One of the more amazing curios of the late sixties folk-rock era, this sole record by Judy Henske and Jerry Yester is a strange and heady amalgam of baroque pomp-rock, lilting folk-pop and experimental electronic weirdness. Henske is best known for a series of early folk-revival albums on Elektra, that featured her howling blues vocals and cabaret like wit. Yester, best known as a producer from an assorted array of folk and psychedelic bands including The Association, The Loving Spoonful, Tim Buckley (and more recently No Neck Blues Band!), made his debut as a musical artist and singer on this record. Originally released on Frank Zappa's Straight label (like those Alice Cooper albums we made Records Of The Week last time!), the album never did real well, but has always remained a cult treasure due to its genre-defying song styles and early psychedelic synthesizer experiments on the title track. Written in the voice of a dying star, Henske utilized an early vocoder device for the vocal tracks which also features Moogs and Theremins. Although it's the only track to feature that effect, it seems to fit right in with the rest, as no two songs are quite alike. That might make it a hit and miss listen for those craving consistency, but those who like the more unpredictable corners of sixties music, this cult gem is well worth it.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Begins with a lovely string arrangement that will easily draw comparisons to recent Rachel's. Not a bad thing, but from there Her Space Holiday tracks a different much more... umm, intergalactic course. Mainman Marc Bianchi (formerly of Mohinder) certainly
Her Space Holiday's Marc Bianchi slathers his pop poetry with just enough peanut butter and honey that you can't taste...or um, hear...what a vulnerable sandwich he actually is. You can't see that he's making a sly bid for your heart and soul until you finish bopping your head along to the bedroom beats and the occassional spaceship-blippy quirk. Can't see the weight of the dangerous world on his aching shoulders until you open up the liner notes and read lines such as "push all your friends away with the cruel things that you said/if you need company you've got the voices in your head." He's like a depressed sunbather who can describe all the beauty of a physical situation without actually enjoying it himself. The music swells along, but Bianchi is always pulling his presence along in the undertow, sanding down his vocals so they share space democratically with the other instruments on the album.
It all comes off kind of like The Postal Service but without the huggable whine, or the spacier bits of the Field Mice without the wide-eyed clarity. "The Past Presents the Future" is not as musically offbeat as earlier H.S.H. efforts, "The Young Machines" or "Manic Expressive"; it is smoother, slightly more mature, and a bit more lyrically global, though it still mostly sticks with the sounds and methods that are tried and true for Bianchi. So...there are less chunks in the peanut butter, but still plenty of bees in the honey.
I'm a fan of the Herbaliser, the Ninjatune duo whose mix of hip hop, trip hop and noir-ish beats is consistently really clever, listenable, and pretty much mistake-free. This new full length is really worth a listen. The record begins with a deep,
Easily most accessible presentation from Matthew Herbert (aka Doctor Rockit, Wishmountain, Radioboy, etc.), Bodily Functions is a shuffling house homage to the jazz vocal standards from the '40s. Fans of Portishead and Lamb, who may be looking for a slight variation on ethereal / noir female vocalist fronted classy electronica, might want to check this out.
There are a many sides to the busy and talented Matthew Herbert. Some people know him for his more experimental outings, like last years Plat Du Jour which was an excellent political record and statement against the corporate food industry using food, coke cans, apples crunching, pigs in shit, etc. as the source material for a very adventurous and successful outing. Others know him simply as Herbert, one of the most innovative 'house' producers of the last decade. And for others his name rings most familiar for his skilled remixes for the likes of Bjork, Jamie Lidell, Soft Pink Truth, Super Fury Animals, Harold Budd, etc. In many ways Scale feels like the follow up to Bodily Functions, his 2001 album which mixed warm recordings, danceable beats, creative arrangements, and the sultry vocals of Dani Siciliani. For Scale, Herbert went all out. Whether it was recording a drummer under water, an orchestra at Abbey Road or using the sounds from fuel pumps and coffins as source material, one can listen to this record and not know any of that and just revel in its totally pleasurable overall sound. With Siciliani singing as beautifully as ever, and melodies that are so irresistible, this is that sort of smart and seductive dance record that sadly is so rare to come by these days.
