The Mystery Sea label specializes in "Night-Ocean Drones" which as you can imagine definitely appealed to the AQ sensibility. And their series of ultra limited, gorgeously hand assembled, elaborate cd-r's has included releases from Aidan Baker, Ultrasound, Moljebka Pvlse, Troum, mnortham, Paul Bradley, Coelacanth and others, you can understand why we're just as excited to check out Mystery Sea releases by bands we've never heard before. This is only the second Mystery Sea release we've been able to get enough of to review and list (the first being the amazing Emerge cd-r) and it's absolutely fantastic.
Two lengthy epics from this Russian duo, each a massive slow motion trawl through some dark and dimly lit undersea world. Drifting and floating, huge swaths of low end resonate and reverberate... It's the sound of glaciers drifting across black seas, old abandoned ships forever floating on huge slow shifting swells, a musical bathysphere drifting along the ocean floor, this IS night-ocean music. Dreamy and shimmery, dark and dense, mysterious and haunting, but the music of Exit In Grey is not simple, not just one dimensional drone, these tracks are thick and layered, deep and rich, with all manner of overtones getting all tangled up, strange sonic subtleties, various shades of sound, slowly changing hue, twisting and distorting to form other shapes. Nameless Droplet most definitely benefits from deep listening, although like most drone records, it's perfectly okay to just float on the surface, but dive deep and there are wonders to behold.
STRICTLY LIMITED TO 100 COPIES! We got 30. Once they are gone, they are gone FOREVER! Gorgeously packaged with full color artwork, each copy numbered. So nice!
Exit In Grey's impressionist driftscaping continues to broadcast darkly beautiful, animistic apparitions from the taiga of Mother Russia. As we've mentioned before, Exit In Grey is the work of one Sergey [S] Suhkov who sometimes works under this moniker with an enigmatic character granted with the name (S), though it seems that (S) has parted ways with [S] for reasons unknown. The mystery to the authorship of Exit In Grey is by design as their may be many forces, elements, dimensions, psychic energies, and parapsycological reverberations that are communing with Exit In Grey to achieve the emotionally resonant dronemuzik found in their ongoing body of work. Perception slowly unfolds over two lengthy tracks, each clocking in around 27 minutes flush with ghostly loops, harmonic wash and analogue drone girding the ebb and flow of various cycles from guitar chords delicately generating melancholy melodies all bathed in reverb, tangles of forest-born sound objects which might as well hail from the overgrown ruins at Chernobyl, oceanic field recordings of ominous tidal churn, and shortwave receptions of hiss, electric hum, crackle, and disembodied voice. The slow pacing of Exit In Grey's poetic electronics reminds us of that Motion Sickness Of Time Travel series of Moon Ballades. Yeah, beautiful stuff.
The second album in as many weeks from the Russian industrial-impressionist Exit In Grey. At this album's core is a duality of gloomy exasperation and despair on one hand and a universal, meditative sense of calm on the other. Both of these emotional states co-habitate in a slow crawl of suspended drone construction and dappled shortwave radio reception from detuned military transmissions as well as the ethereal crackle of a VLF receiver. The initial gasps from Shadows Of Stillness spill from a claustrophobic synth tone, whose desolate, chemical transmission is accentuated with low-frequency rumblings and bone-creaking textures that wouldn't be out of place on a Sleep Research Facility or Lustmord recording. About halfway through "Speaking With Silence" the nocturnal mood lifts with a golden set of melodic ambient phrases akin to Popul Vuh's classic psychedelic instrumentals and a chipper satellite beacon signaling back to earth that all is well up in the heavens and we need not worry so much about our plight down here on this rock. The album's finale reprises this radiant shimmer as if all of the sounds were the sunblinding reflections of a midnight sun cast upon the placid waters of the Arctic Ocean north of St. Petersberg. Cold yet beautiful.
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It's frustrating sometimes that lots of our all time favorite records came out well before the aQuarius list was established. We occasionally pick old favorites, like Rein Sanction, Archers Of Loaf, Hardship Post, Green River, stuff that's still available, and review them on the list. Cuz as far as we're concerned, released dates and the concept of 'new music' are pretty much useless. All records are new and exciting to someone who has never heard them. But often times those old favorites are long gone and out of print. So when one of those records does finally get reissued, we jump at the chance to be able celebrate and share that amazing music via the list. Which brings us to this double disc reissue from weirdo eco-radical doom drug grinders Exit-13.
A band we have loved for EVER (so much so, Allan even interviewed them for the first issue of his old fanzine, years and years ago), Exit-13 were only loosely a grind band, sure they were fast and furious, guitars buzzed, songs were short and complex, the vocals a monstrous gurgle, the lyrics way political, all about the environment, vegetarianism, etc.� But for a grind band, they sure spent a lot of time spewing huge gory gouts of buzzing doomic plod, as well as incorporating convoluted jazz weirdness, freaked out psychedelic leads, thrashing punk rock, bizarre interludes with croony vocals, skittery rhythms, and noodly guitar jams, bits of angular retard-funk, Black Flag-ish gnarled riffing as well as confusional cut ups, dizzying collages of chopped and recontextualized vocals, Jello Biafra, bits of Jeopardy music, the theme from Underdog, Led Zep pastiche and whatever else they felt like tossing in there.
The best way we can describe it is John Zorn meets diSEMBOWELMENT meets Brutal Truth.
The original discs came with stickers that summed up the Exit-13 sound pretty succinctly:
"Mind warping philosophically contemplative environmental brain food from Pennsylvania's unique smoking grind rock extremists" (from Don't Spare The Green Love) and "An 80 minute head explosion of absolutely unique sonic intelligence from Pennsylvania's environmental grind rock hedonists. This band smokes, bud!" (from Ethos Musick)
Hard to argue with that�
So, High Life collects almost everything the band has ever recorded (minus the ep of '20s and '30s cover songs, all about reefer, sung by the Pain Teens' Bliss Blood): their one proper full length, as well as all of their various singles, eps and splits (previously released as Don't Spare The Green Love). And by now, you've probably realized these guys were all about the pot. The songs buzz by in dense clouds of bong smoke, lots of samples about marijuana, lyrics about legalizing hemp and pot. The back of the booklet even features a huge pot leaf and the "Stop the madness - Legalize Marijuana" legend. But that's only one of their causes, a quick look through the lyrics, reveals a seriously 'green' agenda, environmentalism, vegetarianism, there's even a whole track that's just a snippet of the Phil Donahue show, on which he interviews members of Earth First!
But none of that would mean anything if this band didn't completely slay. And thankfully they do. Heavy and fucked, weird, but weirdly catchy, buzzing and blasting, then pounding and chugging. Furious blasts of blown out lightning fast grind are butted up against lurching doom sludge, peppered with super fucked up free jazz breakdowns. Guitars are serpentine, jagged and angular, the drums go from pound to blast beat and back
the vocals harsh and gurgly, there are bits of weirdly classic rock sounding jams, over sound samples, electronics and Goblin-like keyboards...
"Anthropocentric Ecocidal Conundrum" begins with an insistent folky strum over chirping birds and burbling brook, until the guttural death metal vocals kick in and the drums, then it's some sort of metallic death metal folk freakout, finally morphing into some gnarled convoluted math grind jam. Elsewhere, cool creepy acoustic guitars drift over moaning synths, and splattery drums, super cinematic and haunting on "Only Protest Gives A Hope Of Life". There is plenty of weirdness. Damaged is a descriptor that constantly springs to mind, as does demented, and most certainly fucked. Silly too. But at it's core, this is heavy, heady stuff. Brutal but musical, fierce and fractured, forward thinking and seriously far out.
The second disc is the older stuff, and is at once more furious and thrashing, much more grind, but also has lots more sound samples, songs dotted with all sorts of film snippets, voices, bits of dialogue all tangled up with the growling harsh vocals. "Spare The Wrench Surrender The Earth" is half funeral doom, before launching into a more grinding blast of punk rock. The stuff from the first 7" is almost like old school goregrind, with impossible gurgling loooooow vocals, the guitars a furious blur, the drums a furious splatter. Then there's "Fingernails" hinting at the weirdness to come, with its fake horns, and frog-like croaking super effected vocals, and that classic funeral march melody mixed into the chaotic rrroooaaar.
Any fan of heavy music, be it black, thrash, grind, doom, or sludge should be able to get into these guys. And they're just weird enough to maybe also appeal to the less metal inclined looking for something freaked out and heavy.
An interesting note: like any self-respecting grind band, Exit-13 made a regular practice of releasing records with different versions of the same songs, so the song "Disemboweling Party" appears three different times, while seven other tracks appear twice. But in most cases, the various versions, while not totally different, are varied enough to keep it interesting, even if it's just that one is super hot and in the red, and one is super muddy and lo-fi, or even just that different samples were used.
