This latest cosmic missive of astral axe exploration and celestial synth trippery finds Expo 70 once again in one man band mode (after a handful of releases as a duo). For this improvised sonic excursion, it's once again just Expo 70 mainman Justin Wright, manning the controls (which in this case, means guitar, analog drum machine and synthesizers), and weaving thick droned out heaviness alongside more abstract shimmer. The opening track "mark Of The Rising Mantis", begins with a swirl of bleeps and bloops, a constant cascade of glittering electronics, hazy and spacey, when all of a sudden, the guitar comes swooping in, distorted and crumbling, the vibe thick and SUNN-like, we were prepared for some serious epic dirgery, but instead, it fades out after a few cycles, only to drift directly into "Luminous Traveler", which much more serene and meditative, a muted starfield of percolating melodies, a slow build to something much more seventies new age krautrock sounding, spidery guitars wound around thick cinematic synth swirls, a gauzy droned out alien raga that builds and builds before fading back into the ether, the sound thick and heavily layered (the tracks here created from multiple improvs), dense and dark and ominously dreamy, like other Expo jams, the soundtrack to drifting into the blackness of space.
After a brief bit of washed out abstract outer space ambience, chugging guitars floating in a field of flute like melodies and woozy electronic pulsars, a deepening drone, growing ever more dense, the record shifts gears a bit, with "Backmasking Deeper Than Darkness", which starts out as another bleary bit of guitarsynth drift, only to quickly gain momentum, the sound coalescing into an old school style soundtracky synth soundtracky synthscape, pulsing melodies suddenly bolstered by the appearance of the drum machine, a murky throb, that gives the track a sinister motorik momentum, that plays out like the score to some chase through the stars. Those drum machines move to the fore on the final track, the evocatively titled "Pulsing Rings Of Ice", which like the previous tracks, definitely have us imagining some strange alien world, in this case, an abandoned ice planet, where the listener is stranded alone, or ALMOST alone. Ominous and brooding, the skeletal almost-rhythm anchoring the billowing clouds of warm chordal thrum in the first few minutes, builds to a tranced out krautdrone pulse, a skittery stripped down beat that drives this sprawl of future-synth tension, super cinematic, the final chase through the icy caves beneath the surface, flickering shadows, and a terrifyingly unknowable future.
LIMITED TO 400 COPIES!! These are very likely the only copies we'll be able to get. Pressed on 180 gram virgin vinyl, and includes a download code!!
It's been a little while since we've heard anything new from Justin Wright and his interplanetary sonic soundship Expo 70, and technically this isn't a proper new record, instead this is two live sets captured on tour in 2009, when Expo 70 were in New York, two 30+ minute sets of hazy, swirly, ambient kosmische drift.
The first set, from Ithaca, begins with a wild squall of lead guitar, and sod crowd sounds, before the duo (featuring Matt Hill of Umberto!) get down to business, unfurling a hazy sprawl of tangled melodies, and softly pulsing guitar, a lush backdrop for some seriously soaring psychedelic leads, all washed out and lysergic, like some classic Santana jam stretched way out and hurled into space, the whole thing gradually getting more and more intense and distorted and aggressive, the bass throbbing, the guitar howling, a churning heavy crescendo that quickly dissipates into a super ethereal stretch of ambient shimmer, warm clouds of muted effects and softly swirling electronics, gradually fading into nothingness.
The Manhattan show begins with some hazy crystalline drift, soft clouds of warm guitar drifting over the top, laced with little curlicues of effects, and slow drifting slabs of melodic whir, this track is way more sci-fi, edging into Umberto territory, getting all soundtracky and cinematic, lots of swooping electronic bleeps and bloops, all over some super minimal dubbed out percussion, the second half of the set way more low slung and slithery, deep cavernous bass, distant rumbles, soft streaks of synth, lots of softly swirling layers, slipping through clouds of spaced out electronics, and then a long stretch of almost choral liturgical sounding organs, all droned out and meditative, growing ever more hazy and indistinct. So nice.
We're definitely dying for a proper new full length, but these two chunks of primo sci-fi psychedelic kraut drone drift will definitely hold us over for now!
Super nice packaging, a glossy six panel digipaks with various images from the 2009 tour, from whence these recordings came.
Now available on vinyl!!
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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More druggy space-y kraut drone bliss from Justin Wright and his Expo 70, here expanded to a duo for one track, and a trio for the other, a dizzying drifty blend of minimal guitar rumble and Moog and organ whir, peppered with glistening shards of sonic starlight, buried melodies, blurred into a gorgeous ever expanding expanse of hushed new age drift, not nearly as heavy as some past outings, although the first track, a whopping 30 minute epic, does build to a soft blackened roar, although that roar is muted and dulled into something closer to rib cage rattling thrum. Regardless, it's transcendent and sublime, subtly heavy, and utterly cosmic.
The second track is another nearly half hour exploration of inner sonic space, heavy on the organs this time, thick layered buzz and rumble and whir, flecked with strange little stuttery melodies, a sheet of softly swirling effects draped over slow motion organ melodies, slowly shimmering textures, before the track begins to grow ominous, the sound of a darkening sun, bits of high end glimmer throughout, while the core blackens and expands, the sound shifting into pulses, a strangely surreal sci-fi throb, haunting and harrowing, a caustic cloud that slowly dissipates, leaving vapor trails of soft streaked FX flecked buzz and a stretch of skeletal rhythm, slowly fading out into a horzion of minimal muted high end shimmer.
THE CD-R IS LIMITED TO 100 COPIES! THE TAPE IS PROBABLY MORE LIMITED THAN THAT! Housed in cool red sleeves printed in gold metallic ink!
Another gloriously spaced out missive from one of our favorite purveyors of space-kraut-drone, Expo 70, aka Justin Wright, with occasional help from a small cadre of fellow sonic explorers. This one disappeared in no time, sold out in a flash, limited to 100 copies maybe. The label agreed to whip up another batch just for us, but once these are gone, you're out of luck, so grab one while you can, cuz it's another good'un. Then again, we've yet to experience a bad one from Wright.
Three tracks, three movements, each an extended part of Expo's Galaxy Of Mysticism, the parts named Altar Of Mystic Rites, Entrance To The Outer Circle, and Central Sphere Of The Mystical Galaxy, which should give you an idea of what sort of druggy, spacey, heart of the sun shit we're talking about here. Spiralling strands of guitar reach out into the warm whirling blackness, looped effects pulse and throb, the sound crystalline and delicate, but subtly ominous as well, hypnotic, mesmerizing, and dreamily psychedelic.
The second movement amps up the energy a little, a thick wash of whirring organ is the foundation, for high end squiggles and spidery melodies, the sound growing thicker and thicker, the underlying drone getting more and more dense, finally giving way to the closing movement, a swirling cloud of chordal swells, and layered shimmer, all held together by the simple pound of a drum machine, the track quickly growing more freaked out and psychedelic, lysergic leads stretching out amidst streaks of glitched out and swooping space FX, the guitars finally loosed and offering up heaving walls of crumbling doomic distortion. Heavy and spacey and divine.
Seriously transcendent spaced out kraut psych... and INSANELY LIMITED, these are the last copies ever, cool hand screened splatter sleeves with pasted on logo, and mini printed insert.
