Record number two from these Florida fuzz poppers, their first for Sub Pop subsidiary Hardly Art, and it's brimming with sunshiney jangle and fuzzy caffeinated glammy teenage power pop. These guys take classic sixties garage rock, and filter it through the current crop of retro garage rock, but unlike the twisted sonic lysergy and noisy reverbery of their sonic brethren, these guys keep it simple, their sound lightly psychedelic, heavily sundazed, a little bit dreamily wasted, heavy on the jangle and crunch, the big choruses, the sing alongs, lots of ooooh's and aaaaah's, the drums are simple but propulsive, and these guys definitely know their way around a hook, there's a Ramones vibe too, but it's more Ramones via the Beach Boys maybe, and there are occasional bits of sonic fuckery, a little bit of cool reverbed vocals now and again, but Jacuzzi Boys are way more concerned with whipping up some fun, sunny, beach pop bliss, and they pretty much nail it. Way recommended for fans of Ganglians, the Drums, Crocodiles, Jaill, Kids On A Crime Spree, the Soft Pack and other similarly minded pop combos.
Jadakiss is a member of the Ruff Ryders (along with Eve and DMX) and leader of the Lox. 'Kiss the Game Goodbye' is his first solo record and it's totally great. Dark and simple and stripped down. Big beats and rumbling bass. Hooks galore but still raw and vital. It's all about the delivery though, and Jadakiss sounds mean as shit when he's spitting out the rhymes, but somehow manages
Features production and guest appearances by Nas, DMX, Snoop Dogg, Nate Dogg and more.
Another winner from the seemingly infallible Students Of Decay cd-r label. Who hereby join the ranks of AQ faves like Pseudo Arcana and Celebrate Psi Phenomenon. Maybe not in terms of sheer output, but certainly in terms of quality! This one features a familiar name and some strange underground cross pollination. You may not recognize the name Jade Emperor, but by now, you probably know the name Brad Rose, as the man who runs another killer label, Digitalis, and who also performs as The North Sea. For Jade Emperor, Rose teams up with Wilson Lee and the two explore a haunting world of abstract Appalachia and buzzing ragas and murky drones. The first track is the perfect demonstration. Over the course of 13 minutes, steel string guitars buzz and shimmer, Eastern sounding melodies drift delicately. chords ring out and fade away, this ambient folk gradually overtaken by a subtle murmuring rumble, that builds to a dark and slithery smear of sound, over which, haunting super affected psych guitar figures twist and turn. Slightly sinister but totally captivating. For the second track, the guitars retreat and allow slow waves of buzzing drone to build into a slow pulsing current.
Then the final track is like an unhinged version of the first. As if the band performing the opening track, were suddenly transported to another place. Free of gravity, of the laws of nature and physics. So the music just sort of drifts and dissipates, riffs splinter into fragments, strummed chords become sing spinning notes, the track breaks apart into its constituent parts, and the result is a dense cloud of sounds and notes and whirs and buzzes and melodic fragments and instrumental snippets, a sort of organic raga, decay becoming the music of nature. Gorgeous!
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES! So you can bet these won't last long...
Ms Sara Jaffe (former guitarist for SF's Erase Errata) heeded the call of the classroom, moved out east a short while ago and now calls Boston home. Academia might take up much of her time out there but clearly music continues to flow in her veins. Her hushed heart-on-her-sleeve songs as a solo artist definitely stand in stark contrast to the angular, somewhat cerebral punch of her old band's. Salt And Water's five acoustic folksy numbers are ultra intimate and Spartan. Wistfully pretty.
Wow! This kicked our asses. Traditional '80s metal done real well -- probably 'cause these guys released their first album way back then ("Ample Destruction" circa 1984). After a looong hiatus, they began a comeback attack several years ago, somewhat
Considerate, slightly pensive, intelligent, emotionally-balanced, fun-loving, stylish, SCANDINAVIAN, really into lying in a beautiful field on a clear night staring at stars, and really REALLY into lavishing you with loads of attention. Sound like a pretty sweet boyfriend? A boyfriend named... Jaga??
Hmmm, I know that was pretty weird, but it just seems like this double cd album from Norway's mega 10-piece band, Jaga (formerly Jaga Jazzist), is the perfect mate for plane or train travel, curling up with at night to read by the fire, afternoon painting sessions in the studio, and, oh, I don't know, dining on smoked salmon by the sea at sunset in a futuristic floating space-bar made of ice.
Jaga's latest -- a limited edition 2cd album, What We Must/Spydeberg Sessions -- is a stylistic culmination of their cosmic space jazz form. AND NOW! With more guitars! What We Must (the first disc) takes this trippy dippy blissful ride through a jazzy cosmos that doesn't seem TOO many light years away. Definitely their/his most mature and well-formed album to date. Every instrument, including all those electronic, is perfectly balanced in the mix. At no point does one speak more loudly above the others. That is, until the second song on the second disc!
All I Know Is Tonight (on disc 2) apparently is a "rough rough mix", but I love it! A nearly raging guitar lashes out at you in the first few measures before settling down into the musical pit. We must say, the roughness is really quite wonderful. The polish of their proper album songs almost lacks character in a way, leaving you to float around intelligently in their prozac'd smooth-space-jazz blissdom. It's nice to have both here. Glad they included this second disc! Other treats on it include demos of "Mikado", "Stardust Hotel" and "Swedenborgske Rom".
