Seems like you can almost trace the evolution of Jan Jelinek's based on just his album covers. While his early releases were packaged in monotone no frills minimalist sleeves his more recent releases have been covered in designs with much more blur, mystery and texture. And it's pretty accurate to say that the same goes for the sounds he's been creating. Gone our the days of his crisp, clean and ultra linear creations, making way for a much more seductive world of murky and rich soundscapes. In fact, this outing's cover art first made us think that it was on the Hapna label, and it actually does have the sort of sound would be quite at home on that fine label as it demonstrates a mysterious almost field recording like sound mixed with organic electronica, which also had us wondering what it would sound like if Boards of Canada got their heads out of the clouds and buried them in the mud.
Peacefrog Records has typically published the more soulful strains of Detroit techno with a steady stream of releases from Moodymann, Herbert, Robert Hood, Ian O'Brien, Glenn Underground, and Planetary Assault Systems. So, Peacefrog seems to be an unusual home for Darrel Fitton, whose back catalogue as Bola and Gescom (in collaboration with Autechre) ranks very highly within IDM circles. Nevertheless, Fitton's debut recording as Jello bridges the increasing stylistic chasm between IDM and soulful Detroit techno. At the heart of "Voile" Fitton uses the midtempo / downtempo IDM rhythmic skitter that can be found on those Bola / Gescom recordings, but has smoothed out much of the dis-ease found in most post-Aphex electro-paranoia. As the album begins, Jello seems like a slightly friendlier version of Bola and still firmly entrenched within the IDM aesthetic, yet as the album progresses, Fitton gradually turns his focus towards a jazz-tinged electronica with Lamb / Portishead female vocals, digital approximations of bass-slapping, Rhodes organs melting into the alien jazz sentiments of Herbie Hancock, and stream of consciousness beat poetry.
While lacking some of the Queen-like bombast and the lush, layered, studio-as-instrument production of their 1993 swansong Spilt Milk (reviewed on the last list), beloved powerpoppers Jellyfish still began their career with a bang, in the form of their 1990 debut Bellybutton, whose pop, while perhaps more paisley than power, introduced a group with an uncanny mastery of timeless songsmithery and a whole mess of hooks, which ended up spawning a bunch of pretty big hits, their videos were everywhere in the early nineties, and while their over the top fashion sometimes eclipsed just how goddamn good they really were, Bellybutton was surprisingly a way bigger commercial success than that record's seemingly more polished and professional follow-up.
In one way it's not actually all that surprising, first records often display a band hungry for success, and with songs they've been working on since the beginning, and there's no shortage of stone cold classics on Bellybutton, and while the production is definitely of its time, it's also part of that record's charm for sure, the sound is scrappy and a little loose, more like a real rock band than the studio-masters who made Spilt Milk, and yet Bellybutton is still rife with impossible vocal harmonies, amazing playing, and most importantly, some seriously killer songs.
We gushed in out review of Spilt Milk that some of us consider it to be one of THEE best records ever, and in some ways, that record could never have happened without Bellybutton, and in others, BB is really just it's own special set of songs. We're reminded of the Posies' Dear 23, another band we love who transformed from a fuzzy, paisley pop band into a super well oiled power pop machine. And just like the Posies, we love both sides of Jellyfish's sonic personality as well.
This new version of Belybutton, like the reissue of Spilt Milk is another double disc, tacking on a ton of bonus tracks, with new liner notes and rare art/photos, etc.
We are definitely masters of hyperbole. We admit it. So many of our reviews boldly proclaim records to be "the best ever" or "the most retarded ever" or the ever popular "most fucked ever". The thing is, at least from where we're sitting, there CAN be more than one "best ever", and there ARE many "most fucked" records ever... why not? It depends on your mood, what you're doing, where you are, stereo or headphones, car or computer, happy or sad, depressed or romantic, and hell, it could be as simple as a whim. Sometimes, you feel like listening to a specific record, and for that 40 minutes, it is without a doubt, THE BEST RECORD EVER. Now, granted, some 'best records ever' are all time top 10's, while some are favorite records of the summer, and others are favorite make out records, or whatever, but all of them are awesome. For us to make that sort of proclamation, a record has to completely rule, totally kick our ass, and get the shit played out of it! But sometimes, it's not hyperbole. Sometimes a record ABSOLUTELY IS, one of the best pop records EVER MADE. Like Jellyfish's Spilt Milk.
This is not a new release or anything, not even a remastered reissue, but 13 years after it was released, it still gets played A LOT, and still pretty much destroys every other pop record around. Jellyfish started out as a bellbottomed, paisley psychedelic retro combo, but quickly blossomed into a completely amazing, heavy rock power pop supergroup. Not in the sense of being made up of members of other famous bands, but in the sense that they were an absolutely super amazing rock group!!! Jellyfish took the over the top bombast and incredible harmonies of Queen, the perfect summery pop of the Beach Boys and mixed in their own off kilter approach to power pop. Incredibly intricate and complex arrangements, but done so deftly as to never take away from the inherent catchiness of the songs. The guitars are huge, crunchy and heavy, like a super charged Brian May, the drumming is incredible, heavy hitting, super creative, and as catchy on their own as any of the guitar parts or vocal lines. In fact, the one time we saw Jellyfish live, vocalist / drummer Andy Sturmer managed to sing all of these incredible harmonies WHILE playing incredible drum parts, on a STAND UP kit!! Totally blew our mind. A look at the cover and the incredible arrangement of instruments in the studio gives an idea of how epic and amazing this record sounds, gongs, timpani, strings, piano, organ, acoustic guitar, harp, xylophone and more and more and on an on.
Some of the songs are delicate and sweet, soft and shimmery, some are bombastic and heavy, some are sweet simple lullabies, others are incredibly complicated slabs of ultra complex prog pop, but every song on here is a stone cold classic. If there were any justice in the world this record would have been HUGE, and Jellyfish would be playing arenas and making music videos and still making even more incredible records. But sadly, the world wasn't ready for this kind of intelligent, heavy, proggy power pop and the band hung it up soon after. But what a way to go. Just listen to the sound samples and see if you aren't immediately kicking yourself for waiting more than a decade to dig in to this utter pop brilliance.
Originally released for Record Store Day 2012, this cool for-fans-only power pop artifact is now available again, for those of you who weren't able to nab one on RSD. We recently reviewed the reissue of Jellyfish's second record and swansong Spilt Milk. Not sure we could describe Jellyfish any better than we did in that review, so probably best to revisit that really quick:
Even 13 years after it was released, Spilt Milk still gets played A LOT, and still pretty much destroys every other pop record around. Jellyfish started out as a bellbottomed, paisley psychedelic retro combo, but quickly blossomed into a completely amazing, heavy rock power pop supergroup. Not in the sense of being made up of members of other famous bands, but in the sense that they were an absolutely super amazing rock group!!! Jellyfish took the over the top bombast and incredible harmonies of Queen, the perfect summery pop of the Beach Boys and mixed in their own off kilter approach to power pop. Incredibly intricate and complex arrangements, but done so deftly as to never take away from the inherent catchiness of the songs. The guitars are huge, crunchy and heavy, like a super charged Brian May, the drumming is incredible, heavy hitting, super creative, and as catchy on their own as any of the guitar parts or vocal lines. In fact, the one time we saw Jellyfish live, vocalist / drummer Andy Sturmer managed to sing all of these incredible harmonies WHILE playing incredible drum parts, on a STAND UP kit!! Totally blew our mind. A look at the cover and the incredible arrangement of instruments in the studio gives an idea of how epic and amazing this record sounds, gongs, timpani, strings,piano, organ, acoustic guitar, harp, xylophone and more and more and on an on.
Some of the songs are delicate and sweet, soft and shimmery, some are bombastic and heavy, some are sweet simple lullabies, others are incredibly complicated slabs of ultra complex prog pop, but every song on here is a stone cold classic.
