Sint-Denijs is the second solo record from Glen Steenkiste, he of Belgian psych-kraut collective Silvester Anfang / Sylvester Anfang II, and much like the Hellvete debut, De Gek, released on Kraak back in 2009, Sint-Denijs finds Steenkiste continuing to explore his love of modern minimalism, ditching still more of the folky, krauty shamble of the Anfang mothership and delving deeper into longform dronemusic. With an arsenal consisting of harmonium, bowed banjo, electric tampura and analog synths Steenkiste fills both sides of this lp with gorgeously lush layered shimmer, softly pulsing tones, constantly sifting textures and ghostly overtones, the oddly titled "C-142" is some primo kosmische bliss out, beginning as a simple drone, but gradually blossoming into something much more, a dense tangle of melodies, that seem to gradually peel off, the slowly swirling super nova of sound releasing melodic flares, with headphones, it's easy to sink deep into the sound, lush, and lustrous and luxurious, super melodic, but with the various melodies bleeding and oozing into one another, a constantly evolving molten sonic core, that gives us glimpses of those melodies, as they softly shift and slowly swirl.
There's a brief interlude of sorts, the equally oddly titled "MDD-409", which must be an interlude based entirely on space limitations, cuz it's another gorgeous layered dronescape, one that given another side of vinyl, would most definitely transformed into yet another epic sprawl of ur-drone majesty. But instead, it acts as a bridge, keeping us suitably entranced, before culminating in the B side filling "G-356", which begins a bit more minimally, with sitar like drones, over soft low end pulsations, reminding us of local outfit Date Palms, the same sort of classic modern minimalism fused with a sort of Spacemen 3 like druggy drift, drowsy and dreamily divine, the low end growing more dense and dark as the track progresses, before the melodies once again begin to peel away, filling the sky with arcs of prismatic shimmer, grounded by the warm, liquid pulsations beneath, slowly building to a swirling tangle of softly psychedelic sound, totally tranced out tranquility of the highest order. Fantastic!
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, on 180 gram vinyl. Includes a digital download code too!
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A killer slab of blackened lo-fi doom from these Texas misanthropes, whose sound is echo drenched and dismal, a murky, muddy abyss of downtuned guitars, and reverby vox, that are WAY up in the mix, so when the vokills bellow, everything else disappears into the background. It's the sort of muddy hellish sonic miasma that seems to ooze black energy, the band plodding though tarpits of riffage and pounding slomo dirgery, the songs peppered with the (very) occasional burst of buzzing blackness, but for the most part, remaining in the realm of doomic creep, grim, filthy, crusty, blackened rituals that lurch and lumber like some hellish black beast, dragging itself from the pit.
Hellvetron features members of another group called Nyogthaeblisz, who like lots of black metal bands, definitely have a problematic ideology, but in Hellvetron, the focus seems to be on something much more abstract, the usual black metal stuff, darkness, hell, oblivion, death and damnation, demons and of course SATAN, the sound thus appropriately foul, the doomic churn laced with some surprising elements though, chantlike background vox, what sounds like swirling synths, which adds a strange sort of liturgical vibe to the proceedings, as if these were indeed some sort of sonic rites being performed for the dark ones, the sound blurred and smeared and gloriously washed out, the black buzz muted and muddied, making it strangely meditative and trancelike, which weirdly enough ended up making this sound surprisingly soothing to us, infusing our blackened souls with some sort of demonic tranquility, the perfect grim black trance.
Epic heavy metal fans know that it's been fairly frequent occurrence of late that we've gotten new a reissue of an old '80s album by US underground metal eccentrics Manilla Road, and also once in a while, a brand new release from that still active (and still epic) cult unit. But this is a bit more unexpected - the debut from a Manilla Road SIDE PROJECT, called Hellwell, featuring MR main man Mark "The Shark" Shelton. The Hellwell name we thought was kind of faux-scary goofy, until we learned that the other driving force behind the band was a personage in fact named Ernest Cunningham Hellwell, who plays organ and synths. Also on board, Bryan "Hellroadie" Patrick, sharing some of the vocals with lead guitarist Shelton much as has been the case on Manilla Road albums of recent vintage. And really, name aside, this is basically another new Manilla Road album, and a good one. MR fans will feel right at home with it, it's hardly a big departure. Except, imagine Manilla Road with ornate Deep Purple style keyboards, loads of 'em (courtesy of the eponymous E.C.), AND an extra emphasis on the more "extreme" side of the MR equation - lots of fuzz, some guttural death metally vox and the like - whilst keeping it quite epick and eldritch indeed. Think Poe and Lovecraft. 'Cause lyrically, these songs are rooted in good old pulp literature. It's tale-telling of the horror story variety, in the grand tradition of Mercyful Fate/King Diamond and of course Manilla Road themselves, among others� Music to listen to after dark, in other words, especially if you can get yourself in the mindset of someone in the '40s listening to a creepy radio play or something, as delivered by a band part '70s prog, part '80s heavy metal, part gothic doom, part modern extreme metal� It's a cool mix, again one that most MR fans will dig 'cause that's basically what MR is all about anyway. You know how Slough Feg has gotten their share of Manilla Road comparisons? Well, perhaps Hellwell could likewise be compared to Hammers Of Misfortune.
A few weeks back, we highlighted Acid Witch. Now, Hellwitch! What (or which, or witch) will they think of next? Although, Hellwitch aren't really new. This is a reissue of an obscure Florida death metal album from 1990, done up deluxe with hella-witch bonus tracks. Wait, wait, make that a TOTALLY BATSHIT INSANE Florida death metal album, i.e. the sort of thing that we think AQ customers who aren't necessarily big death metal fans but who DO like really weird fucked up music would dig. Sound intriguing? Heck, they had us at "syzgial miscreancy" whatever that might mean. We had to look it up. (In astronomy, "syzygy" is when the sun, moon, and earth are aligned in a straight line, apparently... now make that villainous, somehow.)
