Newly reissued on deluxe vinyl (at a steep import price unfortunately), only one album can be called the first psychedelic OUT-country record, and if it's not Peter Grudzien's The Unicorn, we can think of no other album in the universe that would accurately fit that description (well, ok The Legendary Stardust Cowboy would come close, but that's a different animal entirely). For the emphasis on "out" here refers to all connotations of that term: far out, outsider and homosexual. Handling all the recording, arranging and playing of the instruments over a period of 14 years from 1960-1974 , The Unicorn is a strange and beautiful metaphysical concept record of love and salvation. Featuring a vast array of characters including hillbilly tricks, blue-eyed queens, monkey people and of course unicorns, Grudzien's off-kilter twang is augmented by slide guitar, banjo and otherworldly tape loops of ghostly choirs, backwards effects and warm reverb. An odd and lovely record!
Any band described as 'the Melvins playing King Crimson', well, how could you not want to hear that, assuming that were it true, you might have a new favorite band!! But, those sorts of descriptions are usually hyperbole, and while we love us some hyperbole, claims like that definitely bear some deeper digging.
That said, this stuff is pretty close to that Melvins meets KC claim, a sort of avant sludge, or prog-doom, or avant-prog-sludge. In addition to the Melvins and King Crimson, we're also thinking Harvey Milk, Dot [.], Moss, Swans, Black Shape Of Nexus, Blutch, Slomatics, and tUMULt's Like A Kind Of Matador, in fact, pretty sure that Gruel features the guitarist from LAKOM, and thus it has a similarly epic sludge prog feel. Four loooong songs, all clocking in at about 15 minutes, sprawling and epic and intricate, loads of parts, riffs, bombastic drumming, the sound slipping from classic sounding rock, to glacial sludge, to slo-mo ambient drift, to math metal churn, midtempo caveman pounds to frantic thrashing crush to super spare abstract ultra-mega-doom, to almost pretty shoegazey buzz to hushed barely there shimmer, the various parts laced with wild leads, mysterious percussion, children's voices, harsh hellish vox, bellowed yowls, weird field recordings, thick rib cage rattling low end, and a massive milk curdling guitar sound. So while it might not exactly be Melvins meets King Crimson, it's close enough, and most definitely plenty proggy and doomy and sludgey, and will no doubt hit the spot for fans of all the above mentioned bands, and all things slow and low, heavy and heady.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, packaged in a PVC sleeve, and wrapped in a full color sleeve that folds out into a big two sided full color poster!
- MPEG stream: I
- MPEG stream: II
Latest disc from these mysterious slowcore black doom drifters, whose last disc on Eichenwald was a big time favorite around these parts. If anything this new one takes the first record and pushes it into even darker, creepier, more minimal directions.
The self-titled debut was a strange blackened blend of Bohren Und Der Club Of Gore and Low, lots of low end, muted guitar strum, delicate skeletal melodies, barely there percussion, slow burning and darkly evocative, a gorgeous almost jazzy minimal black crawl.
On II, all of those elements are still present, even the haunting spoken vocals, delivered in gruff German, rumbling and ominous, here, sprawl over a delicate web of intertwined guitar melodies, crystalline and shimmery, when the drums come in, the sound takes on a strange power, a smoldering black energy, right below the surface, eventually, the band launches into full scale rocking, a loping mathy groove, the guitars more clean and chiming, than downtuned and distorted.
Other tracks find the vocals slipping into proper singing, a creepy operatic croon, over the same sort of muted soft drone and drift, the vibe commanding and Teutonic, the music spidery and surprisingly Slint like, most of the record never moving past a glacial drift, at its most propulsive, burring that one burst of heaviness, the record lopes, bathed in greys and browns, super dynamic, with tons of space, the band letting the sounds breathe, ring out, dissipate, creating expansive, slow and low, minimal dark jazz doom epics. Amazing stuff. Definitely recommended to fans of Bohren, Angels Of Light, KLV, and other practitioners of the dark (and slow) arts...
After two kick ass releases. The buzzing black metal of Dwellers Of The Twilight, and the epic doom of The Wounded Kings, comes two new records on the newly launched Eichenwald label, an offshoot of longtime faves Paradigms. We originally assumed that Eichenwald was meant to be more metal, but they seem to be displaying the same sort of sonic breadth as the mothership.
This is the debut (we think) from these German slowcore doom atmospherists, who weave a dreamlike minimal murk somewhere between Bohren Und Der Club Of Gore and Low or Seam. Three long tracks. Beginning with a muted bass heavy crawl, with spidery guitar lines and a distant shimmery drone, not unlike some mix of Codeine and Low, woozy and ethereal and dreamily fuzzy, until the song kicks into gear, and suddenly the sound is more glistening, with German vocals, crooned over skittery minimal drumming, and soft almost jazzy chords, the bass slippery and underwater sounding. Chiming harmonics drift in a hazy patina of warm reverb, the song sprawling and spreading out in slow motion, there's definitely a Necks vibe too, soporific and wearily lovely.
The second track, begins with another distant drone, and more skeletal guitar figures, and once again shifts into something moodier and jazzier, lush minor key chords, sizzling clouds of cymbal shimmer, ending with a long stretch of rainy day strings, and moaning low end swells, wrapped around a haunting guitar progression, still jazzy, but strangely cinematic.
The final track clock in at nearly 20 minutes, and begins with a creepy intro of layered drones and processed vocals, very atonal and a bit liturgical sounding, before woozy moody guitars roll in, rumbling bass, and then the drums explode and the sound becomes a super dramatic math rock a la Explosions In The Sky, but only briefly, while the rest of the song unfurls lethargically, the bass thick and muddy, the vocals spoken, the guitars offering up glistening shimmers of feedback, until the drums kick in again, and ups the drama and urgency. There's one more long-ish Bohren like crawl, before the song finishes off with a lovely and subtly epic Godspeed like flourish.
Definitely required listening for the moody dramatic post rock set: Bohren, Godspeed, Explosions, even older stuff like the aforementioned Seam, Codeine, Low, and to our ears, sometimes a bit like a softer lighter take on some of the more blissed out Jesu moments.
