We first heard The Intelligence on a split with Thee Oh Sees, which makes sense, considering both bands traffic in the same sort of stripped down, raw and sweaty garage punk, and we were pretty nuts about The Intelligence's first full length, Fake Surfers, which demonstrated that these guys weren't nearly as blown out or in the red as many of their compatriots, their sound more low slung, reminding us of groups like the Wipers and the Leaving Trains as much as groups like the Mayyors, Blank Dogs, Wavves and the like. The guitars muted and muddy, a crunchy jangle, the vocals less a distorted wail, and more a reverbed croon, the songs simple and stripped down, but catchy as fuck, and super poppy, raw and urgent, most hovering around the two minute mark, short sharp blasts of fuzzy reverby garage pop, replete with buried in the mix synths, and some fuzzy background vox... and what on the surface sounds pretty straight ahead, will crumble right before your ears as the band unleash some sort of insanely hook filled chorus, or a bad ass earworm of a bridge, like on the awesomely titled "Tuned To Puke", which features a pounding rhythm and a looped sounding cyclical woozy main riff, the vocals sticking close to the main melody, but then the guitars soar, unleashing a shimmering bit of jangle, laced with some 'ooooh'-ing vox, and then it's right back to the churn and crunch again. But it's those moments that make The Intelligence so special, and make their songs stick in your head. And like Fake Surfers before it, every listen of Males just makes us want to hear more...
We'd been meaning to review this record for a while, but before managed to get it listed, we noticed it popping up on some customers' 2012 top ten lists, and then we just discovered Inter Arma apparently features members of another recent aQ fave, Bastard Sapling. So here it is, finally, the debut 12" from these Richmond heavies,
who traffic in a sort of dark, mathy noise rock, rife with psychedelic flourishes, bursts of furious black metal buzz, and swaths of sludgey downtuned crush. Sounds like a wild concoction, and it is, but somehow these guys make it work. Check out opener "Wailing Moon", which starts out all woozy angular guitars, and dense driving, super busy drumming, making us think of a more metallic Polvo, but then BAM, the song turns metal, churning and chugging, only to splinter into full on buzzing blackness, only to shift again into epic, riff heavy, doom flecked metallic bombast. The vocals flitting from demonic shriek, to warrior like below and back again, the sound too, slipping easily right back into a bout of furious blasting, and soaring fast picked riffage, only to collapse right back into that opening mathy tangle. They pack a lot into those nine minutes, even some soaring classic metal leads at one point, which transform the last few minutes into a sort of blackened epic heaviness, that sounds a bit like some weird hybrid of Opeth and Ash Borer, with a little classic noise rock mixed in. Which is some seriously good band math as far as we're concerned. The second track starts off with some acoustic guitar, wrapped in wild squalls of feedback, even some slide(!), a weird bit of twang flecked psych, that leads directly into "The Long Road Home", which for longtime readers of the list, we'll say reminds us of country stoner rock combo Antler, but for those not familiar, it's a sort of brooding twangy, countrified rock, but HEAVY, and when the lead comes in, it's like a metalized version of the Outlaws, all minor key, melancholic country jam, not at all what we were expecting for sure, but holy shit it sounds amazing, and when the song freaks out, the drums getting wild and chaotic, the guitars shredding wildly, the bass super busy, the result is super dramatic and tense and intense, until with about 2 minutes to go, the sound shifts, and the band explodes into another stretch of black buzz, which somehow retains the melodic component of the preceding country part, giving it a weird sort of melancholic emotional heft. Epic and dramatic. Finally, things finish off with the title track, a killer main riff, that instead of launching into another blast, is droned out, and becomes a cool trance-y dirge, bellowed vox over the stretched out riff, and churning low end beneath, still warped and blackened, punctuated by some creepy, raspy, dynamics, but slipping right back into that churning raga-like heaviness.
Awesome! Full length coming soon on Relapse, we can't wait.
We were sorta late to the game on these guys, having only recently reviewed their second record earlier this year, Destroyer, when their debut for Relapse (record number three) was all ready to drop - and here it is. But late or not, we're happy to have discovered this Richmond crew, whose sound is a tough one to classify. In the review of that 12", we described their sound as "dark, mathy noise rock, rife with psychedelic flourishes, bursts of furious black metal buzz, and swaths of sludgey downtuned crush." Which really definitely pretty much sums it up, but on Sky Burial, they're given plenty of space, which is essential for a band whose song lengths tend to average about 10 minutes.
Like on Destroyer, Inter Arma let their songs unfurl gradually here, exploding out of the gate with a churning blastbeat driven blowout, which quickly settles into a woozy, almost looped sound dirge, which churns and roils for the next several minutes, this churn laced with all sorts of dynamics, heady and hypnotic, and in a weird way, we'd be perfectly happy, if this record had been on hour long song, and this was all it did. The drums explode in chaotic patterns throughout, the vocals a demonic rasp, the sound slipping occasionally back into that opening blast, but always seeming to lumber right back into that head nodding churn. Finally, at the halfway mark, the sound settles into a super spaced out minimal drift, spidery tendrils of melody, of skeletal drumming, all underpinned by a distant rumbling drone, a brooding post rocky drift, that soon splinters into some dense downtuned mathiness, reminding us of the late great Dazzling Killmen. Before finally returning to a swirling chaotic blast to finish things off. And that's just the first track!
Here's where we'd normally say something like, "and the rest of the record continues on in a similar fashion", only it doesn't. Acoustic guitars, drift over slippery slide guitars, the vibe a little deserty, a little Morricone, disappears in a cloud of white noise static, before slipping into a haunting, slo-mo organ driven creep, spare and moody, a melancholic slow build, that reminds us of True Widow (who coincidentally enough also have a new record coming out on Relapse soon!). Psychedelic leads drift in, the drums get more loose, the sound unfolds and expands, building to a sort of coda, all whispering wind and wheezing organ, before abruptly launching into a furious howling blast of black metal buzz!
It doesn't get any more predictable from there on out, ultra slow funeral dubbed out doom, gives way to droned out dirgery, a pounding crescendo, total metal Godspeed majesty, before a serious Neurosis like tribal drum driven downtuned tangle of FX drenched guitar swirl and downtuned riffage, all beneath bellowed vox, the sound slipping in an out of clouds of FX, minimal and muted one second, explosive and blown out the next. Chugging doom, laced with hellish shrieks, devolves into dense mathy tangles, before slipping into another stretch of acoustic psychedelia, this time wreathed in what sounds like a theremin, haunting and mysterious, all leading up to the epic 13 minute closing title track, which again finds the band in epic doom mode, wild drumming wrapped around alternately chugging/soaring guitars, moody and droney, but before too long, the heaviness peels away, leaving more shimmery strum and minimal drum pound, over which the vocals howl, exploding into a long stretch of dense, blackened mathiness, some serious melodic and metallic guitar crunch, bordering on poppy, but before that can happen, the song evolves again into another sprawl of soaring epic doom, before getting all Champs-y, super technical and mathy, classic metalisms all wound up into dizzying progged out tangles, cycling through some classic true metal riffing, before collapsing into a chaos of chug and swirl, pound and churn, and finally, a dreamy bit of folky strum.
Super dense, crazy technical, proggy and epic, noisy post rock meets Neur-Isis style doom, laced with blast beats and psychedelic drift - phew, for how hard these guys make it to actually describe their sound, they sure make it easy to dig it!
It's kind of a 'thing' now, heavy bands releasing an album that consists of just one long (loooooong) track. Well, actually the big year for it was way back in 1996, when Edge Of Sanity, Boris, Sabbat, and (most famously) Sleep all released one-long-song albums! But, more recently, we can cite single-song, full-album efforts from Corrupted, Pig Destroyer, Jesu, and Lesbian, among others. Then there's that obscure old aQ fave by Mistigo Varggoth Darkestra... and of course, Jethro Tull's Thick As A Brick, if you wanna go waaaay back. Ok, so maybe not enough bands have done it that we could actually make it a theme for one of our in-between lists, but still, it's a thing. And now Inter Arma has done it too.
