On their third cd release for Absolutely Kosher these five East Bay fellows take us in a new direction. On Picks Us Apart, they move further away from their earlier prominent Slint / Mogwai influences. They've replaced their past post-rock loud-quiet leanings with gentle pop song structures comprised of decidedly sweet sensitive boy vocals, strummy multi-layered guitars reminiscent of mid-to-late '80s The Cure. Although some might be a little disappointed that they've chosen a different path, others will surely find that the band are just as adept at crafting a solid pop tune as they are at weaving an atmospheric soundscape. In fact, it struck us that these days they've more aligned themselves with the charming indie pop likes of Pinback and Death Cab For Cutie.
Brimming with confidence and charm, it's the Jim Yoshii Pile-Up. These bay area boys have brought forth their first full-length of sensitive, lovely quiet-quiet-loud music that's leaps and bounds from their first release (the self-released self-titled ep from 1999). Polished, pretty, and appropriately titled - the album at times shimmers like frosty morning air and at others, glows like the welcome warmth of a hearth. Never ones to shy away from showing their appreciation of their faves Mogwai, the JYPU draw inspiration from and comparisons to those Glaswegians, as well as Slint and Low.
"Homemade Drugs" finds Jim Yoshii Pile-Up leaving behind overt quiet/loud dynamics to focus mostly on the quiet. Less Slint-y angularity, more slowly building post-rock beauty, developed through delicate three-guitar interplay and liquidly gorgeous vocals. These days, you can have your emo-tional pop in an MTV-ready pretty boy package, but (pretty though they may be) Jim Yoshii come across as much more honest than all that. So honest, in fact, that it's almost wrong to listen in on these tales of intimacy and heartbreak. Their tendency to turn their backs to the audience when playing live seems appropriate; wearing your heart on your sleeve just isn't conducive to being in-your-face. But don't be fooled by all my talk of sensitivity. These boys can rock hard when they want to, as moments of "Homemade Drugs" prove before being subsumed by more subdued melodies- which I guess would reflect the presence of quiet/loud dynamics, wouldn't it? Still, the overall feeling of this album is firmly in the realm of the contemplative, personal and melancholy. Really, really nice.
Jimbo Trout is an active player in the Bay Area's healthy blue grass scene. Playing guitar, banjo, kazoo and singing tales with an old-time flare. Jimbo shows his fine taste by covering the likes of Leadbelly, The Carter Family, The Mississippi Sheiks, etc. His band adds fiddle, washboard, and mandolin and it's the record's instrumental tracks that we find ourselves most captivated by. Makes us wanna get out onto the docks, staring at the sea with a cold one in one hand, a reel and rod in the other...
Good ole' Jimbo Trout and his Fishpeople are doing a mighty fine job of keeping an old timey flame burning brightly here in the Bay Area, with their great mixture of bluegrass, bop, swing, backporch blues and more, all with a twang that's hard not to tap your toes and sway your hips to. This is the band you wish was playing at the farmers market or in your local town square, such good vibes and a wide array of instrumentation (guitar, banjo, fiddle, washboard, harmonica, clarinet, sax, piano, accordion, xylophone and pedal steel guitar.) While all of the players sound top notch, we have to say the fiddle playing on this record is pretty unbelievable! The album is packed with both traditional tunes nicely arranged by Jimbo as well as covers of folks like the Mississippi Mudsteppers, Jimmie Rogers, The Shelton Brothers, etc. Can't think of a better soundtrack to your next hoedown!
Dubliners The Jimmy Cake return with record number two and we're happy to report it is even better than the first. Their debut "Brains" was a gorgeous, bittersweet collection of post rock epics, rhythmic and langorous, lush and dreamy, bringing to mind Mogwai, Godspeed and Arab Strap. "Dublin Gone. Everybody Dead." finds the lineup expanded, the sound even more lush and expansive, and probably most surprising/exciting, a new found aggressiveness that really highlights the band's mastery of mood and dynamics. Loping minor key rhythms build and build, layers of sorrowful strings and weepy accordion add density as riffs stretch out into droning epic jams. Gorgeous finger-picked guitars and free noise/jazz interludes add to the melee as the songs twist and turn and struggle for air, horns skronk, guitars feed back. Instrumental cinematic soundscapes writhe and heave, palpitate and pulsate, building into crescendos of staccato minor key blasts. Really intense and beautiful. Some weird mix of AQ faves Magyar Posse, Hwyl Nofio, Godpeed You Black Emperor, and the Tindersticks, but with a jagged edge that keeps the melancholia and gloominess sharp and prickly instead of dull and overwrought. So so good.
MPEG Stream: "The Width Of The Black" [/audio/jimmywidth.m3u]
Aaaah, thought you'd heard all the post rock you could possibly need? Hold yer horses, 'cause up pops The Jimmy Cake with an albumful of very pleasingly pretty, and most importantly, original post-rock. This sizeable Scottish ensemble spill lush washes of
Hard to believe it's been 6 years since we last heard from Ireland's The Jimmy Cake. Back in 2002, we were heavily digging their second record, Dublin Gone. Everybody Dead., which found the band getting more and more aggressive. Their sound went from a drifty post rock to a dense blend of Godspeed, Magyar Posse, Explosions In The Sky, Salvatore, Hwyl Nofio, long sweeping epics, sweeping vistas of cinematic sound peppered with intense crescendos and stretches of free jazz freakout.
Six years later, the band has really mellowed out, harkening back to their debut, Brains, but with even more of an emphasis on the cinematic side of things. Utilizing an unlikely arsenal of instruments (at least for an ostensibly 'rock' band), clarinet, trumpet, saxophone, piano synths and accordion along with the usual guitar bass and drums, the band use the piano as the focal point, crafting swirling slow building epics, that really do sound like music pulled from some strange indie soundtrack. It's all instrumental too, so it's easy to hear bits of the Tindersticks, the Dirty 3, Arab Strap, in the Jimmy Cake's melancholy moodiness. The horns are used more for texture and drone out in dark harmonies, the guitars are spidery and minimal, the drums often a subtle shuffle, the gorgeous blend of strings and horns and accordions afford each track a distinct grandness that glows regally. Another definite reference point is the Rachel's, the sound is distinctly chamber music-esque, but set in a more post rock context. Think the Drift, old Tarentel, very evocative and strangely Eastern European in places, with some more experimental tracks of long shimmery dronemusic and drifting harmonics here and there, separating the more (almost) rocking tracks, as a whole creating the perfect imaginary soundtrack for a movie filled with dark moonlit nights, lonely strolls, cobblestone streets, rolling hills, grey skies, rain against windows, and brief bits of sunlight. Lovely.
