album with only a few new remixes.
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
Upon their release, Paid In Full (1987) and Follow The Leader (1988) were instant classics. Pioneering the recipe of simple beats, perfect samples (including a first use of James Brown) and powerful bad-ass rhyming with super smooth flow, EB&R led hip-hop into new territory and have since not quite been matched in their effortless style and effectiveness. If you've lost your cassette tape versions of these classic albums and didn't go for any earlier overly expensive reissues, here's your chance to get 'em pretty true to the original album with only a few new remixes.
An essential classic!!
In case you missed it on our mystery themed in-between list last week, something we reviewed just for that, for the first time...
Another one of our all time favorite bands who never made it on the aQ list, mostly due to the fact that all of the group's records, and in fact, their whole career (not counting the reunion), predated the modern incarnation of the New Arrivals List. We really wanted to include them on this week's list, for the obvious reason (obvious if you've sussed out the theme of this week's list, that is), but really we were basically itching for an excuse to gush like crazy over these indie pop legends.
Hailing from the same Canadian province that brought us other indie rock luminaries such as Sloan, Hardship Post, Jale, and lots of others, Eric's Trip were the very first Canadian band to sign to Sub Pop (who ended up popularizing the ensuing Nova Scotian pop rush, as it were), releasing just three full lengths before calling it a day. Love Tara, was their first, originally released in 1993, and is a glorious, ramshackle collection of perfect lo-fi fuzzy indie pop, like some delirious mix of the mopey sad boy 4-trackery of Sebadoh, the fuzzed out crunch of Dinosaur Jr, and of course the lush noisiness of the band who gave them their name, these guys and gal were absolute pop geniuses, even the most fragmented/abstract tracks here will get lodged in your head like crazy, and when they do let loose, they can definitely rock with the best of them. Hushed acoustic bedroom ballads, buzzy psychedelic indie rock blowouts, the production sweetly off kilter and home brewed, the bass lines fat and fuzzy, the guitars thick and gorgeously corrosive, the boy vocals, courtesy of Rick White and Chris Thompson (now of The Memories Attack, whose most recent record was released on Andee's tUMULt label), are earnest and heartfelt, that perfect plaintive sadboy croon, perfectly balanced by the sweet angelic voice of Julie Dorion, whose solo records we HAVE raved about on the aQ list, all in the service of some of THEE catchiest songs EVER. Alternatingly hushed and dreamy, heavy and hazy, even nearly two decades later, this record, and this band, put most other pop music to shame. So absolutely recommended, one of those rare records that we find ourselves listening to all the time, and have since we were in our twenties. Glad it's still in print. SO GREAT!!!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We've gotta admit it, due to this comprehensive double cd collection of songs by the legendary Roky Erickson, those of us that weren't already are now newly devout fans of his work. Sure, we always liked his hits with '60s Texas psych pioneers the 13th Floor Elevators, of course, but god DAMN. Wow. This collection touches on the best of the 13th Floor Elevators while moreso elaborating on the multitude of music Roky created afterward, solo and with his band The Aliens (among others). Of course we knew that "You're Gonna Miss Me" was a stone classic of slightly-psycho garage-psych, and that 'chooga-chooga' electric jug sound (the 13th Floor Elevators' trademark) has also never failed to fascinate. But somehow we'd never investigated much further, thinking that perhaps the sad saga of Erickson's life (a psychedelic drug-damaged downward spiral) might be more interesting than his music. How wrong we were... disc two here is all post-1980 and a lot of it is brilliant. And of course totally weird.
Maybe you know the story of how, after the inevitable break-up of the LSD-fueled Elevators, Roky was busted for pot in 1969 and, given the choice between spending time in jail or in a mental institution, he chose the latter, claiming insanity. Doing so, however, only led him to suffer through painful shock-therapy and liquid thorazine treatments, rendering him more frail and emotionally damaged than before his admittance. Years after this "therapy", while living in a housing project in Austin, Erickson was busted for mail fraud. He had been stealing his neighbors' mail, taping it up on his apartment walls, unopened. So, you get the gist that the fellow's mental state is precarious at best, right? Add his obsession with schlocky horror films and you get songs like "I Think Up Demons" and his band being called Bleib Alien (bleib, an anagram for Bible).