Richmond, VA's impressive Inter Arma have proved themselves an ambitious and capable "kitchen sink" metal band, hybridizing all sorts of extreme heaviness and postrock strategies, their usual compositions already pretty long and densely packed to begin with, so to discover that they'd come up with a 45 minute, 46 second long track/album called The Cavern is not exactly a surprise - but most definitely something we were excited to hear. And, yep, they pull it off, one massive majestic march-like song that doesn't end (for a long time). With some quiet and lots of loud, it incorporates raging Neur-Isis crush, bellowing vokills, mathy technical instrumental wig outs a la Don Caballero, proggy, droning chamber music ambience (like maybe something on Constellation), and even, at about a half-hour in, some heartfelt, country-flecked indie rock epic-ry with lap steel twang and clean, sincere vocals. Holy fucking wow. A lot of that we'd have expected from Inter Arma, but some of it came as a surprise - a good thing when it's a 45+ minute song you're dealing with. There's harmony guitar parts here to make you cry, also techie metal shred to spin your head; it can sound like True Widow one second, The Fucking Champs the next (or at the same time). The band brings in theremin, violin, extra synthesizers, and more, courtesy of a bunch of guest players; it's a BIG dang enterprise with room for it all, and they manage to keep kicking things up a notch every little while as the piece progresses. Granted, we'll need to listen to it a bunch more times to really begin to take it all in and understand (and critique) it as a whole, but that's some good attention-span exercise. Heck, if you can binge-watch an entire TV series any given weekend, you can spend 45 minutes getting into this 'song'. And certainly if you liked their last album, Sky Burial, you should be up for this. Another one for the pantheon.
Unexpectedly good album from this Maryland doom metal band, whose previous releases (from, like, six years ago) were pretty bad. But I guess they've been honing their craft and now their Sabbathy, Saint Vitus-like sound has taken on an even more bluesy, hard rock quality that sets them apart from their doom/stoner peers and makes "Unearthed" quite a pleasure.
Finally in! This is the all-star K Records/Olympia, WA scene collaboration/compilation. Is that enough 'slashes' for ya? A recording project co-ordinated by a gentleman by the name of Paul E. Schuster. These are all his songs which he asked his musical friends to augment and accessorize. Kinda like Stephin Merritt's project The 6ths, but maybe a bit more diverse in the ensuing interpretations and outcome. Calvin Johnson, Lois Maffeo, Kathleen Hanna, Slim Moon, Carrie Brownstein... they're all here.
International Airport is comprised of Glasgow indie-scene veterans Aggi of the Pastels (as soon as the vocals began, I knew it was her) and Tom Crosley of Drag City folk duo Appendix Out (Tom is also in Pastels). But, International Airport is much less singsong pop than Pastels. Softly floating pastoral goodness, mostly instrumentals but with a few vocal tracks. It will not blow you away (it's far too demure for that) but it may make your dreams sweet. With appearances by members of Incense and Belle and Sebastian. What a lovely world it would be if the masses looking for the new Sea and Cake album would turn their attention to International Airport.
The late sixties Swedish musical aggregation that was Parson Sound / International Harvester / Harvester / Trad, Gras Och Stenar (really all one evolving band) was basically an example of the genre we've decided to call "international krautrock". Like a
Silence has added an incredible, lengthy (24 minute!) bonus track called "Skordetider" ("Harvest Times") that the band originally intended for an album B-side but never used. It's hypnotic, powerful jam that could have fit well on that Parson Sound release. In other words: wow! Additionally, this cd features extensive liner notes documenting the group's history (the same essay is also found in Silence's reissue of the Harvester album, but with different photos). Along with the Parson Sound double cd, this is definitely one of the reissues of the year for us.
Gram Parsons = Country Rock Pioneer. Before he made those two incandescently beautiful solo albums with Emmylou Harris (that IMO no record collection should be without, and we always have them in stock), before he joined the Byrds, he formed the International
Sophmore records are so tricky. Especially when they follow the HUGE BREAKTHROUGH MASSIVE HIT RECORD. What can a band do? Why do you think there are so many amazing debut records? It's because the band has been waiting their whole life to release that record. Years and years to work on those songs. Years and years of playing those songs, until they are perfect and tight. The second album is cursed by the fact that it has to be written and conceived beneath the fallout of the first, often written on tour, in hotels and on buses which for most bands is not at all how they are used to writing songs. Such is the case with Interpol. Their debut, Turn On The Bright Lights, was perfect. Dark and catchy and funny and gloomy and chock full of perfect post-punk post-new wave pop classics. Everyone we know loved that record. Metalheads, punk rockers, whatever. It didn't matter. It was that good. So then the question is how did Interpol weather the sophmore slump. Disappointment is inevitable right? Well, track one definitely threw us off, a slow maudlin tail dragger, a lot like our least favorite track on Bright Lights. The next track "Evil" was definitely a return to form, but there was still something a little off, not as good maybe? We couldn't put our finger on it. We were all a little bit bummed. Sure it sounded pretty good. The whole record did, but we were all disappointed and sort of wrote it off as an 'oh well' and figured we'd just go back to Bright Lights. But a funny thing happened. We all kept putting Antics back on the stereo, all of us. And gradually we all came to the realization that Antics is a fucking amazing record!! Maybe more subtle, a little darker, not so immediately catchy, but isn't that what a second record should be? No one wants to hear the same record again, and lord knows the band doesn't want to play those songs over again. So yeah, this record is awesome. As good as Bright Lights, just different. Which is a good thing. A great thing actually. It takes some growing, but all great records do. "Evil" is punky and funky and about as upbeat as Interpol get, with sing songy, over ennunciated vocals, super reverbed guitar and a irresistable rhythmic bounce. And once you get to track five "Slow Hands", the single, you're definitely sold. "Slow Hands" definitely sounds like it could have come straight off Bright Lights, but with a decidedly more Strokes-like jangle that gives way to classic Interpol minor key chug and haunting reverbed piano chorus. After that you might as well just give in and admit that this is probably going to be one of the best records of the year. Antics has quickly turned into one of those rare records (New Pornographers, Neutral Milk Hotel, etc.) that we have to -force- ourselves not to listen to so we won't burn out on it! So good!
If slow and steady wins the race, Interpol's third album will surely be in the winner's circle. Moody post punk pop for the masses? Maybe! Their first release on a major label happens to be their most moderate and perhaps most broadly appealing. Few studio pyrotechnics and overarching productions, Our Love To Admire is simply a solidly crafted and executed. Tastefully tame, it is. In particular Paul Banks sullenly tormented vocals are more restrained that on either of their previous albums. In some ways this is a plus. That is, his performance comes across as much more effortless, but we do miss some of his bombastic anguished ennunciations. After a couple listens we can say that none of the songs have jumped out and bitten us on the nose nor nailed us in the heart quite yet. However much like Antics did, we have a sneakin' suspicion that this will be a 'grow on you' album, gradually taking root with each listen. (Andee listened to it on the plane back from New York, in an exhausted sleep deprived stupor, and emerged with Our Love To Admire as one of his new favorites, its languid droniness and laid back dolor the perfect soundtrack for being lost in strange cities, being trapped in grey walled airports, staying up all night, and wandering through sweltering summer city streets!)
Psst, for super fans and collectors, there's also a limited deluxe version which comes in an elegant black hardcover book style package with a 24-page booklet and 18"x24" poster. Don't know exactly how limited it will be, so hop to it if you wanna secure a copy for yourself.