So we gave Hellwitch a listen, and it turned out to be some freakin' gonzo stuff. Experimental death/thrash music, we guess, super chaotic and complex. The vocals are more thrash/HC punk sounding that cookie monster DM, often electronically treated especially on the bonus demo tracks. Or at least, we hope they're electronically treated... otherwise how on earth to explain the truly disturbing shrieks in the track "Mordirvial Dissemination" that sound like Judson Fountain singing black metal??! Electronic effects about elsewhere as well, there's tons of flange on the guitar solos ferinstance. The music itself is spastic and technical, songs crammed with angular non-repeating riffs, soloing that sounds like swarms of insects, aggro-octopoidal drumming, and plenty of WTF? extras, like the when in the midst of a particularly brutal passage Hellwitch will switch into an acoustic folky jig. Makes the likes of Melt-Banana not seem so strange.
Recorded, like all good Florida death metal, by Scott Burns at the infamous Morrisound studios, this is an unearthing of an immediately forgotten gem that anyone into the cult avant-edges of weirdass tech-death-grind should check out, fans of the likes of Obliveon, Kataklysm, Nocturnus, Atheist, Gorguts, Pestilence, Exit-13...
According to this reissue's detailed liner notes, written by lead guitarist/vocalist and founding member Pat Ranieri, the band started off, in the context of smoking lots of pot and listening to old '70s prog rock and then-current '80s crossover thrashpunk, with a mission to be as original as possible, to quote: "Each riff was to sound like no other. Each lyric/title was to be completely fresh and never before read." Well, he goes on to admit that the band didn't always succeed at these quixotic goals, specifically and humorously citing the obvious, their name, as not quite living up to the concept: "With originality as key, we chose the most generic name possible to define something never heard before." Whoops! But heck, they tried, how they tried, and the results we think are pretty special, and we're damn glad this got reissued 'cause somehow we missed out on 'em back in 1990...
The cd booklet, in addition to Ranieri's notes, includes full lyrics, photos, lots of full-color graphics (demo tape covers, and old show fliers - they played with Morbid Angel and Die Kruezen, among others), and even a Hellwitch comic strip. Also it sports the album's original, kinda goofy cover painting that makes a bit more sense when you know what syzygy means.
This remastered cd reissue includes not only the band's sole album but also a dozen crucial bonus tracks, taken from demo and rehearsal tapes recorded between 1984 and 1989. It doesn't get any more syzygial than this, miscreants!!
More fantastic electronic weirdness from the Pan label, this one, the latest from Luke Younger, aka Helm, who crafts a dizzying expanse of blunted post industrial rhythms, and blurred psychedelic ambience, lazer blast blurts that sound like light sabers are tangled into strange shapes over throbbing low end pulsations, while all around clouds of hiss and static and thrum swirl and shimmer, noisy and psychedelic, but darkly hypnotic. Elsewhere the sounds splinter into weird avant musique concrete, blasts of noise swooping from speaker to speaker, a wildly ecstatic 'pipe fight', sculpted into an abstract psych-noise groove. Younger also delves into power electronics, with keening arcs of feedback, draped over a churning chordal thrum, peppered with bursts of strangely melodic static, sounding almost like Skullflower attempting to make dance music, and failing fantastically, before finally finishing things off with a haunting bit of deep drone loveliness, sinister shimmering clouds of muted rumbles ripple out in soft clouds, an ominous, haunting and harrowing sprawl of hushed mesmeric murk that might be the dreamiest bit of grim black ambience we've heard in ages!
Like all Pan releases, the packaging is stunning, a plain white sleeve in a clear PVC plastic jacket, printed in purple ink, liner notes on one side, the band name all tangly and geometric on the other. And yeah, limited too!
Review courtesy of Justin Foley, long time aQ customer, and member of fellow Hydra Headers The Austerity Program!
Long time readers of the AQ mailing list may remember Northwest sasquatch-metallers Harkonen, whose two EPs and full-length or two charted out a wooly mass of distortion-laden virility. Harkonen's pummel stumbled across the line between Cavity's fierce crust/metal and Schlitz-dripping barn burners. At the head of this obviously unshaven trio was Ben Verellen, pumping out distorted bass lines and howling a great rock yell that is probably a family heirloom. �
Harkonen broke up a few years back and after a while word got around that Ben was in a new band - Helms Alee. Putting on their first full length - Night Terror - those who know some or all of the history above won't be too surprised at first. Ben's driving, fuzzed-up bass starts things off with an off kilter riff that spins into the instrumental intro "Lefty Man Handle", sounding a bit like Harkonen dipped in the soundtrack to a Sergio Leone movie. At the beginning of the second track, the same voice that bellowed over Harkonen's amps builds up from a measured sing to a top-of-the-mountain whoop - I'm telling you he's got a set of pipes on him. And by the time the song really opens up, the drummer is slamming on the cymbals, the bass and guitar are locked in a hypnotic two note riff and that guy's just roaring at you.
Then something truly wonderful happens.
And this is why the Helms Alee is surely my favorite record from 2008. Because while I love the ripping stomp that the song had purposefully built into, the band suddenly drops out the bottom and the drums, takes a breath and shifts into a guitar shimmering break. A two part female harmony picks up the song and carries it to what you later realize was the only place that it could have gone. It's like coming out of a tunnel into early daylight. And for the next 35 minutes or so, they deftly weave the pounding, yelling sweat-rock of the best Harkonen stuff with the equally strong and bittersweet beauty of an unexpected melody and harmony. Some times this happens at the same time, at others they switch back and forth. But it's done nearly perfectly over the course of the whole record, resulting in a sound that's equally poignant and heavy. �
Make no mistake - it's still a loud rock record that probably eviscerates live. But the thing that's really special about this band is the unexpected space they've found in a type of music that often seems like it runs out of new room. Special mention should be made of two things. First, the recording work on this is great - clear, physical and very unobtrusive. Second, those who buy it and sit for a full listen will really be rewarded by "Shmnna" - a record closer (almost, there's actually a nice coda song) that's obviously the climax of what the whole thing's building toward. The song's final guitar bit absolutely brings down the house. So good!
