More warped otherworldly sound collage murky warble from one half of the late great Skaters. And like everything else we've heard from Ferraro post-Skaters, the sounds on Citrac, a two lp collection of mostly previously released material (but most so limited you probably never heard 'em anyway), are a blurred jumble of fantastically twisted time machine lo-fi anti-pop. Ferraro along with his ex-bandmate have been credited with spearheading the so called 'hypnogogic pop' movement, but pop seems to have very little to do with this. Pop CULTURE maybe. Visually, the jacket and inner sleeve are adorned with all manner of eighties cheesiness, which thankfully isn't necessarily reflected in the music. Instead, Ferraro takes his arsenal of music making devices, busted effects and falling apart 4-track, as well as a handful of samples from cop shows and after school specials and late night made for TV movies, and goes about, snipping and pasting and looping and smearing those various sounds into some totally tripped out krautdrone, psych-synth, buzz-loop weirdness.
All of the sounds here are murky and muddy and sound like they were recorded on an old VHS tape and then duped over and over and over and over. The percussion is clattery but buried in the mix, tons of reverb and delay, much of the first disc sounds like a John Carpenter soundtrack spinning lazily on a fucked up turntable while someone holds their thumb down on the vinyl, causing the record to slip and slow down, the whole thing peppered with strange howled vocals (or what sound like vocals). The end of side two features a sonic event that seems to pop up all over these two records, an awesome lurching synth-psych loop, that could have gone on FOREVER, but ends way too soon. Also, as far as we can tell, the first record is meant to play at 45, it definitely sounds like Ferraro at 45, but it sounds really cool at 33 too, even more industrial and woozy and washed out.
The second disc though, sounds like 33 is the correct speed, 45 makes it a bit manic, but still pretty intense and psychedelic, but at 33, it's way more aggressive than the first record, more industrial too, like a doom metal Wolf Eyes or something, albeit way more fucked up and fractured, loads of low end, metallic percussion, and some sick inhuman barks wreathed in effects, at 33 it's creepy, at 45 it becomes some sped up soundtrack video game alien techno. Weirdly twisted and almost proggy. Rad stuff for sure.
LIMITED TO 400 COPIES!!
It's been a while since we've listed anything Skaters related, and not for lack of action on their part, they have an avalanche of new cd-r's, that we'll try to get to eventually, but for now, let's tackle this, the latest lp from half of the Skaters, James Ferraro. Pretty sure this is an lp reissue of some out of print tapes or something, but it hardly matters, cuz wherever it came from it's pretty damn cool. The sticker calls the sounds within "tropical drones". But if we had to describe it, NEW AGE seems way more accurate. And we don't meant that in a bad way at all. We love new age, as long as it's like this, gorgeous blissed out crystalline shimmer, long slow moving tones, delicate melodies, everything glistening and glimmering, reflective and prismatic and hypnotic, but then about halfway through the song shifts and things get freaky, in come the muted crunchy eighties sounding guitars and the muffled buried rhythms, the original tones get a little fuzzier as the song evolves into an imaginary eighties new wave cop show theme song. Which is awesome.
The flipside definitely sounds tropical, with squiggly fake flute melodies, the chirp of dolphin calls buried in the ooze and warble of the shimmery underwater warble, the sound gorgeously warped and washed out, trippy and almost otherworldly, it's a bit like the sound you hear when you wake up on the couch in the middle of the night, all groggy and half asleep and you left the TV on and some bizarre nature program or softcore porn is playing, but all you can hear is the sound, and then you suddenly open your eyes and all you can see are clouds and pyramids and your living room seems to have sunken into the deep blue, it sort of sounds like that. Awesome.
Comes with a download card too, so you can get your self another digital chunk of underwater tropical new age-y bliss.
Don't be confused, it may look the same, but in fact, it's the second of two lp reissues from James Ferraro, one half of floor core legends the Skaters. We reviewed his Clear lp on our last list, this time it's Discovery, almost the exact same cover, the alien pyramids floating in some strange sea, only the name of the record is different (and don't trust the sticker, on about half of the lps we got the stickers were all switched up), although really it barely matters, as the sounds on Discovery, sound very much like the ones on Clear, which make sense as they are archival recordings from about the same time period.
Two side long jams, exploring that alien new age only those Skaters guys seem capable of, this one sounds like two parts of the same jam, equal parts new age swoosh, staticky old AM radio and alien soap opera theme music, all blurred and smeared into a weirdly organic warped and warbly drift. Bleary and blown out, glistening and glimmery, a buried krautrock groove, that seems to fade out and return at random, all imbued with a cool psychedelic eighties B-movie Goblin vibe.
The flipside is more of the same, only a bit more rocking, more feedback and distortion, but just barely, the guitars a tad more noodly and spidery, but all the sounds still washed out and sun dappled and hypnotic. Like Clear before it, Discovery is a fantastic chunk of blissed out Baywatch new age, and here's hoping Holy Mountain keeps digging up and reissuing these tripped out artifacts.
Comes with a download card too, so you can get iPod-able versions of these tracks as well!!