So, disc one (22 tracks) starts off with a bunch of his '60s singles with The Spades and the 13th Floor Elevators, before moving on to the first of several "comebacks" in the mid-'70s. The songs that followed his institutionalization were either blissful country-type psych tunes or outer-space paranoia-laced ragers. "Starry Eyes" is one of our favorites. A beautiful, earnest, heart-felt melody and that lends loveliness to his throat-scratched lyricism. And then there's "Click Your Fingers Applauding The Play." Not really sure how he got his guitar to sound like that, but it's pretty amazing. Searing and raging with electricity. Really, there are so many amazing tracks on the first disc. Listening to 'em all, we were half-expecting the second disc to pale in comparison. BUT NO. It's totally jammin with his later-era songs, 21 of 'em. One (new) fave of ours here is the doomy "Bloody Hammer" from 1981 which totally makes us understand how that Swedish band Witchcraft was influnced by Erickson just as much as by Pentagram -- it sounds so much like it coulda been on Witchcraft's album! But even as late as '95 Erikson was releasing solid material in his inimitable style. With the same effectiveness in songwriting capability as later-era Johnny Cash, Erickson offers us "True Love Cast Out All Evil" (from 1988) among others.
Yup, this anthology is some essential stuff all right. And it's nicely packaged with liner notes that give a pretty good biographical picture of Erickson and detail the music and its players. You gotta check out the incredible assortment of photos too!
At this point Roky Erickson's turbulent story has been pretty well documented (there's even a movie about it!), and it now seems to occupy the same strange annals of musical history as the Norwegian black metal murders and the rise/fall/rise/fall/rise again of Pentagram's unsinkable Bobby Liebling - gazed upon with morbid car-crash curiosity by the casual listening public! But it's still probably the best place to start for those uninitiated souls considering taking the one way trip into the bizarre landscape of The Evil One. The abridged version is this: Roky Erickson first made a name for himself as a founding member of psychedelic pioneers and vocal LSD proponents 13th Floor Elevators (bonus fact: they're thought to have invented the term "psychedelic rock"!), but as a result of a minor drug arrest and a schizophrenia diagnosis he wound up in a mental institution subjected to the horrors of involuntary electroshock therapy.
In the years that followed his release he publicly claimed that a Martian had begun inhabiting his body, was arrested for mail theft after developing an obsession with the postal system... only recently, in the 2000's, has seemingly pulled himself together, and thankfully has started playing live again. It's definitely a sad and a fascinating story, but all throughout those tumultuous years Roky kept putting out albums, and it's important not to let the backstory overshadow that fact. Because regardless of everything else, there is absolutely no doubt in our minds that The Evil One is a bona fide MASTERPIECE, and is probably as good as any hard rock record you will ever hear. Originally released in 1981 and collecting some of Roky's earliest solo material (a few of the tracks were featured on the I Have Always Been Here Before compilation that we reviewed some time back), The Evil One is as timeless a rock record as there's ever been. It seems to exist in some sort of vintage vacuum - it has that vague sense of sounding "old" but doesn't seem to belong to any specific period in music. It has the unique quality of sounding both ahead of its time and strangely retro, even for 1981 - like it was transported from some alternate rock & roll past where the Billboard charts were topped by pop/rock occult ballads and catchy demon worshipping jams.
"Two Headed Dog" opens the record with a jarring, almost post-punk wall of guitar dissonance before a snare drum ushers in an absolutely perfect swaggering proto metal riff - recalling the best moments of classic Alice Cooper and Blue Oyster Cult. Great leads and tight flawlessly simple drumming abounds, all while Erickson wails about children being nailed to crosses like some sort of deranged bizarro Neil Young, if he'd perhaps become a Satanist preacher or delirious doomsday prophesier. There's a Southern twang to Roky Erickson's vocals as well, that lend a certain Americana baptist noir to much of the record. The production is soft and almost subdued - but it's the perfect compliment to the deceptively simple songs and Erickson's surreal stream of consciousness lyrics (perfectly represented by the album cover's chaotic collage that seems to be exploding from Roky's head). The Evil One is certainly a strange record, but it's a subtle creeping strangeness. It's a strangeness that never compromises the songwriting. As we said earlier, first and foremost The Evil One is a fantastic rock record - chock full of catchy choruses, great guitar leads and extremely tight understated playing.
