Japan's Jojo Hiroshige, self proclaimed King Of Noise (noise fans commence argument now), has been abusing guitars for years as the leader of seminal 'Japanoise' outfit Hijokaidan. He's also responsible for many solo recordings and collaborations, many of them tempering the pure noise aesthetic of Hijokaidan with more rock, psych, or folk elements... likewise with the label he runs, the eclectic and extreme Alchemy, which delves into noise, psych, punk, improv, and heavy rock. In the Japanese noisy underground music scene, Jojo's the man. And he's also quite the performer, as this dvd will prove. He very definitely has a stage presence -- and knows how to make a racket!
One track will feature Jojo solo, shirtless, dramatically lit, with a mirrored stage backdrop, Gibson SG and microphone his weapons for unleashing relentless drone and cathartic screams... or, you'll find him in another segment wearing a leather jacket, wielding a baseball bat and a boombox, on stage with Masonna... or, in a more sedate setting, seated, jamming with the girls in Doodles, or members of Angel In'Heavy Syrup... there's even an MTV style promo video for a track from Jojo's Boku Wa Mo Utawanai Daro album (which also appeared on the Alchemism 2dvd collection). All in all, in addition to that promo clip, you'll find 15 different performances from the past few years documented here, including the bonus track that finds Jojo kicking out the jams with free folk legend Kan Mikami! It's a really nice package of music and visuals for the Jojo fan.
Jojo Hiroshige is the founding member of the Osaka-based noise unit Hijokaidan. Along with Merzbow, Hiijokaidan is one of the oldest post-Masayuki Takayanagi noise artists in Japan, with recordings that date back to the late seventies. In addition, Jojo
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Another Solo album from Hijokaidan guitarist.
Yes, it's true. Though his solo discography is quite small, Jojo has assembled a great introduction to his post-Hijokaidan world of painful dissonance. As founder of said group as well as the mighty Alchemy label -- responsible for the most cohesive and consistent output of powerful noise artists from around the world, Jojo's history is long and impressive. A true visionary, full of integrity and a dedicated advocate of difficult and extreme musics, he is the Eastern Godfather of noise. Collecting some of the strongest moments from his three solo records, this is an indispensible peek into the sonic malevolence and brute force that is Jojo Hiroshige. If you've been afraid to step into his world, give this disc a chance. But still, be very afraid!
Pretty much what it says!
As the packaging notes, this is "the voice and co-writer behind the AIR classic "All I Need". Now, I'd agree that song is quite good, but how it got "classic" status is beyond me. Anyways, this album is much more in the territory of Kate Bush meets the mellower side of Alanis Morissette. If that piques your interest, check this out!
"Im Schatten Der Mohre", originally released in 1987 on Dom Records, was the fourth album from the collected bent minds of Christoph Heeman, Achim P. Li Khan and Andreas Martin. Long deleted, unavailable for years, and thus highly sought after, this
"Kuttel Im Frost" -- the third album for the German avant-collage-rock ensemble Hirsche Nicht Aufs Sofa -- situates itself between with the idiosyncratic experiments of Nurse With Wound (admittedly HNAS' biggest influence) and the art-damaged strategies from Die Todliche Doris. Essentially HNAS was the duo of Achim P. Li Khan and Christoph Heemann working with a number of likeminded audio oddballs. As heard on their other records, this album features sprawlingly sparse improvisations for noddling guitars, piano, harmonica, bass rumble, and tons of oscillating, spiralling, and otherwise lysergic studio effects, recalling the early Nurse With Wound album "Chance Meeting On A Dissecting Table Of A Sewing Machine And An Umbrella." Yet scattered throughout this album, HNAS places seasick ditties that point to their "Im Schatten Der Mohre" record, as Heemann and Khan set up off-kilter loops (or possibly misaligned vinyl spinning on a turntable) and then awkwardly attempt to play around those loops with standard rock instrumenation. Quite odd indeed.
Possibly the rarest of all of the HNAS recordings to be re-issued by Achim P. Li Khan's Dom Recordings (much to the disapproval of fellow HNAS collaborator Christoph Heemann), "The Book Of Dingenskirchen" was originally pressed in an edition of a whopping 90 copies (20 black, 70 clear). It's unclear what the vinyl featured in terms of artwork, but Khan has 'restored' the original artwork for this CD reissue, since that tiny vinyl pressing couldn't justify the high costs of a full-color sleeve. It has to be stated that I've always felt HNAS has never risen above their desire to be the German equivalent of Nurse With Wound. This should only be taken as a minor criticism, as NWW is admittedly a synthesis of uncompromisingly vangarde artists as Pierre Henry, Robert Ashley, Sun Ra, and everybody else from the "Nurse With Wound list." Yet HNAS is less about the Dadaist recombinations of previous ideas into newly authored sounds, and more about recreating the idiosyncratic elements that run through Stapleton's recordings. "The Book Of Dingenskirchen" follows many of the ideas that Stapleton put forward on the first NWW record, "Chance Meeting On A Dissecting Table Of A Sewing Machine And An Umbrella" with indifferent guitar noodlings and piano tinklings amidst a variable density of collaged splatter for filtered voices, crashing metallic objects, and loads of studio effects. As with all of these reissues, "The Book of Dingenskirchen" fills up the full 70+ CD with bonus tracks, out-takes, live cuts, etc.