So if you notice the mention of all the instruments in the studio and the impossibly lush production, and well, once the vocals were added to the music, the vocals being incredible, with insane harmonies, bordering on Queen-worthy, a lot of the sonic subtleties that the band labored over for months, and in some cases years, were lost. So the band decided to release this double disc, that includes instrumental versions of both Jellyfish records, 1990's Bellybutton, and 1993's Spilt Milk, so obsessive fans, which most Jellyfish fans are, could here all of the amazing sonic weirdness that band conjured up to make some of the greatest pop music EVER. And as a fan it's pretty incredible, the songs sound so crazy sans vocals, and some parts that were nearly inaudible on the record proper, jump to the fore with the vocals removed, and give the songs a whole different vibe. Really not sure why we even wrote this much, Jellyfish fans are absolutely gonna want this, nay NEED this, and for casual listeners, or folks who are intrigued enough to check these guys out, start with the Spilt Milk album proper, you won't be sorry.
Those expecting a documentary in the traditional sense, wherein a huge film crew with lighting rigs and hired security take over a small village while an authoritative voice-over gives you a blow by blow account of what unfolds before your eyes may be disappointed. This is a one man, one camera production. Shot entirely at night, relying on the good will of the participants, and leaving the interpretation up to you, the viewer, filmmaker Hisham Mayet takes us on a tour of Marrakech, Morocco's Jemma El Fna -- "the central square of the final outpost before one ventures into the great beyond of the western Sahara desert". All along the square people, mostly men, gather in circles around individual and groups of musicians. playing oud, banjo (!!!), various bowed instruments and percussion, the performers are accompanied by singers ranging from seasoned veterens working the crowd to youthful amateurs. In one section a young girl, maybe 7 or 8 years old sings and dances as an envious peer looks on. Perhaps one of the coolest moments though is when our cameraman stops by a gentleman set up in the square with his portable turntable and classic 7"s, sampling for us some of his favorites, crackly with age, and carefully wiping off the beautiful but worn jackets for us to see. Clocking in at 50 minutes, there's not a dull moment on this disc. While we forwarn those living overseas that this disc is NTSC, it is also region-free for those with multi-region players.
Crippled Intellect Production introduces us to the labyrinthine cosmic synthesis of Neil Jendon, who detours from the vaporous ambient sprawl that has encroached back into the vernacular and also eschews the Goblin / Carpenter horror pastiche that has served well as an antidote for one too many pale imitations of Klaus Schulze or Edgar Froese. Jendon is a satellite member of Chicago's languid slowcore ensemble Zelienople, and also plays in the Locrian offshoot Kwaidan; here on Corporate Laughter, Jendon dials in modular synths and bulky keyboards tossed off from the '80s for a dense, often menacing album. The sawtooth tone and white noise orchestrations teeter between gnashed violence and isolationist calm on the first two tracks, with Jendon steadily tipping the equation towards swarming density even as his electronics retain a brightened corona around the volatile electron clashes within. On "Static After Static", Jendon transmits a lumbering rhythm through the lens of Throbbing Gristle and Conrad Schnitzler with spiralling yet razor sharp synth patterns lurching outward from the rhythmic structure of the piece. Slower, looping rhythms capture the linear phase-shifting of late period Omit, complete with bleak-minded, half-melodies that crawl through "Always And Only" and the ghostly finale "Staggers And Folds". Very well done!
Yay! The return of the all too underrated Italian outfit known as Jennifer Gentle. Their 2005 release Valende was in constant rotation when it came out and we've been looking forward to the follow up ever since. Now down to a solo project of Marco Fasalo, yet just as dynamic and pleasing as the prior outings as a full band. Think Syd Barrett era-Pink Floyd filled with off-kilter melodies, eerie and demented instrumentation and some downright catchy harmonies! Making the most out of some strange and lovely sounds, piano, guitar and even kazoos, some of us fell instantly in love with this and it just keeps sounding better and better every time we hear it. While they come at pop songs from a distinctly different direction, thsy seem to be kindred spirits of Deerhoof, as they both use a sonic pallete of crazy colors and wild flights of musical fancy. So good!
There is something about this band I really like, though I can't necessarily put my finger on it. A friend of mine described Jennifer Gentle in the following manner and I don't think I could have done a better job. "Jennifer Gentle is like biting into an acid sandwich. It's like Deerhoof reading Alice In Wonderland. Like Sister Seance Stepple, her eyes as black as treacle, sitting in a cave of candy floss, on the side of Witch Mountain. It makes the goblins giggle with delight." Ok... to this I'll add the following: Jennifer Gentle is an Italian duo, their band name derived from a Pink Floyd lyric. Valende is their US debut release. Their music generates something I'm not sure exactly how to digest but that's why I like it so!! Jennifer Gentle tours as five piece this year in support of AQ faves Dead Meadow so be sure to go check em out!
A cool live recording from 2002 that finds Acid Mothers Temple mainman Kawabata Makoto joining his pals in Italian psych rock combo Jennifer Gentle for some sprawling, dreamy, druggy, droney, buzzy, fuzzy psych rock workouts. The opener is a slow build from crowd sounds to thick warm undulating swells, everything wreathed in hazy effects, sun dappled and woozily laid back, some cool processed vox that sound more like the bellow of a distant horn, and then of course, after a few minutes of dreamy drift, the song blossoms into a wild tangle of dueling guitars, a sky full of jagged melodies and shards of feedback, a violent sky full of sound, floating above that churning, fuzzy motorik groove that started things off. The rest of the record follows suit, the band slipping from stripped down and minimal to totally blown out and frenzied, even dipping into what sounds like some alien folk music or some abstract 20th century experimentation, but even at its noisiest, or weirdest, the sound remains surprisingly melodic and dreamlike.
This is actually a 2008 reissue of a previous version, originally released in 2002, and tacks on a nearly 20 minute bonus track from another live collaboration the same year.
ONLY SIX COPIES IN STOCK, this is out of print, the label is no more, so once these are gone, they are gone forever.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Another awesome collection of lost unsung country from Omni, this time, a collection of tracks from country music legend Waylon Jennings, from a period in Jennings' career that most folks consider a low point, before he had busted out as an 'outlaw', a younger man, playing by the rules, just another cog in the Nashville country music machine, whose music, to many, was safe and predictable, constantly simply striving for a hit. This collection begs to differ, big time, gathering up a whole mess of Jennings' best tracks from the period, and while to be fair, the sounds are definitely different than what we're used to from this outlaw, a lot of these songs are pretty fantastic. If these tracks were recorded by any other country singer, no one would bat an eye, but the enduring power of the outlaw era to follow seems to have permanently tainted these songs, which is definitely a shame.
The title track is dark and ominous, with some sitar like buzz, and some awesomely cinematic strings, and of course Jennings nails "Delia's Gone", haunting and intense, complete with some cool creepy female backing vox, this whole collection is super cool, weird covers, strange instrumentation, fuzz guitars, more of that sitar like buzz, lush instrumentation, lots of pop, subtle psychedelia, he may have been trolling for a hit, but it seems like maybe he was still doing his own thing, even if it was a bit too subtle for most folks to notice.
Fans of any of the Omni reissues will dig this too, and Waylon obsessives might do well to give these tracks another try. As always with Omni, the cd comes with a massive booklet packed with tons of photos, liner notes, old album covers and all sorts of other Jennings ephemera.
This could be considered the runt of the litter in the trio of country reissues on Masked Weasel (the others being Willie Nelson and Buck Owens). It's not so much Waylon himself (as big a country songwriting/singing mensch as the others), but the material is definitely not Jennings at his zenith. Then again, it must be stated that these are all early, early Jennings tracks. His earliest. This one is still worth picking up if only for historical reasons -- to hear the earliest foundations of this seminal country artist. As one might deduce, being his earliest recordings, just about, if not all, of the tracks here are not from his pen. One of the best covers he does though is the opener "Crying" which is as heart felt as Orbison's version, but possibly bests it. The production is haunting and sounds as though Waylon is crooning to an empty auditorium. It's almost worth it to buy this disc for this track alone. Like the other two, this disc comes with great biographical notes from our pal Kurt Wolff (of the Rough Guide To Country Music fame).
Oh how we love Jenny Piccolo. They were screamo before there was such a thing. Before screamo meant big hair and eyeliner. Jenny Piccolo were a whirling white hot ball of furious grinding power-violence. A live set would be 20 minutes long and feature 40 songs, not to mention a mess of broken guitars, smashed drums, sweat, blood and utter chaos. This disc collects pretty much everything, including splits and comps, and is a head crushing ear splitting anvil to the back of the head. 30 second bursts of black hole grindmetal mayhem, super dense, ultra complex blasts of dizzying blurry hypergrind. So fucking furious and so goddamn AWESOME! You like the Locust? Pig Destroyer? Man Is The Bastard? Mohinder? Agoraphobic Nosebleed? Drop Dead? Crossed Out? And somehow you missed out on Jenny Piccolo? It's time to make things right.
