We first heard these Irish garage rockers on a split with SF outfit Brilliant Colors, their sound reminding us of big time aQ faves Crystal Stilts, their brand of jangly garage rock similarly haunting, and listening to their full length, we definitely still hear shades of CS, we're imagining it has much to do with the vocals, a deep reverbed croon, that even here reminds us of groups like Celibate Rifles, the Lime Spiders and the Scientists, but the difference is that the Crystal Stilts' SOUND was also similarly gloomy and dour, a sort of garagey jangle pop via brooding post punk, but Girls Names traffic in something much more jangly and poppy, melodic and a little twee, their sound more in line with groups like Black Tambourine, the Pastels, the Shop Assistants, Creation Records and that classic C86 pop sound. And yeah, the deep male vocals do change the feel, in some cases making Girls Names sound like a bit like Felt, and again, sometimes positioning them closer to Crystal Stilts. And while a few of the tracks here do find the band exploring darker sonic territory, with brooding reverby guitars and gloomy minor key melancholia, for the most part, they focus more on dreamy pop jangle, a hazy, super melodic, catchy and sixties garage style pop, but that, when wedded to the deep crooned vocals, the occasional gloomy overtones and some subtly haunting moodiness, make Girls Names something special for sure.
The New Life is the second album from Belfast, Ireland's Girls Names following the triumphantly jangly album Dead To Me. The metaphors in the titles should be noted, as the dream pop elements of the first album (which they emphatically distanced themselves from right after the tapes were in the can, so to speak) has been shed in favor of a post-punk gloominess that was hinted at on the earlier record. Frontman Cathal Cully has long received comparisons to Crystal Stilts' Brad Hargett, both embracing a detached, baritone monochromatic delivery of death-obsessed romanticism. Cully's deep croon fits much better with the skeletal arrangements that take after The Cure's twin records Seventeen Seconds and Faith. "Drawing Lines" really could have been lifted from either of those records as a bass-driven jam driving the propulsive, death-disco rhythms topped with spectral guitar hooks punctuated by Cully's vocals that are awash in leaden gray reverb and delay. "A Second Skin" and "Notion" return to more of the C86 sound with a brightly ringing Johnny Marr guitar vibrato, even as the moods retain a detached swagger. Another fantastic album of dark-eyed pop by way of Slumberland!
Oh wow, this is one of those amazing split 7"s that makes you stop listening to the piles of records you've been meaning to get to, as once you put this one all you wanna do is listen to each side over and over again. This is the first we've heard of Girls Names, who apparently will have their debut full length out early next year and if "I Lose" is any indication it's gonna be a record that'll demand some serious attention. We haven't been quite this smitten with the sounds of a new rock band since we first got floored by Crystal Stilts a few years back. In fact they have a very similar sound to Crystal Stilts, nice warm reverb rushing through their hollow and haunting garage rock.
We were already big fans of San Francisco's Brilliant Colors so it comes as no surprise that their song on the split is another gem of early '80s inspired post-punk/dream-pop garage bliss. Even though we have so much other stuff to listen to right now, we just can't stop flippin' this and playin' it nonstop!
Brand new song from aQ beloved Irish garage poppers Girls Names, teamed up on this split with new to us Weird Dreams. Girls Names unfurls some fuzzy eighties beholden twee pop, laced with new wave synths, and driven by deep, breathy, dramatic vocals. A soaring chorus laced with weird slightly industrial percussion and a woozy psychedelic shimmer, transforms the song into something way weirder (and cooler) that your run of the mill retro pop.
Weird Dreams look back with their sound too, but in their case, back to the sixties for a smokey, sultry torch song style pop ballad, slithery basslines, crooned vox, everything fuzzy and late night ballady, spidery melodies weaving a darkly psychedelic spell, fans of the New Lines and Still Corners will definitely dig.
Pressed on clear purple vinyl!!
The lucky few who managed to snag a copy of Canadian metal mag Morbid Tales #6, also got a glimpse of something pretty spectacular, strange and unexpected: a heavy metal cookbook, recipes from famous rockers, their own peculiar and particular metal food faves, compiled by Morbid Tales editrix Annick "Morbid Chef" Giroux, who has now taken her love of metal, and food, and that little cookbook supplement, and expanded it to a full on, honest to goodness cookbook.
And it's awesome. We really can't imagine a metalhead who wouldn't want this, even if they never planned on actually making all the recipes. Pretty much the perfect gift for the metaller in your life, and who knows, maybe this cookbook will be the catalyst for some homemade meals. Although some of these recipes might have you thinking twice. Some sound delicious for sure, and the pictures are appropriately appealing, but others maybe not so much, and some seem to be purposefully disgusting, something only a very drunk metalhead would eat. But that's part of the fun of the book. We wanted to make a bunch of these before we reviewed it but ran out of time. We will though, already have a few bookmarked.
For all her troo metal cred, editor Giroux is just too cute, on the cover in her metal patch-ed apron and huge knife, or on the dust cover chowing down on a sausage, heck the book is even dedicated to her grandmother, but let's get to the meat of this here cookbook. Every recipe features a full color photo (which at first glance seem like standard cookbook photos, until you begin to notice various metal items in the background, leather jackets, spikes, album covers, beer cans, wine bottles, etc.), the band logo and bio, the ingredients and instructions from the chef, as well as a little note from the Morbid Chef, her own take on each recipe. Some highlights include: Mummified Jalapeno Bacon Bombs from Chris Reifert of Autopsy/Abcess, Candied Sweetbreads On A Bed Of Sacred Heart from Balsac The Jaws Of Death from Gwar, Fried Egg Rigor Mortis Cure from Ustumallagam Of Denial Of God, Devil's Porridge from Montalo of Witchfynde, Welfare Nachos from Jason Decay of Cauldron/Goathorn, Bull Testicle Surprise from Tomas 'Necrocock' Kohout of Master's Hammer (and while many of the recipes have funny metal names and in fact are something else entirely, this one is in fact bull testicles!), The Stew Of True Doom from Karl Simon of Gates Of Slumber, Thundering Beef Brisket from Lips of Anvil, Doro's Black Forest Cake from Doro of Warlock, Beer Pizza Crust from Olaf Zissel of Tankard, New Orleans Blood Red Beans And Rice from Mike IX Williams of Eyehategod, Shellfish Crossfire from King Ov Hell of God Seed/Gorgoroth, and we could go on and on...