Aaah, '60s garage rock will never die, shimmy-stomp revivalist bands will keep on resuscitating the sock hop each decade. Back in the '80s, Montreal, Quebec spawned some of the best trashy garage surf combos, and perhaps none more notable nor more cool than The Gruesomes. They sported some of the best uniform mushroomy, bowl-cut 'dos this side of the Ramones, and were graced with one of the best snotty voices around courtesy of frontman / personality Bobby Beaton. Well, you know what? They got back together a couple of years ago! Yup, fully fueled, engines revved and ready to roll with an album called Cave In! And now, perhaps to celebrate their return -- or just 'cause what with the current garage revival these guys deserve some props -- Sundazed has released a kick-ass retrospective compiling selections from Beaton and co's previous three obscure albums Tyrants Of Teen Trash, Gruesomania and Hey! plus an assortment of EPs, comp tracks and -- the staple of any self-respecting retro rock band -- some stellar cover versions, including a track originally performed by "The Way-Outs" in a Flintstones cartoon! Raw, fuzzed out electric guitars, a primal drum beat, a steady walking bassline, vocals snarled and shouted, and a heck of a lot of fun. Truly a garage rawk treasure.
We first heard about the awesomely named Grumbling Fur, via the fact that one of the members was none other than Jussi from Finnish hypnorockers Circle, and as with all of Jussi's many projects, we were excited to hear this one, especially since it also included Daniel O'Sullivan of Guapo (and more recently Ulver, Mothlite and Miasma & The Carousel of Headless Horses). Sadly, we so far have not been able to get copies of their debut full-length, so thus, no one here had actually yet heard Grumbling Fur.
Until now, 'cause this just showed up. This three song ep, the latest in the Latitudes series, finds the former quintet stripped down to just a duo, sans Jussi, it's just O'Sullivan and Alxeander Tucker, not sure if this more minimal lineup is permanent or just for the Latitudes sessions, and seeing as we have yet to hear the original lineup, we can't say how it compares, but we can say we dig it quite a bit.
At first blush it's a sort of folky baroque psychedelic pop, a mournful plink plonk bit of piano, over a layer of thick squelchy synth buzz and skeletal drumming, the vocals a dreamily dramatic croon, everything wreathed in streaks of squiggly effects, and some singing strings off in the background, hypnotic, and a little bit tranced out, with a distinctly drone-y element, a dark minimal bit of downer folk pop that also has a sort of Velvets vibe with its single part arrangement and druggy psychedelic mesmer, which gradually grows more manic near the end before disappearing in a cloud of swirling buzz and tripped out FX.
The second track follow suit, with the same general sound palette, but sounding more bombastic, a big lush almost orchestral pop sound, but rendered in greys and blacks, the skittery drumming, the minor key piano melodies, this time in a cloud of what sounds like manufactured field recordings, and the vocals all tangled up into a dizzying round, reminding us a bit of Cardinal in fact, but a much more minimal, druggy Cardinal to be sure.
The final track is an instrumental coda, all effects-drenched piano and shimmery synth swirls, the sunniest of the bunch, with just a slightly sinister streak, playful, melodic, and darkly dreamy.
Packaged as usual in that distinctive Latitudes packaging. the cd in a brown and white origami style sleeve, with a cool black embossed print on the front, and a full color insert inside with liner notes, the lp in a black and white sleeve, with the same insert. BOTH LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Okay, let's get it out of the way right up front. Yeah, we know, Gruntruck is a terrible name for a band, and yeah they do have a song called "Crucifunkin'" which is unfortunately, as the title might lead you to believe, a little bit funky. But be that as it may, these guys slayed, early nineties Seattle grunge, always underappreciated, but so heavy, and hooky, and groovy, channeling the same sort of sound as Skin Yard and Soundgarden, big downtuned riffage, wild scrabbly leads, and vocalist Ben McMillan's killer yowled vox. Need proof, just check out the sound sample for "Inside Yours", a track that we would definitely put near the top of our list of best grunge jams ever, with its woozy, druggy, slow build intro, and lurching lumbering, stop / start arrangement, slinky and sludgey, with some killer weirdly effected guitars, reminding us of Green River, the same sort of junkie blues grunge metal groove. And while that 's definitely our favorite jam here, there are plenty that are just as good.
Gruntruck played constantly with grunge legends like Screaming Trees, Alice In Chains (supposedly they opened for AiC more than any other band), not to mention touring with Pantera, and featured at least one of The Accused as a member, but for whatever reason, they sort of slipped through the cracks. Which makes no sense listening to this now. This double disc collection gathers up the group's two full lengths, 1990's Inside Yours and 1992's Push, with two bonus tracks. Inside Yours is the grungier of the two, definitely sounding like it could easily have ended up on Sub Pop, although it's maybe a tad more metal, with a sound that was definitely dangerously close to fellow grungers Skin Yard, while Push was a bit more commercial, probably reflecting all those shows with Alice In Chains, their sound definitely moving in that direction. Record label bullshit hastened the end of the original lineup, and while the band soldiered on, releasing another ep in 1996, and reuniting in 2000, it's these two records that should have made them as big as their grunge brethren. Super rocking, grunge-y hook filled heaviness that should most definitely hit the spot for fans of Skin Yard, Tad, Green River, Soundgarden, The Fluid, Afghan Whigs, Swallow, Love Battery, Nirvana, etc., who somehow missed out on these guys the first time around.
Packaged in a super fancy six panel double digipak, with two booklets, lyrics and liner notes.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The Omni Recording Corporation has been killing it lately in a string of essential vinyl reissue collaborations with the Australian Roundtable label, focusing on rare library, lounge and private press exotica. We recently listed the Orchestra Peter Thomas Orion 2000 lp of tripped out sci-fi grooves, and this week we have two extremely fine examples of Italian library music from composer Egisto Macchi and his more well known group that included Ennio Morricone, Gruppo D'Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza.
While we have always respected and revered this Italian improv collective, much of their recorded output has been on the difficult listening side of things. Skronky free jazz , metallic bangs and tings, tape noise and pounding prepared piano. Sometimes abstract, dissonant and sparse, though equally majestic, heavy and remarkable, it hasn't always been easy to get behind...until now! Finally, a lost recording from 1971 for the Gemelli Library that was never released, Niente is a mind-scorching set of avant-psych groove. While there are still qualities of their defining sound present, this set is marked most notably by a strong rhythm section that is not afraid to jam out. Reminding us of favorite records from Faust and Can, this is the GDNC at their most kraut. Both funky and proggy, we think that moden day-psych fans of bands like Wooden Shjips, 3 Leafs, Carlton Melton and The Heads should look into the weird sound world of this release and get their minds blown!