When Matthew Herbert, the lauded electronicist who has also recorded as Wishmountain and Doctor Rockit (and probably a few I don't even know about), releases music simply as "Herbert", then you know he's in his experimental house music guise. Therefore you must
What we have here is a double cd of remixes Herbert has executed for other folks, and a few on himself too. Remixees include Mono, Moloko, Nils Petter Molvaer, Motorbass, Terra Deva, and lots more. Now, as much as I like Matthew Herbert's Doctor Rockit persona, where he displays his delightful penchant for sampling the sounds of everyday objects like crunchy apples, I also have to say that with all these remixes gathered here in one place, Herbert's formula becomes clear: [1] take a vocal snippet from the original song, [2] loop it "artistically", [3] add some tinny house beats, and [4] let the thing repeat itself for six minutes. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to gather the remixes in one place -- because you kind of don't want to know that the guy has a formula at all. However, there are lots of folks who just love this sound, represented by the audio clip we've included below (of Gainsbourg's "Bonnie & Clyde" for heavens sake!), and will like this. I'm just not one of them.
The debut by Hercules & Love Affair back in 2008 was an absolute game changer. Not since Daft Punk's Discovery had a dance record moved so many people into pure ecstasy. It helped usher in a new generation's appreciation of the magic that disco and house are capable of conjuring up. But most of all it transcended any genre, and became one of those records that just about any fan of good music would end up blasting nonstop.
So how do you follow up a debut as amazing as that? You take your time! No doubt Andrew Butler, the mastermind behind Hercules & Love Affair understood the kind of pressure riding on his sophomore outing, and he was smart not to rush it but instead take his time in crafting a new batch of songs. That's one of the things that often gets overlooked with Hercules & Love Affair, is that Andy Butler is an excellent songwriter. Sure he has immaculate and obscure taste in vintage disco, house, and techno but under all of that you can tell he is a student of good songs. The tracks on Blue Songs all carry an emotional weight, and it's the music that leads those emotions to moments of ecstatic release, and energizing empowerment.
A lot of the attention of the first Hercules album was due to the vocals that Antony contributed to several tracks, but he doesn't make an appearance on this outing. And in a way we're actually happy about that, not that we don't love those tracks with Antony, they were amazing, but it's nice for the world to see that Hercules can stand on their own feet and no matter who they collaborate with they are able to reach amazing heights together. This time out Kele Okereke, of Bloc Party fame lends his voice on a few of these tracks with awesome results. In recent years Kele has publicly embraced his sexuality and this seems like such the perfect vehicle to allow him to sing on dance minded tracks with a pride and freedom he's been yearning for. On other tracks Hercules members Kim Ann Foxman and Nomi take the mic with dynamic flare, and Mr. Butler sings some as well.
Blue Songs is a grower, and with each listen we get more and more into its grooves. No sophomore slump here, this is another great album!
We're happy we waited for this domestic release as it includes three bonus tracks as well as an entire extra disc of remixes of a couple songs from the album (cd version only).
No one has done more in recent years to renew faith in the power of dance music than Andy Butler. With his amazing debut album as Hercules & Love Affair he took his passion for decades of dance floor culture, from disco to house, to create one of the most vibrant and memorable debuts of the decade. Sidetracked finds Andy putting together a mix of music that truly moves him. So in case you are confused this is NOT A NEW HERCULES & LOVE AFFAIR ALBUM, but instead an awesome document of many of the sonic ingredients that helped inform Andy's taste, and were a huge part of the amazing sounds he creates with Hercules.
HOWEVER, there is one brand new Hercules track in his mix and oh my god does it kill! "I Can't Wait" has this manic house vibe of ecstatic empowerment that's made us play that track more times then we can count! The first disc is the actual DJ mix so you can also get a feel of what it's like to be on the dance floor for one of his DJ sets. He culls his tracks from tons of classic house records (many of total obscurities) as well as some left-field disco gold. Dubwise, Studio X, Dr. Buzzards Original Savanah Band, Gino Soccio, Rainbow Team, In Flagranti, Daniel Wang and lots others. The second disc pulls out eleven of those tracks and keeps them unmixed in their original form but remastered so even those of you lucky enough to have a worn out 12" of some of these burners now can hear them all clean and shiny for a change. Of course we're anxiously anticipating the actual new Hercules & Love Affair album, but until then we're loving being Sidetracked!
