Whoa, this really takes us back! Seminal dream pop band Galaxie 500 were as dreamy as ever when they stopped by John Peel's BBC Radio 1 show for these sessions back in 1989 and 1990. These eight tracks were compiled from those two visits -- the first four were recorded 10/30/90 and the second were from 09/24/89. Included are a few tasty covers of tunes by Young Marble Giants ("Final Days"), Buffy Sainte-Marie ("Moonshot") and Jonathan Richman("Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste").
A selection of twelve of Galaxie 500's finest recordings, gathered from their four albums and the Galaxie 500 box set... & the CD-rom track is the video of "Blue Thunder".
We can't believe it's been 20 years since this trio (and their trio of albums) so gracefully touched our lives during the band's way too brief lifespan. Boy, does it make us feel old! But we can't complain too much as it's so awesome to see these three crucial records available on vinyl once again! For those who may not know, Galaxie 500 was made up of core members Damon Krukowski (drums), Naomi Yang (bass, vocals) and Dean Wareham (guitar, vocals), who are probably more well known now for the bands that formed in Galaxie 500's wake: Damon and Naomi, Luna, and Dean and Britta.
Hailing from the mid-eighties Boston college rock scene (all three attended Harvard), Galaxie 500 were very different from The Pixies and Throwing Muses, who were the more prominent Boston bands at the time, favoring slower-paced reverbed drenched songs, big in sound but played with a minimalist economy. Influenced by later period Velvet Underground, The Modern Lovers, Young Marble Giants and early New Order (all of whom they covered), Galaxie 500's signature dream pop sound (courtesy of producer Kramer, Bongwater frontman and head of the great Shimmy-Disc label) paved the way for both the shoegaze and slowcore scenes of the early nineties. In fact Kramer went on to produce Low's debut in 1994. After three great records for Rough Trade, Galaxie 500 parted ways less than amicably, with guitarist/vocalist Wareham unexpectedly quitting to form his own band Luna, leaving the rhythm section of Damon and Naomi to fend for themselves. While both parties went on to more successful ventures, none of them have quite replaced Galaxie 500's unparalleled pop majesty in our hearts.
This Is Our Music from 1990 wasn't planned as a final album, as the band seemed to be striving for larger recognition with their most accomplished and widely-received record. The opener "Fourth of July" (which was also the single) leaps out with a charge more than any of their other opening songs. Yet most of the rest of the songs are sublimely slow beautiful bummers, with more noticeable shoegazey shimmer. Of course, the centerpiece, yet again is another gorgeous cover. This time it's Yoko Ono's "Listen, The Snow Is Falling". Sung by Yang, the band expands upon a simple original with a stretched out epic instrumental climax. The final track, "King of Spain, Part Two", a kind of follow-up to the b-side of their first single, brings the band around full circle, as the song seems to drift off into the sunset. You couldn't plan a more perfect note for a band like Galaxie 500 to end on.
Once more with feeling! All three of Galaxie 500's classic studio albums have been affordably reissued each with a bonus disc of one of their previously released post-breakup rarities collections: Uncollected, The Peel Sessions and the live Copenhagen cd. Here's what we recently said about them:
We can't believe it's been 20 years since this trio (and their trio of albums) so gracefully touched our lives during the band's way too brief lifespan. Boy, does it make us feel old! But we can't complain too much as it's so awesome to see these three crucial records available once again! For those who may not know, Galaxie 500 was made up of core members, Damon Krukowski (drums), Naomi Yang (bass, vocals) and Dean Wareham (guitar, vocals), who are probably more well known now for the bands that formed in Galaxie 500's wake: Damon and Naomi, Luna, and Dean and Britta. Hailing from the mid-eighties Boston college rock scene (all three attended Harvard), Galaxie 500 were very different from The Pixies and Throwing Muses, who were the more prominent Boston bands at the time, favoring slower-paced reverbed drenched songs, big in sound but played with a minimalist economy. Influenced by later period Velvet Underground, The Modern Lovers, Young Marble Giants and early New Order (all of whom they covered), Galaxie 500's signature dream pop sound (courtesy of producer, Kramer, Bongwater frontman and head of the great Shimmy-Disc label) paved the way for both the shoegaze and slowcore scenes of the early nineties. In fact Kramer went on to produce Low's debut in 1994. After three great records for Rough Trade, Galaxie 500 parted ways less than amicably, with guitarist/vocalist Wareham unexpectedly leaving to form his own band Luna, leaving the rhythm section of Damon and Naomi to fend for themselves. While both parties went on to more successful musical ventures, none of them, at least for us, have quite replaced Galaxie 500's unparalleled pop majesty in our hearts.
This Is Our Music from 1990 wasn't planned as a final album, as the band seemed to be striving for larger recognition with their most accomplished and widely-received record. The opener "Fourth of July" (which was also the single) leaps out with a charge more than any of their other opening songs. Yet most of the rest of the songs are sublimely slow beautiful bummers, with more noticeable shoegazey shimmer. Of course, the centerpiece, yet again is another gorgeous cover. This time it's Yoko Ono's "Listen, The Snow Is Falling". Sung by Yang, the band expands upon a simple original with a stretched out epic instrumental climax. The final track, "King of Spain, Part Two", a kind of reprised follow-up to the B-side of their first single, brings the band around full circle, as the song seems to drift off into the sunset. You couldn't plan a more perfect note for a band like Galaxie 500 to end on. The cd features the Fourth of July single and B-side, VU's "Here She Comes Now", as bonus tracks.
Paired with This Is Our Music is the live Copenhagen disc from a performance in December 1990 recorded by the Danish National Radio. I, (Scott) saw them on this tour (their biggest but sadly their last) in support of the Cocteau Twins, and needless to say, they slayed! The proof is right here!
We can't believe it's been 20 years since this trio (and their trio of albums) so gracefully touched our lives during the band's way too brief lifespan. Boy, does it make us feel old! But we can't complain too much as it's so awesome to see these three crucial records available on vinyl once again! For those who may not know, Galaxie 500 was made up of core members Damon Krukowski (drums), Naomi Yang (bass, vocals) and Dean Wareham (guitar, vocals), who are probably more well known now for the bands that formed in Galaxie 500's wake: Damon and Naomi, Luna, and Dean and Britta.
Hailing from the mid-eighties Boston college rock scene (all three attended Harvard), Galaxie 500 were very different from The Pixies and Throwing Muses, who were the more prominent Boston bands at the time, favoring slower-paced reverbed drenched songs, big in sound but played with a minimalist economy. Influenced by later period Velvet Underground, The Modern Lovers, Young Marble Giants and early New Order (all of whom they covered), Galaxie 500's signature dream pop sound (courtesy of producer Kramer, Bongwater frontman and head of the great Shimmy-Disc label) paved the way for both the shoegaze and slowcore scenes of the early nineties. In fact Kramer went on to produce Low's debut in 1994. After three great records for Rough Trade, Galaxie 500 parted ways less than amicably, with guitarist/vocalist Wareham unexpectedly quitting to form his own band Luna, leaving the rhythm section of Damon and Naomi to fend for themselves. While both parties went on to more successful ventures, none of them have quite replaced Galaxie 500's unparalleled pop majesty in our hearts.
Today was Galaxie 500's 1988 debut, and it's a slow burning paean to the more unstable sides of love and patient resolve. The elliptical rhythm section smolders and intensifies without ever fully "rocking out" while the warm guitar work strums over the top occasionally veering into understated solos. But Wareham's forlorn low-key vocals with clever but enigmatically simple songwriting is what ties the songs together. The centerpiece of the album however is their cover of Jonathan Richman's "Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste". The original version being a short, a capella, almost spoken poem, in Galaxie 500's hands, it becomes a simmering epic as they bookend the singing with forceful driving instrumental passages, sounding like something the early Velvets would have come up with. The final song, "Tugboat" was also their first single, and nicely sets up of what this band is all about: lonely and introspective but decisive, leading and in full control.
Once more with feeling! All three of Galaxie 500's classic studio albums have been affordably reissued each with a bonus disc of one of their previously released post-breakup rarity collections: Uncollected, The Peel Sessions and the live Copenhagen cd. Here's what we recently said about them:
We can't believe it's been 20 years since this trio (and their trio of albums) so gracefully touched our lives during the band's way too brief lifespan. Boy, does it make us feel old! But we can't complain too much as it's so awesome to see these three crucial records available once again! For those who may not know, Galaxie 500 was made up of core members Damon Krukowski (drums), Naomi Yang (bass, vocals) and Dean Wareham (guitar, vocals), who are probably more well known now for the bands that formed in Galaxie 500's wake: Damon and Naomi, Luna, and Dean and Britta.
