A few years ago, before Kyle Thomas delved into the neo-acid folk of Feathers or the stoner metal of Witch, he began working on his first musical project King Tuff, a buzzy and bright concoction of glam punk and '70s power pop, casually playing out with his friends at parties and recording songs in his basement. Finally having more time to devote to the project after a couple exhaustive years touring with Feathers, playing in Witch, and keeping up a side career as a visual artist, the uber-limited cd-r label, Spirit of Oar has released these early recordings to precede King Tuff's upcoming Fall tour, and what a treat!!. Imagine Sweet, Zolar X, and Televison playing at your Sweet Sixteen. Fucking Rad! Did we say limited?? Only 100 made and we got a handful, and not really sure if we can ever get more.
Long overdue reissue of the long out of print 2008 debut lp from Kyle Thomas aka King Tuff, he of psych folk outfit Feathers, heavy psych rockers Witch (along with J Mascis) and aQ beloved power pop combo Happy Birthday, and like the self titled King Tuff record on Sub Pop from last year, Was Dead is a glorious concoction of home brewed power pop, swaggery glam stomp and fuzzy garage pop jangle, Thomas's distinctive whiny boy vocals over crunchy riffs, low slung bass, wheezing organs, kinetic drumming, hooks galore, catchy as all get out, a little bit laid back and stoney, fuzzed out and summery, just total (sun) baked jangle and fuzz garage pop, that ends up sounding equal parts seventies style Yellow Pills pop (Warm Soda / Bare Wires fans will flip) and more modern garage rock a la Ty Segall, Mikal Cronin, Thee Oh Sees etc, but with a seriously classic pop bent. We're also reminded quite a bit of another band with a serious sixties/seventies fixation, Redd Kross, we're guessing Thomas is a big fan, if not, they must share some musical genes. Plenty of these jams could easily be mistaken for actual old school power pop tracks from back in the day, the arrangement, the hooks, right down to the recording itself, a little bit lo-fi, but still plenty loud and fuzzy, the perfect summer jams for sure, while it's still summer, and to keep the summer going long into winter as well!
The return of King Tuff! Kyle Thomas's glam pop acid psych outfit, who we hadn't really heard a peep from since a cd-r way back in 2006. But Thomas has definitely been busy, playing in acid folk combo Feathers, stoner metal heavies Witch (with J. Mascis), not to mention being responsible for one of our favorite weirdo pop records of the last few years, the self-titled debut from the oddly named Happy Birthday, a record of total lo-fi nineties style power pop bliss out, check the review eleswhere on the aQ site, you won't be sorry. And of all of those, this new King Tuff probably lands closest to Happy Birthday, which suits us just fine. Just check out the record opener, which sounds like seventies power pop via Marc Bolan glamrock, all big chords, handclaps, woozy tangled guitar melodies, hazy sunshiney boy vox, shuffling drums, all wreathed in a summery sort of gauzy production. This is definitely windows down, top down, speaker pumping summertime crusing glam pop radness, and it's no coincidence the title of that track is "Anthem".
"Alone & Stoned" is another one that's perfectly titled, a weirdly produced chunk of jangle pop, that sounds a bit like Ariel Pink via Jeff The Brotherhood, all Wezzer-y big pop crunch, wed to murky bass slither, whiny vox, plenty of jangle and chordal shimmer, another track that's pretty dang summery. Which leads right into "Keep On Movin'", another glam pop anthem, big acoustic guiat strum, hand clap rhythms, loping bass groove, more whiny vocals, and a big flanger heavy chorus.
And so it goes, the record sort of dreamy and druggy, summery and shimmery, glammy and groovy, from the softl focus synthy shimmer of "Unusual World", rife with tinkling melodies and a sort of sixties girl group vibe, to "Bad Thing", which weds classic rock stomp to seventies power pop swagger, heavy with hooks galore and some ruling kick ass guitar action, or from the dirgey blooz jangle of "Stranger", all raw and primitive and fuzz drenched, to the almost Redd Kross sounding bubblegum ballad "Stupid Superstar". And actually Redd Kross might not be such a bad comparison, these guys have the same sort of knack for pop songsmithery, as well as a thing for rock eras past, glam, power pop, post punk, but where Redd Kross have morphed into a proper rock band, King Tuff still sounds fantastically home brewed, more ramshackle and wild, the pop way off kilter, the hooks balanced by plenty of random sonic weirdness, but somehow all crafted into a sweet little slab of twisted glampop, that's fast becoming a new fave.