We've been so excited for this one for a while! While disco has received a much deserved renaissance in the last couple years there has been a big void of anyone new really making true great disco that captures the best moments of the golden vintage days of the genre. Luckily the guy behind Hercules And Love Affair, Andy Butler, has had quite an education in the history of the last three decades of charged and soulful dance music , due to his experiences dj'ing at a leather bar in Denver, and his last several years immersed in New York's club culture. With a super talented cast around him, Butler has made one of the year's best records, for sure one of the greatest and smartest vocal driven dance records in years!
While Antony (Antony & The Johnsons) has been lending his voice to many records over the last few years, Butler uses him in such exciting ways knowing that under the usually mournful and melancholic side to his voice there was an inner dancefloor diva just ready to let loose. Antony's vocal delivery evokes a sound and spirit that is reminiscent of Sylvester and you can tell that Sylvester, Arthur Russell, Patrick Cowley, Frankie Knuckles and the heyday of the Chicago house scene all served as major inspiration to the making of this record. Along with Antony there are also great vocal contributions from Nomi (who has toured a lot with CocoRosie) and Kim Ann Foxman as well as Butler himself on a few tracks. The album is a full band affair with great horns, strings, keys and Tim Goldsworthy (DFA) production and drum programming all merging together for such a full and rich sound. Above and beyond anything, these are such well crafted songs that aren't just winks to the past but instead carry the torch for impassioned and joyful sounds well into the future, keeping your body moving and your spirit raised high. Highly recommended!
Our good customer and friend Daniel Coffeen loves this album so much we invited him to write about it. Take it away, D...
Compared to HATFYR's last record, Shock and Struts, Felt is streamlined, restrained, clean. But then again, these are the facts you requested and as is their nature, they deliver the goods with a stylistic excess. The result is that Felt is at once understated and deluxe, careful and daring, contrived and pathetic. As usual, the band moves through the breadth of pop music. But unlike say, Ween (a certain influence), The Facts don't quote genres: they metabolize them. The result is that while listeners may hear strains of Prince or Bongwater or Flaming Lips these same listeners will always here The Facts: songs that are round and luscious, happy and crafty, clever and sprawling, a grab bag of boys, girls, guitars, trumpets, beats, harmonies, samples, and strumming. Three different songwriters and four different singers take turns showing off -- from the Prince-laden Peas to the bubbilicious stereophonic Tulip to the boy ballad, Remember, this record covers a lot of territory. It's inspiring to hear an album that offers so much -- and that's downright joyous to boot. Like the best pop music, Felt is complex, odd, familiar and unfamiliar, embedded in pop tradition and utterly and thoroughly itself. And as is usually the case with such music, it takes some time, some patience, precisely because it proffers the new. Listen well to this record and you will be felt. Check out "Tulip" and the truly exquisite, crafty "Homebody".
The Bay Area's Here Here make willowy indie rock graced by accordion and strings. Makes a nice counterpart to their emotive yelpy male vocals which are at times akin to Arcade Fire, and at other Modest Mouse. Many of the songs on The Boy With An Orange fit in well alongside both of those bands, but also give a healthy nod to Brian Eno's Here Come The Warm Jets on songs such as "A Place To Find".
What's the last "nature sounds" disc we reviewed on our list? There was the cd-r of bat sounds we listed last time. But we'd had bats before. However, we can safely say that this is the first, and probably only recording we've ever heard... of dinosaurs!! Ok, obviously this isn't a "real" field recording. No time machines were involved. Or experimental genetic science out of a Michael Crichton novel. Nor are we being told any stories about how, through some improbable process, sound waves were frozen in amber millions of years ago, waiting to be decoded and heard by us today through the miracle of modern technology. Nope, this is fake fake fake. But it has the imprimatur of a real field recording, being brought to us by Jean-Luc Herelle, the recordist/naturalist responsible for the AQ fave Pastoral Bells, and others on the illustrious and Sittelle label, and the cover proclaims it a "scientific interpretation" (to the extent of relying on audio experiments done with fossils).