52 songs. 36 minutes.
When we think of Nashville, maybe tweaked out art damaged techno is not the first thing that comes to mind. But lucky for us, some pretty fucked up and great damaged electronic pop IS in fact coming out of the country music capitol of the world, courtesy of Jensen Sportag. With cover art and guest vocals on a track by Ariel Pink you can begin to imagine what kind of wonderful weird world Jensen Sportag inhabits. And any link to the totally nuts Ariel Pink should give you an idea of what's in store. Citing influences from Sun City Girls to Autechre to R. Steevie Moore, this is most definitely outsider techno in all its warped glory. While electronic music is jam packed with way too many posers aiming to make the cleanest, the crispest, the dreamiest and the smoothest music around, it's so damn refreshing to hear someone remember that for the most part electronic music is best when it's cheap, sleazy and out of control!
Since the early '90s, the Norwegian electronic musician Geir Jenssen has dazzled his audience with an astute handling of rhythmically laced ambient electronica, working under the moniker Biosphere. For a while, it seemed that he might make the jump into more commercial ventures after he licensed one of Biosphere tracks for a Levi's commercial, acting as something of a precursor to the entrepreneurial spirit embodied by the likes of Moby, Air, and even Boards of Canada. But Jenssen quite literally had other mountains to climb instead of economic ones. In 2001, Jenssen ventured to Tibet to climb Cho Oyu, the 6th highest mountain in the world. Such a pursuit was not conducted out of blind ambition, for Jenssen is also an accomplished alpinist with the terrain of Norway proving to more than an adequate training ground for his quest.
Like any self-respecting electronic musician, Jenssen brought with him a mini-disc recorder and a set of microphones to collect field recordings. While the ensuing recordings have been billed as "Field Recordings From Tibet," Jenssen isn't entirely true to the field recording ethos, by grafting a handful of his environmental recordings onto rhythmic templates which could easily find their way onto one of his Biosphere records. As deft as Jenssen is with a skeletal loop and abstracted ambience, these tracks seems too refined and polished for the concept at hand: a brutally self-reflective journey to the top of the world. Jenssen's recordings work best when he merely filters out the unwanted frequencies from his recordings, leaving the details of the work to speak for themselves. Here, highlights include the bells from a yak caravan as their shepherd tries to lead them around the Himalayan mountains, and the shortwave radio recordings of air traffic controllers guiding aircraft through the turbulent winds of Tibet. Jenssen also manages to capture plenty of windswept soundscapes of that mountainous region.
This album is really quite good, although it pales slightly when compared to fellow Touch field recordist Chris Watson or lesser known environmental composers such as Tarab or Scott Smallwood. Still, some great listening...
Stromboli is an active volcano located on the island of Sicily in the Mediterranean Sea, and what we have here is a field recording of said volcano, captured by Geir Jenssen better known under his electronica moniker Biosphere. As you could imagine, a volcano sounds FUCKING RAD!!! Big explosions from molten rock hurled outward from the center of the earth, hissing clouds of sulfuric gases, rumbles and crackles of magma slowly cooling after oozing out from the mantle, and the gentle patter of hot ash falling from the sky. Jenssen's field recording, which fills the first side of the 12", is seriously impressive; and the B side (in true 12" fashion) is the dub version, which is a collaged manipulation of the sounds captured on the A side with an emphasis on the slushing, gaseous activity caught in a slow vortex of delay / echo dub effects. Yeah, it is a proper dub track, but don't expect a slow-motion Rhythm & Sound pulse popping through the mix. The recordings that Jenssen made are admittedly short and certainly were strong enough to warrant a lengthier documentation, but perhaps the brevity speaks to the inherent danger of even making an attempt at recording a volcano.
Warner Jepson was one of the pioneering electronic composers of the 1960s, working in the San Francisco Tape Music Center and later at the shortlived organization called National Center for Experiments in Television (seriously, there was such a place!). Through both of these small think-tanks, Jepson had the good fortune to work with an incredible amount of early electronics, most notably the Buchla synthesizer. Despite some choice commissions and some friends in high places, Jepson's explorations with electronics only amounted to one proper album - the avant-garde electronic Totentanz recorded as a score for the San Francisco Ballet in 1967. The album was originally pressed up in an edition of 300 copies and sold almost entirely at the stagings of that particular ballet. Nonetheless, Jepson purported to have hundreds of hours of material on cassette that he made during his heyday in the '60s and '70s.
The story behind this cassette's discovery and release is a pretty good one too, as Mr. Sanity Muffin himself was trawling through the cassette bins at Urban Ore - a storied recycling and junk shop located on the industrial outskirts of Berkeley, California, and spied the name Warner Jepson handscrawled on the spine of a tape next to the random home dubbed tapes of REO Speedwagon, Boston, and Carole King albums. The tape turned out to be one of those lost Jepson recordings, and Sanity Muffin has seen fit to release this cassette exactly as it was found. One of the many commissions on Jepson's resume was for the David William's installation Tullian. No idea really what that was, or if this is excerpted music for that piece, or if the Tullian Beach Bum was just a riff on that title. But the sounds within are a delirious polyphony of semi-rhythmic, semi-melodic squiggles across the Buchla with echoing patterns at various timbers, reverberations, and pitches swirling throughout the sound design. There are plenty of similarities in the painterly serialist and programmatic approaches that were commonplace in the high-minded works of academic composers from the mid-20th century, all mapped out on the Buchla and tape machine. But there's also plenty of wide-eyed sci-fi expansiveness through zoner-patterned synths that have all of the awe of a Jovian sunrise seen for the first time by human eyes. Fans of Daphne Oram and Tod Dockstader will have a field day with this stuff.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
A few lists back we made a record called Ndagga Versions our Record Of The Week, that record was released at the same time as this one, and we essentially a 'dub' version of this record, as in less vocals, a bit more tripped out. But we loved that record so much, as did loads of you, that we figured we oughta list the record proper. And a funny thing happened when we returned to this one to review it, we realized that even though this is the 'vocal' version, the vocals are still a pretty minimal component. That said, some of the vocals are fantastic, and it's nice to hear them incorporated into the dense Senegalese rhythms. Needless to say, some folks who bought Ndagga Versions, might feel like they don't need this one, or more of this sound, but we're guessing lots of folks who read the aQ list are like us, and ALWAYS need more. So this is essentially the same review as Ndagga Versions, slightly altered, so just know that it's much of the same music, but with more vocals, check out the sound samples to hear what we mean, and read on, we recommend 800 Percent Ndagga almost as much as Ndagga Versions... And if you don't have either, you might actually want to start with this one, if you like to hear singing.
Mark Ernestus is probably best known as one half of the Basic Channel production team and record label (along with Moritz Von Oswald). The two also ran the Chain Reaction label, and both continue to make and release music, Ernestus most notably recently remixing tracks by Konono No.1 and Tony Allen as well as co-releasing the amazing Shangaan Electro compilation we reviewed a while back. Apparently, over the last few years, Ernestus became increasingly obsessed with Senegalese Mbalax music, which is super rhythmic, featuring multiple drummers playing wildly syncopated rhythms, the drums augmented with marimba like synths, the music wild and tangled, dense and driving, groovy and funky, dubbed out and super trancey - it's not hard to see why a techno visionary would find this stuff utterly mesmerizing. And thus was born Jeri-Jeri, a collaborative project between Ernestus and a griot clan of Senegalese drummers. At first we were maybe expecting a sort of African/techno hybrid, but wisely, Ernestus let's the drummers and other musicians do their thing, while he mostly mixes and produces. And that THING is track after track of hyper rhythmic grooviness that definitely speaks to the sort of looped mesmer of techno music, here accompanied by a handful of amazing vocalists including Baaba Maal and Youssou N'Dour doing their own thing over these rhythmic workouts. Even with vocals, the drums are obviously the focal point, but there's also sinewy basslines, the occasional keyboard and synth, often adding yet another rhythmic component, and some subtle melodies, some guitar jangle here and there, adding some minimal tonal coloration, and echoes and fragments of the various vocal lines surface throughout, dubbed out and heavily effected even on the non 'version' version, but really, every track here is a glorious celebration of rhythm and sound, of drums as divine, and they sound so divine here, with most tracks featuring both a complement of Sabar drummers as well as a drummer on a traditional kit, the overlapping rhythms, the syncopated grooves, the barrage of beats, cascading grooves, all wound around simple looped melodies, and locked tight, it's totally irresistible, the sort of singular sound that is both dancefloor ready, but also dense and nuanced enough for headphone listening, some track wild and raucous, others tightly wound and darkly groovy, all of them sublime, emotional, and energetic, lush and organic and ALIVE. Drummers, and fans of drum music will be in heaven, but really, anyone and everyone who is drawn to the rhythm in sound, whether it be techno music, world music, metal music, will be hard pressed not to be totally mesmerized by these sounds.