Limited to 500 copies and nearly out of print, we were lucky to get the copies we have, so don't snooze on this one!
Some brilliantly abstract percussive improv from legendary sixties outfit Gruppo Improvisazione Nuova Consonanza, who among its members counted a young Ennio Morricone. But don't expect any of that cinematic desert twang, this is way more far out, a series of lengthy improvisations that range from clattery percussive soundscapes assembled from all manner of rattles and shakers and struck and bowed metal, chaotic and densely tangled, to haunting whirls of electronic glitch, skronky horns, pounded piano and weird tape experiments, to droney spaced out free jazz, but always retaining a wide eyed innocence and a penchant for kicking up a seriously noisy racket, even the softest moments often interrupted by a loud clang or some shimmering high end scrape. Recorded between 1967 and 1969, most of this sounds like it could easily have been recorded this year, some mysterious outfit from Finland or Japan, recording in the forest, releasing limited cd-r's. But it's also very much of it's time, a little bit academic, very later sixites / early seventies. Noisy as all get out, but incredibly captivating and strangely lovely at times. Two whole discs jam packed with some mesmerizingly freaked out free music exploration.
Also included is an amazing DVD, a gorgeous black and white concert film, documenting a live performance in Rome from 1967. Subtitled in both English and Italian. And it's all region. All of the discs are in similarly designed digipaks, and along with a poster, and a thick book packed with liner notes and photos, are housed in a super striking cloth covered box, with embossed white swirls and embossed text! Amazing.
A collection of recordings (from '67 to '75) by this legendary international (well, Italian basically) all-star improv ensemble perhaps most famous for including in its ranks Ennio Morricone (on trumpet)! The other members were Mario Bertonichi, Walter Brachi, Franco Evangelisti, John Heineman, Roland Kayn, and Egisto Macchi. Also, guests found here include Frederic Rzewski, Giovanni Piazza, and Jesus Villa Rolo. Formed in 1964, unique in being a "new music" improvising group composed entirely of, uh, composers. The sound is somewhere between European free improv jazz a la the FMP label and avant-garde, Cageian 20th century chamber music, with an emphasis on extended techniques and "deformed sounds". Liner notes in English and German. (Not new, from '92, but we just got this and another Gruppo disc you'll see elsewhere on the list and were excited enough by them to want to list 'em.)
Local reissue label Superior Viaduct seems to be branching out beyond the punk/postpunk/industrial genres that they'd heretofore mainly specialized in, with some surprising (but cool) reissue selections, including a record by hillbilly dronester Henry Flynt, and this one, by '60s Italian improv "gruppo" featuring famed soundtrack composer Ennio Morricone, plus also Egisto Macchi and other notables. Long a favorite around here, we're happy to have this new vinyl reish, nicely done. Here's what our pal Drew Daniel of Matmos was kind enough to write about this for the aQ site the very first time we listed it:
If there was such a thing as "catchy" improv this sumptuous, careful record would be it. Not reading Italian I am in the dark as to the extent to which this recording is based on "game theory", but the numerous pictures of chess boards in the room with the assembled throng of Italian composers / improvisors suggests that some kind of game based operation produced these sounds - but you don't need to be Bobby Fischer or speak Italian to be stunned by the beauty, immediacy and focus of this gathering, which includes luminaries such as Ennio Morriconne. Far from the skronking racket which "improv" can call to mind in some listeners, there is a kind of majestic, attentive, and totally confident quality to these performances that will have the hair on your neck standing at attention, and the cinematic scope of Morricone's past work is fully in evidence here. When all six musicians build up a resonant, triumphant drone from horns and piano in "Omaggio a Giacinto Scelsi", both honoring and extending the work of the Italian aristocrat / mystic composer, the result is a kind of 17 minute long "transport" that very little contemporary music comes close to. Best of all, they also know when to make a track only two minutes long! Required listening for fans of Morricone, Supersilent, Godspeed or AMM.
Bravo, Superior Viaduct, bravo!
And it includes 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.
New project from FM Einheit (the muscleman / technician who left Neubauten a few years ago) Gry Bagoien and Einheit have collaborated to create a German cabaret version of Portishead full of tensely building left-field electronica. Gry whines and whispers with all of the theatricalities of Beth Gibbons with bossanova flares and Peter Thomas-like brash horns. Plus there are a handful of special guests: Funkstorung, Pan Sonic, Terranova, and Alexander Hacke.
A mighty fine album of amplified textures, droning experiments, and sonorous acoustics by the American ex-pat John Grzinich, who quietly operates in the Estonian countryside. There, he searches out Soviet-era ruins which have long served as a very rich source material for the tactile events that lace his compositions for long-thin wire instruments and field recordings. While Grzinich laments the fact that Estonia is slowly cleaning up those crumbled sites and once architectural monuments that are now piles of rumble, there are still plenty of sounds to discover and investigate. As his work unfurls, a sense of mystery surrounds his process and the resulting sounds. It seems that it is the wind that drives his wire instruments, but these could be bowed or agitated by mechanical means as well. Regardless, the first lengthy track opens with slow rumbling waves that trace through a quiet passage of wooden creakings, before an ominous, electrically charged buzz slips into the mix. This hum is clinical and inhospitable, leaning towards allusions to abandoned hydro-electric dams or poorly guarded nuclear facilities. By the end of the track, watery recordings cycle forward and overtake the amassed acoustic drones before snapping to an abrupt conclusion. The second piece features an even richer wire-driven drone whose overtones and sub-harmonics glisten in spite of their leaden frequencies. The additional layers of a crackling, rustling, scraping, and other nocturnal bumps in the night parallel the compositional strategies employed by Small Cruel Party and Giancarlo Toniutti, who both allow for the simple interaction between disparate elements which orbit a gravitational drone. Some of the best work we've heard from Grzinich in a while! Limited stock on this one, as it's a Russian pressing. And by the way, it's an actual legitimate Russian pressing, not one of those "Russian" grey area editions.
You know how much we like instrumental underground UK prog masters Guapo here, right? Andee even put out one of their albums (2001's Great Sage, Equal Of Heaven) on his label tUMULt. Subsequently they released the massive Five Suns opus on Cuneiform. And now, their new release Black Oni is unleashed by Mike Patton's Ipecac label. And they've been going from strength to strength.