The Sleep Genius label who has brought us great releases by Chasms, Bad News, Tied To The Branches and Concrete Island is back and not only with a new cassette, but a cassingle!!!!!! Yes that's right, a cassette in a gorgeously blood red shrink-wrapped paper stock sleeve!
King Woman is the first solo project of Kristina Esfandiari, the front woman of San Francisco local band Whirr, who we're not familiar with, but wondering now if we should be after hearing this. Backed by members of Tied to the Branches and Chasms, Esfandiari's deep resonant voice hovers over the minimal hazy treatments in these two slow shoegaze murder ballads. She reminds us of Hope Sandoval or Marissa Nadler but with a richer timbre to her vocal that is quite stunning. The backing music all hovering slow motion creep, quietly lifting these songs up to the beckoning gallows. Pretty fucking great!
Kristinia Esfandiari formerly of SF shoegazers Whirr, delivers a dark brooding gem of introspective heaviness, a mini-songsuite that unfurls lugubriously, and blossoms into a haunting sprawl of crushing, slo-mo metallic, torchsong miserablism. Imagine some twisted fusion of PJ harvey and SUNNO))). Churning washes of crumbling distortion and tarpit riffage drift grimly through billowing clouds of dense layered thrum, roiling blackened backdrops for Esfandiari's throaty, bewitching vox. The sonic heft matched by the lyrical themes of family and religion, and the suffering borne of both.
A darkly delicate downer pop dirgery, flecked with keening, melancholic melodies crafted into smoldering sonic arcs, and all wound up into blurred hazy drifts, morose, moody, mournful and melancholy. With the sound very reminiscent of Whirr, but like that groups blissed out metalgaze slowed way down, stretched out into languorous, undulating fields of dreamy, dour, doom-drift shimmer. "Candescent Soul" begins a whispered drumless creep, before transforming into a heart wrenching slow motion sonic pummel, a heart crushing deathmarch dirge reminiscent of some lost Katatonia B-side via nineties slowcore.
"Burn" follows a similar sonic template, blurred riffs spread out into a hazy landscape of swoonsome buzz and throb, driven by a simple caveman pound, before exploding into some seriously dense introspective crush, spidery tendrils of strange distorted electronics tangled up beneath Esfandiari's increasingly passionate and dramatic vocals. A shoegaze doom that bleeds into closer "King Of Swords", a loping distorted ballad that builds into a brooding slow build bombastic, swirling and psychedelic, almost like a female fronted, shoegaze Afghan Whigs, tortured, heart-on-sleeve indie pop recast as something darkly metallic, that somehow remains woozy, washed out, wasted, and dreamily despondent.
We've been meaning to list this for a while now, but we were always stumped as to how to describe it. It's just so good, and so beautiful and so poignant, we weren't sure a review could do it justice. This is some gorgeously dark, dreamy, stripped down classic finger pickin' country blues, recorded on a 4 track in a shed on the side of a mountain. Cast King is a legendary (around some parts) picker and songsmith, playing since the 40's, even recording a handful of tracks at the legendary Sun Studios. Now in his eighties, these tracks were recorded a year or two back, with just Cast and Matt Downer, who tracked him down during a project to record the music and document the musicians of old Sand Mountain in Alabama.
The liner notes are hilarious, documenting how the two finally got together to "pick" and do some recording. The sound is super spare, stripped down, intimate and personal. King's vocals are warm and rich, weathered but still sweet and velvety. His strumming simple, his lead playing perfect. And his songs are stone cold classics. Any one of these songs, could have been played by Cash, or Jennings, or Haggard and been big ol' hits. In fact if the dice fell just a little bit differently, you'd be seeing Cast King tapes at truck stops all over the US. But as it is, he just sort of faded away, taking his "sackful of songs" with him.
And while this disc doesn't quite make up for the injustice of Cast King not being a household name or a country music legend, it's so damn good to hear these songs now. They definitely sound like timeless classics, so warm and familiar like you've heard them a million times before, but still original and distinctly Cast King. And as far as we're concerned, these are country classics, even if they were maybe never meant to be.