Our only complaint, is that this is only sort of the complete Exit-13, 'cause they left off the extended, potentially-speaker-damaging noisedrone jams that closed out both their records, the 28 minute "An Electronic Fugue For The Imminent Demise of Planet Earth" from Ethos Musick and the 21 minute "Snakes And Alligators" from the Just A Few More Hits ep. Most of us wouldn't have minded paying a few extra bucks for a third disc, and ruined speakers, but what can you do?
Killer packaging, all the original photos, images, lyrics, quotes and propaganda reproduced in a huge booklet.
Previously unreleased 3rd (double) album from cult krautrock trio Exmagma (no relation to French prog masters Magma). Recorded in 1975 at Conny Plank's studio, this excellently-produced opus somehow eluded release for over thirty years. Now finally here it is, with vintage artwork, informative liner notes, and most importantly, 17 tracks, 69 minutes of quirkily wacky krautrock that had lain dormant for far too long. If you've heard either of their first two albums (the self-titled from '73 or Goldball from '74, both of which were once available together on a single cd reissue that's now sadly out of print) then you know they're a freaky band, a bit like Guru Guru but with more jazz-fusion stuff going on. This is still pretty jazzy but more rock than before -- with more singing too. Definitely betrays the influence of Captain Beefheart (with the track "Torpedo Tits" perhaps coming uncomfortably close to Frank Zappa lyrical territory) but also that of Miles Davis as well. A lost krautrock effort that we'd wager doesn't sound like too much else in your cd collection, with hard, angular grooves, druggy concepts, zany rock, confusional hippie humor, and journeyman jazz chops -- for a gonzo Frankenstein of an album only Exmagma would dare design and build.
Back in stock, now way cheaper than before!
Ok, let's get the first question everybody has about this band out of the way: they've got nothing to do with our favorite Seventies proggers, Magma from France. The trio Exmagma was also from the '70s, but from Germany (featuring an expatriate African-American drummer though) and are known as Exmagma simply because they had originally called themselves Magma, until they found out about the French group and changed the name! Some understandable confusion resulted, we're told, because Exmagma's second record Goldball was only released on a French label...and the "real" Magma kinda sound more German than French what with their Wagner influence. Anyway, THIS band was more of an acid rock meets (free) jazz fusion kind of thing. Freaky, wild, and groovy. Laid back weirdness, some sax, lots of electric organ and piano, doublenecked bass/guitar...Mostly instrumental, with only some very rare Faust-like vocal parts. This disc contains their two albums, both recorded by Krautrock production maestro Conny Plank, with the first self-titled one from '73 being perhaps the more far-out and abstract, while 1974's Goldball more solidly grooved. Maybe. However, both LPs are "drug jazz" classics. Also, on the cover to Goldball (reproduced in miniature here) the band sports the craziest bellbottoms we've ever seen...they're on stilts under them I guess!
Latest from these Danish headbangers and it's more of the same. Which is not a bad thing 'cause they do it so well. Blazing fast death metal with growled/howled vocals and little black metal bits here and there. Insane double-kick drumming with buzzing riffs and roared vocals. Intense and heavy and recommended.
Another warped export from the weird and wonderful wilds of Finland, this one in the form of psychedelic sludgelords EXO, who are a three piece, two bass players and a drummer, and thus deliver a punishing wall of sound, all dense low end dirgey, this churning dual-bassed low end onslaught held together by some dense drum pound. And as you might imagine, with two basses, and being mostly instrumental, EXO, traffic in a sort of tranced out riff repetition minimalism that's hypnotic, cyclical, and churning. When the vocals do surface, they're some sort of garbled underwater demonic burblings, which adds a sort of blackened, demonic vibe to the proceedings. Otherwise, the music itself is equal parts OM, Godheadsilo, the Melvins, that sort of murky, super distorted sludge, but more econo, minimal not maximal. Think Dutch instru-metal outfit Gore, and you're definitely in the ballpark. It's psychedelic and spacey at times, but for the most part, EXO are masters of the downtuned, low end doom-dirge trance, the coolest moments being when the two basses deviate, one going high, the other low, sometimes obviously, as if one was playing some sort of lead, but more often, just creating strange harmonies, octaves, thirds, whatever, but the result is a gorgeous headfucking dissonance, that suits EXO's lumbering, monolithic pummel. Fans of all thing slow and low, check this out for sure.
There's something about Finnish black metal that just kills us. Always. Every time. Horna obviously, but also Clandestine Blaze, Vordr, Ride For Revenge, Circle Of Ouroborus, Behexen, Satanic Warmaster, Jumalhamara... and as you can tell by that list, none of those bands really sound like any of the others, but still, they all somehow manage to sound distinctly Finnish.
However, within that expansive Finnish BM sound there is most definitely a distinct subset, one that is particularly grim and frosty and buzzy and blasting, furious and frenetic, which is where Exordium comes in.
Their s/t cd from a while back got short shrift here for some reason, but we did flip for their tracks on the Crushing The Holy Trinity comp. It may have been the first time we had heard them, and we described their sound thusly: "Super white hot hyperdistorted buzz guitar, lightning fast blast beats, killer riffs, the whole thing blown out and recorded so hot the speakers can barely handle it!" Which pretty much still applies, if anything the sound has just gotten more refined, tighter, more polished, but without losing any of their grimnity. Think maybe a little old Satyricon, a bit of early Immortal, some Beherit for sure, but all wound up and revved up and supercharged, even introducing a bit of Khold like groove here and there.
Pure buzzing blackened Northern darkness just the way we like it.
Killer raw grim black metal from Finland. That truly glorious black buzz that fills our black shrivelled hearts with joy. You might remember their tracks from the amazing Crushing The Holy Trinity compilation a while back. Essential!
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With previous releases on Thule - Iceland's answer to the Basic Channel / Chain Reaction sound - Exos' spatial techno sets hypnotic patterns of chilly metallic tones against big four on the floor stomps, with all of the required downtempo ambient passages. Quite good.
From the same label that brought you the godly Hatebeak ep, comes another crucial vinyl platter in the 7" format. While that band had perhaps the best vocals ever committed to wax (by a parrot), this Richmond, VA group features possibly the coolest packaging design for a 7" EVER with a die-cut wrist-slashing fold-over cover you're just gonna have to see up close to fully appreciate. The nice surprise though is, contrary to most bands that expel such energy in the presentation of their music -- the songs are fully ripping too. Think evil devastating metalcore like a possibly even more aggressive Converge, with serpentine odd-time guitar riffs crashing upon blasting drums. This band has (or had, it's hard to tell from their site) personnel from fellow Virginia hardcore and metal bands Cripus Attucks and ex-Enemy Soil alums The Index and the combination of all styles from grind and metal to straight-up hardcore mix brilliantly on four solid tracks. Get this or die!
Expansion Bay is the (more) spaced out ambient side project of Sandoz Lab Technician Nathan Thompson, who has also done time in Sleep, EYE and a handful of others like minded outfits.
Utilizing field recordings, laptop, an arsenal of heavily processed instruments as well as samples from his previous bands, Thompson has put together a gorgeously expansive ambient drone world that is rife with sonic action. None of that static drift, no pushing a button or pressing a pedal and letting things take their course, no, these three lengthy tracks are dense, and heavily layered, sounds atop sounds atop sounds, different sonic fragments bleeding into other bits and shards, melodies getting all tangled up with other melodies, droney and ambient certainly, but alive and constantly moving and expanding.
The opener is a nine minute stretch of glistening high end buzz and gleaming sonar shimmers, like a less soothing Oval, sort of underwater sounding, static on the surface, but just below, sounds are constantly shifting and vibrating and changing shape and texture. Bits of melody float by like strange microscopic creatures in a musical petri dish, beneath it all, various whirs and rumbles cause different parts and sounds to shift and birth other sounds.
The title track, is a 16+ minute drift through inner space, beginning with a high end whir, slowly shedding the upper registers, gradually slowing down to a dronelike crawl, the whole thing peppered with glistening glimmering sonic sparkles, like stars in some volatile solar system.
The final twenty minute is the most lush of the bunch, sounding at first like wheezing organs, but as the sounds separate and the fuzz clears away like clouds after a rainstorm, the sounds reveal themselves to be bells, or what certainly sounds like bells, a gorgeously dense cacophony of ringing and clanging, huge thick clouds of overtones, the timbre and tonal colors always changing, so gorgeous and nearly overwhelming, finally fading out in a muted minimal stretch of glitchy low end buzz...