It's been harder and harder to know what to write about Expo 70 records lately. Besides being uber prolific, we've pretty much exhausted out psychedelic stoner space rock thesaurus. Thankfully, this new one changes things up enough to give us something new to work with. Mostly the addition of rhythm, which the band have employed in the past, but never to such an extent. Sure they remain spacey, and psychedelic, and new age-y, and drifty and dreamy, and druggy, and washed out, hazy and gauzy and cosmic and kosmiche, and we could go on, but here, they open up their latest record with what might be their most chaotic and sonically dense jam yet. Starting off all stumbly and abstract, with skittery programmed beats, and loosely strummed guitars, some amp buzz and bits of glitch and random crunch, but then those sounds gradually begin to coalesce, the guitars super reverbed, the rhythms looped and mesmeric, the guitars getting more intense, and more driving, multiple loops and melodies layered, eventually some proper riffs entering the equation, churning beneath clouds of those looped melodies, all the while, that rhythm skitters away, the song getting louder and louder, more intense, easily on of the heaviest things we've heard from these guys in a while, bordering on White Hills / Heads territory there for a minute, before fading back into something much more tranced out and meditative.
And while the rest of the record isn't quite so dense or heavy, the songs definitely display both a cool sort of jammy looseness, as well a penchant for something darker and more dense than usual. "Seven Serpents" minus some spidery guitars is a lush undulating expanse of layered synths, and warm whirling dronemusic, definitely cosmic, and spaced out, minimal, and super mesmerizing. "Growing Mushrooms Of Potency" starts off with a sky full of BBC Radiophonic Workshop / sci-fi bleeps and bloops, before another lo-fi skittery rhythm comes in, and then finally some low slung bass, and some shimmery organ, and we're in full on intergalactic drift mode, dodging stray FX and clouds of celestial glimmer, and then at the very end, the sound shifts, and becomes intensely dark and ominous, like some sort of soundtracky Umberto style creepdrone, which fades out WAY to soon. And then finally, "Heartfelt Moon Tripper" finishes things off with what begins as a hazy big of new age-y shimmer, all glistening crystalline clouds and warm whirring chordal drifts, until about half way through, a dark heartbeat like pulse surfaces, and dense little guitar tangles begin to loop and layer, until the hazy opening layers are shed completely, and replaced with a deep ominous thrum, wound around that sinister pulse, all surrounded by streaks of jagged melody and howling echo drenched sheets of guitar swirl, until a brief bit of Zombi / Goblin like cinematic synthscapery ushers the song to its more ethereal conclusion.
Cassette version coming soon too, btw.
What more can we say about these guys that we haven't already. Masters of divine sci-fi spacekraut dronemusic, sprawling epics that drift heavenward, guitars swirl and pulse, bass throbs and rumbles, rhythms don't pound or shuffle as much as pulse, a gloriously cosmic ur-rock that is not about rocking at all, but instead about sitting back and drifting off, letting the music lull you into a state of suspended animation, moving inward before moving outward, expanding like a new universe being born. All of the above imagery is especially apt to describe Mother Universe Has Birthed Her Last Cosmos, a one track, 20 minute space drone kraut jam from our beloved Expo 70. The main guitar part is surprisingly active, as is the bass, there's a definite groove here, the song has propulsion, and moves with purpose, the sound of a timelapse camera capturing the stars blinking out one at a time, viewed through a capsule full of bong smoke. Dreamy druggy and divine.
But it's not all drift here, about 8 or 9 minutes in, an old drum machine rears up and unfurls a looped beat, the guitars lock in, and suddenly this is some sort of transcendent drugged out hypnospace loop, which almost sounds like a skipping Hawkwind record, so completely mesmerizing and AWESOME. Eventually the drums drift off, and leave the throbbing bass and shimmering guitars to complete the journey on their own.
LIMITED TO 111 COPIES! We got 40 of those, and won't be able to get more. So get while the getting's good. And like all Universal Tongue releases, the packaging is super cool, full color inserts in little mini 5" high clear dvd sleeves, each one hand numbered.
Second of two new releases from Fedora Corpse, and one of THREE new jams from Expo 70, but we're sure as shit not complaining, we can't get enough of Expo's blissed out space rock kraut drone dreaminess.
Lately, it seems like Expo 70 has been leaning toward a heavier, darker sound, dabbling in SUNN-like walls of sound, letting guitars unwind in thick churning blackened swells, but for Night Flights (can't help but think of that bad ass late night video show of the almost same name), the sound is much more blissy and drifty and ambient, at least at first. The two looooong songs that make up side one, are hushed and delicate and crystalline, definitely evoking the sound of outer space, it's not hard to imagine drifting aimlessly and weightlessly through a black expanse of starless sky, the deep black turning almost blue, suffused with the burnished and nearly buried glow of eons old starlight. Tranquil, and contemplative, hypnotic, definitely new age-y, in the best possible sense, a soundtrack for astral projection.
But then the flipside is something completely different, introducing some drum machines, and crafting a swirling chaos of high end glitch and squelch, clouds of bloops and bleeps and swoops, looped and skittery, over spidery minor key guitars and soft warm melodic swells, sounding almost like a Sunroof! jam being slowly drifting into it's constituent parts, some sort of sonic super nova in slow motion. The second track on the B side finds Expo touching once again on the dark and the heavy, the blackened buzz of distorted guitars and thick looped dronescapes, slow burning, slow building, the guitars grow in intensity, until they're locked into a woozy mesmerizing loop, over which, strange atonal guitars tangle and drift, a sort of obtuse bit of lugubrious shredding, before those strangled leads drop out leaving just the initial buzzing swells, now laced with burning hot streaks of high end distorted shimmer. Gorgeous.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES! Pressed on thick blue/grey colored vinyl, with cool, super striking one color silk screened sleeves.
What more to say about Justin Wright and his Expo 70 that we haven't already? Every record so far a deep dense slab of drifting droning outer space krautdrone heaviness. And this 22 minute single song ep is no exception.
Taking the glacial downtuned rumble of SUNNO))), and sending it spinning into the outer reaches of the galaxy, Wright crafts another expansive psychedelic, smoldering downtuned dronescape, merging a blissy dreaminess with a seriously caustic heaviness, the two blend and blur into one single epic long form drone, flecked with delicate melodies, constantly shifting textures, overtones surfacing all over the place, the entire track a single heaving organic whole, throbbing and pulsing and whirring and rumbling, if they decided to remake Cosmos (how could you without Carl Sagan?!?!?) updated and modernized, this would be the soundtrack for all of the various and glorious goings on in the universe, exploding supernovas, births of planets, swirling black holes, this is the sound of blackness extending into space, spreading out endlessly, forever and forever.
Gorgeous and breathtaking, Expo 70 is definitely creating some of the most gorgeous dronemusic we've ever heard. And Ostara is yet another fantastic addition to Wright's stunning, and constantly expanding body of work.
LIMITED TO 102 COPIES. Comes in a mini plastic sleeve, with a diecut triangular insert that folds out into a pyramid. Cool!
