This second full-length album from Japan's Green Milk From The Planet Orange proclaims boldly on its sleeve that "Progressive Rock Is Not Dead"! Well, WE never thought it was anyhow, but if you yourself have doubts, a loud dose of this should correct your thinking. Though, while quite lively (and rather live-sounding too, on this recording), GMFTPO's brand of prog rock definitely does look to the past for inspiration, from cosmic psych-scapes of krautrock to the precision epics of Yes. And we're also hearing some not-entirely-welcome No Wave-ish yelping dissonance on one track here as well. But when song-lengths can hit the double digits as they do here (there's four tracks, the shortest clocking in an prog-respectable seven minutes and the longest stretching out to over 38!!) and you've got musicians capable of turning on a dime like these guys, something ELSE is gonna happen before the song's over for sure. So you get tripped out atmospheres AND fully cranked acid-rock electric guitar mayhem, prog-complex song constructs and punk raucousness. Some will find this eclecticism exhilirating (and of course somewhat typical of the genre-bending Japanese underground that we've been fans ever since the Boredoms first freaked us out years ago) while others might wish that they'd stick to one thing -- taking the Yessism all the way, or the psych guitar skree. But check 'em out (live too if possible -- they've toured the US a couple times already, and knocked out a great instore performance here at AQ last year, with the drummer playing a 'kit' jerry-rigged from empty soda cans, a tamborine, and duct tape) and see what you think... fans of AMT and DMBQ both might quite like.
This cd managed to go temporarily out of print the same week we listed it not long ago, but now it's been re-pressed and it's here again, along with a brand-new, expensive (but limited to 225 copies) gatefold vinyl edition as well.
The strangely named Green Milk From The Planet Orange is a young Japanese band that perhaps figured they have what it takes to become the next Acid Mothers Temple or Ghost, and they could well be right! This is an impressive domestic debut from GMFTPO (who had a couple of other Japan-only, now out-of-print cd-r releases, a few tracks from which appear here in re-recorded form) and should definitely appeal to the whole Japanese psych lovin' crowd and maybe to yr average indie/post rockers as well, if they're open to a dose of '70s inspired experimentation: long proggy songs that are plenty weird and varied, both druggily spaced-out and/or noisy and heavy. Yeah, it's a spookily baroque trip, these guys stirring everything into their prog-pot from doleful trumpet to jazzy walking bass to wild psych-guitar soloing and pinging electronic effects. Equally capable of grandiose epic bombast and gentle, slow-paced vocal balladry, GMFTPO glory in proggy changes and this album should certainly be investigated by fans of Ghost's recent opus Hypnotic Underworld. Of course, the bands that GMFTPO would want to be compared with are undoubtedly their '70s prog-psych, and specifically krautrock, influences: Can, Faust, Agitation Free, Nektar... You can also hear a bunch of '60s west coast psych in there as well (I bet they probably own that Kak album for instance). Yet despite all the "retro" elements, Green Milk still sound young, even a little punk -- which they are, some of 'em being former members of stoner rock/grindcore outfit No Rest For The Dead. Though with GMFTPO they've set aside their metal/punk past, they still draw on it in sorta the same way as Guapo does. Kudos to Beta-Lactam Ring for bringing this our way...and also, after complaining about past Beta-Lactam Ring art/design, we have to give 'em some credit here, they did a nice job with this one. The disc comes housed in a beautiful digipak, with "distressed" graphics giving it the old '70s LP vibe. Real nice all around.
Some of you may not be familiar with a short lived instrument called the Omnichord. But those of you that are, remember just how strange and magical it was. A kidney shaped Casio-keyboard style instrument, with lots of buttons representing chords (much like an accordion) and most thrilling of all, a strip of touch sensitive metal, that allowed the player to sort of strum, drawing out the chords like an electronic harp. For more details and a photo check it out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnichord
What's the point of this long lost instrument history lesson? Well, this here disc uses nothing but the good ol' Omnichord as it's sole sound source and the results are amazing. The warm electronic buzz, and strange chordal shimmer of the Omnichord is layered and run through all sorts of effects, making its already thick buzzing sound even more dense and crunchy. Huge swaths of distorted crumbling electronic whir, underpinning gorgeous glistening high end melodies, super distorted swirls of sound rife with all manner of glitch and gritty texture, bursts of high end skree smeared into fuzzy indistinct electronic soundscapes. all washing into each other, a constant sonic tide of hum and whir and deliriously blissed out electronic buzz. These textures wouldn't sound at all out of place on an M83 record or in a Tim Hecker track. That same sort of blown out, soft focus, dreamy ambient warmth... So nice.
LIMITED TO 74 COPIES. Each hand numbered, pressed on green cd-r's, and packaged in cool mini plastic cases with full color insert and a posted on photo of Green Mine rocking the Omnichord.
Seattle quartet last seen on the Ptolemaic Terrascope's Succour compilation, who play breathtakingly-lovely, Beatles-inspired crystal clear tunes, with the occasional bonus of refreshing sitar. Will please young and old alike, we promise. And for those of you who've been ahankerin' for another Olivia Tremor Control pop (as opposed to ambient experimental) record, look no further. Green Pajamas are all that (minus the OTC's noisy edge) and more. Very Highly Recommended.