I've noticed that AQ likes to give reference points, so I'd suggest anyone who craves the male/female juxtaposition of X or Barbaro, the aging prizefighter nobility of Tar, or even some of the more rock parts of My Bloody Valentine must buy this record now. There's probably whole other groups who I should target as well - anyone who's into other stuff on the label, anyone who likes loud rock music at all, anyone who is signed up for the AQ mailing list, anyone who's not my sister - because this thing is a real, unexpected treat.
Although we've never technically reviewed anything from post-noise rock combo Helms Alee, we have actually listed one of their records before, the review was just not written by any of us. Nope, in fact, Helms Alee's Night Terror was reviewed by Mr. Justin Foley of The Austerity Program, who while perhaps not THEE most objective reviewer, considering his band is in fact labelmates with Helms Alee, was definitely of the same mind as us that Night Terror was in fact, a killer record. It definitely helped that we were all pretty nuts for pre-Helms Alee outfit Harkonen. And while we can't hope to match Foley's unique way with words, we figured that on the occasion of the new Helms Alee record, Weatherhead, the time had come for us to weigh in ourselves.
As Mr. Foley mentioned, there are still plenty of residual Harkonen-isms In Helms Alee, but HA are definitely their own band, a much more melodic beast for sure, the first track immediately brings to mind Torche and Big Business and even Cave In, that sort of sludge pop drum heavy melodic crunch, and that opener "Elbow Grease" is a doozy, not even two minutes but packed with plenty of buzz, wild tribal drumming, woozy tangled guitar harmonies, and cool multitracked vocals, which leads right into "8/16", which begins again, all super melodic, but quickly shifts gears into something seriously bombastic and aggro, howled vox and downtuned guitars, a lurching lumbering crush, but still shot through with tons of melody, and the first appearance of female vocals, which definitely change the vibe, and that song is all over the map, frantic and mathy, tripped out and psychedelic, chugging and churning, and that sort of plays out over the whole record, which for the most part is WAY more varied and melodic than the already admittedly melodic and varied Night Terror, lots of acoustic guitars, shimmering harmonies, and meandering slowcore, hazy angelic vocals, low slung bass creep, pure jangle pop, tripped out almost looped sounding riffage, seriously unhinged bellowed boy vocals, total classic rock sounding crunch but wrapped in super crumbly distortion, and rife with cool boy/girl harmonies, all that peppered with brief blasts of serious heaviness, like on the closing title track, which explodes with a super intense mathy workout, then gets all warped and punky, before getting dirgey and doomy, only to finally blossom into something totally melodic and hooky. Definitely all over the map, but the various bits and pieces do manage to all come together into a seriously kick ass and crazy catchy chunk of post everything heaviness.
Jussi from Circle recommended this Swedish band to us (we've found out about a lot of cool bands thanks to our friend Jussi), and after we tracked down some copies of their cd, we realized we needed to recommend 'em to you, too! Helvetets Port (which means Gate of Hell or something like that) are a current band playing a very deliberately retro, almost tongue-in-cheek style of '80s heavy metal. Not a joke though. They're totally for real, yet revel in the most ridiculous aspects of the music they love so much and strive to emulate. You can immediately see how this would appeal to Jussi (and us), since the next better thing than Circle's "NWOFHM" is of course the actual NWOBHM, which this band is obviously especially inspired by. Helvetets Port are four metal-lovin' Swedes playing dress up in color-coordinated spandex and scarves, but going beyond that to deliver the goods with galloping guitars, piercing falsetto shrieks, wonderful lyrics about diamond claws, Japanese warlords, and the threat of being killed by a reaper. That's what's most charming about this band, their (inadvertently?) silly, seemingly earnest songwriting in the best "story-telling" Iron Maiden-esque tradition. Their songs, though none of 'em long (2-3 minutes, most of 'em), are all mini-prog epics, utterly over the top, the band pushing to the limit of their ability and beyond, always totally catchy but also a bit awkward, their ambitious arrangements quite quirky. The accent-laden vocals, too, sometimes seem a bit strained, but these factors are overruled by their enthusiasm and just add to this band's "real people" feel, making their retro NWOBHM worship (and not just NWOBHM, as we suspect they like other, over the top old schoolers like Manowar and Thor too) seem all the more authentic, bound for cult fandom if they can keep it up.
They remind us a bit of the USA's Harbinger, another young band who like to pretend it's 1983, in real life as well as on record, in fact, if you watch the impressive/hilarious video that's supposed to be included as a bonus on this disc (we couldn't actually find it, but it's on YouTube anyway) for their song "Lightning Rod Avenger" you'll see these kids doing things the old fashioned way...
This was produced by the singer from Enforcer, another spandex-clad Swedish metal band of retro persuasion whom we've recommended previously, though Helvetets Port way outdoes Enforcer with their sheer, sincere, imaginative eccentricity (if not in other ways too). Hail Helvetets Port!!