When beloved noise duo The Skaters broke up, the two partners went in drastically different directions sonically, with Spencer Clark taking his Monopoly Child Searchers in a more hazy, tribal, washed out direction, which wasn't really all that removed from the Skaters' sound, at its loveliest, at least. And James Ferraro going off the musical deep end, transforming into some sort of bizarro avant pop songsmith, his last record Night Dolls With Hairspray, exactly what the title might have you expecting, a tripped out, lysergic collection of tweaked lo-fi glam rock weirdness, which managed to be totally baffling, but pretty much totally irresistible at the same time. And while we were expecting more of the same on Farsidevirtual, Ferraro once again has mixed things up and managed to come up with something even MORE ridiculous, and again, a glorious car crash of a record, channeling the cheesiest parts of eighties music, sure he was sort of doing that before, but now it's like new age mixed with the sort of upbeat music that would accompany one of those workplace educational films, all swirly synths, programmed rhythms, weirdly funky grooves, all rendered in shades of super shiny, super well produced, gleaming ultra produced electro rock. Or something.
The opener "Linden Dollars" sounds like Shadowfax covering the theme from Peanuts, but given a little 21st century new age makeover. Then there's "Global Lunch" which just baffles all the way through, super cheesy synths, a woman asking if you want something or other beamed directly to your "I-Tablet", with faux strings, tinkling chimes, a melody played using those weird voice presets on synthesizers, then a solo played on a fake sitar, or the sitar setting on a synth, while male vox are clipped and sent stuttering off into the distance, and then finally the song builds to a crazy climax with a wild sax solo, and some fuzzy electronic bass, it's literally some of the craziest shit we've ever heard. The whole record sounds like library music from 1985, composed and recorded for infomercials, straight to video rom-coms, and third tier sporting events, and if that seems like we're bagging on it, we're totally not, we're just baffled by how someone could even conceive of making music like this in the 21st century, how they would make these sounds, and why the hell we can't stop listening to it.
Packaged in the usual garishly futuristic sleeve, with thick printed cardstock insert and a download coupon too!
More 'hypnogogic pop' from ex-Skaters soundscaper James Ferraro, whose latest album remains rooted in the off kilter whatthefuck (heavy on the lost late night eighties vibe), visually, with a bizarre Best Buy / pick up truck / parking lot / alien robot / Fox Sports graphic collaged cover art, and a lyric sheet / manifesto packed with references to Judge Judy, Costco, Beverly Hills, energy drinks, lost highways, tongue rings, gladiators, batteries, 'no fear', etc, as well as sonically, continuing to mine a fantastically bastardized John Carpenter soundtrack / late night cable sort of warped dronepop melodicism.
The A side here is definitely and immediately recognizable as Ferraro, but unlike past jams which occasionally tended toward the dense and layered, this sidelong track is stripped way down and laid way back, a simple pulsing rhythm, skeletal and minimal, laid out under a glimmery smear of sun dappled synth, over which, still more synths add haunting melodies, would around warm guitar figures, all hazy and washed out and lysergic, the loops warped but subtly so, woven into the perfect fusion of new age shimmer, and retro futurist kosmiche drift, and hell it still sounds like it could have been lifted straight from some lost Argento or Carpenter flick, which is in no way a bad thing.
The flipside is another warbly dreamjam, new age-y and soft focus, gentle tangles of melody tumble frame by frame over a motorik synth pulse, wreathed in hiss, and glistening streaks of reverb and delay, notes ring out, chiming, synths soar and sing, total sun dappled free energy divine sonic bliss for sure. Halfway through, the track shifts gears, and suddenly it's a full on raga, with warped sitar buzz, loping tarpit synth basslines, and lots and lots of space, a sound like looking at the sun, through some glowing alien crystalline structure, reflective and prismatic, with strange bursts of organ warble, swirling clouds of barely there tape hiss, all blurred and smeared into a meditative drift, that gradually gains momentum, transforming into a weirdly propulsive, but still totally laid back new age groove, peppered with cool/weird drop outs, and skipping samples, which only add to the track's mysterious home brewed charm.
Another gorgeous inner space excursion from Ferraro, comes with a download code, and is most likely very limited.
We sometimes think lysergic free noise floorcore duo the Skaters might as well have never broken up. Sure both James Ferraro and Spencer Clark (aka Monopoly Child Star Searchers) have carved their own sonic path, but they seem perpetually linked. On the same label, releasing records at the same time, often playing on each other's records (which makes it the Skaters sort of anyway, right?), sounds that while different, definitely share many similarities, and most notably, both possess a visual aesthetic so appalling and seemingly purposefully eye gouging, it's almost as if they're trying to get people not to listen to their records. Which is a shame, cuz another thing these guys have in common, is almost without exception, their records are fantastic. Tripped out and woozy and warped and psychedelic, each in his own twisted way.
Ferraro has mixed up his sound quite a bit, trading the confusional murky loopscapes for what sounds like a lo-fi eighties after school special soundtrack version of Ariel Pink. Which is not a bad thing, just fucking awesomely bizarre. Like eighties FM radio rock mixed with seventies glam rock run through the warped lysergic lo-fi warped retro pop of NOW. Hard to tell if the music is actually played, it sounds so genuinely old, it seems like it must be sampled, but either way, Ferraro straps on his best falsetto and lets loose, sounding one second like Russell Mael from Sparks, the next like Prince, and the next like some hair metal howler, the music similarly flits from sound to sound, one minute sounding like eighties MTV cheese, the next spandex-ed glam metal, the next dizzying warped collages, and the next like some Saturday morning commercial for some gloopy messy toy.