Seattle's Green Pajamas are still making their flawless blend of pretty, '60s-influenced psych-pop after 17 years and eight albums. Despite the past few years' popular resurgence of sweet pop stylings, the Green Pajamas are still sadly underappreciated, which is a pity cos they're *so good*! Imagine the Pretty Things mixed with the Kinks and the Olivia Tremor Control. This time
I don't know about you, but I was so into the grunge rock of the late eighties. Not the bandwagon jumping, flannel shirt wearing bullshit that came a little later (that's the crap that deservedly caused the grunge backlash), I'm talking the first wave, the small group of bands that melded snotty punk rock and huge Sabbathy riffs, head banging and slam dancing, sloppy drunken free-for-alls and actual songwriting chops: Soundgarden (before they became an MTV cartoon), Tad, the Fluid, Blood Circus, Afghan Whigs, Nirvana, Skin Yard, Love Battery, Coffin Break, Codeine, Seaweed, Green Magnet School, Swallow and all of that stuff. But for me, no one (not even Nirvana) could touch Green River. Soundgarden had the metal side of the equation all sewn up, with their monster riffs and Chris Cornell's air raid siren wail, but Green River just seemed way more dangerous: sloppy and snotty, grungy and sludgy, soulful and bluesy, but bluesy the way Pussy Galore were bluesy, all ramshackle and dangerously close to just degenerating into a full-on musical brawl, and they just seemed really, really SCARY. Plus they had vocalist Mark Arm, who had the wickedest, raspiest, whiniest growl I'd ever heard (and to this day has one of the best/most unique rock voices ever), slipping and slithering from creepy, guttural growl, to banshee like howl, spitting bile and vitriol like he had a chip on his shoulder the size of a manhole cover. Plus all the awesome Charles Peterson blurry photos made them seem so mysterious. But it's always comes down to the songs, and these songs KILL. Grungy, bluesy, heavy, and super catchy, but not obviously so. Think New York Dolls mixed with a little Black Sabbath and a little Pussy Galore with just a dash of the Beatles or the Stones. Mix in a whole lot of alcohol and probably a handful of downers, and you begin to approximate Green River's druggy sludgy din. Hard to believe Pearl Jam was born of this beast, but Mudhoney was too, and seemed a more logical progression. This disc compiles the Dry As A Bone ep, the Rehab Doll lp, as well as three extra tracks, including a Dead Boys cover and a Bowie cover. This isn't really new or anything, but this record informs so much of the music I love and have loved for years that I really wanted to get copies for the store. It's been sixteen years, and this record still kicks ass and sounds totally fresh (in a dank, sludgy, crusty, scummy way!) and even after all that time, there's hardly any bands that even come close......
After all these years Al Green still has the smoothest voice in soul. With this new secular album, the Reverend Al Green teamed up with Ahmir '?uestlove' Thompson (The Roots) who helped produce the record and help gives it a very warm and tasteful feel. All of that, along with the mighty horn section of The Dapkings, helps make this a really great and classic sounding Al Green record. With Gnarls Barkley biting Green's vocal style and the onslaught of soul reissues we've all been going crazy over, it's so nice to hear one of the original soul superstars showing he's still got it. Like many of his best records, it's not about stand out singles as much as it is about an overall fluid vibe. Forty-one years after his debut, Al Green shows that he's still filled with a special kind of sensuality!
Lying somewhere betwixt Esquivel and Spike Jones is Bernie Green. Guitarist and arranger Green is one of the original madmen of "easy listening" music. Like Esquivel, much of his magic lies not only in the outlandish orchestral arrangements, but in the
Lying somewhere betwixt Esquivel and Spike Jones is Bernie Green. Guitarist and arranger Green is one of the original madmen of "easy listening" music. Like Esquivel, much of his magic lies not only in the outlandish orchestral arrangements, but in the
We've never seen this movie but if it's anything like the soundtrack, boy do we want to see it. It must be INSANE. And very, very groovy. 'Cause this is one trippy record, guitarist/composer Billy Green's psychedelic soundtrack to the 1974 biker flick Stone, today a cult classic (we hear it's out now on dvd, gotta find it!). It's from Australia, one of the early precursors to Mad Max in the so-called "Ozpolitation" genre (about which there's been a recent documentary that we also have to see!), doubtless full of violence, stunts, bikes, and girls.
We don't know much about the plot except that it involves the badass Gravediggers motorcycle gang (who, while as shaggy and dirty as any Hell's Angels, ride fancy new Japanese pocket rockets instead of the Harleys you might expect), characters with names like Dr. Death, Stone, Toad, Undertaker, Captain Midnight, most of whom get their own distinctive cues on the soundtrack. Beyond that, the liner notes mention acid trips and something about a political assassination, and well if you know what happens don't tell us 'cause we don't want to spoil anything for when/if we do see the film, we'll just enjoy the music for now!
Track one, the six minute, 35 second long "Eco Blue/Toadstrip" really dumps listeners in at the deep end, being a dark and unsettling musique concrete composition consisting of noisy electronic Moog synth bbrrzapp, and didgeridoo drone (ordinarily we detest the didge, but this IS an Australian movie), like a drug fuelled jam between aliens and aborigines. If you survive that (rather than report to the tent for those who ate the bad acid), the next track shifts mood considerably, being a funky freaky instrumental called "Race", full of wah-wah guitar and more electronic embellishments. Yep, just two tracks in and it's already totally awesome! As the disc continues, you'll get to hear all sorts of other strange and groovy sounds, including short interludes of sound effects and chanting ("Pigs"), lush, melancholic orchestration ("Cosmic Funeral"), bluegrass pickin' ("Septic"), classical strings and splashing cymbals ("Amanda"), Hendrix-y fuzzed fusion ("Stone"), mellow hippie blues-bliss ("Smoke"), heavy prog plus free jazz freakout ("Gravediggers"), and loads more that's either super groovy or super wacked, or both. Sometimes it sounds like a 'proper' film soundtrack, with the usual sort of suspenseful or sentimental cinematic stylings, but mostly it's all about sleazy, krautrocky chaos!
It's mostly instrumental, except for the bonus tracks, one which consists of dialogue from the film ("Hip's Rap"), one being a kinda cheesy soul-fuzz number ("Cosmic Flash"), and also two portentous versions of "Do Not Go Gentle (Rage)", a song based on the Dylan Thomas poem, set to music by Billy Green - we prefer the second one, sung by Jeannie Lewis, which was probably very important to the emotional impact of some crucial scene in the movie but here just seems awesomely over the top and incongruous.