There's tons of variety too. You only need to look at the transition from the aforementioned "Two Headed Dog" into the album's second track "I Walked with a Zombie" - a pristine slab of Saturday night drive-in B-movie doo wop (complete with "I walked with a zombie"/"He walked with a zombie" backing vocal tradeoffs!). Elsewhere there are more upbeat cuts: it's not too hard to imagine "Mine Mine Mind" or "I Think of Demons" being played by Tom Petty or The Cars while "Don't Shake Me Lucifer" is classic Chuck Berry/Rolling Stones blues rock boogie woogie. But all the while Roky is still injecting even the album's poppiest moments with bizarre imagery about devils, goblins and gremlins. It's unsettling, fun and bewildering all at the same time. There's plenty of heaviness as well though. "Night of the Vampire" has a staggered militaristic intro that recalls Diamond Head's NWOBHM classic "Am I Evil" before slithering into repetitive clean guitar gloom accompanied by epic guitar leads and bubbling horror movie synthesizers. Then this incredible closing duel synth/guitar lead comes in that seems to recall the same crumbling castle gothic horror of Ozzy Osbourne's "Mr. Crowley." Elsewhere the loose driving groove and jagged guitar harmonies of "Click Your Fingers Applauding the Play" would totally do Thin Lizzy proud - you can almost hear the unquiet restless spirit of Phil Lynott singing over it!
But moreso than referencing older bands, this record's influence can be heard in so many places after its release - most notably in the current wave of modern witchy, occult obsessed groups. It's as essential to Witchcraft's hazy organic seance-rock as vintage Pentagram is. The glorious proto-doom of "Stand for the Fire Demon" is clearly the template for The Devil's Blood's entire sound. The opening riff of "White Faces" sounds more than just a little bit like Ghost's "Ritual" (and was covered by both The Devil's Blood AND Witchcraft to boot!). And one group of dudes from North Carolina just went ahead and named their entire band after the pulsing proto metal of "Bloody Hammer"! It's not even a stretch to imagine this could have been a pretty big influence of the stripped down rock & roll darkness of Danzig's first couple of solo albums - even the "whoa-oh"s in "The Wind and More" sound a bit Misfits-y!
Just in case it's not obvious yet, this comes with the highest recommendation, and we won't hesitate in declaring it absolutely one of the best hard rock/proto metal records ever recorded. And also one of the weirdest! It's so bursting with great songs and absolutely overflowing with character in fact that it's hard to imagine ANYONE not loving this record. So give yourself over to Roky's monstrous world. Stay a while! See what strange creatures you encounter there. But don't blame us if you never find your way back home again!
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.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
First off, in the long tradition of bands with people's names, Erna Schmidt is a band, not a person.
Okay. Now that that's sorted, Erna Schmidt were a German band signed to the Ohr label, that never managed to release an lp due to the untimely departure of their flute player. But live they were a terror, with songs stretching past the 45 minute mark and often completely improvised, furious and rocking, but also melodic and dreamy. This disc really captures all that. Recorded live during the years 69-71, this definitely captures the raw intensity of their stage show and the sound quality is really great. Meandering epics that run the gamut from ethereal melodic folkishness to stampeding freaked out psych rock, to groovy boogie breakdowns. Heavy on the flute, heavy on the guitar solos, and some truly kick ass drumming.
And here's the third Eroc album, originally released in 1979 but containing odds and ends of music recorded by Eroc with or without his band Grobschnitt from as far back as 1969. There's some bonus tracks added on to this cd reish that date from 2001-2004 as well, and actually they fit right in amazingly enough!
Compared to Eroc 2, a lot more 'listenable' (less crazy German jabbering!), Another cool one from this new AQ krautrock fave.
This is a Krautrock masterpiece!!! This cd reissue of the 1975 debut release by Eroc has totally floored us. Eroc's the solo project of Joachim Heinz Ehrig, who was the drummer in Grobschnitt. He used his solo project as a way to explore electronics, cutups and sound collage all surrounding totally beautiful & harmonic instrumental pieces. Of the albums he made under the Eroc moniker this is the one that shimmers with the most beauty while still showing his crazy range and unpredictability. From the blissed out to the bizarre, Eroc 1 is one of those records that you can't believe you've never heard before, and one that once heard will surely go down as one of your favorite psych/kraut/prog gems of the '70s.