Fans of Sea and Cake, Tortoise and other like-mindedly thoughtful Thrill Jockey post-rock type artists should truly love this record. For you, it will take that sound to a new level. Level '05. Fans of Jaga's earlier works should be radiantly pleased with this. Tres recommended!
Originally a Norwegian-only release from 1998, Jaga Jazzist's Magazine is this hybrid post-rock/jazz ensemble's especially jazz-oriented second album. Now re-issued and available globally, it contains the song "Plym", recorded and produced by Helge Sten (aka Deathprod, also known from Supersilent) and "Seems To Me", a mellow and beautifully presented solo-ish offering from band-member Martin Horntveth. The songs on Magazine are far less electronically considered than their later releases, much more human than machine for the maverick Norwegian 10-piece. Well worth checking out!
One of San Francisco's more popular artists in the Mission School scene along with Barry McGee and Chris Johanson is Jason Jagel, whose colorful sprawling paintings of disassociative word fragments and energetic stream-of-conscious drawings of copulation and urban detritus get a full monograph treatment here, a big beautiful oversized tome that perfectly suits Jagel's eye popping work. Having done many record covers for Madlib in his many sonic guises and collaborations such as Madvillian, MF Doom, and The Beat Konducta, this handsome, beautifully reproduced full color collection comes with an exclusive Madlib 10", featuring as of now, all unreleased tracks. The thing is HUGE, and heavy, so if you order just this, it'll have to ship at the three item rate, but it's worth it, this is the kind of book you can totally get lost in, and the record is pretty bad ass to boot!
For every band the hype machine catapults into the stratosphere of underground indie rock next big thing-ness, a hundred others get pushed aside, forgotten or ignored, many of those WAY more deserving of the accolades, and the praise, and more importantly, the ears of the listener, but for whatever reason, wrong label, no hyped tours, bad business sense, no blogosphere freakouts, no connections to other even cooler bands, those bands can only do so much, which often means simply making an incredible record, that practically nobody hears. Some bands tough it out, make more records, eventually getting noticed, and then everyone can return to that old record and finally proclaim it a masterpiece, and lament the fact that it was so overlooked, but many bands put everything they have into that record, energy, creativity, money, time, and when nothing happens, they just give it up, which is always a sad sad thing.
So what does that have to do with Wisconsin psych pop combo Jaill? Nothing really, other than the fact, that these guys have been around since 2002, have released a bunch of other records, but with That's How We Burn, have made probably the best, catchiest psychedelic indie pop record of the year, maybe the last several years, yet they rarely pop up on blogs, we rarely hear tastemakers shouting from the mountaintops about Jaill, or about That's How We Burn. Compare that to, say, Best Coast, who we also love, but whose every move, every sound is covered by every blog in the world. It's weird, cuz this Jaill record, holy shit, for folks who hear hundreds of new records every month, many of them amazing, for ONE SINGLE record to get played over and over, as in 5, 6 even 10 times a day, well as far as recommendations go, it's pretty tough to beat. But as with most pop records, it starts with one song, that one song that sinks it's hooks into you, and won't let go, and no matter how good the rest of the record is, you just can't stop yourself from listening to that same song over and over and over. And on That's How We Burn, that song is "Thank Us Later", from the first few seconds, you'll be hooked, the slithery melody, the weird drum fill, the echoey guitar jangle, and then when the vocals come in, all weary, slipping from croon to almost falsetto, and then the chorus, a fucking KILLER, the sort of chorus that some bands build a whole career on, and then there's an equally catchy bridge, the whole song pretty much perfect, a little bit surf rock, a little bit Brit rock, a little bit modern garage pop, but the song itself, it's the kind of jam any of the current crop of lo-fi garage poppers would KILL for, Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, Sic Alps, Male Bonding, we could go on and on, but the songs on Jaill stand up to anything any of those bands can come up with, and then some.
And where as lots of records we love have one of those opening one-two-three punches, an opening salvo that slays, and makes the whole record super front loaded, but on That's How We Burn, those one-two-three punches are everywhere, in fact, pick a song, and it's the first in one of those kick ass salvos, and yeah, sure, the opening three tracks are tough to beat, "The Stroller" is dark and hypnotic and a little bit gloomy, mixing in some Interpol and Rapture to their more slacker surfy sound, and weirdly it suits them big time, and it has a wicked crunchy chorus, the whole thing driven by some serious bad ass riffing, and some cool harmony vocals, which leads right into "Everyone's Hip" which sounds more slackery, a little bit like the Soft Pack or the Strokes, mixed with a bit of pavement, with a weird angular verse, and totally insanely hooky bridge and a cool doo wop-y chorus. Finally, "On The Beat" finishes off that opening salvo with something a little bit more laid back and laconic, the guitars droney and hypnotic, and another irresistible chorus, lots of crunch and thump and chug, and some cool vocal harmonies.
Which leads us right into "Thank Us Later", 1-2-3 salvo number two, and of course we STILL aren't tired of listening to it, but after another time through, we're led right into "Summer Mess" an awesome stripped down acoustic jam, with some snarky lyrics, but with the heartfelt delivery, and the amazing melody, it's pretty tough to fight, and finally, another guitar comes in, and some simple percussion, making the last 30 seconds lush and sunshiney and summery. And finally part 3, "She's My Baby", a driving groover, with another cool chugging guitar part, clanging chiming chords, and yet ANOTHER amazing chorus, which by now should lead you to the conclusion that these guys know their way around a hook, and aren't afraid to jam a whole mess of them into a single song.