There are two ways to look at the work of V/Vm and their croneys: 1. that they actually are the ultimate post-modern pranksters offering aural jokes so complex as to confound even the most astute cultral analyst, or 2. that they have convinced themselves that they are the ultimate post-modern pranksters, but have gotten so wrapped up in their self-consecration within the realm of
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Death of a Robot... is a surprisingly good E.A.R. record not nearly as tinny as some of his other records. Here Sonic Boom and E.A.R. make two long tracks in the drone tradition of early electronic composers like Ussachevsky or Xenakis.
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And thus spake Sonic Boom on Speak & Spell, "The sound collages on this disc were created using 8 human voice synthesizing toys originally marketed by Texas Instruments as the 'Speak & Spell' range during the 1970's. These instruments have been customized with added switches, buttons, knobs, & wiring to give phoneme looping, random phase generation, various modulation, pitch shifting, & other non-standard effects."
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Sonic Boom's E.A.R. (featuring members of AMM, God, and My Bloody Valentine) team up with European electronic composer Thomas Koner to try to prove some lovely hypothesis about ambient drone music.
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E.A.R. has pared themselves down to one member: Sonic Boom (Spectrum / ex-Spacemen 3). The "Vibrations " ep is a demonstration of his advances in reconstructing Morton Subotnik's electronic plasticity found on "Silver Apples On The Moon" and "The Wild Bull." Sonic Boom employs a variety of custom built synthesizers and vocoders to layer abstract patterns of flanging / warbling antique electronics. At times, Sonic Boom wrangles his devices to form a synthetic gamelan with intertwined percussive melodies and swirling electronic effects; but for the most part, he leaves the tones relatively unstructured. The vinyl version is specially packaged with an extra sleave screened with regularly spaced black bars on a heavy clear plastic cover to offer some nice optical illusions for the colored patterns on the cover itself.
Oakland's Experimental Dental School come crashing in with their latest twisted concoction. They've done split releases with Japan's Limited Express in the past, and that entirely makes sense as they're very much of the same imaginative art-rock ilk. Their music also brings to mind the rollercoaster-y quirks of Melt Banana and Deerhoof -- actually the latter band's Greg Saunier makes a guest appearance on a few songs. Drawing influence from both the carnivalesque multi-personalities of Mr. Bungle and the dissonant angst of Sonic Youth, 2 1/2 Creatures confirms that E.D.S. are more than capable of making themselves equally at home in indie post-rock and no wave basements, jazz joints and circus tents. The first song sprints out of the gate with some very frantic organ playing that sounds like a disjointed "Flight of the Bumblebee". Their effected high trebly vocals, pinchy electric guitars and keyboards balance precariously atop the loosely strung bass and thick synth lines. Very cool!
Two tracks each from SF's own Experimental Dental School and Limited Express (Has Gone?) from Kyoto, Japan, whose Tzadik release from last year we likened to Melt Banana and Deerhoof. It's like an exchange program for avant-rock zaniness. Limited stock.
Shattered is the posthumous release by this young punky power pop four piece, three of whom were killed in a highway accident driving home to Seattle after a show at the Bottom Of The Hill here in SF on July 17, 2003. This 16-song cd compiles a bunch of unreleased tracks and alternate versions. Really really good retro power pop with lots of guitars and sweet boy gang vocals. Seemingly inspired by the likes of The Buzzcocks, early Elvis Costello and Superchunk, The Exploding Hearts overflowed with raw youthful energetic fun.
Needless to say, listening to this is both utterly heartbreaking and uplifting, but making it even more so is the addition of live video footage of the band performing at the Bottom only hours before the tragic accident. Includes a terrific cover of Paul Collins & The Breakaways' "Walking Out On Love".
What hath the Skaters wrought? In the wake of that group's ever expanding body of work, both as a duo and each member solo, has risen a whole movement of musicians channeling similar sounds and melding many of the same influences into that ethereal collaged anti-pop that the Skaters if not invented, popularized. A symptom of today's MySpace world, where the minute one group, or one sound, gets hyped, a million bedroom 4-trackers take it upon themselves to do something similar. See the recent lo-fi garage pop explosion for example. But heck, stealing from the bands you love is a tried and true rock and roll tradition, the key being stealing from bands YOU LOVE, not from bands that are suddenly popular and you want to be popular too. That shit is transparent. That's why in an avalanche of wannabe's there are always a few who shine, whose creativity had seemingly lain dormant just waiting for a trigger. Sometimes hearing a sound, makes you realize that someone else hears the same sort of sounds you've been hearing in your head.
This could all be bullshit, but the second we first threw on this Explorers records, we couldn't help but think of the Skaters. But like any good band, taking influence from another, it's not the sounds you steal or the ideas you borrow, it's what you do with them that counts, and the Explorers definitely do their own sort of fractured soundscapery as good as, if not even better than their forebears. Layered tangles of tones and squiggly melodies, wheezing textures and buried stumbling drumloops, a swirling soft chaos of blurred sounds smeared into streaked landscapes of broken tape deck new age, deep dense outer space buzz and washed out dream drone, the sift from sound to sound is sudden and sharp, like flipping the channel or changing the station. Imagine the sound of sound remote research station, all the machines left running, whirring in the darkness, pointed heavenward, as they sample and intercept transmissions and broadcasts from alien worlds and alternate dimensions. Gloriously tripped out and deliriously druggy. For fans of the Skaters for sure, but also anyone into weird and wonderful, freaked out and far flung sonic explorations (they don't call them Explorers for nothing apparently).
LIMITED TO 330 COPIES.
Have had a couple of these in stock for a while now, but never listed 'em. Decided it might be a good idea, since those of you looking for Chinese thrash metal that sounds a lot like Slayer ought to be stoked. They even have a song that's called "slaaaaaayer!!!" (yeah with six 'a's, three exclamation points, and a lower case 's'). That's what it's called in English, though the lyrics are in Chinese).
Explosicum hail from Nanchang, China, and share a member with No Colours recording artists Be Persecuted ("the first Chinese black metal band"). In addition to Slayer, it's a cinch that this old school thrash is influenced by Overkill and Bay Area bands like Exodus. Conflict is the band's first and so far only album, enough for us but definitely a decent dose of blazing battery, widdly guitar, and shrieking vokill aggravation, proving once again that thrash (and metal) is a universal language...
We've always been fans of Explosions In The Sky. One of the post Mogwai, post Godspeed outfits so adept at crafting super epic and emotional instrumental soundscapes -- post rock, math rock, jangly pop, chamber music, all sort of whipped into grandiose cinematic swells. But past records, while sounding amazing, with the right balance of mood and metal, hush and heaviness, still stuck a little too close to the template of their forbears. EITS were like the perfect mix of Godspeed and old more bombastic Mogwai. And not much more. Nothing wrong with that really, it just never totally blew us away.
But All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone is different. And it does blow us away. In a big way. It still sounds like EITS, and thus still sounds a bit like Godspeed and Mogwai, but like any great band in the last 20 years, it's not who you steal from, or what you steal, it's how you make what you steal your own. And EITS have made epic instrumental post rock all their own. The opener is everything this sort of music could and should be. Super dense and dramatic, spacious and emotional, opening with keening high end melodies over big jangly guitar strum and huge percussive For Those About To Rock blasts, the guitars slowly intertwining and drifting off, fading to a moody minor key post rock drift, underpinned by layer after layer of fuzzy blissy guitar and a motorik rhythmic shuffle before the completely perfect bridge, a spaced out melody, all dynamic and epic, that will definitely give you goosebumps, before launching into a full on heavy math rock groove, incorporating that same hair raising melody, with some killer drumming and a veritable orchestra of guitars.
The rest of the record plays out in similar, albeit slightly less bombastic fashion. Each track perfectly leading into the next, an expansive post rock epic, separated into movements, chiming guitars, thick riffs, each track gloriously tangled and emotional, with long stretches of cinematic ambience, some shimmering strings, glistening melodies, lush harmonies, bits of piano, and some amazingly expressive drumming.
All Of A Sudden also includes a bonus disc, an entire remix of the album, each track reworked by a different artist. Jesu turns the epic opener into a fuzzier, blissier, and toward the end a MUCH heavier beast. Adem's remix is all low key and abstract, acoustic guitars, simple percussion and glistening chimes, a whispery shadow of the original. The Paper Chase wraps the original track in a glorious swirl of murky ambience, adding a stuttery drum machine rhythm and all sorts of strange sonic filigree. Mountains gives their track a serious Pop Ambient makeover, stretched out and languorous, swirling and shimmery, ending with a long expanse of solo piano. Four Tet's reimagination is the most dramatic, a blissed out shuffling electronic workout, all processed drums, shuffling and skittering, with the original track nestled beneath layers of synth fuzz and strange subtle FX. Finally, labelmates Eluvium transform the album closer into a fuzzy smear of pixelated ambience, that builds and builds, much like the original, but in this version, into a blown out, super distorted fuzzy dreamscape.