If slow and steady wins the race, Interpol's third album will surely be in the winner's circle. Moody post punk pop for the masses? Maybe! Their first release on a major label happens to be their most moderate and perhaps most broadly appealing. Few studio pyrotechnics and overarching productions, Our Love To Admire is simply a solidly crafted and executed. Tastefully tame, it is. In particular Paul Banks sullenly tormented vocals are more restrained that on either of their previous albums. In some ways this is a plus. That is, his performance comes across as much more effortless, but we do miss some of his bombastic anguished ennunciations. After a couple listens we can say that none of the songs have jumped out and bitten us on the nose nor nailed us in the heart quite yet. However much like Antics did, we have a sneakin' suspicion that this will be a 'grow on you' album, gradually taking root with each listen. (Andee listened to it on the plane back from New York, in an exhausted sleep deprived stupor, and emerged with Our Love To Admire as one of his new favorites, its languid droniness and laid back dolor the perfect soundtrack for being lost in strange cities, being trapped in grey walled airports, staying up all night, and wandering through sweltering summer city streets!)
This deluxe version comes in a hardcover book style sleeve, with a bunch of extra photos and a poster, but no extra music....
We recently listed the double cd reissue of Interpol's Antics, with an extra disc of remixes. For those of you who really wanted the remixes but didn't want to have to buy the whole dang thing over again, here you go. Four tracks, just the remixes: "Song Seven", "Narc (Paul Banks Remix)", "Not Even Jail (Daniel Kessler Remix)", "Fog Vs. Mould For The Length Of Love", "Public Pervert (Carlos D Remix)".
What to do with the most hyped band in the land (except for maybe the Strokes) while the world waits for a new album to drop? That's right an EP of alternate versions of tracks we already love! Six tracks, the first, "Say Hello To The Angels", from their brilliant full length Turn On The Bright Lights, the second, NYC, a demo version from 2001. The other 4 are from the Black Session, live recordings for French Radio, of the tracks "Obstacle 1", "Specialist", "Leif Erickson", and "PDA". The live versions are a little sloppy and the vocals aren't always 'on' but it's fun to hear the band let down their hair, loosen their ties, and rock a little. Definitely for hardcore Interpol fans. And if you're not, get their Turn On The Bright Lights and you soon will be.
Three remixes of this track from Interpol's most recent record, reworked by Ikonika, Banjo Or Freakout and Salem. Yep, Salem! Odds are while all three mixes are pretty cool, that's the one that will most likely seal the deal.
Ikonika takes Paul Banks' original vox and drapes them over some swirling strings, and some skittery dubstep big beats, lacing the track with squiggly effects and bloopy synth melodies. Banjo Or Freakout leave some of the original track intact, but bookend those bits with some heady psychedelic swirl and dreamy looped mesmer.
Salem basically obliterate any trace of the original track, barring some chopped and screwed snippets of Banks' vox and a tiny bit of guitar right at the end, leaving just a fantastically twisted wreckage of classic cough syrupy Salem trip out, the sounds all woozy and warped, total dreamy drag, the primitive drum programming, over thick crunchy swells of symphonic synth, effects swirling all over the places. Hell, if you didn't know it was a remix, you could easily believe this was yanked right off their King Night full length. Worth it for the Salem mix alone for sure, but even more worth it for all three!!
The Strokes, Andrew W.K., The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Liars, and now Interpol are part of a recent rash of New York punkish bands birthed from the music hype machine as the great salvation of rock 'n' roll. Strange that these bands would garner such praise, since none of them operate outside of the arena of the homage -- either as ironic hyperbole in Andrew W.K. or as The Strokes' downward mobility to blue collar rockisms. Of all the aforementioned bands, Interpol seem the most interesting as they've managed to successfully resurrect Ian Curtis, a task that hasn't really met with much success in other bands. I mention just Curtis, as his persona seems to resonate much more strongly with Interpol than Joy Division as a whole. Sure there are ghosts of Factory's post-punk jaggedness and mororsely bleak temperament; but Interpol's forceful minor keys offer other roadstops past The Strokes' take on brightly-colored, guitar jangle and the sublime washes of fuzzy feedback heard in the early '90s shoegazer bands (MBV, Ride, Slowdive, etc.). Musically, Interpol's debut "Turn On The Bright Lights" is an excellent marriage of those aforementioned styles; but like Joy Division, Interpol is driven by a charismatic singer with a flair for dramatic bombast and a predilection for angst. Paul Banks, Interpol's singer, is a rare breed in the contemporary world of depressed vocalists who have typically followed the emo-centric whimper and scream approach of Sunny Day Real Estate to infuse any lyrical content with immediacy and passion. Instead, Banks can actually really sing, his nervous vibrato echoing the musical accompaniment played between depressed weariness and urgent conviction.
Much of Interpol's aesthetic choices and lyrical content (love / hate relationships, urban isolationism, and sexual dependency) have already been done to death, but few have been able to do them as well. "Turn On The Bright Lights" is a fantastic record and actually lives up to all of the hype that has surrounded it.
It's hard to believe it's been ten years since this record originally came out. But when it did it was a revelation. It got played to death here, and the songs were lodged in our head pretty much permanently, and as often happens, we played this so much, that eventually we did sort of overdose. But it's been just long enough, that these songs sound super fresh, and again prove themselves to be SO much better than the legions of Interpol wannabes that surfaced in the wake of this record. And while in 2002, Turn On The Bright Lights was already sort of retro, looking back to the classic post punk era, especially Joy Division, somehow, listening to this now, it seems less retro, or at least a different kind of retro, looking back to the early 2000's as opposed to the early 1980s. The thing with Interpol, was they took that dour jangle, and low slung broodiness, and infused it with the sort of hooks most bands would kill for, we're talking near perfect pop, wedded to angular crunch and gloom punk buzz, and the result was a record that was pretty much perfect all the way through. And again, ten plus years on, and it sounds as great as ever. This new deluxe anniversary version tacks on a whole mess of extras, including 17 bonus tracks, many of them never on vinyl, one never before released at all, four unreleased demos, eight B sides, four Peel Session tracks, two of those unreleased, all the videos, as well as rare live footage, the cd comes in a cool hardcover book style package, the lp in a swank gatefold, definitely worth revisiting, and if you loved this record as much as we did, probably worth buying again for the extras. Here's our review of the record from WAY back in 2002, when we were in the throes of our newfound obsession with these guys:
The Strokes, Andrew W.K., The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Liars, and now Interpol are part of a recent (as in 2002) rash of New York punkish bands birthed from the music hype machine as the great salvation of rock 'n' roll. Strange that these bands would garner such praise, since none of them operate outside of the arena of the homage -- either as ironic hyperbole in Andrew W.K. or as The Strokes' downward mobility to blue collar rockisms. Of all the aforementioned bands, Interpol seem the most interesting as they've managed to successfully resurrect Ian Curtis, a task that hasn't really met with much success in other bands. We mention just Curtis, as his persona seems to resonate much more strongly with Interpol than Joy Division as a whole. Sure there are ghosts of Factory's post-punk jaggedness and mororsely bleak temperament; but Interpol's forceful minor keys offer other roadstops past The Strokes' take on brightly-colored, guitar jangle and the sublime washes of fuzzy feedback heard in the early '90s shoegazer bands (MBV, Ride, Slowdive, etc.). Musically, Interpol's debut "Turn On The Bright Lights" is an excellent marriage of those aforementioned styles; but like Joy Division, Interpol is driven by a charismatic singer with a flair for dramatic bombast and a predilection for angst. Paul Banks, said singer, is a rare breed in the contemporary world of depressed vocalists who have typically followed the emo-centric whimper and scream approach of Sunny Day Real Estate to infuse any lyrical content with immediacy and passion. Instead, Banks can actually really sing, his nervous vibrato echoing the musical accompaniment played between depressed weariness and urgent conviction.
Much of Interpol's aesthetic choices and lyrical content (love / hate relationships, urban isolationism, and sexual dependency) have already been done to death, but few have been able to do them as well. "Turn On The Bright Lights" is a fantastic record and actually lives up to all of the hype that has surrounded it.
Interpol aren't groundbreaking or anything, but boy does this NYC quartet sound good. (They probably look good too, got the 'scrod' style DOWN.) The singer's voice has the arch desperation of Joy Division's Ian Curtis. The music is dominated by intertwining guitars that're sometimes angular and choppy, sometimes pensively creating a lush blanket of minor key intensity. Very Factory Records, very Echo & the Bunnymen... but not annoyingly so, for a modern group. I like it! This is a three song, inexpensive teaser single in preparation for the full length to be released August 2002.