HNAS's fourth album "Im Schatten Der Mohre" has often been cited as the best work from these '80s German eccentrics, following a longstanding opinion from HNAS's Christoph Heemann supporting such a statement. Yet the sporadic resurgence of HNAS recordings may challenge Heemann's claims, as evinced by this authorized cassette release of Melchior on RRRecords. Melchior is in our opinion, in fact, the best of the HNAS recordings; and was the 2nd official album for Hirsche Nicht Aufs Sofa (translated as Moose Without A Sofa), originally released back in 1986 through Steven Stapleton's United Dairies. The presence of Stapleton and his wife Diana Rogerson (aka Chrystal Belle Scrodd) certainly slants Melchior into the paratactic Dada and post-Faust idiosyncrasy of mid-'80s Nurse With Wound (especially Sylvie and Babs). Just as NWW has always been the studio-driven vehicle for Stapleton's absurd audio experiments, HNAS - in 1986 the duo of Achim P. Li Khan and Heemann - used the studio as an alchemical means to recontextualize Krautrock's experimentalism, cheeseball disco, Teutonic chants, and Eastern European prog rock, into an aesthetic collision, that always teetered between working brilliantly and collapsing into a mess of delay ridden effects. When Stapleton's freak-out guitar and Rogerson's eerily disembodied / disaffected voice appear, HNAS gets noticeably better in their monochord guitar blurts, plodding percussion, bleeding 23 Skidoo horns, and unnerving atmospheres. That said, we'll admit our bias in favor of NWW over HNAS. Regardless, Melchior should be required 'out-there' listening!
This is the CD reissue of the first HNAS album, "Abwassermusik" which was a collaboration with the equally obtuse Mieses Gegonge - a German outfit that produced a few compilation tracks and cassettes in the mid-'80s and not much else. Of all of recordings that have recently been re-released, "Abwassermusik" is the most primitive album for HNAS both in terms of production techniques and sound quality. Furthermore, it's the album that least sounds like Nurse With Wound - the most common comparison for the group. Here, HNAS and Mieses Gegonge bury almost every sound - low end drones, vocal mumblings, two note rock plod, Keith Rowe guitar plucks, indeterminant radio samples, violin squiggles, and various non-specific clatters - within a thick field of tape delay and echo effects. Sometimes it works quite well when both groups allow the sounds space to breathe amidst the cascading delay patterns; other times, it becomes a sloppy heap of cross-phasing, tremolo pulsations. As there are three bonus tracks on this disc attributed to Mieses Gegonge which prominently feature those delay tricks, it's possible to that Mieses Gegone is responsible for the folly of the delay.
We raved about Ruthless Sperm, last year's full length from Italian gloom garage noise pop new wave outfit His Electro Blue Voice, who we originally discovered on a split 7" with another aQ fave 'faerical blasting punks' Nuit Noire. As much as we loved that single and whatever other tracks we could dig up from HEBV, Ruthless Sperm was a revelation, noisy and poppy, chaotic and catchy, anyone who's been digging Iceage or the Holograms or Beastmilk or the Grave Babies, His Electro Blue Voice were kind of a meaner, more feral version of all those bands, which is most definitely a good thing. So after listening to Ruthless Sperm pretty much constantly, we were thrilled to discover this 12" we had somehow missed, releases on Clay Ruby's (of Burial Hex) Brave Mysteries label, and needless to say, it's a good one. A three song blast of murky, gloomy noise pop, equal parts garage rock crunch, new wave slither, goth rock swagger, the guitars fuzzy and crunchy and angular, the basslines sinewy and Joy Divisiony, the vocals yelped and howled, and most importantly, the songs are catchy as hell, opener "Dead Mice" could have been plucked right off of Ruthless Sperm, with its fuzzed out bass, and furious punk rock energy, all droney and spacey, with a weird psychedelic breakdown midway through, the song collapsing into a weird free noise drift, all skipping records and looped voices, before transforming into a weird bit of psychedelic goth folk, right down to what sounds like a recorder solo(!), eventually working its way back up to something more rocking, but still blissed out and weirdly woozy. Definitely worth the price of admission for the first track alone, but follow up "Eat Sons" is cool too, a serious Interpol vibe, albeit WAY noisier, a crunch, murky main riff, pounding drums, total leather jacket, sunglasses, anthemic gloom punk radness. The song here we end up playing on repeat. The whole of the flipside is taken up by "Zum", a sprawling brooder, all laid back and washed out, fuzzy garage gloom murk, noisy and droned out, but muted and minimal, a sort of swaggery garage goth ballad, that like the opener, has a strange breakdown midway through, from which emerges a completely different song, wildly mathy for a minute, before locking into something much more rocking and swaggery, some fierce fuzz punk pound with some really weird falsetto vocal wails and wild squalls of spaced out psychedelic FX, all of which KILLS. This band is so great. Seems like only a matter of time before the rest of the world discovers these guys, and they end up getting the same love as all the above bands (Holograms, Iceage, etc.). Here's hoping...