Shredding instrumental math-metal played in happy, major keys on downtuned guitars with dual (or even triple) harmonies?? Sounds good? Check. Sound familiar? Double check. If you're a fan of San Francisco's The Fucking Champs it should. But this ain't the Champs. A glance at the colorful, Aaron Turner (Isis/Hydra Head) designed packaging reveals that this is a band called Hematovore, and they're from Alabama. We guess it had to happen. The Champs had some downtime, people got antsy, and then along comes a band that sounds so much like 'em it's absolutely uncanny. Unoriginal maybe, but what the heck. If you've been eagerly waiting for a Champs VI, well, you need to get this now!! It's just what the (rock) doctor ordered.
What's weird is that according to their online bio, they've been around for, like, 13 years (just like The Champs). And no mention is made of them as an influence. So perhaps it's a case of parallel evolution, inspired by the same cool things -- Carcass, Thin Lizzy, Metallica, Maiden, technical death metal... But we doubt it. They've GOT to be really into The Champs. Though, there's a few differences. Hematovore rocks with THREE guitars and a bassist, whereas The Champs make do with two guitars (sometimes three, when the drummer isn't drumming) and no bass. And the blend of extremes, death metal on one end, indie/post-rock on the other, seems more pronounced with Hematovore. They get more hardcore METAL than the Champs do at times, but at others also more mellow and pretty.
There's almost no point in describing this further, 'cause if you're NOT already into The Champs you either wouldn't like this, or need to get some Champs cds first. But if you're a Champs fan (and why wouldn't you be??) then this is basically the new Champs album you've been wanting, just under a different name. More ear candy for Champs fans basically. So we can't help but recommend it!!
Wow! The wonderful, wonderful music of organist Merit Hemmingson combines a bunch of stuff we just simply LOVE but never heard quite like this before. The title of this "best of" collection boldly suggests as much to you too, right? Swedish Hammond Folk Groove, yeah!! We hadn't heard of her before we came across this, but now we know she made a handful of records in the '70s that brought together ancestral Swedish folk melodies, jazzy Hammond organ grooving, and some colorful psychedelic moves. Merit's Hammond is at the fore, playing her own swingin', riffin' take on these traditional tunes, but the arrangements also variously incorporate '70s funky wah-wah psych guitars, her lovely, wordless vocals, flutes and bongos and more... It's all so sunshiney and delightful, reminding us of everything from Hansson & Karlsson to Turid to The Free Design to a calmer, mellower version of Aavikko! And of course modern-day Swedish folk organ duo Sagor & Swing.
Merit's music is gentle, soulful, rhythmic -- so nice! It's total "grooving with trolls and flowers in the forest funk". Not your everyday organ jazz that's for sure, though Merit got her start in the '60s playing jazz -- she came over to the New York City to study, taking piano lessons from both Joe Zawinul and Lalo Schifrin and even getting to sit in with Miles Davis's band! But soon she went in a more pop/funk direction, and then became inspired by Scandinavia's rich history of olden folk music to create the sounds heard here.
The twenty tracks on this collection are all from albums originally released between 1971-1977 (Huvva, Trollskog, Bergtagen, Balsam, and Hoven Droven) except for a couple of recently-recorded tracks at the disc's end done in a similar style, featuring as sidemen members of currently happenin' Swedish retro-leaning rock bands (and big Merit fans) Dungen and The Ark! That's right, while obscure for years even in Sweden, she's undergone a bit of a hipster rediscovery lately and in fact this disc (the first time on cd for most of this music) is the prelude to a new album due out this year.
Queen Of Swedish Hammond Folk Groove is a nicely deluxe package, in a slipcovered jewelcase with a thick booklet full of photos, liner notes in both English and Swedish, and Merit's own track-by-track commentary. We had to go to a bit of trouble to import these from Sweden, but it was worth it!
Good grief, it's become a running joke 'round these parts about John Zorn's never-ending 50th birthday sell-a-bration. I mean, of course he gets our best wishes and everything, but it seems like Tzadik's still gonna be releasing Zorn 50th Birthday cds when the man turns 60! Certainly it might take us that long to review all of 'em. But, that's no complaint, when we get to check out via compact disc shows we probably would have been stoked to see had we been in NYC during Zorn's month-long birthday concert happenins' in September 2003. Like this one, a rare recording from Hemophiliac, a trio made up of John Zorn (on sax), Mike Patton (voice) and Ikue Mori (laptop electronics). How's that for avant-cool? Crazed chaos ensues of course...squeals and squeeks and squalling squonk. Surely an endurance test for some, but sticking with it we're hearing some interestin' textures -- and even calm drones and beautiful sax lines -- alongside the exciting improv cartoon carnage dished out by these pros.
Arguably one of the wildest of all the later-day female blues performers, Jessie Mae Hemphill (aka, "The She-Wolf"!) didn't achieve wide fame until later in life. Feeling Good wasn't her first record, but it was her first American release, coming out in 1990, three years before suffering a stroke that would sideline her career. In it she takes the primal North Mississippi hill country blues traditions of her family (her grandfather was the fiddler Sid Hemphill), in a raucous set of electric blues minimalism honing each song to wild repeating riffs and bare-bone percussion. Her voice all primitive holler and beguiling moan. Perhaps best known for her guitar playing (she started playing at age seven), she was an accomplished drummer as well playing snare and bass drums in various fife and drum units. And it's that rhythmic instinct that binds her musical style together. This set is jumping!
Italian reissue of this 1969 album by tenor sax man Joe Henderson, or shall we say Joe Henderson and heavy friends: Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Jack DeJohnette... Very "jazz" indeed.