Like Japan's Ruins, the Guapo trio take a lot of inspiration from '70s prog, in particular the "zeuhl" stylings of the amazing French band Magma. But where the Ruins generally concentrate the Magma sound into a hectic hyper-blast, Guapo tend to stretch things out, spreading their prog-frenzy across (in this case) a forty-three minute, five part epic composition, not unlike the five part, forty-six minute title suite of Five Suns... that's their specialty it seems. Crazed drumming and complex bass lines coexist with spaced-out keyboards (including '70s prog stalwart the Mellotron), making Black Oni a combination of energetic prog mayhem and droning electronic darkness. For fans of Yeti, Tarantula Hawk, Circle and even The Necks... and of course anyone already into Guapo will love this new one. Recommended!
- MPEG stream:
- MPEG stream:
Prog nutters? These guys are, definitely. And be prepared to go prog nuts yourself for this new release from AQ-faves Guapo. This British band is now on Neurosis' Neurot label, after releases for (among others) Mike Patton's Ipecac and our own Andee's tUMULt. We've been fans of 'em for a long time, obviously, and are in good company! This new one is everything we'd expect from Guapo: extended, mostly instrumental cinematic symphonics, dark and moody, played with the virtuosity and verve of their '70s prog rock ancestors. Heck, I (Allan) played a 15 minute track from this, "King Lindorm", on my prog / krautrock radio show last night, Klaus To The Edge (www.westaddradio.com/klaus), and it fit right in perfectly alongside the '70s likes of Cornucopia and Gnidrolog!! Droning strings. Eastern melodies. Bombastic battery. Elegant eeriness.
Yet at this point, Guapo have developed their own sound to a degree where you can't just tag them as a retro proposition. Creatively, they're bringing their old school prog rock inspirations into the 21st century, and have refined their approach to a point where they have as much in common with modern post rock soundscapers as they do with the eccentricities of hoary prog heroes Magma.
As always, the duo of Daniel O'Sullivan (Fender Rhodes, piano, bass, guitars, harmonium, modular synthesizers, autoharp, voice, electronics -- whew!) and David J. Smith (drumkit, percussion) are their own veritable prog rock orchestra, though they do have occasional help from guests, including vocalist Jarboe from the Swans on one song. That'd be "The Selenotrope", one of two tracks originally from Guapo's tour-only Twisted Stems cdep, both of which are included here, and which we previously described as sounding something like a horror movie soundtracks scored by The Necks. (To Guapo fans who happen to already have Twisted Stems, we say no worries, you'll still be getting well over 40 minutes of brand new music on Elixirs too.)
All this proggy goodness comes wrapped up in a snazzy black & white artwork, packaged in a jewelcase with cardstock slipcase.
>>Sorry to say we won't physically have these until Monday or Tuesday. But go ahead and order it now!<<
After a stunning release on our own Andee's tUMULt label a few years back, the UK's finest noise-skree-experimental rock duo, Guapo return as a trio (!) and with a brand new album that...[review pauses here while Andee wildly air drums along with Guapo's one man octopoidal percussionist Dave Smith, although I suppose it's not technically air drumming if Andee's in fact hitting Allan in lieu of actual drums, but we digress...]
While their last full length Great Sage, Equal Of Heaven was a frenetic Ruins-esque, bass and drums (and sometimes sax) workout, Five Suns takes the obvious instrumental prowess and prog potential present on the first record, and turns Guapo into the only modern prog combo that could possibly threaten Christian Vander's Magma throne. Hyperbole? Hardly. The centerpiece of Five Suns is the five part, 46 minute title track. So gorgeously grand, so compositionally daunting, so fucking good, words fail us. The addition of a full time keyboardist, as well as the introduction of guitars, has helped Guapo's skeletal prog jams flower into expansive instrumental epics. The record begins with a huge swell, a swirling squall of wild drumming and thick instrumental chaos, that glitches out as if the stereo is malfunctioning, before setting you down gently, ready to embark on a daunting but inspiring musical journey. Droning ambience and repetitive hypnotic rhythms give way to ultra complex, ultra precise riffery. Melodies are subtle but infectious, slowling unfolding over the course of ten, sometimes twenty minutes. Minor key thrum underpins careening hyper complex arrangements, tense and intense, hypnotic and just breathtaking in its scope. The Ruins is still a definite reference, but all sort of other influences inform Guapo's unique take on prog, the cyclical hypno-rock of Circle (and beyond that the rhythmic propulsive psych/drone of classic Krautrock), the blissed out skree of Skullflower and Sunroof! as well as post rock, free folk, metal and all sorts of other disparate sounds. All woven smoothly and uniquely into a cohesive whole. A fifty minute track, even in the best hands, can veer into overindulgence and pointless jammery, but every second of Five Suns is perfectly placed, and perfectly played -- but without losing its organic, free feel. The two extra tracks are separated from the vast "Five Suns" by a minute long track of silence to clear your aural palate, and prepare you for two shorter bursts of rhythmic, hypnotic, droning modern prog. Originally the Five Suns album was going to be just that, the 46 minute title track, and we were a little disappointed to learn that extra 'short' tracks were being added to make the record more, ahem, radio friendly. But now listening to it as a whole, it seems like it couldn't have been any other way. The two final tracks let us slowly unwind from the dizzying sonic journey that came before. This record is fucking massive. If there was any sort of justice in the world, Guapo would be spoken of in the hushed tones reserved for bands like Magma or King Crimson. As far as we're concerned, starting right now, they will be.
Wow! UK noise-skree-experimental rock duo Guapo really take their prog-rock obessions to the limit on this new album, a joint release between France's Pandemonium label (home to AQ-faves Hint as well) and our own Andee's tUMULt label. Guapo have always
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
An amazing melange of noise, improv, electronics, prog, opera, samples, and turntables. A series of off kilter plunderphonic style noise operettas. Much less 'rock' and more weirdness than their other releases.
If you asked us (do it!) to recommend you a good modern day "prog rock" band, Guapo would be at the top of the list, which would be obvious if you've seen our many, many reviews of the fantastically proggy output of this long running British unit, who have released albums on such labels as Cuneiform, Ipecac, tUMULt, Neurot, and now Cuneiform again. Their all-instrumental excursions into the epic outer reaches of compositional complexity and dark moodiness certainly owe something to the '70s prog greats but don't really come off as "retro" the way, like, Astra does (though that's fine with us too). Also their inspirations aren't just the more popular groups like Yes and King Crimson, they're probably more informed by the likes of Magma and Univers Zero.