This ultra limited, double 3"cd-r from one of our favorite space synth kraut drone explorers disappeared before we could get our hands on any copies at all. Thankfully, both the band and the label offered to do another (equally limited) pressing of the cd-r's, just for aQuarius, so we got a bunch of those, and we also got a handful of the cassette tape version, just released on Expo 70's own label, so this is definitely your last chance to grab one of these cd-r sets, odds are the tapes won't be around long either, and by now, you know pretty much everything Expo 70 is worth owning.
And Psychic Funeral is indeed another primo slab of glistening washed out space drone drift. Two 18+ minute missives from the farthest reaches of the solar system, the first, a hushed glistening sprawl, all stretched out tones, and upper register shimmer, minimal melodies wrapped around clouds of chordal whir, deep cavernous drones underpinning constantly shifting streaks, buried pulses, swirly and tangled, almost cinematic sounding stretches of lost soundtrack music, haunting and mysterious and otherworldly, building to a buzzing finale, before slipping into a strange looped outro.
The second disc / side is another wide open starscape of melodic fragments, of prismatic glimmer, a softly blurred expanse of tonal color and softly heaving swells, a Tangerine Dream of kaleidoscopic swirls and layered sonic smears, eventually billowing into some soft focus psychedelia, the guitars unfurling some gorgeously chiming reverb drenched melodic tendrils, before drifting back in the blackness of space. So gorgeous.
Killer packaging too, the cd version features hand screened 3" discs, housed in a folded plastic pouch with a full color insert. Tape has a swank full color sleeve. And again VERY VERY LIMITED.
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What else to say really about Expo 70 that we haven't already? Every new release is another gorgeous, softly psychedelic transmission from soft distant corner of the universe. Stray broadcasts traveling across the expanses of space, a sort of timeless music that sounds more like it just IS, and always WAS, more than it sounds created. Justin Wright who is Expo 70, seems to dismantle his guitar at the molecular level, once cracked open, his now rended axe emits a stream of notes and melodies, opens a portal, unleashing a slow burning black fog of sound and texture, through which one can observe and experience other worlds and alternate dimensions.
Heavy crumbling blackness settles atop hushed drifts of crystalline melodic shimmer, eventually transforming into something much more songy, a super druggy spaced out psych jam of the highest order, sounding a bit like Santana fronting SUNNO))), dense rumbling buzz drenched swells beneath super emotional almost wailing leads.
The flipside is another otherworldly songsuite, this one divided into three parts, slipping from minimal and looped to crushing and doomy to hushed and murky and space-y. The opener is a gorgeous spaced out bit of repetitive, stripped down new age kraut rock, a main pulse throbs beneath swirls of warm keyboards, simple chordal strum and muted electronics, super hypnotic and mesmerizing and quite possibly one of our favorite Expo jams yet.
The second track is a thick roiling swirl of crumbling distorted heaviness, slow sprawling chords overlapping into a doomy textured expanse of tarpit riff fueled ambience, before dissipating into part three, a murmured post industrial soundscape that sounds like a field recording of some derelict space station set to music. Creepy and haunting and also quite lovely.
Killer packaging, thick full color sleeve, with a printed full color Japanese style obi, inside, a 12"x24" silk screened poster! [The first bunch came with a bonus cd-r, featuring a live set, recorded on KFJC back in 2008, but those are gone, this is JUST the lp, but heck, that should be more than enough!]
More epic and dense heart-of-the-sun blissed out heavy space drones from Expo 70. And the thing is, we're running out of superlatives, we can only gush so much before we run out of new things to say, which is especially difficult when every record is as good as if not better than the last. So do forgive us if we're repeating ourselves, but hell, any one into spaced out heaviness, and droneprogbliss, who hasn't heard Expo 70 is missing out on one might just be their favorite band EVER.
Like past records, Expo 70 suck the essence out of every Hawkwind record, the soul of every Tangerine Dream record, and filter it through filter of SUNNO))) black hole heaviness, and come up with their own unique psychedelic space rock krautdrone, a sound we just can't get enough of. Expansive and sprawling, dark and meditative, washed out and dreamy, heavy and layered, the opening track on Sonic Messenger is a crushing chunk of low end rumble and pulse, which immediately gives way to some ultra hushed bliss, which smolders and flickers and expands in slow motion like a time lapse film of a planet being birthed. And so it goes, rhythms surface and blink out, guitars groan and whir and weep, synths wheeze and unfurl glimmering sheets of sound, the guitars sometimes coalesce into psychedelic almost-leads, but more often than not fade into clouds of hazy reverb and ethereal delay, the record closes with a 21 minute slow burn that is subtly fierce, a muted ominous swell of sound, wrapped in airy tendrils of fragmented melody, and swaths of gritty texture, a brooding and intense stretch of dreamy darkness.
Once again Expo 70 deliver the divine drugged out sonic space drone bliss.
And while they last (only 150 copies!!), included is a whole extra disc, an actual cd, not a cd-r, 50 more minutes of blissed out krautdrone space psych ambience. Three long long long songs, much more hushed and almost new age sounding that the record proper, except for the first 22 minute jam, that builds to a frenzied psychedelic freak out coda.
Deluxe packaging too, a glossy full color mini hardcover book-like sleeve, while the bonus disc comes in a cardboard sleeve, but there are instructions how to get some bonus stuff for the limited cd via the label's website. Cool!
The only real downside to an Expo 70 single, is that it's ultimately frustrating in its brevity, as the music of Justin Wright, aka Expo 70 (or Expo '70, they seem to have lost the apostrophe on recent releases) is far better served by longer formats, lps, cds, and while both of these songs are indeed fantastic, it's almost criminal to cut them off after only 4 or 5 minutes, these are the sorts of sounds meant to sprawl and ooze and spread and extend for ages and ages. But as far as complaints got, it's a minor (and not entirely negative one), you'll just have to stick close by the turntable so you can lift the needle and set it right back at the beginning again.
No great surprises or strange sonic twists, just more of that thick dark gloriously heavy space kraut drone we've come to expect. The A side is some seriously deep and drone-y outer space exploration, warm languorous tones over a softly grinding and pulsing buzz, sweeping and epic and darkly mysterious, glistening melodies shifting from speaker to speaker, very new age-y for sure, but a sort of dense and blackened new age.
The B side begins all growling buzzing low end thickness, laced with space-y squiggles, long high end streaks and glimmering tones, beneath the blissy drift is a warm whirring and a softly corrosive crumble, all wound up into epic slow building swells of deeeeep deeeeep buzz. So nice.
Gorgeous full color covers, and of course LIMITED, it's already sold out from the label, so these will be the last copies we can get.
Latest (vinyl-only) chunk of kosmische spacekraut exploration from long time aQ faves Expo 70, for this recording expanded to a duo, consisting of Expo 70 main man Justin Wright, along with his occasional collaborator Matt Hill, aka recent Record Of The Week honoree Umberto. Together they conjure four sprawling smoldering tracks of galaxian space drone mesmer spread out over four vinyl sides. While it seemed like on other recent Expo 70 records, that Wright and Co. were slowly moving toward a heavier sound, dipping into occasional SUNNO))) territory, the sounds here are seem more tranquil and blissed out, although the addition of Hill gives some of these songs a distinctly haunting soundtrack vibe...
