For a while there, we used to really try and keep up with the detailed reviewin' of new Jandek joints as they came out... but now that we, and he, are on his 52nd (!) record, it's tough. We still like getting a new Jandek cd, to get another shot of that one of a kind Jandek feeling (lonely, weird, confusional) and they're cheap enough, so we hope he keeps on cranking 'em out (pretty sure he will, based on his track record over the last thirty years!!) but having something new to say about the mysterious Texas troubadour isn't easy.
Of course, he's not *quite* so mysterious as he used to be, with live performances (begun in 2004) now almost commonplace. The front cover picture on this one (a grinning red haired man, who now we can identify as Jandek himself in younger days, photographed against a portion of Houston skyline) needn't necessarily be read for signs and portents the way they used to, but his words and music remain pretty opaque.
On The Myth Of Blue Icicles there's four songs in the typical Jandek mold of minimal, meandering (track 3, "The Daze", is over 14 minutes long), not-so-melodic outsider folk: Lethargic, stream of consciousness singing-talking, sounding pained and maybe a little drunk. Atonal, abstract guitar strum. Also pained and somewhat drunken. But for sure not jolly-drunken... this is all about emotively sparse, depressive atmosphere.
And it's a proper solo "studio" album, not one of the many live documents with avant-indie sidemen that Jandek's label Corwood has been releasing of late as well. Not that the distinction is terribly meaningful, since Jandek's live records feature all new songs anyway, and also any album with Jandek on it is indeed equally uniquely Jandek...
On the evidence of his unwieldy catalog of atonal folk damage and lithium soaked vocalizations, it's not an uncommon assumption that Jandek has absolutely no clue about music, but rather has stuck with the same untrained ethos of raw expressionistic power since his debut album "Ready For This House." However, albums like "The Place" hold a few obscure, revelatory keys into the mysteries of Jandek, offering the possibility that the entire catalogue of Jandek records is far from untrained, but quite deliberate and maybe even musical.
As it's hard to say just exactly how old Jandek is, given his hermetic reluctance to speak to the media, the best guess places him in his late 40s with the assumption that he began recording in 1978 in his early '20s. Age is clearly a factor for "The Place," not so much as a lyrical theme in Jandek's songs; but rather, it's a simple fact that he's getting older and his voice is growing deeper. Just as Leonard Cohen and Michael Gira have shifted the key of the mature songs to accompany their lowered voices, Jandek has downtuned his guitar to match his voice. The sounds of him scrabbling across the strings with an indifferent half-strummed / half-picked acoustic guitar style are not that different from anything that he's produced in the past 10 years or so. Yet these detacted, angular reconstitutions of folk and blues chords have the distinct musical direction of matching his changing voice. It's a very subtle difference, but one that fans of Jandek should certainly take note of.
What to say about Jandek that hasn't already been said. This is release number 49, the last of 2006, if�you're already a fan, you might have to buy this one too (some of us here are so inclined), if none of the last 48 records have managed to turn you into a fan, odds are this one won't either. That's not to say it isn't good, it is, really good actually, but good in that way only Jandek records can be good. An alternate universe of sound, where a 'good' Jandek record is one that seems to be mostly solo bass and vocals. Plodding lugubrious low end, simple fumbling basslines, and that atonal croon, spewing tales of sadness and misery and loneliness and despair. The ultimate outsider solo doom folk death trip. Recommended, if that's your sorta thing. It is ours...
Nine, yes nine, compact discs of Jandek ticklin' the ivories, and as always, Corwood Industries keeps this package at a very reasonable price. We probably don't need to go too much into the Jandek mythology, but we will mention that it is becoming clearer that Jandek is a self-aware artist and one who has a fair amount of knowledge of the world in which he exists. As is the case on albums like Blue Corpse and One Foot In The North, he can trade in the brutalism of atonal folk-strum for a rare declaration of urgent directness which still drips with utter sorrow. So when it comes to the piano, don't worry he doesn't just aimlessly plink and plonk around the piano for these nine discs (almost 700 minutes of music!). Just as he is very aware of the blues tradition when it comes to the guitar, he folds in the idioms of Satie's wallpaper music and Chopin's nocturnes within his own Jandekian vision. These meanderings are often pastoral and hypnotic; but occasionally, he gets into a manic, atonal frenzy that is maybe more what you might expect from a Jandek solo piano outing. What more do you want to know? It's 9 fucking CDs, NINE!! Of Jandek! JANDEK!!!