More than 100 recipes from more than 30 countries, other bands contributing their favorite delectables include: Abigail, Accept, Amebix, Anthrax, Tygers Of Pan Tang, Uriah Heep, Thin Lizzy, Trouble, Electric Wizard, Destruction, Mayhem, Melechesh, Death SS, Judas Priest, Budgie, Impaler, Brutal Truth, Mutiilation, Lord Vicar, The Lord Weird Slough Feg, Piledriver, Pentagram, Rigor Mortis, The Rods, S.O.D, Stiny Plamenu, Warpig, Kreator and more more more.
Separated into sections for: appetizers and side dishes, beef, pork, lamb, poultry, seafood, vegetarian, desserts, even drinks (of course - and many of the food recipes include instructions to drink beer WHILE MAKING the food, not just when eating it), with lots of awesome illustrations, photographs, record covers, it's pretty epic, and totally metal, and we really can't recommend this enough. As Giroux says in her intro, making a meal is a great excuse for drinking and listening to metal! INDEED!!!
Wow! This is one for all of you always seeking out the ultimate mathy heaviness. Girth are a guitar and drums duo from up Seattle way, and they dish out some seriously deranged, detailed, devastating instrumental mayhem here. There's a dozen songs on this 42 minute debut and they're all hella herky and jerky and heavy. Did we just say Hella? Well that'd be one comparison, along with Bozart and Breadwinner, though Girth are way more of a metal-riffed monster that those bands, something of which we totally approve. Girth's spazzy string-strangulation and amazing octopoidal drumming is balanced by their crushing low-end chunk and high-tension rocka rolla, and there's even some nice, calming interludes of post-rockish near melody. It's sorta like Crom-Tech or Orthrelm, but just a bit less maddening, more musical. At times this could be the Melvins, playing Black Flag's Process Of Weeding Out while on a caffine binge, throwing in some Entombed or Eyehategod riffs while they're at it. Or the Fucking Champs and Slayer as possessor demons doing battle for control of the same host body. The most important point is, that as hectic and heavy as this can be, it manages to be super listenable as well, something that we don't always get from the math core crowd. We like it. A lot. An impressive debut for sure, packaged with some suitably beautifully chaotic yet precise Stephen O'Malley designed graphics.
2nd outing from this mathy heavy outfit!
Attention Young Marble Giants Fans!!
If you have worn out your copies of Colossal Youth from repeated listenings, and have always wanted to hear more from that group, this might just be the next best thing. Started as a side project by YMG main songwriter and guitarist, Stuart Moxham, The Gist's first single hit the shelves six weeks before YMG called it a day at the tail end of 1980. Taking time to stretch out from the rigid arrangement process of YMG, Moxham recorded the Gist's only album, Embrace The Herd, with a bit of help from his former bandmates, Alison Statton and Phil Moxham along with guest appearances by Epic Soundtracks, Viv Goldman and members of Essential Logic. Combining Eno-like fourth world instrumentals with an idiosyncratic approach to songwriting, Embrace The Herd is an engaging document of post-punk DIY creativity. Think a dancier and stranger YMG, yet not as loungey as Alison Statton's spin off group, Weekend. While perhaps not as seminal or as focused as Colossal Youth, The Gist sound remarkably refreshing and much less restrained. Plus it's nice to have some new-to-us sounds from this era to worm away in our ears. Includes four bonus tracks. Fans of Antenna, Marine Girls, The Slits, The Raincoats, and leftfield post-punk rhythms of all sorts will find lots to love here. So Recommended!
Those of you who bought the last issue of the fantastic magazine (and AQ fave) Cimarron Weekend, will know all about the Gizmos (probably way too much). This is a collection of all the detritus (demos and such) from Indiana's legendary garage punk weirdos. Featuring rough versions of all their hits: 'Gimme Back My Foreskin', 'Human Garbage Disposal' and of course 'Pumpin' To Playboy'.
First proper full length (after a super limited cd-r), of gorgeously blissed out post rock from this Bay Area ensemble. Lush and textured, rhythmic and hypnotic, slow burning and sprawling, epic and super rocking, these guys take that nineties sound we love so much and make it their own, the songs smolder and pulse, before exploding into dense roiling Godspeed / Mogwai style blowouts. Meandering prettiness, gives way to loping mathy minimalism, chiming guitars, simple spare drumming, looped melodies, a slow build to near metallic crush, the bass throbbing, the guitars tangled up in psychedelic squalls, the drums muscled and propulsive. The sound moody and minor key, cinematic and soundtracky, brooding and intense, heavy and emotional and harrowing. If you dig stuff like Mogwai, Aereogramme, Mono, Pelican, Grails, Explosions In The Sky, Magyar Posse, Red Sparowes, Snowblood, that Temporary Residence instrumental rock sound, that heavy post POST rock, well, Glaciers does it as good if not better than most of your favorites. Not sure how these guys slipped under our radar, since they're from right here in the Bay Area, but it's time to right that wrong, RIGHT NOW.
Pressed on gorgeous ice blue vinyl, comes with a download coupon, and yeah, it's probably limited too...
Latest full length from this Bay Area post rock outfit, whose And The Sea Won The Battle was a huge hit around here. Mirrored Through The Ancients finds the band mining much the same territory but with some extra heft. Opener "Last Rites First Breath" sounds pretty fierce, the production massive, big thick guitars, pounding drums, still beholden to the golden era of post/math rock, but sounding modern enough to have fans of Mogwai, Godspeed and Explosions In The Sky pricking up their ears, cuz these guys do that sound so well, there's really no reason they shouldn't be getting the same love as those other groups.