Mark Ernestus is probably best known as one half of the Basic Channel production team and record label (along with Moritz Von Oswald). The two also ran the Chain Reaction label, and both continue to make and release music, Ernestus most notably recently remixing tracks by Konono No.1 and Tony Allen as well as co-releasing the amazing Shangaan Electro compilation we reviewed a while back. Apparently, over the last few years, Ernestus became increasingly obsessed with Senegalese Mbalax music, which is super rhythmic, featuring multiple drummers playing wildly syncopated rhythms, the drums augmented with marimba like synths, the music wild and tangled, dense and driving, groovy and funky, dubbed out and super trancey - it's not hard to see why a techno visionary would find this stuff utterly mesmerizing. And thus was born Jeri-Jeri, a collaborative project between Ernestus and a griot clan of Senegalese drummers. At first we were maybe expecting a sort of African/techno hybrid, but wisely, Ernestus let's the drummers and other musicians do their thing, while he mostly mixes and produces. And that THING is track after track of hyper rhythmic grooviness that definitely speaks to the sort of looped mesmer of techno music, even moreso here, as this is the instrumental version of the Jeri-Jeri record, the 'versions' in dubspeak. Which is not to say the record proper is not great, it is, and features a handful of amazing vocalists including Baaba Maal and Youssou N'Dour doing their own thing over these rhythmic workouts (and we do have copies in stock, just ask!), but stripped of the vocals, it somehow becomes even more mesmerizing, the drums obviously the focal point, but there's also sinewy basslines, the occasional keyboard and synth, often adding yet another rhythmic component, and some subtle melodies, some guitar jangle here and there, adding some subtle tonal coloration, and remnants of the original vocals surface here and there, dubbed out and heavily effected, but really, every track here is a glorious celebration of rhythm and sound, of drums as divine, and they sound so divine here, with most tracks featuring both a complement of Sabar drummers as well as a drummer on a traditional kit, the overlapping rhythms, the syncopated grooves, the barrage of beats, cascading grooves, all wound around simple looped melodies, and locked tight, it's totally irresistible, the sort of singular sound that is both dancefloor ready, but also dense and nuanced enough for headphone listening, some track wild and raucous, others tightly wound and darkly groovy, all of them sublime, emotional, and energetic, lush and organic and ALIVE. Drummers, and fans of drum music will be in heaven, but really, anyone and everyone who is drawn to the rhythm in sound, whether it be techno music, world music, metal music, will be hard pressed not to be totally mesmerized by these sounds.
Late '60s Israeli psych rock group Churchill's is well liked here at AQ -- indeed, it's one of Windy's all time faves -- so we were quite curious about this Arkarma reissue by the band Jericho Jones, which was the hard rockin' '70s incarnation of the
After making Borbetomagus-like muscular free jazz in Blowhole and doing experimental tape manipulations as Hands To, Jeph Jerman has begun releasing work under his given name, to produce a primitive response to the technologically driven "lowercase sound" of minimalism (i.e. Bernhard Gunter, Steve Roden, Loren Chasse, etc.). While he has been known to use some amplification in his work,
Where Jersey Turnpike are concerned, Permafrost is not so unyielding after all, melting gently in the glowing embers of their barely-there female vocals, guitars and double-strung harp. Yes, joining Ms Joanna Newsom in the current harp parade is this new SF duo, Dina Carpenito and Carlo Dean with guest Jessica Schaeffer. A glistening, ethereal delight that exudes much warmth... no chilly iciness in sight! Definitely for fans of Ida and Edison Woods. Lovely!
Produced by DJ Premier and the Guru.
Here's one of those albums that we KNEW we'd make Record Of The Week - IF ever it was reissued. And now it has been! Here's a fully legit reish of this cult '70s hard rock rarity, a record by one of those bands who seem simultaneously to be both testosterone-tanked young men and wizened ol' wise wizards. Yeah, a Record Of The Week easy, on account of it not only being an old fave of some of us here, but something that immediately caught on with the AQ staffers who hadn't heard it before, this reissue getting played in the store quite steadily (and loudly!) since it arrived. Let's listen in, as Jerusalem's vocalist belts it out, in an emotive yowl a bit like Robert Plant but with Ozzy Osbourne's paranoid feelings: "Hey girl, will you never learn? Who d'you think you're fooling with your lyin' and your cryin'? You'll only be happy the day you see me dyin'!" But then, in more of a normal speaking voice, we get the casual aside: "Oh yeah, that's the way it happens sometimes. Ha."
Right on, brilliant. That's from "Frustration", the first of nine fantastic tracks on the one and only album by this English band, recorded in 1971, released in '72 on Deram/Decca, produced by Deep Purple's Ian Gillan. Why Jerusalem didn't get big is a mystery, though the liner notes give some clues as to why they disbanded. Heck they're even fairly unknown (or a well-kept secret) among connoisseurs of '70s heavy psych and hard rock, with this being its first ever official, non-bootleg reissue on compact disc. Now, there's lots of great obscure heavy rock rarities from the early '70s. We've raved about reissues of many of them (Dust, Leaf Hound, Toad, Bang, T2, etc.). But as far as unheralded proto-metal goes, this belongs pretty much at the top of that longhaired, bellbottomed heap, as essential as any of 'em anyway. Pentagram, Bedemon, Blues Creation, Budgie, Night Sun, you name it.
Allan here first heard Jerusalem a few years back when a friend who shares his taste for proto-metal passed along a cd-r copy of this otherwise unavailable album (thanks, Glenn!). Killer stuff indeed, damn it was good. One of the heaviest things from the era he'd ever heard, Jerusalem took it to an extreme that most of their peers didn't approach. With elements of both biggies Sabbath and Zeppelin, but more frenzied and frantic on one hand, more plodding and suicidal on the other.
Crashing, fuzzed out guitars. Energetic hectic riffage. Doomy, thudding blues. Wicked stinging, sliding soloing. Punkish attitude (competitive with contemporaries Crushed Butler). The vocals often hoarse, on the verge of screaming, or gone over that edge. Yeah, pretty heavy for '72! This is rough, raw, proto headbanging mania mixed with mystical, melodic proggy interludes, of course we love it. Plus it's got a genuine dark, occult, despairing vibe, with poetic lyrics about madness, murder and death... And you can't get much more "downer rock genocidal" sounding than the truly, uh, primitive bludgeon what might be the heaviest track here, "Primitive Man".
Pretty darn metal when it comes down to it, forget the "proto". In their own way though, Jerusalem sounding halfway betwixt '60s garage rock and '80s New Wave Of British Heavy Metal... which on balance puts them a bit ahead of their time. In fact, since what's old is new again, this actually sounds like if could have been made now, not because it sounds modern (it doesn't) but because it's so line with certain stonery retro-stylings popular today, particularly in Sweden. In other words, if you like Witchcraft, you'll love Jerusalem!! We always thought that of all the obscure '70s bands that are their forebears, Witchcraft sound most like Jerusalem (well, next to Pentagram). Remember what we said in all caps about Witchcraft's debut? "PERHAPS THEE BEST '70s INSPIRED DOOM ALBUM EVER!" Well the same would go for this, except that it's the real deal, which makes it even better.