Jandek has put down his guitar for a second a capella album that's half-sung / half-spoken following "Put My Dream On This Planet." These two a capella albums debunk the myth that Jandek recorded all of his albums during an excessively manic period of his life, as the voice which utters and lolligags through the stream of consciousness verbage has clearly aged from the wispy
The previous albums from Jandek have often re-visisted the chord progressions of delta blues and Appalachian folk. Of course, our Texas mystery man obliterated these archetypes into a raw expression of abjection, sorrow, revelation, and ecstacy, typified in "The Blue Corpse" and "Ready For The House." Jandek's 1993 release "Twelfth Apostle" finds him stripping away even those recognizable elements from his already spartan productions. Here, Jandek offers just an atonal fingerpicking and strumming of his acoustic guitar with his voice wavering against whatever musical grain might be in the music. A static patina of reverb and delay occasionally smears across some of the tracks on "Twelfth Apostle," sinking his voice further into the mix and making him sound much more detatched than on previous efforts. It's a very cold and impersonal facet of Jandek's complex cosmology that seeps out from his huge catalogue of records which he's been making since the late '70s. Seth Tisue's excellent Jandek web site offers the pithy remark that this album is "thorny and ambivalent." Well said.
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Jandek's always been a difficult proposition, with his atonal deconstructed blues, drastically out of tune guitars, howled and groaned harrowingly emotional vocals, definitely an acquired taste. So to imagine Jandek sounding EVEN MORE atonal, and off key, and detuned, and damaged, seem pretty much impossible. But that's precisely what has happened on What Else Does The Time Mean, the 46th Jandek, release and the 3rd of 2006! We were worried that Jandek's mystery would have faded with his recent shuffle into the spotlight (including several live shows), but if anything it's only made him more of an enigma. A handful of live performances and a higher profile than he's ever had in his entire career have done absolutely nothing to change his totally unique, totally fried haunting abstract blues stumble. If anything it's pushed it even further OUT. This record is totally damaged and incredibly difficult to listen to even by Jandek standards. The opening track is a 16 minute stoned stagger, a lugubrious drift through prickly steel string strum, accopanied by a slurred, sleepy sounding, stream of conciousness tone deaf mumble. The rest of the record follow essentially the same sonic blueprint, each tune a tiny tragedy, each one a creepy out of tune crawl through a drunken drowsy abstract blues-scape. This is definitely dark and emotional stuff, practically dripping with pathos, a seriously intense soul laid bare for sure, but the sound of pain and anguish is meant to be sharp, and jagged, sounds that help the listener feel that pain as if it was being inflicted upon them, which in a way it kind of is. What Else Does The Time Mean is a gloriously and fantastically uneasy listen, the sort of musical discomfort we've come to expect, and anticipate from quite possibly the saddest sounding man in the world!
Oh geezus more Jandek!
Last time we listed Jandek's most recent album Maze Of The Phantom and the response was pretty great, so it only made sense to backtrack a few steps with this similarly amazing album highlighting what seems to be a new direction for this legendary songsmith. For the sake of convenience it's easy to divide Jandek's massive catalog into the early, later, and live stages. But with this and Maze, Jandek seems to have effortlessly glided into new realms that bring the energy and mood of his recent live shows into the studio for some surprising and very rewarding listening. And by "studio", we aren't talking Jandek's house in Houston, but something at least approximating a professional recording setup. Which is good, because the interaction between the musicians and the spaciousness of the room are essential to the feel of this material. Like Maze Of The Phantom, the free jazz influence is strong here, with piano and evocative drumming providing the backbone for the songs, which also include some classic Jandek-style harmonica shrieking and spare vocals from the man himself and someone that we halfway suspect may be frequent collaborator Richard Youngs (ok, we just checked, it is, and that's drummer Alex Neilson on here too, though apparently all three switch instruments from time to time). While things generally flow quite melodically, guitar and bass are featured on some of the numbers, leading to some of the most tensely awesome moments on the record where it sort of sounds like the Godz or the Red Crayola at their most zoned jamming with Henry Cowell. Elements of the classic group recordings are present, and it is interesting to note how well Jandek's music is served by drummers who either seem to have picked up sticks for the first time OR know their way around a kit, like Neilson does here; the overall result remains strikingly similar and unique to Jandek.