Two version of the same record, both stunning! So recommended.
Now available on vinyl! And the lp version also includes the bonus remix cd...
We've always been fans of Explosions In The Sky. One of the post Mogwai, post Godspeed outfits so adept at crafting super epic and emotional instrumental soundscapes -- post rock, math rock, jangly pop, chamber music, all sort of whipped into grandiose cinematic swells. But past records, while sounding amazing, with the right balance of mood and metal, hush and heaviness, still stuck a little too close to the template of their forbears. EITS were like the perfect mix of Godspeed and old more bombastic Mogwai. And not much more. Nothing wrong with that really, it just never totally blew us away.
But All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone is different. And it does blow us away. In a big way. It still sounds like EITS, and thus still sounds a bit like Godspeed and Mogwai, but like any great band in the last 20 years, it's not who you steal from, or what you steal, it's how you make what you steal your own. And EITS have made epic instrumental post rock all their own. The opener is everything this sort of music could and should be. Super dense and dramatic, spacious and emotional, opening with keening high end melodies over big jangly guitar strum and huge percussive For Those About To Rock blasts, the guitars slowly intertwining and drifting off, fading to a moody minor key post rock drift, underpinned by layer after layer of fuzzy blissy guitar and a motorik rhythmic shuffle before the completely perfect bridge, a spaced out melody, all dynamic and epic, that will definitely give you goosebumps, before launching into a full on heavy math rock groove, incorporating that same hair raising melody, with some killer drumming and a veritable orchestra of guitars.
The rest of the record plays out in similar, albeit slightly less bombastic fashion. Each track perfectly leading into the next, an expansive post rock epic, separated into movements, chiming guitars, thick riffs, each track gloriously tangled and emotional, with long stretches of cinematic ambience, some shimmering strings, glistening melodies, lush harmonies, bits of piano, and some amazingly expressive drumming.
The All Of A Sudden lp also includes a cd, which contains an entire remix of the album, each track reworked by a different artist. Jesu turns the epic opener into a fuzzier, blissier, and toward the end a MUCH heavier beast. Adem's remix is all low key and abstract, acoustic guitars, simple percussion and glistening chimes, a whispery shadow of the original. The Paper Chase wraps the original track in a glorious swirl of murky ambience, adding a stuttery drum machine rhythm and all sorts of strange sonic filigree. Mountains gives their track a serious Pop Ambient makeover, stretched out and languorous, swirling and shimmery, ending with a long expanse of solo piano. Four Tet's reimagination is the most dramatic, a blissed out shuffling electronic workout, all processed drums, shuffling and skittering, with the original track nestled beneath layers of synth fuzz and strange subtle FX. Finally, labelmates Eluvium transform the album closer into a fuzzy smear of pixelated ambience, that builds and builds, much like the original, but in this version, into a blown out, super distorted fuzzy dreamscape.
Two versions of the same record, both stunning! So recommended.
You might already be a big fan of Explosions In The Sky, or you might already unknowingly be familiar with the swelling post-rock sounds of this Austin, TX band via the telly... Either way you'll surely welcome How Strange Innocence. Now a few albums under their belt, E.I.T.S.'s debut full length gets a warm (remastered, repackaged and reissued) 'welcome back' by those fine folks at Temporary Residence Ltd. We've said it before with regards to the band's later releases and we'll say it again about this one, if you dig epic, atmospheric instrumentals a la those of sprawlingly expansive Scots Mogwai, E.I.T.S. very adeptly fills the bill as their American counterpart. An impressive feat to accomplish on a debut.
It's hard to know what to say about these guys. Every record of theirs is great, moody, emotional, lush and layered, smoldering one second, explosive the next, and while instrumental post rock bands may be a dime a dozen, few can match the depth and emotion of EITS (or Mogwai, or Godspeed for that matter). It says something that even though there are a million bands doing something similar, it only takes a few seconds to recognize Explosions. Not sure if it's the sound, the arrangements, the production, or all of those, but they have a sound that is so distinctly their own, all they have to do is play, and we're whisked away.
The opening track here is actually quite a weird one by EITS standards, beginning with some strange samples, a looped rhythm, before the drums come in, some stately piano, and some soaring high end guitar, within seconds the vibe is stirring and intense, a chiming reverbed melody drifts in, and we're gone, this is the sound of warm Summer days, of walking through the woods with friends, it's the musical version of Super8 films of small towns, and late nights, the sound so evocative and expressive, shimmering chords all hazy and washed out, the rhythm oddly loping, everything fading out leaving just fingerpicked acoustic guitar, a weird hiccuping rhythm, distant whirs, some softly tangled melodies, and then when the song picks up again, it's crystalline and sun dappled and so gorgeous, the sound growing more and more lush and layered, not necessarily loud or bombastic, before finally fading out.
The rest of the record plays out exactly how you might expect/hope, warm languid chords drift over hazy dreamy expanses of blissy ambience, big drums pound over lush soaring chords and woozy melodies, post rockisms abound, those sort of loping rhythms, and that distinctive guitar/drum interplay, but EITS add all sorts of subtle (and not so subtle) colorations, little bits of electronic flutter, lush liquid horn like melodies, thick chordal swells, tribal tom fills, layer after layer of guitars crating strangely haunting harmonies, a few bursts of almost explosive heaviness, the final track maybe our favorite of the bunch, with weirdly processed voices, blurred into an atmospheric haze, the drums subtle and skittery, the guitars almost jazzy, soft piano chords, very softly psychedelic, sort of droned out and dreamy, and the track does have a few crescendos, crunchy and heavy and soaring, but those moments are brief, with most of the track spent drifting and brooding. A gorgeous sonic denouement, hushed and haunting, and so so good.
Some of the most amazing packaging EVER. Both the cd and the lp sleeves fold out into a little house, the artwork on the outside of the house, all wood and stone, ivy, a chimney, the wooden door, a mailbox full of letters, some old bikes leaned against the house, inside a fireplace, some old frames leaning against the wall, hardwood floors, an old telephone, with the receiver off the hook, the window and the door open revealing storm clouds and a tornado in the distance. Even the underneath is printed with the framing under the floor of the house. And there's a poster of the land the house sits on, right down to the empty foundation and the surrounding land on one side, the dirt and roots on the other. WOW.
The second full length from these Austin, Texas post-rockers is quite simply gorgeous. Five ultra dreamy and dynamic and lengthy instrumentals that are totally steeped in hopefulness and longing. They introduce The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place with a delicate lonely guitar line which is gradually joined by the rest of the band, building the heartrending tension for nearly six minutes at which time things give way leaving only the bass guitar with the original solitary guitar. Further into the proceedings that same prettily picked guitar climbs the other mighty effected guitars like ivy on the formidable walls of an old British Manor. Pretty darn great!
So o.k., there's nothing new about post rock. There's a million bands that sound like Mogwai. There's a million bands that sound like Godspeed You Black Emperor. Every other band we see has q-u-i-e-t parts...and...then...LOUD CRASHING parts. You know the
It shouldn't come as a huge surprise to anyone to discover that Texas epic post rockers Explosions In The Sky have scored a film, after all, they're probably best know for providing the dramatic sonic accompaniment to the TV show Friday Night Lights, not to mention having various songs of theirs popping up all over the pop culture landscape. But hell, why not, their music is epic and moving, sprawling and explosive, understated and majestic,, who wouldn't look to EITS for a few seconds of epic instrumental swell, or brooding emo majesty, their music even sans imagery, evokes on its own the sort of heart wrenching emotion and fragility that indie film makers have been trafficking in for ever. The key being, that somehow these guys could make that music sound true and heartfelt, deep and original, in a field populated by hundreds of EITS wannabes, only Explosions themselves have truly nailed it, masters of gorgeous and emotional post rock soundscapery, which again, makes it not so surprising that some indie filmmaker would tap them for a score/soundtrack. What IS sort of surprising, is that Prince Avalanche is mostly acoustic, with songs that generally hover around the two minute mark, never going longer than five minutes, with the instrumentation mostly piano and acoustic guitar, with most of the tracks hushed and spare and delicate. We're not sure who David Wingo is, but we're guessing he's a piano player, considering that much of Prince Avalanche is driven by lovely lyrical piano lines.