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES!!
We first heard this Italian outfit on a split 7" with aQ faves Nuit Noire, whose weirdo 'faerical blasting punk' sounded pretty much perfect alongside the goth-stomp noise rock of His Electro Blue Voice. So much so that we found ourselves trying to track down everything we could. We were then thrilled to discover a His Electro Blue Voice track on this year's Sub Pop 1000 Record Store Day sampler, a track we described as "a gloriously twisted chunk of noisy, synthy, distorted garagey new wave weirdness that might be worth the price of admission alone" and which sadly is not included here, but that sound is in full effect, gnarly, gritty, crusty, swaggery, it's actually a LOT more aggressive and blackened than we remember, at least on opener "Death Climb", which adds some grim black buzz to their brooding, nightmarish punk wave gloom garage pound, but soon enough the band settle into something a bit more tranced out, check out the new wave krautrock of "Spit Dirt", a sprawling 8 minute motorik groove, that wraps spidery chiming guitars and thick low slung bass chug around a seriously hypnotic ultra propulsive rhythm, before exploding into the aggro noise rock new wave murk and howl of "Sea Bug", that reminds us of Iceage or the Holograms, but even more rough and ragged and supercharged, and infused with the sort of hookiness most proper pop bands would kill for.
After that, the band dip into some churning, thud rock pigfuck noisiness on "Tumor" (shades of Aussie thugs Lubricated Goat, as well as late great SF knuckle draggers Steel Pole Bathtub), with some super cool tripped out psychedelic weirdness part way through, then some super pop punkiness via P.I.L. on "The Path", with yet another psychedelic breakdown, this one all synthy and shimmery, but still driving and hypnorocky. "Born/Tired" might be the prettiest of the bunch, the chiming intro is a dead ringer for some classic indie rock song we can't quite put our finger on, but then the howled vox and gristly guitars swoop in, managing to rough things up without taking way any of the poppiness, and then ditching the buzz and crunch and slipping into some laid back space rockiness, totally mellow and mesmerizing. Finally, things finish off with "Red Earth", which begins as a softly glimmering drift, all washed out thrum and psychedelic spaciness, which is soon joined by some simple tribal drumming, hushed vox, eventually swirls of chiming guitars add a woozy minor key feel, as do processed synths, the song drifting into more of a dark jangle pop, before eventually fading out, leaving just a dark shadowy swirl of ominous synth thrum and some seriously sinister vokills, which also fade out before you can even figure out what's going on. So cool!
Killer 'ruthless sperm' cover art too!
AQ customer Rick Kitch, Jeph Jerman and Randy Grief collaborate in His Master's Voice, in a similar fashion as on Chine Nual's amazing plate lunch release, with Grief and Jerman doing most of the recording.This time wire fencing is the main source (as well
Wow, initially we thought His Name Is Alive had taken another huge shift in stylistic direction, but actually it's more of a bringing together of their past and recent selves. Detrola vacillates between their last album's path of soft lounge funk and their earlier angelic pop romps, and ends up coming across as a somewhat fucked-up Magnetic Fields. We've adamantly placed our votes for the lattermentioned sweetness. To be frank, we've tried, but can't help but find the funky fusion-y jaunts utterly cringeworthy. Yes, Lovetta Pippen has a breathtaking voice, but on the music side of things Warn Defever occasionally sounds a bit out of his element or at least a bit confused as he mashes together thick synthesizer blats into delicate acoustic guitar pluckery. That said, this stylistic jumble does seem to be what many fans dig about Defever and co., so perhaps you might not find it as problematic as we did. In a sense Detrola is a hit or miss H.N.I.A. musical grab bag, a sort of overview of all the little nuts and bolts that have made up the band's ever-evolving sound over the years. Some of the dreamier pop songs have a woozy feel as though someone's playing with the speed controls or as though the record's gotten warped at opportune moments. Nice. Those are the songs we've already gone back to a few times for repeat listens, and made us wanna dust off our almost ten year old Stars On E.S.P. album. Sigh.
Reissue of early His Name Is Alive tape releases from 1985 to 1989. Tracks are taken from the first four tapes, earlier versions of tracks that would appear on "Livonia", plus lots of previously unreleased tracks. Totalling in at over 70 minutes, you really get your money's worth here of His Name Is Alive. This is totally great, a lot like the "Livonia" era cuts with more of a raw 4-track, tape experiment feel to them.