Thankfully Jandek shows no signs of slowing down - he never really has - and not many artists could continually reinvent and redefine themselves with such awesome and uncompromising results. Jandek albums represent a musical journey free from the guiding laws of industry and popular culture, approaching levels of freedom that most musicians will never reach. And while that has led some not so easy listening in the past, things here sound unmistakably joyous, even in the darker moments. Rather than leading the show, the man seems more like a conductor as well as a participant in a telepathically linked ensemble. You get the feeling that this is music to be shared and experienced with people. Another vital release that has us looking forward to whatever comes next.
That guy in the sun on the cover again, this time with mutton chop facial hair.
Jandek's thirty-first album unfortunately fulfills the self-effacing title, as the Texan hermit offers his third album of a capella 'songs' and poetic readings. As difficult as they may have been to listen to, his arrangements for questionably competent
The year between the recordings of his masterpiece of introspective depression "The Blue Corpse" and "You Walk Alone" must have been a pretty good year for the Texan mysteryman. This 1988 album is surprisingly celebratory in tone; but as the title implies, "You Walk Alone" is a purely solo project for Jandek, who multi-tracks drums (with a more controlled meandering across a drum kit) and additional guitars onto the archetypal Jandek sound of his ghostly voice and avant-blues songs. The points of interest for this album are the advanced finger picking techniques which haven't previously found their way onto Jandek's albums and the return of a couple of contemporary Jandek themes: the Quinn Boys (who were sung about on "The Blue Corpse") and melting communication devices (mirroring the album title "The Telegraph Melts" with the song "The Telephone Melts").
According to a number of sources, the sole individual behind Jandek is the Texan recluse Sterling Smith. He has never given an interview and rarely spoken to anybody about his work, with most of those few correspondences being documented in Irwin Chusid's "Songs In The Key Of Z." In spite of the reclusive facade, Jandek is incredibly prolific with almost 30 records all of which show
"Your Turn To Fall" is the seventh Jandek album, and is still well within the 'classic' Jandek sound with Smith slowly plucking at open strings on his acoustic guitar and singing with a lithium soaked, breathy falsetto. That voice bares witness to a soul on the verge on a manic / depressive collapse, but wearily manages to hold on just long enough to get through one more song. While "Your Turn To Fall" is not as good as "The Blue Corpse" or "Ready For This House," it stands as one of the stronger, more musical outings for one of the great outsider musicians this world has gotten the chance to hear.
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Jandek is definitely an acquired taste, what with his deconstructed blues guitar and atonal moaning vocals. Totally powerful and personal but very very difficult. The accusation is often levelled that hipsters don't like Jandek because of the music, but because of the music's inherent unlistenability, thus ensuring hipsters are the only ones (the elite) to love Jandek. Probably true in some instances, but there is definitely a beauty and sadness in the music of Jandek, and of course the mystery definitely adds to the allure. Until a few weeks ago, Jandek, had never performed live. In twenty something years. Only one or two people had ever spoken to him or met him. He was the ultimate outsider musician, prolific, brilliant, and completely reclusive. Obviously the perfect subject for a film. Albeit a very difficult subject as source material would obviously be quite limited. Dircetor Chad Freidrichs did a pretty great job of putting together an engrossing and fascinating documentary using mostly album covers, talking heads / interviews and constructed surreal tableaus. The meat of the movie is a series of interviews with record collectors / rabid fans like John Trubee and Byron Coley talking about how they first heard Jandek and what the music meant and all that kind of stuff. The most controversial part of the movie is the only known recorded interview with Jandek, which is really kind of cute and makes Jandek even more appealing, like a regular quiet guy who just likes to make music instead of a creepy recluse. The timing of the DVD's release is a bit remarkable because as we mentioned Jandek recently performed live for the first time in 25 years, which does sort of detract from the mystery of the film, although we imagine it will probably help sales quite a bit. Definitely a cool movie, essential for Jandek fans, and certainly a good way to initiate the Jandek unfamiliar. Even my ex-housemate, who had never heard Jandek, watched the move with me and ended up buying a couple Jandek records soon after! Bonus features include: audio commentary, music only audio track, an album cover featurette, the complete John Trubee interview, audio essay by music critic Douglas Wolk, selections from Jandek albums since the movie was made, interviews with "Jandek scholars" Byron Coley, Irwin Chusid, and Phil Milstein, articles by Katy Vine and Richie Unterberger, reviews and the movie trailer.