Every time this plays in the store, someone in the back inevitably comes up front to see what the heck is playing. And often they begin to think that if this keeps up, they just might just have a new favorite record. Striking the perfect balance between experimentation and melody, Eroc melded the use of modular synthesizers, tape, overdubs, sound generators, guitars and percussion into an incredibly forward thinking, densely layered, crazily original sound. There is a golden sonic glow reminiscent of the best moments of Cluster / Harmonia, every track is fantastic and original, each one drives us wild, and the four bonus tracks on this collection are just as good as any of the tracks on the album proper! You can hear the early blueprints of so many musical movements that would take shape in the decades following Eroc's 1975 debut. Moments of dreaminess that foreshadow Durutti Column, glimmering electronics that anyone on Morr Music would kill for, and an integration of so many elements that sonically predate groups like Fridge by decades! We can imagine Andy Votel (Prog Is Not A 4 Letter Word, Finders Keepers) freaking out over this album much like Julian Cope who sang this disc's praises on his Head Heritage website.
And certainly all of us here at AQ have discovered a record that is pretty much a shoe-in for many of our all time favorite lists!
The Brain reissue series on Revisited continues to bring us the crazy krautrock goodies! Of course, having already raved about the first solo album from the drummer for theatrical prog loonies Grobschnitt, Joachim Ehrig aka Eroc, we were exceedingly curious about this second one. Ja, Eroc 1 was a HUGE hit 'round here. After all, we called it a "krautrock masterpiece" and compared it to all sorts of favorite things, from Harmonia to Fridge! So, what's the deal with Eroc 2, originally released a year later in 1976? The cut-up confusionality that was a deliberate, delightful part of Eroc's debut is continued here, but taken to further extremes, which makes this more of a DIFFICULT spin at times. It's more bizarre, with the curiosity factor up and the overall listenability factor slightly down.
Like Eroc 1, this has its share of moody, melodic, synth-laden instrumental bliss-outs for the Cluster fans in the house. Eroc 2's electronics also venture into carefree, Bavarian dances for Liederhosen wearing' hippies. And then there's a bunch of paranoiac freakouts to give Faust a run for their money! In a word: Quirky. Heck, downright weird. But it's krautrock, that's what we came for. The mood of the music displays good and bad vibes both -- and a sense of humor, we're pretty sure (though our lack of German makes it tough know just what's a joke). There's a healthy amount of talking (auf Deutsch) all over this album. Singing too. Though there's lots of purely instrumental parts as well. But with 30 tracks (13 of 'em bonus cuts!), some of them dense epics, many others brief under-a-minute interludes of insanity, the puzzling and the pleasing are in rough proportion. Amidst Eroc's wonderful spacey, synthy, psychedelic music, you'll hear all sorts of stuff. Children's voices. Babbling outbursts. Electronic squiggles -- and the sound of maniacal sawing? Oh and orgasmic (male) moaning... Perhaps it's all some sort of concept album and all this makes sense, tied together in some strange narrative. Or, they're all nonsense non sequiturs, anyway? We don't know, but are amused/intrigued/entertained. Definitely, get Eroc 1 first, but check this out too. If you like your krautrock to be uber krauty, full of surreal surprises and jokes you won't get, you'll probably dig this. Like Eroc 1, this consists of stuff recorded in Eroc's home studio, growing out of tapes intended to augment Grobschnitt's live shows. Both records turned into personal LP-length visions well worthy to stand alone.
Can't wait to hear Eroc 3, which is supposedly also been reissued or will be soon...
In the last few years we all seem to have come down with serious cases of "Anatolian fever"! With amazing reissues of '70s Turkish psych by the likes of Selda, Mogollar, 3 Hur El, Erkin Koray, Edip Akbayram, Bunalim, Mustafa Ozkent and a bunch of great comps. We've been totally and completely blown away time after time by how charged and colorful the sounds coming from the Turkish underground in the '70s were.