It takes a lot these days to confuse and confound, but this stuff is wacked, and weird, and pretty twistedly wonderful. Not sure exactly who the audience for this stuff is, us it seems, cuz for all of its what-the-fuck-ness, we can't seem to stop listening to this, which either says something about the record, about us, or most likely both.
Uh... two films by Mr. Ferraro. One short one, where he delivers a guided tour of LA, focusing heavily on OJ Simpson related sites. This one is bemusingly funny, and we're assuming its a clever put-on. The other one, is an endless editing together of scenes from B-grade '80s sci-fi VHS tapes, with Dutch subtitles for some reason. Some cool stuff on there too, but it went on and on and we didn't finish watching it, sorry. Hmm.
ALSO ON CD...
For the most part, we REALLY don't know LA; we know Hollywood's LA. However, the polished yet twisted, glitchy-Blade-Runner soundscapes of James Ferraro's Skid Row make us feel like we know LA... intimately. Lyrically, this album offers a story of the city that is far from the mythically glamorous Los Angeles, pulling from a number of apocalyptic broadcast television samples and simultaneously acknowledging gentrification and crime and environmental degradation. Ferraro deftly plays with slowed-down 80s power licks and funky keyboard grooves over radio fuzz and metallic beats to the effect of creating a haunting base for his almost sultry-smooth verses. Skid Row echoes like a nightmare of Southern California that we can't wake up from, but for its warped honesty and washed-out, jumbled-funk vibes, we almost don't want to.
Originally released as a super limited cd-r back in 2009, James Ferraro (formerly of drone-noise duo The Skaters, and now rechristened 'JIM' if the cover art is to be believed), unveils his twisted alien radio pop masterpiece in vinyl. And while we were perhaps a bit confused by the all out what-the-fuck-ness of Night Dolls With Hairspray, we were prepared for On Air, which if anything is even weirder.
Sure the first two tracks are misleadingly dreamy, all synthed out shimmer, and futuristic sci-fi ambience, warm and whirring and washed out, like it was dubbed from some old VHS tape, but then BAM, the title track drops, and we're hurled into some alternate eighties commercial pop MTV universe where Ferraro is a purveyor of radio pop jingles, which sound like Ariel Pink doing a commercial for Applebee's, recorded on a boombox with dying batteries, the sound warped and warbly, but even beyond the sound quality, there's honky tonk piano, female background vocals, pretty sure we said this about Night Dolls With Hairspray, but we're kind of confounded how Ferraro makes this music. It really sounds like he's just singing over purloined music from old TV broadcasts, but apparently this is all original, and if anything, that WTF has been cranked even further, and we have to say, once we were prepared, we're kind of getting WAY into this stuff.
It's like Ariel Pink and Gary War and all those guys but taken too far, so far that this stops being ironic retro lysergic pop and becomes downright avant garde, and beyond that, these warped pop songs, and yeah, they're about as warped as can be, are catchy as fuck, warped confusional pop songs surrounded on all sides by strange malfunctioning effects, the vocals sped up chipmunk fast one second slowed down to a rumbly crawl the next, there are heavy distorted guitars all over the place, more John Parr than actual metal, but in keeping with that Eighties radio vibe for sure, there are all manner of synths, and strange programmed rhythms, the sound is so all over the map and twisted tweaked and utterly demented that it's nearly impossible to describe.
Ferraro's sound is about as far removed from the Skaters as is possible, and while his old bandmate continues to create sonically similar murky lysegry via Monopoly Child Star Searcher, Ferraro is happy as can be in his glammy alien outsider radio pop universe, and we kind of are too.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
You may have already heard Ibrahim Ferrer on the spectacular second track off the Buena Vista Social Club record, his high, light voice soaring over the expert Cuban instrumentalists backing him up. How lucky are we to have an entire album of Ferrer's lovely voice?
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Here's a recording of Buena Vista Social Club fave Ibrahim Ferrer in his salad days, singing with Electo "Chepin" Rossell's orchestra. Recorded in Havana, mostly in 1960 & 1961, this lineup of Chepin's orchestra also features: Pastor Manzano on trumpet; Remberto Ibarra on alto sax; Emerido Ferrera on percussion; Loreto Vistel, Epifanio and Faustino on trumpets; Luis Castell on piano; J. Guerra on tenor & baritone sax; Enrique Acosta on tenor sax, Ismilbo Correa on tumbao; Chepin on violin; and along with Ferrer on vocals there's Carlos Quintana and Isidro Correa.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Soundtrack to the italian film directed by Tony Arzenta is super-spy-alious and breaks down to sexy-ville. For fans of other easy tempo releases and the Vampyros Lesbos.
We've only read the first half so far, but c'mon, it's Reign In Blood, one of the greatest thrash metal records ever. And music obsessives, you should already be reading this series, up close and intimate looks at not bands, but your favorite records, interviews with the bands, the fans, and all sorts of awesome behind the scenes drama!
Anyway, Reign In Blood is still an amazing record two decades later, and metal bands are still finding influence there, some WAY more than others.