Kurt Schwitters meets King Tubby at some well endowed European arts residency program! Andee once said that if our country had the same government financial support for the arts that many European nations have, we'd just get a bunch of "artists" getting paid to "shove fruit up their butt". Which would probably be pretty close to the truth, for better or worse. In the case of Ernst Jandl, one wonders if Mr Jandl was a pensioned haberdasher and the money bestowed upon him in the form of an art stipend was actually a pity payment for the insanity incurred from the years of huffing toxic glue. In actuality, Jandl (1925-2000) was a highly regarded Viennese poet who made his living by day as a high school English instructor. Those who know German, and even more importantly: German & English, will get much more enriched results listening to this disc, as Jandl's sound poetry is not only very difficult to translate, but utilizes a great many puns which make use of English and German phoenetics. 13 Radiophone Texte is a 1966 BBC commissioned radio play in which Jandl recites his sound poetry while having his words processed via tape delay by the station's engineers. Das Rocheln Der Mona Lisa is a similar play from Berlin radio and recorded in 1970. It was originally released only in cassette form and has long been out of print. The liner notes for this disc are all, unfortunately, in German only but a good online translator will get you entertaining results.
Jane is a collaboration between Noah Lennox (a.k.a. Panda Bear of the Animal Collective) and long time friend and fellow record store co-worker Scott Mou. The title track, "Berserker", is a dreamy number with some sort of strumming guitar and cooing vocals soaked in gobs of reverb. It sounds equally like a lo-fi reworking of Cocteau Twins production techniques circa 1984, or a possible inclusion on the next Kompakt Pop Ambient comp. If that don't bring you back, wait to you hear the second track -- "AGG" Report -- which we swear is the Chain Reaction equivalent of Rod Stewart's "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" (as the keyboard melody closely resembles a slowed down version of the first half of the riff from Mr. Stewart's most famous of tunes). The third track, "Slipping Away", begins with a crumbly bass line, with echoing vocals that builds into a chugga-chugga train-like huffing paint experience not disimilar to some of the nicer dance beat tracks from Polmo Polpo's first record, before decomposing into a glistening soundscape of spacey goodness like some early Tangerine Dream record. "Swan" picks up from this soporific state with a 24 minute organ drone and heavily echoed vocals not unlike if Owen Ashworth (of Casiotone For The Painfully Alone) got really, really, really stoned on some of that super potent B.C. bud and started singing whale songs. It's that good! (And we mean that sincerely.)
When a record can suck you into its spell and keep you in its grasp from start to finish you know you have something special on your hands. We hope you got to hear the drugged out and seductive full length Berserker that Scott Mou & Noah Lennox (aka Panda Bear of Animal Collective fame) released in 2005 under the monicker Jane. Now we get the recording of the two's first recording session packaged in a fake out 7" sleeve... And wow! as much as we liked Berserker there is something even more seductive and spell inducing happening on these two 20+ minute space jams. Armed with lo-fi electronics, turntables and keyboards cultivating a sound that takes you in its grasp and lets you float atop the beautiful stoned wave that you find yourself never wanting to get off of. There is something so nice about hearing spacey sounds that aren't so glossed over and studio perfected. The perfect record for twilight filled with pink skies or the late late night when it's time to resign your body and mind and begin to melt away to a better blissed out place. We hear some similarities in strategy and sound to the repetitious drones of William Basinski, early Oval or even imagine a d.i.y Steve Reich coming home from a drugged out rave and wanting to wash the night away, making music in a garage with some beat up equipment with the controls set for the heart of the sky. So very nice!
