Young and exciting downtown NYC scene drummer Ibarra, best known for her work alongside William Parker and Matthew Shipp in David S. Ware's group, presents her first recording as a leader, on John Zorn's Tzadik label. Asian traditional influences (she's Filipino-American) meet free jazz improv and experimental minimalism on "Flower After Flower". Featuring an fantastic and unusual lineup of musicians, with the clarinets of Chris Speed and Assif Tsahar, the trumpet of Wadada Leo Smith, and the drone accordion of new music legend Pauline Oliveros (among others in Ibarra's ensemble)!
Downtown NYC drummer Susie Ibarra presents her second disc on John Zorn's Tzadik label, a project featuring piano, violin, electronics, and percussion, with the celebrated electronic percussionist Ikue Mori as "special guest". Moody, cross-cultural
The second full-length from Utah's blackened beast known collectively as Ibex Throne. The Zodiac, Lord Dying, Mictlan, Desecrator and Judas Drexor Arawn have reassembled as the blasting buzzing black metal juggernaut that is Ibex Throne. A musical blast of pestilence and pure hatred for all things. An utter loathing for all belief systems as well as a constant striving for the absolute eradication of all humanity. A furious blasting burst of black buzz, with occasional stretches of Xasthur-ish moodiness, minor key chords fingerpicked over sheets of white hot black brutality. For the most part this is blown out blackness, a furious fast fist full of metal, blast beats and guitar buzz, demonic shrieks and screaming feedback all twisted into big metal nails that will seal the coffin that keeps the corpse of humanity below ground. Ibex Throne offers no sympathy, just hateful, blasphemous, nihilistic anti-trend Black hatred Metal!
Amazing cover art, full on high school binder rendering of winged demons eviscerating a naked woman on an upside down cross!
As Mego had been shifting towards the power-electronic and blackened noise end of the spectrum, this one is something of a surprise for us. The Olde English blackletter script which adorns the cover belies the agitated silence found within. Ibitsu is the work of Shunichiro Okada, whose debut for Editions Mego follows in the hushed footsteps of Robert Ashley's Automatic Writing or perhaps even Nurse With Wound's similarly minded composition A Missing Sense. Okada situates his composition in two distinct levels, a higher frequency ceiling and a lower than low subharmonic base with nothing (and do we mean nothing!) in between. Above there are insect-like vibrations that circle and buzz about the stereo field with occasional brushes with softened white noise; and below are agitated rumblings that sound like somebody trying to push a giant piece of furniture in the apartment upstairs. Even as the album gradually moves from inaudibility to microsound glitchiness, Ibitsu maintains a even-handed control which always favors the 'objectness' of silence. A bit of a warning: this is a mere 25 minutes long.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
So Mika Vainio and Ilpo Vaisanen have picked another mega-corporation to name a sound project after. The precedent was Panasonic who demanded that the Finns change their name, with Pan Sonic being the permutation of the offending moniker. Of course, Vainio & Vaisanen's argument here will be that IBM is nothing more than an acronym for Ilpo, Bruce, Mika (the Bruce being Bruce Gilbert from Wire), but they've appropriated the IBM corporate logo, thus abolishing any artistic propriety they may have in the matter... Sure this Mego release will certainly be such small pressing (it's vinyl only, too) as to not even show up on IBM's legal radar. But if this project continues and gets signed to Mute / Blast First, their name too will likely get altered. Personally, I'm hoping for MIB, but then Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones will be on their case.
The self-naming crisis aside, the collaboration between Ilpo Vaisanen, Mika Vainio, and Bruce Gilbert is a triumphant one, but one that is far from the crystalline sounds that have dominated the Pan Sonic aesthetic. The turntable appears to be the original source for these recordings, for which the trio has forced locked grooves onto already mangled pieces of vinyl and then manipulated the resulting sounds through a variety of computer generated effects (lots of pitch shifting, flange, and digital-crunch distortion). "The Oval Recording" (another play with names as it was recorded in The Oval Mansion across from the Oval cricket arena in London) has nothing to do with the clean digital fragmentation of Oval - this is a dissonant rumbling album which rides a thick wall of industrial strength fuzz before diving into an Earth / Sunn like low end rumble. There's just as much Non and Otomo Yoshihide as there is Pita and Fennesz on the first.
Beautiful understated solo piano from this multitalented South African artist. Gorgeous!
First thing you'll notice about this 'new' record from LA psych punks the Icarus Line, is that the title is very similar to their last full length Slave Vows, and apparently, that's cuz this ep is a companion of sorts, a five track addendum to that record's furious swagger, and if anything, these extra jams are even darker and more sinister, sounding like the Stooges fused to Einsturzende, with wild, blown out psychedelic freakouts bookended by some almost industrial sounding creep.
Opener "Leeches And Seeds" almost sounds like Woven Hand, with 'testifying' vox over distorted bass throb, wreathed in tripped out FX, a brooding sprawl of sonic tension, peppered with wild bursts of wild psychedelic swagger, those blowouts wrapped in wild squalls of dense psych guitar shred and shards of screeching feedback. Fierce as fuck for sure. And the rest of the ep follows suit, the band adding tons of space, and dynamics to their sound, "Junkadelic" is almost glammy, swagger and brooding in equal measure, while "Raise Your Crown" is all loping psychedelic blooze, sound like the bastard offspring of the Rock*A*Teens and the Swans. But it's "Salem Slims", an apparent live favorite, that blows the roof off, a heavy guitar wild psych blow-out, again heavy on the glammy swagger, the guitar blown out and in-the-red, a furious, freaky glam-psych garage punk stomp that KILLS. Finally, things finish off with "The Father / The Priest", a sprawling 13+ minute epic, a smoldering slow burn that spends the first ten minutes grooving ominously, swampy and slithery, before the finale, a heavy as fuck blow out, that sounds like what Jack White must be trying for, heavy, psychedelic blooze, that's fierce and furious, noisy and twisted and the sort of damaged psych weirdness that we could imagine stretching out long enough to transform this ep into a full length. If only...