Anyway, to return to our story, after Allan got that cd-r dub, he knew he had to find a proper cd. There HAD to be one, this was too good not to have been reissued, right? But, after looking and looking, no luck. Then, one day, Allan came to work at Aquarius and lo and behold what did he hear, but Jerusalem blaring from the store stereo! No, it wasn't this reissue. This was still a few years ago. Turns out, Andee had found a used copy of a bootleg cd someplace, and had bought it simply 'cause he thought the cover looked cool (he's like that), without knowing anything about the band. Life is so unfair, thought Allan. But he was able to eventually guilt Andee into giving him the cd for a birthday present (thanks, Andee! You can have that one back now). Later on, we discovered a Japanese reissue that may or may not have been a boot but in any event was way too expensive and hard to get, nothing we could easily stock and sell for a reasonable price. But NOW, we happily are able to share Jerusalem with you thanks to this nicely done reissue on the Rockadrome label's Vintage imprint! Yeah!
In addition to the nine songs from the original LP, this cd comes with five bonus tracks, including non-album single "Kamakazi Moth". The thick booklet is filled with lengthy liner notes, complete lyrics, vintage photos, all that good stuff you want in a reissue. Once more, yeah!
We haven't heard anything from this oddly named Memphis duo, not since their Cooper-from-Cave-produced split lp way back in 2006, which at the time we described as sounding like a "gloriously ramshackle mess" and a "stumbling, distorted whomp of detuned hillbilly indie twang", most of which still holds true, it's a little ramshackle, a little bit messy, and packs a serious detuned whomp (or perhaps wallop), but even so, it's a much more fully realized chunk of modern twang flecked indie Americana, or maybe call it countrified punk rock, or maybe just a sweet collection of home brewed indie twang, jangly guitars that erupt into gouts of super distorted crunch, songs loping and lilting before launching into blowouts more fiery and fierce. The jangle and croon laced with sinewy streaks of distorted guitar melody, the drums bashing and crashing, effects sending sounds swooshing and wooshing, the vocals a plaintive countrified about to crack croon, the sound slipping easily from indie twang stomp, to woozy folky jangle, dreamy twangy, drowsy ballads that sound like lo-fi re-envisionings of classic Uncle Tupelo, but way more tripped out and effects drenched, that lead right into full bore psych-twang freakouts. Pretty cool.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
From the same label we got those cool petri dish Warhammer 48K cd-r, Jerusalem And The Starbaskets and Skarekrau Radio are a gloriously ramshackle mess. Produced by Warhammer 48K's Cooper Crain, both groups (hard to tell which is which) are a stumbling, distorted whomp of detuned hillbilly indie twang. Or something. Kind of hard to describe. Crunchy guitars splattered with little bits of twang, over tripped out shuffling drums. Very noisy and chaotic, sort of like some lost Velvet Underground live tape, run through a Liquorball filter and dipped in some sparkly moon dust shuffle and twang. There's even a Roky Erickson cover, which even though the bands are so wild and chaotic, should give you an idea of where their roots lie.
Packaged in handmade, silkscreened, recycled, pasted and painted sleeves. Cool.
LIMITED, we only got about a dozen!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We first were made aware of this great New York dance floor pop group, with their mind blowing single "Prisoner Of Love", which features Antony on vocals and is one of the best modern disco burners we've heard in ages. We immediately were reminded of the game-changing Hercules & Love Affair album that Antony guested on a few years ago, and then we realized that Jessica 6 is a group led by Nomi Ruiz, one of the vocalists in Hercules & Love Affair. In fact all three core members of Jessica 6 worked on that great Hercules & Love Affair record. So it should come as no surprise that See The Light, is filled with a similar sound, yet a little more pop, and the jams here come out so damn charged. Kind of like if you took records by Cristina, Vanity 6, Culture Club, Hot Chip, and Madonna and made the ultimate dance floor mix. It's actually really refreshing to hear a great vocal filled dance record that hits the spot so right on.
AQ-fave turntablist DJ Jester, the Filipino Fist out of Texas, has released a second dance party mix of hilarious and fun samples taken from records we all know and love -- Devo, Bjork, Cybotron, Carpenters, Suzanne Vega, JJ Fad, Bowie, Duran Duran, Blondie... the list is endless. Jester's appeal lies in his ability to make you go "Whoa, I never woulda thought to scratch *that*," which you end up thinking basically every coupla minutes with this record. Funky, happy, kinda inspiring, and just plain weird! Taken from a live performance on the amazing WFMU. You should hear what he does to WFMU's mascot song "Speeding Motorcycle" as performed by Yo La Tengo (hint, it's the second audio clip below.)
Not only does DJ Jester currently drive the East Coast Boca Burger-mobile (he applied for the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile but alas got the veggie version instead), he's also found time to make what is easily the best turntablist record we've come across since
Finally! Here it is, a new DJ Jester record! Those of you who have been following along at home, know that we at AQ dig pretty much everything Jester's done so far. And this new one is no different. Well, it's no different in that we totally dig it, but sonically it's WAY different. Jester's previous records have been fun and funny, playful and clever, a lot like Kid Koala, but Jester was also a master at deftly mixing Willie Nelson, Aerosmith, Charles Manson or even Pavement with hip hop beats, and of course crazy scratching. This one takes a whole other approach. According to the liner notes, Table For One is the soundtrack to the breakups and relationship problems of Jester and all his pals. And it sounds like it. Dark and mealancholy, minor key and sort of rainy day sounding. This is definitely way more of a rock record than any of his previous records, in fact Quad Rod is a friend of Jester's who crafts beautifully downer indie/post rock much in the same vein of bands like Bedhead, Low, The New Year and all that sort of mope rock we love. Jester adds some scratching, some turntable warble and some snippets of conversation, from movies, answering machines and the like. Very dark and pretty dour. It's a testament to Jester's skills that his input -seems- minimal, very tasteful and perfectly complimenting the downer mood rather than scratching all over the place. Jester fans will obviously dig this, but so might you indie mope-rockers. As long as you can handle a little scratching chocolate in your indierock peanut butter. Artwork by AQ pal Dale Flattum (Steel Pole Bathtub).
It's been a while since this 'Jester entertained the courtyard with his brand of turntable merriment, but he's back! The good time equation this time around is: DJ Jester + non-stop '80s-heavy guilty pleasures = Secret Love! A little more fluffy that 2004's Table For One, his gleeful turntable jugglin' act keeps aloft a bodacious array of pop culture touchstones from the past coupla decades. Chunks of tunes from Wang Chung, Prince, Foreigner, Neneh Cherry, and Yes bounce right out and bop you on the nose. The one criticism we have with Secret Love is that he often lets a piece of already over-milked music go on a bit long without any audible manipulation nor any augmentation. We've come to expect a bit more from the man than a 'riding of coattails' of the original song's greatness and/or kitsch factor. C'mon Mr. Jester, we REALLY didn't need to hear THAT MUCH of Foreigner's "Waiting For A Girl Like You". Nooooooo. Nonetheless, this is quite a truckload of fun... particularly if you're harboring a fondness for some kick ass '80s pop music!
Nobody here except for Andee (who was already a fan!) had ever heard of this band before Circle mainman Jussi Lehtisalo told us he was reissuing their 1986 debut LP on his label Ektro. He also said, "Jesters will blow up the whole world!!!" Those familiar with
Duff: "Diggin' back through my life circa 15 years ago has been an emotionally unnerving experience. The music, the jams, the changing line-ups, the convoluted recording contracts, the hallucinations, the revelations, the girls, the divorce, poverty, doom, despair, joy, the extremely loud amplifiers�But that's my business. I will tell you it all began when my friend Ray Violet invited my roommate (drummer and multi-instrumentalist Doktor Stixx) and me (the bass player) to be the rhythm section on a songwriting demo he was organizing along with his buddy Bill Irwin. Ray offered to 'pay' us by allowing us each one song of our choosing produced to our individual satisfaction. I picked a metallic, psychedelic, existentialist war yelp I'd bashed out called 'End of Time.' During the sessions, which culminated on Halloween, 1984 (talk about Doom!), Ray played me the unforgettable riff to a song about a mosh pit dance in which the participants beheaded each other with shovels -- 'Diggin' That Grave.' Together, we finished the tune, and when all of the songs were completed, it was clear that 'Grave' and 'Time' stood alone and apart from the rest. We decided to form a band."