For ages now we've been trying to stock releases on the Cardinal Fuzz label, with no luck at all. UNTIL NOW! Finally managed to get a hold of a couple Cardinal Fuzz releases, one of which is this sprawling slab of psychedelic space rock from Swedish outfit the Janitors, whose two previous eps are compiled here (along with a couple of bonus remixes) into a single sprawling epic double lp. And all you space/psych rock freeks, everything about this will push ALL your buttons, buzzing tranced out guitars, driving motorik rhythms, echo drenched vocals, equal parts Spacemen 3, Hawkwind, the Velvet Underground, folks who have been digging recent records by Carlton Melton, the Spyrals, Mugstar and the like, add the Janitors to your space psych pantheon.
Droned out and dirgey, drifting and druggy, the tracks are smoldering slow builds, that float through a haze of lysergic shimmer, tranced out and mesmeric, often eventually erupting into some proper heavy psych pound, with blown out buzzing psychedelic guitar shred, clouds of wah guitar swirl, pounding drums, some tracks are laced with Eastern sounding sitar-like melodies, wreathed in clouds of softly swirling effects, others are slow slung and slithery, and still others have some seriously Stooges-y swagger to them, pounding and fierce as fuck, sort of noisy garage rock crossed with classic space rock, an echo drenched and wildly distorted, in-the-red, hypno-psych that KILLS. And while the songs are surprisingly varied, they're woven into a fantastically druggy and tranced out, psychedelic whole, one that definitely ranks as one of our favorite spaced out heavy garage psych releases in recent memory. The remixes are cool too, Al Lover transforms the Spacemen 3-ish slo-mo groover "Death Song" into something more akin to Moon Duo, with motorik programmed rhythms, and some extra psychedelic noise, while Strssmmnt turns the brooding space pop balladry of "Coming Down", into a weird bit of psychedelic electro, shimmery guitars, echoey vocals, warm buzz, and some skittery bloop-bleep rhythms. And the new track, "Nevererverism" (listen below), might be one of our favorites, and already has us hankering for more!
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In what may be an odd way of constructing a soundtrack, the Quay Brothers commissioned the soundtrack of their film Institute Benjamenta to be composed by Lech Jankowski who did not have the privilege to see a single frame of the film before writing the music. The Quay Brothers in turn took Jankowski's dark Polish folk/jazz for guitar, violin, double bass, and minimal percussion and sculpted the film around the score.
Furious and ultra complex jazz/grind from Seattle. Produced by the guy from Converge. Lots of insane tempo changes, stumbling free-noise and crushing walls of grinding guitars. On UK label Rage Of Achilles.
One of three simultaneous reissues of the mid-seventies records Bert Jansch made for the Charisma label. Never before issued on cd, each one remastered under Jansch's personal supervision with extensive liner notes, bonus tracks and extras.
A Rare Conundrum from1977, sees Jansch returning to England and back to a more stripped down acoustic sound after the ambitious folly of Santa Barbara Honeymoon. Charisma at the time was focussed on the new Phil Collins-led Genesis era and gave Jansch lots of room to find a new band and record a new record. Focusing on more traditional, personal, and back-to-basics material ("Pretty Faro", "The Curragh of Kildare"), A Rare Conundrum feels like the most lost and overlooked of the three Charisma records. The backing band Jansch put together for the recording (including members of Dire Straights, Lindisfarne, and Dando Shaft) couldn't obligate themselves to touring, so the album didn't get promoted at all. That's no surprise since it's rather anachronistically out of step with where popular music was heading (punk being the driving musical force at the time), and Charisma's year long delay on its release sealed the record's fate as well as Jansch's stint on the label, which dropped him without notice a couple of years later. The bonus tracks include three song that were included on the European releases of the record under another title before Charisma officially released this record to US markets. A lovely record that is finally getting its much deserved due!