The final bonus track is the audio from the original theatrical trailer for the movie, which starts off with someone screaming "SATAN!!!!!" followed by a dead pan voiceover intoning "Stone is a trip", and reciting further selling points, backed by a collage of sound effects and funky hard rock vamping, all snippets from the soundtrack. Again, it makes us want to see it... except, in a way, maybe we're realizing it's better to have the film exist (for us) only in our imaginations, 'cause the soundtrack is so far out it seems likely that the actual film couldn't possibly live up to it, could it? In any event, the soundtrack certainly stands by itself as a sizzlingly lysergic slice of '70s rock/electronic weirdness, part Bobby Beausoleil, part Amon Duul, a little bit Sly Stone, a little bit Sir Lord Baltimore... and altogether Stone(d).
Now, if you search on such keywords as "motorcycle gang", "fuzz", and "soundtrack" on our website, besides this you'll find our rave review of another Satanic motorcycle gang movie soundtrack that we ALSO made a Record Of The Week once upon a time, that'd be the music by John Cameron and session band Frog from the 1972 zombie biker flick Psychomania, reissued by Trunk some years back, and now sadly out of print again. Billy Green's Stone soundtrack is obviously the only thing that comes close. You could definitely file 'em together, Stone being a worthy successor (with a song called "Toad" instead of one called "The Frog"). It'd be a great double feature.
Also, remember that unusual series of Aussie psychedelic sixties/seventies surf movie soundtracks from the Japanese label EM, we listed a while back? The ones by Farm, Peter Martin & Finch, Tamam Shud, etc.? Though this is inspired by wheels rather than waves, and ain't so sunshiney, still fits in with the best of those.
As usual with B-Music / Finders Keepers productions, this is a labor of love, and the cd booklet reflects that, its many pages stuffed full of full-color film stills and poster artwork, along with a lengthy and knowledgeable essay by DJ Andy Votel. Before delving into the story of Stone, Votel talks a bit about the history of '60s / '70s B-movie biker cinema, citing the aforementioned Psychomania as an important forerunner to this film and its soundtrack.
Like we said, we've never seen Stone, though we want to. However, we've been fans of this soundtrack for some time. There was a previous, Australia-only compact disc reissue of this back in 1999, on the occasion of the film's 25th anniversary (which was celebrated with a 35,000 strong biker rally!). We were never really able to get any to stock though, so it's awesome to have this now, and it's been further expanded with additional bonus tracks, as well as nicely packaged, including a slipcover. When we heard it was coming out again, we immediately thought, Record Of The Week. Finally folks everywhere will get a chance to hear this, and ride with Stone and the Gravediggers!
The break out single from Cee-Lo Green's latest solo record, "Fuck You" has got to be hands down the song of the year. Its tone of jilted empowerment speaks to so much more than just a scorned lover, that we're sure we'll be seeing some very politically pointed parody covers in the coming months. Lady Killer sees the Gnarls Barkley frontman step away from the Dangermouse production and gives us a killer tour of classic souled out funk, electro, and RnB that for the most part stays highly energized and grooving with only a couple of detours into schmaltz. But his amazing voice carries through it all and as always is the reason to listen.
British electro-acoustic artist Peter Green is best known for his collaborations with Mike Dred, Virtual Farmer and Laptop Dancing (both on Rephlex). This original score was commissioned by the United Spirits Theatre Company for the latest West End production of Macbeth. Not too impressive, sort of ambient electro-acoustic soundtracky stuff. Mediocre.
Everyone remembers Lorne Greene as Ben Cartwright, big boss of the Ponderosa Ranch on the TV show Bonanza. He cut a striking figure, salt and pepper hair, deep stentorian voice, broad shouldered and ruggedly handsome, so of course like most stars of the time (and really ANY time), Greene set out to be a recording star as well as a television star, and is the case with so many wouldbe rockstars, or country stars, Greene managed a few records, might have even had a hit or two, but it just wasn't in the cards. It's not really that he's a bad singer, although he does seem to slip into a more sung/spoken thing that actually belting it out, and it's not that these are bad songs, some of these jams are CRAZY catchy, it seems like maybe he was mismarketed at the time, instead of separating his singing career from his TV career, someone made the choice that Greene would be a singing cowboy, singing about the sort of stuff that Ben Cartwright might have sung about. The result being some serious (silly) kitsch, almost every song features a spoken word intro by Greene, his voice booming, reverbed, as if speaking from on high, and every song is about working on the railroad, or mining, or being in prison, or playing poker in a saloon, or a love song from a cowboy to his gal, then there's the music, fuzzy guitars, weird doo wop background vocals, gorgeous harmonies, a little bit of exotica, some goofy sound effects, some definite Morricone-isms (how could there not be, the twangy whistly Western vibe is all over these tracks obviously), and of course Greene crooning over the top, again spending much of his time sing/speaking, but when he does let loose, he almost sounds like Thurl Ravenscroft (who sang the them from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas), and at times some of these tracks even sound a bit like Screamin' Jay Hawkins, really good stuff for sure, and so fun, definite mix tape / party music, we've been playing this non stop, thankfully it doesn't quite devolve into a vanity vehicle like the William Shatner / Leonard Nimoy records. Instead it plays like some awesome, slightly cheesy, way over the top, catchy as all get out, lost country record, which it basically is.
Anyone who dug the Plantation Gold comp we made Record Of The Week a while back will WAY dig this. Another killer job from Omni, whose reissues have set a new standard, tons of photos, a long vintage interview with Greene and tons more. The Man collects two albums in their entirety, as well as a handful of tracks from several later records, a killer package for sure. Now, if only Omni would put together an Eddie Noack collection!!! One of the most amazing (and sickest) country rockabilly legends ever...