The whole record displays that new found sonic heft, even on mostly minimal, hushed drifters like "Pierced By The Sun". That track starts off with some near metallic riffing, suspended in a field of swirling effects and rumbling drones, swirling cymbal shimmer and churning psychedelia, only to quickly settle into a serene sprawl of loping, lilting meander, all clean crystalline guitars, some moody twang, skittery drumming, we had just about settled in for some blissed out post rock drift when the song and sound begins to gather momentum, building to something much more fierce and rocking, and then finally exploding into near metallic majesty, epic, soaring, the guitar howling, the drums wild and loose, all before locking into a droned out driving dirgey chug, the whole thing shot through with plenty of melody and texture, giving even the darkest and heaviest moments here a sort of sonic expansiveness, these guys KILL it.
Some of the tracks here get downright psychedelic and stonery (check out the main riff of "Veil Of The Phoenix"), others remain hushed and haunting, brooding and drifting dreamily, and then there's the awesomely titled closer "Southwest Of Heaven", which sadly, isn't nearly as Slayer-y as we hoped, but it is a gorgeous stretch of washed out, twang flecked, druggy, droney post rock moodiness, that again surprises near the end, after fully four minutes of drifting and loping, launching into some seriously noisy progged out heavy psych crush, before once again slipping right back into another stretch of woozy post rock brood.
LIMITED TO 400 COPIES, on smoke colored vinyl!!
Another frosty blast of mighty white metal. Or unblack metal. Whatever you want to call it, this stuff is blacker in sound, if not in spirit, than much of the so called black metal that comes our way. And as if to prove just how un-evil they are, Glaciial have reclaimed the extra 'i' (like in Celestiial, Mutiilation, etc.) as if to spit in the face of the dark lord. No longer is buzzing black metal strictly the purview of Satan, a new movement of positive, Christian black metal has slowly been making waves, creating a totally mindblowing catalog of bizarre and super original black metal. Buzzing and brutal enough to appeal to the true grim warriors, but weird enough to have -us- all in a lather, and with a positive message that goes down a lot smoother delivered via a face full of corpse painted spike encrusted unblack buzz!
Glaciial is a trio made up of three of the most active members in the Midwestern unblack metal scene, one part Light Shall Prevail (reviewed here a few lists back), one part Flaskavsae and one part Wrathful Plague and the result is again, fucking NUTS!!! The sticker on the cd describes this as fast and atmospheric black metal, but boy does that not nearly do this record justice. It is definitely atmospheric in that the buzz is so pervasive and blown out and thick that it smears into a massive slow shifting whirl of swirling buzz, even though the music it's wrapped around is blazing fast. And there are melodies, these songs have hooks like crazy, but they are buried under a million pounds of black buzz. But it's the vocals. What is it with all these unblack metal bands?! It's like they are all capable of singing in tongues. The Agathothodion we reviewed had some of the weirdest vocals we had ever heard, a moaning drifting croon, like a smeared falsetto. But the vocals here take the cake. We might go so far as to say most fucked and most amazing vocals EVER. A hissing rasp that alternately sounds like a Tuvan throat singer with a tracheotomy or a Sleestak. A swirling reverbed distorted raspy whisper that whips over the icy backdrop like some frozen arctic wind. HHHHHHHZZZZZZHHHZZZZZZZ. Awesome. And when the band slows down and dooms out it's seriously fucking frightening.
Get down on your knees and bask in the divine unblack glory that is Glaciial!!
The metal label Stormspell's motto is "Old farts stuck In the '80s and proud of it". They're the folks who have been bringing us a lot of cool cd reissues of obscure, cult metal bands from the '80s (such as Max Planck, Xinr and Detest), some of 'em as part of Stormspell's ongoing "Red White and Heavy Arcane Collector Series For The Initiated" featuring long-lost demos from bands that are SO cult and obscure they never even got signed to make a proper album.
Well, the old farts at Stormspell have now found some young bands also stuck in the '80s, and have begun a new series of releases, putting these bands' demos out on cd but this time not waiting 30 years to do it. Fantastically dubbed the "Jewels Of Gwahlur" series (the Jewels Of Gwahlur being the macguffin of a Conan story of the same name), five volumes have now been released, and we're reviewing 'em all this list. It's a bit like something else Stormspell did some years ago, the "Thrash Clash" series of splits by underground thrash acts. But these bands are even more "old school" in sound.
Each entry in the series comes in nice trifold digi-wallet packaging, the covers pretty much identical except for the band logos, with a standardized "bejewelled ancient leather tome" look, a la the 3rd Edition D&D rulebooks if you're familiar with those; doubtless some of these bands are! However, despite the uniform design, each entry in the series gets its own unique artwork on the inside, as well as credits, liner notes, etc. Most of these discs are ep-length, around 4-6 tracks, but it should be noted that they're quite cheaply priced. So even though we're reviewing each one individually you might as well buy 'em all and let your cd player sort 'em out! As for us, we're looking forward to hearing more from all these bands (pretty sure we will!), and are curious as to what further Jewels Of Gwahlur will be uncovered by Stormspell in the future.
GLADIUS from up in Portland start the series off with with a fierce barrage of hectic thrash metal, with pounding battery, piercing screams (and gruffer vox too), and hyperspeed guitar widdle. Fast n' heavy, for sure. For a band that appear to be teenagers, they show a heck of a lot of promise, being as skilled as they are aggressive. Sounds pretty 'pro' for a demo. Fans of Hatchet, Havok and other current thrash revivalists should dig this. Not a bad beginning to this series, but some of the other Jewels shine a bit brighter in our eyes.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Barbara Manning and Seymour Glass of Bananafish , plus Greg Freeman, various Thinking Fellers, Mayuko Hino, Conrad Capistran (legendary, humorous record buyer at InYourEar), World of Pooh, etc. Recordings of various birthday parties, live shows, kitchen appliances and backyards, spanning 1979 to 1994, are smoothed into an album that truly works as a seamless whole. Seymour has outdone himself this time. Highly recommended.