We could keep going, another three-fer, starting with "Snake Shakes", which begins with the bassline from Billy Squier's "Everybody Wants you", before the vocals transform the song into something much more lilting and jangly... But you get the drift, pretty much every song here is awesome, catchy and crunchy and jangly and hooky, and unlike the horde of bands today who think enough reverb and weird lo-fi production techniques will disguise the fact that there's nothing going on underneath, Jaill, don't bother, cuz they don't need to, maybe that's why they're not getting the hype the so deserve, not noisy enough, not weird enough, not lo-fi enough, not hazy sixties girl group enough, but fuck it, who cares, this rules, we love it, and we think you will too, and we can't offer up any more hype than making this an aQ Record Of The Week and the thousand or so words you just finished reading...
We made Jaill's That's How We Burn our Record Of The Week back in 2010, and here it is more almost two years later, and literally the only thing that is keeping us from STILL listening to that record constantly, is a NEW Jaill record the third full length since 2009 from this psych pop outfit from Milwaukee, and while ANY record that is the follow up to one as obsessively and slavishly listened to as That's How We Burn is already set up to be a disappointment, all it took was a few listens to Traps to convince us that while this might not be our favorite Jaill record, it's our second favorite, and that alone puts it miles ahead of pretty much all of the other indie pop records out there. The secret weapon on That's How We Burn was "Thank Us Later" (which to this day, remains the most played tune in Andee's iTunes), which definitely ranks up there as one of our favorite pop jams ever. On Traps, that honor this time around ends up being a tie between album opener "Waste A Lot Of Things", and the record's final track "Stone Froze Mascot". "Waste A Lot Of Things" is a perfect slab of jangly indie pop, beholden to much of what came before, but so distinctive it could only be Jaill, a little surfy, a little indie rock, but the melodies, the vocals, the strange arrangements, the lush production, the impossible hooks and killer chorus. We'd been listening to that track nonstop, and it wasn't the first time we listened to the whole record all the way through, that we finally discovered "Stone Froze Mascot", which sounds like a weirdly new wavey dub version of a track from the first record, fuzzy synth low slung bassline, up-stroke guitar, hazy la la la background vocals, weird FX, the vocals dubbed out too in places, the whole thing so impossibly catchy, and yet still so weird.
And it's not just those bookends, with every listen, we discover a new favorite. "Everyone's A Bitch" is a current fave, all big guitar jangle, and chiming classic pop chorus, although "I'm Home" is another doozy, all off kilter and woozy but crazy catchy, and "Perfect Ten" a sort of stripped down sleeper hit, hell, we're on the verge of just going through the whole record song by song. New favorite pop record hands down, and the only record that's managed to bump the first Jaill or the recent Mrs Magician record, which is saying a LOT. Anyone who loved That's How We Burn, needs this, and anyone after some crazy catchy off-the-beaten-path slightly off kilter indie rock, you could not do better than this. Already secured a spot on some of our year end top ten lists, and it's only June!
Another entry in the ever expanding brooding epic post rock sweepstakes, and another winner. What can we say? We love this stuff. This one comes from the band Jakob, hailing from New Zealand of all places. And here we were thinking that New Zealand was all abstract noise, jangle pop and droning sludge. But these guys are none of those. Instead, they follow in the deeeeeep sonic footprints of bands like Mogwai, Isis, Godspeed and the like.
Darkly mesmerizing, slow building, melancholy and moody, slow shifting epics that build into explosive sonic climaxes. Jakob are not one of those metal / post rock hybrids, but they do get heavy, although instead of relying on just distorted guitars and downtuned chug, their heaviness results from melody and intensity, huge walls of chaotic guitar, dense with spaced out FX, whirled into roiling clouds of psychdrone freakout, a logical extension of the riff or melody that has been growing in intensity from the songs' very first hushed whisper.
To be totally honest, nothing here is mind blowing or never-heard-before, but these guys are so good, these songs so emotional and intense, the instrumentation so subtle and precise, the long builds so tense and harrowing, the explosion of sound at the songs' climax so furious and white hot, it almost does sound like something you've never heard before, these guys manage to make these sounds new and fresh, exhilarating, intense, epic and majestic....
Which is really all that matters.
Glass Canyons marks the first time, Bay area-based experimental musician Marielle V. Jakobsons (Date Palms, Myrmyr, darwinsbitch) has recorded under her own name, and it's a delicate balance between her more classical and experimental tendencies. Overriding melodies take a back seat to texture, rhythm and spatialization, the feeling of hiking through a varied terrain of wild topographies: glacial drift, windy deserts and oceanic turbulence. Bowed vibrational strings sometime sway in lyrical folk filigrees, but only make apparitional appearances throughout before disintegrating in a sea of modulating tones and an undercurrent of bell-tone piano figures. Darker uncertain moods sometimes cloud over before blissful lighter notes burst forth like dappled sunlight. It's an album that has the uncanny ability of feeling free-form and carefully constructed at the same time, and so in tune with a sensitive nature that makes it seem like we're roaming through a strange new world. Lovely!
Another three inch chunk of demented black metal weirdness from the UK. If you love the grim bizarre buzz of Old Forest, who recently returned after nearly 7 years, and whose own 3" cd-r we reviewed a few lists back, or the medieval madness of Meads Of Asphodel, then odds are you're gonna love Jaldoboath. From the same strange land, and featuring at least one dark knight who has done time in both Meads and Old Forest, Jaldoboath sound a bit like the Meads mixed with power metal thrashers Bal Sagoth, if they were a bit less serious and had recorded a holiday album. Seriously. The guitars gallop, the riffs and melodies are soaring and triumphant, the vocals are gurgly and growly, but there are horns, fanfares, fluttering flutes, jaunty little jigs, strange little sound effects, proggy organs, it's almost like listening to the strangely metal court musicians of King Arthur's court in some alternate reality.