Now Ersen gets the proper reissue treatment from Finders Keepers and it's about time, as his amazing and seductive voice has been evoking the most resplendently colorful memories and images of people and places. With instrumentation that's as immediate, funk filled and catchy as his comrades Selda and Edip Akbayram, and a voice that can really do no wrong, Ersen has become our newest Turkish Psych obsession.
It's amazing how well these songs have stood the test of time, sounding so alive, and relevant nearly 35 years after they were first recorded. Ersen has a very special place in Turkish music history, being a vocalist for a period of time for the pioneers of Turkish psych/pop, Mogollar. The truth is Ersen's voice could probably sing over any kind of music and make it all sound so damn good, as it's soulful and filled with such flair, that sort of voice doesn't come around that often. It's no surprise that hip-hop folks like Oh No, Madlib and the whole Stones Throw family have been quite obsessed with Ersen's sounds as well, every song jam packed with so many breakbeats and innovative sounds, just begging to be sampled and blasted on the dance floor. A true gem from a magical era in Turkish psychedelia!
Coming out of the same Finnish scene that spawned AQ-faves Circle and Ektroverde, Es is the work of Sami Sanpakkila, who in addition to this solo project, also plays in various bands like Kiila and Velvolino. He also runs Fonal records. (I guess all that
Es is the work of Finland's Sami Sanpakkila. This is the first work that we've encountered from Es, though Sanpakkila is closely connected to the out-rock ensembles of Circle and Ektroverde. The nine tracks are hermetic sculptures built out of beautifully gossamer guitar playing with Zoviet France like backing loops and atmospheres. Fans of early Durutti Column or Steven R. Smith's evocative work should definitely take note.
Here's the third album from our Finnish friend Sami Sanpakkila, who is also a member of Kiila and Kemialliset Ystavat, and runs the excellent Fonal label. Excellent 'cause of releasing wonderful records like this, his new effort under the name Es. The previous two Es albums, Flick and A Love Cycle, were all about mesmerizing, looping soundscapes. Now Kaikkeuden Kauneus Ja Kasittamattomyys -- in English, The Beauty and Inconceivableness of Everything -- continues Sami's explorations in meditative modern psychedelia, somewhat sad but beautiful, with guitar, some very lovely piano, and various field recordings mixed in. On some tracks, this sounds like Sami has dragged a few of A Love Cycle's turntables out into his garden, where he sits with the birds and plants and makes music while a female friend sings so nicely. It's like Philip Jeck meets Jewelled Antler. Definitely for fans of JA, as well as Kemialliset and the recent Kiila record. As always, we say, yay Finland!
Brand new record from this Finnish aQ fave, every new album a slowly blossoming mystery in sound, whether it's manipulated chunks of old vinyl, rickety campfire psychedelia, or expansive soundscapes of delicate crystalline shimmer. Es is the musical monicker of Sami Sanpakkila, who also plays in some other aQ Finnish favorites, most notably Kemialliset Ystavat and Kiila, and who is often joined by various members of the ever shifting and constantly collaborating Finnish underground community.
Kesamaan Lapset seems to be a record composed and performed entirely on keyboards and synthesizers, the opening track is a gloriously sun dappled chunk of skittery sunshiney new age synths, lush swoonsome swells of fuzzy whir, tinkling little melodies, and soft tangles of squiggly glitches, looped and chopped, like a more kinetic caffeinated Oval. The follow up begins with some circusy lo-fi keyboard melodies, that get more and more dense and intricate before the vocals swoop in, super effected and lush, wrapped in delay and reverb, ghostly and otherworldly, drifting lazily and dreamily over the softly chaotic jumble of tones and melodic fragments, managing to be pretty and soft, but fractured and off kilter at the same time.
The first of the two long tracks is a slow building dronescape, thick swells of warm lush organ whir, beneath delicate spidery piano melodies, the whole thing growing ever brighter and more insistent, various keyboards beginning to stutter and skitter creating all manner of incidental rhythms before finishing off in a dense swirl of hissy soft focus drift.
The 21 minute title track is all woozy dream pop, female vocals, over a constantly undulating bed of looped pianos and swirling synths, male vocals offer up some unlikely harmonies, horns slowly surface as do gauzy clouds of effects, before transforming into a deep, dark, almost brooding bit of keyboard driven drift, replete with all manner of Oval like digital glitch, warbly and underwater sounding, super hypnotic and intense, eventually giving way to a strange bit of majestic fanfare before fading out in a brief blur of warm abstract melody.