Duff goes on to recount the whole sordid saga of the band and its successes and failures, ins and outs (of the band members -- who included past present and future members of such acts as 45 Grave, The Mentors, and Poison!). Highlights for them included signing to Metal Blade imprint Dimension, after "End of Time" appeared on "Metal Massacre V", and playing shows with the likes of Janes Addiction, Flaming Lips, and the Dickies. Lowlights include, well, uh, signing to Metal Blade imprint Dimension, plus all the stuff you'd expect to befall an '80s LA metal band that didn't "make it".
What's really funny (and not discussed) is how their saga ends with this reissue 15 years later on a strange Finnish art-rock label! From Metal Blade to Ektro!
This disc contains their entire "Fun at the Funeral" debut (seeing release on cd for the first time), plus eight bonus tracks consisting of punkier material recorded for their never-released third album (including "Diggin' That Grave '87", a more Talking Heads-ish take on their impossibly catchy signature tune), a home demo, and a live version of Black Sabbath's "Electric Funeral" (can't get away from graves and funerals with these guys!). Their studio cover of that song appeared on their second, all-covers album "In A Nostalgic Mood", the material from which both Duff and Jussi decided was unfit for reissue -- too bad, we want to hear it! Anyway, their live "EF", Duff says, "shows the kind of heavy metal Ornette Coleman spazz attack the band was capable of live." Dunno about that, but it's a fine way to end the disc nonetheless, summing up the fucked up "gleeful gloom" rock that Jesters of Destiny created.
To wind up, thanks Jussi for reissuing this masterpiece of heavy psychedelic pop metal weirdness! Now it's not just Andee here who's a fan. For my part (Allan speaking) I could listen to "Diggin' That Grave" on auto repeat a hundred times and not get tired of it, it's that great a song. To get that and the rest of the album too, plus all the bonus tracks -- well it's a happy day here at Aquarius!
It might seem strange, that a band whose mastermind spent most of his career bashing our epic swaths of crushing Teutonic industrial pound, abrasive and caustic guitardrone and gnarled hyperkinetic grind, would find himself on a label run by none other than Mark Kozelek from the Red House Painters, but it only seems strange if you haven't been paying attention to Jesu the last decade plus.
Justin Broadrick, better know to some as the man behind the legendary Godflesh, as well as having played in Napalm Death, Head Of David, and Fall Of Because among others, has spent the last few years playing as Jesu, a surprisingly melodic, and shoegazily dreamy outfit that has moved well beyond the programmed head cave churn of Godflesh and well into something more along the lines of the hazy dream pop of M83. With ever record it seems Broadrick has been perfecting his own particular brand of pop music, still beholden to all the various groups he played in before, but the elements from those various endeavors have in Jesu been transformed and deftly woven into a whole new sound, a hushed slow build, post rock slowcore, with just a bit of the recently coined metal gaze, the bombastic choruses, the lush, crumblingly distorted avalanches of thick guitar swirl, but always underneath, a sweetly melancholic pop. Never more so than on Ascension, which has to be Broadrick's prettiest, and lest heavy record to date.
Opener "Fools" begins all acoustic guitars, simpler percussion, woozy bass, sounding like Codeine, or appropriately enough Red House Painters, the vocals hushed and softly crooned, the melody minor key, the song soon erupts into crashing big guitars, but it's not chugging and churning so much as chiming and soaring, the sound epic and majestic, the thick guitarbuzz washed out and almost ethereal, the guitar does slip into some cool processed chug, but instead of making it sound metal, it just adds another layer of warm muted buzz. The song drifts on and on, wistful and melancholy and dreamy and shoegazey, an updated version of the softly psychedelic nineties indie pop that we grew up listening to.
And so it goes, the rest of the record equally melodic, poppy, washed out and shoegazey, some of the songs sounding like reimagined Godflesh jams, the guitars softened, the melodies stretched out into soft spiraling swirls, often blurred into something slightly darker, but this is definitely Broadrick's finest moment, at least from a pop standpoint, the songs gorgeously catchy, beautifully arranged, the instrumentation lush and thick and layered, some of the best hooks we've heard buried beneath the warm whirl of Jesu's slowcore shoegaze buzz.
Now this is a holiday record we can get behind. Originally released a couple years back, now reissued with a bonus remix, Justin Broadrick, of Godflesh, Ice, Techno Animal, JK Flesh, Final, Pale Sketcher, etc., tries his hand at writing a modern metalgaze Christmas carol, and pretty much pulls it off. Although the only real Christmas-y bits, are the lyrics, some chiming holiday bells, and the song's sort of wistful lullaby like vibe - otherwise, it's a primo slice of blissed out psychedelic shoegaze post metal chug and shimmer, Jesu style, with swoonsome swirling verses, all hushed vox buried beneath whorls of woozy crystalline thrum, and churning chugging downtuned choruses, laced with strange squiggly melodies and distant tangled melodic filigree, much of "Christmas" plays out like a slowed down, super distorted M83, which seems to a reasonable shorthand description of Jesu's sound in general. The song balances heartfelt melodic dreaminess, specifically the Christmas-y break midsong where the aforementioned bells toll over lush acoustic guitars, and the hazy dreamy vox, with some serious metallic heft, the results perhaps not appropriate for your family holiday get together, but perfect for that heavy holiday mixtape.
Broadrick tacks on three remixes, each by one of his other projects/alter egos. Up first is the new track, credited to JK Flesh, which hadn't really happened when this was first released, but in that guise, Broadrick, pushes the sound back a bit toward his bleak industrial roots, transforming the blissful holiday shimmer into a brooding expanse of grim blackened ambience, anchored to a plodding death march beat, which is soon augmented by some murky jungle breakbeats, the tolling bell drifting on long stretches of droned out minor key shimmer, the vocals too reimagined, and transformed into a strange alien chant, a serious slab of not very Christmas-y electro-industrial blackened jungle grimnity. The Pale Sketcher version heads for the exact opposite of the sonic spectrum, stripping the original down into a hazy swirl of barely there beats, echo drenched vox, lots of softly billowing synths, everything gauzy and sun dappled and so dreamily washed out. And finally, Broadrick slips back into his Final persona, originally more of a solo guitar project, and takes the original version of "Christmas" and Caretaker-izes it, blurring the sounds into ghostlike ambience, and long softly undulating tones, a smeared sprawl of drifting melodic fragments, of soft focus sonic shards, the track building to a sort of crescendo, a softly roiling, dreamily psychedelic climax, before settling right back down into something even more muted and minimal, a bleary stretch of shadowy, soft around the edges chordal shimmer.
SUPER LIMITED!! Once we run out, odds are we won't be able to get more.
Who thought the dreamiest, fuzziest bliss pop record of the year would come courtesy of the same man responsible for the soul crushing might of Godflesh's Streetcleaner, and someone who once called Napalm Death home? Well, actually we sort of did. Especially since last year's Silver ep, on which Justin Broadrick's Jesu took the already fuzzy dreamy metallic crunch of their debut, and injected it with all sorts of unlikely glistening pop and muted indie jangle, creating an impossibly pretty metallic dirge pop, equal parts Godflesh, My Bloody Valentine and M83.
And as if to prove that Broadrick indeed has a heart of pop beneath that crushing downtuned exterior, we now have the Conqueror, which if anything, pushes Jesu's sound even further into the glistening dreamy realm of pure pop. But fear not, we're not talking sugary sweet, treacly pop music cheese, no this is Jesu after all, spawn of Godflesh, so there's no shortage of dirgey rhythms, BIG crushing guitars, lurching tempos, thick swaths of buzz and fuzz, but it's all just window dressing for some seriously pretty pop. The opener is shockingly poppy, with sweet melodic hooks, tinkling piano, breathy vocals, all processed and wrapped in a fuzzy dreamlike haze. An immediate classic for sure. The rest of the record strikes a delicate balance between the dirgier heaviness of the first Jesu record and Broadrick's newfound love of the jangle and swoon, each track a glistening pop gem, placed delicately into a blown out landscape of loping drum crush and thick shimmery guitar buzz, coruscating sheets of distortion wrapped tenderly around heartfelt epics, soaring vocals, and dreamy melodies.