All the metalheads around here love stoner rock, and stoner metal, from Kyuss to Sons Of Otis, Mystick Krewe Of Clearlight to Mammoth Volume, Roachpowder to Raging Slab, Church Of Misery to Elder, and of course Black Sabbath, who aren't technically stoner rock, but who sort of created the template, and then there's Monster Magnet, Natas, Electric Wizard, we could go on, but you get the drift. And we'd always been super partial to Swedish stoners Dozer, who seemingly hung it up in 2008 after five killer full lengths. So we were pretty psyched when we got this record in, from a band called Greenleaf, which features a bunch of guys from Dozer, and we were surprised to discover that Greenleaf have been active since 2000, concurrently with Dozer for almost a decade! And yet, this is the first we've heard from 'em. This is their third full length, and is produced by the guy from VAKA, whose piano driven post rock / stoner doom record Kappa Delta Phi record was a big favorite around here, but that definitely gives Nest Of Vipers some serious heft, which helps balance out the EXTREME poppiness. The band also includes members of Lowrider, Truckfighters, and features a handful of guest appearances from members of Opeth and Spiritual Beggars among others.
Allan jokes that when we mention Queens Of The Stone Age in a review, it tends to scare people off, and we sell way fewer copies than we would otherwise, but it's just unavoidable sometimes, and hell, QOTSA in the early days was only one step removed from the mighty Kyuss anyway, and the opening track here "Jack Staff" is kind of a dead ringer for QOTSA, especially the crazy catchy, super poppy chorus, with its soaring Josh Homme like vox, heck it even goes beyond QOTSA into full on commercial heavy rock, but fuck it, it sounds killer, the guitar tone is thick and deserty, the main riff is crunchy and fuzzy, the overall vibe is swaggery and snarly, the song seesawing between extreme stoner crush and total heavy pop.
Nothing else on the record is so overtly poppy, but lots of parts come seriously close, all the songs here definitely displaying a serious pop edge to them, no matter how heavy or stonery the jam is. But let's not overplay the poppiness, cuz some of the jams here are seriously fierce, fuzzy, and blown out and HEAVY. Another Swedish band whose influence can be felt throughout are the Hellacopters, which again, as far as we're concerned is not a bad thing at all. And Kiss, lots of these tracks are obviously beholden to those masters of hooky heaviness. There's some organ that pops up too on a few tracks, which definitely gives the proceedings a bit of a psychedelic vibe, but overall this is just a seriously kick ass, seriously catchy collection of fuzzed out hook heavy stoner rock radness. And if your collection features lots of records on Meteor City, Small Stone, Tee Pee, Leaf Hound, Rise Above, Elektrohasch and the rest, then Nest Of Vipers will definitely feel right at home...
We're not entirely sure, but we think Shawn Greenlee was a member of Six Finger Satellite, if he wasn't this disc sure makes us think he would have been a perfect fit.
Cobbled together from various live performances, run through all sorts of filters and hand made electronics, Greenlee takes all manner of glitch and bleep, buzz and crackle, squeak and hiss, and renders it totally alien, creating shimmery squiggles, sheets of caustic high end skree, long streaks of textural whir and rumble, harsh white noise draped over creaking malfunctioning machinery, processed voices, fractured melodies, all sorts of grinding skitter and strangled buzz, essentially a field recording of a laboratory full of robots and machines, becoming sentient, and deciding to destroy their former masters.
This isn't harsh noise, but it's definitely noisy, and chaotic and freaked out and pretty dizzyingly over the top. Strictly for folks who find even the most damaged of electronic music too pedestrian.
We only have a few of these, it came out last year, and is packaged in a super gorgeous metallic gold die cut fold over paper sleeve. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES...
Local clarinet/flute/saxophone whiz Philip Greenlief presents "music for 2 guitars and 2 wind instruments". Vinnie Golia is the other reedsman, and the guitarists are G.E. Stinson and the AQ-beloved Nels Cline (all LA new music scene stalwarts). The pieces (thoughtful, sometimes doleful, sometimes pretty) are inspired by Greenlief's experiences living in Russia, where he spent a year in '98. Both Greenlief and Cline are credited with the use of "ray guns" in the liner notes, which kind of makes you wonder about what Russia's like these days...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
From the streets of SF comes this powerhouse of a rock outfit. Tighter than a squadron of B-52s in formation, Greenlight the Bombers deliver five tracks of seamless post-hardcore with angular guitar lines, loud-to-quiet dynamics and sinister basslines in the classic vein of bands like Drive Like Jehu, Quicksand, Fugazi and Shellac. Title track "American Executive" is a stand-out with a wickedly haunting vocal chant over menacing bass and drums that kicks into a solid heavy churn before dissipating into some sparse June of 44 type spaciness and then coming back with the rock in the end. Definitely one of the better new upcoming bands in this city, and do these guys have the coolest band name or what?
A peripatetic and a workaholic, Kevin Greenspon is constantly touring around California and hocking a small library of post-noise / blistered ambient cassettes & cd-rs that he's been producing over the past couple of years. Having performed alongside the likes of Pedestrian Deposit and Infinite Body, his smoldering, sorta-shoegazing dronescapes make a lot of sense. The A-side of this tape begins with a creeping two-note guitar melody, accompanying a muffled crackle and occasional interruptions of short noise transmissions. Out of the compressed noise and overdriven distortion pedals, a summery lullaby emerges from the tape murk and grime that blossoms through harmonic clouds of organ/synth drones and guitar smear. Yeah, comparisons to Infinite Body's prickly noise-pop hybrids are definitely apt. The B-side continues with these same ideas, as serene washes of distorted noise allude to something sinister just seething below all of the shimmer, twinkle, and glisten. 25 minutes in duration, and another great tape released through Monorail Trespassing!
Anticon main men Dose One and Why? take some time out from their ridiculously prolific release schedule as well as a break from their tripped out psychedelic big beat hip hop, and with the help of a shitload of guests come up with a record full of short, sharp and super abstract hip-hop-ish soundscapes. Bizarre and tripped out and as fucked and out-there as you've come to expect from the Anticon collective. Maybe more so. Features Mr. Dibbs, Slug, Sole, Moodswing9 and about a million others.