The final brief track is a buzzed out coda, all electronic glitchery, fuzzy drones, plonked electric piano, howled vocals buried in the mix, tons of grit and texture, buzz and whir, like a way more abstract Animal Collective.
Certainly a bit different than any of the other Es releases, but in its own warm and warped, tripped out and twisted way, a logical extension of Es's ever expanding soundworld. And we dig it.
As always, the packaging is super cool full color 4 panel gatefold, with some amazing childhood photos, printed insert with more cool art and liner notes, and a gold and white printed obi.
Yet more transmisssions from the wonderful world of Finland, from a name most AQ list readers should be familiar with by now, Es, the group headed by Sami Sanpakkila, who happens to run the amazing Fonal label who has brought us releases from Kemialliset Ystavat, Islaja and Paavoharju, and featuring luminaries from other Finnish free rock outfits like Avarus, Kemialliset and Anaksimandros. This vinyl only (for now) release compiles an entire lp's worth of newwly recorded material, as well as a sidelong piece from a few years back and live on the radio recordings from the recent Es tour of the States.
The new tracks are as lovely as anything we've heard, Christmas carol like harmony vocals, lilting and folky, delicate tangles of steel string guitar and tinkling piano, that slowly untangle into wispy smears of droney dreamy psych folk. Long languid organ drones laid across a field of tape hiss and record crackle, while hovering just beneath are sqeaking reeds, quavering strings, plonked piano, all so gorgeously lovely.
The live on the radio tracks sound like some lost pagan artifact, deliberately strummed guitars, insistent rhythms, an angelic chorus of female vocals all with a distinctly krautrock style pulse beneath.
The final track is a side long drone, constructed from two guitar tracks, played by not touching the stings, only brushing the knobs and strumming way up on the neck of the guitar. Haunting and creepy, warm, dark and lugubrious.
Luxuriously packaged in a thick matte finish gatefold (with printed inner sleeves, photos and linernotes) with dreamlike watercolor paintings of the band members in different states of psychedelic repose, over branches in trees, wrapped in a scarf or rainbows or with rainbows coming from their fingers!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
It's weird how everyone is so into goth now, maybe it's part and parcel of the whole eighties resurgence, but Goths were once the outcasts, at least when we were in high school, wearing all black, listening to Sisters Of Mercy and the Mission UK and the Cure and Depeche Mode, and clomping around in Doc Martins, lots of skulls and leather jackets, sitting in their own little group at lunch, getting picked on by jocks, who knows that might still be true, but in underground music, and even these days in mainstream culture, the Goths rule, from Hot Topic to Twilight, Zola Jesus to Cold Cave, Blessure Grave to cold wave, and for those of us who dug it back in the day, we're definitely into this new wave of gothic rock, taking all the stuff we dug about it the first time around, and sort of revamping it and modernizing it. Like all the musical movements of late, the word spreads like wildfire and suddenly there are way too many bands playing whatever super hyped sound is the flavor of the day/week/month, and most of them not playing it very well. The same could be said of this new goth wave, the cream definitely floating to the top, Cold Cave, Blessure Grave, Zola Jesus, and now UK Goths Esben And The Witch, named for a Danish fairy tale, which told the story of Esben and his 11 brothers, and their (mis)adventures, EATW conjure up a gorgeously expansive and explosive sound, lush and shoegazey, the guitars chiming and shimmery, the drums heavy and tribal, the vocals reminiscent of Zola Jesus, all woven into huge swirls of gothic psychedelia.
The record opens with "Argyria", which begins, all broody and jangly, minimal and hushed, shimmery and drifty and warm and woozy, before building and building and finally exploding into a massive and surprisingly heavy squall of dense, shoegazey wailing, the vocals howled and buried in the mix, before winding down into a skeletal bit of pulsing electronic gothy drift, haunting and otherworldly and gorgeously creepy.
"Marching Song" is the band's big hit, with it's crunchy main riff, and tribal drum pound, the song gets slow and low for the verses, with the vocals delivered in a deep witchy croon, over a Joy Divisiony bassline, and wreathed in swirling spectral vocal harmonies before launching into more epic, majestic choruses, and a killer percussion heavy outro.