Two simpatico noisescapers from Austin square off for this limited split cassette release. We're well familiar with Smokey Emery from his many releases on Holodeck, Indian Queen, and his own Kiamesha Drive imprints, but Andy Hendrix & the Skwaarmalar Machine are new to us. We can't imagine what a Skwaarmalar Machine would look like or how it operates, but the sounds contained on that side of the cassette are cavernously industrial sounding like a go-cart race slowed down for intense drama. The slowly throbbing rev of an echoing motor as it swerves and skids around a warehouse, speeding up to an intense climax then slowing down to a deep bass pendulous pulse. The Smokey Emery side is from four live edits and contain his trademark hazy murk of built up tape loops of infinitely recycled recordings. Using an arsenal of personal recording devices including cell phones, and digital video cameras, it's a rich cloud of tunneling drones containing smoldering pockets of murmurs and atmospheric rumbles that are sublime and at times quite terrifying.
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Ever had a bad trip? And no, not just an "oh I'm freaking out man" sort of trip, we're talking the sort of trip that sticks with you forever. The first time, the worst time, the best worst time, sex, death, injury, mayhem and misery, well our very own Scott Hewicker and his partner Cliff Hengst have been collecting tales of these bad trips from a who's who of artists and musicians, friends and family, even AQ employees and have finally compiled them all into one volume, this here gorgeous hardcover book entitled Good Times: Bad Trips, and not only packed with stories, but with all sorts of original and found artwork to accompany these far our freaked out tales of drugs and debauchery.�
The contributors include�Devendra Banhart, local luminary John Dwyer, our very own Irwin Swirnoff and our very own Lauren Robertson,�Martin Schmidt and Drew Daniel from Matmos, John Koch from Troll, Ezra Feinberg�from Citay,�Alexis Georgopoulos from Arp,�Wayne Smith from Aero-Mic'd,�Nathan Burazer from Tussle, Jack Hanley (of Jack Hanley Galleries) as well as�loads of artists and writers like Chris Johanson, Shaun O'Dell, Keegan McHargue, Leslie Shows, Kevin Killian, Dodie Bellamy... the list goes on and on and on.�
The thing is, it almost doesn't matter who wrote which story, so much so that the credits are tucked away, way in the back of the book, so the stories are just that, stories, removed from their authors, not overly writerly, instead conversational, like hanging out drinking and telling tales, where most bad trip stories actually get told. And these are some seriously demented stories. Some are super funny, some are really intense and brutal, some are so ridiculous they sound made up, others are more mundane, but resonate as experiences most of us have shared. It's an amazing read. A killer collection of short stories, all of them fascinating, tales of�stolen jet skis,�yellow food banquets,�secret upper crust sex societies,�deflowered virgins,�brain loops, dead body mannequins, emergency room freakouts, smoking out with Lee Scratch Perry, football player rapists, midnight calls to Mom, industrial strength lasers, heart murmurs, talking crows, living nude books, grey music, naked hippies, sex with surrealists, skin rashes, mouths full of dough, Cher costumes, stolen Harry Potters, boom box kicking, fake pistols, guitar masturbating, mother meltdowns, Tesla coils and so so so much more.�
Gorgeously designed and laid out, plus the book is jam packed with eye popping art,�paintings, drawings, collages, photographs and ephemera, all suitably warped and trippy, beautiful and bizarre, collected, found or created by Hewicker and Hengst. And all housed in a super swank, full color 136 page hard cover book. Each one signed by the artists!! Absolutely recommended. And a limited run of only 1000 copies, so buy now or be prepared to sell a kidney or take out a second mortgage on your house to pick one up on eBay later...
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Henke - software engineer for Ableton and one time Chain Reaction recording artist - had been approached by the Swedish installation artist Fredrik Wretman to use his track Indigo, which Henke had offered as a free download on his own website. This was a softened piece of nocturnal ambience that Henke had sourced from the drips of his own bathtub! Out of that original material, Henke stretched out a Brian Eno meets Thomas Koner driftscape of rumbling tones, sustained washes of dark, grey/blue sounds, and occasional interjections of the dripping water itself. While Henke did not feel it was appropriate for Wretman's installation to merely broadcast a stereo feed of Indigo, he recontextualized the composition through six-channels (i.e. three cds with different mixes, all in stereo); and as he instructed that those three cds would be started at different times, the loops of the cd would thus warrant a constantly evolving composition to match the rippling pools of water and light which Wretman had installed in the Fargfabrieken Gallery in Sweden. Yeah, this is pretty commonplace for a sound installation strategy; but the sounds that had come together for this re-re-composed stereo mix is pretty entrancing. Certainly for fans of Koner, the darker Brian Eno records, and Bass Communion.
We love the Buddha Machine, but we have to admit, we're still a tiny bit surprised at just how popular it became. For those of you who somehow missed the whole Buddha Machine hubub, basically, it's a small plastic soundmaker, with a tiny speaker, a volume knob, and an output jack, and it can store a handful of sounds. In Asia, it's used to store prayers and teachings of the Buddha, but the musicians in FM3 realized they could store their own little ambient loops on there, and thus we have the Buddha Machine.
We've barely been able to keep them 'em in stock. Most folks buy 2 or 3 (Brian Eno famously bought 8, Alan Bishop from the Sun City Girls bought 24!! -- not from us, unfortunately). It's the perfect gift. And you can use multiple machines to create super interesting sonic effects. And thus, we have Robert Henke's Layering Buddha. A project for which he used the built in inconsistency of each machine, and took the sounds, slowed them down to expose still more sonic nuances, and wove them together into lengthy textured drones. The results are fantastic. Fuzzy, whirring, gurgling expanses of muted murky sound. Drone fiends will love it for sure. The only drag is, that in no way can you tell that the sound source is a Buddha Machine. Had the record been called something different, and had no mention been made of the process, you'd just think this was a really gorgeous drone record. We almost would have preferred Henke had approached this project in the style of an installation. Like a thousand Buddha Boxes, all set up in some huge hall, recorded in some ingenious way, so the sounds overlapped and got all tangled up. A much more organic approach, staying more true to the spirit of the machine. That said, this is still a wonderful record. The looped dronescapes are dense with sonic detail, lots of fuzz and grit and lo-fi detritus, all wrapped in billowy clouds of warm whir, making Layering Buddha sound both lush and sort raw. Really cool.