Hailing from the mid-eighties Boston college rock scene (all three attended Harvard), Galaxie 500 were very different from The Pixies and Throwing Muses, who were the more prominent Boston bands at the time, favoring slower-paced reverbed drenched songs, big in sound but played with a minimalist economy. Influenced by later period Velvet Underground, The Modern Lovers, Young Marble Giants and early New Order (all of whom they covered), Galaxie 500's signature dream pop sound (courtesy of producer Kramer, Bongwater frontman and head of the great Shimmy-Disc label) paved the way for both the shoegaze and slowcore scenes of the early nineties. In fact Kramer went on to produce Low's debut in 1994. After three great records for Rough Trade, Galaxie 500 parted ways less than amicably, with guitarist/vocalist Wareham unexpectedly quitting to form his own band Luna, leaving the rhythm section of Damon and Naomi to fend for themselves. While both parties went on to more successful ventures, none of them have quite replaced Galaxie 500's unparalleled pop majesty in our hearts.
Today was Galaxie 500's 1988 debut, and it's a slow burning paean to the more unstable sides of love and patient resolve. The elliptical rhythm section smolders and intensifies without ever fully "rocking out" while the warm guitar work strums over the top occasionally veering into understated solos. But Wareham's forlorn low-key vocals with clever but enigmatically simple songwriting is what ties the songs together. The centerpiece of the album is their cover of Jonathan Richman's "Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste". The original version being a short, a capella, almost spoken poem, in Galaxie 500's hands, it becomes a simmering epic as they bookend the singing with forceful driving instrumental passages, sounding like something the early Velvets would have come up with. The final song, "King of Spain" was also their first single, and nicely sets up of what this band is all about: lonely and introspective but decisive, leading and in full control.
Today is paired up with with what almost could be considered a lost record, Uncollected: Rarities and Outtakes 1987-1990. Originally compiled for the G500 box set and then released individually, it's a 14-song rarities collection that includes their loving covers of songs by Jonathan Richman (an alternate version of "Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste"), Young Marble Giants ("Final Day"), The Rutles ("Cheese and Onions") and The Beatles ("Rain"), as well as nine originals not on any other album. Uncollected serves as a great overview for newcomers to the enduring, wonderful, shimmering dream pop songs of these short-lived, long-disbanded, indie rock deities.
It sure is a great season for fans of Galaxie 500! Hot on the heels of the fine double-dvd retrospective "Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste: 1987-1991" comes the individual cd release of Uncollected (originally compiled for the G500 box set). It's a 14-song rarities collection that includes their loving covers of songs by Jonathan Richman, Young Marble Giants, The Rutles and The Beatles as well as the added attraction of their "Blue Thunder" video. Uncollected serves as a great overview for newcomers to the enduring, wonderful, shimmering dream pop songs of these short-lived, long-disbanded, indie rock deities.
Totally mind blowing collaboration between three masters of drone / raga / free / folk / noise. New Zealander Alastair Galbraith is a long time AQ fave as is the UK's Richard Youngs. Alex Neilson while not an instantly recognizable name in his own right, has played on oodles of amazing records (including some by Matt Valentine, Taurpis Tula) and you may recognize his name due to the fact that he and Mr. Youngs were the back up band for Jandek at his first ever live performance! None of that has very much to do with this, two sides of incredibly dreamy modern folk raga. Lighter than air swirls of falsetto vocals drift and shimmer, harmonies slowly shifting, all over a long slow drawn out ur-drone, constructed from buzzing steel strings, bits of percussion, warbling synthesizers, spaced out effects, electronic buzz and glitch, strummed guitars get stretched into fuzzy blurs, melodies float by in the distance, chimes tinkle and sparkle, almost the whole disc is made up of languorous, lazy stretches of dreamlike sound, EXCEPT for the opening and closing tracks on side 2, when some wild drumming is introduced, and the FX levels get pushed all the way into the red, and what was once tranquil bliss, is transformed into a snarling, chaotic super tripped out space rock.
Packaged in beautiful simple full color offset printed and debossed sleeves, with deluxe debossed inserts, LIMITED TO 900 COPIES, each insert has the record's number debossed along with of the liner notes, pressed on 180 gram virgin vinyl!
Originally released on cd by the now we believe defunct Emperor Jones label in the year 2000, this, the fourth solo album from New Zealander Alastair Galbraith (A Handful Of Dust, The Rip, Plagal Grind), is a stunner. Rarely has music this experimental been so ACCESSIBLE. But that's genius at work, folks, right here. "Recorded onto TEAC-4 track in a shed at Taieri Mouth between 1998 and 2000", Cry mixes pastoral folk drones with muted electric guitar outbursts, ominous organ rumblings, and Alastair's sung poetry. It's super pretty and quiet and haunting and we highly recommend it. Even if you've never heard this veteran of the Kiwi music scene's records before, this is a fine, fine place to start. A favorite ever since we first reviewed the compact disc version way back on list #99! So glad UK import label MIE has granted this new life, and for the first time on vinyl - which is limited to 500 copies, and comes with a download code.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Limited to 200 numbered copies, this is two new instrumentals from New Zealand's respected experimentalist.
The return of long time fave Alastair Galbraith, and when we say long time, we mean like 20 YEARS long time! Back in the nineties, when aQuarius was in its old, tiny, under the stairs previous Noe Valley location, we were one of the few places in the US to get weird music from New Zealand. Labels like Flying Nun, Xpressway, groups like the Dead C, the 3Ds, Tall Dwarfs, This Kind Of Punishment, Bailter Space, Wreck Small Speakers On Expensive Stereos, The Chills, Pin Group, etc... and of course Galbraith, solo, and in his 'band' Handful Of Dust with Bruce Russell of the Dead C and Peter Stapleton. When we helped set up the Terrastock West festival back in 1998, Galbraith performed an incredible set, but is probably more remembered for buying an inflatable dinghy, and going rowing in the San Francisco Bay!
It's only been a few years since Galbraith's last solo album, the gorgeous Orb, which was his first in years, but we're pleased he seems to be on a more consistent release schedule, cuz as much as we love his various collaborations over the last few years (especially his Long Wires In Dark Museums series with Matt De Gennaro), it's his solo records that really hit the spot for us. Dark and mysterious, intimate and abstract, playful and bizarre, moody and melodic, flitting from perfect pop to what the fuck experimentation and back again. And on Mass it's no different. Another ultra varied collection of fracture home brewed pop experimentation, that for all it's mysterious digressions and clashing styles, somehow flows perfectly as a sprawling and gloriously confusional and cohesive album.
Backwards guitars swoop and flutter, beneath wheezing organs, mumbled vocals drift on smoldering streaks of muted feedback, abstract percussion, plucked folky melodies, field recordings and fractured effects all intersect in some weird sort of lo-fi Morricone soundtrack styled minimalism, Galbraith's beautiful croon slips dreamily around reversed steel string guitars, multitracked into lovely harmonies, thick swaths of buzz pulse and throb almost like a 4-tracked SUNNO))), pump organs groan beneath sweet sing songy vocals, before the vocals flip backwards and are draped over skeletal acoustic guitars, the layered voices creating impossibly pretty backwards harmonies, simple percussion, detuned bass buzz, tinkling lullaby like melodies, stumbling Dead C like noise rock, bleating horns, soundtracky drifts, thick undulating guitardrones, symphonies of high pitched chimes, tolling bells, constantly shifting production, most of the songs barely cracking a minute, only 7 breaking 2 minutes, little perfectly imperfect abstract pop fragments, that assembled manage to sound not at all fragmented. We're of course reminded of Finnish groups like Kemialliset, and Avarus, and Anaksimandros, a similarly ramshackle DIY vibe, but Galbraith takes that vibe, infuses it with a distinctly pop element, creating these gorgeous little sonic gems, that manage to be both pretty and poppy, mysterious and minimal at the same time. Totally beguiling and utterly irresistible.
Includes a download card as well!
Mr. Galbraith spent two years recording these buzzing lo-fi songs onto a four-track reel-to-reel. Haunting. Those of you who loved his set at Terrastock will enjoy this cd, it sounds the closest of all his albums to what he did at that wonderful show.
No, I (Jim) was not working at Aquarius when the shop was cozily tucked away in Noe Valley about a decade ago; but as an avid customer at the 24th Street shop, what I recall was the small corner of the store dedicated to all things New Zealand. Of course, somethings change (like Aquarius' location), but somethings stay the same (the fascination with the sounds and noises from that antepodean island). When I would dig through the old New Zealand section, there would be plenty of colorful pop from Flying Nun records, any number of Graeme Jeffries projects, whatever Michael Morley was doing at the time, and perhaps my favorite of the lot, Alastair Galbraith. Morse was Galbraith's first full album, released back in the early '90s on Siltbreeze after he had been stomping around the New Zealand scene and producing a couple of recordings in the bands The Rip and Plagal Grind. Nevertheless, Morse has now been reissued once again; first a few years ago through Emperor Jones and now through Table Of The Elements, with both reissues coupled with the Gaudylight 7" and now with some extra bonus material dating back to The Rip and Plagal Grind days of celebratory punkadelic rock 'n' slop. On both Morse and Gaudylight, Galbraith offers a stunning array of home-recordings, fragmented folk songs and meandering shanties as if sung by a morose / non-wacky Syd Barrett. Galbraith is the the obvious precursor to everything that fellow New Zealander Antony Milton has done (Nether Dawn, AM, etc.) in terms of conjuring a warmly intimate atmosphere for songs that are undeniably dark in theme. Galbraith grounds his loosely composed songs on acoustic guitar strum, accelerating crank organ drones, and his lilting violin melodies -- all of which attain a mottled hiss through the 4-track production. Some of the songs on Morse were recorded with the full Plagal Grind line-up, and had those tracks been released today, Galbraith would inevitably garner the acid folk tag and would be gallivanting around the globe with Devendra and Vetiver. It just shows that beautiful music can come from anywhere in the world and from anytime.