"Light Streams" is all hazy and washed out, druggy and dreamy, the ethereal female vocals, backed up by strange processed demonic male background vox, before becoming engulfed in echo and reverb and spinning out of control into a pounding blown out swirl of gothpsych haze, grounded by a gorgeous repeated high end guitar figure. "Hexagons IV" weds dirgey gothy shoegaze to murky electronic pulses, as does "Chorea", but like the rest of the record, they eventually spiral into full on buzzy, fuzzy blissed out blown out shimmer. "Eumenides" is an experimental dronescape that's equal parts druggy drift and chaotic crunch, an extended bit of swirling lysergic ambience, that give way to the gorgeously brooding closer, "Swans", the vocals VERY Zola Jesus here, but much more expressive and acrobatic, laced over some deserty guitar twang, some deep rumbling drones, and clouds of abstract percussion, the sound eventually transforming into a hazy, end-of-the-world choral drift, dense and dramatic, dark and dolorous, winding down slowly, the harmonies and spidery guitars seeming to melt into each other before fading away completely.
Modern goth has rarely sounded so good. Definitely recommended for fans of any of the abovementioned gothics, but also, anyone into moody, shoegazey, dreamy, dramatic darkness.
One of the first times we heard from NYC space/post/synth/psych rock combo Escapade was on a split with Acid Mothers Temple. And damn if they didn't manage to hold their own. In fact, if memory serves, their propulsive synthy space drone ended up outshining AMT's same already familiar psych rock freakout.
So here we are a few years later, with the latest full length from these guys, and we're happy to say it's just as solid. Maybe even a little bit more trippy and spacey. Which is of course a very good thing. As we've mentioned in the past, modern prog/space/psych rock can tend toward the cheesy, a very few bands manage to bliss out and rock out with out sounding like Hawkwind lite. Escapade are definitely among the elite, with their stretched out jams, and some simple motorik rhythms that definitely remind us of Circle. In fact, if you took the looped riffing out of Circle and injected some scrabbling psychedelic freakouts you'd pretty much Escapade. Throw in some buzzing sitars, some tripped out abstract This Heat-isms, some wild free jazz drumming here and there, some billowing clouds of dense space rock FX, some soaring heart-of-the-sun leads, and all sorts of droning atmosphere, and you're in for a kick ass tripped out drug drenched space rock freakout. Fans of Circle, Kinski, Acid Mothers Temple, Hawkwind and the like will definitely want to check this out...
Latest (though last year's) release from this band, in stock for the first time. Escapade are an almost-all-instrumental American band that falls into the amorphous space/prog/trance/post/psych/synth rock category. Some of that stort of stuff done by modern day bands can get kinda cheesy and wanky, but these guys thankfully stay on the more acceptable side of the genre, so if you're heavily into, say, Circle and Subarachnoid Space you'll probably like Escapade. (Sporting a ponytail might not hurt either...just kidding.) The opening track "A Symphony Of Sirens", a nearly twenty minute epic of slow moving menace, pretty much tells you all you need to know. Thudding bass, cavernous drums, meandering electric guitar leads, dubby effects...sleepy and droney and repetitive. It's a bit like Pharaoh Overlord's latest I suppose. And if that doesn't tell you enough about 'em, they follow that up with a largely-improvised take on the Pink Floyd classic "Interstellar Overdrive"! This comes to us via the label that just brought us the new F/i (see elsewhere this list), and prior to that the "Flourescent Tunnelvision" spacerock compilation we gave the thumbs up to a while back -- you'll find an Escapade track on there too.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Very cool, fancy import vinyl reissue of this Carpenter classic (and onetime aQ Record Of The Week), from a mysterious UK label who have just started doing a whole series of uber desirable soundtrack reissues on lp. We're always going on about John Carpenter, citing his music as a big influence on a lot of underground bands today, and this is definitely a good example of what we love about his stuff.
Here's what we said about this when we made the cd reish a ROTW back in '05:
Why are we making a soundtrack for a movie from 1983 starring Kurt Russell (who hams it up in a piratical eye-patch) our Record Of The Week, this week? Well, we've got a few reasons... first off, the music is awesome and we love it (good reason right there). Secondly, this cd has been out of print and hard to find for several years now, going for silly sums on eBay, sought after by soundtrack collectors and electronic music fans.