- RealAudio clip: PDA
- RealAudio clip: NYC
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Interpol aren't groundbreaking or anything, but boy does this NYC quartet sound good. (They probably look good too, got the 'scrod' style DOWN.) The singer's voice has the arch desperation of Joy Division's Ian Curtis. The music is dominated by intertwining guitars that're sometimes angular and choppy, sometimes pensively creating a lush blanket of minor key intensity. Very Factory Records, very Echo & the Bunnymen... but not annoyingly so, for a modern group. I like it! This is a three song, inexpensive teaser single in preparation for the full length to be released August 2002.
- RealAudio clip: PDA
- RealAudio clip: NYC
Quite possibly the reason for Intersystem's being was to re-create John Cage's "Indeterminancy" but with a hell of a lot more drugs involved. "Peachy" is the first album from Intersystems and dates back to 1967. While the group had expanded throughout their brief career with the addition of several visual artists (such as the installation artist Michael Hayden), Intersystems' core members were poet / acid prohet Blake Parker and electronic knob twiddler John Mills-Cockrell. "Peachy" simply featured that core duo with Parker offering his best John Cage impression in the recitation of emphatically spoken vignettes of lysergically apocalyptic poetry, and Mills-Cockrell playing David Tudor with his surreal punctuations through electronic noise and musique concrete elements. The end result is very strange, even for Aquarius' tastes, and is certainly worth checking out if you're into Nurse With Wound.
We're not sure how many aQ customers out there are Spanish speakers, but this magazine was just too good to pass up. Hopefully, there ARE a few folks out there who do indeed speak and read Spanish, and who will be super psyched to discover this amazing music magazine, while the rest of us can lament the fact that there's not an English version. That said, however, some adventurous non-Spanish speaking music lovers out there might just want to pick this up anyway. Oversized, glossy full color cover, and packed with articles about, interviews with and photos of Animal Collective, Vashti Bunyan, Low, Matt Elliott, Carla Bozulich, Grizzly Bear, Pere Ubu, SUNNO))), Jens Lekman, Battles, Scott Walker and more. 120 pages, tons of record reviews, illustrations by Jennifer Heremma and Ariel Pink / Jason Yates as well as 2 free cd-r compilations, one from Constellation Records, featuring tracks by Hrsta, Hangedup, Les Fly Pan Am, Black Ox Orkestar, A Silver Mt. Zion and what appears to be a live 17 minute exclusive track from Godspeed You Black Emperor, and the other from Finland's Lal Lal Lal label (run by one of the members of Avarus), featuring tracks by Maniacs Dream, Avarus, Kemialliset Ystavat, Fricara Pacchu, The Anaksimandros, Keijo and a whole bunch of Finnish acts we've never even heard of!
Been meaning to list this for a while now. Wild, thrashy black metal complete with pounding rhythms, growled black metal shrieks, shredding leads, weird acoustic break downs and ghostly clean vocals. This one man band was originally given the name Mikael and on this disc he is soley responsible for: "burning ax onslaught, nuclear thunder, holocaust cannons, mesmerising atomospheres, and all tortured screams of sorrow and hatred." Nice. Very reminiscent of Mercyful Fate (partly because of the slightly silly falsetto parts), Celtic Frost, Destruction and the like, but with some definite Norwegian black metal bits. But there is plenty of that one man band weirdness that seems to come with that following of that elusive metal muse: off kilter melodic breakdowns, bizarre choruses (kill yourself, kill yourself, kill yourself, kill yourself), the aforementioned falsetto, bizarre song titles: "Meditations In A Cold And Dimly Lit Room", "Tantric Lunar Slumber", "Grim Vendetta", "Headbanging Maniac" and one of the best thanks lists ever:
"Hail to the metal gods: Mercyful Fate, Voivod, Destruction, Iron Angel, Living Death, Necrovore, Possessed, Bathory, Celtic Frost, Necropolis, Piledriver, Exorcist, Malhavoc, Hobbs' Angel Of Death, Slayer, Necrophagia, Metal Church, Nasty Savage, Running Wild, Vectom, Goatlord, Nigro Mantia, Acid, Sepultura, Venom, Razor, Omen, Desexult, Desecration, Onslaught, Massacre, Kreator, Fates Warning, Death, Destructor, Dark Abbey, At War, Carnivore, Destroyers, Carrion, Judas Priest, Flames, Pokolgep, Sacrifice, Violent Force, Oz, Savatage, Iron Maiden, Attila, Sodom, and so many others ingrained in my psyche!!! I spit on those who choose to pose, and thrash with all the rest!" He even thanks Jesus Christ. Really amazing and amazingly strange.
Intrusion is the solo project of Steve Hitchell, who alongside Rod Modell forms the impressive heroin-house meets dub-factory duo Echospace. Just as Modell's solo recordings don't veer too far from the Echospace mantra, the Intrusion sound doesn't see any reason to break the mold either. If it ain't broke, why fix it? This is the beloved muted blur of the Detroit / Berlin axis of techno that spurned the whole Basic Channel / Chain Reaction sound and which then slowed itself down into the murky dub of Burial Mix. Hitchell and Modell have both been so captivated by this particular sound, that they've collected many of the modular synths, signal processors, and classic drum machines that Moritz Von Oswald and Juan Atkins used back in the day to perfect the mimesis of that abstracted techno that steadily cruises through the dronefields. The bulk of the album finds a hypnotizing rhythm sublimated behind atmospheric synth chords rippling in sync with the cascading wash of echo and heaping snow drifts of tape hiss; but Hitchell does make a few noteworthy detours. "Intrusion Dub" is a decidedly uptempo digidub number, with Augustus Pablo-esque trills across the melodica and an insistent hi-hat uncannily similar to the metronomic rhythms provided by Public Image Limited on Metal Box, but of course pixel-pointed into a Chain Reactive / Burial Mix cloud of digital hiss. Elsewhere, he recruits the Burial Mix toaster par excellence Paul St. Hillaire to offer his ghostly croon to the mix. Mighty fine, mighty fine.
W e d o n ' t k n o w h o w T i m e R e l e a s e d S o u n d d o e s i t . F i r s t , t h e y ' r e a l w a y s f i n d i n g s o m e n e w , i n t e r e s t i n g e x p e r i m e n t a l a r t i s t w e ' v e n e v e r h e a r d o f b e f o r e . T h e n , c o m i n g u p w i t h a n e l a b o r a t e & u n i q u e i d e a f o r d e l u x e , l i m i t e d e d i t i o n p a c k a g i n g , t h a t m u s t r e q u i r e h o u r s a n d h o u r s o f w o r k t o m a k e a n d a s s e m b l e . T h e r e ' s a R E A S O N t h e d e l u x e v e r s i o n s c o s t , l i k e , f o r t y - f i v e d o l l a r s , f o l k s !