We don't so much hear some Godflesh / M83 hybrid now as we do the dirgey dreamlike murky bliss of nineties New Zealand legends Bailter Space, or the heavier side of the shoegazer spectrum, Swervedriver, Chapterhouse and the like. It's a captivating sound for sure, and a logical progression, and while it's distinctly less metal, there is still much heaviness to be had, even at its most soft focus and glimmering, the guitars retain their buzzy crunch, and the tempos are always dirgey and machinelike, but all the sharp edges have been smoothed out, and the rhythms maybe seem more languid than mechanical, and the fuzzy blissy poppy core of each song seems to radiate from within like some alien sun, giving each song, no matter how heavy, a soft burnished glow.
So you might wonder why the heck the new Jesu is $28.00? Well, we figured that like us, you'd probably rather spend a little bit extra and get the gorgeous Japanese version, with its elaborate silver printed slipcover and more importantly, an ENTIRE EXTRA DISC nearly thirty three extra minutes, two epic tracks, featuring in its entirety, the music from Jesu's new 12" on Aurora Borealis (which we haven't even gotten yet). And it is most definitely worth it. Two 15 minute tracks, each epic and majestic, huge throbbing fuzzed out guitars, pounding rhythms, drifting minor key melodies, thick washes of blissy psychedelia, soft processed vocals, the first a crushing dreampop dirge harkening back to the first Jesu record (albeit a bit poppier), the second an almost ambient guitarscape of layered melodies, murky vocals and shimmery rhythms, so good. So worth it.
And the packaging, WOW! A double disc digipak, housed in a thick plastic slipcover, a silver cityscape superimposed over the washed out grey of the digipak, with a booklet, lyrics, Japanese liner notes and of course a Japanese style obi.
Justin Broadrick's Jesu continues to drift further and further way from the the churning industrial metallic pummel of his Godflesh project, which makes sense, especially considering Godflesh is back together and a going concern again. But then even before that, Jesu continued to move ever popward, most recently positioning itself alongside the electro-pop of M83, as well as the wistful eighties style John Hughes soundtrack sound. And for all of the heaviness and experimentalism that came before, Broadrick definitely demonstrated a keen knack for pop smithery, which is most definitely in full effect here.
"Homesick" might be one of the poppiest songs yet, still rife with heavy chugging guitar, but those guitars wreathed in shimmery, chiming melodies, and then extra super polished clean vocals, it's the sort of song that with a different production could be a proper 'hit', but thankfully, here it's still defined by Broadrick's production, and that heavy guitar part, which turns this into a sort of jangle sludge dream pop. "Comforter" is even less heavy, with a warbly effected guitar melody over ethereal synth drifts and swooping backward FX, subtle electronic pulsations, but like the opener, this dreaminess is soon joined by some crunchy downtuned guitar, before the whole thing settles into a weird woozy dream pop dirge, all melty and warbly, as if it was dubbed from a tape left in the sun too long. The rest of the record is more of the same, a sort of stripped down pop, the title track the sort of new wave jangle pop you might expect to hear on Captured Tracks, and the closer "Grey Is The Colour", is also all dreamy and jangly, strummy and shimmery, but right in between, lurks the 17+ minute "The Great Leveller", which begins with some stately piano, wrapped in soft swirls of symphonic strings, and martial snares, clouds of cymbal shimmer, before the sound is nearly swallowed by some seriously distorted and downtuned guitar chug and churn, which is offset by more clean melodic vox, but it's easily the heaviest track here, but again, heavy as in some super melodic sludge pop, but it does get a bit mathy and metallic, with a melancholic interlude partway through, stately and lovely, before returning to the majestic metallic chug, now offset by some seriously lilting melodies, the sort of combo that really shouldn't work, but somehow does, perfectly.
Since we made Jesu's debut full length on Hydrahead one of our records of the week a couple lists ago, it was pretty much a no brainer that Jesu's Heart Ache ep would have to be a record of the week as well. Especially since some of us might actually even like it a little better than the full length, and unlike the Hydrahead release, this one has been impossibly difficult to track down, until now.
Heart Ache, released on Dry Run, a tiny UK independent label, was to be our first glimpse of Justin Broadrick's much anticipated post Godflesh project (but for most of us, it's actually a second glimpse since it's taken until now for us to get copies to list) and sonically it sounds exactly like you might imagine a record between the last Godflesh record and the totally amazing Jesu full length would sound.
We had all pretty much given up on Godflesh. Gone was the glorious industrial pummel of Streetcleaner and gone too was the dubbed out machine metal of Slavestate, and in their place, tired rehashed riffs, shouted atonal vocals, and uninspired songwriting. So while our age-old love of early Godflesh had us super excited to hear this Jesu everyone was talking about, we were pretty much ready to be disappointed. Which was precisely why we were so blown away when we finally heard it. Everything we loved about Godflesh was there, plus a new found love of melody, swoonsome clean vocals, expanded insturmentation (piano!) and extended slow building tracks of brooding intensity and smoldering instrumental ferocity, all smeared into dreamy industrial bliss drone epics!
Unlike the full length, on which Jesu is a full band with a live drummer, on Heart Ache, Jesu is just Broadrick, a guitar, a piano, and of course a drum machine. Ahhh, the drum machine. How it warms our Streetcleaner worshipping hearts. Clangy and clattery, brittle guitars soar over crumbling distorted rumbles, all machinelike and clinical but imbued with a weirdly organic lushness. Drifting clouds of ghostly feedback, sonic vapor trails of haunting minor key swells, all slip and shift into vast stretches of shimmering cinematic ambience, with slowly pealing guitar tones and synthesized chant-like vocals, gorgeously melancholy almost Goblin-esque in its creepy beauty. Everything held together by smooth, clean, barely affected vocals, all dreary and weary, repeating simple mantra-like lyrics, distant and otherworldly. The whole thing sheds its industrial armor as it moves forward, showing more skin, becoming more vulnerable, becoming less and less rigid, and more and more soft and indistinct. Pretty, dreamy, blissed out and sweetly sorrowful, with Broadrick's endlessly repeated, haunting refrain drifitng and fading, like a mirage that may have never been there at all. And that's just the first track.
The second track is just as surprising as the first, starting off with spare solo piano, joined eventually by simple, finger-picked guitar, eventually drifting into a simple low end piano chord, repeated over and over and over, floating in the inky blackness, until the song lurches into a sludgy crawl, with huge murky downtuned riffs (think Fudge Tunnel's "Hate Song" at 16rpm), but then Broderick confounds again with heavily delayed, clean vocals, singing in a strangely hypnotic counterpoint to the main riff. Dizzying and quite lovely. It's a constant tug of war between the black hole tar pit dirge and the almost hopeful sounding vocals. Like the first song, track two devolves into a whole 'nother beast, as it slows down and blisses out, with lilting melodies creeping into the sludge and making what was only moments before a metallic behemoth crushing all in its wake, into a creepy rickety, buzzy back porch crawl, spare and skeletal, with distorted piano, buzzing fret noise and lots of ambient reverb that's gradually smoothed out into a fuzzy smear of static, beneath a simple low end piano figure, chiming and ringing out into nothingness. One of those rare records that manages to be heavy yet pretty, beautiful but scary, sweet and sorrowful, darkly doomy and gloriously luminous!
Finally reissued, the very first release from Justin Broadrick's post Godflesh combo Jesu, the two track Heart Ache was a Record Of The Week way back in 2005, and this updated version tacks on the previously unreleased Dethroned ep, which Broadrick started way back in 2004, but only finished recently, the perfect accompaniment to Heart Ache for sure.
Most readers of the aQ list are now well familiar with Justin Broadrick's (Godflesh, Final, etc.) bliss metal behemoth, Jesu, but when Heart Ache first hit, we were blown away, totally knocked for a loop, all the heft and grit and pummel of Godflesh, but blurred into gorgeously washed out shoe-gazey swells, a new sound that was, and still is all we wanted to hear. And still remains, to this day, quite possibly our favorite Jesu recording yet. Which is most definitely saying something considering how much we love pretty much everything Jesu has put out.