The Coachmen are probably mostly known as the band that featured a pre-Sonic Youth Thurston Moore. We always just assumed that JD King was in fact a made up entity and was in fact Moore. But apparently the two met way back in 1976, bonding over their love of all things Velvet Underground, Flamin' Groovies and the like. So the two joined forces, started a band, and jammed around NY until they broke up in 1979. At which point Moore went on to Sonic Youth while King went on to become a illustrator / cartoonist. A few of those records came out in the mid eighties on Ecstatic Peace, which is probably why we all assumed that The Coachmen was just Moore in disguise. But King and the Coachmen resurfaced in the mid nineties with a new record before sort of fading away again, and then wham! 2006 and they're back again!
So what the heck do these Coachmen sound like? Well, it's been ages since we've heard the old records, but we do remember it maybe being some sort of disconnected convoluted garage rock buzz blues stomp although it's been so long it's all a bit fuzzy. But fuzzy actually does begin to describe JD King And The Coachmen circa 2006. Imagine abstract streaks of fuzzed out guitar and dreamy tendrils of minor key melodies, hovering over thick swells of distorted buzz and a dense web of noodily bass lines, peppered with muted percussive thuds, or deep cavernous tangles of dense guitar over angular riffs and thick swaths of fuzznoise and simple tambourine, or tripped out space rock drift all tangled up in thickly reverbed guitar, freaked out psychguitar drift and moody mumbling backdrops of shimmering acoustic guitar and muddy bass rumble, or a tripped out disembodied Stoogesy stomp wrapped in swirling layers of distorted psychedelia and warm whirls of frothy fuzz.
This is some sort of alien garage rock, some disembodied blues, broadcast from some other time (past? future? both?) from some other plane, a mysterious alternate universe that has more in common musically with bands like the No Neck Blues Band, Avarus, Excepter, Sunburned Hand and the rest of those druggy free rock troubadours than it does with the Velvets or the Groovies. But that's the magic, it's like King and his cohorts are a tribe of modern mediums, who mixed up a magical brew of guitar, bass and percussion, managing to conjure up a brood of garage rock ghosts of the past, letting them get all tangled up with the free noise spectres of the present.
AFRO FUNK! Includes download code.
Nigeria-born, London-schooled bandleader Peter King started his career in the '60s playing highlife and jazz before venturing into the James Brown inspired realms of afro-funk, of which "Shango" (named after the Yoruba god of thunder) is a prime example. These mostly instrumental tracks (there are some chanted vocal parts, often with a political message like "Freedom!") are super jazzy and groovy, with King's sax and flute joined by a bunch of other horns, percussion, and electric guitar/bass/drums. Recorded in 1974 but actually never released at the time, "Shango" was rediscovered when the Afrostrut label was putting together the excellent "Nigeria 70" compilation -- King's wife remembered the recording, and it turned out the tapes had actually been sitting beneath the bed of Peter King's son for who knows how many years! You'd think having something this funky under your bed would keep you up at night... Anyway, it's cool they found this, anyone into the soulful sounds of the "Nigeria 70" comp or all the other Afro-funk stuff that's been getting reissued recently will be glad to hear this.
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Wow, hard to believe that King Cat Comics is sixty seven issues old! The gent behind the endearingly Spartan King Cat line drawings and introspective stories is Mr. John Porcellino. Up until very recently he was based here in SF, but a couple of months ago he moved inland to the higher lands of Denver, CO. This here issue features a lot of Bay Area specific content including John P's top forty list for winter/summer 2006. It'll be interesting to see if the change in altitude will have any influence on his comics. S'pose we'll just have to wait 'til the next issue! Until then let's dig into #67!
Comic artist/writer John Porcellino might be based in the distant high altitudes of Colorado, but that doesn't keep him from sending us his latest issue of King-Cat Comics. Glad that he's keeping us in the King-Cat loop! We always look forward to a new issue filled with his low-key, quietly witty and endearing tales drawn out in simple black fine line ink. His writing always rings true with an uncommon sincerity and sensitivity. This issue comes with a much heavier heart than usual. Themes of loss are throughout -- the passings of a close friend and his beloved cat, as well as the loss of oneself. Also included are Porcellino's top forty list for October 2006 through September 2007 and a section titled Nature Notes (his observations on birds, bugs, weeds, other wildlife, etc).
A new issue of John Porcellino's comic always brightens our day! What's not to love? Wistful musings and gently witty ponderings and simple thin-line drawings of people, places and things. Hurrah for King-Cat!