Heavy, heavy psychedelic acid funk with some Latin vibes, stuff that could have made Funkadelic proud, collected from the Jimmy Castor Bunch's earliest albums.
These 16 slabs of funk include almost all the really good songs (which is almost ALL of the songs) from the band's first 2 RCA albums ("It's Just Begun" and "Phase Two"), plus a few from their somewhat less awesome (actually quite weak) third and final RCA disc, the jazzy "Dimension III". Jimmy and the band bounced back and recorded many more funk classics after they left RCA, not letting disco get them down, and you can find those (and a few others from the earlier doo-wop phase of his career) on the "Everything Man" best of comp Rhino released a few years back, which only has a couple of the songs found here. There WAS a 2-on-1 import cd reissue of the first two of Castor's RCA LPs that we had a while ago, but we haven't been able to get it lately. I like the review I wrote of that disc a lot though, so why not quote some of it here:
"Blending fat funk guitar, '60s astrologically-obsessed psych rock, Hendrix worship (there's a weird tribute to Jimi here, a Purple Haze/Foxy Lady hybrid cover), as well as doo wop, soul and some sappy r&b...they don't make 'em like this anymore. "It's Just Begun" will send you back, way back, to the time of the "Troglodyte". The cave man theme recurs, with "Phase Two"'s "Luther The Anthropoid (Ape Man)"... Heavy acid funk stomp, silly sexual primal urge stuff to be sure, mixed with some lighter, more 'spiritually' oriented cuts. As we move into album no.2, there are definitely some really bad moments of love song cheese to interfere with your enjoyment of the BAAADDD moments of troglodyte funk, but on the whole this is deep and weird enough to be essential to the dedicated funkateer. For fans of early Kool & the Gang, Parliament, B.T. Express, that sort of thing, but the best stuff here's got a dosed and primordial edge unlike anything else excavated from the early '70s era."
This collection cuts out the worst of the "love song cheese" alluded to above (although the songs added from "Dimension III" aren't any better unfortunately) and so makes for, along with Rhino's "Everything Man" comp, a mandatory funk purchase. Not rare groove, but "everywhere groove" as it says in the liner notes.
Picked this album up at a garage sale as a kid, just 'cause of the crazy cover art, and have been a big fan ever since. Here it is reissued on vinyl, a definite '70s funk classic (from '72 to be precise), Jimmy's freakiest by far, stuff that could have made Funkadelic proud, both fuzzy and funky and a little Latin too. Or as we've said before about a Castor comp, "for fans of early Kool & the Gang, Parliament, B.T. Express, that sort of thing, but the best stuff here's got a dosed and primordial edge unlike anything else excavated from the early '70s era." And that "best stuff" is mostly all here on It's Just Begun. The title track is a heavy acid funk freakout, then there's the cave man classic "Troglodyte", and the trippy vibes of "L.T.D. (Life, Truth, Death)", and more... And it's all wrapped in that awesome, astrologically symbolic cover painting (featuring a slum building, in a wasteland, with not one but two giant Jimmy Castors looming over it, alongside a floating armored egg, tubes and troglodytes). There's an explanation of all the images' significance to be found on the back cover, dig it.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Hot damn! The first two albums by this oft-overlooked classic '70s funk band, finally reissued as a 2-on-1 UK import disc. Jimmy Castor, he's the guy that sued the Beastie Boys over that "Hey LeRoy!" sample. Blending fat funk guitar, '60s astrologically-obsessed psych rock, Hendrix worship (there's a weird tribute to Jimi here, a Purple Haze/Foxy Lady hybrid cover), as well as doo wop, soul and some sappy r&b...they don't make 'em like this anymore. "It's Just Begun" will send you back, way back, to the time of the "Troglodyte". The cave man theme recurs, with "Phase Two"'s "Luther The Anthropoid (Ape Man)"... Heavy acid funk stomp, silly sexual primal urge stuff to be sure, mixed with some lighter, more 'spiritually' oriented cuts. As we move into album no.2, there are definitely some really bad moments of love song cheese to interfere with your enjoyment of the BAAADDD moments of troglodyte funk, but on the whole this is deep and weird enough to be essential to the dedicated funkateer. (Those who wish to avoid any of the lame tracks are directed to the "Everything Man" best-of Jimmy Castor compilation on Rhino, which will provide the 'hits' as well as some swell disco cuts from later in his career.) For fans of early Kool & the Gang, Parliament, B.T. Express, that sort of thing, but the best stuff here's got a dosed and primordial edge unlike anything else excavated from the early '70s era.
The music of major label mainstream emo bands such as Jimmy Eat World has been scientifically formulated for maximum appeal -- sorta like a Cola or maybe Cheetos. Its target? Primarily teenagers everywhere. Reaching its sharp hooks out to both male and female listeners with fist-pumping angst anthemics and heartstring-pullin' sentiments respectively, these songs speak straight at the young adult. However some post-teens do fall into the crosshairs every so often... uh, like Andee and Cup! Lead singer Jim Adkins bares his heart in the most earnest fashion articulating hopeful crushes, shattering heartaches and unrequited love. Totally Hollywood teen movie soundtrack perfect.
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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"Entropy" is a minor stumble for Tomas Jirku, whose previous outings (especially the "Immaterial" album for Subtractif / Alien8) had been some of the better recordings of clean, minimal techno along side Vladislav Delay, Chain Reaction, and Pole. Yet this album never stands beyond the formula of subdued shuffling rhythms, delicate clickery, and those ubiquitous swelling synth pads which sound like a digital cross between a ring modulator and a rhodes organ. On the plus side, the packaging with its sewn booklet is quite nice.