One of two new Handmade Birds titles this week, the other, an amazing triple 10" boxset from Finnish folky weirdos Key reviewed elsewhere on this week's list, and this one, a long overdue reissue of this long out of print rarity from long time aQ faves His Name Is Alive. There was a time when HNIA were THEE aQ band, their Stars On E.S.P. record still ranks as one of our all time favorites (but gets short shrift on the aQ site, as it came out in the early days of the list), a sort of mad scientist, Beach Boys influenced outsider 4AD flecked dream pop, laced with strange noises, and fantastic atmospheres, gorgeous vocals, and some of the most amazing hooks EVER. The band eventually transformed into something else entirely, not as much to our liking, but back then, they were unbeatable.
This record right here, is from back then, 1993 to be exact, and was originally released on Perdition Plastics as a 'fake' bootleg, a compilation of tracks from various cassettes, consisting of demos, outtakes, and alternate versions, as well as unreleased tracks and a handful of sonic experiments, all woven into a twisted chunk of weirdo pop. Out of print for years, recently remastered and now available again as a limited edition double lp on Handmade Birds, and wow, does this have us drifting back, these sounds so reminiscent of that other time, but sounding so fresh and relevant to NOW.
Guitars buzz, drums shuffle, harmonics chime and drift, female vox all lush and dreamy drift over the top, while way off in the background other vocals swirl and shimmer, choruses crash, acoustic guitars strum, strange bits of percussion shuffle and clatter, harmonies hover and fade, tape speed shifts, speeds up and slows down, it's definitely not the absolute weirdest HNIA, but these wistful indie pop drifters are definitely laced with strange production, mysterious sounds, are sometimes chopped up and rearranged into strange arrangements, the vibe is definitely hazy and shoegazey, washed out and dream poppy, the guitars occasionally getting a little buzzy and crunchy, and the sound sometimes crumbles into strange collages, or bursts of crumbling distorted noise, but at its core, this is a fantastic pop record, just twisted and fractured enough to make it something more.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES! Already sold out at the label, these are the LAST copies we'll ever be able to get! Housed in super deluxe full color gatefold jackets.
We've always loved His Name Is Alive, Warn DeFever and his rotating cast of likeminded musicmakers. For a while he's been moving ina direction away from the pristine pop confections of the Stars on ESP album and more towards a sort of "white soul" sound (you know Warn must be a r 'n b fan), and that transformation is completed here on Last Night. Like the cocktail torch singer "jazz" of Everything But the Girl and the simplistic pop of The Beautiful South, the tone is clean and unpretentious. The female lead singer's pleasant voice is double tracked for more lushness, and is accompanied simply by guitar, piano, bass, drums. I can't say it's the greatest thing I've ever heard, but it's inoffensive and you might like it. A couple songs feature some worrying funky whah guitar and a dreadful afro-groove, but their pale (ahem) experiments aren't as cringe-inducing as Yo La Tengo's ill advised recent foray (Nuclear War).
More mature pop from the talented Warren Defever and co., as opposed to the crystal sweetness of their earlier stuff. Detroit soul influenced...
This is a cdr (not an LP!) jam-packed (19 tracks!) with recordings of HNIA live radio performances from 1992 to 1998. Leading into their radical shift into torchy soul jazz territory of the late '90s, the songs here are mostly of the raw, folky pop kind.
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Their new effort is gorgeous as usual, with those precious female vocals. You oughtn't be surprised there's a song called "Beech Boys" on here... As anticipated, Stars is 4AD-flavored sweet pop, yet more disonant at times and thus interesting than the last HNIA album. Warren Defever slices on some of the noisy layered stuff (his other band) Princess Dragon Mom likes to cook up.
Without knowing why or how, the idea of the recently more soulful, perpetually Beach Boys obsessed pop group His Name Is Alive tackling a record of tracks by legendary jazz saxophonist Marion Brown, seems not just unlikely but maybe even ill advised.
So we were pretty surprised and thrilled when we finally wrapped our ears around this disc. A dark smoldering expansive ambient jazz sprawl, His Name Is Alive, seriously channeling the spirit of Marion Brown, in such a way that is at once totally faithful but also, quite modern and radical.
Most of the tracks are languorous and laid back, and sometimes sound like a jazzier No Neck Blues Band, a sort of fluttering free folk, the sounds drifting like smoke, the percussion sizzling and shuffling, the horns moaning softly, lots of tinkling chimes and little flurries of piano, gorgeously soft focus and hypnotic.
There are a few live tracks, which is where the band really cut loose, and embrace the noisier side of Brown's oeuvre, "Capricorn Moon" the first live track, is much boppier, the drums and bass locked into a sort of muted exotica, while the horns bleat wildly over the top, the sound very African, and dipping into some serious Ethiopiques territory here and there. The next few songs return to the blissy jazzy tranquility of the first few, until "Bismillahi 'Rrahmani 'Rrahim", which starts off all dreamlike, but by the end, is a squall of thick distorted guitars and skronky saxes, a serious free jazz duel.