For whatever reason, we never paid much attention to LA psych/punk rockers the Icarus Line. As we mentioned in our review of their Live In London lp (the first time we had actually heard the Icarus Line) we did of course know of the legendary story where during a show at the Hard Rock Cafe, the singer smashed a display case and pulled down one of Stevie Ray Vaughn's guitars, before being tackled by security, which is of course supreme rock radness, but still, until that live Record Store Day lp, we kinda didn't know what we had been missing. So since then, since discovering that these guys were and are indeed seriously kick ass, we've been playing catch up, going back and tracking down as many of their old records as possible, and making it a point to not miss any new ones. Which brings us to Slave Vows, the group's FIFTH full length, and like the ones before it that we've tracked down, it's a doozy. The opening track along should have most aQ psych/space headz similarly reassessing their stance on The Icarus Line, that is if they weren't fans already.
"Dark Circles" spends it's first 6 minutes building up from a hushed shimmer, pounding tribal drumming, swirling clouds of buzzing guitar, buried vocals, eventually arriving at some tranced out psych-noise climax, which we were convinced would continue for the remaining 5 minutes, all screeching guitar skree, doused in feedback, swirling and dense and darkly psychedelic, but instead, these guys do just the opposite, peeling away all the noise and buzz, leaving a woozy, wistful shimmer, subtle percussion, soft tendrils of clean guitar melody, crooned proper vox, the vibe almost folky, broody and while some buzz does surface here and there, the rest of the song is a sort of swaggery apocalyptic psych folk that KILLS. And that's just the first track.
And in fact, the rest of the record splits the difference between those two sides of the band, the howling psych freek-outs, and something more swaggery and bloozy. In fact, much of Slave Vows sounds like aQ faves Woven Hand, just cranked up and doused in psychedelic energy, check out "Marathon Man", which starts out all laid back and woozy, finishing off the same way, but in between exploding into a squall of blown out guitarnoise and damaged FX. There's definitely a little White Stripes vibe too, in places, but again, way more freaky and psychedelic. Fans of another aQ fave Hookworms would do well to check these guys out too, a similar mix of Stooges-y swagger and stomp, and heart of the sun heavy psych trip-out, which also means if you're into Carlton Melton, the Heads, Mugstar, Bardo Pond and the like, odds are you're gonna dig these guys too. A LOT.
Brand new on Agitated, the label that has brought us jams from Bardo Pond, Carlton Melton, Moon Duo, Mugstar, the Scientists and the Heads, comes the latest from L.A. psych rockers The Icarus Line, who we had never heard before, which is weird, cuz they have tons of records out, but who we have to say are thoroughly kicking our asses. The A side is a bluesy creep, all dark and skeletal, a brooding sonic monster laced with wild squalls of psych guitar and delivered in a swaggery drawl, a slow build that eventually explodes into a serious psych-dirge blowout, the vocals following suit, soaring and wailing, a wild slab of bluesy psych that we've probably listened to 20 times since this came in.
The flipside is a cover of the the Flamin' Groovies "Slow Death", which is pretty faithful to the original, just sort of cranking it up a bit, the guitars wild and slippery, swooping all over the place, distorted and in-the-red, a wild garage rock stomp that sound like it could be an Icarus Line original, with the way these guys own it. Total garage psych bliss for sure.
Way recommended, obviously, and we're gonna head out and track down all the Icarus Line records we can, as should you...
LIMITED TO 700 COPIES!!
Another Record Store Day release, that we managed to snag a few extra copies of for our mailorder folks to get a crack at, a super limited live bootleg style lp from these LA psychedelic hard rockers, who as some of you might remember, we only really heard for the first time a few months back via a 7" on Agitated, and were promptly blown the fuck away. Before that, we had only really know the Icarus Line as that punk band who during a show at a Hard Rock Cafe, ended up smashing a display case, and pulling down one of Stevie Ray Vaughn's guitars, with the intention of plugging it in and rocking out, only to be tackled by security. Pretty bad ass for sure. But it wasn't until we heard that single, that we realized that there was more to these guys than wild onstage antics. But wild onstage performance are definitely a huge part of what makes these guys so good, and this lp captures them in fine form. The sound fuzzy and heavy and psychedelic, the drums booming, fuzzed out bass, and wild tangles of lead guitar, not to mention seriously crunchy chugging riffage, the band flitting from swaggery Stoogesy stomp to druggy dirge, in fact the band seems to spend a lot of time in 'brought down' mode, you know where the singer instructs the band to "bring it down", and the guitars disappear, and it's just a slithery bass and drums backdrop, while the singer does some wild testifying, before the band explode back into another blast of super rocking crush, whether it be loose chaotic psychedelic freakouts or churning downtuned creep, these guys kill, and this record does a pretty good job of capturing that killer live energy.
Packaged like the Heads Record Store Day lp reviewed elsewhere on this week's list, a plain white sleeve, with photocopied artwork pasted on. Super limited, this was in fact a special Record Store Day release, it's already sold out at the label and out of print, we do have a handful of copies, but these are the last ones we'll see.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
A dark, illbient hip-hop with beats laden with sludge from the minds of Kevin Martin (God & Techno Animal & Bug), Justin Broadrick (Godflesh & Techno Animal), Dave Cochrane (God) and Lou Ciccotelli (God). A sort-of supergroup of angry white guys. Blixa of Neubauten adds desperate-for-air raspy vocals, DJ Vadim (also from Bug) does something on wax too ill to be called scratching, and Sensational's rap is from the other end of the sewer. For fans of Spectre and the other WordSound artists. This is a serious departure from previous Ice records. How something this "ill" ended up on Reprise, and why something this WordSound isn't on WordSound, is a mystery to us.
Folks who flipped over the recent copies of Techno Animal's Ghosts we dug up and listed a while back, are probably gonna flip over this too, a long lost remix ep from the group Ice, that like Techno Animal, featured both Kevin Martin of The Bug and Justin Broadrick of Godflesh, Jesu and lots and lots of other stuff. There was plenty of overlap between Techno Animal and Ice, both being sort of avant industrial hip hop /dub groups, the big difference was that Ice included sax (played here by both Martin and 16-17's Alex Buess!!), which gave it a sort of free jazz vibe, although that was balanced by Ice's overall lurching, lumbering industrial crunch.