John Porcellino's King-Cat comic book series reaches its seventieth issue, and not only that, it also marks King-Cat's twentieth anniversary! Wow! We're always delighted to see what curious observations and funny encounters have flown out of John Porcellino's skinny tipped drawing pens since the previous issue. He seldom disappoints. His very minimal sketches of himself, his friends, neighbors and strangers suggest a child-like vision, but the stories and anecdotes offer a far more world-weary outlook.
The King-Cat Comic series keeps chuggin' along... now on issue #71! John Porcellino's drawing style has remained steadfastly consistent. It might be defined by stark fine lines, but it still conveys a comforting warmth and sensitivity. In fact, the images - black ink on white paper figures which verge on the cute - regularly have us itchin' to turn the zine into a King-Cat coloring book! And the text follows suit with casual humble observations and low-key day-to-day commentaries. Always a welcome and welcoming read!
Most people probably know Arthur Brown, if at all, as the leader of the Crazy World of Arthur Brown, kind of a one-hit wonder in the UK and the US with their 1968 single "Fire". But I remember a few years ago somebody playing me a '70s vintage LP by Arthur Brown, and it was a pretty amazing, freaked out space rock artifact. I'm pretty sure it was one of these three Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come records that have just been reissued, remastered with bonus cuts -- although next to "amazing" I'd also have to use the word "ridiculous" 'cause these sure are some gonzo, over the top examples of early '70s rock excess. The story goes that after his "I am the God of Hellfire" 15 minutes of f(l)ame, Arthur's Crazy World broke up, and then he eventually regrouped with this band, who were dedicated to an altogether heavier, more guitar-oriented sort of showmanship, from dark psych-prog to simply silly music hall theatrics. Brown was capable of some incredible vocal stylings, from Tom Jones worthy croonery to sheer sheer manaical dramaturgy, and he demonstrates that full range on these discs, coming across a bit like early Alice Cooper (who may in turn have been influenced by Brown originally). Totally wigged out and acid fried, chaotic and confused. What they're trying to get across is hard to say, but if you delight in both failed genius and '70s hippy zaniness, then Arthur Brown is your new prog rock hero.
Galactic Zoo Dossier, from '71, was the first of the three Kingdom Come albums. You'll note that it was good enuff for a present-day psych fanzine to be named after it. A classic of sorts. Then came 1972's self-titled Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come record, whose contents, according to the liner notes, were affected by the band's communal living situation and increased LSD consumption. It's a little more disjointed than the first record but it does contain the "Traffic Light Song" which was both a pop psychology metaphor for personality types and an excuse for the band to wear traffic light costumes on stage as part of their increasingly bizarre live show. Last comes 1973's Journey, which may be the best of the three, or at least the weirdest, because rather than a human drummer, Journey features electronic drum machine rhythms programmed by Brown himself. Apparently the drummer on the previous two albums ran off with the bass player's wife! So they went with a drum machine, quite an unusal lark back in 1973 for sure! (And we thought that the Metal Urbain album was ahead of its time!). Crudely, it's kind of a collision of psychedelia and new wave and it's pretty cool. Though, all three discs have proto new wave elements alongside the space-rock and Zappa-ish tomfoolery. So, even now Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come isn't like anything else you've really ever heard (although whether the band was "good" or not is another, very subjective matter). Be brave and investigate!
9Most people probably know Arthur Brown, if at all, as the leader of the Crazy World of Arthur Brown, kind of a one-hit wonder in the UK and the US with their 1968 single "Fire". But I remember a few years ago somebody playing me a '70s vintage LP by Arthur Brown, and it was a pretty amazing, freaked out space rock artifact. I'm pretty sure it was one of these three Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come records that have just been reissued, remastered with bonus cuts -- although next to "amazing" I'd also have to use the word "ridiculous" 'cause these sure are some gonzo, over the top examples of early '70s rock excess. The story goes that after his "I am the God of Hellfire" 15 minutes of f(l)ame, Arthur's Crazy World broke up, and then he eventually regrouped with this band, who were dedicated to an altogether heavier, more guitar-oriented sort of showmanship, from dark psych-prog to simply silly music hall theatrics. Brown was capable of some incredible vocal stylings, from Tom Jones worthy croonery to sheer sheer manaical dramaturgy, and he demonstrates that full range on these discs, coming across a bit like early Alice Cooper (who may in turn have been influenced by Brown originally). Totally wigged out and acid fried, chaotic and confused. What they're trying to get across is hard to say, but if you delight in both failed genius and '70s hippy zaniness, then Arthur Brown is your new prog rock hero.