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
These noisy weirdos, an eclectic, electronic cabal including Bananafish 'zine ringleader Seymour Glass, Barbara Manning, and Siltbreeze's Tom Lax, unleash some "plunderphonic improv" here on this limited Ultra Excema album from late 2009 that we accidentally forgot to list. Now we've got 2 copies left, act quick to abuse (and sometimes soothe) your earholes with this wax. We put it on sale too, just 'cause. Used to be the usual UE not so nice price of $27...
Seymour Glass's Glands Of External Secretion comes from the weirdo surreal art-punk primordial goo that birthed the likes of the Sun City Girls, Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, Porest / Monopause, irr.app.(ext.), and Caroliner. The Glands loiter in the funhouse of culture, picking and choosing the most bizarre bits to appropriate into strange, nauseous collages and splattered songwriting, and as one could gather from the project's name, scatology is never far away. Reverse Atheism could hardly be called a treatise on anything, despite the multitude of religious, atheistic, and existential themes, as Glass hurls everything at his disposal against the wall with a hard splat and an oozing trail down to the floor. Everything gets treated with the same disregard and clownish pie-tossing attitude. Such was commonplace when Glass published the seminal magazine Bananafish, complete with nonsensical reviews that talked more about rhinoceros foot bacteria (for example) than the merits of some mediocre indie band.
Here on Reverse Atheism, there are reinterpretations of biblical tracts, old gospel hymns, and cult-spawn texts (from Elizabeth Clare Prophet and L. Ron Hubbard, no less) alongside punk-era tirades against God and religion - the latter include mutant covers of XTC's "Dear God," God's Gifts "No God," and The Birthday Party's "Mutiny In Heaven." Glass has long worked with the far more sensible singer-songwriter Barbara Manning, bringing her beautifully languid voice into the warbling, asynchronous, fucked-up loops of various plonks and deconstructed song. He's also employed help from Bruce Russell (Dead C), Alastair Galbraith, and Scott Simmons (Eat Skull) amongst lots of other guests and vagrants. In the calliope of tongue-in-cheek references, Glass uniformly slices apart everything - transcendence, salvation, the end of the world, conspiracy theories, mind control, Darwinism, and any pretty much everything in between. The result is more of a mess of entrails than anything cohesive; of course, that's the way Seymour Glass views the world. A compelling and convoluted album for sure.
We only just started reading this but holy crap is it awesome. An in depth exploration of the UK anarcho punk scene. Which means, for those of you unclear on the concept, groups like Crass, Poison Girls, Flux Of Pink Indians, Rudimentary Peni, Icons Of Filth, Dirt, Subhumans, Conflict, Citizen Fish, Amebix, Chumbawamba (before they sold out!!), Zounds, The Mob, Kukl, Lack Of Knowledge, Disrupters, Flowers In The Dustbin, Antisect, Epileptics, Faction and more more more.
It's a little difficult for us to read this personally, as aQ pal Lance Hahn from J-Church was working on his own Anarcho-crust book when he passed away, but besides that, there's really no reason to not buy this, read up on all these amazing bands, and then buy all their records.
Covering the scene during the years 1980-1984, The Day The Country Died is packed with tons of photos, exclusive interviews, scene histories, discographies, we were 30 pages in when we got to Flux Of Pink Indians, maybe one of our favorite bands from that scene, and we had our Flux records out, reading and listening. And it's not just about the bands, and the records, it's the movement, the politics, pretty inspiring for sure.
Like we said, we only just started it, but we're digging this book BIG TIME, and apparently it's a companion to Glasper's other book, Burning Britain, so we'll probably have to track that one down too!
Fuzzed, flanged fusion fireballs, blowing shit up! Mentioned last list in our review of Gary Smith and Aufgehoben No Process's distorted death match "Magnetic Mountain", here's the Glass Cage cd: the instrumental improv trio of guitarist Smith, former Soft Machine bassist Hugh Hopper, and famed Japanese free jazz/rock percussionist Shoji Hano (you might know from collaborations with Keiji Haino, or his stint drumming with Nanjo Asahito's High Rise). The family tree that brought these three together must have some tangled roots indeed, but we're glad they found each other (actually, Smith and Hano have played together before, in a trio with Nanjo in fact, and presumably Hopper and Smith know each other from the UK avant-garde scene). The music they play is chaotic, but beautiful; noodly, but heavy (Hopper's thick fuzz bass sounds like that of the Ruins circa "Stonehenge"). Smith's "stereo" guitar veers wildly though the flak thrown about by the Hopper-Hano rhythm section. "Out" rock enthusiasts, like Nels Cline fans for instance, ought to investigate. Earplugs required.
Johnny Jewel may not be a household name but his music has been on our stereo pretty much non stop for the last several month. The musical mind behind both Chromatics and Glass Candy, it's his sparkling touch that has helped make electronic pop sound exciting again. It's no mistake that Glass Candy had the leadoff track on the After Dark compilation that helped define one of the more exciting scenes to emerge in the last several years. Songs that make you want to dance in clouds as you get lost in that hazy intersection of new wave, spaced out disco and post-punk minimalism.
Much like Chromatics who underwent a very radical and rewarding shift in sound with their latest Night Drive, Jewel has brought that same aesthetic to Glass Candy with equally impressive results. Beatbox travels in such a nice way starting off with seriously sassy momentum on songs like "Beatific" that almost sounds like Lizzy Mercier Descloux covering a track from the first Madonna record and then the later part of the record travels in much moodier cosmic territory recalling French AQ faves Ruth with nods to the brilliant early production of Giorgio Moroder. Glass Candy rang in the new year with a performance here in SF on New Year's Eve and we can't think of much better company to party with. So good!