Songs like "Bring Me The Head Of Metatron", "Seek The Grail", "Hark The Herald" and "Da Vinci's Code", each track plays like the theme music for some insane medieval Monty Python metal sitcom. On "Seek The Grail" you can almost picture the credits, the freeze frames as each character is introduced, and the horns, make it sound almost ska at times. "Jargue De Molay" is the least goofy, playing instead like some metallized Emerson Lake And Palmer, with awesome organ jams, creepy crackly breakdowns, a wicked main riff, all peppered with hand claps, blasting double kick, minor key trumpets, throbbing bass.
But then right after that comes the title track, which has a strange sing song vocal line, over a lopped trumpet fanfare, and a very holiday sounding main melody. Like a legion of musical mall Santa's gone metal and marauding through the hordes of innocent holiday shoppers. But then the last track swoops in, sounding a bit like Tool filtered through UK black metal buzz, all brooding buzz, Eastern sitar like melodies, and crooned baritone vocals. Over the top and dramatic, and weirdly hooky. WTF?
So fucking far out. But if like us, you're already a loyal knight of the Meads round table and sometime dweller in the Old Forest, well then this is just the sort of thing you can't get enough of.
WAY recommended, but only for truly twisted musical souls...
And like the Old Forest 3"cd-r also on Death To Music, SUPER LIMITED!!!
2-on-1 reissue.
The '80s aren't the first decade most people think of when it comes to rich, deep and spiritual jazz. But Khan Jamal is one of those special artists who has kept his integrity fully intact from his beginnings in the early '60s, playing vibes for Byard Lancaster, as well as creating a free-jazz masterpiece called Drumdance To The Motherland in 1973, with his Creative Arts Ensemble, which was finally given a proper release a couple years back after being a private press only LP. Through the years, he's also played with folks like Sunny Murray and Frank Wright, his mighty vibes often defining the sound as much as that of the band leaders themselves.
This newly reissued 1989 album finds Jamal in top form, again, behind the vibes, performing with dizzying perfection in a quartet that also features cello, bass and drums. There is a sonic breadth displayed on Cool, from blistering fast flurries to the more slow and spiritual and even moments that almost sound like proto-Stereolab, as well as some amazing brooding almost Klezmer that would be right at home on Tzadik! One of those albums that jazz freeks for sure will enjoy, but even those who aren't usually down for jazz, there's much to latch onto in these sounds. So many sounds and samples that we think J Dilla would have loved to plunder and that Flying Lotus just might incorporate into future outings. These grooves have the most amazing vibes (pun most definitely intended!).
The name James Din A4 is a new one to us, but most likely not for longtime fans of minimal techno and leftfield electronic music. This disc collects a whole mess of previously released tracks, all culled from super limited self released vinyl lps, on cd for the very first time, and is really pretty difficult to describe. Opener "The Seaside" is quite possible our electronic jam of the year, and pretty much displays the best of what James Din A4 has to offer, crammed into a single track. From the opening fuzzed out loop, which could have been yanked wholesale from a Field B-side, to the skittery super minimal click track, to the spaced out electro groove that follows, various strange chopped samples and vocal bits, over the course of the first few minutes, the track gets less and less minimal and more and more playful, all sorts of beep and buzz, the melodies all sunshiney and bubbly, but still all wrapped around that warm whirring intro, finishing off with a snippet of the sea shanty that gives the track its name.
This is definitely lo-fi minimal techno, but there's some electro going on, some definite nod to the 8-bit side of electronica, that opening track is so warm and whirry, especially the main loop, that we can't help but think of The Field, but the rest of the record not so much, more sort of playful and goofy, definitely plenty of dancefloor silliness here and there, the sort of sounds that could easily spawn their own ill-advised dance, but for the dancefloor averse (like some of us) this is total headphone ear candy, that slips from wild and wooly and weird to muted moody and minimal, some tracks sound like fractured exotica, others like skittery Oval mashups, still others are just gorgeously minimal and dark, while still others are groovy and playful. Maybe our favorite track is "Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me", a way too brief song constructed from chopped and looped fragments of sixties jangle pop, reminding us a bit of Terry Riley's "You're No Good", and similarly would have sounded amazing expanded to fill up a whole disc.
This year has been crammed with amazing electronic music, and with less than two months to go, Fistel Rose has surfaced just in time to join our list of 2008 favorites...
Packaged in a 6 panel black and white digipak, with a huge booklet filled with all sorts of crazy artwork, from back and white line drawings to eye popping full color collages, all done by Mr. James Din A4 himself!
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
Now part of that special $5 cd sale deal, so there's no excuse not to own a copy of this vintage heavy classic (even just to check it out if you haven't heard it before). Here's an expanded version of what we said about this when we first listed the cd version some years ago:
Newly remastered and reissued, the James Gang indeed "Rides Again", the title of this, their 2nd album, from 1970. Their first and third albums, Yer Album (1969) and Thirds (1971) have also received the same treatment, and we have 'em, but this is our favorite. Guitarist Joe Walsh (pre-Eagles, y'know) and his biker rock cronies Dale Peters and Jim Fox supply the famed '60s headbang "Funk #49" on this disc, along with extended musical suite "The Bomber" and some beautiful acoustic tunes mixed into the electric rawk. A classic indeed.