With History Of The Visitation, Guapo's first album since 2008, the band's current lineup - featuring founding member and drummer extraordinare David Smith, along with three other gents, some of whom have also played in Cardiacs and Chrome Hoof, on guitar, bass, and keyboards, PLUS bunch of guests on violin, oboe, bassoon, French horn and other fancy instruments - continue to indulge in the epic, cinematic, somewhat sinister sounds that we love 'em for. Case in point, the album's opening track, a five-part suite called "The Pilman Radiant", at over 26 minutes commandeering a good half of the disc, an entire vinyl side in fact, which does the long slow build up from sedate & somber, sorta 20th century classical hiss/drone atmospherics, to a lumbering melodiousness, to full-on jazzed-up soloing, getting pretty darn convoluted before it's over, making for a powerful prog statement all right. Whew. Could almost be a Stinking Lizaveta song, stretched to, like, ten times ordinary length, with keyboards and effective soundtracky bits added in. The remaining two tracks here (side two of the vinyl) make similar, but somewhat more concise statements. "Complex #7" is relatively brief and ambient at under 5 minutes, and then there's the over 11 minute "Tremors From The Future", the later being a repetitive, rhythmically complex hypno-prog jam with plenty of muscle.
As mentioned, Cuneiform has released this on both cd and vinyl. Both formats come with a bonus dvd, featuring live footage of Guapo on stage at two festivals - NEARfest 2006 in Pennsylvania and RIO 2007 in France, when Daniel O'Sullivan (of Aethenor, Miasma & The Carousel Of Headless Horses, Grumbling Fur, Ulver, etc.) was still in the band. That artists like Magma and Keith Emerson also appeared at those shows should tell you something.
The gatefold vinyl version is limited to 300 copies and includes a digital download.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
A sort of backhanded tribute to french avant-prog collective Magma, this 7" finds Guapo headed in a more experimental direction; lots of sampling and turntables and noise mixed with their usual heaviosity. Cool hand made covers.
We'll still never be able to understand why the whole world isn't gaga for Guapo. Without a doubt one of the best, weirdest, and most inventive modern prog outfits there is. Everyone who digs Magma should definitely have some cd shelf space set aside for Guapo. Record after record of dense, tangled, catchy spacey, far out post rock prog brilliance. A record on Andee's tUMULt label, a release on Mike Patton's Ipecac label, tours with Circle and various other underground bigwigs. What's it gonna take? Well at least we know AQ customers are hip to Guapo's unique musical world, and with that in mind we managed to get a bunch of these super limited tour EPs, from Aurora Borealis, the same folks who put out the Grails 12", the Moss cd, the Fungal Hex double picture disc, the Crebain picture disc and the Moss / Wolfmangler split cd. And this Guapo cd ep somehow manages to fit just perfectly. Or imperfectly. Especially considering how weird this ep is, even by Guapo's already weird standards. Gone is pretty much any trace of musical bombast, which is what pretty much defines prog. Instead, this two part epic is a gorgeously slow and moody crawl, a slithering jazzy shimmer, with shuffling drum skitter and melancholy piano, slippery underwater bass that's murky and smoky and dreamily ominous. The second track picks up where the first one left off, gradually adding more elements, a distant wah guitar, some strange metallic percussion, creepy zither like melodies, the whole thing growing ever so slightly busier musically and getting creepier by the second, with the bass building into the driving force, a thick propulsive throb under a swirl of haunted house like jazz shuffle. Sounds a bit like what we might imagine a horror movie soundtrack by the Necks might sound like. Cool!
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The UK's purveyors of rock/improv spazzy heaviness known as Guapo (a guitar/drums duo) team up with some like minded friends, including the famed Japanese progfreaks Ruins, for some crazed jamming/spontaneous composition. Half the record features drummer Tatsuya Yoshida and bassist Hisashi Sasaki of Ruins, while the second half incorporates the double bass of John Edwards and the alto saxophone of Caroline Kraabel (ex-Honkies), who we hear has now joined Guapo full-time. The results are, as expected, on the noisy side. While "Death Seed" doesn't equal any Guapo or Ruins record proper, it's certainly a worthy investment for fans of these bands or similar noisecore sounds. Italian import.
You've seen the TV special... you need the soundtrack! Originally released in 1965, an all-time classic from pianist/composer Guaraldi. For all Peanuts fans and Christmas lovers.
NOW ON VINYL!!
You've seen the TV special... you need the soundtrack! Originally released in 1965, an all-time classic from pianist/composer Guaraldi. For all Peanuts fans and Christmas lovers.
This is a strange one, definitely not for everybody, but for those of you into freaked out, noisy, goofy, silly and stupid, whatthefuck weirdness, then Guaranteed Katch might hit the spot. Knowing that this stuff was recorded in Ohio with the guy from Sockeye, legendary fucked up lo-fi punk noise weirdos (who have a connection to aQ faves Breathilizor) should tell you enough about these "experimental noise rock" / "jazz core" to know whether to venture in, or run away screaming. Even we're not sure which to recommend. But that in itself, at least around here is its own sort of twisted recommendation.
Stumbling, noisy, chaotic, puerile, punky, jazzy, like the brain damaged little brother of Mr. Bungle, these guys mix and match, sludge and samba, noise and jazz, punk and pop, but this is not the Naked City sort of genre splicing, no, this is more a sort of ADD, kitchen sink, too much weed and a 4-track, channel surfing, ritalin overdosed, neighbor terrorizing, basement lo-fi noise punk jazzbo misfit metal, who-knows-what sort of dizzying DIY damage.
Not sure what else to say, be forewarned: only for the brave, or the ballsy, or the dim witted, preferably all three! And as with all Equation records, this one is packaged pretty sweetly, pressed on thick brown vinyl, with tons of inserts, a fancy full color jacket, bonus tracks not on the original cd releases, and LIMITED TO ONLY 333 COPIES, each one hand numbered.