Jonny Greenwood, of alt/art pop heroes Radiohead, steps out from behind enigmatic frontman Thom Yorke to pen the music to the indie art film Bodysong. Haven't seen the movie other than the 8 minute clip found on the cd but it looks to be quite cool. A dreamy assemblage of movement, African shamans, tribal rituals, Times Square revellers, grainy antique footage of dances and performance. All slowed down and hypnotic. The perfect visual match for Greenwood's hazy post-'Head ambient melancholia. The dreamy creepy crawl of Radiohead is definitely present, although sort of tripped out and spaced out. Less angst and more subtle moodiness. It is a soundtrack after all. And the soundtrack is all over the place, probably makes a lot more sense seen with the film, which is not to say this isn't an amzing listen. Breezy Parisian melodies flutter through the cool Spring breeze, with some shuffling acid jazz over warm static chordal drones. Militaristic, almost industrial percussion occasionally keeps things in line.
Asian stringed instruments pluck out simple looping rhythms over simple funky drums locked in a hiccuppy rhythm interrupted every once in a while by some wild boppy Miles Davis-ish jazz. All nestled amidst lush chunks of glitchy dubbed out electronic ambience, with Kraftwerkian melodies and pizzicato strings. The closest comparison that comes to mind is UNKLE, but Greenwood's Bodysong is a lot more subtle and focused, a lot stranger and aimed squarely at the heart or the head, not the hips.
We haven't seen the new film from Paul Thomas Anderson yet but judging by the string heavy, super intense score composed by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood we get the feeling this is going to be one serious and probably very bloody filmic experience. Unlike his prior venture into the world of film soundtracks with his eclectic and imaginative score to Bodysong, this has a much more grand and classic quality to it, recalling the sounds of some Stanley Kubrick films with a very in your face, Penderecki-styled attack of string sounds. Meticulously executed, you would think Greenwood had been scoring films for decades.
We're not sure what message is sent by naming your band Gregor Samsa, but judging from this, the first proper full length from these Virginia post-math-mope rockers, it could be as simple and obvious as 'metamorphosis'. Each track here is a lush, lugubrious crawl, slithery and subtle, dark reverbed chords drift in wide open spaces, a blurry druggy soundscape, the drums sort of creep along WAY back in the background, a distant thud, a simple pulse, ethereal female vocals drift soft and angelic, sometimes hovering sweetly beside the whispery croon of her male foil, but most of the tracks shift at some point, build into a darkly brooding wave of thick guitars and keening melodies. But this isn't your typical post rock, quiet soft / loud heavy thing, as GS never really get heavy, insead they deftly ratchet up the emotion, choosing to not stomp on the fuzz box, but instead to quietly maneuver the music into a much more intense space. It's this intensity that manages to convey more pathos than a distorted guitar ever could in this context. This is dreamy and dreary, lovely and secretly dark and foreboding, with occasional swells of thick guitar, keening melody and a brooding malevolence, like Low with Mogwai tendencies, or drifting on a black, musical moonlit sea, slow and serene and absolutely breathtaking.Ô
Packaged in a gorgeous letterpressed thick cardstock sleeve, with a silver inked Japanese style obi. Wow!
Cool, non-music related footnote: this full length. 55:12, is exactly twice the length of their prior ep, 27:36!
This split is a super interesting match up, pairing two bands who ostensibly play the same sort of music, but who have dramatically different approaches to their sound.
Up first are the Red Sparowes, who take the metallic post rock angle, stretching their tracks out into loping epics, that loop and repeat hypnotically building to a massive crescendo, all soaring guitars and keening melodies. Eventually breaking back down into mesmerizingly mathy rhythms and melancholy ambience. The drumming is awesome, Simple but so powerful and propulsive, definitely driving the band, helping shape these aggressive epics.
Gregor Samsa, come at their post rock from a whole 'nother direction, choosing to drift instead of pummel, to float and hover instead of pound and wail. In addition to the typical rock band instrumentation, GS are augmented by cello, violin and upright bass, which adds to their simple understated majesty. Both tracks here are spacious near ambient affairs. Simple, spare reverbed guitars, tons of glistening reverb, hushed, near whispered vocals, sounding very much Low or Galaxie 500. So dreamy and lush and laid back. Eventually the first track builds into a super dramatic sweep of soaring strings and crashing drums, not heavy, just intense and emotional. So nice. The second track starts with a blissed out drone, shimmering and sparkling, before the drums and guitars kick in, turning the track into something more Loop or Spacemen 3 or Swervedriver than any sort of metallic post rock. Again the strings swoop in to add all sorts of emotion and urgency, turning the track into a fuzzy minor key dreamdrone fuzz rock epic! Man, we love this band. In fact we love BOTH these bands. An absolutely killer split.
Recordings of Argentinian Guillermo Gregorio made between 1963 and 1970. Part of Atavistic's "Unheard Music Series", Guillermo Gregorio's improvised pieces and tape experiments fit nicely next to the best works of the Fluxus artists. The disk starts off with several home taped experiments utilizing various sources for manipulation: the first piece, "On the piano, inside the piano, around the piano...", is exactly as one might expect from its title. Following this, there are more recordings that use the tape deck as a means for effects -- bells are recorded and played backwards as Gregorio overdubs other sounds. Another piece using voices and the pause button produces a nice effect. Later pieces on the cd are mostly duet and ensemble improv pieces of Gregorio with fellow avant jazz/classical musicians of Buenos Aires.