Oh Alastair, how we have missed you. Although there have been a handful of reissues, a collaboration here and there, and those incredible long wires discs, there's something magical about the strange world Galbraith is able to conjure up give a whole record to work with. A dizzying blend of folky freaky lo-fi experimental pop, handmade instruments, ambience and noise, all held together by some ineffable magic that very few possess, but some, like Galbraith have mastered and seem to unfurl effortlessly.
Orb is the first proper solo record in years and also marks the re-activation of Galbraiths Xpressway label, now called Nextbestway. And once again, we're transported to some mysterious glade, where a strange man is hunched over a small arsenal of sound making devices, and like some sort of mad scientist is assembling an endless series of perfect little sonic gems.
The opening track is so immediately warm and recognizable, with it's warped warbly organ, and Galbraith's haunting multi tracked vocals, reminding us once again, that long before Neutral Milk Hotel, Galbraith was shaping similarly powerful little spiritual pop songs, and "Here Not There" is no different. Less than two minutes, but in that brief span, he's able to lull and soothe, trip out and transport. The second track is even shorter, less than a minute, but it's a killer chunk of billowy krautrock drift that finishes in a flurry of digital skipping.
Galbraith has a sort of Guided By Voices thing going, giving us tantalizing glimpses of incredible hooks, cool moody riffs, fluttering bits of sweet folk, but then nips them in the bud, songs that could very well stretch on for hours, slip away after minutes, sometimes seconds, creating these brief magical flourishes that have us returning over and over to sample briefly, always wanting more.
Like all Galbraith discs, the sounds are disparate, but interconnected, clattery feedback drenched Dead C style noise rock, with crumbling distortion and fuzzy sheets of synth, murky detuned folk ramblings, keening scarping strings, high end skree and metallic reverberations, utterly heartbreaking perfect pop, stretches of field recordings overlaid with soft shimmery drones, wheezing organs and delicate plucked strings, thick swaths of dense guitar buzz and super distorted vocals, black metal via NZ noise rock, meandering abstract Appalachia draped over soft swells of mumble and drift, warm warbly guitar and every possible combination in between.
So lovely, so magical and so totally mysterious. Galbraith is truly a bard from beyond, a songsmith who transcends genre, perhaps even time and space. And we're so glad to have him back.
Some of the finest new material we've heard in a long while from this solo Kiwi musician, who composes beautiful songs from fragments of melody, treated voice, and guitar etc.
AQ favorite, New Zealand experimentalist Alastair Galbraith has redesigned Syd Barrett style folk/psychedelia for acoustic guitar, violin, and his voice... with lots of backwards masking, tape loops, and hints of his other project A Handful of Dust. Outstanding bedroom recordings.
This is volume two of one of our favorite records EVER, Long Wires In Dark Museums, a sound installation from a few years back where New Zealand underground legend Alastair Galbraith teamed up with American musician Matt De Gennaro and strung long metal wires, some as long as 100 feet, between the walls of the performance space, and thus proceeded to scrape and bow and coax huge reverberant drones and groans from the wires, creating huge metallic dronescapes, informed by the works of Harry Bertoia and the long string experiments of Ellen Fullman. the cool thing about these Long Wires In Dark Museums, is that when the wires are excited they don't actually produce the sound, it's the points at which the wires are affixed to the space, the vibrations run up the wall, or through the windows, turning the whole space into a natural resonator, where the architecture of the space, the shape of the rooms, the makeup of the walls determine the tone and timbre of the sound. These performances occur in utter darkness as well, so the ears become the only sense that matters.
The sounds these two, and their building of choice create is magnificent, massive, the sort of sound that not only resonates within the space, but also in our ears, in your bones. It's like the idea of bowed metal, the glorious warm sound that makes, expanded and stretched out into a sound at once so natural, but so alien, that it's impossible to not be drawn in and completely mesmerized. It almost sounds like huge violins, or a cello the size of a barn, being tuned and tinkered with. Long notes stretched out for minutes, letting the microtones and sonic subtleties gradually reveal themselves. These metallic drones shift and shimmer, each long strecth of sound full of subtle colors and layer after layer of strange texture. This is seriously deep listening. Very very recommended, as is the first volume.
Despite the designation as being "Volume 1," "Long Wire In Dark Museum" is the second documentation of the long thin wire music of New Zealand's multi-talented violinist Alastair Galbraith and American composer Matt De Gennaro, following their previous
This is the first we've heard from Alastair Galbraith since a couple years ago, when he teamed up with Matt De Gennaro for an album of Ur-drone we absoultely loved, gorgeous bowed piano and violin strings, shimmering and shuddering. Really dreamy and mesmerising. And it seems like Galbraith is continuing even further in his trajectory away from song based forms and toward more free and abstract sound. And we couldn't be happier. While we love everything this man does, our hearts belong to the drone. For these two lengthy tracks, Galbraith teams up with fellow Kiwi legend Constantine Karlis, drummer for High Dependency Unit, to craft delicate and spidery abstract soundscapes of buzzing, scraping and keening violin, treated guitar loops, and scattered free drumming. The result is absolutely divine. Spare and spacious, the violin occsionally hints at eastern sounding ragas, playing almost-melodies, before slipping back into wavery drones, squeaky and swaying, while the huge, cavernous sounding drums are splattered throughout, sometimes a basic primal rhythm, sometimes barely-there flourishes, and sometimes a full on squall of percussive brutality. At it's free-est it's a bit like Angus Maclise or Tony Conrad backing up a free jazz drummer, when proceedings get a little more structured, you can almost imagine Damon Che of Don Caballero or...maybe even...ME (I tried to think of another drummer but Allan made me put me, Andee Connors), drumming for Lamonte Young or John Cale. So highly recommended. A new favorite late night record for the drone-prone among us.
One of our favorite iconoclastic New Zealanders accompanies his idol Pipp Proud, an older Aussie who writes quiet, heartfelt songs.
We've been enjoying a barrage of weird new tapes from East Bay tape label Sanity Muffin over these last few months, and this week marks the release of yet -another- batch, one of which is this one right here, the latest from Galena, the blackened synth-drone project of the man behind the label, and like the Galena jams we've heard before, Buried Finch is another collection of smoldering kosmische space outs that often splinter into grinding, glitched out psychedelic noise. Give a listen to the opener, beginning with soft shimmery celestial swirls, before a crumbling caustic buzz surfaces from below, pulsing and sinister, wrapping its inky tendrils around the otherwise dreamy drift, but while it's that buzz and crunch that seems to sonically dominate, much of Buried Finch finds Galena exploring much more abstract and spacey sounds, deep rumbling thrum, bleary, blurry swaths of chordal shimmer, gristly Tim Hecker like shoegaze-synth buzz, mysterious disembodied voices, deep dramatic vox, dubbed out barely there rhythms, a few moments of Casio drum machine driven Goblin / Carpenter style grooviness, but with plenty of jams that could be remixed Will Over Matter tracks. Thick gnarled sprawls of synth buzz, minimal and mesmerizing, here wrapped around motorik rhythms, and swirling space-y textures, like the soundtrack to some tripped out low budget art film, or the music accompanying the scariest planetarium show EVER.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!
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One of two new releases on Oakland label Sanity Muffin, the other, a fantastic collection of sonic strangeness from Dutch blackened drone/dirge ambient outfit Torture Corpse, and this, some droned out blackened heaviness from Galena, the one man band of the guy behind the SM label, and it's definitely the sort of sound that pushes all our buttons. Shouldn't take more than a minute or so before you're sucked in, after some swirling ambience, a strange rifflike high end drone loops and loops, and then suddenly everything explodes in a frenzy of what can only be described as electronic black buzz, a churning bit of melody looped beneath sheets of hiss and buzz and thrum, with what sounds like a super distorted blast beat laid over the top, the result is fantastically psychedelic and hypnotic, even as the blast beat fades, and much of the buzz, the ensuing high ends shimmer and thick layered crunch continues to invoke the same sort of grim vibe, except here, Galena lays some lilting warped melodies over the top, so it almost sounds like a Philip Jeck installation gone haywire, a wild tangle of woozy synths over a thick swirl of Our Love Will Destroy The World like skree.
And that's just the first track. The rest of the tape plays out similarly though, taking riffy black metal buzz and transforming it into something much more washed out and psychedelic, the various elements seeming to ooze and bleed and melt before our ears, sometimes building to crushing cacophonies, other times smoothed out into a sort of almost Pop Ambient prismatic mesmer. A murky, drifty bit of ambient buzz and blurred blackened swirl, that definitely has us wanting to hear more.
Nice packaging, too, a thick cardstock J-card , with a xeroxed hand stamped insert.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!!