Available as a cd in a digipak, or on vinyl, as five 7"s, pressed on grey vinyl, with gorgeous center labels, packaged in a beautiful cardboard box.
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Another gorgeous, gorgeous minimal drone record. Not sure what to say. Our drone thesaurus is darn near tapped out. Shimmering, rumbling, drifting, ethereal, dreamy, Signal To Noise is all of those and more. The first two tracks are composed and performed utilizing only an old Yamaha SY77 synthesizer, filtered, pitch shifted and processed into two lengthy smears of glacial sonic whir. The last track was composed using filtered noise and granular delays to emulate a thunderstorm. A barely there ambient crawl, like a lonely hike through the desert late at night, with the occasional crackle and boom of artificial thunder. Haunting and quite lovely.
Black metal grunge. And yeah, it's as good and weird as it sounds.
What else can we say about a recording that guitar great Glenn Branca describes as "A gigantic piece, a killer, a work which exists outside of style or genre. It is unbelievable. It creates blacks of sound that move in and out of each other to create the effects. It is a pure, perfect piece of music that resonates and resounds and creates a universe that it is impossible by other means. In our primitive and unenlightened culture, it becomes a work of transcendent power." Very little. Or more accurately, more of the same. A legendary yet relatively obscure document of modern minimalism, recorded in 1976, Hennix, who studied with Pandit Pran Nath and LaMonte Young, and recorded with Henry Flynt, crafted The Electric Harpsichord using just-intonated keyboards and time lag accumulators, a la Terry Riley, creating a lush layered expanse of raga like dronemusic, buzzing strangely melodic, rife with overtones and rhythmic fluctuations, dark and psychedelic, mesmerizing and hypnotic, a sound active and alive, organic, yet electronic, this is the sort of sound that a million floorcore wannabes strive for, but will never achieve, absolute blissed out, mind expanding, ur-drone, sonic transcendence for sure. Brief, at only 25 minutes, but the power and energy and depth of sound, makes it feel way longer. And of course, if you're like us, you'll just set your stereo to repeat, and drift off...
Second pressing, packaged in a nice mini white cardstock box, with a foil stamped cover, and an extensive booklet inside, featuring two poems by La Monte Young, a piece on the Electric Harpsichord written by Henry Flynt, and some very confusing liner notes from Hennix herself, an excerpt from "notes on the composite sine-wave drone over which The Electric Harpsichord is performed."
Ooooh. Muted jazz trumpet. Breathy and gentle. Improvising melodically o'er shimmering background ambience... Well that's certainly part of what Supersilent's Arve Henriksen brings to this new "solo" album for the legendary German new music label ECM. But he's not really solo here, rather the bandleader of a (virtual?) ensemble that includes percussion, sampling, strings, double-bass, guitar, synth, field recordings, etc. Many folks are credited with sampling, programming, and "treatments", with vocals contributed by Trio Medieval and David Sylvian (whose fans will most likely enjoy this record). The twelve tracks here include much in the way of mysterious, somnolent electronic textures, crackling Philip Jeck style loopings, layered and effected spoken word interludes, and of course the gorgeous, feathery caresses of Henriksen's trumpet. It's all very moody, and certainly soundtrack-ready, a Scandinavian chill-out album that's part Miles Davis, part Portishead, part Djivan Gasparyan... Imagine an "easy listening" edition of Supersilent, a lot of the same sorts of sounds and glitchery but all on the mellow side. Also this would be easy to imagine, if you've heard any of Henriksen's previous lovely soundscapey solo discs on Rune Grammofon (which featured several of the same collaborators). And we'd recommend this too, for those who dig stuff on the Type and Miasmah labels.
On his own, trumpeter for Norwegian "death-jazz" geniuses Supersilent Arve Henriksen seems like a big softie, blowing and singing wordless soundscapes that are eerily pretty and entrancing. Arve's 2001 solo debut Sakuteiki merged his haunting horn with minimal abstract electronics. Now he's back with his 2nd solo for Rune Grammofon, Chiaroscuro, on which Arve's breathy playing and ever-so-slightly Bjorkish singing are joined by the live sampling of Jan Bang and the drums and percussion of Audun Kleive. The results, yet again, are gorgeous.
Henriksen is a member of AQ-faves Supersilent, the unclassifiable and brilliant Norwegian improvising outfit. On this, his debut solo album, he blends his gorgeous, haunting trumpet playing with the drone-ful production of electronicist Deathprod (aka Helge
Here's another set of moody abstract electro-acoustic soundscapes from Supersilent trumpeter Arve Henriksen, his third solo outing on the Rune Grammophon label, as lovely as the other two. In addition to his calm, melodic, breathy "glacial Miles Davis" horn playing, he also utilizes electronics and keyboards and wordless singing. Plus Supersilent bandmates Stale Storlokeen Helge "Deathprod" Sten (on production duties as well) contribute on keys and guitars respectively, adding to the overall mysterious drone-factor of this music, some of it very Supersilent-sounding (as you might expect with this lineup), some parts particularly reminiscent of the austere Arctic tranquility of Henriksen's solo debut on Rune G, Sakuteiki. Overall, there's an air of olden mystic ceremony, with tracks like "Glacier Descent" building to white-light shining bliss. Ominous relaxation... definitely for fans of Supersilent and Deathprod.