Tomas Jirku's "Immaterial" makes no claims of innovation; however, this album stands way above the crowded field of electron engineers who have been peddling an increasingly mediocre and hollow form of minimalist techno. As in Jirku's previous recordings, "Immaterial" (released through Alien 8's new electronica imprint Substractif) owes a great debt to Pole and Vladislav Delay for
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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Tomas Jirku's "Sequins" is the second album from this techno reconstructionist. For the past year or so, he's been posting his work online to receive comments, criticism, and advice from anybody whose wanted to give it to him. While his first album, "Variants", kept to a techno minimalism a la Mika Vainio and Vladislav Delay, he's been listening to a few too many house heads who've insisted that he inject more "soul" into his work. But instead of soul, he put a rod up his ass.
Tomas Jirku�s --VariantsÊ involves an interesting additive/subtractive process whereby Jirku would post one of his minimalist techno pieces online at www.notype.com for a period of time, then replace it with a new composition based on previous experiments... sorta like an ongoing remix project of his own material. --VariantsÊ is his first proper album, collecting the best pieces to date from this continuing series. Each of these post-techno excursions vary from track to track, falling at times near the moodiest minimal techno of Carl Craig, then at times sounding like Vladislav Delay�s dubbed out Chain Reaction hypnosis. Jirku�s finishing touches and general minimalism also recall the frigidity of Mika Vainio�s brilliant album --MetriÊ. All in all, an excellent first album.
Something about Sweden that just breeds suave irresistible pop. JJ are a duo we've been hearing a lot about, but their records had been hard to come by stateside. Luckily Secretly Canadian has released their latest, No.3, domestically, so we can all catch the soft sonic breeze their subtle and exquisite songs offer. Imagine Saint Etienne or Everything But The Girl doing Red House Painters covers, or Beach House or Taken By Trees interpreting Sade, and you start to get an idea of the dreamy world of JJ. It's not an immediately catchy record, but one that with repeated listens totally wreathes you in a soft haze and lilting seduction that just feels so damn good. Another one of those records just made for Sunday mornings, as there is something so comforting about its ease and dreaminess. Very nice!
Apparently MF Doom, now just Doom, was on tour in Europe, and got stranded, with visa problems, eventually finding his way back to the UK, where he was born, but hadn't lived for years, and being stuck decided to do what he does, and make a record, first hooking up with Jneiro Jarel, who produced all the tracks here and is the JJ in JJ Doom, and sorted out some surprising guests, Damon Albarn of Blur/Gorillaz and Beth Gibbons of Portishead. While much attention has been paid to the unlikely guests, and a fair bit of flak has been hurled at the record for being somewhat lackluster, we have to say we're pretty into it. The record opens with a strange psychedelic collage, all warped samples, pinball/gamelan melodies, field recordings, eventually wound around a stuttery handclap beat, before "Guv'nor" lurches into action, a woozy tangle of melted loops and a barrage of unlikely samples, musical and otherwise. "Banished" is a murky sprawl of soundtracky kung fu groove, "Bite The Thong" is all big beat hook heavy groove, Albarn's contribution a barely noticeable refrain, same with "GMO", Gibbons offering up a very Portishead-y style chorus, but hardly the most exciting part of the song, a dizzying assemblage of strummed acoustic guitars, and weird sound effects, streaks of electronics and dramatic strings. "Rhymin' Slang" is a killer slab of pulsating synthy stutter, the whole record is pretty fucking great, and to these ears the production, while dramatically different than Doom's past collabs with Madvillain and Danger Mouse, is really fucking cool and far out, Jarel definitely has his own twisted thing going on, and it suits Doom's weird flow for sure, a mush mouthed stream of consciousness that's as brilliant / baffling as ever. Been listening to this like crazy, and doesn't seem like we'll stop anytime soon.
We had been hearing about this record for ages, mostly that it was the best thing Justin Broadrick had done since Godflesh! Which would be discounting everything he'd done as Jesu, much of which we hold near and dear, so while we're actually inclined to agree with the above sentiment, it might be more accurate to say that, besides Jesu, which is an entirely different beast, we haven't dug a Broadrick project this much since the days of classic Godflesh. Which makes sense really. The first hint was the name, Broadrick having resurrected a name he used back in the Techno Animal days, and in fact, JK Flesh reminds us a lot more of Techno Animal than Godflesh. The jams here all remind us of the kind of weirdo experimental electronic stuff Broadrick was doing on the side, when he was still doing Godflesh. The sort of jams that you'd hear on some obscure comp alongside Alec Empire, or Porter Ricks or Spectre or Scorn, if you remember those Macro Dub Infection comps from back in the day (if not, you should track them down, they are incredible!) or remember any of the more obscure Broadrick alter-egos, Curse Of The Golden Vampire, the Sidewinder, Techno Animal of course, especially the opening track on Posthuman, which lays down a spare lurching beat over buzzing droned out guitars, and features some super intense heavily effected vokills that sound unlike anything else we've heard from Broadrick. And instead of being heavy, it's more a sort of brooding malevolence, a hypnotic lumber that borders on some sort of industrial demonic dub. And had the whole record sounded like that, we would have been just fine. But the other thing we'd been hearing about JK Flesh, is that it was like Godflesh, but with dubstep beats, which may have had some folks crying foul, it actually sounded pretty goddamn good to us, and we're happy to report that it does in fact sound about as good as we imagined it would.
The same sonic template as the opening track for the most part, but with distinctly dubstep beats, and the thing is, it totally works, the dubstep element really becomes secondary, as Broadrick unfurls some of his fiercest and heaviest guitar work in ages, his vocals a thick, hellish bellow, far removed from the shouty vocals that marred the last few Godflesh records, this is some sick, fierce, and yeah, slightly groovy heaviness. But think how radical the drum machine driven Godflesh was back in the day, playing alongside all these crusty grind bands and straight up metal bands, that actually translates pretty well to the now, with JK Flesh, melding that sort of crusty chugging heaviness to a more modern beat. The first few tracks really don't even really get dubsteppy at all, instead, seeming to ease the listener into this brave new world, two massive slabs of massive downtuned machine-doom heaviness that kills. It's not until "Devoured" that things get crazy, when the beat is actually skittery, sounding a bit like Clubroot remixing Godflesh, which is obviously not a bad thing AT ALL. The title track too, is all manic skitter, wreathed in an impossibly thick gristly patina of crumbling super distorted buzz, and it's a crazy killer mix. The sort of thing that just might have metalheads tempted to poke their heads out onto the dancefloor, but should most definitely have the dancefloor heaving, with what is essentially some of THEE heaviest dubstep EVER. "Earthmover" introduces some of that blown out bass wobble, but it's mostly lost amidst all the churning metallic riffery and squalls of effects. The record finishes with another weird one, a good bookend for that opener, a sort of abject creeping doom dirge, driven by a skittery beat, but not so overtly dubsteppy, instead, a pounding lumbering lurch, with some seriously sick vokills, and while there is a kind of drop, it turns into something much more washed out and psychedelic, with clean vocals, and thick washed out guitars, the result sort of dreamy and druggy, and a little bit like a darker noisier heavier Jesu.