O n T R S ' s l a t e s t r e l e a s e , t h e y ' r e i n t r o d u c i n g u s t o a B r i t i s h a r t i s t c a l l e d T h e I n v e n t o r s O f A i r c r a f t , w h o s e d i s c W h e r e T h e L i g h t S t o p s i s i n s p i r e d b y a n o t h e r m o d e o f t r a n s p o r t i o n - t r a i n s . M o r e s p e c i f i c a l l y , b y " t h e d e c l i n e a n d p r i v a t i z a t i o n o f t h e r a i l w a y i n d u s t r y i n t h e U K " w h i c h h a v e h a s l e f t m a n y o b s o l e t e , a b a n d o n e d r a i l w a y s t a t i o n s a c r o s s t h e l a n d . S o i t h a s a n o s t a l g i c , m e l a n c h o n i c v i b e . T h e b e a u t i f u l , d r o n i n g , d r a m a t i c s h i m m e r o f T I O A ' s m u s i c e v o k e s b o t h t h e p a s s i n g o f l a n d c a p e s o u t o f a r a i l c a r w i n d o w , b u t a l s o t h e p a s s i n g o f b e l o v e d t h i n g s o u t o f u s e , i n t o t h e m i s t s o f t i m e . M a d e w i t h i n s t r u m e n t s a n d f i e l d r e c o r d i n g s e l e c t r o n i c a l l y s a m p l e d a n d p r o c e s s e d , t h e s e c o m p o s i t i o n s a r e s l o w - m o v i n g , b l i s s f u l b u t s a d , f u l l o f e c h o i n g b i t s o f s t a t i c a n d n e a r - a m b i e n t m e l o d i e s , m o v i n g i n c y c l i c w a v e s . O c c a s i o n a l l y y o u c a n t e l l , t h a t ' s a p i a n o i n t h e r e , o r a b l u r r e d s u g g e s t i o n o f a c h u g g i n g t r a i n f r o m a t r e a t e d f i e l d r e c o r d i n g, I t ' s a t m o s p h e r i c e l e c t r o n i c a t h a t w o u l d p r o b a b l y a l s o b e a t h o m e o n t h e M i a s m a h l a b e l , o r U t e c h . Q u i t e d r e a m y , a n d a g o o d l i s t e n f o r a n y o n e t i r e d o f t h e f a s t p a c e o f m o d e r n l i f e , y e a n i n g f o r s i m p l e r d a y s . W e ' d r e c o m m e n d t h i s t o f a n s o f T h e C a r e t a k e r , R e i g n s , a n d J a s p e r T X a m o n g s t o t h e r s .
S o t h a t c o v e r s t h e m u s i c , w h i c h b y i t s e l f i s c o m p l e t e l y w o r t h w h i l e , a n d i f t h a t ' s e n o u g h f o r y o u , t h e n g e t t h e " s t a n d a r d " c d e d i t i o n , w h i c h c o m e s i n a w h i t e , h a n d - s t a m p e d s l e e v e . B U T , a s f o l l o w e r s o f T i m e R e l e a s e d S o u n d l a b e l k n o w , t h e r e ' s a l s o a d e l u x e , s p e c i a l l y p a c k a g e d v e r s i o n t h a t ' s b e e n c r e a t e d o f t h i s t o o . S u p e r l i m i t e d , t o j u s t 1 0 0 c o p i e s , a l r e a d y s o l d o u t a t t h e l a b e l - w e h a v e j u s t 5 a n d t h a t ' s I T . A n d w h e n w e s a y " s p e c i a l l y p a c k a g e d " , w e m e a n i t . T R S h a s d o n e s o m e o v e r - t h e - t o p p a c k a g i n g b e f o r e b u t t h i s o n e i s r e a l l y i m p r e s s i v e . L e t ' s q u o t e t h e i r m e t i c u l o u s d e s c r i p t i o n o f i t : " E a c h o f t h e s e c o m e s i n a h a n d s e w n , 5 . 5" x 1 4" f o l d i n g w a l l e t t y p e s l e e v e & f r o n t e d w i t h a n u m b e r e d , 1 0 0 y e a r o l d s t o c k c e r t i f i c a t e f r o m t h e n o w d e f u n c t T i m e R e l e a s e d S o u n d R a i l w a y s L t d . E a c h i s h e l d c l o s e d w i t h a s t r e t c h o f t r a i n t r a c k , a n d t i e d o f f w i t h s t r i n g . I n s i d e a r e a n t i q u e g r a v u r e s o f t h e p a s s i n g c o u n t r y s i d e , v i n t a g e s i g n a l d i a g r a m s a n d d e s c r i p t i o n s , a n d a w o r k i n g r e d l i g h t ! E a c h w i l l c o m e i n a h a n d l a b e l l e d b l a c k e n v e l o p e . A l s o, e v e r y o n e t h a t p u r c h a s e s a c o p y w i l l b e s e p a r a t e l y m a i l e d a u n i q u e , a n t i q u e s t e a m t r a i n p o s t c a r d w / h a n d w o r k i n g s, w h i c h u p o n a r r i v a l w i l l f i t n i c e l y i n t o t h e s l e e v e , a n d b e c o m e a p e r s o n a l i z e d p a r t o f t h e p a c k a g e ! "
Y e s , t h a t ' s r i g h t . T h e r e ' s a l i g h t i n t h e r e t h a t b l i n k s ! A n d a p i e c e o f a t o y t r a i n t r a c k . A n d a s t o c k c e r t i f i c a t e . A n d , y e s , i f y o u p r o v i d e u s w i t h y o u r m a i l i n g a d d r e s s ( w h i c h y o u n a t u r a l l y w i l l d o i f y o u a r e a m a i l o r d e r c u s t o m e r a n y w a y ) , w e ' l l p a s s y o u r i n f o a l o n g t o T R S s o t h e y c a n s e n d y o u t h a t p o s t c a r d ! A n d t h u s y o u ' l l h a v e a t r u l y o n e o f a k i n d , p e r s o n a l i z e d a r t e d i t i o n o f t h i s l o v e l y c d .
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
W e d o n ' t k n o w h o w T i m e R e l e a s e d S o u n d d o e s i t . F i r s t , t h e y ' r e a l w a y s f i n d i n g s o m e n e w , i n t e r e s t i n g e x p e r i m e n t a l a r t i s t w e ' v e n e v e r h e a r d o f b e f o r e . T h e n , c o m i n g u p w i t h a n e l a b o r a t e & u n i q u e i d e a f o r d e l u x e , l i m i t e d e d i t i o n p a c k a g i n g , t h a t m u s t r e q u i r e h o u r s a n d h o u r s o f w o r k t o m a k e a n d a s s e m b l e . T h e r e ' s a R E A S O N t h e d e l u x e v e r s i o n s c o s t , l i k e , f o r t y - f i v e d o l l a r s , f o l k s !
O n T R S ' s l a t e s t r e l e a s e , t h e y ' r e i n t r o d u c i n g u s t o a B r i t i s h a r t i s t c a l l e d T h e I n v e n t o r s O f A i r c r a f t , w h o s e d i s c W h e r e T h e L i g h t S t o p s i s i n s p i r e d b y a n o t h e r m o d e o f t r a n s p o r t i o n - t r a i n s . M o r e s p e c i f i c a l l y , b y " t h e d e c l i n e a n d p r i v a t i z a t i o n o f t h e r a i l w a y i n d u s t r y i n t h e U K " w h i c h h a v e h a s l e f t m a n y o b s o l e t e , a b a n d o n e d r a i l w a y s t a t i o n s a c r o s s t h e l a n d . S o i t h a s a n o s t a l g i c , m e l a n c h o n i c v i b e . T h e b e a u t i f u l , d r o n i n g , d r a m a t i c s h i m m e r o f T I O A ' s m u s i c e v o k e s b o t h t h e p a s s i n g o f l a n d c a p e s o u t o f a r a i l c a r w i n d o w , b u t a l s o t h e p a s s i n g o f b e l o v e d t h i n g s o u t o f u s e , i n t o t h e m i s t s o f t i m e . M a d e w i t h i n s t r u m e n t s a n d f i e l d r e c o r d i n g s e l e c t r o n i c a l l y s a m p l e d a n d p r o c e s s e d , t h e s e c o m p o s i t i o n s a r e s l o w - m o v i n g , b l i s s f u l b u t s a d , f u l l o f e c h o i n g b i t s o f s t a t i c a n d n e a r - a m b i e n t m e l o d i e s , m o v i n g i n c y c l i c w a v e s . O c c a s i o n a l l y y o u c a n t e l l , t h a t ' s a p i a n o i n t h e r e , o r a b l u r r e d s u g g e s t i o n o f a c h u g g i n g t r a i n f r o m a t r e a t e d f i e l d r e c o r d i n g, I t ' s a t m o s p h e r i c e l e c t r o n i c a t h a t w o u l d p r o b a b l y a l s o b e a t h o m e o n t h e M i a s m a h l a b e l , o r U t e c h . Q u i t e d r e a m y , a n d a g o o d l i s t e n f o r a n y o n e t i r e d o f t h e f a s t p a c e o f m o d e r n l i f e , y e a n i n g f o r s i m p l e r d a y s . W e ' d r e c o m m e n d t h i s t o f a n s o f T h e C a r e t a k e r , R e i g n s , a n d J a s p e r T X a m o n g s t o t h e r s .