Latest on Rune Grammofon from Supersilent's trumpeter Arve Henriksen. Here Henriksen eschews the glitch and electronics, these tracks purely acoustic and untreated as far as we can tell, but still beautifully layered with sweet sounds from Arve's instrumental ensemble - in addition to his own breathy trumpet playing, and piano, there's violin, hardanger fiddle and viola d'amore from Nils Okland, cello played by Svante Henryson, double bass by Mats Eilertsen, subtle drumming from Audun Kleive, and more violin and hardanger fiddle courtesy of Gjermund Larsen. Together, this group creates some quietly melodic, rather melancholic, slow-moving chamber music, the aural equivalent of watching drops of water slowly streaking down a windowpane on a rainy day, as tree branches gently sway in the wind outside, against the whiteness of the overcast sky beyond. It seems very Scandinavian, indeed, and aligned with classic ECM "jazz" stylings. Loveliness incarnate. Most of the tracks are calm and restful, though a few towards the end of the disc display some more active, uptempo inclinations. The perfect soundtrack to a sleepy Sunday sitting in the garden.
Electro-acoustic composer Orjan Henriksson has found a good home for his debut album on the eccentric sound art label Firework Edition which has also released albums from Leif Elggren, Kent Tankred, Zbigniew Karkowski, and Mikael Stavostrand. His album
The return of everybody's favorite imaginary rock couple, Henry & Glenn, as in Henry Rollins and Glenn Danzig, and more tales of the forbidden love that dare not speak it's name. Yep, just like the first issue, Henry & Glenn imagines a better world, where the forbidden gay love these two don't actually share (or do they?) is real, and they live together in a house with a partially finished sacrificial altar in the front yard, their next door neighbors the Satan worshipping duo Hall & Oates, and we are given a glimpse into H&G's daily lives, where we observe Henry as the responsible one, the one who does the housework and pays the bills, and worries what the city thinks about the above mentioned unfinished altar in the yard, while Glenn is the dreamer, the one always full of crazy ideas, oblivious to poor Henry and his desire for more. It's all pretty irreverent, and pretty gosh dang hilarious. And this time around, original artists Igloo Tornado (which includes aQ pal Tom Neely) bring in some guests, most notably, Ed Luce, who longtime readers of the aQ list will no doubt know as the man behind the awesome Wuvable Oaf comic, who here imagines H&G in couples therapy, which of course includes guest cameos from Kerry King of Slayer, Ian Mackaye of Fugazi and of course a demon kitty.
Neel does a cool back cover color comic, which features a striking likeness J Bennett of Decibel (and Ides Of Gemini), who bums out Glenn by showing him the original H&G - which is apparently (maybe) a true story? Benjamin Marra pit our couple against Leta Fjord and Hall And Oates get in on the demonic action. And the opening comic is mostly just a hilarious build up for a distinctly Danzig punchline, and of course there's more more more.
One of our favorite comics for sure, and as always, leaves us wanting to know what could happen next in the lives of our heroes, Henry & Glenn...
First there was Henry & Glenn Forever, then the sequel Henry & Glenn Forever & Ever, and now the saga continues! Comix about these two muscular manly man punk rock icons, as a loving gay couple - brilliant, hilarious concept! Some of the major contributors this issue include Tom Neely, Mark Rudolph, and Josh Bayer, their Henry & Glenn strips all getting pretty fantastical - and funny - in illustrating the titular duo's hypothetical romantic dynamic, with probably more of the laughs at Glenn's expense 'cause, y'know, of course - and the real-life Henry has stated that he thinks Glenn "would not be amused", as for Henry, well, we saw an interview where he said he's autographed copies of the comic for people but has never actually looked inside, which seems kinda weird too, doesn't it?
Neely's strip continues exploring Glenn's "Mother" issues, Rudolph's shows how Glenn does the household chores (and includes a cameo from Hall & Oates, H&G's uber friendly, Satan worshipping neighbors!!), Bayer's delves into bromantic existential angst in an epic way - and besides being funny, these comix end up being surprisingly sweet and heartwarming, too. Gotta love it!!
Color cover, b&w interior, 32 pages.
Everybody's favorite same-sex couple, Henry (Rollins) and Glenn (Danzig) are back, in the latest issue of the cult comic book all about their fantastical adventures. In an alternate reality (also known as real life) it may be that punk rock icons Henry and Glenn are NOT in fact gay, and perhaps not even that close of buddies, who knows. But we prefer the comic book version, they're so cute together!! And so manly.
In this issue, there's some record shopping (yay!), Henry hangs out with Gaahl from Gorgoroth (or we think that's what's going on), they take a trip into the depths of "Gaydes", and more. Totally bent and hilarious as usual.
There's two alternate covers for this ish, the one pictured here, by Tom Neely, the other a retro Kirby-ish looking one by Shaky Kane.
Now for the final installment (or is it?) in the Henry & Glenn Forever & Ever saga. Tom Neely & Co's hilarious cartoon love story, casting punk icons Henry Rollins and Glenn Danzig as a devoted gay couple (having surreal adventures) wraps up, for now, long before jumping the shark. As always, this issue is super cute and clever and funny and bizarre. That other couple, Daryl Hall and John Oates, also appear, and the back cover features a Johnny Ryan cartoon called Mark & Gary Forever... that'd be Mark Mothersbaugh and Gary Numan. Funny stuff.
32 b&w pages, with two alternate full color covers - one Egyptian themed (?), the other, a parody of the first issue of Love & Rockets.
And never fear, Henry & Glenn fans, 'cause though this mini-series is over, Neely promises more H&G action in the future.
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"Western Culture" was the final recording of Henry Cow and the end result of a tumultuous two year period of tour mishaps, line-up changes and general hardship amongst the group's many members. Formed in 1968, this legendary English group (which takes its name
Besides having an awesomely demented band name (who the hell is Henry Fiat?) Henry Fiat's Open Sore are so smoking hot and so ultra kick ass, it's amazing we're only now discovering them. I was going to describe them as the Hives meet the Mentors, which I still think is pretty apt, although the rest of the AQ staffers hear more straight ahead punk rock a la the Ramones. But if you're into that hypercharged Swedish guitar sound, this will definitely be right up your alley. Dressed in tattered mod suits and heads wrapped in black bandages, they look like the Mummies' scary older brothers. But no retro lo-fi garage rock here. This is fierce and furious, ass kicking 3 chord, bounce up and down punk rock and roll!