The two part "Geechee Recollections" is another slow burning jam, all exotic percussion and thick rubbery basslines, wailing sax, shuffling skittery drum lines, moody meandering piano, the second half a super minimal late night jazzy sprawl, like a less repetitive Necks, but the same sort of mysterious murky swirl.
The record finishes off with a live version of the opening track, sticking close to that same smoky late night shimmer, but with the horns more active and up in the mix, the drums a bit more propulsive, some wah guitar, managing to sound just a bit more fierce, but without losing that blurry blissy sultriness...
This is so good. We used to love love love His Name Is Alive. They even played an instore here, which was a blast. They sort of lost us though lately with their ever intensifying soul leanings, but this record is absolutely gorgeous, and has definitely restored our faith in Warn Defever and company, plus anyone so into Marion Brown is aces in our book.
A portion of the proceeds of the sale of this cd goes to the Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation, which is also quite cool...
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People have been waiting for what seems like forever for a new His Name Is Alive. Released as a cd-r on AQ favorite label Time Stereo (who released the absolutely brilliant Steps), this is to tide everyone over until their next 4AD full length. HNIA continue on their questionable path toward full on SOUL, due in no small part to vocalist Lovetta Pippen, who also sang on the last record. We all loved 'Stars on ESP' from a few years back, which was a completely inspired and magical pop record. Unfortunately HNIA haven't really been able to pull that off since. All the trademark weirdness is gone, super creative production, samples, all gone, and in it's place, a sort of watered down wannabe soul. If you liked the last record, you might dig this one, if you were waiting for another 'Stars On ESP', then I think you may be quite disappointed. Features an absolutely painful version of 'Moon Dance'.
Twelve compositions by local boy Steev Hise, ten of which were realized at Cal Arts when he was in graduate school there. Very competent plunderphonica ranging in style from droning soundscapes to a delightfully underwater-esque Ferrante & Teicher cutup to Tape Beatles-styled digital outbursts. Comes handsomely packaged in a glycene parchment envelope with printed cardstock liner notes. From the label that brought us "Deconstructing Beck" and "Extracted Celluloid".
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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It's been more than 3 years since the last Court And Spark full length, the gorgeous aQ fave Hearts, we were wondering when there would be a new C+S record, but we're beginning to think the answer to that question might be never, as at least part of the band has relocated to North Carolina.
Thankfully, the music plays on, Court And Spark frontman MC Taylor, and his musical partner Scott Hirsch are now Hiss Golden Messenger (how great a name is that!), who take the sound of later Court And Spark, a sort of psychedelic folk with bits of dub (a la Souled American), and incorporate some more jammy improvised sounds, taking inspiration from Traffic, and especially the Grateful Dead, mixing slow burning twang, with wild sprawling grooves, wah wah guitar and horns (lots of horns!).
Fans of the Court And Spark will definitely want to check this out, Taylor's voice is as warm and rough and emotional as ever, but a bit more melodic, and there's still plenty of twang, and Hirsch and Taylor can still pen a mean tune, but they definitely let loose a bit, embracing what some in the underground might consider guilty pleasures, and some of the songs and sounds here are definitely surprising and a bit unexpected. Smooth and groovy, laid back and mellow, a definite seventies FM radio vibe, a little Laurel Canyon, even a bit of funk here and there, a little jazziness, from country ballad to boogie stomp to jazzy dark pop (a sound that were it a bit more fucked up and acid fired could even be an Ariel Pink jam!) to one track that definitely gets a bit ska, but those songs are all wound up in a warm woozy playful sound that manages to be all it's own while proudly flying the flags of all the sounds that came before. As well as still keeping some of that Court And Spark, um, spark we love so much, alive! The record finishes with "Tongue In Cheek", a gorgeous stripped down acoustic lament, with lush harmony vocals, and a killer main hook, just to remind us that whatever wild tangent these guys decide to head out on, beneath it all, beats a heart of country gold.
Country Hai East Cotton definitely might be too commercial sounding for some folks, it's not hard to imagine some of these tunes finding a home amidst other seventies classic rock, but then that's precisely what Taylor and his crew were shooting for.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Each one hand numbered, packaged in super nice, full color gatefold mini lp style sleeves.