S o t h a t c o v e r s t h e m u s i c , w h i c h b y i t s e l f i s c o m p l e t e l y w o r t h w h i l e , a n d i f t h a t ' s e n o u g h f o r y o u , t h e n g e t t h e " s t a n d a r d " c d e d i t i o n , w h i c h c o m e s i n a w h i t e , h a n d - s t a m p e d s l e e v e . B U T , a s f o l l o w e r s o f T i m e R e l e a s e d S o u n d l a b e l k n o w , t h e r e ' s a l s o a d e l u x e , s p e c i a l l y p a c k a g e d v e r s i o n t h a t ' s b e e n c r e a t e d o f t h i s t o o . S u p e r l i m i t e d , t o j u s t 1 0 0 c o p i e s , a l r e a d y s o l d o u t a t t h e l a b e l - w e h a v e j u s t 5 a n d t h a t ' s I T . A n d w h e n w e s a y " s p e c i a l l y p a c k a g e d " , w e m e a n i t . T R S h a s d o n e s o m e o v e r - t h e - t o p p a c k a g i n g b e f o r e b u t t h i s o n e i s r e a l l y i m p r e s s i v e . L e t ' s q u o t e t h e i r m e t i c u l o u s d e s c r i p t i o n o f i t : " E a c h o f t h e s e c o m e s i n a h a n d s e w n , 5 . 5" x 1 4" f o l d i n g w a l l e t t y p e s l e e v e & f r o n t e d w i t h a n u m b e r e d , 1 0 0 y e a r o l d s t o c k c e r t i f i c a t e f r o m t h e n o w d e f u n c t T i m e R e l e a s e d S o u n d R a i l w a y s L t d . E a c h i s h e l d c l o s e d w i t h a s t r e t c h o f t r a i n t r a c k , a n d t i e d o f f w i t h s t r i n g . I n s i d e a r e a n t i q u e g r a v u r e s o f t h e p a s s i n g c o u n t r y s i d e , v i n t a g e s i g n a l d i a g r a m s a n d d e s c r i p t i o n s , a n d a w o r k i n g r e d l i g h t ! E a c h w i l l c o m e i n a h a n d l a b e l l e d b l a c k e n v e l o p e . A l s o, e v e r y o n e t h a t p u r c h a s e s a c o p y w i l l b e s e p a r a t e l y m a i l e d a u n i q u e , a n t i q u e s t e a m t r a i n p o s t c a r d w / h a n d w o r k i n g s, w h i c h u p o n a r r i v a l w i l l f i t n i c e l y i n t o t h e s l e e v e , a n d b e c o m e a p e r s o n a l i z e d p a r t o f t h e p a c k a g e ! "
Y e s , t h a t ' s r i g h t . T h e r e ' s a l i g h t i n t h e r e t h a t b l i n k s ! A n d a p i e c e o f a t o y t r a i n t r a c k . A n d a s t o c k c e r t i f i c a t e . A n d , y e s , i f y o u p r o v i d e u s w i t h y o u r m a i l i n g a d d r e s s ( w h i c h y o u n a t u r a l l y w i l l d o i f y o u a r e a m a i l o r d e r c u s t o m e r a n y w a y ) , w e ' l l p a s s y o u r i n f o a l o n g t o T R S s o t h e y c a n s e n d y o u t h a t p o s t c a r d ! A n d t h u s y o u ' l l h a v e a t r u l y o n e o f a k i n d , p e r s o n a l i z e d a r t e d i t i o n o f t h i s l o v e l y c d .
The much anticipated debut from this new dooooooooooom outfit, featuring 2/4 of late great legendary doom/death metallers diSEMBOWELMENT, and we have to say fans of that group's legacy will not be disappointed, the same mix of spaced out reverb drenched loping doom, and pounding, lurching death metal churn, a sound that definitely doesn't fall to far from the withered and gnarled sonic tree. The opening few minutes lull the listener into a false sense of trippy bliss, before the track explodes into a murky, muddy blast of old school blackened guttural death metal, mathy and intricate, but also primitive and raw, a sound that's echoey and downtuned, that sounds in its own way timeless, although it most definitely sounds like it could have come straight from the same era as diSEMBOWELMENT. The track slipping into a creeping chugging dirge, wreathed in squiggly metallic leads, before exploding again in an avalanche of crumbling distortion and almost a sort of caveman Voivod sort of crush. And then without warning, the song slips into a cool sort of swirling tribal drum driven riff heavy midtempo psych metal space out, that could easily have come from some young metal bucks, the song finishing off with a long stretch of cavernous hushed ambient drift.
The other two songs follow suit, with "The Menin Road" unfurling like some demonic death march, definitely earning some extra o's in their doom, a glacial tarpit creep, but laced with some cool shimmery distant guitar melodies, about as close to a ballad as these guys get, before winding it up with "Shadows Of The Flame", which returns to the sound of the opening track, a dizzying mix of true doom sludge and frenzied blackened death metal gnarl, even some more psychedelic metal drift, flecked with soaring melodies, haunting atmospheres and some seriously killer riffing, and all with a seriously crushing production, that makes everything here sound massive and majestic, heavy and so epic.
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.
We've sold many many copies of the first in this series (which, confusingly, was actually titled Vol. 5) and here's the next installment. 19 tracks of "an orchestrated turntablist session featuring DJs Shiggar Fraggar, Disk, Q-Bert, Shortkut, and Flare, recorded live, January 16th, 1996 with host Billy Jam at Hip Hop Slam, Oakland, CA as part of the 100 Pirate Fuckin Radio series between 1994 and 1999.
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.
From the back cover... "In Annual 2, grab your popcorn & seats because 'Sneak Attack' - the 1st ANIMATED SKRATCH MUSIC VIDEO [QBert's Wave Twisters] and one of many chapters to complete the Wave Twisters movie is installed in this video for your viewing enjoyment. Learn how to perform test tones with DJ World Champion 8-Ball. Sneak inside another World Champion skratch practice session with Vinroc, Craze, Develope, and Babu. Tips and Secrets from DJ Swamp, Lamb Chop, and Butchwax! A frightening Halloween! Magic tricks! Cage dancing! The heckling Masked Skratcher! Mardi Gras! A shark attack! Skratchy Seal tours the NAMM show! Toenail Man! Beautiful women! Unbelieveable performances by QBert, Revolution and the Scratch Perverts! All this and much more from the No. 1 DJ video series in the world, TURNTABLE TV!!!"
This is as much a piece of amazing sound art as it is a critical catalogue of environmental abuse and a tribute to the folks working to solve those problems. EVERY SINGLE CENT from sale of these discs (that's all fifteen bucks from each), will be donated by us to support Greenaction For Health & Environmental Justice (check it out: http://www.greenaction.org). But this is not just a great cause that directly affects us all, this is an amazing sonic travelogue. Essential listening for fans of sound art, as well as anyone concerned with the state of our earth and the way pollution affects our communities.
For those of us who have spent years driving up and down highway 5, all of these locations will be immediately recognizable. However, this is a depressing, but also inspiring, glimpse at spots on the map that have existed as just blurs on the side of the highway. This long in the works project plays like a series of This American Life vignettes, chronicling the environmental abuses along Highway I-5, which runs the length of California including random field recordings, incidental music and interviews with concerned families, activists, children and members of various communities. This project covers points From Hunter Point in Bayview to Boyle Heights in East Los Angeles, and is a self guided critical audio tour which attempts to illuminate the "invisible toxic landscape" by focusing on the story of people and organizations struggling for environmental justice. Two discs, one focuses on North, Hunters Point to Kettleman City, the second disc is South, from Alpaugh to Boyle Heights. Each stop along the tour is infamous for some environmental violation or another. Some are obvious (Livermore), some not so. But each directly effects families, their health and homes. It's enormously inspiring to hear these folks talk about what is being done, but simultaneously so depressing to realize how shortsighted so much of modern industry and local government can be. And it's so creepy to think about all the stops along highway 5 from every road trip, just random pit stops for gas, food, bathroom breaks, whatever, and to learn what sort of thoughtless abuses were occurring in all of these places, really intense, and sad because you know these instances are merely the tip of the iceberg.