On Code:Quarantine, two tracks from Ice's Under The Skin record get reworked, as does one from that awesome long out of print Isolationism compilations. "Juggernaut Kiss (Deaf, Dumb Blind)" is all nineties industrial thump and skitter, the beats dubbed WAY out, all tangled up in squiggles of distorted guitars, swinging wildly from speaker to speaker, thick low slung bass rumbles and thrums, sax squeals and skronks, the vocals are spoken or mumbled, the whole thing is a constant barrage of dizzying beats, twisted production, and staggering deconstructed beats, like some sort of Godflesh / 16-17 mash up, pulled apart and reassembled as something much more spaced out and skeletal. "The Dredger (Titanic)" is mostly beatless, long stretches of moaning horn and reverbed string buzz, loads of echo and delay, plenty of reverb, streaks of feedback, when the beats to come in, they're pretty abstract, shuffly and skittery, more about texture that rhythm, building to a skronky psychedelic freakout, before locking back into a more stripped down groove, as it slithers through billowing clouds of twisted FX and whirling fragmented melody.
Finally, "Implosion (Flying Machine)" gets WAY dubbed out, thick syrupy basslines under horns and vox and drums, that get slathered in effects and sent spinning, a looped tripped out cracked looking glass bit of free jazz industrial dubbiness, with some seriously killer long stretches of stripped down minimal skitter that makes up almost the whole second half of the song, various beats all space echo-ed and Lee Perry-ed, the motorik rhythm pounding and shuffling its way through occasional fields of crumbling distortion, insectoid buzz, and swirling psychedelic chaos.
WAY OUT OF PRINT. We got a small handful of these direct from the label, who discovered a small stash, so odds are these will be gone before you know it, so buy one now cheap, or pay way too much later for it on eBay...
We knew we were in for something special when we discovered the amazing Frequency Thirteen cd-r label (thanks to loyal AQ customer Andrew S. for turning us on to these guys). Bands with names like Ice Bound Majesty, Skultroll, Raperack, Black Vomit, Karaoke Vocal Eliminator. Each disc emblazoned with the label's mantra: TRUE SHEFFIELD BLACK PSYCHEDELIA. Which is pretty much the perfect description of this stuff. We might have also offered: grinding corrosive blackened hypnorock, or perhaps blacknoizemetal, or something similar, perhaps blackkrautnoizerock. Whatever you call it, this stuff is dark, and distorted, blown out and heavy as fuck, hypnotic, rhythmic, and seriously genius.
In the case of the geniusly named Ice Bound Majesty we might have to come up with an even more abstract descriptor, something like surreal free folk black metal ambient experimentalism, or epic melodic blackened folk flecked post rock. Actually, like all the best bands, these guys are pretty impossible to describe in a single sentence. The sound is heavy and distorted, blown out and of course black and psychedelic indeed, but IBM are seriously deranged, their songs are like sonic worlds unto themselves, weaving elaborate soundscapes, rhythmic and melodic, with keyboards, and flutes, fluttering flutes, harsh demonic rasps, simple riffing, warm thick black ambience, all woven into an incredibly intense and mind blowing space psych black noise fucked folk kraut rock jam.
The first track is the perfect example. Beginning with some Lustmordian dark ambience, that gives way to folky flute and distant shimmer, which is immediately crushed by a funeral doom plod, the tape speed fucked with so the riffs slow down mid-riff, adding to the tripped out vibe. The flute returns, drifting above the roiling blackness, distant chimes and muted harmonics surface too, then a killer clean guitar riff, and suddenly harsh shrieked vocals, the band sounding like it's about to launch into a frenzied grind, but instead, the sound sprawls out into a looped psych rock jam, with relentless double kick, and those harsh vocals, weird Western whistling, throbbing bass, it could go on forever and we'd be perfectly happy, but suddenly the doooooom returns, even more distorted and in-the-red and crumbling than before. The melancholy melody continues to drift in the background, until the band launches right back into that black kraut jam, this time, everything murky and bass heavy, finally leaving just that clean guitar riff to fade out�
How the fuck do you write a song like that, let alone play it? Just writing about it wore us out. The whole record is like that, chaotic, heavy, brutal, black, but strangely beautiful, mysterious and abstract, drifting in a shimmery haze one second, exploding into a black blast the next. Elsewhere the band do some sort of monklike chant over shuffling post rock grandeur, but even then, it quickly gets swallowed up by mechanical monster riffing, and processed evil vocals.
The title track, the 12 minute long "A Tomb To Erect" begins as a bleak, rumbling Wolf Eyes style abject expanse of glittering alien FX and slow slithery rumble, before the drums kick in, WAY distorted and blown out, pounding out a slow motion mathrock rhythm, while in the background, the drones get more and more intense, the track weaves from super hot, high end, to mumbly muddied low end, the drums remaining constant, pounding away relentlessly, until near the end, when a super catchy clean guitar riff joins the fray, and transforms what was sort of an abstract noise rock rhythm jam, into something super intense, emotional and cinematic. The bombastic booming distorted crashes exploding like land mines, spread out along the moody meandering melodic expanse of the songs newly found heart and soul.
Like we said, it's a bit hard to explain what these guys are doing, or even how, but all that means is it's something special, and something we can't stop listening to. Rare is the record as beautiful and mysterious as it is heavy and fucked up.