This volume digs deep into maybe the most influential 29 minutes of metal EVER. Interviews with the bands, the producers, the engineers, the roadies, and most interestingly, the fans, a who's who of rock luminaries including: Tori Amos, Phil Anselmo, Page Hamilton of Helmet, Danzig, Jack Endino, Larry from Pelican, Angela from Arch Enemy, Kurt from Converge, Charlie from Anthrax, Sean from White Zombie, Matt from High On Fire, Gene Hoglan, rapper Ill Bill, Nergal from Behemoth, Buzz from the Melvins, Ripper Owens, Devin Townsend, Kat VonD, all the dudes from Mastodon, and tons more.
So far a super fun read, most of the series is, we've probably read about half of 'em, but as soon as we finish this review, first thing we do when we get home is to finish reading about REIGN IN BLOOD!
One of two new releases from local art-label Time Released Sound, the other, the second release from mysterious modern classical soundscaper Strie is reviewed elsewhere on this week's list, and this, the latest release from a South Korean soundscaper/dronescaper who calls himself Fescal, and this single 50 minute tracks is a beauty, all tinkling melodies and gauzy staticky haze, warm softly billowing drones, and distant smoldering atmospheres, the production gives it the feel of some antiquated recording recently unearthed, the music too is timeless in its own way, the sound shifting dramatically throughout, from hushed black ambient thrum, to warm almost chamber music, and from washed out soft focus psychedelic drift, to barely there blurred atmospheric shimmer, and all the indistinct stops in between. Fans of Machinefabriek and Jasper TX, of Tim Hecker and Philip Jeck, this is definitely for you.
Like with all TRL releases, the packaging is fantastic and extravagant, LIMITED TO JUST 100 COPIES, the cd is housed in a hand worked black digipak, housed in a see-through anti-static bag, stickered on the front, with a pressed metal tag affixed to the bag with wire, inside there's a screw topped pyrex test tube containing metal and glass shavings, and inside the digipak are all manner of litmus strips, found artifacts, chemical notations as well as liner notes.
ALREADY SOLD OUT AT THE LABEL AND OUT OF PRINT. We have 5 or 6 copies, and then these are gone for good!
We first discovered Fescal, via his Alchemical Wanderings release on Time Released Sound, and not soon after we reviewed it, Fescal got in touch and offered us the remaining copies of his super limited Moods & Views cd-r on Twice Removed, so of course we got all the copies we could, and besides some INSANELY deluxe packaging (more on that in a bit), the music is just as lovely and haunting as Alchemical Wanderings.
Separated into two nearly half hour 'movements', Fescal weaves a gorgeous sprawl of minimal electronic dronemusic, that right off the bat had us in the mind of Oval, but where Oval was all liquid swirl and skipped cds blurred into lush lustrous dreaminess, Fescal is a bit more home brewed, the sounds a little more raw and less polished, the first piece here, a deep sonorous thrum, pulsing gently, as if it was caught in a slow moving current, or drifting in a gentle breeze, the sound itself though is dark and ominous, a distorted drone, that seems to shift subtly with each pulsation, and is wreathed in a gauze-y haze, everything wrapped in a cloud of crackle, that sounds a bit like either a sputtering campfire, or an old scratchy record spinning lazily on an antique turntable. There's little variation, or what variation there is, is subtle enough that it's almost imperceptible, instead, the piece sucks you in, and holds you in thrall for its full 28 minutes. Super gorgeous dreamy dark minimalism for sure.
The second piece is a whole 'nother beast entirely. Gone is the woozy washed out shimmer, and in its place a heaving sprawl of distorted low end, but muted and blurred into hazy ghostlike shapes, buried in the mix, moaning tones, and mysterious low end melodies, the sound thick, and softly caustic, a bit more industrial, and a bit more sinister. Soft noise sprawls into blackened ethereal thrum, shot through with keening streaks of high end, and what sounds like strange industrial field recordings, everything still wreathed in that warm comfortable crackle.
The packaging is just as stunning as the music, a textured paper outersleeve, wrapped in twine, with a fabric flower affixed to the front, the whole thing wrapped in rough twine. Inside, a printed insert, with liner notes and credits, as well as a beautiful fold out poster, printed on gold metallic paper, bundled with another insert, also on textured paper. Each cd-r also includes a tiny personalized note from Fescal, and these are LIMITED TO 50 COPIES!!! Already sold out and long out of print. These are the last copies we'll be able to get.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This is the third release we've reviewed from Fescal, the first was on local label Time Released Sound, which should give you an idea of Fescal's sound, and sadly this one too, like both before it, is INSANELY limited, we have ten copies of a total run of 100 and won't be able to get more once we sell out.
Fescal delivers two long tracks of softly psychedelic, pastoral drone music, long layered tones, softly undulating beneath a sky full of fractured melody and ethereal shimmer, all smeared into heaving swells of deep chordal thrum. Buried within seem to be voices, a distant angelic singing, which imbues the sound with a melodic warmth that keeps this from being simply dronemusic. The sounds too are imperfect, bits of sound crumble here, distort there, sounds drop out, others waver, still others surface, it's dreamy and druggy and divine, the first track here is a heady stretch of lush, lustrous drones, and deep listening mesmer, a sound which wouldn't have been out of place on Root Strata or yeah, Time Released Sound. But unlike much of this music that sounds passive, this music is powerful, the sounds alive, and active, beneath the surface is a roiling world of complex structures and continually shifting melodies, this first track glows with a mysterious inner warmth, and exudes and a cosmic energy that seems to bathe the listener in an otherworldly golden light.