Knowing that AQ customers go gaga for environmental sounds, the weirder the better, it probably won't take much to convince you all that a disc of Jurassic Soundscapes belongs in your collection. So here it is, the grunts and growls and splashings about of the DINOSAURS! Or, they could simply be scary monsters... or, birds with a pitch shifter. That's right, since we all know that modern day birds are the descendants of dinosaurs, Herelle has constructed these imagined dinosaur calls out of genuine field recordings of birds, digitally altered to sound like what he thinks (based on the best current scientific theory) these dinosaurs would have in fact sounded like. (Is there a commercially available "Dinosaur effect"? If so, death metal bands should investigate.) Herelle also made good use of recordings of various amphibians, who also have their dinosaur connections, insects and mammals too...
The first of the four tracks on this disc is a 21+ minute number entitled "Moving Back To The Trias Period, To The Marine Environment Of Early Jurassic", between 230 and 200 million years BC. It starts of with watery drippings and what sound like backwards tape effects (!), soon joined by rumbling cries of eight meter long Plateosaurus, which is then scared off by the equally even more terrifying carnivorous Coelophysis!
Apparently, there was tons of reverb in the Jurassic period. It's a bizarre listen, for sure. The electronic effects are obvious, but one soon suspends one's disbelief, and becomes absorbed in the rather eerie world that Herelle has cleverly conjured.
The second track finds Herelle exploring a "Forest Of Giant Sequoyas Of The Later Jurassic", 170 million years BC. In the distance, *something* cries for a mate. And at one point, some sort of leathery winged flying reptile flaps by. Track three takes us to a "Swamp Forest Of The Cretaceous" (144 million years BC) for about half an hour. Scaly beasts moan and coo and moo and bellow. Our friends the Rutting Red Deers would possibly feel right at home conversing with the denizens of the Jurassic. And then as a finale, Herelle presents a "Time Slide Into Prehistory"...
In the liner notes, Herelle explains his procedures for this project, and helps to detail for the mind's eye the scenes he has set, these aural dioramas if you will. Each track is provided with a narrative, of what creature is plodding, swimming or flying about, and why, making for this imaginative, varied "natural" symphony. While the label admits that some might find it hard to take this disc seriously, it does have solid educational basis, paleontologist-approved. This is definitely the closest you're gonna get to hearing the sounds of prehistory, the cries of the baby Iguanadon and of the mighty Tyrannosaurus, the growls of the Stegosaurus and the twitterings of the Archaeopteryx... who could pass that up? Recommended of course!
A few years ago we (Andee and his fiancee Heather) were travelling in Europe and spent some time in Switzerland. We had spent the afternoon wandering around some mountain top, and decided to take one of those gondola's back down (you know the kind, a cute little train-style car suspended from a steel cable, like at Disneyland or from that one James Bond movie). As we made our way slowly and silently down the mountain side, beneath us the landscape would rise and fall, undulating just enough to obscure what was directly ahead until the ground would again recede revealing more verdant fields and breathtaking vistas. But about halfway down, strange sounds would drift up to where we were sitting, each time we came over a hill, a distant lowing, livestock obviously, but also this haunting chiming, the sound of bells reverberating and drifting lazily across the fields. We suddenly realized that it was the cowbells, worn by the slow moving cattle that wandered lazily below. So beautiful. Tranquil. Familiar obviously but somehow so strange and wonderfully unlike anything we'd ever heard. We've all heard a cowbell, or too, but the sound of hundreds is truly unique. We managed to record a brief snippet, but far too brief to really do that sound justice or to even listen to. These were sounds languid and serene, meant to be listened to over the course of hours not seconds. And then what do ya know? From the same place we got the rutting red deer cd and the recent sounds of bats record of the week, we managed to get this Pastoral Bells cd, which strangely enough just so happens to be recordings of cowbells in the mountainous regions of the Mediterranean.
The sound here is not nearly as tranquil as the sounds we remember, the result seemingly of just way more bells. But it is still lovely and evocative. But not in the same way for everyone. Where Allan and Andee imagine lazily strolling through green fields and dipping our toes in cool streams, cows wandering all around, birds chirping, thunder in the distance, Pam envisioned cows milling around outside a slaughterhouse, or the strange sort-of-calm before a twister. But then we think that may just be Pam.