Another leftover Black Friday Record Store Day 2012 release, we only have TWO remaining copies, that's it forever. The late great folk guitarist does "Blackwater Slide" on the A side, "Heartbreak Hotel" on the B side.
Bert Jansch might be best known as one of the founding members of Pentangle, the mid-sixties psychedelic folk group who were, in a way, precursors to many of today's folkie indie bands like Essex Green, the Olivia Tremor Control, Damon and Naomi, etc. Yet his solo career began before Pentangle formed and has lasted much longer, to the present day. While he released lots of records in the '60s, his recent output has slowed to about one per five years. He's still got it though, as the last two selections below will prove.
This is a double disc anthology spanning Jansch's entire career. His singular style of fingerpicking is as immediately identifiable as John Fahey's, even if the traditional "Blackwaterslide" will remind you of Zeppelin because they covered it too. The liner notes list the provenance of each track in detail, so you can seek out individual albums based on which tracks ya like the best. A nice collection.
One of three simultaneous reissues of the mid-seventies records Bert Jansch made for the Charisma label. Never before issued on cd, each one remastered under Jansch's personal supervision with extensive liner notes, bonus tracks and extras.
L.A. Turnaround from 1974 came out of a free-fall period between Pentangle's long-time-coming break-up and a label shake-up at Reprise records that found Jansch looking for new digs. He signed to the "Famous Charisma Label" (home of Genesis, Van Der Graaf Generator and Lindisfarne) whose boss Tony Stratton Smith sought to reinvigorate Jansch's solo glory from what he considered the din of the Pentangle years. Legend has it that Jansch was invited to stay at Smith's Sussex country house where he arrived after an all-night bender with John Martyn. When he awoke the next morning, he was introduced to Mike Nesmith (of Monkees fame), O.J. "Red" Rhodes (a renowned slide guitar session player) and Klaus Voorman at breakfast. Noticing a mobile recording studio set up outside as well as a small film crew, Jansch quickly realized he was supposed to start recording right then with Nesmith brought in to produce. Half-recorded in Sussex and then finished in Los Angeles, L.A. Turnaround is the rarest and most sought after of the Charisma recordings, as well as the freshest, and is most linked to Jansch's Brit folk heyday, yet with a warm rootsy sheen evoked by Rhodes' stellar slide guitar. Jansch even reworks one of his most popular songs, "Needle of Death", with an earthy production that adds an edge the original lacked. The bonus tracks include many alternate version of songs plus "In The Bleak Midwinter", a Christmas single produced by Ralph McTell. There is also a film included on the enhanced cd of the recording sessions documenting four of the songs. Beautiful!
One of three simultaneous reissues of the mid-seventies records Bert Jansch made for the Charisma label. Never before issued on cd, each one remastered under Jansch's personal supervision with extensive liner notes, bonus tracks and extras.
British Folk meets West Coast folk-rock on this 1975 follow-up to L.A. Turnaround. Recorded in L.A. with a full on back-up band on a solo record for the first time, Santa Barbara Honeymoon is one of Jansch's more curious efforts. Perhaps that was due to the change in production crew (Nesmith didn't return to produce), but also may be due to the unlikely inclusion of a Dixieland Jazz ensemble on "Dance Lady Dance" as well as steel drums on "Baby Blue" (not the Dylan song!). While this was a financial and critical disappointment at the time, the quality of the songs still shine through, especially in the stripped down versions performed live at the Montreaux festival, included here as bonus tracks. It's one of those records that is very much of its time, but still a worthy touchstone in the context of bands like Vetiver, Fleet Foxes, and Two Gallants who continue to mine those warm seventies sunshine sounds.
The Drag City revival ship has moored in our ports once again carrying with it one of the most important and influential British folk artists, Bert Jansch. Jansch, whether solo or with his band, Pentangle was a main figure in the sixties British folk revival bringing Celtic, blues, and eastern European forms to his eclectic and spirited guitar playing. Joined here by a cast of contemporary stars, including co-producer Noah Georgeson, Helena Espvall, Devendra Banhart, and Beth Orton, as well as Jansch's son Adam, Jansch brings his gauzy Scottish brogue to new and traditional songs including "Katie Cruel", and "My Pocket's Empty." For those who have never heard Jansch's seminal solo albums, such as Jack Orion, Lucky Thirteen or Rosemary Lane or don't know about his major influence on sixties artist's such as Neil Young and Jimmy Page, should pick this up right now! Incredible!