It's been a good long while since we've heard from the Frequency Thirteen label, home to a sound and style of music we became pretty obsessed with and they call TRUE SHEFFIELD BLACK PSYCHEDELIA. There was Black Vomit, Dukkha, Rape Rack, Skultroll, that amazing Audio Apogee double cd-r compilation featuring a whole mess of TSBP bands, including the above, and then of course there were these guys, Ice Bound Majesty, who at the time we described as surreal free folk black metal ambient experimentalism / epic melodic blackened folk flecked post rock, but then ultimately decided that they were pretty impossible to describe. But now we get another chance with this latest batch of twisted avant heaviness and weirdo blackened psychedelia, which starts out all skittery electro almost, a synth melody draped over a house-y plus and what sounds like animal sounds, only to immediately be obliterated by a wall of SUPER distorted crumbling black buzz, crashing drums and harsh vokills, a sort of blackdrone drift, that also quickly give way to a bit of glitch, and then a long stretch of dreamy, hushed ambient shimmer, all softly layered undulating chordal thrum and delicate acoustic guitars. The second track begins just as baffling, with some sort of sampled Irish folk song, again immediately crumbling in a haze of in-the-red metalgaze buzz, and pounding blown out beats, a sort of electro metallic dirge, that sounds a bit like a more lo-fi version of Necro Deathmort, but it's here where the post rock vibe comes in, the sounds may be harsh and metallic, but the melodies and the arrangements are total Godspeed style slow build drama, loping and hypnotic, although this is IBM, so the song does lurch from that dreamy lope to crumbing blackened metallic dirge and back again, sprawling into a nearly 11 minute second half, where the sound drifts and whirs and shimmers, flecked with sheets of distorted low end, keening feedback, looped feedback, muted skeletal beats, again, sonically in line with the electronic metal hybrid that Necro Deathmort specialize in, but IBM are much more twisted and raw.
The rest of the record is equally schizophrenic, lumbering doomy glitch flecked pound gives way, to swirling druggy, tripped out ambience, which in turn blossoms into a weird sort of electronic krautrock, wreathed in blackened buzz and strange distant voices, before slipping into what might be our favorite track, with looped female vocals, haunting minor key piano melodies, thick doomdronedirge guitars, a super blown out beat heavy second half sprawl, that gradually fractures and begins to stutter, a digital freak out that sounds like malfunctioning cd players, before finishing off with a thick corrosive avalanche of skittery distorto doom.
After a brief bit of haunting industrial ambience, the record finishes with the 12+ minute "Thevirgocluster/Acollapsedstar", which right out of the gate sounds like some Jesu / Nadja hybrid, all big booming distorted beats, blurred crumbling melodies, and sprawling tarpit riffs, all muted and muddied, washed out and woozy, peppered with wide open spaces, the heaviness peeled back to let the drums skitter and shuffle through fields of hushed shimmer, before heaviness swoops back in, finishing off with a wild tangle of collaged vocal samples, and a final hidden track of blurred, softly blackened shimmer. So good.
And here's hoping this heralds the return of the label, and all the warped outfits that sail with her. As always crazy limited, so grab one while you can. And word is there's a new Black Vomit on deck too, so prepare thyself...
What needs to be said? Everything Ice Cube touches turns to gold (or platinum). He makes gangsta rap sound not-so-tired, and even makes shit movies somewhat enjoyable to watch (Anaconda? Ghosts Of Mars?). But it's all about the voice, and the songs and no one
The second disc in Ice Cube's loftily titled "War & Peace" two volume opus, this could also be known as the 'party' disc of the two. I know that sounds like a bad thing, but man does this record kick ass. Cube's production has come a long way since the NWA days, sounding a lot more like Dr. Dre today (in fact, track one, 'Hello' is a Dre/Cube collaboration that sounds as good as anything on the recent Dre record). Still mean as shit, but with wickedly catchy hooks, the "Peace" disc is chock full of amazing stuff besides the ubiquitous radio staple 'You Can Do It' (everybody sing along: 'I can do it, put your ass in to it'), in fact, it's probably some of the best Cube since "Amerikkka's Most Wanted": 'You Ain't Gotta Lie (Ta Kick It), with some funny (for once) guest vocals from Chris Rock, 'The Gutter Shit', absolutely slammin; in fact with the exception of the Bone Thugs ballad collaboration, this whole record is all huge sick beats, Cube's intense in your face delivery, and way funny lyrics (I mean, when did you ever think you'd hear Ice Cube rap about Pokemon?) If you haven't seen Cube's hilarious Friday films, rent 'em. If you have, expect this disc to be the the aural equivalent (what Friday and Next Friday were to Boyz In The Hood, "Peace" is to NWA and "Amerikkka's Most Wanted").
The much hyped debut from these Danish teenagers finally gets a proper domestic release, and as we've mentioned in lots of reviews, we often find ourselves fighting that knee jerk reaction of hating stuff that just seems way to universally praised, hipster beloved bands gushed over by blogs, Pitchfork, reviewers, and all the rest, but as you've probably already surmised, the main reason for pointing out the above, is that, somehow, DESPITE all the hype, these guys are pretty ruling, a broody buzzy collection of darkly gothicky post punk that is equal parts frenetic crunch and low slung swagger, of murky moody jangle and tense tribal pound, the vocals buried in the mix and doused in echo, the guitars swinging from reverbed chime to gnarled atonal riffage, the drums wild and loose, the songs often veering from lumbering dirge to chaotic blast and back again, loads of strange sounds, twisted production, a sound that's garagey and low fidelity, but still thick and dense, and the songs, slow blossoming gems, that seem to get catchier with every listen. Heavily beholden to Joy Division no doubt, but perhaps equally (and maybe unknowingly, considering their ages) beholden to the darker side of Homestead Records and and the moodier more melodic noise rock side of back-in-the-day Touch And Go.
Babyfaced Danish dreamboats Iceage return for album number three, and we're happy to report that amidst all of the hype and hyperbole surrounding these dudes that this here is a seriously great record in its own right, not to mention one that's not content to simply sow the same seeds as their records past, but instead marks another leap forward for these Scandinavian scoundrels. Plowing Through The Fields Of Love immediately marks a more dramatic sound for this band. There's a heavier reliance on piano for a start, and there's a sort of looming specter of humid gothic Americana permeating the swaggering barroom (post)punk. Elias Ronnenfelt's off key caterwauling moans seep over the songs like drunken sermons from a derelict pulpit. Plaintive piano stabs drift over clattering stumbling drumming. Slinking serpentine rockabilly rhythms fall in and out of time like some dizzy drunkard's long walk home from the bar. But this record knows how to brood just as much as it knows how to lurch, and amidst the militaristic drum marches, stuttering guitars and clanking dilapidated saloon piano there are moments of gorgeous whiskey-soaked balladeering complete with soaring violins, stretched to their breaking point by stale dry bows. It's a sound that owes a a lot to Tender Prey-era Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds to be sure, but would also probably equally appeal to mourners of dearly departed local AQ faves Pleasure Forever. Fine company to be in for sure, and Iceage takes their place amongst these fellow squalid lovable lowlifes with the confidence of a man with an empty bourbon bottle, a three day old seersucker suit and not a thing to lose. Highly recommended!