The bells clang and clatter, deep and resonant, sometimes the sound is super spare, the overtones ringing out into the sounds of a country afternoon, running water, chirping birds, lowing cattle. Sometimes there are so many bells the sound becomes super dense and smears into a smoothed out droney cacophony, almost like a performance for bells, or as if Organum or Phillip Jeck had taken the sounds of hundreds of bells and layered them one on top of the other, until they stopped sounding like bells at all, and instead become a swirl of bell-like tones. Really amazing when that happens too, a simple sound of nature disc quickly and almost imperceptably begins to sound like some avant cut up sound collage, before just as quickly fading back to the normal sounds of nature.
Probably the most striking tracks here are the sounds of the bells in a thunderstorm, the thunder cracks and rolls drone-like across the soundfield, the cows obviously become agitated, thus the bells get jostled and the ringing and clanging builds and builds into a chaotic fervor, the whole while underpinned by the booming rumble of the thunder and added low end of moo-ing cows. There's also a track where distant church bells from a local abbey begin to toll, as birds chirp and tweet wildly in the foreground. So lovely. This is the best kind of nature recording, none of that cheesy new age relaxation crap, this is deep listening. You can lay back and relax if you like, letting the sounds wash over you and carry you away, as the sounds are truly relaxing, or you can really listen closely, deeply, there's so much to hear, so many different elements, so many different sounds, all interacting in ultra complex, impossibly perfect ways. Nature always seems able to deliver all sorts of amazing new sounds or previously unheard sounds, that even after centuries of pushing the sonic envelope, creating new sounds and sound making techniques, inventing instruments and constantly discovering new ways to compose and perform and record, we will never begin to approach, in terms of complexity or purity or beauty. This record however is special because it actually demonstrates an impossible and seemingly unintended collaboration. Man made bells, cowbells, church bells, 'played' by cattle moving and going about their normal lives, set in a lush ambient soundscape completely of nature's design.
First Psalm from this buzzing blazing Swedish black horde. Ex member of Ondskapt!
The first thing you'll notice about the newest from Swedish black metallers Heresi is the amazing artwork, a dark shadowy tangle of demon parts, gnashing teeth, sharp claws, desiccated flesh, all with that awesome oil on canvas texture from the original painting. Flip it over and feast your eyes on a baby head in the grips of a taloned claw, its blood emptying into a blood filled dish held by the very same demon, his teeth flashing in the corner. Ugh. Why does the art look so familiar? It just so happens to be from a painting by Wrest from Leviathan and is totally striking and super creepy. Perfect for this newest release from Skamfer, and his one man black horde Heresi. This is the sequel to last years Psalm I and is even heavier, faster, more grim and more darkly depressive. Skamfer is an ex member of the mighty Ondskopt and it sounds like it. Furious blazing black metal fuzz, a thick wash of mosquito buzz riffage, pounding blast beats, howled guttural vocals, but like with Ondskapt, a surprisingly melodic flair. A soaring mournful majesty buried beneath the swirling wall of blackness. Think Deathspell Omega, Onskapt obviously, Ofermod, Funeral Mist, and you'll get an idea of where Heresi fall. Very Swedish sounding, with lots of death metal elements, but also plenty of weird psychedelic guitar leads, creepy harmonies and dense tangled arrangements, all doused in black blood and wrapped in spiked fury. Heavy and hypnotic and so fucking great.
The band-not-person named Herman Dune is back, with their second release for US uber-indie Shrimper. From Sweden by way of France, Herman Dune's sound is part Velvet Underground, part Palace, part Mountain Goats, maybe even part Neutral Milk Hotel. The plaintive melancholia of their prior Shrimper album (and the in-between import "Switzerland Heritage") harbored much subversive, subtle humor. Dark humor. This time, the Herman Dune boys can be just as sad -- minor key guitar chords, doleful tempos, wavery vocals, heartbreak lyrics -- but at moments on this album do now get positively lighthearted. That's nice for them, but it makes some of this sound goofy -- the worst offender being "The Monkey Song", which we'll blame on the guests who helped write it. But they make up for that lapse into indie-jokester rock (which admittedly some will enjoy anyway) with the sheer melodic misery of songs like "Why Would That Hurt? (If You Never Loved Me)" -- featuring guest vocals from Julie Doiron, and a positively Faust-ian drum beat -- and "Taking Taxis In Winter Clothes" among others. So, definitely more hits than misses on here, if you're into the sort of ramshackle sad slacker-folk sound the Dune dudes purvey!