But right before Heart Ache was released, we had all pretty much given up on Godflesh. It seemed like maybe that band had run its course. The sounds were there, but it sounded like Broadrick had his mind elsewhere. Gone was the glorious industrial pummel of Streetcleaner and gone too was the dubbed out machine metal of Slavestate, and in their place, more-of-the-same riffs, shouted atonal vocals, and songs that played out more like assembled parts than actual SONGS. So while our age-old and undying love of early Godflesh had us super excited to hear this Jesu everyone was talking about, we were prepared for it to not live up to the hype. Which was precisely why we were so blown away when we finally heard it. Everything we loved about Godflesh was there, plus a new found love of melody, swoonsome clean vocals, expanded instrumentation (piano!) and extended slow building tracks of brooding intensity and smoldering instrumental ferocity, all smeared into dreamy industrial bliss drone epics!
Unlike the following full length, on which Jesu was a full band with a live drummer, on Heart Ache, Jesu was just Broadrick, a guitar, a piano, and of course a drum machine. Ahhh, the drum machine. How it warms our Streetcleaner worshipping hearts. Clangy and clattery, brittle guitars soar over crumbling distorted rumbles, all machinelike and clinical but imbued with a weirdly organic lushness. Drifting clouds of ghostly feedback, sonic vapor trails of haunting minor key swells, all slip and shift into vast stretches of shimmering cinematic ambience, with slowly pealing guitar tones and synthesized chant-like vocals, gorgeously melancholy almost Goblin-esque in its creepy beauty. Everything held together by smooth, clean, barely affected vocals, all dreary and weary, repeating simple mantra-like lyrics, distant and otherworldly. The whole thing sheds its industrial armor as it moves forward, showing more skin, becoming more vulnerable, becoming less and less rigid, and more and more soft and indistinct. Pretty, dreamy, blissed out and sweetly sorrowful, with Broadrick's endlessly repeated, haunting refrain drifting and fading, like a mirage that may have never been there at all. And that's just the first track.
The second track is just as surprising as the first, starting off with spare solo piano, joined eventually by simple, finger-picked guitar, eventually drifting into a simple low end piano chord, repeated over and over and over, floating in the inky blackness, until the song lurches into a sludgy crawl, with huge murky downtuned riffs (think Fudge Tunnel's "Hate Song" at 16rpm), but then Broadrick confounds again with heavily delayed, clean vocals, singing in a strangely hypnotic counterpoint to the main riff. Dizzying and quite lovely. It's a constant tug of war between the black hole tar pit dirge and the almost hopeful sounding vocals. Like the first song, track two devolves into a whole 'nother beast, as it slows down and blisses out, with lilting melodies creeping into the sludge and making what was only moments before a metallic behemoth crushing all in its wake, into a creepy rickety, buzzy back porch crawl, spare and skeletal, with distorted piano, buzzing fret noise and lots of ambient reverb that's gradually smoothed out into a fuzzy smear of static, beneath a simple low end piano figure, chiming and ringing out into nothingness. One of those rare records that manages to be heavy yet pretty, beautiful but scary, sweet and sorrowful, darkly doomy and gloriously luminous!
The second disc included with the long anticipated Heart Ache reissue is an ep called Dethroned, recorded just after the Heart Ache sessions, but only completed recently, and while there are obvious references to those early days of Jesu, the fact that the songs were completed recently is evident in the songs' distinctly shoegazey vibe, the poppiness, the songcraft, these 4 tracks hover right in between the two eras of Jesu, the washed out almost M83 dreamy blissed out modern Jesu, and the chugging, industrial, post Godflesh chug and pound, and the result is actually pretty fantastic, super heavy, subtly poppy, kick ass riffage, that slips from almost groovy to crushing and downtuned, the vocals are super effected, almost vocodered sounding (autotuned?), which gives the songs a weirdly almost new wave vibe.
"Dethroned" almost sounds like nineties noise rock, a little grunge, a little pop, but woven into a sort of post industrial shoegaze framework, the vocals and melodies are all super heavy on the effects, the rhythm is almost groovy, definitely demonstrating in a single song the evolution of Jesu, which gives way to "Annul", the most Godflesh-y of the bunch, with its churning chuggy main riff, and machinelike drum pound, a little Godflesh, a little Helmet (!), but again, still with some of that blossoming shoegazey poppiness that would later inform almost everything Jesu.
"Aureated Skin" is total ballady bliss, all big chiming guitars, and blurred shimmery distortion, not to mention some lush keyboard swells and some seriously poppy melodies, while "I Can Only Disappoint You", is super stripped down, and almost sounds like Three Mile Pilot or something, the drums super spare, the guitars brittle and metallic, but the song is laced with cool backwards guitars, and hazy atmospheres, it almost sounds like some strange hybrid of Godflesh and the Cure, which is most definitely very very cool.
This debut ep from Justin Broadrick's (of Godflesh) new outift Jesu has been a bit tough to keep in stock, and since when we originally had it we loved it so much we made it Record Of The Week, and since we finally managed to get more, we figured we'd relist it so those of you who missed out the first time can get another crack. Here's what we had to say about it last time:
Since we made Jesu's debut full length on Hydrahead one of our records of the week recently, it was pretty much a no brainer that Jesu's Heart Ache ep would have to be a record of the week as well. Especially since some of us might actually even like it a little better than the full length, and unlike the Hydrahead release, this one has been impossibly difficult to track down, until now.
Heart Ache, released on Dry Run, a tiny UK independent label, was to be our first glimpse of Justin Broadrick's much anticipated post Godflesh project (but for most of us, it's actually a second glimpse since it's taken until now for us to get copies to list) and sonically it sounds exactly like you might imagine a record between the last Godflesh record and the totally amazing Jesu full length would sound.
We had all pretty much given up on Godflesh. Gone was the glorious industrial pummel of Streetcleaner and gone too was the dubbed out machine metal of Slavestate, and in their place, tired rehashed riffs, shouted atonal vocals, and uninspired songwriting. So while our age-old love of early Godflesh had us super excited to hear this Jesu everyone was talking about, we were pretty much ready to be disappointed. Which was precisely why we were so blown away when we finally heard it. Everything we loved about Godflesh was there, plus a new found love of melody, swoonsome clean vocals, expanded insturmentation (piano!) and extended slow building tracks of brooding intensity and smoldering instrumental ferocity, all smeared into dreamy industrial bliss drone epics!
Unlike the full length, on which Jesu is a full band with a live drummer, on Heart Ache, Jesu is just Broadrick, a guitar, a piano, and of course a drum machine. Ahhh, the drum machine. How it warms our Streetcleaner worshipping hearts. Clangy and clattery, brittle guitars soar over crumbling distorted rumbles, all machinelike and clinical but imbued with a weirdly organic lushness. Drifting clouds of ghostly feedback, sonic vapor trails of haunting minor key swells, all slip and shift into vast stretches of shimmering cinematic ambience, with slowly pealing guitar tones and synthesized chant-like vocals, gorgeously melancholy almost Goblin-esque in its creepy beauty. Everything held together by smooth, clean, barely affected vocals, all dreary and weary, repeating simple mantra-like lyrics, distant and otherworldly. The whole thing sheds its industrial armor as it moves forward, showing more skin, becoming more vulnerable, becoming less and less rigid, and more and more soft and indistinct. Pretty, dreamy, blissed out and sweetly sorrowful, with Broadrick's endlessly repeated, haunting refrain drifitng and fading, like a mirage that may have never been there at all. And that's just the first track.
The second track is just as surprising as the first, starting off with spare solo piano, joined eventually by simple, finger-picked guitar, eventually drifting into a simple low end piano chord, repeated over and over and over, floating in the inky blackness, until the song lurches into a sludgy crawl, with huge murky downtuned riffs (think Fudge Tunnel's "Hate Song" at 16rpm), but then Broderick confounds again with heavily delayed, clean vocals, singing in a strangely hypnotic counterpoint to the main riff. Dizzying and quite lovely. It's a constant tug of war between the black hole tar pit dirge and the almost hopeful sounding vocals. Like the first song, track two devolves into a whole 'nother beast, as it slows down and blisses out, with lilting melodies creeping into the sludge and making what was only moments before a metallic behemoth crushing all in its wake, into a creepy rickety, buzzy back porch crawl, spare and skeletal, with distorted piano, buzzing fret noise and lots of ambient reverb that's gradually smoothed out into a fuzzy smear of static, beneath a simple low end piano figure, chiming and ringing out into nothingness. One of those rare records that manages to be heavy yet pretty, beautiful but scary, sweet and sorrowful, darkly doomy and gloriously luminous!