Everybody here flipped for the debut release from these Danish jangle punks, 2011's New Brigade, a seriously kick ass record that we described thusly: a broody buzzy collection of darkly gothicky post punk that is equal parts frenetic crunch and low slung swagger, of murky moody jangle and tense tribal pound, the vocals buried in the mix and doused in echo, the guitars swinging from reverbed chime to gnarled atonal riffage, the drums wild and loose, the songs often veering from lumbering dirge to chaotic blast and back again, loads of strange sounds, twisted production, a sound that's garagey and low fidelity, but still thick and dense, and the songs, slow blossoming gems, that seem to get catchier with every listen.
And all of that most definitely still applies, but the first thing we thought when we threw this on, and the opener "Ecstasy" kicked off, was, wow, these guys sound super drunk. And they really sort of do, at first, and somehow, even the instruments sound drunk, that track, and the whole record really, unfurls as a gloriously woozy blowout, all melting guitars, stumbling lurching rhythms, drawled slurred vocals, the production murky and muddy, the band launching into brief blasts of punky crunch, but quickly swinging right back into that opening murky lumbering dirginess. And the thing is, it all sounds SO GOOD, and somehow, that fuckedupness, combined with an obvious knack for pop songsmithery, makes it sound just as catchy as that first record. Check out "In Haze" which seems to channel the spirit of Husker Du through something way murkier, with a crazy catchy chorus, that keeps stumbling to a halt part way through, the melody just sort of petering out, before lurching right back into it, it sounds too fucked up and off kilter to be on purpose, but it obviously it is, the weird woozy tempo shift a huge part of what makes it so catchy. And then the follow up, "Morals", displays the other side of Iceage, their secret pop side, here sounding like a more punk Guided By Voices, and that GBV vibe pops up throughout, dramatic and hook heavy, but still fuzzy and murky and punky. We also hear some Arctic Monkeys buried in the mix here and there weirdly enough, almost as if someone were to clean this up, and washed off some of the murk, there just might be come crunchy pop hiding out in there somewhere, which is in fact probably the case. There's also a bit of the Fall, the singer's mumble mouthed vocals draped over churning angular guitars and loose woozy rhythm section.
On the surface, it's all post punky swagger, yowled vox, wild drumming, fuzzed out riffs, thick buzzing bass, and lots of these track are just that, seriously fierce blasts of churning punk rock energy, but the more you listen, the more these songs become much more than that, from the jangliest, to the fiercest and most frantic, they all begin to blossom into the sort of effortless poppiness that once woven into the aforementioned janglepunk crunch, is pretty much totally untouchable. A new store fave for sure!!
Finally, a Chicago-style postrock band that doesn't traffic in the over-baked, quiet storming, Chuck Mangione meandering so prevalent these days. Instead, spartan and lovely instrumentals pay indirect homage to Steve Reich's phase patterns. So pleasant and yet so interesting, one of those few records that always sells when we play it and prompts customers to ask 'What is this?!' Highly recommended!!
Don't be confused by the name. We couldn't figure out why the band we remembered as sounding sort of post rocky and Tortoise-y could make a record like this. Well, they didn't. This Icebreaker is not from Chicago, but from Great Britain. And this Icebreaker
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
With their first album "Distant Early Warning", Icebreaker were defintely one of our great post-rock hopes, eschewing the oh so commonly used Chuck Mangione horns (see Tortoise) for a more Steve Reich-like sound, as if they were influenced by his "Phase Patterns". Lovely, austere. So after a year's passing (and with "International" now added to their name) we understandably had high expectations for this new album. Can you see where I'm headed with this? Sigh... Yes, this is a disappointment. Along with their new name they've also got a new sound: fortified with bubbly dance beats, "Trein Maersk" is a case study in poor band direction choices. The Icebreaker sound doesn't need the beats, and it certainly doesn't need the Mogwai- or Godspeed-like addition of found sampled spoken word vocals, in this case some politican's boring speech or lecture on economic policy that unnecessarily intrudes on one song. Cut us a break! We wanted to like this, we tried to like this, we do like the artwork, we like the underlying sound, but can't recommend the final result. Better luck next time.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This, the 9th-or-so cd from guitarist Gentry Densley's Salt Lake City based musical collective Iceburn, comes packaged in a 6x8 manilla envelope containing the cd and also an eight-part essay discussing the band's evolution from their Victory-label
The recording itself documents a two-guitar + saxophone and percussion incarnation of the ever-shifting Iceburn lineup, recorded live to minidisc with "bass ghosts" overdubbed later by guest Adam Lane.
Ambient drone and itchy improv clatter collide with some really intense out-guitar demolition on this disc. As the liner notes suggest, fans of Rudolph Grey's Blue Humans (and other like minded heavy guitar skronk) will be pleased. Avant-hardcore-free improv done with passion, sincerity, dedication, and most importantly, inspiration.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
These guys are former Utah skateboard punk rock speed metallers who now explore an original improv sound with hints of Miles and Fripp. Guitars, sax, percussion, two contrabasses...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This time out, Utah's most adventurous (former-)skatemetal band performs instrumental jazz improvisations with two electric guitars, two contrabasses and drums...as always, great stuff, heavy and beautiful.
The latest, self-released effort by this unusual band, a Utah-based collective lead by guitarist Gentry Densley. Their career saw them begin as a Victory-label skate-punk outfit, touched on metal and prog, and now finds them hovering comfortably in the realms of outside jazz improv! This disc follows the "double trio" format (shades of recent King Crimson!) with two guitar/sax/percussion units, one in the left channel and one in the right. 23 tracks, recorded live and edited "for continuous flow" by Gentry. Energy and beauty comingle in Iceburn's explorations, and you can tell that each of the players probably own a stack of Coltrane-era Impulse! label recordings. Nicely packaged in a screenprinted black folding wallet.