Herman Dune is a band, not a person, consisting of two Swedish brothers named David-Ivar Herman Dune and Andre Herman Dune, plus a drummer named Neman. We really liked the "They Go to the Woods" cd they released last year on Shrimper. It was a dark, but
A band, not a person. Herman Dune is a Swedish trio (2 brothers and a non-brother drummer) living in France, and making a pleasant, lo-fi indie-pop sorta mellow racket with a certain melancholy charm. They claim the ever-popular Velvets and Can as influences, although that's not any more obvious than with anyone else."Woozy" does apply, however. The vocals sound a bit like
Wow, when we reviewed those two J.P. Massiera Psychoses compilations, a couple of years back, we somehow assumed that this eccentric French producer recorded so prolifically under so many monikers that many of the groups (especially the space disco ones) were probably just single releases and not complete full length albums. Well, the Mucho Gusto label has proven us wrong once again, by reissuing the full length albums of both Venus Gang and Herman's Rocket, two of the zaniest freakout space disco-funk outfits that Massiera ever created. Commissioned in 1977 and 1978 by an Italian producer to jump on the European Space Disco craze, Massiera teamed up with his half-brother, Bernard Torelli and the singers Mickey and Joyce to create these two amazing groups. Amazing also in the sense that while he used what is basically a cookie-cutter disco template (he blatantly borrows lots from American funk and disco - but really who didn't? And at least he borrows well!), he managed to create such a crazy, unique sound with lots of Moogs, strange vocal effects and lots of spacey noises and sounds. Considered too crazy at the time for marketable appeal (check out the great covers!), both records have gained a cult following over the years and sound so good right now especially with all the modern throwbacks of Italo-disco trying to sound like this, these two groups are by far way freakier and so worth your time. We're curious if all of Massiera's disco incarnations released full length albums, and if we'll be soon gifted with reissues of The Human Egg, Sex Convention and The Starlights too. Here's hoping!
Both albums were only reissued on vinyl, not on cd, but do come with mp3 download cards!
Hermano, for those of you who don't know, is the post Kyuss band of vocalist John Garcia. While Josh Homme took his sunbaked fuzz guitar to MTV with Queens Of The Stoneage, Garcia stuck to the underground with his VERY Kyuss sounding new band. This is a super limited lp recording of Hemano live in the Netherlands back in 2004. We only got a couple of these, not sure if we can get more, but if we can it will probably take a while. But if you're dying for some sort of Kyuss fix, and QOTSA's new mainstream pop trajectory isn't doing it for you anymore, then hearing Garcia's instantly recognizable wail over a groovy slab of deserty stoner rock will for sure hit the spot.
We reviewed a record from local garage pop indie rockers the Herms way back in 2006, and if memory serves, we did dig it, but Castle Face head honcho and Oh Sees mainman John Dwyer insisted we forget all about that old record, and revel in this new one, which is not actually a proper record so much as a collection of demos and outtakes and unreleased rarities, but all the songs were hand picked by Dwyer, and definitely demonstrate the sort of lo-fi outsider pop what-the-fuck weirdness these guys were capable of, which wasn't really even hinted at on that way more polished record proper from back in the day. In fact, all it should take is a quick listen to the first track, the awesomely titled "Power Joystick", which sounds like some alternate universe Kinks, with way more bass buzz, some trippy psychedelic keyboard noodling, everything just a bit detuned, maybe recorded on a boombox, and with a totally unexpected midsong burst of blown out super distorted baroque pop majesty, before lurching right back into more of their noisy, jangly, wobbly Velvets-y groove. Fuck, so good. We had to listen to that track 5 or 6 times before letting it play any further. And if you dig that first one, pretty much all of Drop Out Vol. 1 is gonna push all the same buttons. "The Organisation" sounds like some weird archival track from the sixties, replete with dramatic spoken word vox, over warbly whirring organ, crunchy trebly jangle and simple drum pound. "Volleyball" ups the fidelity a bit, hinting at the band's more polished potential, but it all still sounds just a bit off kilter, the mix kind of just slightly wrong, the vox down in the mix, the keyboard melodies WAY up front. Hooky, and fuzzy, and jangly, and pretty much a perfect fit on Castle Face. Fans of Ty Segall, Mikal Cronin, the Mallard, Bare Wires, and of course Thee Oh Sees will definitely dig. We're also reminded a bit of the idiosyncratic home brewed poppiness of Cleaners Of Venus, albeit the Herms are a bit more ramshackle and garage-y. For every moment of classic garage pop jangle, or fuzzy hooky indie pop crunch, there's some twisted, almost avant sounding blast of fractured art rock to balance it out, or sometimes completely cancel it out, often in the same song. A new (old) aQ fave for sure!