The second track is much more contemplative, cut from the same song cloth, but where the first seemed to smolder with some mysterious energy, the second sound more entropic, casting off all that energy, the sound of melting snow, of fading light, of waning life, still pastoral and dreamlike, but a bit more melancholy, the end not the beginning, a haunting, and lovely rumination on what has been, and what can never be again, faded memories and future dreams of the past. So lovely.
Fantastic packaging too. A small textured box, with printed art affixed to the front. inside a small plastic bag containing some sort of dried plant, on a nest like bed of blue confetti, a printed, numbered full color insert, and a gorgeously printed, textured paper, vellum songbook, containing the titular poems, as well as the liner notes.
Loud, disjointed and full of youthful rage and angst. This is raw, noisy, twisted music constantly on the verge of combustion. On the super cool San Diego-based record label run by The Locust's Justin Pearson.
Fetish 69. The name says everything, right? Well, perhaps not on this double CD of remixes and collaborations. With a name as bad as Fetish 69 (implying some horrid diva-house disaster or worse a My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult sex-horror-shock industrial
Yeah, the band is called Fetus Eaters. And their particular brand of metallic grind is called vomitcore, which for a particular strain of weirdo music obsessives, is pretty much all it should take to get you interested in these musical misanthropes. And for those who might be put off, well, odds are this is not your cup of black bloody fetus laced tea. But for the rest of you, this is some primo grind-metal heaviness, replete with furious blast beats, wild shredding guitars, insectoid riffing, twisted effects heavy vocals, lots of warped production and processing, and yeah of course plenty of weird samples. Full length number five finds the band slightly more polished, but really only slightly, it's still raw and blown out, punk as fuck, super noisy, and downright psychedelic at times, most of the songs clocking in around the minute mark, which is more than enough to cram in loads of tangled shreddery and blasting headbanging crunch, with the occasional foray into lumbering doominess, face melting noise rock, and grim black buzz, but really, FE are grinders at heart, and a quick listen to "Fetal Sushi Delight" or "Embryonic Chow" of "I'll Snap Your Spine" makes that pretty clear. Not sure why we never listed anything by these guys before, cuz we're digging this big time. Anyone into the various strains of grind, from old school grind, to grinding death metal, to gore grind, to just flat out WTF grind weirdness, might find themselves surprisingly into 'vomitcore' all of a sudden, and fear not, we're right there with you.
Pressed on bloody red vinyl, includes a printed insert/lyric sheet/poster.
The second full length from Feu Therese, the Montreal group captained by Jonathan Parent (former guitarist for Fly Pan Am), continues along the dark mysterious path they explored on their 2006 self-titled debut, but it's not without stretches of levity. In fact, the album opens with an unexpected jaunty guitar and synth line and a charming gent singing in French. Far more melodically inclined than its predecessor and far less bleakly brooding, Ca Va Cogner draws much inspiration from classic kraut, prog and space rock with some tracks being quite reminiscent of vintage works by Richard Pinhas, Kraftwerk and Cluster. Layers of synthesizers and electric guitars sweep across the steady, pulse-like drum beats and occasional male utterances and croonings. Nice.
Yet another somber (mostly) instrumental ensemble from the Godspeed You Black Emperor collective! This new group's sound is distinguished by layers of rich tremoloed guitar, organ drones and jazz inflected horns. Their closest kin in that Montreal music community is easily the heady improv jam driven Fly Pan Am, and their sonic resemblance is no coincidence. Feu Therese is the project of FPA guitarist Jonathan Parant, and as with most every branch of the mighty GYBE tree, folks from the other groups join in. Their self titled debut is a brooding dedication to Luc Ferrari. Five stormy disparate tracks ranging from six to twelve minutes.
Tripped out, jazzy post rock from New York City: super varied and intersting; from droning Kraftwerkian electronica work outs to full bore free jazz freakouts to dirgey Slint rock instrumentals. On Rosewood Union, a British label that has become the new home for really cool and fucked up underground 'post rock.'
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The relative ease with which this German band outshines the post-rock-fanboy holy-grail trio Don Caballero (keeping in mind that we really like Don Cab), makes one wish that the general indie rock audience at large was harder to please. Then perhaps more bands would try to expand on the Don Cab sound instead of incessantly aping it, and more records would sound as jaw droppingly brilliant as this one. In place of Damon Che's non stop avalanche of 'Moby Dick'isms and DonCab's metal-in-post-rock's-clothing is a complex sonic tapestry of hypnotic drones and cyclical riffs. Feuhler take the droning single note repetition of Tony Conrad, the scraping stones of Loren Chasse, the heavy prog of Voivod, the dynamics of Slint, and the slowly evolving Reich-ish rock of Circle, and fashion a music at once emotive and heavy, intellectual and kick ass.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Andee's favourite hip hop record of 1998, which originally came out on Alec Empire's Digital Hardcore label in Germany, has been released here in the States at domestic prices!
After a year of disappointment from big name hip hoppers (RZA, Method Man), DHR surprises us all with what may be the weirdest and best hip hop record of the year. Deep, dark, and disturbingly distorted. Murky, monotone, and menacing. Sort of like Sensational and Alec Empire having a fist fight in a dark alley!