For those of you, like us, who always found yourselves way more into Broadrick's extracurricular sonic activities, this is a no brainer, it pushes all our Techno Animal buttons big time, but it definitely is the closest thing we've heard to Godflesh in a while, but still different enough to be fresh and exciting. Needless to say, this totally rules, and is WAY WAY WAY recommended (& anyone who digs Necro Deathmort, in particular, should check this out).
Pretty killer match up between two aQ faves, Justin Broadrick's (Godflesh, Jesu, etc) new electronic outfit JK Flesh, and long running experimental noise/power electronics combo Prurient. The JK Flesh tracks here are about the darkest and fiercest we've heard from Broadrick, opening with a thick corrosive buzz, droned out and dense, before exploding into a dense churning industrial dirge, which soon blossoms into some old school jungle, and thus flits back and forth between chugging, metallic, almost Godflesh like crush to still bleak, but more beat-y drum n' bass stutter.
The other tracks follow suit, laying a groundwork of beats and rhythms, and then dousing them with noisy, psychedelic sound, a loping breakbeat is looped over a dark background of industrial clatter and buzzing synth squelch. Creepy gothy electro roils ominously, the lumbering machinelike grooves sounding not unlike classic Skinny Puppy, albeit a bit revved up and dirtied up.
Prurient, aka Dom Fernow (Cold Cave, Ash Pool, Cold Cave, etc.) counters with whirring drones, mysterious disembodied voices, all reverbed and processed, and set adrift through fields of soft noise thrum, buried feedback, and heavy crumbling sheets of distortion, even some synthy cold-wave style pulsations, haunting and murky and muddy, at super rhythmic at times, reminding us of some of Fernow's other recent projects, Vatican Shadow, Silent Servant and Christian Cosmos. The final track though is the perfect blend of noise and dreamlike ambience, a Caretaker / Tim Hecker style gauzy drift, a swirling sprawl of ethereal ambience, haunting reverbed piano melodies, floating in glorious expanses of dep hum and slow shifting thrum, and beneath it all a constantly roiling sea of jagged, but muted and muddied feedback, all smeared into a hazy bleary eared, but still subtly corrosive, dronescape.
Pressed on ultra thick vinyl, and packaged in heavy, old school Stoughton style tip on sleeves.
Now on vinyl. Here's the cd review from a few lists back:
We've been hearing quite a lot of buzz and hype surrounding this New York outfit led by Joan Wasser, who has been playing music in one form or another since she was 8 years old. Along the way she's paid her dues playing in the Damnbuilders, and some lesser known bands in the '90s who featured some soon to be big name indie rockers like Mary Timony and Al Larson (Shudder To Think) and she has played violin for everyone from Antony & The Johnsons to Rufus Wainwright, Lou Reed to the Scissor Sister and even Sheryl Crow. The combination of those folks' music gives a sort-of-snapshot as to what to expect from Joan As Policewoman. Sounding a little bit like a more sweeping and orchestral version of Feist, this is a record sure to have a wide appeal and with good reason. With a very likable voice and strong instrumentation this will for sure hit the spot for folks waiting god knows how long until Fiona Apple comes out with another record. Oh and keeping up his very busy guest appearance schedule, Antony (of Antony & The Johnsons) adds his always stunning voice to one track on Real Life as well. And the first batch of these we got comes with a bonus disc of b-sides which includes a Bowie cover and a song dedicated to Condoleezza Rice. Weird.
We've been hearing quite a lot of buzz and hype surrounding this New York outfit led by Joan Wasser, who has been playing music in one form or another since she was 8 years old. Along the way she's paid her dues playing in the Damnbuilders, and some lesser known bands in the '90s who featured some soon to be big name indie rockers like Mary Timony and Al Larson (Shudder To Think) and she has played violin for everyone from Antony & The Johnsons to Rufus Wainwright, Lou Reed to the Scissor Sister and even Sheryl Crow. The combination of those folks' music gives a sort-of-snapshot as to what to expect from Joan As Policewoman. Sounding a little bit like a more sweeping and orchestral version of Feist, this is a record sure to have a wide appeal and with good reason. With a very likable voice and strong instrumentation this will for sure hit the spot for folks waiting god knows how long until Fiona Apple comes out with another record. Oh and keeping up his very busy guest appearance schedule, Antony (of Antony & The Johnsons) adds his always stunning voice to one track on Real Life as well. And the first batch of these we got comes with a bonus disc of b-sides which includes a Bowie cover and a song dedicated to Condoleezza Rice. Weird.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Well, once we got past the first few tracks (that included a mildly annoying song about fucking strangers and a recording of a child singing some '70s ballad) things settled into quite a nice spartan mellowness for this posthumous Joan of Arc EP. Seemingly
Okay, so what's goin' on with Joan Of Arc? Shortly after the release of their last album The Gap a couple of years ago, they officially called it quits. Then less than a year later providing a little more closure, there was a posthumous cdep. It seems though that there's something in the water that makes Kinsella bros' bands come back to life. Case in point? Another of their early combos, The Owls were quickly ressurrected filling the postrock-y emo space vacated by JOA. Now, this new cd has surfaced. Yes, they're back -- sounding quite refreshed we might add, but much more subdued and controlled. The somewhat tedious jazzy noodling and intrusive experimentations on The Gap have been honed and better encorporated into the big picture. There's a nicely arranged interplay between the soft, emotive vocals, gently meandering keyboards and guitars. Pleasing, delicate post-rock. Welcome back JOA.
Gastr Del Sol meets Red House Painters, or maybe The Promise Ring. Either way, kinda pretentious and not quite intelligent enough to know when to stop the 'avant-garde' noodling. And, the record is named after The Gap.