When we first heard Hiss Golden Messenger, we weren't entirely sold, we definitely dug it, and tons of people we love were involved, and the sound was definitely reminiscent of the late great SF outfit the Court And Spark, whose M.C. Taylor fronts HGM, but where that band channeled classic country and folk, this new group explored the members' love of groups like Traffic and the Grateful Dead, especially the Grateful Dead. And while Jussi from Circle has spent the last ten years trying to convince us to love the Grateful Dead, it's been a tough sell, and it was maybe the one sticking point that kept us from loving HGM. But somehow, the more we listened, the more we got it, and it wasn't just the Dead, then, it was seventies AM radio, classic rock, Laurel Canyon country, hell even soul and classic pop, Taylor and his parter Scott Hirsch deftly cramming all of those influences into something weirdly timeless, modern, but entirely beholden to the music that came before, and we found ourselves pretty smitten. And more so with every record. The sound growing darker and darker, more polished, the songwriting better and better. It's hard to put a finger on just what it is, but 2011's Poor Moon sealed the deal. And the recent Record Store Day collaboration with Steve Gunn, was a stunner, and it's tragic that it was allowed to go out of print before all but a tiny handful of folks got to hear it.
But with Haw, HGM have moved to the next level, crafting a dense, layered, lush, country rock, soul pop, folk flecked, classic rock gem that should be a no brainer for the usual No Depression suspects, but it's also the sort of record that has the crossover potential to hook fans of more mainstream pap like Mumford & Sons and all that Starbucks country rock. And heck, Fleet Foxes fans, this might hit the spot for you too. At its core it's folky, and country, but there's so much more going on, soaring strings that bring to mind E.L.O., and that's in the midst of a brooding ballad, there are horns too, even some soulful female background vocals, which are usually the kiss of death, but here, they kind of work. Lots of the songs are wreathed in field recordings, chirping crickets, chickens, barking dogs, the sound of life in the country. And pretty much every song here is a sprawling epic, almost symphonic in scope, multiple parts deftly woven into pop song form, and the songs themselves, gorgeously rendered, lovely lilting melodies, subtle hooks, the arrangements stunning, it's all pretty fantastic, and is easily the best thing we've heard from Taylor since the Court And Spark. Also doesn't hurt that Taylor's band now also seems to include recent aQ Record Of The Weeker William Tyler!
Got just a tiny handful of this special Record Store Day release left, a teaser of sorts for a brand new full length (already in stock, and hopefully being reviewed on the next list), from this post Court And Spark combo, who have taken the druggy dusky twang of their previous outfit and wedded it to swirly seventies Laurel Canyon style songsmithery and stretched out Grateful Dead like jams, M.C. Taylor's voice warm and welcoming as always, the band laying down a lush landscape of twang flecked folk pop on the A side, which on the flipside is stretched out into some woozy, drowsy twang flecked dub, dark and dreamily tripped out!
Housed in a plain white sleeve, and extremely limited. These are the last remaining copies.
Longtime SF locals probably remember The Court And Spark, on of our favorite local bands back in the day, their debut album released originally on Andee's tUMULt label, they played shows with Souled American when they were in town way back when, the band slogged away, making amazing record after amazing record, only to have the sort of success they so richly deserved escape them again and again. And thus like bands often do, they called it a day, with the core of the Court And Spark, M.C. Taylor and Scott Hirsch, continuing on as Hiss Golden Messenger, a group that traded in the traditional country influences of their previous outfit for some stranger influences, the Grateful Dead, seventies FM radio, classic rock, and of course that classic Laurel Canyon country pop, all woven into a sound, that while reminiscent of the Court And Spark was something all together smoother, and while we dug this new group, it wasn't really until this new one that we really GOT it. Not entirely sure what it is about Poor Moon, but everything seems to have fallen perfectly into place. Those same influences loom large, but there definitely seems to be a return to a more classic country vibe, the opener sounds like it could have been plucked straight off a Court And Spark record, the only difference some whirring organ, some horns, but Taylor's voice sounds as great as ever, and the song is crazy catchy, rife with swoonsome strings, it's definitely a stunner. "Call Him Daylight" is another winner, a swaggery twang flecked groove, laced with slithery melodies, and even some handclaps, but goddamn if we can't stop listening to it. The rest of the record unfurls similarly, the sound slipping from slide guitar laced country rock, to brooding country folk ballads, campfire bluegrass back porch hoedowns, super warm, melodic country tinged classic rock groovers, all of the tracks here fantastic, not a bum note in the bunch, the sound too, lush and expansive and so gorgeous, mandolin, clavinet, electric piano, violin, viola, fiddle, saxophone, banjo, Rhodes piano, all woven into probably the coolest country rock record we've heard in forever.
Housed in a swank oversized old school tip on mini lp style gatefold sleeve.