Galactic Zoo Dossier, from '71, was the first of the three Kingdom Come albums. You'll note that it was good enuff for a present-day psych fanzine to be named after it. A classic of sorts. Then came 1972's self-titled Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come record, whose contents, according to the liner notes, were affected by the band's communal living situation and increased LSD consumption. It's a little more disjointed than the first record but it does contain the "Traffic Light Song" which was both a pop psychology metaphor for personality types and an excuse for the band to wear traffic light costumes on stage as part of their increasingly bizarre live show. Last comes 1973's Journey, which may be the best of the three, or at least the weirdest, because rather than a human drummer, Journey features electronic drum machine rhythms programmed by Brown himself. Apparently the drummer on the previous two albums ran off with the bass player's wife! So they went with a drum machine, quite an unusal lark back in 1973 for sure! (And we thought that the Metal Urbain album was ahead of its time!). Crudely, it's kind of a collision of psychedelia and new wave and it's pretty cool. Though, all three discs have proto new wave elements alongside the space-rock and Zappa-ish tomfoolery. So, even now Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come isn't like anything else you've really ever heard (although whether the band was "good" or not is another, very subjective matter). Be brave and investigate!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Most people probably know Arthur Brown, if at all, as the leader of the Crazy World of Arthur Brown, kind of a one-hit wonder in the UK and the US with their 1968 single "Fire". But I remember a few years ago somebody playing me a '70s vintage LP by Arthur Brown, and it was a pretty amazing, freaked out space rock artifact. I'm pretty sure it was one of these three Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come records that have just been reissued, remastered with bonus cuts -- although next to "amazing" I'd also have to use the word "ridiculous" 'cause these sure are some gonzo, over the top examples of early '70s rock excess. The story goes that after his "I am the God of Hellfire" 15 minutes of f(l)ame, Arthur's Crazy World broke up, and then he eventually regrouped with this band, who were dedicated to an altogether heavier, more guitar-oriented sort of showmanship, from dark psych-prog to simply silly music hall theatrics. Brown was capable of some incredible vocal stylings, from Tom Jones worthy croonery to sheer sheer manaical dramaturgy, and he demonstrates that full range on these discs, coming across a bit like early Alice Cooper (who may in turn have been influenced by Brown originally). Totally wigged out and acid fried, chaotic and confused. What they're trying to get across is hard to say, but if you delight in both failed genius and '70s hippy zaniness, then Arthur Brown is your new prog rock hero.
Galactic Zoo Dossier, from '71, was the first of the three Kingdom Come albums. You'll note that it was good enuff for a present-day psych fanzine to be named after it. A classic of sorts. Then came 1972's self-titled Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come record, whose contents, according to the liner notes, were affected by the band's communal living situation and increased LSD consumption. It's a little more disjointed than the first record but it does contain the "Traffic Light Song" which was both a pop psychology metaphor for personality types and an excuse for the band to wear traffic light costumes on stage as part of their increasingly bizarre live show. Last comes 1973's Journey, which may be the best of the three, or at least the weirdest, because rather than a human drummer, Journey features electronic drum machine rhythms programmed by Brown himself. Apparently the drummer on the previous two albums ran off with the bass player's wife! So they went with a drum machine, quite an unusal lark back in 1973 for sure! (And we thought that the Metal Urbain album was ahead of its time!). Crudely, it's kind of a collision of psychedelia and new wave and it's pretty cool. Though, all three discs have proto new wave elements alongside the space-rock and Zappaish tomfoolery. So, even now Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come isn't like anything else you've really ever heard (although whether the band was "good" or not is another, very subjective matter). Be brave and investigate!