Do we forgive them for the band name? Supposedly, this is a riff on the beloved avant-folk songstress Joanna Newsom, to which we have to ask "What the fuck, Joanna Gruesome? Really? What did Ms. Newsom ever do to you?" Sure, we've lauded the benefit / curse of having a laughably, ridiculously bad name; and this one may be nearing the top of the list, just 'cuz we can't think of a single reason why this band name should exist. But here it is, and fuck if Joanna Gruesome's sound doesn't completely right shine through their questionable moniker. In the best possible light, the name is an awkward commentary on the awkwardness of being an awkward indie-dork who is enduring the awkward growth spurts of late-teendom and who somehow has figured out to play guitar, bash drums, and sing harmonies in spite of the gangly legs and stubborn baby fat. This five piece hails from Wales, and couldn't have found a better home than Slumberland Records, which they share not only with current indie pop darlings Veronica Falls but also stalwarts of the fuzz-pop jangle like The Aislers Set and Black Tambourine. The songs on Weird Sister have a brilliantly schizoid ability to shift in style without sounding out of place at all (belying that awkward teen gangliness, mentioned earlier), with a dreamy, bubblegum pop-punk vibe that crashes into a riotous, overblown riff, sounding like a Veronica Falls vocal harmony smashed into a sugarsmacked noise-pop tune from the Swirlies, one of America's finest forgotten answers to My Bloody Valentine from back in the '90s. Vocalist Alanna McArdle (formerly of Evans The Death, fyi), alternates between the coy harmonizing chanteuse and the charmingly beligerent riot-grrl brat. Come by on a Saturday afternoon here at aQuarius, and the chances are this will be on the stereo. Yeah, a noise-pop classic for fuck's sake!
Second album (duh) from this Norwegian rock band led by a former Turbonegro roadie. We did like their first one, Sideman, quite a bit, but this one seems a bit too poppy and polished for us, this time out. It's just awkwardly balanced on the cusp of cool '80s retro (Hacienda-era Factory bands could be what they're going for) and maybe not so cool '80s retro (The Fixx?), with a definite nod to more modern radio-friendly fare of the Britpop persuasion. Spiritualized might be one comparison. So, the spacey, psychedelic elements we dug about the debut aren't totally gone, but it's hardly the Floyd/MBV/Spacemen Three styled trip we were hoping for based on the successes of Sideman. Check out the sound clips, though, if you liked the poppier parts of that album.
Jester (the unclassifiable Norwegian record label run by frontman Garm of the formerly but no longer black metal band Ulver) has rapidly become one of our favorite labels, what with releases by When, Ulver, Arcturus, Rotoscope, Esperanza, Bogus Blimp, Single
We've been fans of Jobriath (nee Bruce Wayne Campbell) for a while now. Back in the '70s, he was billed as the world's first openly gay pop star. Or, rather, would-be pop star, as his career was a commercial failure, though he's now a cult figure (tragically, he died in 1983, a victim of AIDS). Glammy and campy (no shit), Jobriath, who was a classically trained pianist and singer, had a pop persona that was part David Bowie, part Elton John, part Mick Jagger, maybe a little Alice Cooper too. He made complicated, cabaret-ready Rundgren-esque pop, with plenty of keyboard chops, and no little drama. He really should have been huge, but it didn't happen. Too much hype, or homophobia, who knows?
His two major label flops, released in '73 and '74 on Elektra, and reissued a few years ago, are again currently both out of print. But, now there's this, for fans and other potentially interested parties. An archival collection of rare, previously unreleased Jobriath music, recorded in '71 prior to those two records! As The River Flows is certainly less produced than those later, big-budget albums, but aren't completely rough demos either. It does contain early versions of two songs that later appeared on his official debut, "Inside" and his anthem "I'maman", in more stripped-down arrangements, alongside a whole bunch of Jobraith compositions never heard before, enough to really make this constitute a "lost" Jobriath album.
There's a street-level vibe to this, what with frantic opener "Amazing Dope Tales" for instance - the sordid side of NYC in the '70s definitely being Jobriath's milieu. He's got a band and backup singers here, but naturally his voice and keyboard playing take center stage. Sometimes with melancholic piano balladry a la Elton John, sometimes with honkytonk glee, Jobriath getting all Jerry Lee Lewis on us. But no matter what, regardless of style, these songs have got that special Jobriath edge to 'em, his performance one of both pathos and panache.
Fans should be excited about this, of course, but since his other albums are out of print, it's also the only available entree to his oeuvre for noobs, too, who should be commended for taking the plunge. Includes lyrics, credits, and photos, but there's unfortunately no liner notes, nothing about the story behind these recordings, which would have been cool, oh well, though otherwise it's a nicely done package.
As you might expect from "the world's first openly gay rock star" (or make that would-be rock star), the music of seventies singer Jobraith is pretty darn glammy and campy, a blend of '70s hard rock histrionics and even more overtly showtune tendencies (Jobraith had performed on Broadway, actually, in the musical Hair, and was also a trained classical pianist), full of over-the-top pop and not-so-ambiguous sexuality.
He's part David Bowie (very much David Bowie!), part Marc Bolan, part Elton John, part Mick Jagger, even part Bee Gees (that high voice)... You can hear all that for yourself on these two new cd reissues of Jobraith's two Elektra albums, his notoriously overhyped self-titled debut from 1973 and its '74 follow-up, Creatures Of The Street. We'd gotten familiar with Jobraith via an earlier collection, Lonely Planet Boy, which featured songs selected from these two records, but it's nice to hear 'em in their entirety, and it turns out that comp missed out on a few of the many gems to be found among Jobraith's compositions.
Unfortunately the Jobraith story is a tragic one, his career fizzling after these two albums (both expensive flops), his brushes with fame always far-fetched and fleeting, Jobraith ultimately dying in obscurity, a victim of the AIDS epidemic, in 1983... though about ten years later, according the the story recounted in the liner notes, Morrissey tried to find Jobraith to take him on tour, unaware that he'd passed away long before.
So, while in retrospect there's for sure a patina of sadness over Jobraith's music, it's better tribute perhaps to Jobraith's memory to enjoy these albums in the fun, flamboyant spirit in which they were intended.