Fever Ray is the solo project for one Karin Dreijer Andersson, better known as half of the Swedish oddball electro-pop duo The Knife. Her voice, with all of the helium-tinged falsettos and pitch-shifted growlings, had always been one the most compelling aspects of The Knife. In that schizophrenia of multi-tracked voices and personalities, she sang duets with herself, adopting masculine roles in the downpitched vocals and her naturally pixie voice taking the feminine perspective, which she often affects in unnatural ways through harmonic phaseshifts and chorus effects. With the bouncing lurch of The Knife's rhythms, her tales took on seductively nightmarish proportions, with a grotesque witchiness and atypical Goth blackness which had much more Wolfgang Press to it than Siouxsie. So for her solo project, her voice with its inscrutable yet pansexual personalities finds itself even more central to the music.
This is certainly due to the more downbeat electronic arrangements that she produces on her debut album, which is wholly devoid of those awkward yet sleek big beat techno numbers which punctured The Knife's Silent Shout. Musically, she creates a plastic exoticism, which relates to no particular indigenous music but instead has been filtered from Martin Denny through Chris & Cosey to arrive here with fake bird sounds, canned congo drums and faux marimba vibes flitting amidst sweeps of digital synthesis and softened drum machine beats. It may be more low-key than The Knife, but Karin's still an oddly brilliant tweaker. There had been some rumors (you know, from the Internet) which raised questions as to if The Knife would be 'breaking up.' If that were indeed rooted in fact, Fever Ray should stand as a pretty great phoenix rising from those ashes.
Our friend Adam who runs the super cool Crucial Blast label, has, for over 6 years now, been quietly (and not so quietly) putting out some of the coolest shit around. From crusty Finnish metal to droning electronica to sparse folk to brutal power electronics. This new series of cd-r's, limited to 100 copies and nicely packaged in oversized DVD cases will only be available via Aquarius records (unless you get them directly from Crucial Blast). So don't blow it...
Feverdreams is dark and mysterious. A rumbling and shimmering miasma of soothing low end, staticky buzz, and occasional clatter and skree. Gorgeous slow building sound scapes with subtle non-repeating rhythms and with layers and layers of drone, whir, throb, and clang. This would be nightmare music if it wasn't so damn pretty.
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This is the first we've heard from local songstress/soundscaper Feverwitch, and with that band name, the strange song titles, the unorthodox characters/spelling, you might be thinking Witch House, a genre we all loved but which seemed to have been a bit of a flash in the pan - and to a degree you'd be right, from the very first few second of the first track FW unfurls some seriously haunting slomo mesmer, ritualistic and cinematic, whirling organs, slowed down male vocals drone beneath FW's dramatic croon, what sound like strings swoop and soar, darkly mysterious and almost liturgical, like a lo-fi 4 track Arvo Part, spectral and shimmery, murky and moody, the perfect late night chill out bliss out, with a slightly witchy/demonic edge to it.
And really, that's how the whole tape plays out, vibes of Twin Peaks, hints of Grouper, definitely plenty of Witch House residue, gothy and gloomy, some of the tracks are like otherworldly ballads, FW's distinctive vocals nestled in fields of processed vocals, delicate tinkling piano, crystalline expanses of hushed thrum, others build to strident singer/songwriter drama, albeit steeped in thick clouds of reverb and delay, and when the drums come in (which is seldom), they had some heft, some rhythmic gravitas that gives the song a ghostly propulsion. Swirls of cosmic synths drift in, adding a sort of new age / sci-fi vibe, everything blurred into a washed out lysergic sonic haze, that's darkly and dreamily divine.
Then there's the final track, where FW really gives her voice a workout, letting loose with the sort of voice that gives you chills, dramatic operatic, somewhere between Kate Bush and Diamanda Galas, wild trills, soaring impossible melodies, all over sweeping faux strings and brooding atmospheric swirl. Wow.
Really nice, fans of Grouper, Zola Jesus, Chelsea Wolfe should check this out for sure!
A crushing double dose of extreme low end downtuned heaviness from these two UK heavyweights, up first, long time aQ faves Hey Colossus, who tackle an unlikely cover, Andre Williams' "Jailbait", and transform it into some seriously creepy crawly doom blues. A monstrous chugging plod underneath distorted mush mouthed rambling vocalizing, sounding much like a sludgier Oxbow, or maybe the Melvins covering King Snake Roost. As the track progresses, the vocals get more and more garbled, and the background chugs grow more and more intense, transforming from churning riffage into a blurred sheet of black buzz, undulating beneath the relentless pound and chug. AWESOME.
Field Boss, formerly known as Tractor (as they're credited on the 7" label) kick right back with some of their own low slung creep, all thick ropy bass, coruscating sheets of feedback, a sound that's equal parts old school AmRep crush and industrial pound, the song title "Headache" maybe referencing legendary noise rockers Big Black, which would make sense, cuz there's definitely that sort of vibe about this. The track slowly unfolds into keening slo-mo super distorted guitar leads that tangle and become more and more atonal, draped in layers over the churning sonic sludge, until finally, the song explodes into a final tangle of grinding blasting punkish crush, pelted with swirling clouds of hissing distorted static. So good.
Some essential heaviness for sure, and gorgeously packaged in a super swank silk screened black on metallic silver, cardstock 6 panel fold out sleeve, LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!