We went crazy when we first heard The History Of Apple Pie, a UK combo who sounded like they had time traveled here direct from the mid-nineties, a clutch of kids seemingly channeling the sort of music made right around the time they were born (!), but like some of our other favorite retro-pop combos (Yuck, Best Coast, Real Estate, etc.), they have that sound dialed in. In the case of The History Of Apple Pie, that sound is a sugary sweet concoction equal parts shimmery dreampop jangle and crunchy shoegaze fuzz, every track rife with huge hooks, soaring harmonies, swirling synths, crazy catchy melodies, the vibe definitely a bit twee, but with the occasional bout of rocking swagger, usually in the form of some muscly guitar crunch or epic My Bloody Valentine style wall-of-guitarnoise cascades. Obvious references would be the Swirlies, Veruca Salt, The Pixies, Curve, My Bloody Valentine, Heavenly and the like, and you'd be totally forgiven for hearing this new record and thinking it was actually some obscure lost shoegaze gem from back in the day, but what can we say, we're a sucker for that stuff. For people of a certain age, this immediately takes you back, this is exactly the sort of thing that found its way on many a mixtape, and was the soundtrack for all sorts of roadtrips and adventures, romances and breakups. And even though the record oozes nostalgia (at least for those of us who were there the first time around), it still sounds pretty fantastic, fresh and alive, and if not wholly original, THOAP do take that nineties jangle fuzz formula and make it all their own, crafting some truly transcendent cotton candy billows of distorted dreaminess, gorgeous soft noise psychedelia and lilting jangly fuzz drenched pop bliss.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
AQ-pal Sasha Frere Jones on A Certain Ratio, !!!, El-P, Sightings, Cex, DAT Politics, Radio 4, lotsa reviews. Chris Ryan (smart smart smart) on hip hop.
The long awaited return of the sweetly snotty super opinionated rock mag Hit It Or Quit It, helmed by booker / scribe / rocker / indie mainstay Jessica Hopper. This issue features The Hold Steady on the cover, inside: Thursday, Mountain Goats, Dinosaur Jr., Pelican, Spoon, Miranda July, M.O.P., Stones Throw Records, comics, bunches of record reviews and loads more. Two different covers too!
Let's get straight to the heart of the matter, and it is exactly that! Robyn Hitchcock knows the inner workings of matters of the heart, but he never panders to valentine cliches to get the sentiments across. Nope, time and time again, he comes up with some crazily inventive turn of prose to express an observation of something commonplace. Then he backs his wizened delivery of wry wisdom with an equally quirksome crunchy guitar melodic twist -- a holdover from his Soft Boys days? Often so wonderfully obtuse and cryptic, but also somehow so clear and true! Genius songwriting.
Anyways, this is our longwinded way to let y'all know that we are super pleased as punch that the fine folks at Yep Roc Records have recently reissued three of this venerable troubadour's albums Black Snake Diamond Role, I Often Dream Of Trains and Eye, each complete with hella unreleased bonus tracks. The latter is perhaps our personal fave. If you have one Hitchcock album in your library, make it this one. Plus at the same time, they've released the three albums together in a retrospective box set titled I Wanna Go Backwards which also includes an exclusive pair of additional cdeps of odds'n'ends from 1981-88! Awesome and super recommended.
Let's get straight to the heart of the matter, and it is exactly that! Robyn Hitchcock knows the inner workings of matters of the heart, but he never panders to valentine cliches to get the sentiments across. Nope, time and time again, he comes up with some crazily inventive turn of prose to express an observation of something commonplace. Then he backs his wizened delivery of wry wisdom with an equally quirksome crunchy guitar melodic twist -- a holdover from his Soft Boys days? Often so wonderfully obtuse and cryptic, but also somehow so clear and true! Genius songwriting.
Anyways, this is our longwinded way to let y'all know that we are super pleased as punch that the fine folks at Yep Roc Records have recently reissued three of this venerable troubadour's albums Black Snake Diamond Role, I Often Dream Of Trains and Eye, each complete with hella unreleased bonus tracks. The latter is perhaps our personal fave. If you have one Hitchcock album in your library, make it this one. Plus at the same time, they've released the three albums together in a retrospective box set titled I Wanna Go Backwards which also includes an exclusive pair of additional cdeps of odds'n'ends from 1981-88! Awesome and super recommended.
Let's get straight to the heart of the matter, and it is exactly that! Robyn Hitchcock knows the inner workings of matters of the heart, but he never panders to valentine cliches to get the sentiments across. Nope, time and time again, he comes up with some crazily inventive turn of prose to express an observation of something commonplace. Then he backs his wizened delivery of wry wisdom with an equally quirksome crunchy guitar melodic twist -- a holdover from his Soft Boys days? Often so wonderfully obtuse and cryptic, but also somehow so clear and true! Genius songwriting.
Anyways, this is our longwinded way to let y'all know that we are super pleased as punch that the fine folks at Yep Roc Records have recently reissued three of this venerable troubadour's albums Black Snake Diamond Role, I Often Dream Of Trains and Eye, each complete with hella unreleased bonus tracks. The latter is perhaps our personal fave. If you have one Hitchcock album in your library, make it this one. Plus at the same time, they've released the three albums together in a retrospective box set titled I Wanna Go Backwards which also includes an exclusive pair of additional cdeps of odds'n'ends from 1981-88! Awesome and super recommended.