While she sometimes gets overlooked, France Gall is one of French Pop's greatest treasures. She's been making great records from her beginnings way back in 1963 all the way to the present day. This collection draws from her early years ('63-'68) and demonstrates what French pop perfection and fun is all about. With many of these songs written and arranged by Serge Gainsbourg (of course), Gall displays an incredible talent at such a young age, evoking such playfulness, innocence, and smoking sensuality. These early years find her in full on ye-ye girl glory. Her poppiest and catchiest tracks for sure, but also showing the range in her delivery in some of her more slow and midtempo numbers which really floor us the most. These are songs with the same kind of undeniable charm that early works of Nancy Sinatra, Bridgett Bardot, and Francoise Hardy also exuded. An absolute must have for any fan of French pop, and well just great pop period!
From the man behind two of our favorite labels, the now defunct Starlight Temple Society, and post STS label Khrysanthoney, comes this hefty metal tome. We're discovering GOTG on issue 5, perhaps the final issue, for now at least, we're a little late to the party, not sure how we missed the first four, cuz this definitely has tons of awesome stuff in it, and seems like anyone who has been digging Oaken Throne (R.I.P.), Rape & Honey, The Convivial Hermit, Forgotten Path, not to mention the recently compiled / reissued Slayer mag as well as all the other recent (and not so recent) kick ass underground metal mags, would definitely dig this too.
Nicely laid out, the whole thing printed white on black paper (very metal), with lots of pix, and band logos, and drawings, a handful of record reviews, with reviews often separated into different categories, with different reviews for production, music and vocals, and he even reviews a bunch of his own releases. But the crux of the mag is interviews, this time around with Destruktor, Black Witchery, Nyogthaeblisz, Yosuke from Nuclear War Now!, Forgotten Woods / Joyless, Velvet Cacoon, Jon from Full Moon Productions, Nightbringer, Perversor, Ignivomous, Dead Congregation, Deiphago, John Mincemoyer, who is 1/2 of the team that produced all time aQ beloved metal zine Oaken Throne, Black Majesty, Ares Kingdom, Crimson Moon, Goatlord, Maledicere, Profanatica, Roba El-Khaliyeh, Wolfhetan, the Ajna Offensive, and finally an interview with black metal illustrator Kramer (who also plays in Grand Belial's Key and runs the musically cool but otherwise highly problematic Satanic Skinhead Propaganda label), plus probably most strangely of all, an interview with, and a bit of brutal erotica / S&M fiction from, the writer Maija, whose story is accompanied by some high school binder style pencil drawings of a woman being tied up and hung from hooks. Well the magazine IS called Gallery Of The Grotesque, after all.
For the most part, essential metal reading for sure. And it has us definitely hoping for an issue six...
Comes with a cd sampler of releases on the Hell's Headbangers label...
Hmmm... This band should be an easy sell, really. Start with this: DOOM. A la Hellhammer (Tom G. Warrior's adolescent pre-Celtic Frost outfit that helped pioneer death/doom metal from a basement in Switzerland back in the early eighties), Eyehategod, and maybe Corrupted too. They're Japanese (so we can make more Corrupted comparisons). And this trio consists entirely of girls. One of our distros described Gallhammer thusly: "All female Japanese Hellhammer worship Band. Not ugly girls doing ugly, ugly music!". The high-contrast black and white photo on the back cover of band members Mika Penetrator (guitar/vocals), Vivian Slaughter (bass/vocals), and Risa Reaper (drums) reveals that "not ugly" comment apparently to be correct, with some vaguely corpse-paint-like mascara adding to their sex appeal. Not that that should be the selling point. After all, listening to this, you'd have *no idea* they were female. Throaty, demonic screams belch forth amidst pummelling drum battery and distorted, feedbacking guitar. Female? Male? They don't even sound human, really. Though the emotions expressed are all too human. Nihilistic bleak hateful depressive stuff. It's raw, primitive doom that captures that Hellhammer vibe by following a similar learning curve as those guys did back in the '80s -- Gallhammer's offical bio on their website states: "Feburary 2003: We start Gallhammer" followed by "Feburary 2003: Each member start to play instrument." And then Gloomy Lights was recorded in 2004. Yep, what Gallhammer does is simple and effective: heavy, plodding music and rough, croaking vocals, with plenty of ominous ambience in the breaks and build-ups. There's eight grim and spooky tracks here culminating in the 10-minute "Color Of Coma", which features a great deal of atmospheric drone. Think Hellhammer meets Angelblood, perhaps.
Look out for a new Gallhammer album this year to be released by Peaceville.
Ok, hopefully all of you into dooooooooooooooooom have heeded our recommendations in the past ("best band EVER" we may have said, in a moment of infatuation) and are already well acquainted with this cult Japanese band who exude a magnificently miserable mixture of slow, atmospheric doominess and crusty black metal thrashing, inspired by the likes of Celtic Frost/Hellhammer (natch), Amebix, and Corrupted. This is their 2nd full-length studio album, following 2004's Gloomy Lights debut and last year's The Dawn Of Gallhammer demos n' live cd+dvd collection. That's the one where we busted out the Simpsons Comic Book Guy impersonation in our review, but it's this album that really seals the deal, when it comes to Gallhammer's position in the pantheon of most depressive doom bands ever, anyway. They're up there, no doubt about it, as is proved by this collection of ten tracks, each one of 'em often (but not always) a slow-motion trudge through the depths of emotional bleakness in the form of monotonously massive low-end guitar riffage, wretched cookie monster screams, and simple, gloomy melodies. Several of the song titles are quite indicative of their sound: "Long Scary Dream", "SLOG", "Ripper In The Gloom"... Many of these varied tracks feature a dynamic combination of knock-you-over-with-a-feather soft n' sad prettiness setting you up for some smash-you-with-a-hammer heaviness, or even manage both at the same time. It's the former element, this band's almost post-rock instrumental mesmeric moodiness, for which we think Gallhammer should be best noted. Not that it has any of post-rock's usual complexity, this is raw and primal and ritualistic, perfectly encapsulated by the way the stark, repetitive slowcore acoustic guitar part at the start of "Ripper In The Gloom" suddenly, shockingly gives way to a full-on punk rock assault.
It also seems possible that Gallhammer, along with their interest in underground '80s doom-crust, also shares some of the Velvet Underground fixation displayed by their contemporaries from the Japanese psych-rock scene, like LSD-march and Doodles. Heck, track one, the nearly eight minute "At The Onset Of The Age Of Despair" seems to have echoes of VU's "Venus In Furs"... If one of Gallhammer's songs wound up on a PSF Tokyo Flashback comp someday we'd be surprised, yes, but only a little. Though it sure wouldn't be a track like "Killed By The Queen" or "Blind My Eyes", two of the punked out, filthy metal blitzes on here, the latter of which throws in some uncharacteristic Melt-Banana style yelping, dogwhistle vocals along with the usual guttural grunting and growling.
Hey, we made it all the way to the end of this review without mentioning Gallhammer's major non-musical selling point... we said they're a "cult" band above, but were tempted to say "cute", as this trio just happen to all be attractive young Japanese ladies, their looks further enhanced by the tasteful application of gothy corpsepaint makeup. No this fact doesn't make Gallhammer's music sound any better (or worse) but it's, um, interesting. Happily, though, Peaceville isn't using Gallhammer's sex appeal to sell this album, there's not even any pictures of the band at all included in the classy-lookin' white-and-silver digipack. Recommended nonetheless!
Every metalhead we know has been freaking out over Hellhammer worshipping all girl crusty black metal outfit Gallhammer. And for good reason, the dew spit up a filthy sludgey blackened pound, that pays proper homage to the 'Hammer that came before. But truth be told, there is a bit of novelty to their appeal, hard to argue with three young cute Japanese girls in bullet belts and Amebix shirts, adorned in spikes and smeared black raccoon eye makeup, making this gloriously unholy racket. And we'd be lying if we didn't admit to at least a few aQ staffers having a bit of a metal girl crush on Ms. Vivian Slaughter.
Thus, those not afforded the luxury of actually seeing Gallhammer play live, have been clamoring for a live video. The music is awesome, but somehow more awesome when that harsh hellish howl is coming out of such a diminutive frontwoman, and this din is being produced by this all female trio. So here you have it, Gallhammer, performing live, like the title says in "the ruin of a church", the band set up upon the altar, in front of glowing stained glass windows, pretty striking visually for sure, and the sound is fantastic, thick and chuggy, pounding and blackened, the vocals a blasphemous presence in this house of God. BUT, the band aren't all that exciting to watch play. They don't headbang, they don't jump around or thrash wildly, and to be fair, maybe this music doesn't lend itself to that sort of action. Instead the band sort of sway back and forth, entranced, occasionally stepping to the mic to bellow hellishly (and it's revealed that both axeslingers have wails that could peel paint!). So minus any sort of extreme action, it is mesmerizing, helped along by the massive riffs and pounding rhythms, the whole band conjuring up some early eighties demons and channeling them into filthy crusty buzz.
There are plenty of extras, two other live shows, a bunch of videos (that are mostly the band rocking out live, but they rock out WAY harder for the camera), a photo gallery (!), and a band interview, but again, it's slow going as it's subtitled, and being translated, so there's plenty of waiting for questions, answers, and nothing wild or shocking, just a mellow conversation, interesting for sure, but not mind blowing.