This is one serious assemblage of European electronic noisemakers. We're pretty familiar with Mr. Lasse Marhaug, but the rest of these sonic terrorists are new names to us: Lene Grenager, Harald Fetveit, Lucio Capece and Mattin. Armed with a mighty arsenal of soundmaking implements: electric cello, turntables, microphones, effect boxes, sax, mixing board and some computer feedback, these guys weave two epic, wide open soundscapes of hiss and fuzz, glitch and hum, a lowercase soundworld of buzzy electronic fuckery, huge thick swaths of pink noise whir that quickly subsides into a distant topographical map of barely there sound, tiny bursts of hiss or warble dot a spare plain of muted creak and bird cheep squeak, a sea of shortwave drift, and minimal shift that morphs into a corrosive flow of psychedelic sine wave freakout and grinding industrial grit. Instrument cable buzz and caustic distorted whitenoise hiss hover in a weightless field of scattered sonic debris, mostly space, but along with the bursts of sonic turbulence, create some sort of super stretched out impossible to define non-rhythm. Like a sweetly drifting slab of dark ambience being constantly interfered with by Merzbowian transmissions from some alternate universe. Nice!
Not too long ago we made Austalia's Grey Daturas record of the week with their killer Dead In The Woods record (now available again for a limited time, we got the last copies! See elsewhere on this list), a perfect mix of churning metallic rock, New Zealand style free noise, freaked out psychedelic space rock and buzzing rumbling drone rock. So so good. We knew there were other Daturas recordings floating around but we couldn't figure out how to track 'em down. Finally the band returned from tour and managed to dig up their last copies of their two previous releases, their debut record and a 30 minute ep, so we took all of 'em and they finally showed up. So act fast as these will be gone in no time.
This is a single song, 30 minute ep from last year, and is half an hour of drifting abstract ambient guitar bliss. Really pretty, with melodies floating to and fro, while other guitars sort of spread out a warm fuzzy blanket beneath, you can also hear voices and people talking, hard to tell if the voices were placed there or if this was a live set and that's the sound of the crowd, but either way it adds another subtle layer to the track. There is a sense of building and intensity, but before it really takes off, everything just sort of drifts back to earth and blisses out. A gorgeously druggy late night swirl of otherworldy guitars and subtle strummy ambience.
SUPER LIMITED. THESE ARE OUT OF PRINT AND LONG GONE. WE HAVE THE LAST 25 COPIES. ONCE THESE ARE GONE, THEY ARE GONE FOR GOOD.
Okay, we only got a handful of these in, and in very limited sizes, but we figured we oughta grab as many as we can since so many AQ fans are such huge Wolf Eyes and Grey Daturas freaks. That means act fast, and don't be too bummed if we've already sold out. We took every single one the bands had left.
So this pack includes a killer red on black Grey Daturas t-shirt, a Grey Daturas pin, and a gorgeous full color poster. Super limited, and of the sets with large t-shirts we only got 4!!!
The shirt/poster/button combo has to ship in a tube, so if you order this with other items it will have to ship separately and thus there will be an extra shipping charge.
Okay, we only got a handful of these in, and in very limited sizes, but we figured we oughta grab as many as we can since so many AQ fans are such huge Wolf Eyes and Grey Daturas freaks. That means act fast, and don't be too bummed if we've already sold out. We took every single one the bands had left.
So this pack includes a killer red on black Grey Daturas t-shirt, a Grey Daturas pin, and a gorgeous full color poster. Super limited, and of the sets with medium t-shirts we only got 8!!!
The shirt/poster/button combo has to ship in a tube, so if you order this with other items it will have to ship separately and thus there will be an extra shipping charge.
Okay, we only got a handful of these in, and in very limited sizes, but we figured we oughta grab as many as we can since so many AQ fans are such huge Wolf Eyes and Grey Daturas freaks. That means act fast, and don't be too bummed if we've already sold out. We took every single one the bands had left.
So this pack includes a killer red on black Grey Daturas t-shirt, a Grey Daturas pin, and a gorgeous full color poster. Super limited, and of the sets with small t-shirts we only got 8!!!
The shirt/poster/button combo has to ship in a tube, so if you order this with other items it will have to ship separately and thus there will be an extra shipping charge.
The more we listen to the Grey Daturas, the more we see them play live, the more times we hear and their records and the more they perform and interact with other musicians and performers, the more we realize the Daturas aren't really a band. Or more specifically aren't -just- a band. They are music makers certainly, but they seem to approach music from a distinctly non rock band perspective. There are drums and synths and bass and guitars, oh! are there guitars, but the sounds they make and the 'songs' they craft have as much in common with the Dead C or SUNNO))) as they do with the drone of Sunroof! or Jonathan Coleclough or the abstract minimalism of Morton Feldman or Steve Reich. This two song live ep demonstrates that yet again. The first track is a swirling snarling tangle of slowly shifting guitar feedback, distorted waves of sonic rumble and squeal unfurl and just sort of drift and sway, slipping under and over and around each other, dense and active, but subtly so, almost tranquil, a dreamy drift of electric guitar thrum. The drums begin as just some sort of sonic garnish, a little splash here or there, before kicking into a fully rocking, totally propulsive pounding spacerock groove, the guitar and bass following suit, the track now a distorted prickly static throb, wrapped in squalls of Hendrixian guitar freakout and huge slabs of bass, lumbering skyward like a more minimal and more metal Hawkwind. The second track follows a similar path, but this time the drums are more of a chaotic presence, spitting fills in every direction, cymbal sizzle drenching everything within earshot, the guitars whipped into an impossible frenzy, so loud and recorded so hot, that the sound itself begins to crumble, a blown out blast of space rock psych fuzz sludge.
Two 14 minute tracks. Hand numbered and limited to 150 copies (of which we took almost 1/3 of the pressing!). Packaged in a cool hand painted faux blood splattered digipak.
And as much as we hate to belabor the point, this is SUPER LIMITED! Once these are gone they are gone gone gone.