Both albums have their merits, we don't know if we could choose between 'em. The debut boasts the oh-so-Bowie "Space Clown", along with the piano-ballad bombast of "Be Still" (somewhere, this MUST have been a hit). You can party down to the proto-disco prog of "World Without End" or the funky "Earthling", and rock out to the fuzzy "Rock Of Ages" or the braggadocious "I'm A Man". There's also a bunch more piano-y crooner tunes on the softer side: "Inside", "Blow Away", and "Movie Queen", all quite good (the latter, quite, umm, gay as well).
Creatures Of The Street perhaps veers even further into campy, cabaret territory than the debut (or maybe it's just that "Dietrich/Fondyke" is so much that way) but also offers up a fair bit of rockin' and also just plain weirdness. At times we're reminded of Sparks, and one of the best tracks here is a folky, quirky, quite catchy number entitled "Scumbag"! Other standouts include melodramatic opener "Heartbeat" and the walk on the wild side that is "Street Corner Love". As with the debut, there's plenty of piano, plenty of orchestration, and plenty of drama... The image/identity conscious Jobraith was always striking poses, both on album covers and in his lyrics.
While the world wasn't ready for Jobraith back in the '70s (even though his music is oh-so-'70s), obviously we've come a long way since then. Jobraith's excesses can be forgiven (those of his management too) and his cult status can only grow, as his actual music is still quite a kick. Heck I was in a bar the other night and the DJ was playing "I'm A Man"! Good to have these both individually reissued on cd at last, with liner notes by Ritchie Unterberger (author of, among other things, the excellent Unknown Legends Of Rock n' Roll, which didn't include Jobraith but probably should have).
As you might expect from "the world's first openly gay rock star" (or make that would-be rock star), the music of seventies singer Jobraith is pretty darn glammy and campy, a blend of '70s hard rock histrionics and even more overtly showtune tendencies (Jobraith had performed on Broadway, actually, in the musical Hair, and was also a trained classical pianist), full of over-the-top pop and not-so-ambiguous sexuality.
He's part David Bowie (very much David Bowie!), part Marc Bolan, part Elton John, part Mick Jagger, even part Bee Gees (that high voice)... You can hear all that for yourself on these two new cd reissues of Jobraith's two Elektra albums, his notoriously overhyped self-titled debut from 1973 and its '74 follow-up, Creatures Of The Street. We'd gotten familiar with Jobraith via an earlier collection, Lonely Planet Boy, which featured songs selected from these two records, but it's nice to hear 'em in their entirety, and it turns out that comp missed out on a few of the many gems to be found among Jobraith's compositions.
Unfortunately the Jobraith story is a tragic one, his career fizzling after these two albums (both expensive flops), his brushes with fame always far-fetched and fleeting, Jobraith ultimately dying in obscurity, a victim of the AIDS epidemic, in 1983... though about ten years later, according the the story recounted in the liner notes, Morrissey tried to find Jobraith to take him on tour, unaware that he'd passed away long before.
So, while in retrospect there's for sure a patina of sadness over Jobraith's music, it's better tribute perhaps to Jobraith's memory to enjoy these albums in the fun, flamboyant spirit in which they were intended.
Both albums have their merits, we don't know if we could choose between 'em. The debut boasts the oh-so-Bowie "Space Clown", along with the piano-ballad bombast of "Be Still" (somewhere, this MUST have been a hit). You can party down to the proto-disco prog of "World Without End" or the funky "Earthling", and rock out to the fuzzy "Rock Of Ages" or the braggadocious "I'm A Man". There's also a bunch more piano-y crooner tunes on the softer side: "Inside", "Blow Away", and "Movie Queen", all quite good (the latter, quite, umm, gay as well).
Creatures Of The Street perhaps veers even further into campy, cabaret territory than the debut (or maybe it's just that "Dietrich/Fondyke" is so much that way) but also offers up a fair bit of rockin' and also just plain weirdness. At times we're reminded of Sparks, and one of the best tracks here is a folky, quirky, quite catchy number entitled "Scumbag"! Other standouts include melodramatic opener "Heartbeat" and the walk on the wild side that is "Street Corner Love". As with the debut, there's plenty of piano, plenty of orchestration, and plenty of drama... The image/identity conscious Jobraith was always striking poses, both on album covers and in his lyrics.
While the world wasn't ready for Jobraith back in the '70s (even though his music is oh-so-'70s), obviously we've come a long way since then. Jobraith's excesses can be forgiven (those of his management too) and his cult status can only grow, as his actual music is still quite a kick. Heck I was in a bar the other night and the DJ was playing "I'm A Man"! Good to have these both individually reissued on cd at last, with liner notes by Ritchie Unterberger (author of, among other things, the excellent Unknown Legends Of Rock n' Roll, which didn't include Jobraith but probably should have).
Jim Jocoy's unnarrated book of photos, never published before this year, is an amazing collection of images captured in and during San Francisco and LA's fertile punk scene of '78-'80. Taken spontaneously at clubs, the images show youths dressed to the nines in all the leopard print, skinny jeans, and eyeliner you can handle. Aquarius is super proud to be hosting Jocoy's first San Francisco event celebrating the publication of his photos. Meanwhile, enjoy his book. Here's what others have said:
"Buildings crumble; social signifiers fissure and evaporate. This much is forever; art students simultaneously discovering perceived oppression and thrift-store shoppong. Maybe that's why We're Desperate packs such timeless reverb. As a student living in San Francisco in the late '70s, Jocoy reported from the front line of the burgeoning punk scene by training his eye on the fans. Using a camera purchased at a garage sale, Jocoy photographed scenesters posed against club walls, capturing their ripped nylons, pegged jeans, leather jackets, and vinyl anything. Bookended by an introduction by Marc Jacobs, who has repeatedly referenced the era's Converse-and-logo-tee aesthetic, and a tender elegy by Exene Cervenka, of L.A. punk band X fame. These are DIY Star Search episodes played to one hand clapping, lasting shots from a short runway." ÏV Magazine
"...the longer you look...the more you begin to see what it took to remake yourself as a freak, as a social idiot, as someone you weren't meant to be.... soon enough, you're seeing real people everywhere." ÏGreil Marcus' Real Life Rock Top 10, Salon.com
Record number two from this heavy rock super group, featuring Aaron Turner from Isis, House Of Low Culture, Hydra Head, etc., James Plotkin of Khanate, O.L.D., Phantom Smasher and Tim Wyskida also of Khanate, and like the first record, Black Curtain too is a spare, haunting affair, all atmospheric and lovely, drifting and ghostly, psychedelic and abstract, but where that record hinted at a slowcore side to the group, this new one full embraces that part of the band, the vocals way up in the mix, sounding like an actual pop band at time, pop in the sense that it's not so explicitly experimental, like much of these three guys' output. Granted this is still experimental, but it's a sort of experimental pop, the guitars unfurl lush layered streaks, the drums are minimal, and restrained, it never gets really heavy, instead the vibe is super space and shimmery and surreal, the guitars crunch and howl and feedback, moan and squeal, but those elements are deftly sculpted into something downright lovely. And while opener "Broken Ground" is pretty open, and free, lots of space, lots of long notes and slow decay, by the end, it sounds more like Talk Talk or Cave In, and the next track, "Silent Temple", pushes that sound even further, definitely reminding us of a slightly heavier Codeine or Seam, but the vocals, it's uncanny how much they remind us of Cave In, which is not a bad thing at all, just surprising.