But so what. It's GALLHAMMER!!! And for all our minor kvetching, this disc is pretty cool, and for now, as close as we're gonna get to sweating and swaying wildly in the pit at a Gallhammer show, and certainly as close as we'll ever get to actually talking to Vivian. Swooooon. So yeah, recommended. ----* ----* In Stock, Not Yet Reviewed : ----* If you want to order one of these, just search for the item, then click on the buy button and it will be added to your cart! ABSOLUT NULL PUNKT "Absolute Magnitude" (Blossoming Noise) cd 14.98 AETHENOR "Betimes Black" (VHF) cd/lp 13.98/14.98 AIR "Moon Safari" (EMI) cd + dvd + book 26.00 ALLIEN, ELLEN "Sool" (BPitch Control) cd/lp 15.98/19.98 AMEBIX "No Sanctuary" (Alternative Tentacles) cd/lp+7" 14.98/13.98 AMON DUUL II "Hijack" (Revisited Records) cd 17.98 ANAKRID "Banishment Rituals of The Disenlightened" (Beta-lactam Ring) cd 16.98 ANAKRID "s/t" (Fever Dream Fever) lp 13.98 ANAL MAGIC & REV. DWIGHT FRIZZELL "Beyond The Black Crack" (Paridigm) cd 16.98 ANIMUS "Hallucinations: Ideals Surrounding Water, Sand, And Clouds Of Dust" (Ars Manga) cd 14.98 ANNIVERSARY, THE "Devil on Our Side: B-Sides & Rarities" (Vagrant) cd 14.98 ATAVIST "Alchemic Resurrection" (Rise Above) 10" 17.98 AVSKY "Malignant" (Moribund) cd 14.98 BEHEXEN "My Soul For His Glory" (Moribund) cd 14.98 BUN B "II Trill-(Chopped up not Blopped up version)" (Rap-A-Lot) cd 14.98 BUN B "II Trill" (Rap-a-lot) cd 14.98 BURNING BRIDES "Anhedonia" (Cobraside) cd 14.98 CELESTIAL BLOODSHED "Cursed, Scarred and Forever Possessed" (Moribund) cd 14.98 CLOUDLAND CANYON / MYTHICAL BEAST "split" (Not Not Fun) lp 14.98 CLOUDS "We Are Above You" (Hydra Head) cd 14.98 COFFINS "Buried Death" (20 Buck Spin) cd 14.98 COFFINS "Mortuary Of Darkness" (Kreation Records) 2lp 22.00 COUGH "Sigillum Luciferi" (Forcefield Records) cd 10.98 COURTIS, ANLA / SEIICHI YAMAMOTO / YOSHIMI "Live At Kanadian" (Public Eyesore) cd 10.98 DEADBIRD "Twilight Ritual" (At A Loss) cd 13.98 DISKJOKKE "Staying In" (Smalltown Supersound) cd 16.98 DRUMM, KEVIN "Imperial Distortion" (Hospital) 2cd 19.98 DRUNK INJUNS "From Where The Sun Now Stands I Will Fight No More, Forever" (Alternative Tentacles) cd 10.98 EATER "The Album + Singles Plus" (Anagram) 2cd 17.98 EMPIRE AURIGA "Auriga Dying" (Moribund) cd 14.98 FERN KNIGHT "s/t" (VHF) cd 13.98 FLAMES OF HELL "Fire and Steel" (Draconian Records) cd 18.98 FLEET FOXES "s/t" (Sub Pop) cd/lp 13.98/15.98 GOTO80 "Made On Internet" (Pinipung) cd 17.98 HOLLENTHON "Opus Magnum" (Napalm Records) cd 15.98 I SHALT BECOME "Requiem" (Moribund Records) cd 15.98 IHSAN "Angl" (Candlelight USA) cd 12.98 INDIAN JEWELRY "Fake and Cheap" (dLTD) lp 17.98 INDRICOTHERE "s/t" (Gilead Media) lp+cd 14.98 ITAL TEK "Cyclical" (Planet Mu) cd 14.98 JEPSON, WARNER "Totentanz and Other Electronic Works, 1958 - 1973" (Melon Expander) cd 19.98 JEX THOTH / PAGAN ALTAR "split" (I Hate Records) 7" 12.98 JIMMY CAKE, THE "Spectre & Crown" (Pilatus) cd 17.98 JOAN AS POLICE WOMAN "To Survival" (Chrysalis) cd 13.98 KULTIVATOR "Barndomens Stigar" (Mellotronen) 2cd 28.00 KWELI, TALIB "Eardrum" (Blacksmith) cd 13.98 LES TROUBADOURS DU ROI BAUDOIN "Missa Luba" (El / Cherry Red) cd 17.98 LIL MAMA "VYP Voice Of the Young People" (Zomba) cd 17.98 MACHINEFABRIEK "Bijeen" (Kning Disk) cd 14.98 MACHINEFABRIEK & STEPHEN VITIELLO "Box Music" (12K) cd 14.98 MANIACS DREAM "Turku Hold 'Em" (Lal Lal Lal) cd 15.98 MASTERS, MARC "No Wave" (Black Dog Publishing) book 29.95 MGR "Wavering On The Cresting Heft" (Conspiracy) cd 14.98 MONOLAKE "Hongkong (Remastered)" (Monolake) cd 17.98 MONOTONIX "Body Language" (Drag City) cd/lp 12.98/12.98 MORGEN "s/t" (Phoenix) cd 17.98 MY MORNING JACKET "Evil Urges" (ATO Records) cd 13.98 N.E.R.D. "Seeing Sounds" (Star Trak) cd 14.98 NACHTMYSTIUM "Assassins: Black Meddle Part 1" (Century Media) cd 13.98 NATURAL FOOD "s/t" (Porter Records) cd 16.98 NEED MORE SOURCES "Shed" (Moteer) cd 15.98 NEGATIVLAND "A Big 10-8 Place" (Seeland) 2cd 15.98 NEGATIVLAND "Presents Thigmotactic" (Seeland) cd 13.98 NEMESIS "The Day Of Retribution" (GMR Music) cd 23.00 O LEVEL (TEENAGE FILMSTARS) "A Day In The Life of Gilbert and George: 1977-1980" (Artpop!) cd 17.98 OMEGA "10000 Lepes" (Hungatron) cd 17.98 OPETH "Watershed (Collector's Edition)" (Roadrunner) 2cd 23.00 PATE, JOHNNY "Outrageous" (Dusty Groove) cd PEACE, THE "Black Power" (Groo) lp 30.00 PENTEMPLE "s/t" (Southern Lord) cd 15.98 PINK FAIRIES "Finland Freakout 1971" (MLP (Major League Productions)) cd 27.00 PLUXUS "Solid State" (Kompakt) cd 16.98 PRISONERS, THE "Rare And Unissued" (Big Beat) cd 17.98 PUMICE "Quo" (Soft Abuse) cd 14.98 QUANTEC "Unusual Signals" (Echochord) cd 16.98 REATARD, JAY "Singles 06-07" (In The Red) 2cd 17.98 RILEY, TERRY "The Last Camel In Paris" (Elision Fields) cd 14.98 RUSSIAN CIRCLES "Station" (Suicide Squeeze) cd 14.98 SARMANTO, HEIKKI "Moonflower" (Porter Records) cd 16.98 SEMIMUUMIO "Vamos" (Lal Lal Lal) cd 15.98 SEVEN THAT SPELLS "Black OM Rising" (Beta-Lactam) cd 26.00 SHY CHILD "Noise Won't Stop" (Kill Rock Stars) cd 14.98 SIC ALPS "U.S. EZ" (Siltbreeze) cd 13.98 STAR STANGLED BANGER "s/t" (Aztec) cd 24.00 STOOGES, THE "Gimme Some Skin" (Get Back) cd/lp 17.98/16.98 STUDIO "Yearbook 2" (Information) cd 17.98 TAPE "Luminarium" (Hapna) cd 16.98 TILLY AND THE WALL "s/t" (Team Love) cd 15.98 U.S. CHRISTMAS "Eat The Low Dogs" (Neurot Recordings) cd 14.98 UNEARTHLY TRANCE "Electrocution" (Relapse) cd 15.98 V/A "Des Jeunes Gens Modernes" (Naive) 2cd 27.00 V/A "Disco Italia" (Strut) cd 14.98 V/A "Do The Pop! Redux Part One" (Savage Beat) 2cd 24.00 V/A "Ed Rec Vol III" (Ed Banger) 2lp 29.00 V/A "Ethiopiques 23 : Orchestra Ethiopia" (Buda Musique) cd 15.98 V/A "Japanese New Music Festival 2008" (Magaibutsu) cd 13.98 V/A "Well Hung: 20 Funk-Rock Eruptions From Beneath Communist Hungary - Vol.1" (Finders Keepers) cd 23.00 VILLALOBOS, RICARDO "Enfants (MAGMA REMIXES)" (SED) 12" 17.98 WHITE STRIPES, THE "De Stijl" (Third Man / Warner) cd 12.98 WHITE STRIPES, THE "Elephant" (Third Man / Warner) cd 13.98 WHITE STRIPES, THE "Get Behind Me Satan" (Third Man / Warner) cd 14.98 WHITE STRIPES, THE "Icky Thump" (Warner Bros.) cd 16.98 WHITE STRIPES, THE "s/t" (Third Man / Warner) cd 13.98 WHITE STRIPES, THE "White Blood Cells" (Third Man / Warner) cd 14.98 WHO'S YOUR FAVORITE SON GOD "Out of Body Diva" (Holy Mountain) cd 13.98 WICKHAM-SMITH, SIMON "Love & Lamentation" (Pogus Productions) cd 14.98 WICKHAM-SMITH, SIMON & RICHARD YOUNGS "Veil (For Greg)" (Jagjaguwar) cd 14.98 WILSON, GARY "You Think You Really Know Me: The Gary Wilson Story" (Plexifilm) dvd 26.00 WOLF PARADE "At Mount Zoomer" (Sub Pop) cd/lp 14.98/14.98 YA HO WHA 13 "Feather Of Wisdom" (Phoenix) lp 23.00 YELLOW SWANS "Deterioration" (Modern Radio Record Label) cd 11.98 _______________________________________________________________________ ABOUT MAILORDER
In the voice of Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons: "Best band EVER."