We've been loving the sweet, lush and lilting sounds of the Trembling Blue Stars for ages now, but we had no idea until recently that TBS frontman Bobby Wratton was also responsible for the genius twee pop of the Field Mice. From 1989 to 1991,the Field Mice were the jewel in the legendary Sarah Records' pop crown, making three records and a handful of singles, of some of the most gorgeously effervescent indie jangle pop ever. Super twee and fey, dreamy and drifty, with crystalline fingerpicked guitar, moody melancholy melodies, over shuffling electronic beats, simple acoustic drumming, wandering basslines, otherworldly female vocals, loads of precious indie jangle and of course Wratton's reverb drenched, dreamy soft boy vocals. Even a cursory listen reveals that certain modern bands (Belle And Sebastian anyone?) owe everything they are to these long forgotten musical rodents. So obviously, fans of Belle and Sebastian, who aren't already hoarding secret stashes of long lost Sarah singles, will be in swirling soft pop heaven, but folks who like stuff like Felt, Durutti Column, the Smiths, Trembling Blue Stars (obviously), Unrest, Teenage Fanclub, The Decemberists, Arcade Fire and other similar sorts of quirky blissed out pop shimmer should most definitely check out the Field Mice. This cd reissue contains For Keeps, their final album originally released in 1991, with all the tracks from the singles September's Not So Far Away and Missing the Moon. By the time For Keeps was released, the Field Mice had expanded to a five piece, and sounded like it, with big arrangements and lush production, extended drone-y jams and blissed out ambient jangle, definitely setting the stage for Belle And Sebastian and a legion of other twee pop outfits to come...
We've been loving the sweet, lush and lilting sounds of the Trembling Blue Stars for ages now, but we had no idea until recently that TBS frontman Bobby Wratton was also responsible for the genius twee pop of the Field Mice. From 1989 to 1991, the Field Mice were the jewel in the legendary Sarah Records' pop crown, making three records and a handful of singles, of some of the most gorgeously effervescent indie jangle pop ever. Super twee and fey, dreamy and drifty, with crystalline fingerpicked guitar, moody melancholy melodies, over shuffling electronic beats, simple acoustic drumming, wandering basslines, otherworldly female vocals, loads of precious indie jangle and of course Wratton's reverb drenched, dreamy soft boy vocals. Even a cursory listen reveals that certain modern bands (Belle And Sebastian anyone?) owe everything they are to these long forgotten musical rodents. So obviously, fans of Belle and Sebastian, who aren't already hoarding secret stashes of long lost Sarah singles, will be in swirling soft pop heaven, but folks who like stuff like Felt, Durutti Column, the Smiths, Trembling Blue Stars (obviously), Unrest, Teenage Fanclub, The Decemberists, Arcade Fire and other similar sorts of quirky blissed out pop shimmer should most definitely check out the Field Mice.
Skywriting was the Field Mice's second album originally released in June 1990. This 2cd reissue includes that lp in its entirety as well as all the tracks from the EPs The Autumn Store and So Said Kay, two rare comp tracks and three unreleased tracks.
Skywriting found the Field Mice stretching out a bit occasionally displaying influences from the then burgeoning dance / ambient scene, with sequenced rhythms, samples, and almost funky rhythms, all mixed in and amongst more classic and timeless sweet pop songsmithery.
We've been loving the sweet, lush and lilting sounds of the Trembling Blue Stars for ages now, but we had no idea until recently that TBS frontman Bobby Wratton was also responsible for the genius twee pop of the Field Mice. From 1989 to 1991,the Field Mice were the jewel in the legendary Sarah Records' pop crown, making three records and a handful of singles, of some of the most gorgeously effervescent indie jangle pop ever. Super twee and fey, dreamy and drifty, with crystalline fingerpicked guitar, moody melancholy melodies, over shuffling electronic beats, simple acoustic drumming, wandering basslines, otherworldly female vocals, loads of precious indie jangle and of course Wratton's reverb drenched, dreamy soft boy vocals. Even a cursory listen reveals that certain modern bands (Belle And Sebastian anyone?) owe everything they are to these long forgotten musical rodents. So obviously, fans of Belle and Sebastian, who aren't already hoarding secret stashes of long lost Sarah singles, will be in swirling soft pop heaven, but folks who like stuff like Felt, Durutti Column, the Smiths, Trembling Blue Stars (obviously), Unrest, Teenage Fanclub, The Decemberists, Arcade Fire and other similar sorts of quirky blissed out pop shimmer should most definitely check out the Field Mice.
Snowball was the Field Mice's debut album, originally released in 1989 as a 10" mini lp. This cd reissue also includes all the tracks from the first three singles as well as a rare compilation track. Snowball is maybe the weirdest of the bunch, with all that sweet jangle and shimmery pop glimmer, but structured around occasional drone-y almost krautrock like rhythms, brief glimpses of studio whirr and swoosh, and once in a while extended hypnotic bliss outs. At its root though, it's still simple and sweet, dreamy dreamy pop.
Field Music are primarily Peter Brewis and Andrew Moore, but for their self-titled debut they're joined by string players Emma Fisk, Rachael Davis and Peter Richardson as well as sax player John Steele. You might've seen/heard the two lads before though. They're in a couple bands you might be more familiar with... Franz Ferdinand and Maximo Park. Who? Never heard of 'em. Hahahaha. Ahem, this project is far less punchy and rambunctious than either of their day jobs. The tunes are still very poppy, but in a much more gentle breezy fashion. Sort of a well-crafted cross between Sea And Cake, Pinback and Brian Wilson. Nice.