We really weren't sure what to expect from the oddly monikered Guardian Alien, knowing that two of the members also played in black metal outfit Liturgy, but that this was drummer Greg Fox's project, Fox also apparently recording as GDFX, whose tripped out experimental electronic tape on Ormolycka we reviewed a while back. We were even further confused when we got a look at the record cover, a weird painting of a Rasta alien in a tracksuit, in a field full of animals and campfires, and a sky full of deer with books in their mouths and exploding suns, and of course the tracksuited alien is holding a copy of the record, whose cover depicts the same alien holding a copy of the record and so on and on and on ad infinitum. The title too, "See The World Give To A One Love Entity" has a definite Rastafari bent, so we were definitely feeling some serious trepidation as we pushed play, which at first unfurled what sounded like field recordings, birds and insects, and then footsteps, maybe the footsteps of that alien on the record cover, then a brief bit of Eastern style drone, before BLAM, the song explodes in what we can only describe as Liturgy by way of Sunroof!, which you have to hear to believe.
It's a furious raga-blast, the drums relentless a splattery chaos of wild octopoidal drumming, the guitars following suit, sounding like a transcendental Mick Barr, it's frenzied and tangled but infused with a serious does of droned out tranciness, and then as the song lets up briefly, we were expecting that whole bit to just be the intro, but then the furious raga-blast starts up again, this time even more intense and explosive, and this time with vocals, a strange chanting buried in the mix, very ritualistic and meditative, and even though the band is pounding away frantically, the whole thing manages to be totally mesmerizing and utterly hypnotic, and after three minutes, although it feels like much more, the sound settles down into something much more stripped down and meditative, the drums no less busy, but instead, weaving a dense percussive backdrop over which woozy guitars waver and buzz, the vocals become more distinct, the melodies stretched out into gorgeously buzzy ragas, we're reminded of Astral Social Club at time the same sort of noise-raga thing, but here blissed out, the sound like some wild ritualistic drum circle wedded to some serious free jazz raga exploration, the vocals doused in effects, sounding truly alien, in keeping with the cover and the concept, the sound swirly and tripped out and super psychedelic, until eventually the drums drift off, leaving just a sky full of layered undulating guitars, a blur of shifting overtones and wild sonic squalls, before the drums come back in, a dense mathy, driving percussive groove, wreathed in swirling effects, the song shifting constantly, arranged like an epic black metal song in some ways, it's dynamicism in no way taking away from the tracks overall mesmer, and it is a single track, nearly 40 minutes of blast beat driven raga ur-drone psychedelia, dipping into ultra minimal drones and chant like vocalization here and there, chiming Tibetan bowls elsewhere, the field recordings that opened the record returning occasionally, a gorgeous droned out slow build to a final movement, a gloriously cosmic free jazz psychedelic drum heavy raga drone blowout, that builds to a sort of Boadrum like rhythmic frenzy before finally fading out in a cloud of deep bell like tones and slow fading shimmer. Wow.
The first record from this strange outfit was a single sprawling, psychedelic raga, all spaced out and trance-y, and driven, as unlikely as it may seem, by the wild metallic drumming of Greg Fox, formerly of transcendental black metallers Liturgy. We described that record as sounding like Liturgy meets Sunroof!, a furious raga-blast, all droned out and ritualistic, it's a record that didn't seem like it should work, but maybe because of that, became a unanimous store fave (and Record Of The Week).
So we were pretty excited to hear this new one, and it does not disappoint, although it does definitely confound. We were expecting maybe raga-blast part two, but instead, the record opens with a twisted sprawl of faux world music, Fox's drumming here a tangled, and relentless skitter, all hand drums and tablas, and other percussion, all tangled up with some super busy melodic bass, some spidery guitars, and processed female vocals, go from ritualistic chant, to chopped up stuttery garble, the whole track very No Neck Blues Band-ish, albeit a bit more Eastern influenced. A little Boredoms too. But it only gets weirder from there on out. Two brief blasts of metallic drone, the first all weird vocal samples buried beneath buzzing guitars and pounding drums, a swirling psychedelic freakout that gives way to the second, a weird Dada-ist cut up of clipped vocals, peppered by cool syncopated exotic percussion, bummer it's only a minute long, would have loved to have that stretch out forever! That gives way to a heady droney sprawl of crumbling distortion, chanted vox, all blurred into heaving swells, a little bit spacey, and doomy, but all of this seems to be leading up to the 20+ minute title track, sampled spoken word which quickly disappears in a cloud of impossibly dense and octopoidal drumming, everything wreathed in a cloud of bleeping and blooping electronics, and drifting on a bed of sitar like buzz, gradually settling into a dense mathed out raga-rock groove, the drums relentlessly churning away, the sound building to a blasting almost black metal frenzy, before fading back into that tribal, rhythmic groove, only to gradually transform into some strange strain of psychedelic krautrock, motorik and mesmerizing, and again building slowly to the super intense finale, which sounds like multiple Boredoms playing at once, noisy and swirling, and dizzying, and wildly chaotic, electronics, and guitar buzz, and Fox's impossibly wild drumming, all whipped into a tranced out squall, which locks into a skipping digital stutter, before finally sputtering to a halt. Exhausting, inspiring, and truly, sonically transcendental!
Deranged Swedish garage prog from the early seventies. Like a punkier version of Trad Gras Och Stenar, but much looser and less focused on repetitive mantra jams. T-Doja chronicles both of their rare lps Uti Var Hage from 1970 and Gudibrallan II from 1971. Far out!
Leyfdu Ljosinu translates from the Icelandic to "Allow The Light" and is a stunningly beautiful piece from the post-classical composer Hildur Gudnadottir, who recorded this in one-shot with no edits or overdubs with just cello, voice, and electronics. The liner notes and the press release make a big deal about the single take of this recording, but with how adept so many doom / drone / shoegaze / black noise musicians are a creating loops on the fly through computer or pedal or whatever, this shouldn't be the first thing to commend Gudnadottir on. What she should be praised for is her command over ALL of her instruments and how well she emotes a beautiful desolation through those instruments. At first, Gudnadottir sings a plaintive, wordless melody which she captures in a loop, as she abstracts that loop by stretching it and dunking it in reverb, she adds more vocal tones and melodies - more and more of which begins to blur into an ethereal cauldron of roiling sound somewhere between the elegant hypnosis of William Basinski and Grouper's elegiac hymnal deconstruction. After some 15 minutes, the cello makes a slow introduction, seamlessly overtaking the voice as the prominent instrument. Again, Gudnadottir filters the sounds of her cello through all of her effects, furthering the descent of her sounds to the very bottom of the ocean. By the conclusion of the piece, she eschews the reverb for a frantic, nervous dervish across the strings of her cello abruptly coming to a perfect conclusion.