Also, does the lettering/logo on the cover look at all familiar? It should, to anyone with who has seen our aQ logo. Heh heh heh. That's how much we like this one...
By now, most folks are so obsessed with Mississippi Records, the vinyl only reissue label (and vinyl-only shop) of Portland, Oregon, that they'll buy ANYTHING those guys put out. And rightfully so. Mississippi has a knack for unearthing absolute treasures, and in most cases, issuing them on vinyl for the first time. The covers are gorgeous, the sound, the mastering, all top notch, The collections, assembled by the label, are like the best mix tape you could ever hope for. So every time there's a new Mississippi release, we get as many as we can afford, as many as we can fit in the store, and even then it's still usually not enough.
So on this week's list we have not one, not two, but THREE new releases on Mississippi. Actually two are represses of records that came and went in the blink of an eye and thus never made it on the list. But this one, Skip James' 1931 Sessions, is brand spanking new and this is the first time we've had it.
James is a legendary Delta Blues singer and guitarist, and unlike some of the other subjects of Mississippi reissues, his music has been fairly well documented, but this disc, originally released on Yazoo in the mid eighties, is available on vinyl for the first time (or at least the first time in 20 years), and features James' earliest work, and is considered some of the most unique and essential pre-war blues, and is often viewed as his finest work.
And hearing it again, who are we to argue. Not just a singer, or a guitarist, he also played a mean piano, and these songs demonstrate his various talents quite nicely, a gorgeous smooth high voice, rolling honky tonk piano, some awesome guitar picking, the songs timeless, classic, the recording quality varying from crystal clear, to all warm and fuzzy and crackly. His playing is incredibly unique, as is his voice, while he influenced many, few were able to emulate his style. You can read plenty more about James on the internet, but needless to say, this record sounds and looks beautiful.
Awesome jackets, each with original artwork and an actual photographic print affixed to the cover, and with all Mississippi releases, these will probably go fast, and if we are able to get more, we'll probably have to wait for the label to repress it, which they seem to do at their leisure (to be fair, they're also juggling the release and repress of about 5 or 6 other records at any given time) which means, don't dawdle, or you might be in for a bit of a wait...
For this list, we don't just have one, or two, but three of the Early Blues' heaviest hitters newly reissued on vinyl from the always amazing Monk label: Skip James, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and the "Mother of the Blues", Ma Rainey!!!
Of all the bluesmen from the Delta, Skip James is a true auteur. Master of the blues subgenre now known as the "Bentonia school", named for the region he hailed from in Mississippi. He's also one of the longest living, having survived through an early career and a later rediscovery. His signature style of odd guitar tunings, three finger picking and eerie falsetto vocals could make shivers run down your spine. He didn't just interpret material he invented it, influencing the likes of Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and none other than Robert Johnson himself (Johnson's "Hellhound On My Trail, was derived from James "Devil Got My Women"). James didn't begin recording until the early thirties and this collection is pulled from lost Paramount 78 recordings recorded in Grafton, WI. All material is completely original including his most well-known songs such as "I'm So Glad", "Drunken Spree", "Devil Got My Woman" and "Hard Time Killin' Floor Blues".
If you're new to the wonderful Delta Blues sounds of Skip James (perhaps your first exposure to it was via the recent Ghost World film soundtrack), don't miss this '94 collection compiling his rare, early 78's. Highly influential and respected, Skip James'
Yet another one man band cooking up glorious batches of home brewed hazy garage-y dream pop, this one going by the curious name of Jameses, aka Adam Perry (yep, not James), and for a sound that is done to death on a daily basis, this guy manages to make us dig it all over again. A soft focus fuzz wrapped around super textured and ever shifting cascading sheets of pulsing, swirling heavily effected guitars, all wrapped around layered, overlapping melodies, anchored to some rumbling cloomy basslines, and peppered with yelped reverby vox. A little cold wave-y especially on the A side, while the B side gets even more washed out and druggy, a sort of fun house mirror / circus midway psych pop, rife with all manner of warped effects and seriously twisted production, all while managing to remain fantastically poppy and catchy.
Ah, the glory that was NWOBHM! (Do we need to spell it out? The New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, a wondrous musical phenomenon of the late '70s/early '80s, yeah, you know.) A couple lists back, in our review of the killer Wolfbane disc released by Shadow Kingdom, we mentioned there were several other cool recent NWOBHM reissues we'd be listing soon, here's one of 'em, also on Shadow Kingdom, an archival collection of material by this fairly obscure Birmingham band (named for a historical incident from the Boer War) who never made proper full-length record but nonetheless did put out some cult classic tracks, including a contribution to the Metal for Muthas II compilation. For some reason, that one's not here, but you do get 14 tracks taken from various eps and demos, etc., among them the three songs from Jameson Raid's 1979 debut single, starting off with the triumphant "Seven Days Of Splendour" (a positive story about a UFO encounter, which, for those of you who were paying attention to our Roxxcalibur review a while back, was one of the songs covered by that NWOBHM tribute band on their highly enjoyable album). The other two are the punky "It's A Crime" (which reminds us of Crushed Butler!), and "Catcher In The Rye" (that's right, inspired by the J.D. Salinger novel). While this band boogied hard for sure, they also apparently liked to have their songs be -about- something, it's thinking man's NWOBHM in a way, quite melodic too, and a bit garagey, really more '70s hard rock proto-metal than anything '80s metallic, harking back to early UFO and Thin Lizzy. Good stuff, and all the tracks here share these charms, some of the songs with sad and weary vibe derived perhaps from Lizzy, others rockin' out like greasy AC/DC...