It's weird to think about the world before the Internet. Little pockets of bands in out of the way places, producing wild and wonderful music, that outside of a few tape traders and cool record stores just didn't get heard. In some ways the advent of immediate world wide communication has been a wellspring of amazing music, since now, some kid who records in his bedroom in Finland, can now be heard by anyone in the world. Anywhere. Any time. The downside is of course the proliferation of bands whose material maybe didn't need worldwide exposure, music that was just fine where it was, in the bedroom or the basement. Thankfully this particular release is a definite example of the former. Australia has produced some killer rock over the years, from AC/DC to Radio Birdman to Lubricated Goat (one of Allan and Andee's favorites) to the Dirty Three to more obscure noiserock bands like Budd or the Dumb And The Ugly or Primitive Calculators. A few lists back we reviewed an awesome disc by the band Whitehorse, whose epic sludge-y, drone-y dirge definitely hit the Sunn 0))) / Earth / Corrupted / Khanate spot. The guys in Whitehorse suggested we check out another Aussie outift (also from Melbourne) a two guys and a gal trio called the Grey Daturas, who only a few weeks later just showed up in our store with a box full of cds, about to embark on their first US tour (some of the dates with Sunn 0))), see elsewhere on this list for tour dates). And while the Daturas are indeed heavy and droney, their sound is less slow motion sludge and more blown out fuzzy psych rock. A blurry druggy mix of Hawkwind, the Dead C, Comets On Fire, Residual Echoes, Dead Meadow and Bardo Pond. The Daturas' sound is all over the map, from churning, throbbing fuzzdrug churn, with squealing feedback and choppy uneven riffing, to drifting dreamy stripped down post rock, all careening wildly between thick swaths of super overdriven psych fuzz, and drenched in crumbly distortion and all manner of wah. When they kick out the jams, it's fierce and mesmerizing, pounding and relentless, with simple propulsive percussion and spaced out swirl. Often stretching out into head nodding Krautrock jams, spacious and hypnotic. When the storms calm and the band drifts off and just sort of meanders, we're reminded of Codeine and other like minded practitioners of drowsy, druggy slow core. Still noisy, but mellow and intense, brooding and subtly aggressive.
The Grey Daturas are all instrumental which as you probably know we tend to dig, since there's nothing like a bad singer to ruin a perfectly good band, but there's always the risk of bands with no vocalists to be really really boring. But because a lot of the Daturas' tunes are improvised, and the band is willing to take all kinds of musical chances (they often switch instruments, sometimes perform as a duo with no drummer, etc...) it never gets boring, instead it becomes the perfect mix of droning free rock, kick ass instrumental post rock, buzzing druggy psych and even occasional blasts of full on metal. Mix in some cool song titles: "The Hanging Man Is No Peacock", "Force Is A Weapon Of The Weak", as well as some oddly political song titles (but more sort of Sixties politics): "For Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale", "Night Of The Barricade: Paris 1968", a gorgeous washed out black, brown and grey cardboard sleeve, and a totally kick ass live show (they performed admirably with a handful of fill-in drummers here, even teaming up with art noise outfit the Yellow Swans for one show), and you've got one of our favorite new bands / releases. AND they're recording a new record right here in SF when they get back from tour...yay!
As we've mentioned before, Australia's Grey Daturas are an amazing live band. And no matter how great their records are (and they are great), they can't compare the the furious improvised heavy-as-fuck spectacle of the live Daturas experience. Bonnie is a seriously formidable axemaster, emitting the unholiest of heaviness from her guitar, pealing washes of coruscating distortion, dreamy swaths of washed out chordal blur, while the two Rob's do their own brand of damage, throbbing pulsing low end bass, and bombastic drum fury...
So any chance to see these guys live, or even hear them live is one to not be passed up. Here we have a document from their 2006 tour, recorded live in Austin at Emo's, 35 minutes or primo Daturas beautiful brutality.
Beginning with a blown out wall of guitar and freaked out feedback, crumbling and distorted, roiling and billowing, the drums kick in around minute 6 and the band launch into some serious sub-Stooges stomp, plowing through dense washes of downtuned buzz, the band plod and pound, the guitar not so much riffing as freaking out, huge clouds of psychedelic skree, the bass holding down the central riff, this is Dead C meets the Brainbombs, furious and heavy and brutal as fuck. But after about 10 minutes the drums peter out, and we're back in abstract free noise guitarscape territory and it's awesome. Glorious and epic. But before too long, the drums gradually return, the guitar slowly transforming into some sort of mid tempo riffage, and before you know it, the band are pounding out another garage-y noise rock psych drone barrage, and again the guitar seems dead set on getting away, squealing and flailing and freaking out over the relentless metallic trudge beneath it. As always, so fucking awesome. Can't wait to see these guys again...
Limited as all get out, just like always, packaged in plain brown sleeves, the artwork a torn scrap of paper with the liner notes, in the style of all the Diagnosis... Don't! releases.
Anyone who has seen the Grey Daturas live knows that live is where the band really shine, whether it involves songs from their records, pulled apart and reconstructed into impossibly free soundscapes, swapping instruments and exploding into a brutal NZ noise pummel, or just channeling their perfect freerock chemistry into some of the most gorgeous, kick ass avant rock we've heard in ages, organic and of the moment, hard to capture in the studio but seemingly no big thing for these guys live. SO here we have a double 3" cd-r collecting two long out of print recordings originally released a few years back of a performance back in 2002, and as the preceding bit might lead you to believe it's utterly astounding. The first disc is a three part epic, one part random preshow clatter, cord buzz, shuffling feet and hunkering down, one part sprawling low end drone beneath shuffling abstract drumming and occasional synth squiggle, super minimal and brooding, like the Dead C covering the Necks, the final track a massive sheet of static sound, pusling and glacial, guitars keen and whine over a black pool of low end, while in the background chimes and bells twinkle like sonic stars, as the guitars get more and more pronounced, and the track gets gradually heavier and heavier before collapsing completely into a barely there thrum that finally blinks out completely. The second disc is one long track, also on the abstract side, strange guitar sounds growl and grate, throb and flutter, a dense drone constructed of heavily effected guitar glitch and bass rumble, looped static and ambient swirl, cascading feedback and streaks of spacey synth, eventually the guitars take on riff form, the drums coalesce into a laid back krautrocky rhythm, and the track is transformed into a loping, melancholy almost post rock groove, albeit buried beneath layer after layer of guitar fuzz and distorted amp grit and grime. Awesome.