Glass Candy follow up their Love Love Love album with this 2-song slice o' vinyl, and it's a hottie! The A-side hikes things up a notch with a great new GC original "Bicicleta Emocional" - perhaps one of their best songs to date even - and the B-side is a fiery cover of Roxy Music's "Re-Make / Re-Model".
Ida No whoops and howls affecting her best Debbie Harry "Heart Of Glass" sultriness. Meanwhile Johnny Jewel leans into his electric guitar showing some strategic restraint in the placement of his crunchy riffing. Ginger Peach keeps the propulsive beat and some unknown presence hammers away at a piano lending an added bristling tension to this Portland, OR group's already raw, minimal art-punk sound.
Note: this is the black vinyl Troubleman edition, not the special Spanish pressing which reportedly was pressed on pink vinyl and included a magnet and insert.
While lots of B-side collections end up being mostly throwaway or forgettable tracks, we think we might be loving this collection of odds and ends from Glass Candy even MORE than their latest full length, Beat Box, which we already liked a lot. You can tell they must have been listening to lots of late-night cosmic disco and some great cold/synth-wave when they recorded these tracks as they really nail both of those sounds perfectly.
The combination of Johnny Jewell's great musical chops and Ida No's sizzling, sexy and detached vocal delivery is pretty much ideal. The sound of Deep Gems is pretty similar to Beat Box, even though these are all outtakes and B-sides, which makes it the perfect companion for folks already loving the album proper.
An unlikely contributor, Eyvind Kang, adds his violin and viola playing on a few tracks, but make no mistake this collection is all about slow burners and smoke filled late night dance floor grooves.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Hipster glam art punks from Portland, Glass Candy's Ida No (vocals) and Johnny Jewel (bass) never fail to stir things up. Now for a special limited time offer (i.e, this cd-r of brand new demos) they've upped the ante with the addition of a special guest... the illustrious Ms Jesse Eva (aka Jesse Trashed of The Vanishing) on saxophone. Because these are demos we could say that this is Glass Candy 'in the raw', but these six songs are not a whole lot rawer than their usual gritty, lo-fi releases! Ida swoons and squeals her vocals, Jesse's sax follows suit, while Johnny's bass makes friends with the drum machine. There's also glimpses of an increased almost ESG-ish funkiness. Definitely something to tide GC fans over 'til their new mini-lp comes out this fall, but get this while you can (i.e, NOW!) 'cause Jesse's movin' to Berlin really soon, and we're not sure when / if we'll be able to get more!
Awesome new 12" from one of our favorite seductive late night dance floor duos. What makes this 12" extra cool is that it's not just one song and throwaway unessential different versions of the same track, instead the record features two brand new new totally melt worthy tracks, the stand out and weirdest one being "Covered In Bugs" which is a demented paranoid sensual freak out, complete with some sexy screaming from Ida No, and a wonderfully stretched out and hypnotic instrumental ending that gets locked in a smoked out hazy trance. And that ending is kind of a preview for what comes next on the scene-stealing flipside of this 12". "Shine Like Gold & Diamonds" an instrumental track that really shows off how damn talented Johnny Jewel is, the track is like some amazing version of someone like Oneohtrix Point Never covering an instrumental passage from a classic Kraftwerk track. The next two tracks are also mostly instrumental versions of two of the songs from the first side, but totally given a different feel and sound. Beyond suave and seductive. At over 26 minutes of music, this is a total must have for Glass Candy fans, and even those who might not always love the the vocals, as the majority of this wax is about Johnny Jewel's ability to capture such a specific vibe and feeling with the beats and music he creates. So good!
Brand new super sizzling 12" from everyone's favorite sultry and sassy nu-disco duo Glass Candy. With two songs from the cd-only Deep Gems collection, "Geto Boys" and "Animal Imagination", each getting a side of wax for not only the original version, but in true '80s 12" fashion, each song is given multiple reworkings. You get the vocal/drums version of Geto Boys as well as the instrumental. And there is the "Soft Boundaries" version of "Animal Imagination" as well as the instrumental. And those instrumentals really serve to further demonstrate to how damn well Johnny Jewel uses his synths to create such icy and infectious moods and melodies. Always a great thing to have more Glass Candy on wax!
We have to admit that we sorta groaned when we saw that the hipper than hip Portland trio Glass Candy had gone and covered the already-covered-in-the-'80s hit "Iko Iko", but we gotta give 'em props for bringing something new to the song and making it their own. So, we say "cool!" Actually it sounds like they took a little more time and put a little more thought into all of these tracks than they have with most of their past recordings. Within the first few bars of their "Iko" it becomes evident that they're much less about making the immediate flash-pot spectacle this time around. They've also made a few shifts in overall musical direction, applying more funk influences and fewer no wave angularities. We might've also guessed this from the cover photo. Ida No has shed her electro-clash glam-shock stylings in favor of a more groomed, relatively au naturelle pose along the lines of '50s glamour girls, but surprisingly un-pin-up/cheesecake-y. A more grown-up Glass Candy seeking a potentially broader audience? Well, if you found their past appeal to have been their in-your-face sizzle and reckless fireworks, this new persona might take some getting used to. However, if taken on its own this EP is pretty darn fun. An added surprise: although the cd traycard lists only six tracks, you mysteriously get eight. Go figure!
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 special white label 12" of those Portland nu-no-waver hotties Glass Candy! It features three versions of the title track of their forthcoming album which should be quite a death disco treat if this one song is any indication. Along with the regular ol' album version you'll get them in acapella and instrumental mode -- the creation of which, we'd venture to say, took little to no artistic effort (just the energy it took the recording engineer to push a mute button!), but will provide all you DJs with ample additional material to extend your Glass Candy supa-sets! Limited pressing of 750.