Packaged with a thick cd booklet stuffed with lyrics, liner notes (including reminiscences from original band members), vintage photos, etc.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
An early catalyst in the Sixties Hollywood scene, Bobby Jameson (Aka Chris Lucey) was the first Mayor of Sunset Boulevard before Kim Fowley and Rodney Bingenheimer and one of its most ravaged casualties. Connected with many of the scene's major and (sometimes tragic) players, Frank Zappa, Andrew Loog-Oldham, Tony Alamo, Pamela DeBarres and Diane Linkletter, Jameson is most remembered for swan-diving off of the Continental Hyatt House on Sunset Blvd. ina failed suicide attempt (i.e. publicity stunt) that broke both of his legs (Diane Linkletter, who was turned on to LSD by Jameson, made a more tragically sucessful leap shortly after.). His recorded output of three lps was marred by a myriad of industry pitfalls though his debut album shows him to be a strong and original song-writer in the Byrds / Dylan vein. Like the liner notes for this reissue state, it wasn't enough to save him from himself.
We read about this recently on Julian Cope's Head Heritage website -- he picked it as his Album of the Month for July 2005. We had to hear it. And having heard it, we liked it enough to order a few of 'em in! The punningly titled Jamnation isn't quite like anything we've come across before. It's, um, stoner rock spoken word. Huh?
We've never been all that big on the "spoken word" thing here at AQ, not really. Stand up comedy, maybe -- of course we like our David Cross records. And Bill Hicks. Even there, the good stuff is a rarity. But spoken word? You say spoken word, we start thinking poetry slam. Not good. Though we'll concede that there's been some worthwhile practitioners of the form. Steven Jesse Bernstein was interesting. And Rollins we have to say has had his moments. And we'll listen to This American Life all day -- we guess that stuff counts as spoken word, right?
But get this. Jamnation is a spoken word album, the voice and words of one Dan McGuire. But it's also a killer stoner/psych rock compilation of sorts. That's 'cause McGuire has gotten it into his head to speak his spoken words not over some tired Beat-style bongo jam or loungey jazz backing, but over searing electric guitar ramalamajama, epic-length tracks he's chosen out by some far-out and obscure heavy rock bands who happen to be faves of his, old and new (American '70s psych monsters the JPT Scare Band and Josefus, modern day stoner space rockers Gas Giant and ILD HU from Holland, and Japan's retro doom hippies Eternal Elysium). Which goes a long way to explaining just how McGuire's Jamnation wound up being so honored by Julian Cope. We certainly can't improve on what Cope wrote -- fella's got a way with words, y'know -- so we suggest you go read it yrself. 'Specially since you should be checking out his site anyway, a recommendation we've made before to all AQ-list readers who are into the psych/heavy side of things. Visit it at www.headheritage.co.uk.
Having picked these tracks out of his record collection (much easier than actually working with actual live musicans, claims McGuire, and we're sure he's right) he then finds the space in each song for his verbal embellishments. It's the same idea really the old Jamiacan DJ's had when they first started "toasting". This really works 'cause McGuire's verbiage is equally billed with the music. Actually it takes a back seat to the music a lot of the time, really. It's not all about him, its about the jams. Sometimes it seems whole minutes will pass while McGuire lets the guitars take center stage. Wow -- a spoken word dude that shuts up when necessary. Cool. And when he is talking, he weaves his words perfectly into the rhythms of the music. His voice is husky and laidback, a little bit like John Wayne / Henry Rollins hybrid, spinning visions of gritty reality and far out freak scenes. What he says is sometimes amusing, often cryptic, and never laughably embarrassing at any rate. It's sorta druggy rambling ranting stuff that fits perfectly with this tunage! Truly, we need to let what he's saying sink in more to give a good account of it...the thing is, McGuire's speech goes so well with the wailing guitars and chugging riffs that we're not always paying the closest attention to what he's on about, we're just digging the totality of the listening experience.
So, in sum Jamnation is a pretty excellent heavy jams comp with a guy talking over it at times, in a pretty cool, Lizard King way that fits in with the music anyway.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
After Comus' genius First Utterance record was re-released (soon, supposedly, to be re-re-released, with bonus tracks), this left Jan Dukes De Grey as THE missing seventies psych / prog / folk holy grail. And rightfully so. Originally released in 1971 (the year Allan has determined that almost every great seventies record was released, even though he was only two years old then), this record manages to be totally brilliant and absolutely absurd at the same time. It has much in common with the Comus record, super dramatic trilling vocals, frenzied acoustic guitars and manic bongos. But there the similarities end. Where Comus took those elements and created a harrowing pagan ritual, Jan Dukes De Grey take those same elements and embark on a freaked out prog journey into utter madness. Sweetly melodic flutes, acoustic guitars, and weirdly bombastic drumming are woven into a weird and wonderful lilting British folk, peppered with an ultra-memorable little arpeggiated guitar lick that you won't be able to get out of your head, pausing once for a fierce heavily strummed riff that sounds almost Sabbathy before resuming it's sweet folky journey. Then suddenly the whole thing is thrown into chaos by a brief splattery drum break, which the band emerges from in entirely different garb. An epic journey through angular, almost eighties sounding nowave skronk, damaged seventies prog, ultra twee psychfolk and avant jazz krautrock. Weaving wildly from sound to sound, muted duck like saxophone, super distorted acoustic guitar, warbling trumpets, manic bongos, soaring strings, fluttering flamenco sputter, employing a massive arsenal of instruments: violin, cello, zeldaphone (!), clarinet, recorder, chanter, harmonica, hunting horn, glockenspiel, as well as a 'clothes horse' contraption with a hanging flat drum, tabla, cymbal, chimes and Indian bells. And that's all in the first song! Twenty plus minutes of freaked out psych-prog-folk brilliance.