Simply superb. The Field could release the same damn album over and over again, and we'd be completely content, so perfect is his signature style of minimal techno. Cupid's Head is his fourth album in six years, a relatively slow pace of output for such top shelf work; so with each album comes the opportunity to savor what Alex Willmer is up to. From Here We Go Sublime was the debut album that introduced the template for all of Willmer's other albums; and like Wolfgang Voigt's pinnacle of minimal techno - the four Gas records - Willmer's success is through the presentation of inventive variations on a theme. His begins with a sparkling arrangement of delicately arpeggiating pixel points and micro-samples, which might have been lifted from soft-rock ballads of the early '80s; and with the skill of a crafty plastic surgeon, he deftly eviscerates an ugly source material and renders it exquisite and wholly refined. All of his taut melodic phrase and clipped gasps of romantic exhortation latch perfectly onto the archetypal Kompakt monophunk techno pulse. The minimalism of Cupid's Head is not one of stasis, as there are rather broad gestures of emotional dynamism even within the framework of a constant beat. "Black Sea" begins with a classic set of The Field's pink-n-pastel electronic colorations, but slips oh so gradually into a more nocturnal set of jet-blacks and engorged reds that really would be the perfect transitory track between Ulrich Schnauss and Surgeon. These long-view structures look backward to how Arthur Russell produced with some of his slowly developed strings that slowly resolved a melody over a 10 minute New York house track. Radiant, glassine, and downright rapturous.
What's release without tension? What if there's no real release, just an ongoing tension? Like you are hovering over a brink of a precipice but somehow knowing you are not going to fall and die you really get into the powerful momentum of floating fixed in space between the universal expanse above and the bottomless nothing below. That is how The Field (aka Axel Wilner) fashions his tightly edited minimal trance compositions on his Kompakt debut, From Here We Go Sublime. Like the best Kompact releases, from The Pop Ambient series to Wolfgang Voigt's Gas albums, The Field make the most out of nothing much at all. But what incredible nothings! The evolving repetitions of finely honed razor-sharp edits off of bits of samples, such as the vowel sounds of words, belied by rudimentary drum programming only occasionally reveal their source, including a bit of Lionel Ritchie's, "Hello" and The Flamingo's "I Only Have Eyes For You", more famously sampled by The Fugees. Dare we say it, This is sublime!
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Album number three from one of our favorite forces to emerge in the world of electronica over the last several years. Their (his?) Kompakt debut, Here We Go Sublime, still stands as one of our favorite records of the last five years and this new one is making us think we probably have lots of great records from The Field to look forward to for a long time to come. The Field's hypnotic take on minimal techno has the ability to win over folks who might not usually find themselves listening to techno records, while at the same time putting those who do occupy that word into a perpetual state of bliss.
Looping State Of Mind finds The Field taking their trademark approach to repetition and harnessing it deftly to reach ecstatic levels of energy, yet also demonstrating a knack for evoking much needed breeziness into their sound. We can't wait for some serious late night drive-time with this blasting as we cruise over bridges and under freeway ramps, only paying attention to the road ahead and the blinking lights of the city that surrounds us. So damn good!
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While many of his Kompakt labelmates have displayed moments of sonic brilliance over the years, Axel Willner's The Field has still managed to continually raise the bar, by creating consistently wonderful albums with a dizzying array of stunning sounds that totally transcend the trappings of most minimal techno/electronica. This is the music we want blasting in a dark dingy basement, flooded by fog machines and strobing lights, as we lose track of time, ourselves, and the world around us. The Field continue to excel in creating a rare strain of techno, one that hits the body hard, while also massaging the mind. The Follower, like previous records by The Field, unites techno nerds & dark dance music heads with folks who aren't usually too deep into that scene. Those non-dance-music outliers can latch on to the Reich/Glass like repetition and Willner's densely mesmerizing fields of experimental avant electronica.
Total contender for Electronic Album of the Year!
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The Field's 2007 album From Here We Go Sublime caught many people by surprise, and we were happy to find ourselves included in that crowd of Field supporters. This was a minimal techno record playing the part of a pop album, through sleights of hand that extracted the sappiest moments of the '80s without appearing the part of the ironist. In pixel-painted blurs of entrancing melodies and soothing ambient warmth, The Field offered nostalgia without having a damn Lionel Richie song stuck in your head. Yup, one of the more memorable samples from From Here We Go Sublime was a wistful guitar lead from Richie's "Hello." In a lot of ways, The Field reached a pinnacle for Kompakt's Pop Ambient strategies, easily surpassing perhaps the album that started it all: Gas' Pop.
Jump two years down the line and several trips around the world, The Field returns with a second album that shouldn't disappoint those who were held rapt by the debut. Yesterday and Today has much of the restrained crescendos of velvety hypnosis grafted onto the steel girds of German engineered techno. Yes, we do know that The Field's Axel Willner is from Sweden, but the heart and soul of the motorik pulse is firmly rooted in Germany. Neu!, Kraftwerk, Cluster, Basic Channel, and of course, Kompakt are the obvious references in the formal structures of The Field, with his source material being those misty-eyed remembrances of music's past. If there are specific samples to be recognized in Yesterday and Today, they are not overt and obvious; but the sentiment is still the same. Nice.
The vinyl version includes a cd of the album as well!