Whoa, this is such an amazingly eclectic album, Record Machine is indeed like The Herms' own version of a jukebox. Put it on for a spin and you'll get all shapes and sizes and shades of pop that draw inspiration from each of the past four decades of music. In turn they recall The B-52s' "Rock Lobster" camp, Robyn Hitchcock's engaging cryptic eccentricities, The Kinks' wry pop snap, The Fall's angular snarkiness... and these SF fellas do it all exceptionally well. A super impressive debut that's positively bursting with confidence and energy.
One-sided, silkscreened, with download numbered limited to 300 copies.
Brand new release from local soundscaper / noisemaker Holly Herndon, a tape designed specifically for where most tapes get listened too. Yep, the car! This recent resurgence in tape releases has had most of us scrambling to find tape players, going to the Goodwill looking for tapedecks, buying Walkman's (Walkmen?) at Radio Shack, but one place tapes still seem to be ubiquitous, is of course in CARS. Not new cars, it's all cd players now, soon to be MP3 player docks exclusively we imagine, or who knows, maybe you'll be able to sync up your car stereo to your iTunes, but for now, those of you with a tape player in your car, or anyone with a tape player period, should check out Herndon's Car, which was created with the automobile driver, weird sound enthusiast in mind, starting with experiments using sine wave sweeps of popular car models, not to mention random samplings of FM radio (do we hear "Owner Of A Lonely Heart"?).
Thick swaths of pulsing sound, streaks of static, layered low end swells, the sound of engine rumbles merged with crackling white noise creating hazy fields of static, which occasionally give way to some flipping through the dial, only to slip right back into heaving sheets of soft focus hiss and whir, throbbing and pulsing subtly within clouds of crunchy static, slipping into softly roiling sprawls of low end hum, which in turn pulse rhythmically, the sounds hypnotic and minimal, like some fractured automobile sourced heroin house. Electric windows are rolled down, their sounds processed and looped into weridly mesmerizing mechanical dronescapes, sounding not unlike The User's ink jet printer symphonies.
Killer stuff, and on headphones it sounds amazing, we can only imagine how it sounds cranked in the car.
LIMITD TO 102 COPIES!!
It's finally here!! Holly Herndon's mini-opus Movement is a striking electronica debut that addresses the intimate relationship that entwined humanity with technology. Conceptually, this San Francisco electonic music alchemist has honed her craft through her studies in the masters program at Mills College and through her current PhD work at Stanford; but she's also got a handful of years absorbing minimalist techno from Berlin's finest dancefloors. The album pretty much splits the difference between the humanist splendor of Kraftwerk's Man-Machine and the technological horror of any given Cronenberg / Ballard amalgam of science fiction. She's quick to assert that none of her sounds are dystopian, even as the human voice is strangled and hacked apart into bite-sized components which she shuffles in and out of slippery, shifting digital sequences. The slow crawl of "Terminal" opens the album with clinical pulses pitched to half-speed and pricked with sharp lazer emanations of probing sound. "Fade" harkens back to her Berlin club days with a tautly engineered burst of angular techno with Herndon's voice reversed and modulated into anthemic chords smacked between Chris & Cosey and The Knife. This is an awesomely fluid track but is somewhat at odds with the uncomfortable cybernetic gaspings of "Breathe" that follow. It's clear that Herndon intends for the album to offer release through the rhythmic aspects of "Fade" and the title track later on in the album, and build in tension through the polymorphous digital abstractions that dot the rest of the album. Movement makes for a bold album that's certainly for fans of Matmos and AGF.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This is the first time we've reviewed anything by this strange Swiss group, active since the nineties, who use self built machines and old analog junk to create a disturbingly genius hybrid of power electronics, old school industrial music, avant turntablism, and abstract whatthefuck sound art. We got these from another aQ fave, and previous Record Of The Weeker, FRKSE, which makes sense, since like FRKSE, and Strotter Inst. among others, Herpes O Deluxe employs tape loops and broken/modified turntables as primitive rhythm machines, giving their sound a haunting, home brewed, robotic vibe, which Herpes O Deluxe then transforms via vocals and other sonic alchemy into something even stranger and creepier.