The second track sounds much more traditionally seventies British folk, but only compared to the first track. Jaunty and folky, occasionally dark and menacing, with bursts of maniacal strumming, and sweet vocal harmonies, before the band switches gears and belts out a wild klezmer folk-prog shuffle that sounds quite a bit like Uz Jsme Doma. The final track is a dense and relentless, heavy psychedelic swirl, with jagged wah guitars, throaty theatrical vocals and wild octopoidal Krupa-ish drumming, thumping tribal tom toms and sizzling cymbals. Phew.
Take a dash of Comus, a pinch of the Incredible String Band, a hint of Jethro Tull, a splash of Captain Beefheart, a drop of Uz Jsme Doma and a whole lot of LSD and shake vigorously! Liner notes by Current 93's David Tibet.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Finally available again, one of our favorite weirdo psych folk records EVER, reissued, with a whole 'nother record tacked on. The previously reviewed disc, Mice And Rats In The Loft, it definitely the reason to pick this up, the other record, the band's debut Sorcerers, is just a bonus. More on that one further down, first let's talk about the genius of Mice And Rats In The Loft:
After Comus' genius First Utterance record was re-released, this left Jan Dukes De Grey as THE missing seventies psych / prog / folk holy grail. And rightfully so. Originally released in 1971 (the year Allan has determined that almost every great seventies record was released, even though he was only two years old then), this record manages to be totally brilliant and absolutely absurd at the same time. It has much in common with the Comus record, super dramatic trilling vocals, frenzied acoustic guitars and manic bongos. But there the similarities end. Where Comus took those elements and created a harrowing pagan ritual, Jan Dukes De Grey take those same elements and embark on a freaked out prog journey into utter madness. Sweetly melodic flutes, acoustic guitars, and weirdly bombastic drumming are woven into a weird and wonderful lilting British folk, peppered with an ultra-memorable little arpeggiated guitar lick that you won't be able to get out of your head, pausing once for a fierce heavily strummed riff that sounds almost Sabbathy before resuming it's sweet folky journey. Then suddenly the whole thing is thrown into chaos by a brief splattery drum break, which the band emerges from in entirely different garb. An epic journey through angular, almost eighties sounding nowave skronk, damaged seventies prog, ultra twee psychfolk and avant jazz krautrock. Weaving wildly from sound to sound, muted duck like saxophone, super distorted acoustic guitar, warbling trumpets, manic bongos, soaring strings, fluttering flamenco sputter, employing a massive arsenal of instruments: violin, cello, zeldaphone (!), clarinet, recorder, chanter, harmonica, hunting horn, glockenspiel, as well as a 'clothes horse' contraption with a hanging flat drum, tabla, cymbal, chimes and Indian bells. And that's all in the first song! Twenty plus minutes of freaked out psych-prog-folk brilliance.
The second track sounds much more traditionally seventies British folk, but only compared to the first track. Jaunty and folky, occasionally dark and menacing, with bursts of maniacal strumming, and sweet vocal harmonies, before the band switches gears and belts out a wild klezmer folk-prog shuffle that sounds quite a bit like Uz Jsme Doma. The final track is a dense and relentless, heavy psychedelic swirl, with jagged wah guitars, throaty theatrical vocals and wild octopoidal Krupa-ish drumming, thumping tribal tom toms and sizzling cymbals. Phew.
Take a dash of Comus, a pinch of the Incredible String Band, a hint of Jethro Tull, a splash of Captain Beefheart, a drop of Uz Jsme Doma and a whole lot of LSD and shake vigorously!
As if that weren't enough, this double disc reissue tacks on the group's 1970 debut, Sorcerers, which while still quite cool, is not nearly as weird or rocking or proggy as the follow up, instead it's a heady slice of lysergic seventies acid folk, lots of acoustic guitars, fluttery flutes and of course, those acidy trilled Comus like vocals. Seems unfair to Sorcerers to pair it up with a record as mind blowing as Mice And Rats, but they do work well together, it's easy to hear the seeds in Sorcerers that would soon blossom into something much more twisted and gnarled and freaky. Definitely essential for folks into classic British sixties and seventies psych folk, and a great record, but odds are you'll probably find yourself gravitating toward Mice And Rats In The Loft anyway.
Either way, this set is way way way recommended! Includes all new liner notes, as well as the original album notes, newspaper clippings, and tons of super cool photos.
We've been experiencing something of a Jandek craze here at aQuarius as of late. Not that Houston's legendary loner went away or anything - it's just when you have 60+ albums to your name it can be possible to overwhelm anyone trying to write a review. Well, the last few Jandek releases have overwhelmed us in the best way imaginable, signifying another unexpected turn, this one towards more melodic group improvisations showing a heavy free/spiritual jazz influence with wandering piano melodies, sustained strings, clarinette, dramatic cymbal washes, and an overall sense of restraint that hasn't been really heard on Jandek records before. You get the impression that Jandek, handling the piano on this one, acts more as a conductor outlining the general direction for the songs and trusting his cast of supporting players to simply be themselves within the ensemble. The results are strikingly beautiful while somehow managing to remain classically Jandek-ian in their freewheeling execution.