SUPER LIMITED. We got 30 copies and after that these are gone!
It's hard for us to come to terms with the fact that the Grey Daturas are from Australia, it seems like they're always on tour, always in the US, and always in aQ! I We feel like they must live just down the street, we see them more than some of us see our own families. Part of it is because SF is their homebase when they're not at home. But part of it is that they ARE indeed always on tour. And as most folks realize, the more a band tours, the tighter they get, and while we loved the Daturas from day one, their shambolic improvised psychedelic drone rock always on the verge of total chaos, they have continued to get better and better, their sound constantly evolving, able to pummel and destroy with the best of them, but also perfectly capable of weaving drifting drone-y ambience, which is what they do here. Mostly.
This limited lp only release, finds the Daturas in Texas, and unlike most bands, who on their days off, drink, and record shop and fuck around, the Dats record. Often with other like minded bands in whatever town they happen to be holed up in. So while the Daturas were in Texas, they borrowed some equipment, and recorded these two sidelong epics. Two halves of what was probably an extensive ambient space jam, surprisingly tranquil for these noiseniks, but not entirely.
The A side is all guitar, no drums at all, an epic expanse of various texture and timbres, of feedback and long drawn out notes, of billowing chords and downtuned buzz, all shifting and drifting glacially, dreamy and druggy, not really menacing or ominous at all, more sort of washed out and sun dappled, rich warm and inviting, really really pretty, quite reminiscent of Fear Falls Burning in fact�
The B side is more of the same, beginning almost exactly where the A side left off, except for a big chunk in the middle, where the guitars are whipped up into a psychedelic frenzy, and the drums finally come crashing in, not so much pounding out a beat as offering another layer of percussive texture, loose stumbling rhythms, little flurries of fills, nearly buried by the barrage of dense guitars, sounding a bit like a Loop vs. Dead C jam, only to have the drums drop out again, letting the guitars slip back into their abstract, near-ambient drift.
Awesome.
Australia's Grey Daturas are like our very own noise rock Santa Claus. They come about once a year, and every time they show up, they have a huge bag of sonic goodies. And while Santa probably doesn't come to punish our ear drums and pummel us to within an inch of our lives, crammed into some smokey sweaty little club, we'd probably have to take the Daturas over Santa any day!!! Unless this year is the year we finally get that pony...
This time, the band brought with them a brand new record, technically an EP, but at nearly 40 minutes it's plenty long enough to be a record proper. And as always it's a corker. Somehow, it seems to be their most structured and least chaotic, which in no way is a bad thing, nor does it mean that it still isn't packed freaked out noise rock or vast expanses of abstract psych guitar because it is. And then some.
The opener is definitely the Daturas at their most rock. Simple driving drums beneath an impossible dense swirl of HEAVY guitars, drenched in FX and churning wildly. It's like the blown out psych rock endless jam outro of every Hawkwind song jacked up and compressed into seven minutes. The rest of the record is a bit less rock, returning to their abstract noise rock ambience, like a heaver, more psychedelic Dead C, from abstract guitar jangle drift wrapped around random bits of drum flutter to an explosive noisrockmindfuck halfway through the disc, thick peals of distorted guitar that crash and crush but are almost immediately turned inside out and become a strange backwards guitar squall, all warped and warbly My Bloody Valentine / Teenage Filmstars blowout, with strange rhythms created from the ssssshhhhhht sound of the guitars being sucked through time in reverse. After that it gets a bit more minimal for a stretch, with some dark rumbling dronescapes, more snippets of backward guitar, distant swirling FX, some angular Sonic Youth style guitar rock until the final track, a massive and ultra dense guitarscape, rife with acidic riffs and distorted melodies, thick clouds of clang and rrrooooaaar, each guitar piled atop one another, layer after layer of rumbling, reverberating, shrieking, shimmering, coruscating steel string skree, a bit like Skullflower at their riffiest mashed up with Acid Mothers Temple at their least. Amazing.
Huzzah! Our favorite instrumental down-under doom-bringers return (to disruption) with this new
full-length, the prolific Melbourne trio's debut for Neurosis' Neurot label. It's a good fit, of course, this should go over well with the whole post-rock/metal crowd, this album often grindingly hypnotic, the Grey Daturas' lumbering sheets of distorto-drone skullflowering forth over a roiling bed of precision percussive clangor right from the get-go! Their threatening waves of pure heaviness, sharpened into a drill-drone of an attack, also occasionally take detours into areas of abstract ambience, the guitars of Bonnie Mercer and Rob MacManus carving psychedelic feedback sculptures, then tightening again back into full metallic impact, driven by the skittering drums of Robert Manson.
As heavy as they are (which is HEAVY) you can't really call the Grey Dats a metal band. They're in that quasi-metal realm with the likes of SUNNO))), Boris, Harvey Milk, and Nadja, perhaps, with a certain amount of experimental lo-fi fuckery going on that reminds us of many of their freenoise comrades over in nearby New Zealand... The title track itself is a clattering, pottering about, like something the Dead C would come up with, while the track called "Undisturbed" is anything but, sounding like a violin or creaking door hinge dying a slow and dismal death. And the high-end scraping skree of "Balance Of Convenience" should peel some paint. And then, as already mentioned, there's all the juggernaut, trance-inducing, spaced-out, instrumental doom rock post rock surging through tracks like "Beyond And Into The Ulimate" and "Neuralgia".
The Grey Daturas definitely like all the varieties of drone! And fans of, what should we call it, avant-doom, or drone-doom, or whatever, should like all varieties of the Grey Daturas, starting with this disc if you haven't already made their acquaintance, covering all the bases as it does!