Most people probably know Arthur Brown, if at all, as the leader of the Crazy World of Arthur Brown, kind of a one-hit wonder in the UK and the US with their 1968 single "Fire". But I remember a few years ago somebody playing me a '70s vintage LP by Arthur Brown, and it was a pretty amazing, freaked out space rock artifact. I'm pretty sure it was one of these three Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come records that have just been reissued, remastered with bonus cuts -- although next to "amazing" I'd also have to use the word "ridiculous" 'cause these sure are some gonzo, over the top examples of early '70s rock excess. The story goes that after his "I am the God of Hellfire" 15 minutes of f(l)ame, Arthur's Crazy World broke up, and then he eventually regrouped with this band, who were dedicated to an altogether heavier, more guitar-oriented sort of showmanship, from dark psych-prog to simply silly music hall theatrics. Brown was capable of some incredible vocal stylings, from Tom Jones worthy croonery to sheer sheer manaical dramaturgy, and he demonstrates that full range on these discs, coming across a bit like early Alice Cooper (who may in turn have been influenced by Brown originally). Totally wigged out and acid fried, chaotic and confused. What they're trying to get across is hard to say, but if you delight in both failed genius and '70s hippy zaniness, then Arthur Brown is your new prog rock hero.
Galactic Zoo Dossier, from '71, was the first of the three Kingdom Come albums. You'll note that it was good enuff for a present-day psych fanzine to be named after it. A classic of sorts. Then came 1972's self-titled Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come record, whose contents, according to the liner notes, were affected by the band's communal living situation and increased LSD consumption. It's a little more disjointed than the first record but it does contain the "Traffic Light Song" which was both a pop psychology metaphor for personality types and an excuse for the band to wear traffic light costumes on stage as part of their increasingly bizarre live show. Last comes 1973's Journey, which may be the best of the three, or at least the weirdest, because rather than a human drummer, Journey features electronic drum machine rhythms programmed by Brown himself. Apparently the drummer on the previous two albums ran off with the bass player's wife! So they went with a drum machine, quite an unusal lark back in 1973 for sure! (And we thought that the Metal Urbain album was ahead of its time!). Crudely, it's kind of a collision of psychedelia and new wave and it's pretty cool. Though, all three discs have proto new wave elements alongside the space-rock and Zappaish tomfoolery. So, even now Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come isn't like anything else you've really ever heard (although whether the band was "good" or not is another, very subjective matter). Be brave and investigate!
Certainly not a new title, but one that is new to us -- The National Anthem for The Kingdoms of Elgaland-Vargaland. In 1992, King Leif I (aka Leif Elggren) and King Michael I (aka CM von Hausswolff) declared the state of the Kingdoms of Elgaland-Vargaland, which annexed "All border frontier areas between all countries on earth, and all areas (up to a width of 10 nautical miles) existing outside all countries' territorial waters" as their physical domain. Furthermore, the twin kings claimed the Mental and perceptive territories such as the Hypnagogue State (civil), the Escapistic Territory (civil), and the Virtual Room (digital).
As with any legitimate nation, the first duty was to compose the national anthem... which is a lulling hypnotic composition built around a loop of a simple patriotic orchestral melody which is treated with an excess of delay and reverb. While Aquarius Records does not often voice our politics, we fully endorse the activities of The Kingdoms of Elgaland-Vargaland.
One of our favorite features in Mojo magazine is this small section where they ask musicians a series of questions about records they love for certain moments/days, and one of the questions they always ask is what's your perfect Sunday morning record, and when we think about that question Kings Of Convenience is always one of the first bands that comes to mind.
No one makes more fragile and delicate sounds that are so perfect for the slow and quiet start of a lazy sun dappled morning. It's easy to forget, but Kings Of Convenience were crafting their mellow, Nick Drake tinged style of folk/pop before that sound would make such a huge resurgence, spawning bands and folks like Iron & Wine, Jose Gonzalez, Taken By Trees, Jens Lekman, El Perro Del Mar, Vetiver, Camera Obscura, etc.
It's been five years since this great Norwegian duo gave us the fantastic Riot On An Empty Street, though they have been keeping busy with a multitude of side and solo projects, including Erlend Oye's band The Whitest Boy Alive, which is also pretty great btw!
Declaration Of Dependence finds the duo as perfectly bittersweet as ever, both of their voices melding together with such ease, and the sparse and pastoral instrumentation keeps the breeze flowing with just the right hints of memory, sadness and introspection. Unlike many who have come after, nothing here feels forced or heavy handed, to the contrary, their songs really do feel like the slight rush of air blowing on a crisp autumn day, and this is becoming our perfect fall sweater soundtrack. So good!