Glass Candy's debut full length sounds not unlike a severely chemically altered collision between the Missing Persons (y'know, the '80s new wave group from L.A. responsible for "Destination Unknown", "Mental Hopscotch" and "Walking In L.A." with squeaky-voiced, hottie chanteuse Dale Bozzio) and Altered Images (remember them? the '80s British pop band with squeaky-voiced, cutie chanteuse Clare Grogan who were responsible for "Happy Birthday" and "See Those Eyes"). However, the music that backs GC vocalist Ida No (who, for the record, has a voice much richer, if no less affected, than the aforementioned ladies) is nothing like that of either of those groups whatsoever. Glass Candy (formerly Glass Candy & the Shattered Theater) push a dark, stripped-down aesthetic of big guitar, streamlined, insistent, pounding drums, and stylized vocals bathed in delay, with the occasional addition of heavy, A Certain Ratio-esque basslines and synths. At their hair-raising best, Glass Candy remind me of an unholy combo of Christian Death ("Romeo's Distress," "Jesus, Where's the Sugar" -- when Christian Death was good, they were amazing, OK?) and the Stooges. Before it was goth, it was death rock, and before that it was just punks wearing a lot of eye make-up-- and Glass Candy embody that tough, raw rock n' roll energy mixed with sexy, theatrical glamour perfectly. It's a tough task to fully capture the insane energy of their live shows (which are well known to be trainwrecks of throbbing, writhing dramatics) on record, but I think "Love Love Love" is to the challenge. An impressive and satisfying debut that situates Glass Candy near the top of a current group of bands (including fellow Portlanders Get Hustle and Baltimore's Love Life) referencing the darker side of post-punk. Includes an appropriately intense, wrenching cover of the Screamers' "I Wanna Hurt."
Following in the wake of the sizzling comp After Dark, which has quickly become a unanimous AQ favorite, comes this 12" featuring one of the Glass Candy tracks from that vintage disco inspired compilation. In true disco spirit the 12" comes in a seductive diecut sleeve with the single on the 'A' side and the instrumental version on the flipside, along with another instrumental cut. Glass Candy have never sounded better, we love the shift in their sound. Glass Candy have always been perfect for late night dance floor listening but now their sensuality and sexuality seem to be shining through in such a sleek and irresistible fashion.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Two post-post-punk songs (one of them a Screamers cover!) from this new young trio from Portland, OR. Very seething and tense a la Suicide. Dark propulsive music. Fans of the GSL label / art-punk scene should definitely check this out.
Working the kind of style panache that would make Rudi Gernreich beam with pride, it's Glass Candy And The Shattered Theatre from Portland, OR.
With two well-received 7"s under their belt, Ida No, Johnny Jewel and Avalon Kalin offer up a very raw live one-sided 12" of six songs. Includes a highly unstable rendition of Josie Cotton's "Johnny Are You Queer?" as heard in the movie "Valley Girl". Recorded live at Kimo's right here in SF. Please note: the sound quality is pretty blown out, but it does captures the edgy propulsive freak-out that is Glass Candy. As can be expected from a live performance, this is much more flailing and rocked out of control than the dark seething tension of the "Brittle Women" and "Metal God" singles.
Brand new split from these two purveyors of black filth, LA black metal trio Harassor, and Kentucky one man black metal outfit Glass Coffin. Harrassor start things off with a surprising bit of poppiness, the opening of "Promise Of Fire" is crazy catchy, sounding like it could explode into some sort of M83 / Weekend sort of noisepoppiness, but instead, the vocals swoop in, an inhuman shriek, and the sound splinters into some seriously grim blackness, but without ever really losing the vibe of that first riff, in fact, whenever that riff is present, it sounds like some sort of blackened shoegaze, but the song is in constant movement, lurching from chaotic thrashing black blast to churning death march doom, to Venom-ous black metal stomp, but eventually returning to THAT riff. Has us wondering what kind of noisy beauty these guys could whip up if they set their minds to it. But metal heads fear not, the rest of the Harassor half is furious, chugging black metal pound and thrashing, shrieking griminity, although we prefer their sound when it slows down, into a sort of black doom, which it does often, and these guys conjure up some seriously intense doomic ruminations, the sound perfectly murky and blown out. And we just had a chance to see these guys play a couple weeks back, and they were SOOO good.
Glass Coffin start their side off with some classic sounding metal, a little lo-fi, some majestic leads, gruff vokills, before the sound splinters into something more raw and grim and urgent, buzzing insectoid riffing, weird brittle band room production, leads WAY up in the mix, twisted outsider lo-fi primitive blackness that definitely pushes all our raw BM buttons, but then the second track is TOTALLY different, a murky, muddy, frantic blast of black buzz, the drums buried in the mix, growled throat shredding vox, the sound still loose and chaotic and stumbly, the third track too, dramatically different production, but similarly buzzy and grim and hellish, but stick around for the final GC track, the weirdest of the bunch, black ambience beneath a buzzing riff, suspended in space, weird harmonics, a little bit cant post rocky, but also sort of damaged and abstract, a trippy droned out soft noise blackness, that had us wishing for WAY more of that!
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!! Includes a download code too.
Two of our favorite Denver noise rock / post punk outfits team up for a killer blast of nineties style matched out heaviness. Both bands actually played with Andee when A Minor Forest was on tour recently, and that should definitely give you an idea of where these guys are coming from. Accordion Crimes though deliver something much more sinewy and tense, still channeling the Jesus Lizard and sonically similar outfits, with low slung basslines, chaining angular guitars, sung/spoken vocals, some kick ass drumming, and loads of space, some Shellac going on too, but mostly just that classic nineties Midwestern pigfuck math rocking crunch we can't ever seem to get enough of.
Glass Hits deliver two short, sharp blasts, that definitely traffic in some of the same sonic tropes, the rhythm section locked tight, swinging and swagger, the guitars thick and buzzing, but it's the vocals that steal the show, a raspy, emo caterwaul, that manages to peel the paint, but remain melodic, it's hard not to love it, and hard not to imagine the singer must barely be able to talk after these guys play. We definitely get a Quicksand vibe along with the usual suspects, but if you dig that sort of old school melodic heaviness and post/math/noise rock radness, this single will definitely hit the spot.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES! Yellow vinyl, two inserts, one a full color lyric sheet, the other liner notes on vellum, all packaged with a thick, screen printed wooden cover. Includes a download code too!