Not a brand new record, but instead a reissue of a 2006 album from one of our favorite cellists, Hildur Gudnadottir, who in the past has contributed brilliantly to records by Sigur Ros, Mum, BJ Nilsen and others, but whose solo records are even more fantastic. Focusing of course on the cello, she also incorporates zither, gamelan, viola, piano, vibraphone and more into a sound that's haunting and brooding, mystical and mysterious, the instruments subtly treated, melodies multitracked, gorgeous lush landscapes of blurred string sections, cinematic swells giving way to hazy murky blur, notes stretched out into warm whirling melodic tangles, complex counterpoint, ever shifting overtones, every track here a gloriously lush and emotionally charged miniature epic that hovers in some impossible space between classical, avant garde and drone, but always with a distinctly human element, these are the sort of deep and powerful songs and sounds that effortlessly evoke a sense of wistful melancholia, emotions that are definitely at odds with the smiling candid snapshot cover photo, these tracks like miniature soundtracks for fading memories and lost loves...
So gorgeous.
Hildur Gudnadottir has such a way with the cello, able to create such utterly moving music that is filled with nuance and texture but that is also so deeply emotional. Hailing from Iceland, Gudnadottir's resume includes collaborations and partnerships with the likes of Pan Sonic, Mum, Sigur Ros, Angel, BJ Nilsen, etc. It's so nice to get to hear her take center stage, carefully crafting a sound that is about as moody and beautiful as music really gets. Perfect for those eternal gray days we are faced with so often in San Francisco, this is a record we put on when we just want to get lost in the fog and haze. There is very nice and subtle processing throughout the album as well, and here and there Gudnadottir tries her hand at the zither with stunning results. Johann Johansson adds organ on a few tracks as well, and fans of HIS best work as well as music by folks like Sylvain Chauveau, Philip Glass, Michael Cashmore, Joan Jeanrenaud and Colleen should for sure check this out. Truly elegant and intensely resonant. And thus highly recommended!
Will there be a time when Stilluppsteypa will once again march out of the Icelandic tundra with a record all their own? It has been three years since Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson and Helgi Thorsson produced anything other than their collaborations with BJ Nilsen; but if things progress as they have through those two impeccable albums of glacial drone damage (Vikinga Brennivin and Drykkjuvisur Ohljodanna) and a split LP only release, who the hell cares if they do anything by themselves? For the fourth time, the drunken cabal of Nilsen / Sigmarsson / Thorsson return to the mixing desk with their psychotropic drones laced with Haflerian absurdity; and here on Second Childhood, the three have recruited the upcoming avant-garde cellist Hildur Gudnadottir, who has previously worked with the likes of Mum, Pan Sonic, and Johann Johannsson.
With the opening growl of scratched cello hypnosis plunging into a deep void of low end vibrations, the notions of this collective Second Childhood being warm and fuzzy go out the window with plenty of references to the blackened sprawl generated by the likes of Corrupted, Black Boned Angel, or anything on Battlecruiser. As bleak as gaping minimalism is on most of Second Childhood, the atmospheres do lighten a bit with some narcotic ambient passages of heavily processed guitars and cello that come across like a meeting between Andrew Chalk and Colleen. Yet, as the album comes to a close, the mind-numbingly heavy drones return with the addition of pulsing post-Sahkho rhythms lurking in the background as if somebody next door was thumping out a minimal techno groove. Pretty much everything that BJ Nilsen and Stilluppsteypa produce is well worth investigating, and this continues to be true for their ongoing collaborations. Brilliant.
Okay, we can all breathe a sigh of relief. The always amazing Ethiopiques series continues on past volume 20 with no end in sight. We were wrongly led to believe that volume 20 was to be the last in this, one of our all time favorite series, and we were heartbroken. On top of that, the final installment was quite surprisingly a live recording of modern day American musicians jamming with an Ethiopian band. It was still cool, but it was a bit tough to figure out why the curaters of this series would choose to go out on that kind of admittedly anticlimactic note, when there were certainly hundreds of buried treasures from the golden age of Ethiopian music that most definitely deserved to be unearthed. This newst volume quickly sets everything right, being entirely the solo piano of a woman named Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou. Her playing is devastatingly lovely and haunting. A curious hybrid of old time jazz and classical, but still truly Ethiopian. Dark and contemplative, moody but subtly playful as well. Culled mainly from recordings from the late 40's early 50's, a period during which Guebrou had recently left the convent due to illness, and then continued to compose and perform as a way of raising money for charity. And THAT's on the heels of having moved to Egypt and then returned to Ethiopia a figure of high society, her dream of playing piano dashed by the Emperor, which led her to sickness and then near death, she even received the last rites, survived and then joined the Imperial Guard, went back to school to study business finally fleeing to join a convent and become a nun. All the while continuing to play music, in fact she continues to perform to this day, in Ethiopia where she still lives, four of her most recent recordings (from 1996) are included here as well.
Her story is amazing, the liner notes go into great detail about her fantastic and adventurous life, but her music is equally as remarkable, the sound and feel is so dense with memory and imagery, musical but somehow quite visual, warm and woozy, a fuzzy, sepia toned old timey feel, due in no small part to the recording, which is quite reminiscent of old 78's, the soundtrack to movie Crumb, that sort of thing, dark rumbling low notes underpin sweet swirls and delicate flurries of minor key melody, sweet and lowdown for sure, warm evenings, back porches, big beautifully appointed parlors, huge empty fields, grass waving in the breeze, long late night wanders, moonlight strolls, so completely dreamy and lovely. Definitely one of out favorites so far in the series. We hope it never ends!
Teranga Beat is yet another amazing world music label, who along with Sublime Frequencies, Yaala Yaala, Sham Palace and a few others, continue to discover some of THEE most amazing sounds around. Halleli N' Dakarou is a live recording from a West African outfit called Guelewar, their last in fact, captured in 1982, and is a fantastic document of the group, often described as one of the more/most psychedelic bands from Africa, due in no small part to their mix of classic African songcraft with more modern instrumentation, most notably, the Mini-Moog, which the band use to wreath their heady fuzzy Afro-funk in wild squiggly melodies and woozy swirling textures, the synth often all tangled up with spidery guitar melodies, and intricate rhythms, the band featuring SEVEN vocalists, and THREE percussionists, as well as a guitarist who is credited solely with "Guitar Solo".