No, we're not actually implying an endorsement of Gallhammer by Comic Book Guy. But, IF Comic Book Guy was into old school death/black/doom metal and crusty punk (which, we'd imagine he probably isn't) -and- was really into cute Japanese girls (which, chances are, he is), then, well, Gallhammer would be one of his favorite bands. We can't help but like 'em lot ourselves. We reviewed their debut cd Gloomy Lights back on list 235, and pointed out then that while a trio of cute, Japanese girls with raccoon eyes playing in the style of '80s doom pioneers Hellhammer was an obvious high-concept selling point, from -listening- to it you sure couldn't tell they were cute or even female. But you could tell that their music was utterly grim and wretched and heavy as hell, which for us was enough to recommend it. Glacial riffs, pounding drums, atmospheric breaks, deathly croaks... raw and primitive and very effective!
We also reported that they'd gotten signed to Peaceville, who have cleverly determined that the best way to introduce Gallhammer to the masses isn't with a new album (still upcoming) but with this, a collection of demos and rehearsal tracks. Oh, and with a DVD disc of live performances. That's the clever part. Once you see vocalist/bassist Vivian Slaughter in her Celtic Frost t-shirt, staring blankly into space and grunting inhumanly into the microphone, you'll be smitten. Or watch drummer Risa Reaper thrash her kit, providing back-up screams too. Or witness guitarist Mika Penetrator (Amebix t-shirt for her) crank out the riffage whilst contributing blood-curdling vokills as well... it's all over. Is there a fan club? Where do we sign up? Seriously, though, the live footage is convincing. They're a killer band. And have a great sense of theatrics, looking so much like those spooky girls you always see in Japanese horror films with their long black hair and hollow eyes.
The DVD features 24 songs from six shows filmed at various venues in Japan between 2005 and 2006. Some are pro shot (the show at Okayama Pepper Land which is presented in its entirety) and others are more bootleggy lookin' but still perfectly acceptable. And there's also a photo gallery of stills to stimulate more fanboy drool.
Meanwhile, on the audio disc, you get twelve tracks including two exclusive demos of (brutal) brand new songs, along with rarities going back to before the Gloomy Lights album. If you've heard Gallhammer before, you know this is gonna be crushing. Far from cartoonish. If you haven't heard 'em, this a good place to enter their haunted world of misanthropic moody metal. Imagine if Unsane, Corrupted and Zeni Geva got together in a cave to make the soundtrack to some freaky J-horror flick, after listening to nothing but Tom G. Warrior's earliest output and the occasional Velvet Underground album for inspiration. Cool, eh?
This ultra kvlt (and, we must admit, quite kvte!) all-girl Japanese band who play the blackened "metal of death" in a most dirgey and crusty stylee, inspired by (no duh) '80s death/doom pioneers Hellhammer, have returned after 4 years with a new album - titled with some finality The End, though let's hope it ain't. If you're an AQ customer with a pulse, at all into the doomy and dank, you're probably already a Gallhammer fan and are 'adding to cart' as we speak. If at all hesitant, the abysmal buzz and clank of going nowhere not so fast opener "The End" ought to convince you! With that title track out of the way, the Gallhammer gals (now the duo of bassist/vocalist Vivian Slaughter & drummer Risa Reaper, former guitarist Mika Penetrator having left after 2007's Ill Innocence) pick up the pace a bit on the next even more brutal number "Rubbish CG202" (one of several weird, partly numeric song titles on the album, btw), and vary between a flashing stroboscopic throb and molasses creepy crawl throughout this disc, the rhythms more a function of fluctuation in the overlaying distortion field than anything else. The vokills vary too, from rasping guttural anguish to some disturbing yelps (on "Aberration") and even almost actual singing (on "Sober").
The truth is, Gallhammer aren't really so much a metal band, as they are purveyors of nihilistic noise rock, having as much or more in common with the likes of Kevin Drumm, Wolf Eyes, Prurient, Sister Iodine, Aufgehoben No Process, Brainbombs, etc. as they do with the aforementioned Hellhammer, and other old school metal/punk artists whose T-shirts they're often seen wearing, like Amebix. The final cut, the ten+ minute "108=7/T-NA" is perhaps the weirdest, most WTF?, featuring some frightening saxophone textures, played by Ms. Slaughter... but don't worry, this is neither smooth nor jazz!! Just more grinding terror, the end of The End going to the utter extreme of experimental yet primitive doomdrone metal. Damn. We're falling in love with Gallhammer all over again.
While writing a recent review about his favorite group King Crimson (!), Vincent Gallo allowed himself the indulgence of a viperous tangential rant against Harmony Korine: "When a mini-dwarf rich kid from Nashville like Harmony Korine flies first class and moves to New York City's Soho in his 'plush safe' apartment, running around town quoting Godard with lines like, 'Fuck the bourgeois', it's insincere, it's calculated, it's unoriginal, and it's the worst thing in the world, 'trendy'. He already knows that he and his boring girlfriend Connecticut Chloe Sevigny are going to be on the cover of 'The Face'. He knows he'll get his run at The Angelica and be hip in Japan. But no one will ever make an important film because they saw 'Gummo' or 'Donkey Boy'." (http://www.vincentgallo.com/writing/KingCrimson.html) The irony of such a statement is that many of Gallo's critics have uttered very similar attacks against him. In a lot of ways, Gallo brings it upon himself with the public display of a blunt persona that is crass, misogynistic, and brutally ugly. Yet amidst these horrible aspects of humanity, Gallo's facade cracks with wondrous displays of romantic dreams that sing the praises of 'pretty girls,' Genet-like love stories borne out of abjection, and the ephemeral magic of his musical constructions. How much of this dichotomy falls under the category of artistic calculation and how much of it is a hyper-dramatization of Gallo's polarization of human characteristics -- both positive and negative.
Of course, Vincent Gallo doesn't give a fuck what you or I may think about his art, as he's already convinced that's he a genius. I (Jim) enjoyed the grim artistry of "Buffalo 66" but was initially skeptical of his music, as a passing fancy for dilettante who somehow managed to convince Warp Records to sign him. Yet, in setting my pre-conceptions aside and actually listening to his previously published "When" (a bit of a sleeper hit among several of us here at Aquarius) and now "Recordings Of Music For Film," Vincent Gallo is a musician whose talent is not easy to dismiss as a cultural fluke. Like "When," his film scores to "Buffalo 66," "The Way It Is," "Downtown 81" and "If You Feel Froggy, Jump" are delicate, bittersweet wisps of song fragments, with ghostly guitar strumming that recalls late '80s Jandek, Gallo's Chet Baker-like voice, passing flourishes from a clarinet or a melodica, and very little else. What is most impressive is the consistency between all of these recordings despite the 15 years between "Buffalo 66" and "The Way It Is," whose scores make up the majority of this album. Regardless, it ends up being beautiful, no matter what opinion you may hold about Vincent Gallo.
While it's probably true that the reason this album got released on hip UK electronica label Warp is that Vincent "Buffalo 66" Gallo is a famous guy, that doesn't mean it's a bad album. Some folks here at Aquarius wanted to assume that, but repeated
- RealAudio clip: When
- RealAudio clip: Was
You might not know the name John Gallow. How 'bout John Gallo? Doesn't ring a bell? BLIZARO, then? Hopefully you do recognize that name. We've previously listed a bunch of Blizaro, making their cd City Of The Living Nightmare a Record Of The Week a few years ago. Blizaro's a BIG fave of ours. And multi-instrumentalist John Gallo(w), also of trad doomsters Orodruin and blackened thrashers Crucifist, is the talented/demented mind behind Blizaro! Now he offers up this solo disc, using a slight variation on his own name. Of course, we wondered immediately just what the difference would be between Blizaro and John Gallow solo; the answer is, while Blizaro plays some strains of '70s sounding psychedelic doom, as heard through the kaleidoscopic lens of proggy, electronic cult Italian horror cinema soundtracks (i.e., "Sabbath meets Goblin"), John Gallow is a bit more deliberately doom metal, sluggish and chuggish, not *quite* so bizarre as Blizaro. Definitely Gallow takes a lot of inspiration from the weird works of Italian psych/doom mastermind Paul Chain - these tracks are imbued with the maestro's preferred occult violet hues, as the disc's title indicates. And apparently a lot of it is improvised, also in the manner of Paul Chain. But additionally we're hearing A LOT of the epic doom metal of classic Candlemass - and it's not just us, Gallo says as much in his liner notes, citing Candlemass as an influence alongside "all the purple-tinged doom metal from Italy", meaning Paul Chain, Black Hole, and other obscurities.