You can hear the sounds of children playing, families talking, birds chirping, cars whizzing by, wind and rain, footsteps, ambient clatter and background noise, other discussions, as well as dreamy background music, all a dense rich sonic background to this series of totally engaging interviews.
Packaged in a gorgeous full color 6 panel fold out sleeve, with a massive booklet, with maps, and liner notes, extensive notes on each location, the environmental abuse, and each interviewee. This definitely makes us want to take an Invisible 5 roadtrip, stopping to observe the carelessness of humanity, and hopefully be inspired to help bring about change.
So by all means BUY THIS NOW. It's totally amazing to hear and see and listen to. Incredibly well researched and obsessively assembled, totally timely and something that directly affects us all, especially here since in this case all of these locations are in California, but you know you could do a project like this on any highway in any state in the country, which is indeed a very sad thing.
SO DO YOUR SMALL PART. BUY THIS NOW! DIG THESE AMAZING PEOPLE, THESE FASCINATING SOUNDS, AND REMEMBER, 100 PERCENT OF THE PROCEEDS OF THIS DISC GO TO SUPPORT GREENACTION FOR HEALTH & ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE!! AND WE CAN GUARANTEE THAT AFTER LISTENING TO THESE STORIES YOU'LL FEEL LIKE DOING SO MUCH MORE. WHICH IS THE WHOLE POINT!
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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A gorgeous disc of drifting, moody, softly psychedelic dronefolk from this mysterious duo called Invisible Bees. Fans of all things darkly twangy, drone drenched, shimmery and haunting, will definitely want this, the sounds inside are gorgeous, the packaging is over the top luxurious, the bad news is, it's limited to only 50 copies, and we only got a handful. So we'll be brief, but needless to say, do your best to grab one of these, you won't be sorry.
Loping bass, over fragments of folky steel string guitar, plenty of swirling wheezing ambience, more folk than drone in fact, the steel strings guiding the Invisible Bees' sound. The twang and pick and strum, pulled apart, and set amidst deep soft swells of warm washed out whir, the melodies minor key and mournful, in the distance shimmering streaks of high end sway to and fro, the percussion is minimal, the ambience is thick, super moody and cinematic, creepy, and beautifully ominous, a disembodied skeletal folk music for the drone set. Really fantastic, and practically criminal that only 50 people will get to hear it.
Incredible packaging, full color, hand water colored covers with cloth binding with a full color printed inner sleeve as well!
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Hey indie pop fans, check out this fine new Bay Area band! Invisible Cities easily go from fun, bouncy indie pop to considerably darker somber numbers in the wink of an eye. The first few gal-sung songs brought to mind a thoroughly charming combination of Bangles style sweetness, Lois' indie chutzpah, and the smart crunch of Throwing Muses. At the fifth tune "Shooting Star" though, a fella steps up to the mic lending a more slouchy boyishness to the proceedings a la Quasi or Portastatic, and he returns for the title track too. A very promising debut!
While not straying too far from the rest of the Italians Do It Better catalog (which we'll admit we're big suckers for!) Invisible Conga People definitely, defiantly have their own identity. A bit more dark and brooding then most of their labelmates, there is most definitely a really rich sense of atmosphere in their slow burning electronic sizzlers. You can tell there is some love for the minimal leanings of krautrock and post punk channeled into their dark corner of a seedy dance club. This isn't as much for the dancefloor (though it would be on dancefloors we would frequent) as it is for late wasted nights alone in your bedroom when you just want to close your eyes and get lost in some sizzling sensations. Full on sensual seduction!
The cliff notes version of Invisible Hands might read something like "spaghetti-western cow-punk from Cairo with one of dudes from the Sun City Girls." The dude in question is the curmudgeonly Alan Bishop (aka Alvarius B.) here working with four Egyptian musicians, two of whom had been in the Egyptian rock band Eskenderella. As we mentioned before in the previous review about Invisible Hands' first album, this is a remarkably sensible project for Alan Bishop, known for his confrontational fuck-you-in-eyeball attitude and discordant avant-folk splutter. Where the first album had a sand-blasted alt-rock prettiness about akin to Giant Sand and Calexico, Teslam finds Bishop pushing more of the insidious, diabolical aesthetics for which he is known. "Eyes In The Back Of Your Head" is a blackened, sardonic waltz with Bishop and Co. alternating between languid Morricone-esque melodies and harshly plucked Brechtian venom, all in the steampunk time of three. When Bishop and fellow Invisible Hands Aya Hemeda sing in tandem as on "Slaughterhouse" and "The Great Implosion", it's akin to the unkempt harmonies that Exene Cervenka and John Doe delivered in X.
Here's another Record Store Day find for you! The Invisible Hands is one of the new projects for the Sun City Girls' Alan Bishop, here working with a cadre of Egyptian musicians to produced a decidedly less volatile sound than what we are used to from Bishop in either the Sun City Girls or his solo project Alvarius B. All of the material found on this super limited 7" comes from the Alan Bishop songbook, with the medley on the A side of "Insect Dilemma / Disallowed" culled from the legendary 330,003 Crossdressers From Beyond The Rig Veda album by the Sun City Girls and the self-titled 2lp from Alvarius B respectively. The B side is a cover of a Moroccan folk song entitled "Lili Twil", but those who know the SCG back catalogue will recognize the tune as "Cruel & Thin" also from 330,003 Crossdressers From Beyond The Rig Veda, but with Bishop reconfiguring the words into neological gobbledigook. Musically, this follows what Bishop arranged for the Invisible Hands album released earlier in 2013, with straightforward rhythm sections straddling the desert blues ethos and American indie-rock songsmithery, with the lead guitars buzzing with Arabic intonations and fanciful flourishes. The cover of "Lili Twil" is sung by Aya Hemeda, whose languid vocals do recall the beautiful folk melodies that Selda recorded back in the '70s.
To top it all off, when you buy an Invisible Hands 7", you will be automatically entered in a contest to win either an Invisible Hands banner or an Invisible Hands throw pillow, both of which feature crudely painted Egyptian imagery of minstrels and cats eviscerating chickens.
What?! A somewhat sort of sensible Alan Bishop recording? We had thought the amazing Baroque Primitiva from 2011 might have been the most polite thing the former Sun City Girl had ever released; but his latest project under the moniker Invisible Hands might just take the cake, as this one can be downright lovely, not too far from Giant Sand or Calexico weirdly enough. Nope, there's none of the misogyny or misanthropy which Bishop routinely tosses into his lyrics for the Sun City Girls or as Alvarius B, and most definitely nothing as rude and wild and over the top as his Uncle Jim pseudonym; and that may have to do with the company he's keeping. The Invisible Hands ensemble is comprised of members of the Egyptian rock band Eskenderella; and they recorded this album in the summer of 2011 after the ousting of Hosni Mubarak and the upheaval that spread throughout Northern Africa. Perhaps, the timing was such that it would be unwise to record an album with the sorts of provocative subjects that Bishop is generally known for; but then again, it might have been equally improper to have recorded an album that might have been offensive to an Egyptian sensibility. To Bishop, it might be one thing to offend his politically correct audience in America and another thing to offend his hosts in Egypt, 'cause that would be rude. Eh. Or hell, maybe we're just getting a glimpse of a lesser seen sonic side to this musical misanthrope...