The opening track offers up some subtle minimal drum machines, more textural than rhythmic, drifting on a warm whirling sea of shimmering sonic swells and hazy soft focus drones, everything gauzy and washed out, the soundtrack to a sky full of solar flares, blurred and indistinct, bleary eyed and blissful The guitars do gain some momentum, wrapped in reverb and sent spinning into the ether, but everything stays grounded, a dreamlike abstract soft sonic drift.
The second track definitely seems to reflect the presence of Umberto mainman Hill, immediately unfurling a thick swatch of buzzing drone, a haunting ominous tense bit of ambience, streaks of minor key melody, all underpinned by squelchy low end synths and warm washes of synthesized strings, the whole thing sounding like Umberto or Zombi filtered through Expo 70. There are some brief stretches where the low end becomes a bit more corrosive, but it dissipates quickly, leaving synth shadows and melodic traces, to gradually fade into the cosmos.
The second record begins again with some thick droning synths, layered into softly pulsing streaks, wheezing and whirring elegantly, and ominously, building a mysterious background, over which the duo lay swoonsome strings and maudlin piano, it's all very cinematic and soundtracky and classical, like the score to some lost Italian giallo, again like some hybrid of Umberto and Expo 70 (which it essentially is), one can almost picture the strange psychedelic colors, and constantly flitting shadows, some crumbling old villa set atop a hill, beneath a burnt black sky, tense and moody and gloriously creepy.
The final track/side begins with a cloud of processed guitars, wreathed in delay and reverb, a warm swirl of buzz and pulse, that gradually grows more lush and full, hazy and druggy, the drum machine from the first track returns, again adding texture (but this time a little propulsion as well), the swirl of guitars smooth out into something much more hypnotic, before everything seems to meltdown in a soft psychedelic squall, streaks of spaced out effects, fragmented melodies, shuffling rhythms buried beneath clouds of hiss and whir and static buzz, a warm whirling stretch of soft chaos, that soon morphs into a muted murky bit of outer space shimmer, that gradually disappears into the vast endless blackness, like a dying star. Epic and fantastic.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, pressed on super thick virgin vinyl, and housed in a fancy old style tip-on gatefold jackets. Includes a download code as well...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Most folks probably know Pat Maherr (if they know the name at all) as the man behind Indignant Senility, whose Caretaker like vinyl manipulations and alterations has us smitten, his Plays Wagner found him taking old dusty record of Wagner symphonies and operas and processing them and running them through filters and twisting them all up and layering them into gorgeous washed out ephemeral ambience. But apparently when Maherr is not manipulating old classical records and crafting strangely baroque ambience, he has a bit of a thing for hip hop. And not just ANY hip hop, no the strain of hip hop affectionately referred to as 'chopped & screwed', named for the late great DJ Screw, who would take popular rap records and slow em way down, creating something way more druggy and tripped out, the perfect soundtrack for sipping sizurp, a distinctly Southern concoction which involves mixing cough syrup with soda, and sometimes Jolly Ranchers!
Maherr adopted the bizarre pseudonym Expressway Yo-Yo Dieting for his own experiments with screwed hip hop. And as if you even needed to be told, this shit is WAY more tweaked and warped, not just slowed down, but all twisted up, the beats pulled apart, the voices all messed up, the originals totally unrecognizable, the result of Maherr's manipulations, is some woozy, warbly, warped electronic lurch and lumber, the voices syrupy and moan-some, the beats, crackly and skittery, all the other sounds blurred and smeared into strange shapes, weird textures. It sounds a lot like an Indignant Senility hip hop remix, or a bit like how you might imagine it would feel to down extensive quantities of horse tranquilizers and super potent acid, before floating in a swimming pool in the middle of the night listening to KMEL or WILD 94.9 on a seriously booming system, with your ears just under the surface of the water. Totally wacked and demented and tripped out and awesome. Not necessarily for hip hop heads, but for anyone into druggy beats and fiercely fucked up weirdness.
Debut release from local lo-fi minimal bedroom synth poppers Exray's, and it comes in the form of one of the most lavishly packaged cassette tapes we've seen in AGES.
Born of now defunct SF twang-flecked classic rock / folk combo Ray's Vast Basement, the Exray's duo, craft short sharp slabs of synth soaked minimal pop, the keyboards wheezing and shimmering, the programmed rhythms sparse and skeletal, the vocals weary and laid back, the Sparklehorse vibe of RVB still in full effect, but here cast more in the form of the woozy, languid vocalizing, which perfectly balances the warm mechanical pop, which itself is rife with little bits of twang, and classic FM radio melodies, while the sound itself shifts from crisp and cool, to warm and wonderfully muted and murky, an ever shifting blend of classic pop/rock songsmithery and home brewed electronics, the sound dusty and worn, dreamy and sun dappled, an old timey vision of the future, modern music crafted through unmodern means, really really cool
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Each one hand numbered. The J-card full color, spray painted metallic silver on the outside, and elaborately lazer cut, leaving all sorts of geometric cut outs, revealing different colors and panels, includes a tiny triangle insert with the link to an mp3 download.
Latest from this local electronic pop combo, who construct their songs mad scientist style, wrapping lilting melodies in strange looped mechanical melodies, weaving buzzing synths into fields of glitch and static, the production simultaneously low fidelity, lush and layered. Pulsing and pulsating darkly electronic one minute, playful lo-fi electro pop the next, usually the two wound into one, a dark folkiness underpinning the modern sci-fi sounds, the result a strange hybrid of folky pop (not that far removed from mainman Jon Bernson's previous outfit Ray's Vast Basement), and modern electronic pop, the record seeming to follow a trajectory that starts out fully electronic, and gradually becomes more song based, but the best moments are definitely where the line between the two remains blurred, like on "Dark_Light", which is a low slung slow groover, that has a sort of sci-fi soul vibe, a loping rhythm wreathed in slithery melodies, and cool boy/girl harmonies, or the old school new wave electro pop of "Tresspassing", which again infuses the sound with a more standard folkiness which makes for a curious combo.
Comes packaged in a full color J-card, and includes a link to a download of the full album as well.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!
The last Extinction record, long sold out before we were able to get any copies for the store, was one of those bleak ambient non-metal metal records. Slow motion expanses of utter abject black dirgedrone doom. A tarpit sludge full of smears of black guitar and demonic shrieks. Think Abruptum, Stalaggh, Emit and other like minded black ambient artists.
So that's sort of what we were expecting when we managed to get this new Extinction. And the opening track had us convinced we were right. A chaotic stumbling storm of angular guitars, huge crumbling downtuned riffs, howled and moaned vocals, huge rhythmic pounds, super demented and damaged sounding. We were prepared to settle back for a whole record of similar sounding black bliss. But the second track knocked us flat, exploding into a lurching minor key stumble, with strange arpeggiated guitars, thrashing drums, raspy black vocals, but all of those typically black metal elements are set in a swirling black morass of blown out, super saturated black sonic clouds. So dense and blurry and fuzzed out it's sometimes impossible to pick out individual instruments, just a massive fiery be-spiked and bloodied blur. The rest of the record barrels along like that, some epic hooved black metal beast, huge bat wings flung behind it, teeth crusted with the blood of the vanquished, an ultra thick onslaught of pure demonic black energy. We haven't heard a black metal so distorted and so dangerously close to collapsing into utter and complete noise since Gorgoroth's The Destroyer. And that is mighty praise indeed.