Let's get straight to the heart of the matter, and it is exactly that! Robyn Hitchcock knows the inner workings of matters of the heart, but he never panders to valentine cliches to get the sentiments across. Nope, time and time again, he comes up with some crazily inventive turn of prose to express an observation of something commonplace. Then he backs his wizened delivery of wry wisdom with an equally quirksome crunchy guitar melodic twist -- a holdover from his Soft Boys days? Often so wonderfully obtuse and cryptic, but also somehow so clear and true! Genius songwriting.
Anyways, this is our longwinded way to let y'all know that we are super pleased as punch that the fine folks at Yep Roc Records have recently reissued three of this venerable troubadour's albums Black Snake Diamond Role, I Often Dream Of Trains and Eye, each complete with hella unreleased bonus tracks. The latter is perhaps our personal fave. If you have one Hitchcock album in your library, make it this one. Plus at the same time, they've released the three albums together in a retrospective box set titled I Wanna Go Backwards which also includes an exclusive pair of additional cdeps of odds'n'ends from 1981-88! Awesome and super recommended.
Robyn Hitchcock's remarkable body of work (both as a solo artist and with his band the Soft Boys) spans over a quarter of a century and is truly something to be cherished. Wry, witty, intelligent, eccentric, and definitely one of a kind. Now, he pays tribute to a fellow songwriting great - the one he credits as being his original musical inspiration. Robyn Sings is comprised of two cds full of Mr. Hitchcock performing the songs of Bob Dylan live in concert. In these sixteen renditions, he keeps relatively faithful to the originals but not without bringing his own unmistakable vocal inflections and personality to each. The first disc called "Stripes" (after Hitchcock's own trademark shirts) is mostly acoustic, just him singing and playing his guitar. It's graced with two versions of "Visions Of Johanna" - the one song that spurred him to become a musician - as well as "Desolation Row", "Not Dark Yet" and "Dignity". On the second entitled "Dots" (after Dylan's trademark shirts), he takes a fuller, more rocked-up approach presenting the songs in the running order of Dylan's Royal Albert Hall performance. It includes "Ballad Of A Thin Man", "Tell Me Mama" and yes... "Like A Rolling Stone". This entire collection is steeped with Hitchcock's immense respect and love for Dylan's work, very much like that which his own recordings have stirred from artists and fans alike.
Robyn Hitchcock rules, doesn't he? Yes, he does. Never disappoints, never falters, just goes about his unerringly fine songsmithery with little or no regard for current trends. His wry, witty brain-twisting stories/lyrics, creative guitar lines, catchy choruses and singing voice are all unmistakable. And while his pop supremacy hasn't gone unnoticed -- he's definitely influenced legions of young artists over the years -- it sure deserves a whole lot more. Listening to Ole! Tarantula reminded us not only of how much we dig his music but also of how many more recent artists sound like him (The Decemberists and Jets To Brazil to name just a couple). These days there's precious few artists of this high caliber and staying power. Actually the only ones who immediately come to mind are The Minus Five's Scott McCaughey and the Go-Betweens (Grant McLennan RIP). The former is one of the musical luminaries that make up Hitchcock's backing band The Venus 3. The rest of the trio are Peter Buck and Bill Rieflin. Additional guests include The Soft Boys' Kimberley Rew, Morris Windsor (also of The Soft Boys and The Egyptians), Presidents Of The United States Of America's Chris Ballew, Harvey Danger's Sean Nelson and Ian McLagan of Faces. Stellar!
The underheralded 1982 album from the most prolific of the post Radio Birdman groups. Includes rare singles, demos and live tracks from the period. A high-energy Sydney rock and roll classic!
Hive Mind is the long running project of Greh Holger, the rust-belt exile now basking in Los Angeles sunsets, smog, and Scientologist horror. Following his ancestry back to Michigan, Hive Mind situates somewhere between the monstrously virile industrialisms of Wolf Eyes and the doped-up synth worship of the earliest incarnations of Emeralds. Recently, Holger (and his cult imprint Chondritic Sound) has been dabbling in the synth-pop / minimal-wave ethos to considerable aplomb; but here on Beneath Triangle And Crescent he's returning to the roots of noise. In fact, this is a reissue of a super limited cassette that was released on Fag Tapes back in 2008. The A side lingers on suicidal synth chords cycling over beds of smoldering noise, with the aptly named "Detritus" channelling the same amphetamine goth-suffocation of downer melodies that opened the titular track to The Cure's Pornography. The side-long title track is a Cronenbergian meditation on psychic violence as played out through the structure of the machine, in this case the skeleton of a junked car festering at the bottom of Lake Erie. Whatever connotations to melody found on the A side are dropped in favor of zombified rhythms smothered in neurotic, black noise and a nihilist venom spewed often by those malcontent Italians (e.g. MB, Murder Corporation, Mauthausen Orchestra, etc.). Bleak shit, for sure.