This is the first release of Henry's recent musique concrete composition "Antagonismes IV" (1996) which is the result of reworking one pre-existing composition according to the framework of another work. While Henry poetically states that "'Antagonismes' is a radiography, a sort of horn-in-the-eye of 'Intérieur/Extérieur' (which was a manner of ritual, an Imaginary corridor layout for
Chapter 4.2 in the Philips reissue series of the musique concrete works of Pierre Henry features 3 pieces: "Fragments pour Artaud" (1970), "Entite" (1959), and "Prisme" (1973). "Fragments Pour Artaud" lives up to its name as an absurdist homage to Antonin Artaud, in jumpcutting through 13 interlocking segments of monotonous voices that have been manipulated into eeriely sputtering fluctuations of synthesized noise. Henry opens and closes this composition with the random plucks of an untuned steel-stringed instrument flapping against its soundboard. Quite obtuse, yet bombastically theatrical. "Entite" is a brief 6 minute piece for tape, with nonspecific grey sounds fluxing in and out of the audible range whilst generative metallic clatter and tape whirr pop throughout the stereo field. "Prisme" rounds out the collection as another investigation into the realm of possibilities for magnetic tape manipulation. These concrete sounds filtered through an arsenal of effects are quite typical for Henry and those at the INA-GRM institution, with the biggest difference being the advancement in technology and sound quality between 1959 and 1973.
All liner notes are in French.
Composed in 1980 as an homage to Luigi Russolo, author of the Futurist manifesto "The Art of Noise," Pierre Henry's "Futuristie" centered around the recreation of Russolo's "intonarumori." Henry designed similar looking noise intoners (which are odd shaped boxed with huge metal speakers sticking out their sides) based on the photographs of the objects, as the originals had long been
Anyway, I doubt that Pierre Henry knew either as the dense collage of sounds that he broadcast through those loudspeakers falls well within his musique concrete signature. Henry does claim a strong influence from Futurism, as a manifesto which promoted the removal of semiotic barriers between noise and music. His complex abstraction scrounges for the sounds of aluminum cans getting crushed, the clatter of wooden pegs falling, scraped metal wires, sporadic electronic bleeping, and layered rhythmic grunts and vocalisations sounding like a multi-dubbed Jaap Blonk. Henry certainly is following the spirit of Futurism, but if he is actually following its sonorous aesthetics, I guess we'll never know.
The liner notes are all in French, compounding the quandry.
In the fourth chapter in the continued archival project for musique concrete composer Pierre Henry, Philips presents this collection of Henry's earliest material from the 1950s, which had been previously issued on the long out of print Mantra 3CD set. The compositions (number 4.3, if you must know) within this set include "Microphone bien tempÈre" (1950-1952), "Concerto des ambiguites" (1950), "Musique sans titre" (1950), "Bidule en mi" (1950). "Spirale" (1955), "Voile d'orphÈe" (1953), "Spatiodynamisme" (1954), "Aut-voltage" (1956), and "Coexistence" (1958). These pieces, which are all based upon magnetic tape playback, splicing, and speed manipulation with various filters, reflect Henry's early mastery over his material despite the lack of dynamics from his equipment (which generated very little pure bass reflex at all)... disembodied vocals, metallic cymbals with variable attack, sustained organ, spring reverb manipulation, and any other obtuse sound that resonates within the mid-range timbres.
Liner notes are all in French.
Are you a musique concrete connoiseur who already has the Pierre Henry box sets "Mix 01.0" and "Mix 02.0"? Then wethinks you'll have to pick this one up too! Again, a hefty helping of Henry's brilliant music. Contains 4 discs: "Variations Pour Une Porte Et
In the reissue campaign from Philips of Pierre Henry's work, his compositions "Pierres Reflechies," "La Noire A Soixante," and "Gymkhana" constitute the volume 4.1. "Pierre Reflechies" (1982) is a good example of Pierre Henry's current aesthetic with a greater emphasis on the dialogue between orchestral instruments and electronic synthesis. Here, Henry composes the orchestral elements through serial repetition of blurted notes, then disfigures them through a number of filters which resemble contemporary DSP techniques. For this piece, Henry has translated the work of Proust into sound and dedicated it to the other Pierre of musique concrete (Pierre Schaeffer, that is). "La Noire A Soixante" jumps back to 1961 and to a minimal application of Henry's electro-acoustic pings and reverberations. "Gymkhana" (1970) appears to be a 'remix' of the aforementioned "La Noire A Soixante" with acoustic instrumentation (sustained oboes and pointillist flutes) laid over the backing tape.
"Variations For a Door and a Sigh" may in fact be Pierre Henry's most well known piece, simply because it has become the unwitting self-parody / archetype of musique concrete as a solipsistic study by academic farts recording creaking doors and passing the
"La Reina Verte" is a 30 minute electronic / orchestral work also from 1963; it's an incomplete edit of the original 46 minute composition, but significantly longer than its previous inclusion on "Messe Pour Le Temps." His intent in combining the artificial sonorities of musique concrete with the timbres of orchestral instruments, was "not only in search of unwonted conceits, [but also] a lyrical or even a poetic counterpoint to the different forms of this spectacle."
Pierre Henry's musique concrete gets the remix treatment, contributors include William Orbit, Fatboy Slim, Coldcut, Funki Porcini, Dimitri from Paris, and others.