The A side begins with fields of industrial clatter, and blurts of Psycho like strings, churning mechanical rhythms, and howled distorted vox, all over a backdrop of hazy melodic shimmer, and softly pulsing spaciness. The sound slipping from hushed rhythmic mesmer to full of face melting power electronics and back again, like an even more unhinged Wolf Eyes, but even then, the sound somehow remains listenable, and mesmerizing, that rhythmic backdrop churning beneath fragmented synth stabs and processed heavy breathing, and finally a super creepy chorale.
The B side is no less far out, beginning with a bed of gristled buzz, over which sampled vocals drift, some sort of argument, a man and a women, not in English, all of which is partially obscured by a buzzing pulsing super minimal rhythm, and peppered with sine wave bleeps. The low level background hum builds and builds, finally transforming into a seriously hefty drone, layer upon layer of buzz and rumble, an oozy black sonic creep, the female arguer, now solo, and now wailing and screeching, beneath a roiling black buzz wreathed in swirling clouds of strange squiggly static, eventually settling into a final stretch of blackdrone softnoise mesmer.
Super striking John Baizley / Pushead style cover art, and a cool, multi panel sleeve.
This is a reissue of a 1957 broadcast of Brave New World, Aldous Huxley's classic tale of future shock that launched countless sci-fi movie references from THX-1138 to Wall-E. Adapted for radio, narrated by the author with a score by Bernard Herrmann, this broadcast harkens back to the classic Orson Welles War of The Worlds radio era, while creating a chilling picture of the future that still rings true. What makes it most chilling is Herrmann's wonderful score which is featured by itself on the first 9 tracks. Consisting of harpsichords and glockenspiels, the score is light but impressionistically foreboding, reminding us a bit of the soundtrack to TV's The Prisoner, and other beautifully creepy scores of British horror movies. Brrrrrr!
This one really doesn't need too much in the way of a description. Vinyl freaks rejoice! Three classic Bernard Herrmann Alfred Hitchcock soundtracks, presented in a luxurious 4lp set, all pressed on 180 gram vinyl, from the same label that brought us that amazing Kurosawa soundtrack set a while back. If you remember that one, you have an idea of how bad ass this looks and sounds. Massive gatefold sleeve with tons of photos and extensive sleeve notes as well as reproductions of the original movie posters, includes the original mono soundtrack to 1956's The Wrong Man, and the original stereo soundtracks to 1958's Vertigo and 1959's North By Northwest. So incredible. A bit pricey, but pretty much worth it. We only have a couple of these in stock, but fear not, if we run out, we can get more in a matter of days. That said, who knows how long these will list, best get one before they're gone for good...
Part of this amazing, twisted, sadistic Hitchcock thriller's greatness lies in the distinctive soundtrack music, available now on this new compact disc.
We just got the very welcome reissue of Throwing Muses' excellent University album. Prior to its original release back in 1995 and following the group's first album sans co-frontwoman Tanya Donnelly, lead singer/guitarist Kristin Hersh went it alone with her first solo album Hips And Makers. Now a dozen years later, we're graced with her eighth solo effort and it's fresh, energetic and coincidentally the most 'Muses sounding to date. Mind you, it's fancied up with strings and other embellishments that totally compliment her mostly guitar and vocal based pop tunes... y'know, things that you wouldn't necessarily expect to find on a 'Muses album. Each song strikes a perfect balance of flowery and fiery. Great stuff!
Former leader of Throwing Muses.