The final track revisits the opener's sonic black pit of teeth gnashing and shrieking souls, another abstract swirl of deconstructed black chaos with collapsing riffs and slowly rotting melodies.
So fucking great.
UK white boy hip hop duo Sleaford Mods were an unlikely hit around here. When we first read about them on the Norman Records website, proclaiming them as they favorite band of the year, we were totally skeptical, but we ordered a few anyway, and then quickly found ourselves becoming obsessed, and suddenly, we got it, and we agreed, and then a second record came out, and we dug that one just as much. What the hell? Who can explain stuff like that, but it did have the effect of making us curious about this, the first proper release from Extnddntwrk, which just so happens to be one of the guys from the Sleaford Mods, a collection of all the random home recorded electronic weirdness he'd put together over the last few years, and we have to say, it's pretty goddamn great.
We were definitely expecting what would essentially amount to instrumental 'Mods backing tracks, and some sound like they could be just that, and you might find yourself imagining those guys rapping along, but really, this stuff is pretty mesmerizing, and hypnotic, just check out the first track "Care Less", a low slung looped groover, that's plenty dark, a little moody and minimal, in a way it sounds like a more electro Boards Of Canada, but a bit darker and more skeletal, and that actually does describe a bunch of these tracks, but since it's a collection of odds and sods, it is a bit all over the map. "Dirty Soup" is a weird gloomy creep, pocked with synth blurt and distorted guitar chug, but still driven by a primitive Casio style beat. "Foul Play" is definitely one of those tracks that sounds destined to be a Sleaford Mods track proper, but then it butts up right against "Crystal Ball", which is spare and weirdly lovely, all shimmery melodies and pizzicato string plucks, melancholy and moody. And so it goes, from sort of calypso exotica, to Meat Beat Manifesto style industrial electro, to crackly, murky slow-soul groove, to cool start/stop stuttery avant soul weirdness, to what sounds amazingly like skweee. There's also an unlisted 18 minute secret track at the end of disc 1, that is essentially a wild plunderphonic free-for-all that sounds like some mad scientist flipping from channel to channel, but it's pretty fun.
The second disc is more of the same, with the exception of a killer/weirdo cover of Big Black's "Bad Penny", which slows it down, recasts it as a sort of woozy, synth dirge, the sounds heavily panned, swooping from speaker to speaker, this one with vocals, a whispery croon, way up on the mic, as if he was whispering ominously right in your ear, occasionally becoming weirdly vocodered, it all makes for a pretty awesome, and awesomely creepy version of an already extremely creepy classic.
Take the brass of Eastern European group Fanfare Ciocarila, throw in a healthy dose of Test Dept. circa A Good Night Out, turn the punk rock knob up to ten and what do you get? Why San Francisco's very own inimitable Extra Action Marching Band. While we've been lucky enough to enjoy them here live for a few years now, a recording to share with our geographically challenged customers has been a long time coming. The twelve tracks on this disc were recorded live on the Motorship Stubnitz in July of 2004 while the band was on a European tour. A German ship built in 1964 and purchased by Swiss idealist Urs Blaser, the Stubnitz now serves as a floating cultural center and includes in its berth art studios, labs, workshops, two performance venues and a recording studio. Like any self respectin marching band, the Extra Action's core repertoire are arrangements of "popular" tunes for brass and drums, only the tunes they choose to cover are perhaps a little more esoteric than your average marching band. The theme to "Enter The Dragon", and "Lucky Seven" from Cheech & Chong's Up In Smoke and (maybe not that obscure, but a fucking great arrangement none the less) Black Sabbath's "The Wizard". A definite must have for fans of those popular Poly High and Schoolhouse Funk comps!
The Extra Glenns is two musicians near and dear to Aquarius' heart: John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats and Franklin Bruno (Nothing Painted Blue and an esteemed solo artist). Together they've brought their li'l side project Extra Glenns to full fruition
Mountain Goats alert!! Mountain Goats alert!! Fans, you don't want to miss this wonderful new full length starring MG main man John Darnielle and his tuneful comrade Nothing Painted Blue's Franklin Bruno. They have decided to shed a couple of letters in the moniker of their collaborative project. They are no longer Extra Glenns, they are now Extra Lens. Not sure why, maybe they visited an optometrist recently?! But at any rate, their recording approach hasn't changed and the musical output of their combined forces still sounds terrific. Darnielle first writes and records his trademark speak-sing vocals and folksy guitar. Then, Bruno steps in to arrange and embellish his heart out - and he does it ever so tastily and tastefully, never obscuring the trademark wistful ache of Darnielle's voice which is always the focal point. In the ensuing years since their fine 2002 debut Martial Arts Weekend, Darnielle's own music has become much more fleshed out and considerably more elaborate than his barebones early works. So these days it actually more closely resembles that of Extra Lens. Definitely check out the hushed sock-you-in-the-heart "Cruiserweights" and "Programmed Cell Death". Sure to delight his legions of admirers!
For those not savvy with sports terminology, "undercard" refers to the preliminary rounds in series of matches leading up to the final main event. On the cover, there is a vacant boxing ring. We aren't certain if it is pre-match or post-match... or who was the victor. However, we think it's safe to say though that no punches were likely thrown between Bruno and Darnielle in the making of this album. Ha ha! Together they shine in each of its dozen flourishing folk pop numbers... and it is the listener who is ultimately the winner. Recommended!
Extradition were an obscure early seventies Australian psych-folk group very much influenced by the British Folk revival, in particular, Fairport Convention and Pentangle. Fronted by singer, Shayna Karlin, whose high timbre voice falls somewhere between Pentangle's Jaqui McShee and June Tabor, and multi-instrumentalist and sometimes singer Colin Campbell, who wrote most of the bands material. What sets them apart is how they shade their haunting and graceful compositions with an adventurous use of natural elements as instruments including leaves, branches, water, sticks and stones along with more exotic instrumentation of Chinese and Turkish gongs, harmonium, harpsichord, tablas and a Lebanese bell tree. This creates a more alchemical binding of music and nature that transports us to another place rather than grounding us in a traditional past. This cd contains the whole of their lone 1971 album plus six bonus live tracks including covers of Tom Paxton's "Hold On To Me, Babe" and Leroy Carr's "In the Evening" which was also covered by Karen Dalton. Beautiful!
Crushing and totally heavy new record from these good-old-days pioneers of grind. I mean these guys have been around as long as Napalm Death and Carcass and have never gotten nearly the recognition think they deserve. They were definitly more on the crusty
More amazing voodoo groove.
1970 voodoo groove, amazing.