I (Allan) once came across this band in one of those encyclopedic psychedelic record collector reference works (Scented Gardens of the Mind, I think it was) and was intrigued by the description: an *Icelandic* hard rock band from 1971, comparable to Black
Gruesome/frosty looking logo, very metal-sounding name, morbid b&w cover art. looks like proto-metal... maybe even proto-BLACK-metal?! Icecross has intrigued us for years. Long ago, we read about 'em in one of those encyclopedic psychedelic record collector reference works (Scented Gardens Of The Mind, most likely) and were struck by the description. An ICELANDIC hard rock band from 1972, comparable to Black Sabbath, supposedly! Man we wanted to hear that. Certainly the scary album cover and song titles ("Jesus Freaks", "Nightmare", "Scared", "The End") suggested they played some sort of heavy, Satanic psych-metal. Of course, the book said the record was super rare and impossible to find. Oh the despair. Then, some years ago, a bootleg cd edition surfaced, and we got to hear it. Was it everything we were hoping for? Yes and no - no, it didn't sound much like Black Sabbath, not nearly as heavy as that, or metallic. But, yes, it was pretty darn cool, and weird. Once past the relatively normal first track "Wandering Around" (a standard bluesy boogie with lyrics about "looking for my baby"), then things get hella freaky. Icecross definitely deliver the dark and twisted psych, with songs full of sharp slashing tangles of dissonant guitar, total primal-prog power trio action, playing hard and fast on cuts like "Scared", with wailing psych leads. The vocals remind us a bit of the drama of Van Der Graaf Generator - or on downer-ballad "A Sad Man's Story", of uber-mopey krautrockers Paternoster. Lyrically, the anti-Christian "Jesus Freaks" stands out, with the line "They believe in Jesus, we believe in ourselves" - though the liner notes to this new, at long last legit cd release, indicate that one of the former members of the band did later become religious. This new edition also states the original lp was released in '73 by the way.
So, while not exactly an early Icelandic example of heavy metal as described in that reference book, these demented Viking hippies maybe do belong somewhere far back in the lineage of Scandinavian blackness, yeah.
Thanks to Vintage/Rockadrome for reissuing this, complete with a booklet full of vintage photos and firsthand accounts of the band's history. And, they're doing a vinyl version too, upcoming in a few months.
New single with new singer -- Ripper Owens ex-Judas Priest!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
BOREDOMS!! BOREDOMS SIDE PROJECT! LIMITED. JAPANESE IMPORT!! WON'T BE AROUND FOR LONG!!
Okay, just wanted to get that out of the way so those of you who NEED everything Boredoms, and don't really care what it sounds like, can stop right here and order this before they're all gone. In fact, you've probably already ordered this from us. For those of you who are less well versed in all things BOREDOM, let's delve a little deeper.
First, it's a soundtrack for Takashi Miike's Ichi The Killer, an unbelievably tasteless, disgusting, ultraviolent, hilarious Manga cartoon come to life (it's actually based on a popular Japanese Manga) with lots of blood, cum, killing, torture, and violence. Some of you may recognise Miike's name as another of his films, the horrific The Audition, recently got a lot of attention in the US. Anyway, who better to score the ridiculous mayhemic bloodbath that is Ichi The Killer than the purveyors of ridiculous musical mayhem, Boredoms. So what you have here is a group calling itself Karera Musication, featuring Yoshimi p-we, ATR, Hilah, and Seiichi Yamamoto, which basically amounts to Boredoms without Eye. But what does it sound like you ask? Let's put it this way, if someone played this for you and told you it was the new Boredoms record, you wouldn't bat an eye. Lots of spaced out, percussive jamming, trippy sound effects, chimes, chopped up / processed electronic squiggles, weird seventies porn funk, full on Japanoise, blissed out Krautrock (sounding a lot like old Kraftwerk), little vocal bleats from Yoshimi, drum vocal raveups ala old Boredoms, thick distorted guitar rock, dreamy tranced out spirituals and everything in between. Andee says go rent the movie or buy a copy on eBay, but even if you're not up for an ultra-violent movie about a nerdy guy in a leather superhero suit (equipped with razor sharp boot-blades) who jacks off while he watches pimps beat up prostitutes and then loses control whenever he is teased and dismembers everyone within arms reach, you can still enjoy this! And you Boredoms fanatics will get the fix you need until the next proper release.
- RealAudio clip: One
- RealAudio clip: Two
- RealAudio clip: Three
- RealAudio clip: Four
- RealAudio clip: Five
Originally released in 1975, this is one serious slab of mind blowing Japanese improvised kosmiche drone music, featuring legendary composer / performer Toshi Ichiyanagi (a student of John Cage who was once married to Yoko Ono!), Takehisa Kosugi, the mastermind behind one of our favorite bands ever, the Taj Mahal Travellers, here teamed up with Stockhausen percussionist Michael Ranta, for two extended free drone workouts.
The trio employ reverbed ring modulators, threaded vocals, melodicas, pianos, violins, gongs and Japanese biwas and shamisens, and weave an elaborate and lush tapestry of sound, one that is really not that far removed from Taj Mahal Travellers. Brooding, shimmering expanses of muted tones, of layered rumbles, dreamlike melodies, peppered with strange electronics, haunting and otherworldly, with a distinctly krautrock vibe, or krautdrone, all of the current practitioners of spaced out kraut inspired dronemusic, as good as they may be, can't even touch this.
The music is alive, a living thing, that the players breathe life into and guide, letting the sounds love and drift and fluctuate, creating something organic and expansive and breathtaking. The percussion adds a unique element, not really adding any propulsion, but instead, contributing texture, and a framework that the players often let collapse, before bringing it right back. The second track begins with a cool skeletal groove, all clank and clatter and thump, the space around the sounds as much a part of the overall sound, eventually slipping back into something more murky and subterranean sounding, the percussion switching to something more tabla-like, draped over an oozing sea of rumbles and growls, scrapes and whirrs.
This is one of those rare pieces of music that manages to be two things at once, a gorgeously dreamlike, relaxing bit of sonic ambience, but also something elaborate and dense, opening up the listener to dual experiences, drifting off on the surface, or strapping on the headphones, letting that extra weight carry you down into the swirling blackness at the heart of this recording.
Incredible. And essential. About the closest we'll ever get to a lost Taj Mahal Travellers record...