On a few of the tracks here, Gallow even does an amazing job of emulating the haunted wail of classic Candlemass frontman Messiah Marcolin with his own melodic, mournful cries, and that can't be easy. We're impressed. Elsewhere, he sounds more like Paul Chain, or channels his inner Ozzy. His guitar playing is also, as always, impressive, often going OFF into a tripped out psychedelic blues zone, his multitracked leads conjuring multiple Iommi's jamming together. Yet this is can be a very lonely, late night, solitary sounding disc, the moodiness of the material perhaps in part due to the one-man-band factor; furthermore, the title Violet Dreams also refers to the fact that many of the songs here have lyrics drawn from the surreal contents of strange dreams and nightmares that Gallow has actually had; we suspect that if he talked in his sleep he could give Dion McGregor a run for his money. Then there's all the evocative, vintage-sounding synthesizer and droning organ that ornaments this disc as well, sometimes taking center stage, as on the somber synth interlude "Ancient Tears", quietly creepy, its atmospheric keyboard melodies straight out of an Italian horror soundtrack for sure.
This journey into John Gallow's Violet Dreams is over an hour long, an almost claustrophobic concoction of heavy doom riffery and more abstract ambience, Gallow's song structures taking some strange turns; 'tis a dense slab of what we'll call depressive progressive doom metal, indeed.
Everything we've read about these Brits says thrash, thrash, thrash, and lists Nuclear Assault and Sodom as possible comparisons. Hmm, not untrue, but we're also hearing some weird, super-fun frat party version of early Slayer and Metallica. Lyrically, it's all beer and thrash. Yeah! Song titles like " Zombie Blood Nightmare," "Sentenced to Thrash," and "In the Court of General Zod" kinda say it all. Okay, maybe the most distinctive moment is on "Zombi Brew," on which they talk about "beer and brains." Yes, it's a zombie party where they're getting all "I love you, man!" and eyeballing people's brains. The band also encourages listeners to "put on your bullet belt, time to thrash like it's 1986." They're putting it out there. You're either into it, or you're not. But if you are, this is pretty fucking awesome! Includes bonus DVD while supplies last, haven't watched it yet, probably lots of gore and/or beer being spilled.
Imagine a whole record crafted from an old box of jungle cassette mix tapes, but imagine it without any of the jungle, or more specifically, none of the beats, just the surrounding sounds, intros, outros, interludes, swirls of synths and snippets of vocals, woozy basslines, strange percussion, mysterious melodies, the whole thing layered and recontextualized into some sort of modern collaged avant dub soundscape. That's pretty much what Lee Gamble's Diversions 1994-1996 is, and it's fantastic. On the surface, in a lot of ways it reminds us of the recent lp from SeekersInternational, which crafted dub out of static and hiss, crackle and sonic detritus. Diversions has a similar vibe, in some ways even more so since the sound sources are old tapes, so tape hum and hiss and warble are everywhere, giving the sounds here even more of that washed out Caretaker-y feel we can never get enough of. In fact, much of this exudes that sort of Caretaker / Tim Hecker vibe, murky and muddy, woozy and looped, the vibe definitely dubby, but a sort of super abstract avant strain of dub, maybe Chain Reaction style, but even MORE abstract and murky. The track "Emu" is practically perfect, a lush, hazy sprawl of blurred buzz, laced with mysterious bits of percussion, the whole thing driven by a heaving swell of industrial thrum, one that builds to a seriously caustic crunch, the whole track mesmerizingly cyclical, dense and dark, but so lush and layered, dreamily textured, everything gauzy and washed out and indistinct. And while the rest of the record is not nearly that dark and murky, it is similarly abstract and minimally dubby. Dense psychedelic loopscapes, that often lock into a sort of minimal house music, if only because they're anchored by a heartbeat like pulse, while all around sound swirl and ooze and overlap and gradually change shape.
Actual Jungle beats only show up on one track, and even then, they're slowed down, doused in effects, and laid over a swirling sea of crackling static and echo drenched shimmer, which had us hankering for some sort of avant slo-mo, minimal jungle mix.
But Diversions is mostly just the opposite, while the sound source may ostensibly be jungle records, the sound is much more like minimal abstract murk and blissed out loop buzz mesmer, and we're digging it big time!
Pressed on 140 gram white vinyl, and packaged in a super striking orange silk screened PVC plastic sleeve.
The last Lee Gamble record, Diversions 1994-1996 was a strange sort of ANTI-jungle, jungle record, having been constructed from just the NON jungle parts of old jungle mixtapes recorded off the radio. Only a brief bit of beat driven murk toward the end even hinted at the genesis of that record. This latest Gamble missive, was described to us as Gamble finally getting to make a proper beat record, one that's maybe not jungle, but wherein all those sublimated beats apparently finally show up. Which to a degree is true. We were sort of picturing some old school jungle drum and bass style throwback, but instead, those lost beats are only part of the occasion, with Gamble focused more on creating dense collaged landscapes of hazy pulses, sculpted static and murky sublimated rhythms. This still sounds like Gamble sort of deftly stepping AROUND the beats, the rhythms that do show up, end up being woozy fragmented loops, or strange 'heroin house' style throb, all wreathed in lots of hiss and crackle and static, with much of the record foregoing beats entirely, focusing instead on textures and ambience, some of it quite lovely, a little bit woozy and washed out, minimal psychedelic drifts, but the beats are definitely an integral part of the equation this time around, just not for the usual reason.
Squelchy 8 bit crunch is sculpted into murky, hiccuping anti-grooves, which morph into woozy, blurred and looped sprawls of 4-on-the-floor pulses and cascading synth melodies. There are some swoonsome moments of Kompakt like skitter, all hazy, gauzy, murky dreaminess, the beats buried beneath pixelated swirls of grainy tape hiss, but there's also some full on beat driven alien funk, mutated beats, warped melodies, pitch shifted percussion. The sound throughout is gristly and lo-fi, which is only magnified during the record's housiest moments, where all that hiss and static gets whipped up into clouds of hazy druggy shimmer, which is perfectly balanced by long stretches of ghostly murmur, softly dubbed out thrum, and druggy nocturnal drift.
Like all PAN releases, super exquisite packaging, a heavy full color jacket housed in a thick silkscreened plastic PVC sleeve.
We first discovered Lee Gamble via his Diversions lp, an entire record crafted from an old box of jungle mix tapes, but made even more compelling by the fact that it wasn't even the actual jungle bits he used, but instead, the between song ambience, the tape hiss and buzz, all woven into something way more abstract. Dutch Tvashar Plumes was his next record and found Gamble actually crafting his own beats, and very much like Diversions, wrapping them in dense sonic collages, lushly layered, noisy, gritty, still rooted in classic jungle, and Kompakt style beatscapery, but doused in grit and grime.
Koch seems to take up right where that one left off, although the opener is a bit misleading, and had us expecting something else all together, airy swaths of synth shimmer, pocked with impossibly deep low end pulses, a gorgeous crystalline drift, but before you know it, the sound transforms into something much more aggressive and beat driven, a pounding dancefloor banger, but again, still rife with Gamble's idiosyncratic to beat making, a churning, heavy house throb, beneath a gurgling, pitch shifted sampled vocal, groovy and funky, but also sort of sinister. The sound soon slips back into that opening ambient dreaminess, before another beat swoops in, this one more loping, and laid back, headphones reveal a whole world of sound beneath the beat, a beat that eventually grows warped and woozily misshapen, as those background sounds creep to the fore.
We'd like to say that's pretty much how the rest of the record plays out, but it really doesn't, Gamble is a sonic mad scientist, and while there is definitely some sort of musical thread holding it all together, it's difficult to put your finger on just what that thread is. From the spare skitter of "Oneiric Contur", to the gauzy almost Heroin House sounding digi-dub abstraction of "Head Model", to the washed out blur-bliss sprawl of "Frame Drag", to the nocturnal beat-murk thrum of "Voxel City Spirals", to the churning blackened throb of "Jove Layup", to the skeletal avant-house groove of "Gillsman". to the warped, and woozily melty dreaminess of "Flatland"...
And so it goes, constantly shifting in tone and tempo, vibe and texture, all the tracks here part of some impossibly cohesive, fantastically far out, abstract-electronic, alien dancefloor, psychedelic songsuite. Cool!