There is still definitely an Explosions feel to the compositions, but as short as they are, much of the brooding slowbuilds that defined their sound as been swapped out in favor of something more intimate, and immediately dramatic, haunting minor key guitars are strummed and gently fingerpicked, beneath dreamy washes of melancholic piano, there are strings here and there, woodwinds too, it does sound very 'indie film' which is not a bad thing, but at times, you can almost picture the trailer in your head. Elsewhere Explosions and Wingo make that sound their own, like on the very Explosions sounding "Join Me On My Avalanche", one of the only tracks with drums, and one of the few to extend beyond 2 minutes, but it's got a classic Explosions feel, a sprawling brooder, with driving drums, percolating synths, a sort of post rock / kosmische hybrid, underpinned by more minor key acoustic guitar strum and some Polyphonic Spree like vox, and yet even here, it's somehow still easy to imagine that part in the movie's trailer (which we haven't seen) when everything comes to a head, and gets really dramatic, the music here perfectly capturing that emotional tension and cathartic release. Gorgeous stuff for sure. Not as bombastic and epic as other Explosions records, but then these songs were meant for something else entirely. Lovely stuff. Includes a fold out insert and a sticker. And for local folks, while they last, we've got passes to the movie's SF screenings, free with purchase!
It's amazing how quickly Expo '70 went from being a group we had never heard of, whose cd-r we got randomly sent to us in the mail, to a dronerock juggernaut, releasing disc after disc of amazing ambient kraut-flecked drift, what is beginning to seem remarkably like a monthly installment of outerspace sonic exploration. But heck, we'd much rather get a new 'issue' of far out Expo '70 dronebliss every month than say, Star Magazine (well, actually, okay, maybe Star was a bad example, but definitely more than say Spin or Rolling Stone or pretty much any other monthly installment sort of thing, anyway...).
Animism just so happens to be Expo '70's first actual cd as well, the first release that's not a limited edition cd-r, which is one of the reasons we decided to make it record of the week. 'Cuz to be totally honest, every single one of the Expo '70 releases could have been, and heck, maybe should have been Records of the Week. Certainly if we based it on how much they get played in the store, and the reaction of the folks hearing it, and the fact that the cds have been impossible to keep in stock. But that's only one of the reasons. The other, is that Animism, in it's own subtly space-y and psychedelic way, is quite possibly the 'heaviest' Expo '70 release yet.
The record begins much in the same way as most of the others. A huge drifting rumbling soundscape. Spare and wide open. Across this warm expanse drift disembodied guitar squiggles, reverbed scrapes, bits of fragmented melodies, post rock snippets, tinkling percussive shimmer,
all drifting over soft swells of undulating low end. There are tons of FX, but it's not Acid Mothers style freakout, instead, these sonic aktions are muted and smeared into dreamy streaks. Never has a music sounded so much like what it must feel like to drift weightless through space. Cloaked in inky blackness, but with the sparkle of a million stars illuminating the seemingly endless emptiness. And so it goes on, each track, a slow lugubrious crawl through the galaxies, strange shapes drift by, colored lights, every bit of melody like some barely visible shooting star, soft billow clouds of FX enveloping you before dissipating and leaving you to once again drift wide-eyed into infinity.
Track three, though, is where things start to get a little scary. In come the guitars, and this time it's not the little glimmers and twinkles, these are thick sheets of crumbling rumbling distorted buzz. Relentlessly trudging beast like across the same barren soundscapes, but leaving a trail of blown speakers in its wake. The effects here are much more blown out, melodies slip and slither amidst the coruscating heaviness, sounding almost like someone transported SUNNO))) back to the seventies, where they ended up jamming with Klaus Schulze and Ash Ra Tempel. Granted the Expo '70 cd-r Center Of The Earth, was also pretty heavy, but on Animism, the heaviness seems to be more deftly integrated with the lovelier psych-drone-drift parts, an organic space kraut doom, as dark and dense as it is dreamy and effervescent. The record effortlessly drifts back and forth, from black drone to space-y drift, as if one couldn't possibly exist in this universe without the other.
There are some subtle sonic surprises too, like the way-up-in-the-mix, tripped out harmonized guitars on "Entering The Night On A Highway Of Astral Projection", the folky acoustic strum on "Missing Sun", and the swirling SUNNO)))-y murk of "Shape-Shifting Mountain Mover", sounding a bit like the Angelic Process with the treble turned all the way down and the bass all the way up! Blissy and muddy, an epic blown out glistening dirge, suffocated under layer after layer of FX drenched detritus.
If there was ever an ultimate soundtrack for blowing the hatch and floating free, doomed to a languorous eternity of drug fueled drift and buzzing rumbling psychedelic space rock torpor, this is most certainly it.
So recommended.
For a while there it was practically raining Expo 70 cd-r's around here, and we of course couldn't get enough, we were shirtless, soaking wet, jumping around, splashing madly in the sonic downpour. Expo 70 are masters of a sound that so perfectly pushes all of our buttons, a dark spaced out dronemusic, that manages to infuse the typical minimal drone, with the organic pulse of krautrock, the subtle propulsion of prog, the blissed out sonic effulgence of FX drenched space rock, all boiled down to their very essence, a throbbing pulsing organic world of sound, organs whirring, guitars rumbling, buzzing electronics, Moogs spinning out soft spacey shapes, bits of guitar strum, fragments of melody, all drifting in an expansive abyss of shimmering low end.
Dark and melodious, but blurred and smeared into expansive sonic sprawls, a black stream flowing heavenward, carrying us along with it, ambient music, but not wooshy or wussy, fierce and dense, dark and layered, keening sheets of feedback, crumbling chunks of distortion, breaking off like chunks of ice and floating weightless in a sea of hiss and buzz. Heavy enough to block out the SUNNO))), but serene enough to wrap around you like a warm blanket and sink into the soft feathery depths.
These two discs collect unused, unfinished and alternate tracks recorded over the last two years. Both are fantastic, gorgeous, minimal, intense, heavy, dreamy, 001 is packaged in a retro looking paper sleeve, while 002 is in a plain black sleeve with a sticker, and a black on black printed insert. Both are essential, whether you own all the other Expo 70 cds or none of them, and both are crazy cheap, the two together are still less than most single cds, you'd be foolish to buy just one...
For a while there it was practically raining Expo 70 cd-r's around here, and we of course couldn't get enough, we were shirtless, soaking wet, jumping around, splashing madly in the sonic downpour. Expo 70 are masters of a sound that so perfectly pushes all of our buttons, a dark spaced out dronemusic, that manages to infuse the typical minimal drone, with the organic pulse of krautrock, the subtle propulsion of prog, the blissed out sonic effulgence of FX drenched space rock, all boiled down to their very essence, a throbbing pulsing organic world of sound, organs whirring, guitars rumbling, buzzing electronics, Moogs spinning out soft spacey shapes, bits of guitar strum, fragments of melody, all drifting in an expansive abyss of shimmering low end.
Dark and melodious, but blurred and smeared into expansive sonic sprawls, a black stream flowing heavenward, carrying us along with it, ambient music, but not wooshy or wussy, fierce and dense, dark and layered, keening sheets of feedback, crumbling chunks of distortion, breaking off like chunks of ice and floating weightless in a sea of hiss and buzz. Heavy enough to block out the SUNNO))), but serene enough to wrap around you like a warm blanket and sink into the soft feathery depths.
These two discs collect unused, unfinished and alternate tracks recorded over the last two years. Both are fantastic, gorgeous, minimal, intense, heavy, dreamy, 001 is packaged in a retro looking paper sleeve, while 002 is in a plain black sleeve with a sticker, and a black on black printed insert. Both are essential, whether you own all the other Expo 70 cds or none of them, and both are crazy cheap, the two together are still less than most single cds, you'd be foolish to buy just one...
Volume 3 in the ongoing Audio Archive series from our favorite droney, krautrock inspired combo, Expo '70, whose recent Black Ohms record we made Record Of The Week. And heck we really could have (and maybe should have) made all of Expo '70's Records Of The Week. They all seem to be part of some epic swirling black sonic universe, each cd-r a satellite of sound circling a mysterious sonic black hole, every release another stage, another leap forward into the abyss, an ever expanding sea of deep black drones, of rumbling whirring drift, guitars and synths woven into vast expanses of starry sky shimmer, and underwater moonlight drift.
Volume 3 takes up right where number two left off, taking the glacial crush of SUNNO)), and the blissed out ambience of Popol Vuh, and fusing them into a thick undulating mass, an organic world of sound, painted in shades of grey and black, mesmerizing, hypnotic, lulling us into a black trance, carrying us off on a sluggish stream of downtuned blur and smeared soft focus melodies, these are lullabyes for dark stormy nights, this is meditation music for channeling the dark side.
At once heavy, and mysterious, thick, and buzzing, warm, and dark and expansive, almost metallic, blackened and blissful, ominous and intense, this is some seriously uneasy listening, dark music for dead souls, each track a step further into a dying black sun, into a bottomless black pit, a living sound that entrances, enthralls, ensorcels... we are unable to resist, we give in, we let go, we slowly sink into the inky blackness, letting the drones and rumbles and whirs, fill our ears, our lungs, wrapping us in a gauzy hazy swirl of low end, releasing our spirit from its earthly bonds, letting us pass over into a glorious and haunting otherworld of sound.