For a while there, Belgian label NOTHingness was one of our favorite sources for grim droning black ambience. Pretty much everything they released was fantastic. Well, NOTHingness sadly is no more, but in it's place, has risen Consouling Sounds, a new label focusing less on dark ambient and dronemusic and more on post rock, space rock and drone rock, with a distinct focus on up and coming unknown artists. The label is split into two distinct entities. They recently released the Bungled & The Botched cd from Nadja (now out of print, sorry) via the 'Soul' imprint, home for established acts, and this, the debut from Spanish metallic post rockers Exxasens is the first release in their 'Con ' series, limited cd-r releases of unknown bands, offering people an inexpensive chance to check out some new sounds.�
As mentioned above, these particular sounds come via Spain, and the weirdly named Exxasens, who while choosing a somewhat overpopulated style, do manage to do their own thing. Their sound while definitely rocking, is more on the math/post side of things than the metal, at their heaviest, they sound like a lighter Isis or maybe more like a slightly more metal Mogwai, and those heavy parts soar more than pummel, but they balance well with the more loping introspective bits. Regardless, math rockers and post rockers will definitely be in heaven, these guys certainly push all the right buttons, the drumming is intricate and mathy with some intense squalls of rapid fire double kick, the guitars ring out, chiming majestically, there also seems to be some sort of keyboard action, or perhaps that's just some extra guitars, either way, it adds all sorts of texture to the proceedings. There are some cool production tape speed tricks, a bunch of samples, but of course no vocals, this is all instrumental, every track rife with slow building elaborate arrangements, epic melodies, and some killer chops, as well as a flair for crafting some subtly catchy tunes.�
Explosions In The Sky, Pelican, Isis, Mogwai, Mono, Irepress, Souvenir's Young America, if that reads like your iTunes library, then, you probably will want to pick this up too...
Packaged in a cd sized dvd style plastic sleeve, with a full color insert. LIMITED TO 170 COPIES in two editions, both already sold out, so these are the very last copies.
This is the first we've heard from this Ohio psychedelic prog rock combo, whose sound the label compares to King Crimson and Pink Floyd, and which we're pleased to report is really not all that far off the mark, although the group take that classic prog sound and filter it through a much more modern sound, adding some serious guitar crunch, instrumental heft and some dense tripped out production. But that said, at its core, this stuff sounds pretty classic seventies prog, with soaring strings and epic synths, serious, properly sung vocals, dizzying solos, incredible harmonies, intricate arrangements, and of course loooooong songs.
Just check out the record opener, which takes up all of side A, a nearly twenty minute four part song suite called "Center Of The Sun", that channels Magma and ELP as much as it does Mugstar and White Hills. In fact the abundant progisms should definitely not keep all you space rock and psych rock freeks from digging into this stuff, cuz it most certainly IS both space-y and psychedelic, but instead of the usual endless jamming, these guys fuse killer jams, to actual songs, sprawling EPIC songs, "Center Of The Sun" being the best example, the band slipping easily from old school proto-metal sounding crunch, to dizzying mathy space-prog workouts, some cool classic rock bits, some shredding lead guitar, and some full on heart-of-the-sun space-psych freakouts, tempered with woozy washed out folk flecked drifts, and all somehow deftly woven into a seriously rad modern prog rock epic.
The three shorter tracks on the B side are equally heavy, and proggy, and intricate, killer riffing, busy drumming, weird arrangements, some soaring synths, lots of mathed out rhythms, gorgeous lush textures, and still more killer guitar jams, not to mention FX galore, definitely the sort of thing that should appeal to fans of the current crop of psychedelic space rock, and folks like us, who find little to love in modern prog. And while you don't have to love prog to dig these guys, it definitely doesn't hurt.
Includes a download code! LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, each one hand numbered!
Okay, Bore-fanatics, we only have a handful of these and we will NOT be getting more. A brand new book of original art from Boredoms frontman Eye Yamataka, in the style of the graphics of all the many Boredoms and related (UFO or Die, DJ Hellshit & MC Carhouse, DJ Pica Pica Pica etc.) releases over the years. All the colorful, splattery, scribbly, chaotic collaged weirdness we've come to love! It's kinda like children's art, by a very punk rock little kid, on drugs. Eye's "Bore Flag" logo is a repeated motif. Released through Australian imprint P.A.M., these are gorgeous full color 36 page perfect bound books, 5 1/2" by 8 1/2", quite cool. And again: EXTREMELY LIMITED. Once this batch is gone, they are gone for good!
We won't go into too much detail with these as we only got a tiny handful of each. Latest batch of ultra limited lathe cuts from New Zealand label CMR. Each one packaged in a super striking, simple cardstock jacket, most with printed inner sleeves, Limited to 60 copies, of which we got the remaining stock. Once these are gone, they are gone forever.
We had never heard Eye before, but they seem to be the new outfit of NZ underground luminary Peter Stapleton (Flies Inside The Sun, Sleep, A Handful Of Dust) and no surprise, fans of any of his past work will for sure dig this.
The 7" is a crumbling soundscape of shortwave interference, wavering tones, constantly shifting drones, all very sea sick and dizzy sounding, bits of whispery static, all swaddled in a thick buzz, with lots of strange effects, and what sounds like the hiss and whisper of an army of ghosts that builds and builds to a fever pitch.
The flipside is more of an old school NZ freerock jam, all tribal rhythms under a swirling sea of fuzz and distortion and bits of skree. Layer after layer of constantly shifting grit and grime, propulsive and blown out, but still sort of shimmery and almost ambient.
This lathe cut comes with a cd-r, which contains a single 38 minute track, more glorious abstract soundscaping, bits of rhythms here and there, lots of buzz and hiss, strange disembodied melodies, lo-fi and constantly shifting and drifting, eventually building into a seriously heavy fuzzed out jam, complete with strange horns and bursts of random musical snippets. Cool.
Celebrating a decade of their doomier/uglier/more fucked up than thou sludgy, Sabbathy metalcore, New Orleans favorites EyeHateGod serve up their first offical live album. Includes four previously unreleased demo tracks (1990), four live-in-the-studio tracks from a 1990 radio show, and eight live songs recorded on their 2000 European tour.
Live albums are not always essential purchases, even for devoted fans (like we are of EHG), but this one definitely captures the band's particular (peculiar) genius. And if you didn't already know who it was, you could mistake portions of this for a Brainbombs record, with EHG's trademark solid state feedback filling in for the trumpet sounds (at least I did, for a moment, when it was playing in the store. But then, for a second I also thought it was Abruptum or something, as the vocals are much more akin to a black metal croak). But the damaged Sabbathy swing is unmistakable, and the feedback sound IS EHG.
The New Orleans dirge masters return! After their recent singles compilation, this rejuvenated doomcore band has mananged to put together a new album, their fourth, and first in years! And it's good old ugly Southern Sabbathy swingin' stoner sludge metal with lots of lyrical/throat brutality, just like they more-or-less invented back on "In The Name of Suffering" in '92. Not to be fucked with.
We've referenced these drugged and ugly New Orleans masters of sludge-core in tons of reviews, as they're one of the ur-bands that established the rituals practiced by anyone heavy and feedback laden, like Moss, Bunkur, Boris, Dot [.], Cavity, Corrupted, Khanate, Iron Monkey, Grief, Wellington, Acid Bath, Garadama, etc.