Atlanta Saturday follows a similar path as the last two releases, Where Do You Go From Here and Maze Of The Phantom, though it predates them, having been recorded in 2007 at the Academy Of Medicine. The album is another beautifully subdued affair with plenty of breathing room and drawn out instrumentation. Who would have ever thought that the man responsible for unleashing one of the strangest careers (if you want to call it that) in modern music back in 1978 would have landed in such a peaceful sounding place three decades later? Of course, once the occasional vocals come in there will be no mistaking who this is, and the recent material appears to be the latest phase in the continuing saga. Again, the emphasis here seems to be on the group dynamic and the songs gel together into one gigantic harmonious whole. If you dug the previous few albums, or possibly even the recent slew of Anton Batagov releases we have been going crazy for, then you will definitely want this one.
There's two things that even people who haven't heard Jandek's music, but have heard of him, know: the mysterious Texas-based "singer/songwriter" is (or, was) even more reclusive than J.D. Salinger, and is VERY prolific, issuing recordings every few months on this own Corwood Industries label, going way back to the late '70s! But now that he's come out of his shell just a bit and taken to actually playing live shows, the former quality of reclusiveness has been shaken (just a little bit), yet on the other hand he's easily able to add even MORE to his already vast discography, by issuing live albums of course. This is his fourth live album, and 48th release overall! Austin Sunday is a double disc documenting his performance at the Scottish Rite Theater in Austin, TX on August 28th, 2005. "The representative from Corwood" (as Jandek likes to be billed) played electric guitar and sang, in his usual unique style, and was accompanied by a pick-up band of local musicians from the indie/improv scene: Juan Garcia on bass and two drummers -- Nick Hennies (of Weird Weeds) and Chris Cogburn. Jandek brought new lyrics along, and then (we assume) he and the band improvised. It gets into some fairly "rockin'" territory, by Jandek standards, if we can even say that about something this haunting and abstract sounding... creepy and weird. "Run away, run away, and don't like me."
If there's a single Jandek record to own, I would strongly recommend this one. "The Blue Corpse" has long been my favorite album from this Texan recluse, and stands as a rare moment of clarity within his typically willful obliteration of blues and folk standards. While there has been no support to such claims from the tightly lipped Corwood Industries, I have to agree with the theory postulated by Seth Tisue (who runs a fantastic Jandek website at http://tisue.net/jandek/) that this album is the aftermath of the breakup between Jandek and the woman known as Nancy who was featured prominently on previous records. While the obvious fact that she never appears on later album lends itself to this theory, the lyrical content -- which is the least obtuse of all of the Jandek records -- is the strongest evidence to Tisue's claim. From 'Your Other Man,' Jandek morosely resigns himself to his fate as a jilted lover: "Well, I guess your mind's made up / Well, I guess there's not much left to do / Go on, see your other man / Walk up the stairs / That's where the stars are / Go on, see your other man." The recurring themes of religion, travelogues, and numbers found on other records have been put on hold for "The Blue Corpse" which constantly returns to citations of killing time, falling into the river, and pining for lost love. Jandek's naturally melacholic wisp of a voice mopes through each of these songs, presenting itself as an embodiment of his internal gloom. Of course, these could be allegorical fictions and metaphoric dramas. Musically, there is also a considerable change in the Jandek approach on "The Blue Corpse" as his solo guitar work is principally acoustic and actually follows recognizably folkish chord progressions. All in all, "The Blue Corpse" makes for a fantastic album.
The Jandek onslaught continues unabated. So much so that we have been forced to actually go back in time and review albums released within the last few years that somehow flew under the radar when they first came out. Jandek's recent direction with melodically rich collaborative albums like Where Do You Go From Here? and Maze Of The Phantom has been enthusiastically received by aQ customers and staff alike, we just can't get enough.
Canticle Of Castaway dates from 2010, and unlike those previously mentioned albums, this is the kind of material that probably separates the casual Jandek listener (if there is such a thing) from the true acolytes. Featuring the most enduring of Jandek recording approaches - the man and his sourly tuned guitar - Canticle is almost jarringly "out there". So if you dig that stuff from the mid-2000s, like the Ruins Of Adventure and When I Took That Train you should find plenty to love; if you found yourself pleasantly surprised by how much you actually liked the past few releases after never really being a fan, you may find yourself cowering in terror. We think it's great that Jandek's still got the old fire within to create such awesome and bizarre tunes that are completely unique to him. Starting with the 29 minute "Don't Go Out", the feel is similar to what you get on the earliest records, but more upfront and less distant sounding, the voice older and more secure sounding in its delivery, but perhaps even weirder in the lyric department (a good thing for sure). Occasional slashes of conventional chords show up, but it's mostly free form strumming and wandering single note melodies. Things follow a similar path with "You Weren't", a brief 6 minute piece before closing with another monster, the 17 minute "Boys Like Blue", which has slightly sparser instrumentation, perhaps hinting at the restraint we've heard on some the recent live stuff. Or perhaps not. It's Jandek, so you'll probably never know. So yeah, we're definitely giving this our highest recommendation, and we know there are plenty of you who will agree with us. Of course, it wouldn't be a Jandek record without confusing the living fuck out the majority of the human population, so approach at your own risk!