Now reissued on vinyl, John "James Bond" Barry's score to this ill-fated Bruce Lee Kung Fu flick. You know, the one were he takes on Chuck Norris. Probably best known as the movie that was shelved when Bruce Lee died. Finally released in 1978 with someone else filling in for Lee, they kept a handful of the original scenes with Lee as a selling point for what would otherwise have been a commercially unsucessful movie. And the soundtrack also helps! The music is classic Barry, alternately soaring and triumphant, tense and suspenseful. Also features an awesome six minute track called "Stick Fight" which is just that, six minutes of fight sounds complete with Lee's legendary vocalisations! Good stuff, up there with Lalo Schifrin's soundtrack to Enter The Dragon.
This is a collection of two of John Barry's most unlikely scores. The first is for Bruce Lee's Game of Death. You know, the one were he takes on Chuck Norris. Probably best known as the movie that was shelved when Bruce Lee died. Finally released with a new star, they kept a handful of the original scenes with Lee as a selling point for a then otherwise unsellable movie. The music is classic Barry, alternately soaring and triumphant, tense and suspenseful. Also features an awesome 6 minute track called 'Stick Fight' which is just that, 6 minutes of fight sounds complete with Lee's legendary vocalisations! Good stuff. The second film, Night Games is even stranger. A "sex fantasy" that was apparently a massive flop. Barry's tracks are treacly and bittersweet, with occasional jaunty strings and choral passages. Nice stuff as well. Definitely makes me want to see Game Of Death again, but also I'm now dying to see Night Games!
The first in a series of reissues from '80s power pop legends Game Theory, fronted by singer/songwriter Scott Miller, who passed away unexpectedly last year (2013), and, as is on glorious display here, was some kind of pop visionary mad scientist. We had sort of forgotten how great (and how weird), the group's 1982 debut Blaze Of Glory really was. From the strange arrangements, the weird mix, the production and the songs themselves, it's a dizzying masterwork, impossibly catchy, and super experimental, starting from the very first few seconds, with a spoken intro, cut off mid sentence, and disappearing in a cloud of tinkling bells and weird stuttering static, distant drones, it's almost as if it was an intro for an entirely different kind of record, but then in come some dreamy acoustic guitars, hazy, whispery vocals, and then POW, the song explodes into a frenetic, almost new wave power pop, with thick buzzing bass, pulsing synths, then some big drums and the chorus swoops in, and it's all over. Even after all these years, we were immediately smitten all over again. Emotional, introspective, but still rocking and a little swaggery, and that's just the first song. There's literally not a dud here, the record flows perfectly, some tracks slithery and groovy, others frantic, caffeinated new wave, and still others, fuzzy, jangly and dreamy. It's easy to hear all the pop bands that would follow in Game Theory's wake, power and otherwise, that owe much of their sounds to these guys, who were so far ahead of their time. Plenty psychedelic, a little bit proggy in places, angular guitars wound up in shimmery dream pop jangle, the drums too, chaotic and intricate, and weirdly mixed, giving the tracks still more of an oddball pop vibe. Just check out the sound samples, if you're at all a pop person, and you've yet to discover the joy of this genius pop groop, be prepared to have your mind blown for sure.
And as if the record proper wasn't enough, there are 15 bonus tracks, including some hilarious "Scott Miller Testing Laboratories" interludes, where you can hear the band members, along with aQ pal Dan Vallor (who might be best know to aQ-ers as the man behind avant experimental noise outfit Clarinette, but who was Game Theory's tour manager and sound engineer for much of the eighties, and who had a hand in assembling the reissue, as well as penning some of the liner notes) defacing the record in various ways, scratching it with a compass needle, lighting the record on fire, stabbing it with a knife, smashing it against a desk, but in between, are some amazing songs, some live, some demos, and the best of the bunch might be the tracks from Miller's pre- Game Theory outfit Alternate Learning.
Fantastically packaged with lots of rare photos and extensive liner notes, we're already looking forward to the next reissue in the series!
We're certainly fans of this long running New York collective Gamelan Son Of Lion, a modern gamelan ensemble who, so inspired by traditional Indonesian music, built their own gamelans from juice cans and oil barrels, creating a sound at once distinctly gamelan like, but at the same time strangely alien.
This cd reissue, which we should have reviewed a while back, unearths a 20 year old cassette and is a prime example of this group's ingenious way with primitive sound. Simple and childlike, ultra minimal and totally hypnotic, GSOL weave expansive soundscapes of metallic clatter and lush shimmering drone, sometimes the gamelan sounds like tiny music boxes, other times it sounds like Konono No.1 style amplified thumb pianos, and occasionally it also sounds like some East Village hippy drum jam (which it sort of was), but it's never less than totally captivating. Percussive and rhythmic, but simultaneously fluttery and ambient, the various struck metals offering up incredibly textured overtones that smear and blur into glistening pools of sound, while all manner of bell like chimes and dense tangles of metallic melodies dance amidst the droney drift.
Often mentioned in the same breath as folks like Morton Feldman, La Monte Young and Tony Conrad, this is most definitely modern minimalism, but at the same time it sounds surprisingly modern, predating the current crop of freenoise /ambient-drone underground outfits by 20 some years. It also reminds us a bit of abstract sonic pioneers like the Taj Mahal Travellers and AMM, who share a similar penchant for epic spaciousness and drifting rhythmic ambience.
Dunno if we can keep up with all the cool stuff that Locust has been putting out lately, but we'll try. And we definitely need to let you know about this one. This here double cd set is a remastered reissue of the contents of two obsure and out of print Folkways LPs from the early '70s that documented the activities of NYC's Gamelan Son Of Lion. That's right, this Gamelan wasn't from Indonesia, instead they were a bunch of long-haired, bearded American avant-gardists, among them Fluxus composer Philip Corner. Wasn't one of the Sun City Girls quoted recently in The Wire as saying the last thing he wanted to hear was white people playing a gamelan in a traditional manner? Well he'd probably be happy with this group. As much as by the ethnic musics of the East, this group seemed to be inspired by minimalism and Morton Feldman. Unlike "real" gamelan music I've heard, this isn't nearly so dense and rhythmic. It's rather more slow and spacious. Simple, even. But the resonating metal sounds are incredibly lovely. Our resident gamelan musician, Byram, didn't care for it as much...but then he gets to play with a gamelan quite often. And probably if you had your own gamelan (a home-made one like the Son of Lion folks built, with grapefruit juice cans and the like) you could come up with music a lot like the compositions heard here. But I don't, so I found this to be totally gorgeous and mesmerizing...
We heard about this single back at the On Land festival, where Daniel Lopatin awed the packed house with his polygon planes of synth as Oneohtrix Point Never. Lopatin brought a handful of the Games single, which was being rumored to be his hip-hop excursion. Well, now that we've gotten a hold of this; it's not quite hip-hop, and not even the abstracted witch-house / chillwave variant of screwed hip-hop from the likes of Salem and oOoOO. Lopatin and his Games partner Joel Ford apply loops of muffled robot-speak vocals, dopey-eyed slow-jam rhythms, and Lopatin's trademarked '80s computer as utopian object iconography. The Ariel Pink-ish false starts through the sampled guitar jangle, and the Max Headroom skipped disc jitter make this unmistakably Lopatin (especially from those hard to find KGB Man tapes) and strangely believable as a wintery mixtape staple for beleaguered COBOL programmers and the robots who love them.
The duo known as Games presented themselves as chillwave mutants on the Everything Is Working 7" which came and went a couple months back, but this long EP / short LP (depending on how you wanna look at these six tracks) proves that Games is an entity existing between a number of dichotomies: Now vs. Then, East vs. West, ironically uncool (thus making it cool) vs. unfashionably gauche, etc. It shouldn't be a surprise then that half of Games is the sci-fi trickster Daniel Lopatin, who's better known as Oneohtrix Point Never. There's plenty of the Lopatin infatuation with polygon melodies, allusions to Russian technocracy, and dreamtime slippages into the forgotten futures of the past; but Lopatin's partner, Joel Ford, brings a mash-up aesthetic of Italo-Disco sensuality, mid-'80s Fairlight sampling mimesis, and plenty of trashy Euro-pop tropes. Unlike Lopatin's Oneohtrix project which seeks to capture a sound which never existed in the '80s but is an extract of a bleary selective memory from all of the data that's been left behind, Games is far more concise in what it's referencing - the mid-'80s synthpop / tropes of bands like Animotion and Ministry. No, we don't mean the "Jesus Built My Hot-Rod" era of Ministry, but the period that Mr. Jourgensen seems to want to forget: the swooning romanticism of With Sympathy and the cross-pollinated electronica album Twitch. The track "Strawberry Sky" is a Top 10 single that should have been released in 1986, with a magnificently catchy vocal chorus delivered by Laurel Chartow atop faux-flute synth pads, darkly washed electronic arpeggiations, thumped drum machines, and a coked-up production sensibility. The auto-tuned vocal utterances that drive "Shadows In Bloom" compliment an acid flashback of an arrangement seemingly lifted from one of Bel Biv Devoe's skittered grooves. Couple that with all of the new wave synths, and it's a downright awesome track! The Gatekeeper Remix of "Strawberry Sky" steps up the Ministry / Twitch references with more of a cybernetic flare to the punchy EBM rhythms and American Anglophilia. Recommended.