There's still plenty of tension, in fact every song here remains an exercise in patience, push and pull, slow release, gradual ratcheting up and down, the band's at their best when they harness that tension to something impossibly melodic. "Red Bough" sounds like some strange otherworldly Peter Hammill ballad, brooding and majestic, epic and expansive, and yeah, downright pretty. It's definitely possible that heavy music fans will be bummed out on this, which would be a shame, cuz while it's not traditionally heavy, it is dense and dark, and emotionally heavy, even sonically in places, but that heaviness is wielded not as a hammer, but as something much more delicate, but no less dense and devastating. The final track does get downright heavy, the guitar is fierce, downtuned and distorted, the drums pounding, but even here, the vocals soar and melodies abound, a gorgeous fusion of melody and emotion, dark energy and sonic heft. A gorgeous surprise, and a new favorite for sure.
What might you expect from a band made up of two parts Khanate, and one part Isis / Grey Machine / House Of Low Culture? Probably nothing as pretty and haunting as this. That's right, we said pretty. We were definitely expecting some crushing slo-mo heaviness, figured if that much of Khanate was involved it would have to be screechy and torturous.
And while Jodis is doomy, it's also moody, and atmospheric, slow and spare, spacious and strangely lovely. Occasionally the guitars rev up and get way louder, and it sounds like the band might explode into some sort of bellowing dirge, but instead, they sprawl into an ominous creep, the guitars shimmery, the notes spaced way out, as much about the decay and overtones as the initial note or the overall melody. The vocals are weary and washed out, reverbed and down in the mix. If anything this reminds us of some classic slowcore, maybe Codeine or Seam, albeit a little more abstract, a little less indie rock, but the same sort of moody drift, the same kind of minimal melody, emotional and dark and haunting and dreamlike.
Surprisingly, the drums are super restrained, in fact, the first few tracks sound almost drumless, minus a few cymbal shimmers, some flares and accents here and there. On "Secret House" the drums are active, flurries of fills all over the kit, but not for bombast, again for texture, almost like playing chords on the drums, there are some harsh vox on "Secret House", and they almost sound out of place, disrupting the strange slow tranquility. But once we move on to the next track, we're back to that gauzy melodic drift, the drums again super skeletal, the guitar drifting in the ether, the vocals choral, almost monk-like, super meditative and ethereal.
And the rest of the record plays out in a similar fashion, long drawn out slow burning epics writ small, the three exploring the space around the notes, finishing off with the gorgeous 9 minute "Slivers", the guitar unfurling a fuzzy blurry drone, the drums more active, a bit tribal, but still muted, and the vocals a falsetto off in the distance, the track, heaving and pulsing and shimmering, before slipping into a more abstract drone and then blinking out.
Some seriously gorgeous stuff, a surprise new favorite for sure, getting lots of play late at night, lights turned low, consciousness at rest, on the cusp of some other plane...
Visionary cult cinephiles get ready to drool! If you were as excited as we were about the recent reissue of Kenneth Anger's early films, then this incredibly packaged and affordable 4dvd+2cd box set of the early films of Chilean theatrical genius Alejandro Jodorowsky will surely make your head explode!!! Fando Y Lis! El Topo!!, HOLY MOUNTAIN!!!! Marvelously restored and beautifully remastered, there is so much amazing material here that has either never been available before, or only available previously as extremely hard to find poor quality transfers from mediocre prints.
AND there's more! This set also includes the absolutely killer SOUNDTRACKS to both El Topo and yes, Holy Mountain!!! The Holy Mountain Soundtrack has never been released before and it so totally kills, and why wouldn't it, Don Cherry is all over it! But more about that in a minute, there's also bonus features, interviews, deleted scenes, audio commentary, a documentary and a short film from 1957 that was presumed lost until it was found early last year.
So for those who may be unfamiliar with Jodorowsky's films, a bit of back story:
Born in Chile and struggling to become an actor, Jodorowsky became fed up with the idea of scripted theatre and moved to Paris to study mime. Working with the great mime, Marcel Marceau while at the same time influenced by the Surrealists, Antonin Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty, Jean Cocteau's mythical fantasias, and the European Art House cinema of Fellini and Bunuel, Jodorowsky relocated to Mexico to form the theatre troupe, The Panic Movement, which would stage early happenings (involving lots of nudity and rotting food) and existentialist plays by Ionesco, Beckett and Fernando Arrabel. It was Arrabel's play, "Fando Y Lis" that would inspire him to move away from the theatre into cinema, but far from any structured or direct form of filmmaking. Jodorowsky wanted to re-interpret Arrabel's play by filming it completely from memory and in a remote and ruggedly extreme locale. Here he would bring together all the soul-baring psyche of experimental theatre, the role-playing excess of costumes, props and pageantry, the ritualistic entanglements of violence and beauty as catalysts of transformation, and most importantly the notion of existence as a journey through all kinds of personal and mystical revelations both sacred and profane. All of these qualities permeate each of the three films here.