Another dark, heavy, blackened missive from these krautdrone innerspace explorers. And like the others, recommended.
Simple packaging, silver and black ink on cardstock, with printed insert. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!!
As regular readers of the aQ list can no doubt attest to, we sure do love droning guitars. Whether downtuned and mostly motionless, or frenzied and buzzing, or blown out and shimmery, there's just something about the sound of those steel strings vibrating projected through massive walls of amplification. There's the primal primeval sound itself, the actual drone, a sound found everywhere in nature, then there's the power, the amplification, this transformed sound. The drone is most certainly linked to the machinations of life and the universe, we can only imagine, the Big Bang resulted in an aeons-long drone that hung over the nascent Earth, the sound of insects, the growls of beasts, the rumble of thunder, the white noise of the surf, all harnessed and sculpted into a more modern, more human experience of sound, into actual music. But the best drone music, with the most resonance, is the music that conflates the two. That creates a listening experience, wherein we find ourselves drifting off, sometimes to some man made universe, of songs and sounds and music, sometimes to someplace wholly other, where the music looses itself from the strictures of composition and arrangement, and is allowed to float freely, to drift. It's then, that the music maker becomes more than a musician, more than a rock band, almost more like and esoteric, ethereal wrangler of sound. The magic is creating music, that sounds like it wasn't 'created' at all, but instead, was discovered, unearthed, or if created, not from guitars and 4-tracks and drums, but from some strange energy, or some alternate universe, the sounds become glimpses into other worlds, or peeks into the music maker's soul. In creating these sorts of sounds, the listener is inexorably drawn in, and pulled quite willingly into a whole new dimension, where unlike the creator, who may have meticulously assembled the various elements, they are allowed to wander, and wonder, to float and drift and get lost, to allow the sounds to unleash emotions, to open up their mind, their hear, maybe in some cases even their soul.
As you might imagine, and we've mentioned it before, the drone is a mercurial beast, and one not wrangled easily. There are plenty of comers, who feel like once you've conjured the drone, it does the work for you, but such is not the case, as is proven time and time again, by sonic alchemists like Expo '70, whose take on the drone is less monochromatic, less one dimensional, whose dronemusic is infused with elements of krautrock, spacerock, postrock, but all woven into vast black expanses of sound.
Even more than past Expo '70 releases, Black Ohms manages to create some impossible world of sound, that is at once dark and sinister and foreboding, yet somehow dreamlike and serene, a collection of tracks woven into a seemingly continuous sonic drift, beginning with a deep, almost corrosive buzz, pulsing and undulating, shot through with streaks of melody, layered and textured, looped and hypnotic, heavy and dense and in its own minimal way, quite brutal, before giving way to something much more tranquil, a sea of glimmering, harmonics, and deep drifting tones, here the guitar is revealed as just that, a guitar, its abstract chords and minimal riffage, clipped and effected, draped in reverb and delay, and allowed to unfurl into softly propulsive rhythms, and spider web-like textures, again, infused with subtle melody, and blurred, burnished shadings.
The record wanders through miniature otherworlds of atonal melody, of machine like click and chitter, fifties computer bleeps and bloops, soft chiming jammy summer sun guitars, before returning to the deep, dark drone for a nearly 35 minute two part finale. The first part, a fifteen minute return to the sound of the album opener, the guitar again distorted and dark, not so much riffing as buzzing, a Niblockian soundscape of overtones and harmonics, a warm blackened bed for the ethereal melodic drift above, streaks of glimmering melody, soft stretches of wispy ambience, laced with an almost buried, looped guitar figure, all subtly rhythmic, a distant throb, like the pulse of some buried giant, muted and mysterious, but supporting the whole delicate structure.
The second, a 20 minute slow burn, a crystalline assemblage of barely there rhythms, deep layers of shimmering drone, this is the sound of a million dronemusic cd-r's fully realized, a smoldering chunk of minimal propulsion, rife with strange, tape speeds shift, but instead of jarring, it only manages to make the sound woozy, slightly alien, underwater, glimmering melodies, sparkling like black diamonds, fields of soft static like clouds of tiny insects, deep soft swells like the ebb and flow of some otherworldy tide.
Imagine the most minimal krautrock record you own, dubbed over and over and over onto the shittiest tapes possible, left in the sun, then played back on a car stereo, with only one woofer, but then render that in ear popping hi fi. The sound may seem murky and muted, but it is most definitely by design, there is nothing low fidelity about the sound of Expo '70, because within the meticulously and deftly obscured sound world, lurk all manner of sonic mysteries, each suspended in an impossibly beautiful blurred constellation of sound, which in turn is left to drift across a vast expanse of Black Ohms.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!
Third missive from our new favorite modern ambient space rock / krautrocky outfit. As if there were even any other contenders. These guys (or this guy rather) came out of nowhere and just blew our fucking minds. Expo '70, aka Justin Wright, has, over the last few months. given us two full lengths of gloriously dreamy kraut infused dronemusic, looped cyclical guitars, thick waves of smeared riffs and muted murky FX. A heavier, dronier take on Eno, Popol Vuh, Ash Ra Tempel. This latest transmission from the deepest reaches of the Expo '70's universe, is by far the heaviest and most aggressive sounding yet, as if they decided to give the boys in SUNNO))) and Earth a run for their money. But this is not just some massive slab of caveman sludge, instead this is an ominous soundworld of thick coruscating waves of grinding low end guitar fuzz, roiling and churning, but with a propulsive inner pulse, like some lost Ash Ra jam dipped in tar, and launched into the ether. Or if the other two Expo '70 records were the sounds of drifting weightlessly through space, the stars a distant shimmer, everything muted and slowly shifting, like some huge black expanse of water, Center Of The Earth is the sound of the sky buckling, the galaxy fracturing, of being sucked into some mysterious other universe, a subterranean world beneath our visible existence, murky and turbulent, a darkness impenetrable except for a few swirling swaths of grey light, quickly tangled up in the dark, the endless drift into a black hole, the sound a reverberating whir, a massive resonant hum that thickens and intensifies, until you can feel the drone in your bones, every cell in your body vibrating sympathetically, until you slip into glorious blackness. The final track is like the aftermath, your ship a ruined wreckage, floating through the sky, just another piece of debris in a sky full of memories and regrets and ruin, a drifting blissed out space rock riff beneath abstract streaks of psychedelia, wrapped in a gauzy film, the rays of some alien sun lighting up the sky and wrapping you in warm shadows. So gorgeous.
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We were sent a whole batch of cd-r's from this mysterious group Expo '70, and all the various cd-r covers were designed to look like old seventies krautrock or free jazz records. Which definitely grabbed our attention. Plus they're called Expo '70, so while we weren't exactly sure what to expect, we were definitely thinking it was bound to be good. And boy were we right. This is good. Great in fact. But that wasn't all, the faux vintage covers and the band name ended up being seriously indicative of the sounds within. Gorgeous drifting ethereal krautrocky ambience is what Expo '70 is all about, and eyes closed, you'd be hard pressed to not think this was some Ash Ra Tempel disc or some long lost A.R. and The Machines lp. Crafted entirely from guitars, sitar and Moog, each track here is some sort of lengthy, mesmerizingingly blissed out minimal drone jam. Guitar figures are looped into hypnotic cycles, over shimmery whirls of fuzzy sound and distant drones, the looped riffs slowly shifting and gently changing shape. It's almost like some sort of new age space rock Steve Reich. Swirling FX surround warm deep guitar tones floating weightless in a glistening expanse of muted color and twinkling sonic sparkles. So completely blissful and dreamlike and captivating. One of our favorite new discoveries.
Fans of far out krautrock, deep dark drone, and outerspace guitar exploration will be in absolute heaven, or at the very least in some darkened room, in a trance, drifting off to some druggy dreamy other dimension...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We've sort of been inundated with dreamy new sounds from this one man drugblissdrone krautrock revivalist outfit. We're definitely not complaining though. We absolutely can NOT get enough of Expo 70's drawn out guitarscapes, extended spaced out kraut raga drones, churning and pulsing and throbbing, spacey synths and thick rumbling guitars all tangled into haunting sonic transmissions. We're just sort of scrambling to get them all reviewed. So we figured we'd start with this one, the latest, a two track missive that is so dense and layered it might as well be two HUNDRED tracks. Especially since we find ourselves setting the cd player to repeat and just drifting off...