While the sound won't be unfamiliar to fans of West African music, Guelewar definitely had their own unique take on the sound, tranced out and cyclical, most definitely psychedelic, the percussion creating a dense grooving framework beneath a constant swirl of melodies, super dynamic, funky for sure, but also mesmerizing and drone-y, many of the melodies almost raga like, wound around spiralling cascades of notes, as well as brief blurts of distorted psych guitar, the sound slipping easily from a jubilant high-life to warped synth driven grooviness, to something much more brooding and mysterious. Incredible stuff!
The packaging too is ace, super striking cover art, and extensive liner notes with tons of rare photos.
We just can't get enough of this "pop ambient" stuff. This is exactly how the future will sound. And how the distant past must have sounded. And how right now would sound if we could just listen close enough. After a somewhat disappointing second album, Guentner returns to form with another gorgeous batch of crystalline ambient pop. A couple tracks are Kompakt gems of perfectly pulsing narcoticized dancefloor throb, but the majority are dreamy and whispery, drifting and abstract explorations into inner space. Crackly and fuzzy, warm and languid, everything with a dreamy sheen, slanted rays of the sun diffused into warm yellow clouds, every movement setting off a chain reaction, molecules bumping into one another, the sound of a trillion colliding molecules becoming a distant buzz that swells into warm waves of gentle whispers and barely there rhythms. Fish in the sea and birds in the sky move in perfect synchronicity, creating a simple insistent pulse, that suffuses every living creature, as we soon find that gradually we all begin to move in concert with this hidden heart beat. Rain drops ring like chimes as they hit the ground, each one a different size and color and note, like a million bells ringing at once, becoming a huge warm chord that just sort of spills over the horizon, spreading slowly until we're all floating weightless atop a slowly shifting sea of sound, letting ourselves blissfully sink to the bottom.
Following the electro-ambient hush of "In Moll" which was released on Kompakt in 2001, Markus Guentner hits us with another album of pleasant tech house grooves that beefs up the drum machine and the Moroder-esque arppegiations for ample dancefloor booty shaking, but doesn't entirely remove the silken 'pop ambient' sub-genre that Kompakt has been pushing for the past 18 months or so. While a few of the tracks are pretty standard in their four-on-the-floor drum machine progressions, Guenter mixes things up with occasion nods to electro revivalism and to Shitkatapult shuffletime grooves, as well as an Ibiza house cover of Talk Talk's "It's A Shame"!!!
MPEG Download: "Sunset" [/audio/markusguentnersunset.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Sunset" [/audio/markusguentnersunset.m3u]
Squelches and whirrs nestle in rolling hills of fuzzy dreamy drones as clicks and pops struggle for air beneath a downy blanket of suffocatingly gorgeous billowy clouds of synth wash. Sound good? It does.
It's German electronica artist Markus Guentner's debut cd for the Kompakt label. For those of you who don't know, the Kompakt label has developed an almost timeless aesthetic, not unlike the 'heroin house' sound of Chain Reaction. The Kompakt sound is an application of the often invoked but rarely successful working model of 'ambient techno'. A good example of this sort of thing that AQ-customers probably know about ('cause we sell so many of 'em) is the Wolfgang Voigt project Gas. His minimalist techno releases (in particular the Gas album "Konigsforst") are some of the few electronica albums that all Aquarians can agree on and strongly endorse.
In creating "In Moll," Markus Guentner has done more than his part to fill the void created by Voigt's unusual absence, with a disc that captures much of the feel we liked so much about the Gas records, a sort of dreamy melancholy that manages to be both wistful and hopeful, lonely and warm. Jeff thinks it has a real "change of seasons" vibe, that harkens, again, to Gas. And while the Gas comparison is surely accurate (if you haven't caught our drift already, let's state: fans of Gas should pick this up without a second thought!), Guenter does add his own flair to Voigt's signature sound though, creating a more varied and more dynamic soundscape than Voigt's pastoral hum and thump.
Four track ep by Markus Guentner, who brought us the lovely "In Moll" lp last year. Two tracks are remixes of the title track, by the dominating forces on the Cologne scene, Wolfgang Voigt and Michael Mayer.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Elica, the Italian label that brought us, among other things, the Confusional Quartet and Andre Almuro's "Delpi", has unearthed another lost recording. Jean Guerin's "Tacet" is a super rare LP, originally released on the French Futura label (Red Noise,
Instrumention includes trumpets (and "trumpet-in water"), tenor saxophone, double bass, bass guitar, darbouka, percussions, rhythm machine, generator and VCS3. Reissued in a digipak with reproductions of the original album art and liner notes by Philippe Carles, co-author of the "Free Jazz, Black Power."
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Here is a fine collection of recordings featuring the ever capable vocalist Cascarita. Recorded between 1944 and 1946 with the backing of Cuba's most famous of Orchestras, Orquesta Casino De La Playa (plus three tracks recorded with Orquesta Siboney de Pepito Torres in Puerto Rico) Cascarita has one of the most amazing voices in Cuban music, completely reckless, half laughing and yelling, but always in control. Though the liner notes don't give indications as to the performers on this recording, but 10 to 1 the pianist is either Perez Prado (who Cascarita helped to land a job with Orquesta Casino De La Playa) or Anselmo Sacasas. Either way, the piano playing alone should be enough reason to buy this recording - top notch played with that combination ham fistedness and delicate finesse.
San Francisco's Tommy Guerrero finds himself on Mo' Wax for "A Little Bit Of Something." And he's right at home, as this album recapitulates the blunted trip hop sound that put Mo' Wax on the map in the mid-90s with lots of groovy Spanish guitar licks and mellowed basslines. As pretty, mildly quirky, and downright inoffensive as the Margaret Kilgallen cover art.
Following this album's dainty piano intro we were hit with a big "Whoa!!" Heavier, groovier, funkier... that's Mr. Tommy Guerrero on From The Soil To The Soul. Sounds like he's taking a looser yet more aggressive approach. Y'know, just letting it flow. Diggin' in with some falsetto vocals and hotshit bass and Hammond lines. Whereas his previous albums have been lighter, more playful fare, this is harder hitting, very hard funk influenced a la Isaac Hayes or theme songs for gritty cop shows on tv back in the '70s like S.W.A.T. As usual he covers all the bases though, softening things up a bit for "Just Ain't Me", but then he hits us with the surprisingly hard rockin' almost rap metal of "Let Me In Let Me Out". Mr. Guerrero's getting down to some serious business.