So we were so psyched to discover that EHG's first three discs were getting the deluxe reissue treatment. Elsewhere on this list we review In The Name Of Suffering, most people's fave EHG record, their third, Take As Needed For Pain, Andee's favorite, and this, Dopesick, their third, and part three of final EHG's godlike sludge trilogy. They would continue to make records, great records in fact, but the first three remain untouchable to this day.
In The Name Of Suffering was a hateful, feedback drenched trawl through a world of sludge, creeping and slithering, uncompromisingly brutal and crushingly heavy. Pretty much defining the sound of ALL sludge to come. With record number 2, Take As Needed For Pain, they added a little bit of that NOLA groove (you know, Down, Superjoint Ritual, Acid Bath, Crowbar, Soilent Green, Goatwhore, etc.) to their sound, making their plodding shrieking sludge a tiny bit more melodic and dare we say, catchy at moments. But take that with a grain of salt, melodic and catchy for a band like Eyehategod is still about a million times more caustic and corrosive than almost any other -heavy- band.
So with Dopesick, the groove factor is cranked up a little bit more, making Eyehategod here sound like the scariest, heaviest, druggiest, sludgiest stoner rock band EVER. But again, EHG in stoner rock mode, still outsludges them all, a groove flecked avalanche of slow motion ultradoom, screeching feedback, shrieking throat ripping vocals, blackhole downtuned guitars, all churning in a black sea of sludgemetal tar, lurching, and trudging and so fucking awesome!
Three bonus tracks: two alternate versions and one the appropriately titled "Dopesick Jam", an epic, lengthy freaked out psychedelic slab of glorious drugsludgedoom! Includes revised artwork and new liner notes from EHG frontman Mike Williams.
We've referenced these drugged and ugly New Orleans masters of sludge-core in tons of reviews, as they're one of the ur-bands that established the rituals practiced by anything heavy and feedback laden, like Cavity, Corrupted, Khanate, Iron Monkey, Grief,
So it's about time we listed our favorite EHG album, their dark and dirgey debut "In The Name Of Suffering", first released in 1990 on the French Intellectual Convulsion label, later re-issued domestically by Century Media, with the original's gross medical cover pictures prudently tucked inside. When this came out, EHG immediately joined the Melvins, Skullflower, and Hellhammer in the pantheon of the heaviest, most fucked up bands ever. Misanthropic metallic misery, complete with samples of Charles Manson's wisdom. Later EHG albums are good too, but this one was never surpassed. If you are one of Aquarius' "doom" customers and you don't have this disc, we urge you, in the name of suffering, get it!
We're not gonna get into how the "Southern Nihilism" message of misery preached by NOLA's EYEHATEGOD has perhaps been made all too real for all too many by the disaster of Hurricane Katrina and its messed up aftermath that nature and man (and perhaps the entity incorporated into the band's name?) visited upon their hometown and surrounding Gulf Coast region. Geez. "End-Time" message indeed.
Fortunately, you can't keep a good doom band down, however far into the filth they've fallen, as the long-running, long-suffering EHG has proven time and time again, always breaking up, going to jail, playing their last ever gig or releasing their last ever disc but then eventually getting back on (or should we say off?) the horse again and coming back with some more Sabbathy sludgecore for us to enjoy... Last year we listed what was supposed to be their swansong single and now here they are raising their collective ugly head again with this cd. True, it's not a full studio album, though it seems one's in the works (or was, before Katrina). Hope it still is when they get back to what passes for normal for them down in Louisiana. Meanwhile, we have the disc at hand. It's in fact the third one they've released that falls into the category of being a collection of rarities as opposed to an "actual" album. But EHG fans take what they can get. What you get here is some fairly crucial EHG stuff -- an old comp track, their song from the Gummo soundtrack (hey just like Absu!), a couple of live-in-Japan cuts, tracks taken from various split singles that EHG shared with the Cripple Bastards, Soilent Green, and A.C. (the latter track a "Sabbath Jam" from the Sabs tribute 7" series Hydra Head was doing). Plus three new songs in demo form, slated for their aforementioned upcoming full-length when/if that ever happens. These cuts are definitely worthy EHG material, especially fuzzed out and psychedelic and of course sludgy and Sabbathy.
This is pretty much something you'd want if you're a fan -- and you should be, if you like the heavy stuff that we sell the heck out of here at AQ. For one thing, there'd be no Khanate if it wasn't for EHG! After Hellhammer in the early '80s, it was pretty much these guys and Corrupted who pioneered the doomy "sludge-core" sound, y'know.
New Orleans' sultans of sludge come back with this compilation of singles and alternate takes. Rumors of their demise are highly exaggerated, it turns out, and EYEHATEGOD fans can rejoice that this is no swansong from these pioneers of super slow, ugly, dopesick dirge. And boy do these tracks sound better on cd than they did on the old vinyl!
We've referenced these drugged and ugly New Orleans masters of sludge-core in tons of reviews, as they're one of the ur-bands that established the rituals practiced by anyone heavy and feedback laden, like Moss, Bunkur, Boris, Dot [.], Cavity, Corrupted, Khanate, Iron Monkey, Grief, Wellington, Acid Bath, Garadama, etc.
So we were so psyched to discover that EHG's first three discs were getting the deluxe reissue treatment. Elsewhere on this list we review In The Name Of Suffering, most people's fave EHG record, their third, Dopesick, and this one, Andee's favorite Eyehategod record, Take As Needed For Pain.
Their debut was a hateful, feedback drenched trawl through a world of sludge, creeping and slithering, uncompromisingly brutal and crushingly heavy. Pretty much defining the sound of ALL sludge to come. With Take As Needed For Pain, they added a little bit of that NOLA groove (you know, Down, Superjoint Ritual, Acid Bath, Crowbar, Soilent Green, Goatwhore, etc.) to their sound, making their plodding shrieking sludge, a tiny bit more melodic and dare we say, catchy at moments. But take that with a grain of salt, melodic and catchy for a band like Eyehategod is still about a million times more caustic and corrosive than almost any other -heavy- band. It's really strange to revisit these EHG records and realize how many bands these days sound EXACTLY LIKE EYEHATEGOD!!! It's almost criminal. Sort of similar to the way SUNNO))) were basically an Earth tribute band, it's almost like EVERY one of the new breed of sludge bands is in fact an Eyehategod tribute band. But hey, who's complaining, it's a dark and disturbing sound we can never seem to get enough of. And as long as EHG are getting the props they deserve, then hell, bring on the sludge!!! Fans of ANY of the above mentioned bands who do not own this, are required by ALL THAT IS UNHOLY to pick this up immediately!!!!!!
As far as bonus tracks, Take As Needed For Pain is probably the best of bunch, 3 tracks from the long out of print Ruptured Heart Theory 7", a track from the also long OOP split 7" with 13, and two tracks from another long gone 7", another split with fellow sludge mavens 13.
Includes revised artwork and new liner notes from EHG frontman Mike Williams.
NOW ALSO HERE TO LIST ON CD!