The two tracks here are further examples of Expo 70's washed out space rock SUNNO))) sound, both tracks begin as soft swirls of synth and FX, tripped out and abstract, keening high end, rumbling low end, guitars wiggle and squiggle, all very chaotic but still drone-y and meditative, the first track doesn't deviate too much, the guitars are warm throbs, underpinned by a thick wash of buzzing synth, eventually sloughing off all the FX, leaving just a gorgeous Niblock like minimal drone. But the second track, is quickly subsumed by huge walls of crumbling fuzzed out slow motion riffage, super processed though, so instead of sounding downtuned or even heavy, it just sounds even MORE spacey, and thick and warm and druggy, a single riff, pulled apart and looped over and over and over, super mesmerizing, droning and drifting along through a field of distant fuzz and buzz and warm swaths of subtle synth, eventually fading out leaving nothing but tolling bells... So great.
Packaged in thick textured blue paper mini 3" sleeves, with a printed (band name, label info, liner notes) Japanese style obi.
And as always, these are of course SUPER LIMITED -- just a mere 100 copies, of which we got a majority share! -- and will most likely fly out of here...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Another gorgeous slab of spaced out krautrocky ambience from Expo' 70, this one a live, completely improvised performance back in 2004, with the band expanded to a trio. And if folks' reaction to the first three Expo 70's releases is anything to go by, then these will be flying out of here in no time as well.
For those yet to discover the sublime joys of Expo '70, these guys (usually just one guy, Justin Wright) traffic in glistening dreamlike kosmiche drift. A krautrock that is less about propulsion and rhythm and more about texture and ambience, think Ash Ra Tempel, AR & The Machines, Tangerine Dream, Eno, Popol Vuh. Guitars aren't strummed and picked, they are sort of allowed to unwind, long glistening strands of reverberating buzz unfurl and float into the hazy ether. Synthesizers unleash a similarly disembodied sonic vibe, soft clouds of fuzzy whir and distant chordal warmth. Very much the sonic equivalent to drifting down a warm summer stream, on your back, watching the clouds drift by, the trees on the shore shimmer and sway. Or maybe more accurately, floating in the vacuum of space, everything weightless, untethered and drifting lazily through the inky blackness. The light of stars and suns bends and twists, slowly cycling through the visible spectrum, disobeying all laws of physics, wrapping you in a thick swirl of sonic brilliance. This music has to be the work of some immortal group of dronelords, sitting in their multidimensional fortress, atop some mysterious lost mountain, who in their infinite wisdom, allow their dreamlike drones and angelic ambience to fall from the sky and settle over us like a light dusting of snow...
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We LOVE Expo '70. They're playing in SF this week, two shows that will be over by the time you read this. And we might not even get to go, 'cause we're too busy writing reviews, like this one... oh the bitter irony. But even if we miss them live (which would be a shame) we're still in Expo '70 heaven 'cause they've brought us two brand new cd-rs!! (And, there's also a new release on a real cd too, Animism, which we'll list next time!) Wow. That's a lot of Expo '70, but their krautrock inspired instrumental ambience is an expansive sound, that can easily sprawl across the full length of a cd or cd-r in just a track or two...and therefore can also spread beyond, occupying several near-simultaneous releases with no diminishment to our enjoyment. We're happy to hear it go on, and on, and on eternally. Expo overload, no, too much is never enough.
So, this one... Mystical Amplification. With song titles making reference to such things as "Mountainous Caverns Of Black Arts" and Konstantin Raudive's research into EVP (a la the Ghost Orchid) it's easy enough to say things like this music is haunting and mystical... mystical amplification, heck that's the title. The Expo '70 guys are doing all our work for us. The four long tracks (we like how the songs are split into a "side 1" and "side 2" when listed on the sleeve, even though it's of course all on one side of this cd-r) are all one-take improvs, with mainman Justin Wright on electric guitar ("with plenty of effects", all right) and his current Expo associate McKinley Jones playing a Moog synth. Spaced out and psychedelic trips much more on the "kosmische" tip than their Kansas City origin would suggest... this is all buzzing droning bliss, no drums or vocals to reign it in to human scale, just cosmic textures galore, often soothing, and a little bit ominous. There are moments that vaguely sound like Robert Fripp or Eddie Hazel jamming with Klaus Schulze, both of 'em dreamy and drowsy from drugs. Or imagine a mellower SUNNO))), teamed up with Space Machine, perhaps, getting all yogic on us with some abstract instrumental, electronic om-chants. Sleepy, slowly swirling, hissing and purring over quietly churning low-end depths...
By the way, this is slightly (a buck) more expensive than all the other Expo '70 cd-rs 'cause of the attractive vinyl-style gatefold packaging.
We were sent a whole bunch of cd-r's by the mysterious Expo '70 a few months back, each one with a strange cool cover, one was some seventies styled naked females making out, another (this one in fact) was an homage to one of those seventies Actuel jazz record label album sleeves. We were already kind of sold, but then we threw them on, and WOAH!! Not at all what we expected. We were imagining some sort of droney free noise whatever, but instead, we got an earful of some timeless cosmic space music, some lost ambient krautrock. So spaced out and lovely. We listed Exquisite Lust on the last list and everyone went nuts for it, so we decided to list another one, and it's just as good. A bit heavier on the guitar, but still completely and utterly droney and dreamlike.
Surfaces is a non-stop journey through inner space, an abstract world of drifting guitars, stretched out into whispy drifts of shimmery ambience, strummed steel strings reverberate over muted propulsive thrum, huge glistening expanses of thick flowing whir oozes from rumbling amplifiers, grinding low end fuzz slithers in and around wandering bass burble, bits of guitar melody break into fragments and float downstream, over a rippling undercurrent of spaced out FX. Totally mesmerizing and ethereal, but strangely rhythmic. Channeling the sprit of Eno, Popol Vuh, Ash Ra Tempel, Tangerine Dream, A.R. And The Machines and other kosmik travellers, Expo '70 weave guitars, Moogs, sitars, and loads of effects into an expansive ambient shimmer, allowing sonic ripples to slowly spread out into the ether. So good. Anyone who bought the first one will probably need this one too. And all you spaced out interdimensional Kosmiche drone explorers could hardly do better than Expo '70 as the soundtrack to your late night, outer space, journeys into the unknown...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This is one of those releases that we would normally get maybe 100 copies of, maybe more, but this baby was strictly limited to 200, of which we got about a quarter of the pressing, but hell this is Expo '70, one of, if not our very favorite purveyor of heavy blissed out droney space kraut doom drift, AND this particular release, cassette only, is a sort of addendum to the Black Ohms cd (featuring outtakes from the Black Ohms sessions) which we made Record Of The Week a while back. And of which we sold crazy amounts. So apologies for the folks who don't manage to snag one of these. We always try to get as many copies of things as we can, but it seems that no matter how many we get, it's never enough, and often labels don't want to give so much of the pressing to just one place. But we do try, every time, to get enough for everybody, so again apologies for the fact that these will probably be gone in a heartbeat.
BUT, for the 25 of you who do managed to snag one of these, you will be in total kraut drone space out bliss rock heaven. From rumbling sludgey doom drift, to looped psych shimmer, to pulsing slow burning swells, to smoldering slabs of white hot buzz, more of what we freaked out about on the Black Ohms disc. Dark, dolorous, heavy, hypnotic, even the outtakes are mindblowing.
Beautifully packaged too, full color printed sleeves, the tape and sleeve wrapped in a printed vellum obi INSIDE the case, each one hand numbered. And LIMITED TO 200 COPIES! We have 25.
Sorry.
Latest from aQ faves Expo '70, masters of modern krautdrone, every record another chapter in their expanding sonic history of the universe, a tale in sound, of suns and planets, of drifting in space, of galaxies expanding, of stars dying, of black holes, and endless expanses, of timelessness and infinity.
Two tracks, each a slow building epic, the first rife with deep chordal swells, simple strummed acoustic guitars, crumbling distorted leads, mournful melancholy melodies, distant streaks of feedback, abstract whir and deep minimal rumble, a gorgeous slab of outer space drone folk, like a more spaced out kraut version of Kiss The Anus, or like a new weird America Santana fused with Hawkwind at their most acoustic and blissed out. The second track is a much dronier affair, a spaced out soundscape of rumbling, buzzing, shimmering synths, layered and textured, rhythmic and hypnotic. Like Tangerine Dream or Popol Vuh, but much darker and buzzier, but just as blissy and space-y. The sound building and building into a heaving wall of synths and guitars, various whirs and rumbles and tangled up minimal melodies, all wavering textures and timbres, eventually joined by strange outer space FX, and more pronounced funereal melodies. Some truly gorgeous spacey shit for sure.