While director John Carpenter is known for making quite a few classic films in the B-grade horror and sci-fi thriller genres (Halloween, The Thing, Assault On Precinct 13, The Fog, They Live etc.), it's perhaps not as well known that he personally composed the soundtrack music to many of his movies, starting with his first flick Dark Star back in 1974. Working out of a home studio with what was technically advanced equipment at the time (machines which would now be considered awesomely vintage), he composed electronic music soundtracks that some might say are even better than the movies themselves. Certainly they're worthy to stand on their own, anyway (just like Goblin's soundtracks for Argento's films). Carpenter's compositions have influenced other musicians, and not just soundtrack writers. Anyone who loved the Zombi album we recommended last year needs to have some John Carpenter in their collection for sure!
And we recommend Escape From New York as being one of his best. Somehow it combines a lot of stuff that we figure a lot of you like: suspenseful Goblinesque darkness, droning old school synths, kitchy Disco Not Disco style NYC '80s groove... Loaded with claustrophobic nervous tension, these tracks make use of taut, minimalistic, hypnotically repetitive rhythms that make us imagine an Electro version of AQ faves Circle. The atmosphere is further enhanced by the inclusion of sound FX from the film and snippets of dialogue - the tough guy banter of Kurt Russell's wiseass anti-hero "Snake" Plissken is priceless, especially due to Russell's constipated Clint Eastwood delivery.
Set in a dystopian, wartorn then-future of 1997, Escape From New York sends "Snake" into the maximum security prison that the island of Manhattan has become to rescue (at pain of death) the President of the United States, who is being held captive there by the city's "inmates" after Air Force One made a particularly poor choice of a place to crash-land! The film also stars the likes of Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Harry Dean Stanton, Adrienne Barbeau, Donald Pleasence, and Isaac Hayes, all of 'em capable of chewing the scenery right along with Russell. You definitely don't need to have seen Escape From New York to get a kick out of this soundtrack, but the movie is an enjoyable '80s action thriller worthy of its cult status and listening to this will probably get you to go rent it.
Carpenter composed and performed the score in association with sound designer Alan Howarth, whose home studio (stocked with an ARP Quadra, an ARP Avatar with 16 step sequencer, a Prophet 5 programmable analog synthesizer, and a Linn LM-1 drum machine) was used for the recording. Howarth was further responsible for remixing and remastering the album for the release of this "expanded edition" which first appeared in 2000. It includes several cues originally meant for scenes deleted from the theatrical release of the film, and runs to over 57 minutes in length. 'Bout time it was back in circulation!
This vinyl version includes a poster of its exclusive over art, by Jay 'Iron Jaiden' Shaw, along with liner notes from both Howarth and Shaw.
The fifth collection of songs from this amazing songwriter. In recent years, his music has been labelled Americana, roots rock, alt-country, but call it what you will -- this is simply a wonderfully earthy and lush album. A long long way from his punk rock
How many other groups can you think of that have been equally embraced by the house, the hip hop, and the punk scenes? There ain't no one but ESG. The four black Scroggins sisters from the South Bronx formed their band in the late '70s (mom bought 'em intruments to keep them off the streets). They released their first single on Factory in the UK, and on 99 Records (No-Wave home of Liquid Liquid, Glenn Branca, etc) in the US. So not only did they play with groups such as The Clash and Gang of Four, but their single "Moody" was a bona fide disco hit, and the B-side of that single "UFO" has become one of the most recognizable, most sampled parts in the history of hip hop. Everyone from LL Cool J to 3rd Bass to Marley Marl to Big Daddy Kane has sampled ESG, you will be AMAZED when you listen to these original tracks. Super stripped-down, raw percussive tracks with enough groove to make a girl forget she's not swimming in jewels. Three full lengths and a couple of singles later, ESG (Emerald Sapphire and Gold) gets the best-of treatment in this excellent compilation of the group's best tracks (including Windy's personal favorite "Erase You": "Well I got news for you boys / I'm gonna erase you / just like a drawing / Erase you / flush you like my toilet / Pump it up girls!"