Ok, you get the idea. So let's just break it down for you, what you get from this awesome box set:
--Fando Y Lis (1968): Jodorowsky's first full length black and white feature started riots at its premiere at the Acapulco Film Festival and was banned in Mexico due to its violent sexual imagery and ritualistic mocking of church beliefs. Based on Arrabel's play about a pair of dysfunctional lovers (one impotent, the other paralyzed) in a Fellini-esque quest for the spiritual city of Tar.
Extras on this disc include the 1994 French documentary, La Constellation which features interviews with Marcel Marceau, Peter Gabriel (who was inspired by El Topo, when he wrote The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway), and the French sci-fi illustrator, Moebius, who began working with Jodorowsky on the failed attempt to film Frank Herbert's Dune, which sparked Jodorowsky's interest in graphic novels.
--El Topo (1970): The bloody surreal western that spawned the Midnight Movie. Funded by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, this film is like a Sergio Leone film on a serious dose of brown acid.
Extras include an interview with Jodorowsky about the Midnight Movie phenomenon.
--Holy Mountain (1973): The ultimate spiritual quest film. Jodorowsky takes us through every imaginable belief system only to completely shatter our preconceptions about spiritual enlightenment.
Extras include deleted scenes and commentary about Jodorowsky's continuing interest in the Tarot.
--La Cravate (1957): A 35 minute silent film in color based on Thomas Mann's The Transposed Heads about a girl who sells heads and the men who are her customers. This film was presumed lost until its discovery last year in someone's attic in Germany!
--El Topo Soundtrack: 18 tracks composed by Jodorowsky and John Barham inspired by both the soundtrack work of Ennio Morricone and Nino Rota. Full of flutes and droning horns, accordions and organs and twisted Mariachi styles.
--Holy Mountain Soundtrack: 24 tracks composed by Jodorowsky, Don Cherry and Ronald Frangipane. Ranging from spiritual free drones to acid rock to Moroccan desert jams to pensive marches to soft jazz and everywhere in between. There are even themes for each of the nine planetary characters. Such a wild, weird, and wonderful soundtrack and it alone is worth the price of admission.
Phew! So can you guess, that this is totally and absolutely recommended!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
That's right, we're not crazy. We knew we'd be hearing some more skweee soon. Skweee? That's the Scandinavian DIY funked-up, glitched-out instrumental electro subgenre that we got all addicted to when we discovered it last year. We raved about two rad skweee comps, the Museums Of Future Sound Vols. 1 and 2, released by the Swedish skweee-centric Flogsta Danshall label. And we figured we'd be hearing more, once word really got out.
Well, it's England's Planet Mu label who now takes the lead in getting down with the skweee, signing Eero Johannes for his debut album. Eero had a track on MoFS Vol. 2, which also appears here (re-recorded?): "Finnrexin". That one is killer, but there's lots more here besides that's cool too, from the nervous blip-blip-blippage of "HAL Manifesto" to the 8-bit-y video game funk of "Natt I Sparvagnen" to the utterly catchy "We Could Be Skweeeroes" (which we'd encountered before on the internet)...
Indeed, all 13 tracks on this eponymous disc find Eero droppin' the bass with some slammin', squelching fat beats, gettin' jiggy with it, yet somehow (mostly) stayin' chill and relaxed at the same time. He's got a knack for working catchy melodies into his tracks, however frantic they may be. While our preference in skweee leans towards the stuff that's most lo-fi damaged and fucked up, and Eero's music, whilst crunchy, is sorta on the somewhat more polished/produced side of skweee, we're digging it plenty, spinning it a lot in the store.
Heck, didn't we tell ya? This is just the beginning. Warp had better make a skweee signing soon too.
Best skweee album of the year, so far!
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.
After two stunning records of orchestral filmscores released by the stellar Touch Records, Iceland's Johann Johannsson presents his score for the film Dis through The Worker's Institute (who also recently released the lovely debut disc from Amina, Sigur Ros' string section). There is a significant sonic difference between the work Johannsson did for Touch (e.g. a grandiose impressionism for large chamber ensembles augmented with electronics) and this album, which features an almost saccharine pop, '80s feel with repeating motifs and melodies, seemingly designed for particular scenes / emotional ambience within the movie. Johannsson's score for Dis is a fantastic simulation of a dreamy bubble-gum sentimentality, the sort evoked through many of John Hughes soundtracks; to top it off, the repeating motif throughout the Dis is deadringer for the Mickey & Sylvia track "Love Is Strange" which appeared on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. Seriously. As Johannsson envisioned this soundtrack to capture the zeitgeist of 21st Century Reykjavik, one has to wonder if Johannson is comparing Reykjavik to the Breakfast Club / Fast Times teenage American drama of twenty years ago?
Founding member of the Kitchen Motors arts organization in Reykjavik, Johann Johannsson has been at the forefront of adventurous music in Iceland, performing with the Apparat Organ Ensemble and working with some of the more acclaimed Icelandic exports (i.e. members of Sigur Ros, Mum, Stilluppsteypa, Halfer Trio, etc.). "Englaborn" is the first album for Johannsson, who reconstructed this album from the score he wrote for the stage play by Havar Sigurjonsson. Johannsson stated that "The play is extremely violent and disturbing; and basically, when faced with the script, I decided to work against it as much as possible and just try to write the most beautiful music I could." While we do not have the benefit of witnessing the play itself or any images for that matter (beautiful Jon Wozencroft photographs of the sea grace the cover of this album), Johannsson invokes a profound sadness through his descending chord progressions for the Epos Spring Quartet which he augments with spartan use of percussion, electronics, piano, computerized voices, and harmonium. Where Sigur Ros has crafted grandiose operas of Icelandic melancholia, Johann Johannsson simplifies his scores into poignant short stories that nevertheless resonate with those emotions.
Dunno what happened here, but Johann Johannsson totally blows it on Fordlandia. His previous records had tip-toed around the ideas of big Hollywood filmscores, exaggerating the emotional rigor to describe the banal, or composing quietly sad scores to counterpoint a hyperviolent play. But here, the Icelander goes for a full-on melodramatic orchestration, something that would make for the big crescendo on a Jerry Bruckheimer film. Amidst the massive string symphony, some Guitar Hero wannabe rockstar dons the role of The Edge with some tricked out delay appreggiation on his politely 'artful' riffs. Is this supposed to be ironic? Ugh.