Minus a few singles and compilations, it's been FOURTEEN YEARS since we last heard from stoner sludge legends Eyehategod, and all it takes is a couple seconds of the first song with its instantly recognizable solid state feedback skree to get those warm, sonic junkie fuzzies, but after a few seconds, like a sonic fuck-you, instead of a return to doomy, stoner sludge glory, and unfurling some sort of epic, slo-mo Sabbath riff, the band explode into some furiously thrashing metal punk, frenzied and vitriolic, certainly Eyehategod in spirit, and they're no stranger to ripping it up, but for the first record in ages, it's a pretty bad ass move. But fear not, they're quickly back to their old, sludgier tricks, and quickly slip right back into the drug addled dirgery of old, churning downtuned heaviness, lurching, slithery, swampy brutality, throat shredding, glass gargling vokills, the songs dense and almost proggy, "Trying To Crack The Hard Dollar" displaying bordering on prog-sludge, while the awesomely titled "Robitussin And Rejection" lays down some seriously cough syrup thick riffage, bloody, oozing sonics that pour from the speakers like some viscous black tar sound, the track lurching into something a bit more frantic, but always slipping right back into that black hole tarpit groove these guys still do better than pretty much anyone else...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Last ever (again?) recording from New Orleans sludge masters Eyehategod. "I Am The Gestapo" is a typical (i.e. really good!) slab of their hateful, feedback-filled, crushing, churning doomcore. On the flip, this split release is shared by Italian grindcore maniacs Cripple Bastards, whose sludgier-than-usual, deathly track "Self-Zeroing" is well worthy of being teamed to EHG's supposed swansong on the A-side.
We figure that since AQ pal Loren Chasse is so obsessed with Martyn Bates and Eyeless In Gaza, we figured we oughta just let him review this new one:
In the endless stream of comps, there's got to be something pretty special to get this listener to take notice.� For most listeners, when an anthology by a favorite band comes out there's the feverish question, "Are there any unreleased tracks� rarities�demos?!"�and� "What about the packaging -- any unseen art from some original pressing?" The new Eyeless in Gaza compilation Plague of Years: Songs and Instrumentals 1980-2006 released by Sub Rosa offers only token fulfillment of the first obsession by including a track from a yet unreleased Eyeless record, Summer Salt and Subway Sun (supposedly due out in 2006...guess not?).�The rest of the songs and instrumentals are all from full length records in the Eyeless catalog, but for three semi-rare songs from an old Sub Rosa Myths compilation from the early Eighties. So what's left for someone who's already 'in the know' about this legendary Cherry Red Records band? Not much but for a sensitively-mixed document of the musical prowess of Martyn Bates and Peter Becker, including some of their best songs -- "Fever Pitch" and "Bite" (is that a typo on this release, labeling it "Ever Pitch"...?), and "One by One" -- mixed among examples of their more mysterious and beautiful instrumental pieces. For a potential initiate to Eyeless In Gaza -- that is, someone who's perhaps all over the New Weird Now folk freakout and who might also have a soft spot for the drone and clang of such artists as Organum, Andrew Chalk or :zoviet*france: -- this comp would indeed be the perfect introduction. And if that potential initiate harbors a taste for beautifully fruity vocals (used only in adoration and reverence, Martyn!), then this could be a heavenly match, especially on those nights alone, rain pounding the window, black candles throwing moody shadows. If things worked out, of course, this comp might very well end up getting checked into the used bin on one's way to�consuming the entire Eyeless in Gaza catalog.�So� while offering little to the fan other than reassurance that Eyeless in Gaza is still awesome 26 years after its first record, Plague of Years succeeds as a flare for alerting new ears!
Eyeless In Gaza's troubadour songs could be of courtly loves or of the occultish mysticism found on the soundtrack to "The Wicker Man," and seeping with the dark rich production and theatrical vocals that wouldn't be out of place on any of This Mortal Coil's albums.
We kinda flipped for the debut 7" from these guys a while back, and while for whatever reason we never managed to get it reviewed, the killer A side from that single launches the group's new full length, and it remains a potential top pop jam of the year, total hazy, jangly Teenage Fanclub style shimmer pop, an impossibly dreamy melody, soft vocals and lovely harmonies, with shadowy minor key moments laced throughout the track's otherwise sunshiny jangle. It's another one of those records, that if you're anything like us, you might have to hit repeat 5 or 10 times before you can make it past the opener (sound sample below). But go ahead. We can wait.
The Eyelids are fronted by Chris Slusarenko (who's played with Boston Spaceships, Decemberists, Elliott Smith, Stephen Malkmus and more) and John Moen, and along with the rest of the 'Lids, they fuse unabashed NZ / Flying Nun worship with plenty of sonic nods to the aforementioned Teenage Fanclub, not to mention other pop faves from the past like Eugenius, BMX Bandits, as well as early R.E.M (and other Athens groups of the time), some of that LA Paisley Underground sound, and of course the Beatles loom large, how could they not? Every track here an impossible jangle pop gem, all chiming clean guitars, wistful melancholic melodies, sun dappled strum, the vocals all sixties and softly psychedelic, and hooks galore, with every song (once you get past the first) vying for best of the bunch. There's plenty of darkness and shadow too hidden amongst the sunshine, with some tracks slipping into haunting minor key melancholia, but even then, those moments are paired with some pure pop bliss. Ovens / Tony Molina fans would do well to check these guys out too, cuz if you couldn't tell, Molina is a serious Teenage Fanclub obsessive.
Definite contender for pop record of the year. And there's that single still available too, with two B sides that rival any of the songs from the record proper. Just ask if you want one of those too (you probably do)!
We first heard from Eyes Like Saucers back in 2007, when we reviewed the record Still Living In The Desert, which found ELS, aka Jeff Knoch, fomerly of hypnotic psych folkers Urdog, abandon his band, and his friends, ditch all the usual rock band instrumentation, and head off for places unknown, with nothing but a VW van, a handful of acoustic instruments, most importantly, an Indian harmonium, and his faithful canine sidekick. That record, was a fantastic bit of hypnotic dronemusic, a wheezing, druggy droniness, whirring and shimmery and meditative, steeped in the traditions of Indian ragas and modern minimalist drone music more than the psychedelic sounds of his former outfit.
Parmalee is the follow up, and is dedicated to his canine companion, as the subtitle suggests: "Tribute To A Dog". Hopefully this is just an expression of love for his dog, and they are still wandering the wilds together. Our first assumption was that perhaps Parmalee had died, and this was a musical eulogy, the sounds are definitely dark and moody and contemplative enough to be some sort of sad send off, but either way, these are some fantastic psychedelic space drone ragas, all wheezing organs, warm whirling chords, the sound thick and lush, but definitely ragged around the edges, urgent and intimate, captivating and totally mesmerizing. It's impossible to not fall immediately under their spell. Once again, we're reminded of nineties NZ dronerockers Wreck Small Speakers On Expensive Stereos, but this is much more ritualistic, much more home spun drone folk. The rest of the record introduces strange percussion, electronic synths, chimes and bells, slipping from alien folk ritual, to spare almost Appalachian sounding strum, to sea shanty like ballad, all culminating in the gorgeous woozy three part 23 minute epic Warrigal, a lush harmonium workout, the chords and notes wheezing lazily, all sun dappled and drone drenched, the sounds so organic and hypnotic, laced with bits of percussion and tinkling chimes, so haunting and hazy, meditative and dreamy.