For this cd-r, Expo '70 have teamed up with Italian drone rockers Be Invisible Now, who have a similar sound, but definitely manages to make it their own. Beginning like some Goblin Argento soundtrack, all creepy synths and swells of black ambience, delicate little spacey melodies and swooshing FX, that swirl and build, the track begins to distort and crumble, the effects becoming more agitated and intense, the whole track thickening, until drums come in, offering up a tribal framework, around which the sea of synths swirls and shimmers, a mysterious rhythmic space rock ritual, which quickly fades out, leaving the various layers of synths to slow down, to slip away, to darken and crumble, leaving just a soft, fading buzz.
The second BIN! track begins all heavy and distorted, almost like some spacier Wolf Eyes, wrapped in swirling effects, anchored by simple pounding percussion, the synths getting more intense and more buzzy, thick and blown out, the programmed rhythms growing skittery and chaotic, everything louder and more dense, more distorted, FX everywhere, the track erupting into some strange noise drenched new wave, like the soundtrack to some French new wave horror film, or some New Order remix rejected for being to noisy and fucked up and scary. Awesome.
A pretty good intercontinental space rock, krautdrone matchup for sure. Packaged in a full color eco-wallet digipak style sleeve, and of course LIMITED.
Another gorgeous chunk of spacey tripped out downtuned space kraut doom from aQ faves Expo '70. This time they're sharing a 7" with another favorite of ours, the droney, drifty I Am Seamonster.
Expo '70's track begins super minimal and SUNNO))) like, a slow motion riff, the guitar thick and heavy and distorted, riding a single chord, while all around effects whirl and swirl and streak, very mantra like and hypnotic, spaced out and druggy, part way through a second guitar offers some melodic counterpoint, some woozy spidery lysergic minor key leads that sound sun baked even as they drift through the inky blackness, the sound managing to somehow sound both desert and space-y simultaneously.
We hadn't heard anything from I Am Seamonster since their (sadly) now out of print Nebulum cd-r. The track here seems to expand on the IAS sound on Nebulum, crafting a gorgeous landscape of deep guitar swells, each one wreathed in different effects, crumbly and buzzy, blown out and blurred, the sound at its peak is white hot, but occasionally drift back to something cooler and washed out. Layers of high end settle atop the undulating rumbles and whirs, deep percussive guitars chime and ring out, everything bathed in a blurry shoegazey haze, the guitars slipping and shimmering, the result almost orchestral. So so nice.
Beautiful packaging too, silk screened, metallic blue and silver on black, the back side die cut to reveal the record and sleeve.
Expo '70 just keep getting heavier and heavier. Beginning as a spaced out drone-heavy krautrock-worshipping band, with swirling synths and drifting FX laden guitars, the band has gradually been altering their sound, guitars getting heavier and more distorted, the spaciness swallowed up by huge slow moving black walls of rumble and buzz, the low end slowly but surely taking over, their music drifting ever closer to some sort of SUNNO)))-baked crawl. This new record, a split with SF based Rahdunes, finds the band moving still further into their own dark sonic galaxy of black heaviness.
Cursory listens will reveal just that, a grinding roiling whirl of distorted guitars and throbbing bass rumble, but this is Expo '70, so even when they're channeling their inner doomsludge demons, they can't seem to help infusing their lugubrious crawl with streaks of outer space shimmer, buried melodies, subtly shifting textures, sure this is intense and heavy and loooooooow, but it's also blissed out, and fuzzy and dreamy and in its own weird way still sort of space-y and krautrocky.
Rahdunes take the high road, literally. It's almost like the two bands decided to split the frequency range right down the middle, with Expo '70 taking the low, and Rahdunes taking the high. Their tracks counter Expo's Earth-y throb, with some glistening druggy folky space drift. A swirling expanse of druggy ambience, guitars wreathed in effects drift by. vocals moan and wail, through thick curtains of fuzz and buzz and delay and reverb, percussion shuffles way off in the background. Imagine the Manson Family, and the Beach Boys, high as fuck, sitting in the grass, by the ocean, their faces lit by flickering firelight, as they chant and jam and conjure up some primal space drone energy, and you'd basically be tapped into whatever lifeforce feeds Rahdunes. The rest of the disc gets a little more rhythmic, reminding us of No Neck and Sunburned Hand, but never losing that bleary eyed druggy wonder, looped guitar, stumbling rhythms, more ethereal chanting, finishing off with a fuzzed out murky dreamscape of muted melodies, soft focus tones, buzzing synths, sputtering percussion, mumbled vocalizing and shimmery feedback, somehow perfectly complimenting Expo '70's doomic crawl on the flipside.
Gorgeous silver and black matte covers. And first time on vinyl for anything Expo '70!!!
Finally! A new record from one of our favorite purveyors of kosmische kraut-psych and spaced out synthscapery, Expo '70! AND it's on one of our favorite labels, Essence (along with a new one from Japanese psych crew Up-Tight, elsewhere on this week's list). And while we'll have the standard version of this new Expo '70, this is in fact a PRE-ORDER for the super deluxe, super fancy, handmade BOX SET version, which comes not only with a bonus disc, but also housed in a crazy pyramid shaped box. It's limited to 99 copies and that's IT. We might be able to get 20, but we're only getting as many as we get pre-orders for, so if you want one, order it now, we'll get them in sometime in the next few weeks, and they can either ship with your current order, or on their own. You will be charged for the box now, but then the shipping will be sorted out when we actually send the box (and it'll ship by weight, not as 1 item). And if you're already a fan, you're definitely gonna want one of these, the pyramid box is super striking, psychedelic inks and textures, in a carefully constructed 'handmade cosmic pyramidal boxset', that unfolds revealing still more artwork, and along with the new record proper, it also includes an exclusive bonus album, a cd-r called All Hues From Beneath A Velvet Cloud, and is ONLY available in this box. So needless to say, Expo nerds grab one before they are gone.
As for Virtually From The Unknown, it's another gorgeously sprawling cosmic sonic missive, the opening track clocking in at 31 minutes, a smoldering slow burning epic, all swirling synths, cascading keyboard textures, minimum motorik drumming, layers and drones, the sound eventually building to a dark dolorous psych-kraut drift, and then exploding into some seriously muscular space rock, all deep rumbling drones, powerful drumming, thick almost SUNNO))) like riffage, eventually launching into a full on navy psych blowout, all wild drum damage and thick squalls of freakout guitar, tethered to a furious galloping groove. Worth it for that track alone for sure, but there's of course more. The stonery psych of "Closet Full Of Candles" is a loping space doom juggernaut, with some wild distort leads, and some sick, thick bass buzz, sorta like Kyuss via Hawkwind, slowly working its way up to another in-the-red crescendo. Finally, there's the 17 + minute closer, awesomely titled "Planet Ego, The Astral Return To Yourself", which lays down distant guitar rumbles, beneath swirls of alien FX and squiggly laser blast blort, the background guitar buzz gradually gaining momentum, a thick slow moving swell, eventually overtaking the sound effects, and finishing off as a blurred, downtuned space-drone, before gradually drifting off, and leaving shimmery contrails of fast fading FX. So good, of course. And as we mentioned above, we'll be able to get about 20 copies of this box, and that's IT. So if you want one, order it now. We'll charge you and let you know when it arrives. If you're after the normal version, let us know that too, and we can put you down for one of those, but this listing is specifically for folks who want to nab one of the boxes before they're gone for good.
Normally we would spread out multiple releases by the same band over several lists and several weeks, but since these are so limited and folks are always so excited about new Expo 70 stuff, we figured fuck it, let's just do it, THREE new Expo 70 releases, all different formats, and surprisingly different sound.
This tape is limited to 70 copies. We got exactly HALF, it's already sold out at the label, so these are THE last copies anywhere. And it's awesome. Less heavy than some of the other Expo's, Awakening, features some super stripped down drumming (or drum machine, hard to tell), locked into an endless groove, pulsing over a swirling spacescape of smeared riffs and fragmented melodies, it sounds a bit like Goblin, very soundtracky and otherworldly, space-y and mysterious, and not at all cheesy, more sort of classic new age / krautrock, think Klaus Schultze, scoring some super abstract French sci-fi flick from the sixties, and you'll sort of get the vibe.
Like all Expo 70 stuff, dark and dreamy, warm and warbly, drone-y and hypnotic, but the addition of drums really adds a new dimension, and the soundscapes swirling around the groove seem to be endlessly shifting and transforming. Awesome stuff as always. Total blissed out new age spacey krautiness, as only Expo 70 can do it. WAY recommended. And it's also recommended that if you want one of these you don't dawdle, as we mentioned before, this is LIMITED TO ONLY 70 COPIES! AND WE GOT HALF!! Already sold out and out of print, so you get one shot at these. Nicely packaged in a hand colored psychedelic fold out sleeve.