Either way, the album's arrangements are lovely and spacious, mostly driven by acoustic guitar with plenty of those Morricone nods common to the Bishop songbook, but there's some more aggressive turns with the theatrical gravity of Tom Waits and a few incendiary psychedelic moments that had us wondering aloud "Hey, when is somebody gonna reissue Torch Of The Mystics?" In fact, one of the songs here "Black Weather Shoes" is a pretty radical reinterpretation of an old Sun City Girls track from their record Grotto Of Miracles. We've been told that there's an Arabic version of these recordings under the Arabic name El Ayadi El Khafeyya, but that's only being sold in the Middle East. Major bummer, dude! That would be a very cool thing to hear, although this is cool as it is. Let's petition the White House and force them to comment on an Alan Bishop record!
Home Is The Sun is the debut from guitar and drums duo Invisible Things, which is made up of Mark Shippy, he of late great weirdo noise rockers U.S. Maple, and Jim Sykes of Parts & Labor. On the surface, this might initially seem like a cool chunk of slightly angular, sort of experimental avant rock, which it most definitely is, but it's also a lot more than that. While the first few minutes to explode right out of the gate in proper rock song form, complete with vocals and everything, sounding a bit like Polvo actually, or yeah, U.S. Maple, but it doesn't take long for that song to fracture into its actual form, a loose billowing cloud of abstract textured guitar noise, which is beautiful and blissed out, and we would have been happy if that's stretched out to fill up the whole record, but that's really only part of what's going on here.
Apparently, the drumming is based on Sri Lankan percussion, and is applied to a modern rock drum kit, the result is a wild and loose, polyrhythmic sprawl of free percussion freakout, flitting from rhythmic churn, to wild frenzied chaos, to abstract propulsive pummel, the guitars thus left to work their way around Sykes' constantly mutating rhythms. And Shippy is more than up to the task, his guitar unfurling frantic gouts of wildly tangled psychedelic freakouts one second, lush textural shimmer the next, the two surprisingly synchronized, what could have been a mess of free rock wankery, somehow coalesces into proper songs, albeit wildly fractured and dizzingly abstract and obtuse songs, but they're eminently listenable, the vocals drifting in and out, hazy and settled way down in the mix, the sound shifting constantly, but all of the tracks woven into one epic song suite, somehow sounding not at all improvised, it's obvious that much of this WAS, but somehow these two lock tight from the very first few minutes, and react to each other, the results super dynamic, rife with gorgeous sonic tension, and some surprising melodies. The overall somehow both loose and tight at the same time, the two players able to each drift off into the ether and let loose with dense clouds of sound, but somehow never losing sight of the other, and when everything does settle down into something more traditionally 'rock' sounding, it's pretty exhilarating, but it's not long before the sound splinters, and things warp and mutate once again. But the magic here is just that, the constant shifts, the wild tangles, the far out exploration, somehow, those seemingly free and abstract elements are part of a way bigger picture that isn't always visible, but IS always felt. Imagine the weirdest, loosest, free-est, avant indie noise rock record ever, one that includes all the stuff you love about indie/noise rock, all the tropes, all the sonic signifiers, but then ignores them completely, or more accurately, reimagines them, and somehow recontextualizes them into something at once entirely new, but also eminently beholden to what came before. A new favorite for sure!
The Lower Bottoms neighborhood of West Oakland has long been a site of blight, crime, and gang activities. It's also home to the purposefully low-profile art-noise-punk venue Life Changing Ministries, which acquired its name from a African-American revival church that had held services in that space beginning in the '60s or thereabouts. When the art-punks took over the space - probably sometime around the late '90s, maybe early '00s - the space was a shithole, with squatter residue and fetid trash strewn everywhere. The people who now run the space have done a pretty decent job of making it one of the better venues in the Bay Area for the underground, noise, metal, no-wave/costume-rock, and anti-everything scenes; but it's still a very low-profile spot and the neighborhood still is not all that savory. In cleaning out all of the debris from LCM, somebody found a bunch of cassette recordings of church services; and these tapes were then passed around to various West Oakland art-rock / noisenik types lead by Ryan Brundage of the Experimental Dental School, The Geldings, Starlight Coffins, etc. And thus, loops of gnarled tape-noise, powerdrone crescendos, back-masked vocalizations, and Le Syndicat-styled mechanical churn splash sloppily amidst the distant proclamations of the power of the Holy Spirit from the unnamed preacher whose powerful baritone led call and responses through the spirited sermons and biblical readings. Such gospel recontextualizations were commonplace in the industrial culture heyday, often with the preachers saying something culturally inflamatory or with the preacher being Jim Jones. Here, the source material is often obfuscated amidst the noise and collage techniques; and in doing so, Brundage et al seek to channel the supernatural aura of the first inhabitants of LCM. Very cool!
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Black Sabbath guitarist (and the onetime unquestioned ultimate riff-lord of the universe) Tony Iommi at last releases a "real" solo album, instead of solo albums under the latter-day Sabbath guise. What with his higher profile due to the successful Sabbath/Ozzy reunion, it's time for him to cash in with this long-awaited solo disc. Chock-a-block with guest vocalists (once rumored to include the likes of Alanis Morrisette and Rob Halford, but actually including Ian "The Cult" Astbury, Peter "Type O Negative" Steele, Ozzy himself, Billy Idol, and others). While some of the tracks seem like rather typical, commercial radio/Ozzfest fare (such as the horrid Dave Grohl and Henry Rollins cuts early in the album), on others the guest stars obviously requested that Mr. Iommi write something "Sabbathy" and thus the Phil Anselmo, Serj Tankian (I think he's the guy from System of a Down), Billy Corgan, and Ozzy tracks, among others, are heavy, non-embarrassing, and quite worthy of repeat play. Also on board, in instrumental capacities: Brian May, Bill Ward, and some guys from Soundgarden...
We must admit, we don't know too much about these mysterious local post-metallers. Here's what we do know: They're from San Francisco (we think?), this is their debut full length (maybe??), and they're called Ion (we're actually pretty sure about that one). Oh, and they play totally killer, frenzied, chaotic, hyperblasting post black metal. Ion are all about contrasts: Beautifully melancholic melodic riffs suddenly dissipate into a whirling disarray of dissonance. Frantic blast beats give way to wide open minimal spaciousness before becoming enveloped again in an avalanche of buzzing guitars and pummeling drums. The vocals alternate between anguished rasps and bellowed death metal growls. During their downtime, the songs may descend into disembodied shortwave ambience. Hushed acoustic guitars haunt the landscape. A full five minutes may go by spent on reverb soaked drifting sonic post-rock bliss, before the music erupts again into a wall-of-noise onslaught of rolling double bass and grinding guitars. The affect is certainly suffocating, overwhelming and emotionally draining, but also somehow sleek, postmodern and bleak, kind of bringing to mind Altar Of Plagues' last record that we loved so much around these parts. And although Ion are definitely melodic (even downright pretty) and certainly fit comfortably into the post-black metal spectrum, their music feels too technical and scatterbrained to stand right alongside bands like Alcest or Deafheaven (although there's no reason they won't appeal to fans of those bands). Instead their relentless approach, while still maintaining a constant ear for lush melody, recalls someone like Panopticon. Meanwhile the hints of Isis-style doom and prog-metal flirtation bring to mind bands like Vatnett Viskar or even a much less earthy Agalloch. It's one of our favorite things here at aQ when a local band we've never even heard of comes out of the blue with a release this good. We're thinking they won't be going unnoticed much longer!
The Standard Version of this multi-package features features 20 minutes of electronica sound bites created by Ios Smolders and additional software (one CD is Mac compatible and has D-sound Pro, while the Dub Zap Pro Version is for Windows and has Cool Edit & possibly Hammerhead). The Pro Version (18.98) is a compilation of sorts on which the artists invited to appear on the album took these programs and samples to create tracks of their own. Featured are Bryn Jones (Muslimgauze, Rehberg & Bauer (Mego), RLW, Dummy Run (Stock, Hausen, and Walkman), LoSD, Twilight Circus, and more.