As pretty and pastoral as ever! Japancakes' fifth album is the perfect listen for lazy autumn eves snuggling under grandma's patchwork quilt. Giving Machines is comprised of eight ever so docile instrumentals led by the lulling bliss of pedal steel, keyboards and cello. One of them is a respectful cover of Cocteau Twins' "Heaven Or Las Vegas" (psst, we just heard that they are doing a complete cover of My Bloody Valentine's Loveless... isn't that a little strange?!).
As has been very well documented, we LOVED Japancakes' 2004 Waking Hours (it made many folks' year-end lists), then last month their new full length Giving Machines was released and we thought it was good, but nowhere near the previous album's splendor. Now only a month later, they drop this one on us, and... it's causing us undue pain, anguish and anger! In case you didn't already guess from the title, this is Japancakes' complete cover of My Bloody Valentine's beloved, inimitable album. If their intention was to transform it into absolutely bland schlock... we'll they've succeeded. Think: easy listening suitable for ice rinks and beauty pageants, not even good for kitsch value. Some may ask "why are you making such a big deal about it?" But it IS a big deal. We're not saying MBV's original is sacred or anything and we're sure Japancakes had their heart in the right spot, and these tracks are probably a blast for 'em to play, but to us this is just one big bummer. Completely shameful and unnecessary... and the boring cover art only adds insult to injury.
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Gliding away from the overly twee side of pop that Kindercore has become most known for, it's Japancakes. And quite a refreshing change it is for this label. Languid, country-tinged melodies on flute, guitar, strings and keyboards weave together to form a blanketing warmth. Although this album is comprised of only seven tracks, fear not! Four of them are of the lengthier variety (including a 12 minute closing track), allowing Japancakes to fully envelope you in their slide and twang mood. Quite nice, indeed.
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Instrumental twee metronome pop with lots of squiggly analogue synths and that constant quick paced guitar strum that harkens back to the earliest Stereolab recordings.
Not a new record, but a reissue of Japandroids' first two self released eps, and holy shit is this stuff awesome. Heavy, crunchy, hooky, another guitar/drums two piece who can kick up a pretty intense sound, and who wrap that sound into some pretty kick ass ultra dynamic jams. In the past we described the Japandroids as No Age crossed with Superchunk, and that may be even more applicable on these early recordings.
Just listen to the first track and see if you're not sold. The whole first half a lurching stop start crunch, swirling guitars, shouted background vox, crashing drums, the two locked into a killer pounding super rhythmic workout, almost like some sort of noise rock, softened up just a bit so it's closer to indie rock, and then the song shifts gears halfway through and the guitars slip into something much more melodic, as do the vocals, and suddenly we're in serious mix tape territory, the duo channeling classic nineties post rock. Awesome. And that's just the first track. Some of the other songs are way more poppy, channeling more of a Weezer style vibe, but still filtered through their noisy two piece situation, and even at its poppiest, constantly slipping into something mathier or crunchier, and alternately, even at their most jagged, like on some of the tracks from the first (and older) ep, the two can't help but let some poppiness seep into the proceedings. Killer stuff. We can't stop listening to this, which is leading us to believe that we just might like this collection even more than their proper full length...
What would happen if you somehow mixed the chaotic two piece post punk frenzy of No Age with the earnest, fuzzed out classic kinetic yowled indie rock of Superchunk? Odds are it would end up sounding a lot like Japandroids. A guitar and drums duo, who kick up a killer racket, with crunchy fuzzed out riffage, super distorted wild drumming, some seriously anthemic jams, and minimal lyrics, most repeated over and over and over, ripe for wild sweaty basement show sing alongs, the vocals are high and keening and emo(tional), the band are wild and woolly, not all that tight, just rough and raw and loose enough to make this whole record feel like they're playing right there in the room with you, like any minute you could find yourself careening into the drum kit, or you could suddenly be sprawled on the floor with the guitar player and a bunch of kids writhing right next to you covered in beer and wrapped in feedback. Sweaty and intense, energetic, super rocking and WAY fun, these guys must KILL live, and although lots of bands do, most have trouble capturing that live energy on record, but Japandroids don't seem to have any problems there at all.