First proper full length from this mysterious ambient drone noise ensemble. After a super limited cd-r and an also quite limited lp, this cd offers up 33 minutes of Glass Organ's crumbling corrosive drones, ambient, but -active- ambience, bordering on speaker shredding noise at moments, but spending much of its time drifting through dark and murky landscapes of minimal shimmer and subterranean rumble.�
Three tracks, each 11:11 long, this Devillock side project is ultimately a drone record, but GO's drones are twisted into all sorts of different shapes and sounds. The opening track begins with a dense hot static white noise keening feedback burst of blinding grind and roar, before suddenly transforming into burbling underwater whirs, before the corrosive noise of the opening returns, only this time looped into some almost melodies, making it sounds like some sort of damaged My Bloody Valentine outtake.�
The second chunk of 11 minutes and 11 seconds begins in moody mumble minimal mode, before bits of crumbling distortion begin to surface, eventually taking over completely turning the tranquil ambience into some serious blown out guitar drone a la Sunroof! / Hototogisu, all keening high end and grinding abrasive guitar growl. The final 11 minutes (and ii seconds!) is like part two of the second track, the same sort of ultra skree starting�out, this time way lower in the mix, a sort of low level rumble and scrape, which is soon joined by some super distorted psychedelic guitars, noodling and slithering and generally wrapping the low end rumble in sparkling tendrils of white hot guitar buzz. Surprisingly melodic and blissed out.�
Definitely for fans of Sunroof!, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Hototogisu, Burning Star Core, Wolf Eyes and similar practitioners of high end raga skree...
Packaged in a gorgeous and ultra minimal fold together cardstock sleeve, embossed design and text on a white sleeve, very white on white and quite striking. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!
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For those of you who missed out on the amazing Glass Organ cassette (released on bad ass tape label Twonicorn) that we reviewed a while back, which we're guessing is probably most of you since it was limited to 45 copies and we only got about half, that amazing chunk of dreamy drifting droning weirdness is now available on vinyl! Just to refresh your memory, Glass Organ traffic in "slow moving washes of bleak ambience, creaking splintered abstract sound, dotted with bursts of acid fried corrosive synth meltdown, all heated up and poured tar like into your ears, a gurgling, burbling cauldron of warm murk and drooling grime. Filthy, fuzzy, freaked out innerspace ambience." Indeed! And that tape only takes up one side of this here lp, so on the other side, you get another long out of print Glass Organ tape, originally released on Tone Filth in a run of 100 copies (of which we got precisely NONE). It too is a gorgeous slab of corroded drones and fried song fragments. A crumbling mass of degraded sound, pretty little music box melodies drenched in static and hiss, blown out and in the red, constantly drifting from muddy and murky to super hot and fuzzed out, and the whole while slowly falling to pieces. So amazing.
And while these two tapes are finally available again, it doesn't mean they'll be around for long. Of course not. LIMITED TO 365 COPIES!! We got a bunch but odds are we won't be able to get more.
Packaged in super spare hand screened covers with printed black and white inserts.
It's hard to know exactly what to say about Glass Organ, an offshoot of noise combo Devillock (who we have yet to review on the list, we're working on it). We've had a handful of releases, all of them amazing, and all offering up subtle variations on Glass Organ's peculiar sound. And it's that sound that's a bit hard to describe. Which is maybe why we like it so much.�
Imagine a tiny room stuffed full of malfunctioning synthesizers, the din from inside seeping through the cracks, a�white hot, overblown soundscapes of synth damage and melting keyboard murk. Grinding and furious, blinding flurries of overblown glitch and squelch and squiggle. Corroded bits of melodies, and jagged chunks of what might have been songs in some other reality, all careening wildly Against, into, and around each other. It almost sounds like that point when you're listening to the car radio and you drive past a radio tower or something, and suddenly the radio goes haywire, the music becomes jumbled and distorted and unrecognizable, all sorts of random electronic interference starts jumping and skittering and streaking through the speakers, the sound is dizzying and intense, one of the things that convinces folks they made contact with aliens. It sounds a bit like that, if you then ran it through a distortion pedal and broadcast it through a million damaged speakers. But Glass Organ also takes those freaked out synths and smears them into muted�stretches of ultra creepy dark ambience,�intense roiling low end whirs, crumbling and burbling, doused in static and glitch, but strangely pretty, almost like an ultra minimal Goblin. And the sound weaves back and forth between these two extremes, often straddling the two resulting in some seriously creepy, pretty, glitchy noise!
Packaged in gorgeous thick shimmery paper, metallic printing, trippy psychedelic design. Recorded live, and...
LIMITED TO 130 COPIES!!!
Dreamdrone side project of Panther Skull folks. A haunting drift of fluttering synths, soft and wispy. Slow moving, washes of bleak ambience, creaking splintered abstract sound, dotted with bursts of acid fried corrosive synth meltdown, all heated up and poured tar like into your ears, a gurgling, burbling cauldren of warm murk and drooling grime. Filthy, fuzzy, freaked out innerspace ambience.
2ND EDITION, LIMITED TO 25 COPIES!!!
It can be quite daunting to figure out how to navigate the releases of most 20th Century Composers. What is essential and what is not. That may be especially true for Philip Glass who has often walked the line between totally daring, trance inducing, mind expanding compositions and somewhat schmaltzy, overly sentimental syrupy pap. But there is no doubt, that when he's really ON, he still stands as one of the greatest minimalist composers of all time. Analog is -that- side of Glass, the side we never get tired of hearing. Recalling the intensity and brilliance of Music In 12 Parts, these recordings have been relentlessly seeping into our ears and brains and souls. Culled from never before released recordings made in the late 70's, it showcases Glass playing the electric organ, and it is absolutely hypnotic. Earlier this year you might remember us freaking out over a Finnish release from the band Shogun Kunitoki. It's uncanny how you can hear the roots of that record throughout these recordings. Warm analog notes played at a furiously feverish pitch that it's nearly impossible not to get lost in it's repetitive trance. The sound is so pleasingly physical and intense. And there are vocals, but fear not, they manage to become just another mesmerizing instrument working its way into your subconscious just like the flute, the (tasteful) sax and all the different keyboards. Originally conceived for his first scores for film as well as incidental music for a theater company, this is quickly becoming one of our favorite Glass recordings ever!