- MPEG stream: 1
- MPEG stream: 2
When I first moved to San Francisco in the early nineties, I kept hearing about a band called the Icky Boyfriends. Can't remember exactly what I heard about them, but it did seem like, judging from how often people mentioned them, that they must be THE San Francisco band. And they kind of were, but in a way I wouldn't be able to properly appreciate for years. The Icky Boyfriends were a three piece, guitar drums and vocals, sloppy, sweaty, shitty, noisy, punk as fuck, but not PUNK ROCK punk, more sort of some chaotic dirge-y freaked out what the fuck kind of punk rock. They were an unholy collision of nerd rock and noise rock, fronted by Icky Jon, with his unruly white guy 'fro and thick black glasses, and his histrionic stage presence and that wailing caterwaul. Each song a two or three minute burst of simple slow sludgy riffing, fuzzed out garage rock crunch, pounding drums and that wild sort of sung, sort of spoken nasal wail, expounding on the public transit system, Mexican food, cops, flea baths, sex, meat, crappy jobs, the mission, Frank's Mom and all sorts of other bizarre randomness. Like some pop band that got confused, ended up in the Mission, got super wasted, then beaten up and left for dead, and then somehow ended up putting a record out on Siltbreeze. Damaged and demented and so fucked up. The whole thing culminating with the independent film I'm Not Fascinating, starring the Boyfriends, as well as loads of other Mission rock luminaries, in a demented, super low budget, slice of Super 8 weirdness. This double disc collects every little bit of recorded Boyfriends there ever was, lp, cassette, seven inches, compilation tracks, live recordings and even a bunch of unreleased stuff! Lots of liner notes too, photos, a history of the band from drummer Anthony Bedard, as well as a bizarre drug addled song by song play by play from Icky Jon.
Most of the metalheads we know, especially ones with a soft spot for classic eighties metal, are unanimous in their love of Phoenix hard rockers Icon. Their first disc was an all time classic, super rocking, crazy catchy, hooks galore and a raspy vocalist with a voice that sounded quite a bit like Blackie Lawless from W.A.S.P., in fact the whole band was sort of a dead ringer for W.A.S.P., or early Great White even. One of those records we NEVER get tired of listening to. Both Allan and Andee rank it as one of their all time favorites.
Icon's follow up was this disc right here, finally given a super deluxe reissue treatment, by Rock Candy, the UK label that gave us killer reissues from the Sea Hags, Zodiac Mindwarp, the Plasmatics, Billy Squier, and now this, Night Of The Crime.
The liner notes call this "without doubt one of the greatest melodic hard rock records ever made," and while we might not go quite that far, it is pretty awesome. But be warned, it's way more AOR than hard rock a lot of the time, plenty of keyboards, some ballad-y bits. But the songs are all crazy catchy, and the hardest rockers, like "Raise The Hammer" and "The Whites Of Their Eyes" could easily have been outtakes from their first record.
The sound hovers somewhere between Whitesnake, Autograph that sort of poppy hard rocking eighties sound and more commercial fare like John Parr. But it's the hooks and the killer voice that makes this stand out. The songs stick in your head like crazy, and it's difficult to imagine why these guys weren't huge. The liner notes are packed with photos and stories, the band had some serious Behind The Music drama going on, it makes for a good read. But again, if you don't dig the sound of the eighties, poppy melodic radio ready hard rock, big hair, all that, you might not be able to get into this. Allan and Andee both love the first Icon desperately, but only Andee is willing to stand up for this one, but he stands proud, hair teased, spandex pants, bullet belt, Chuck Taylors, lots and lots of scarves, head banging to his heart's content.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
ICU are an instrumental drum'n'bass trio out of Olympia. This is nice lo-fi experimentation, not mindblowing or anything but really good AND they're able to reproduce it live without resorting to merely playing their own recordings, and there's a lot to be said fer that. Amateurish bitmappy cover art to heighten the overall effect. Fun.
It's tempting to simply focus on the fact that one of the monsters (or is it a demon?!) is wearing sweat socks on the cover illustration, but we were able to tear our eyes away long enough to pop the cd in our player! Although they go by cryptic band member aliases, we hope we're not blowing their cover too badly by saying that Icy Demons is lead by Need New Body drummer Chris Powell and Bablicon bassist Griffin Rodriquez. That said, while listening to this album it's easy to forget that you're hearing one group. There's so many unexpected twists and turns in the route they travel. It truly bears many of the eclectic, eccentric exploratory earmarks of a trippy Elephant Six Collective recording. Let your mind wander for a second and you'll find yourself somewhere completely different from where you (and the Icy Demons) were a moment ago. Indeed, these are not really 'songs' as much as they are interludes -- each one taking you to parts that seem fleetingly familiar. The group shapeshift from electronic soundscapists to jazz horns to chamber emsemble to choral assembly to who knows what? It all begins with a smoooshy gluey mass that melts into an organ melody atop ramshackle percussion, and that's only in the first few minutes of this album. Icy Demons roam as they please, and if you wanna ride their wagon you better hang on tight!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Recorded almost two years ago, "Inferno From An Occult Diary" is the fourth album from the lo-fi dronologist outfit Id Battery. Here, Loren Chasse and Brandon La Belle present their alchemical duets crafted around field recordings, slow rumbling bells, creeping organ drones, and the lo-fi errors of cable buzz. Between the seemingly placid aquatic sounds of rain tumbling onto sheet metal and the sounds of electricity, an ominous realization occurs that these sounds - however tranquil - are also charged with a certain life threatening danger. Recommended as with the rest of Id Battery catalogue!
"The Foot" is perhaps the last document to be released from Id Battery, the collaborative effort between Loren Chasse and Brandon LaBelle. With Chasse well entrenched in the Jewelled Antler Collective (Thuja, Blithe Sons, Child Readers, etc), in Coelacanth, and in his solo projects, and with LaBelle pursuing a career in the academic realms of avant-garde composition, the likelihood of Id Battery recording again is small. Nevertheless, the acclaimed duo's Drone single "The Foot" is another wonderful document of their organic textures through low-fi found sounds, repetitive rock scrapings, soft electrical field disturbances, and strange hummings. "The Foot" is edited from the recordings made during Id Battery's performance during the Activate The Medium festival in San Luis Obispo in 1998. Artwork by Loren and AQ's Jim Haynes, and limited to 250 copies on marbled yellow and green vinyl. Very nice!