Second long player from the moonlighting project of the mysterious Detroit duo known as Dopplereffekt (first act on Detroit's Intuit-Solar). Cold, rhythmic electro grooves circa 1984, very reminiscent of New Order's "Confusion" sans vocal track. Nothing
First release from this new SF label comes in the form of this kick ass single from Brooklyn art/pop/punk rockers Japanther, who on these tracks seem to have ditched all their warped artiness in favor of something much more immediate, a fuzzed out stripped down noise pop crunch, all murky riffage, practice space drum pound, and distorted reverbed vocal croon, jangly, hooky as hell, three short sharp garage pop gems that sound a little bit like Guided By Voices if they found themselves on In The Red.
The weirdest stuff going on here is the occasional sample, the quick one at the beginning, and the looped crackly old RnB record that starts out "Oh Washington", which the band then seamlessly transform into a dreamy chunk of organ driven garage pop blissout, all vocal ooooh's and swoonsome chordal shimmer, a washed out slab of glimmery soft focus sunshiney fuzz pop murk, which is well worth the price of admission all on its own.
Includes a cool mini comic book, and a download code!
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First vinyl release from the UK's Paradigms label, who over the last few months have brought us amazing releases from Amber Asylum, Hjarnidaudi, Blueprint Human Being, Throne Of Katarsis, Utlagr, Titan, the Angelic Process, as well as the gorgeous Walking With Ghosts compilation reviewed elsewhere on this list. And as first (vinyl) releases go, this one's a doozy. Jarboe, formerly of the mighty Swans, who has for years been crafting dark and mysterious musicks on her own, returns with a new extended ensemble and new dark tribal sound. Her new group, The Sweet Meat Love And Holy Cult features some seriously expansive instrumentation, two drummers, cello, violin, piano, acoustic guitars, rebab, vocals and sitar. A big ensemble, but it doesn't sound overblown, instead it manages to still sound immediate and intimate. Especially on side A, a swirling ambience of warped effects, muted minor key melodies, and strange shimmering metallics, underpin Jarboe's haunting vocals, which build and build, layer upon layer, until the track becomes a sea of tangled voices, slipping and drifting in and out of unlikely harmonies. From within this dense cloud of vocal tangle emerges a dirgey steel string guitar, and suddenly it sounds like some modern outsider psych folk jam, all strummy and drifting, with soaring sorrowful vocals woven delicately into the reverberating steel strings. Side B is a little more chaotic, clangy, clattery and dense, tribal rhythms, some primitive krautrock jam, topped again by Jarboe's wailing vocals. The whole thing is thick with natural reverb, like it was recorded live in a cave or a cathedral. Gradually, mournful strings materialize way back in the mix, giving the whole track a subtly sorrowful vibe, and ends up sounding like a string section jamming with a sonically overpowering No Neck / Avarus orchestra. Which sounds amazing! Definitely one of the nicest and most powerful post-Swans recordings we've heard from Jarboe.
SUPER LIMITED. ONLY 600 COPIES PRESSED. Packaged in a thick full color sleeve, with a truly haunting, beautiful painted portrait of the lady herself on the cover.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Although this release is primarily credited to former Swan, Jarboe, it is actually just as much the work of Chris Rosenau and Jon Mueller (aka Telecognac). She wrote and recorded the song "Under" which would become the raw material for the tracks that make up "Over". The duo deconstructed the song, chopping both the vocals and instrumentation (mainly piano and postrock-ish guitar) to pieces, and adding their own percussion, synths and clarinet. Be forewarned the Jarboe's vocals have been so masticated that they're barely recognizable. Three tracks in all (the first and last are quite lengthy).