Philip Glass's first commercial success and enduring classic soundtrack is available once again and in its original completed form (76 minutes) for the first time on cd. Glass's score to Godfrey Reggio's sublime 1983 film, Koyaanisqatsi (the Hopi Indian word meaning "life out of balance") is a perfect marriage to the film's altered time sequences of fast-moving clouds and sped-up machine-like urban scenes of traffic and city-life. The repetitive arpeggios and slowly undulating shifts of patterned movements give off the sensation of static motion enhancing the film's captivating majestic qualities. But even without the visuals, the score by itself stands the test of time, and its longer unabbreviated format renews the film's pointed silent protest against the out-of-control pace and shortened attention spans of our so-called civilization. Recommended!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Music by Mr. Glass composed as a new soundtrack to the Bela Lugosi vampire classic, as performed by Kronos. Did you know that the 'Bela Lugosi' and 'Bela Lugosi as Dracula' characters, names, and all related indicia are trademarks of one Bela G. Lugosi, presumably a descendant of the actor?
It's no secret that we fell head over heels for Glasser's album Ring from last year, and it's left all of us with an impatient thirst to hear more. This new 12" remixed by Hans-Peter Lindstrom takes us to a space-side disco where Glasser melds moodiness and danciness with such great results. Lindstrom seems to key into the Laurie Anderson side of Glasser as the sounds sort of echo the awesome vibe of Big Science, but given a major modern update. Can't wait for a whole new set of songs from Glasser, but until then we'll be jamming this non-stop!
We missed out on Glasser's debut ep which came out last year and quickly went out of print. But everyone we knew who heard it kept telling us we had to check out Glasser, and with the release of her first full length we can now officially proclaim ourselves bigtime fans, as this is proving to be one of the most satisfying, colorful, swirling and flowing pop records of the year. Glasser reminds us a lot of a more sparkling, bright and rhythmic version of Zola Jesus or Islaja. There is a tinge of darkness in her string tones and electronics but there is also so much life and moving energy in her songs which gives the record such an amazing fluidity. Instead of just mimicking Kate Bush, Bjork and Laurie Anderson, she instead takes cues from different elements of their brilliance in helping to create a sound that is both hypnotic and inviting. While she may soon be tagged under the new 'it' genre of 'witch-house' there is something much more singular and organic happening in these songs that can't be written off as any sort of passing fad. This is a record that we think will definitely stand the test of time.
Over the years, we'd only ever heard a track or two from these UK post punks, a band whose members would eventually go on to play in more high profile groups like Maximum Joy and The Pop Group, which should definitely give you an idea of where the Glaxo Babies were coming from. Local reissue label Superior Viaduct continues their idiosyncratic reissue campaign, which has included Devo, the Solaris soundtrack, 100 Flowers, Factrix, Henry Flynt, Phill Niblock, and now Brigitte Fontaine (reviews coming soon) and these two from the Glaxo Babies. The sound will definitely be familiar to fans of post punk of that era, angular metallic guitars, dubby rhythms grooves, repetitive almost chanted vocals, horns, all locked into cyclical, hypnotic grooves. Some tracks frantic and frenetic, others laid back and dreamily druggy. Both of these records were originally released in 1980. Put Me On The Guest List is a collection of the group's demos, recorded live with no overdubs, never intended to be released, but so glad they were, kinetic, almost power poppy, sinewy basslines and simple solid drumming, all in service of some killer guitar work, crunchy jangly riffs, and angular crunch, not to mention some super dramatic vocals, some tracks slipping into near doominess, others tense and intense, angular and atonal, check out "This Is Your Life", all minor key moodiness and heady post punk brood. A few tracks get all reggae / dubby, others skronky and jazzy, and still others super abstract and experimental, but most of Put Me On The Guest List is just primo UK post punk, and essential listening for fans of the Homosexuals, P.I.L., Gang Of Four, Wire and all the rest�
Nine Months To The Disco was the group's first, and only, proper full length, supposedly recorded in a single day, and it's a monster. How a record like this, and a group like this managed to remain so far under the radar is shocking after listening to Nine Months. It's funky and groovy, tense and wiry, the sound slipping easily from moody post punkiness, to downright dancey punk-funk, to super experimental krautrock style minimalism, "This Is Your Vendetta" is dark and creepy and so sinister, all spaced out and shadowy, laced with wild flurries of spastic drumming, spidery guitar melodies, and distant horn skronk, culminating in a truly harrowing sample over the brooding last minute or so. "Seven Days" is all churning jazz minimalism, sounding like a darker, dronier, post punkier Necks! The title track is all backwards rhythms, backwards basslines, and creepy droned out ambience, while "The Tea Master And The Assassin" is another abstract ambient experiment that evokes a sinister sense of dread. "Shake (The Foundations)" is the Glaxo Babies at their funkiest, a track that was often covered by the Pop Group later on, it's a dead ringer for Parliament! And the awesomely titled "Dinosaur Disco Meets The Swampsstomp" is not the funky jam you might imagine, in fact, it's something way more abstract and trippy. For all the post punk, and punk funk on Nine Months To The Disco, it's remarkable how much of the record is totally far our, psychedelic and experimental. Part of what makes it so essential. Like Put Me On The Guest List, Nine Months To The Disco is most definitely for fans of P.I.L, Wire, the Homosexuals, etc. but it's also the sort of think that might push all your This Heat buttons, plenty of kraut influenced rhythmic mesmer and FX heavy avant bunkurfunk. Needless to say WAY recommended!!