Thurston Moore and Byron Coley curated the quizzically named series Center Of The Ass Run in the mid-'90s, packaging a handful of obscurant freeform experimentalists in pre-fab LP sleeves and a sticker annotating which Ass Run this might be. They looked purposefully lowbrow, but within always lurked stellar explorations of avant-noise, no-wave jazz excursions, and splattered electronics, with Id Battery's 1997 release Unique Ancient Tavern fitting nicely within this batch of releases. Id Battery was an early project for Brandon Labelle and long-time aQ-favorite Loren Chasse, who began this project well before anything Jewelled Antler. Much of this material harkens back to their earliest collaborations, when Chasse was found behind a drumkit and Labelle was on bass. While they soon moved beyond this guise into the more well-known explorations of sound through found objects, contact microphone probings, and rebroadcasting sounds in unconventional settings, the bass/drum Id Battery arrangements were more in keeping with garbled lo-fi murk that was coming out of New Zealand at the time (e.g. Dead C, Birchville Cat Motel, Doramaar, A Handful Of Dust) with falling-down-the-stairs drum clatter and atonal thwacking on the bass with plenty of choking atmospherics filling in the gaps. Chasse and Labelle spliced these grimy improvisational recordings with thrumming drones of equally lo-fi quality as various looping techniques amassing the sounds into deep bellows, pocked with skittering texture and corroded noises.
These are the last pieces of vinyl kicking around from the Center Of The Ass Run series, as a small stash was uncovered in a vault somewhere in Massachusetts. Don't expect these to be around for long!
Awesome reissue of this late sixties beat gem. Didn't know too much about The Id, other than the guitar player was none other than Jerry Cole, one of the original Champs, who recorded "Tequila", as well as being a serious mover and shaker in the music industry having performed with and/or composed/arranged for Glenn Campbell, the Beach Boys, Merle Haggard, Steely Dan, James Taylor, Blood, Sweat And Tears, Aretha Franklin, Little Richard, Chicago, the Byrds, Greg Allman, the Righteous Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Nelson Riddle, Henry Mancini, Kenny Rogers, Hank Williams Jr. and loads more. The rest of the band stack up pretty well too, with CV's heavy in music as well as movies and television.
None of which has anything to do with why this record is so weird and wonderful and totally kick ass. On first listen, the sound is what you might expect, a mix of the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Monkees and especially the Monks. That sort of fuzzy psych pop, a shuffling beat, jangling guitars, harmony vocals and a lead singer with a sort of raspy croon, a bit like Alex Chilton in the Boxtops or Gary Burger of the Monks. But this is way more far out. Just check out the first track, "The Rake" a super tripped out psychedelic beat shuffle, with EXTREME stereo panning, heavily reverbed guitars, creepy whispered vocals, some strange falsetto harmonies, muted rhythmic breakdowns, very druggy and bizarre, but pretty seriously stomping as well. The record shifts gears back into more traditional psychfuzzpop, but only for a moment. What's that buzzing, it sounds like a... it is! Sitar. Fuck yeah, Cole also plays sitar, adding a gloriously buzzy Eastern drone element to lots of the tracks, pushing all of our Turkish Delights buttons. Guitar leads are replaced by slippery sitars and the whole thing sounds just that much more psychedelic. The highlight though is the ten minute "The Inner Sound Of The Id", an acid-soaked psychedelic freak out title track, drifting buzzing sitar, creeping spoken vocal incantations, simple martial drumming, everything wrapped in thick reverb, more extreme panning, so druggy and awesomely wigged out.
And if you're not sold already, check out the original liner notes, and tell us you don't need to check this out:
"The primitive rhythms brought back to popular music. Before Civilization reared its crew-cut head and the world stifled a yawn that has lasted a thousand years, man danced at frantic festivals until he fell down foaming at the mouth. Not any more. Why? Because the beat became ironed out, flattened, regularized. Now, for the FIRST TIME in the Western world since pagan gods were worshipped, the primitive rhythms have been brought back to popular music. A group of four young and talented musicians came together to create this musical madness, a kind of "asymmetrical-contrapuntal chromaticism." Non-experienced listeners would call it instant Delirium! Freud discovered the Id, and on this album it was set to music, it is the unshape of things to come." Asymmetrical-contrapuntal chromaticism? Hell yeah!
Includes extensive liner notes about each band member (sadly not much about the band itself), lots of photos and TEN bonus tracks!
Ida's new release has soft ethereal songs, in the same vein as their previous releases. It was recorded during the sessions for their previous disc, "Will You Find Me", yet it is somewhat darker and said to be much more personal to the band. This release has
For slowcore fans bemoaning the change in musical direction that their beloved Low has recently taken, you may seek some comfort in this new album from New York's Ida. They've not veered from their hushed, melancholic path at all. In fact they've refined it! Their male/female vocal combo is particularly in top form -- sooo dreamy. Even when they insert some guitar distortion, it's warm and unabrasive. Very nice!
It's no secret that Ida has long been compared to fellow slowcore greats Low. Darkly melancholic at times, but never too heavy, mind you. A bit softer hearted and sweeter sentimented. Album after album, these New Yorkers have unassumingly and almost shyly offered up their gentle pop songs. Nothing too frilly or fancy, just finely crafted hushed goodness that hugs every heart within earshot. Recommended!
Another subtle beauty from these slowcore veterans out of New York. While they've done a superb job of quality control over the years there have been a few outings that while not bad were somewhat forgettable, but such is not the case with this lovely ep! Sitting somewhere perfectly between the devastatingly sad side of Low and the head out of the window daydreams of Red House Painters these are seven songs we've been listening to over and over as we stare into space and let the world pass by, as we catch our breath and linger in the sweet breeze of these gorgeous songs. There's even a few really nice moments of twang and folk on this ep but it's their slow sad beauties that we love the most.
New York's Ida have been together since 1994, and in those years they've found themselves on a handful of record labels including Simple Machines, Capitol and most recently Tigerstyle. Apparently their brief stay with a major label afforded them a copious