Pretty ridiculously accomplished indiepop duo from as unlikely a place as Bergen, Norway -- also known as the hometown of incarcerated black metal poster boy Burzum/Varg Vikernes. Somehow I don't think the Kings were friends with Varg, as their music is so wimpy, so lovely, so chillingly sweet that they bring to mind the very similar Belle and Sebastian, Sea and Cake, and Donovan. In other words, Varg would rather have stabbed his best friend in the back than have to listen to the quietly beautiful Kings of Convenience. Don't be befuddled by the fact that this album is on Source/Astralwerks -- their previous record was on the much more appropriate Kindercore label and fans of the indiepop genre that Kindercore documents so well will totally wet their pants over this. A nice record, and if AQ had a "song of the week" category, this record's instantly classic first song "Winning a Battle, Losing the War" would be it.
Norway's answer to Simon & Garfunkel have returned! KOC vocalist Erlend Oye's interim solo efforts have left us flat, but his band's second full length sure doesn't! These folks are experts at dreamy pop songwriting, crafting the gentlest acoustic loveliness. Be forewarned, this may be far too soft and sweet for some folks, but if you have a penchant for songs that glow like sunbeams through honey (sorry... too cheesy?), don't miss Riot On An Empty Street (nor for that matter its predecessor Quiet Is The New Loud). Simply gorgeous end-of-summer songs.
The warm, folky daydream music of Norway's Kings Of Convenience get remixed and remade in a variety of ways by the likes of Four Tet, Andy Votel, Alfie and Ladytron among others. Also included are a collaboration with Erot and some newly arranged tracks (one
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Quelle hype! A huge, full page story following their sex, drugs n' rocknroll filled tour through New York in the New York Times, shamelessly spells out how they do it, where they did it and why the Hell they would. But alas, they're young and new, new, new! An easy push by the industry, right? Well, yes. But their album is actually pretty great!
When you think Chewy, do you think about taffy, or gum, or calamari? Or do those nerd genes kick in and send you in a completely different direction envisioning a seven foot tall hairy beast called Chewbacca? Well, if you live in SF, when you think Chewy, you more than likely think metal, and maybe country, oh and punk rock, and glam rock, or at the very least you think of the kick ass drumming of Mr. Chewy Marzolo. Most of you would know Chewy as the drummer for the mighty Hammers Of Misfortune, SF's killer black / true / opera metal kings! But Chewy has been tearing up a storm here in SF for well over a decade (most of the time with Hammers Of Misfortune head honcho John Cobbett right there by his side). Recently, Chewy celebrated his birthday by playing a show, where almost ALL of his bands played, in a row! Phew. To commemorate the occasion, there was this little two disc 'best of Chewy' set, covering all of his musical exploits over the last 15 years. From the majestic metal opera that is Hammers Of Misfortune, to the thrashy metal of Bay Area legends Osgood Slaughter, to the bizarre, epic sci-fi metal of Thunderchimp, to the sleazy glam rock of Pantz Noyzee, to the wild bluegrass of The Big Meat Combo, to the desert-y twang of King City. Tons of never before released stuff, most of it really amazing. Whether you know Chewy or not, these two discs are jam packed with some amazing music, from metal to country, silly to serious, and everywhere in between.
Okay, so is it just me or does this remind you of Alan Parsons' "Eye In The Sky"? Apologies to Kingsbury Manx, but once that vocal familiarity popped into my head it kinda got difficult to hear much else. Anyway, setting those initial comparisons aside, this is a pleasing, tranquil, folky pop sophomore release. Not a big departure from their self-titled debut, so if you enjoyed that one
Unlike the space-age Moog pop confections of Gershon "Perrey &" Kingsley's wonderful Music To Moog By (reviewed last list), this simultaneously reissued album was seemingly a more serious proposition, recorded at the prestigious Carnegie Hall in 1970. At the time, a live, four-Moog performance was considered rather astonishing. But with Robert Moog building the instruments and Kingsley training the musicians, they pulled it off.
The weird-sound-effects side of the synthesizer is definitely explored, providing an appropriate backing for some rather bizarre vocal parts including readings of poetry written by kids on subjects such as "The Brain" and "War". The overall effect is kinda new-music psychedelic, and there's a drummer and bassist present so they can fully rock out on occasion. Furthermore, Kingley's Quartet doesn't neglect to switch-on some (contemporary) classics: you get covers of "Sounds of Silence" and "Eleanor Rigby", the latter getting a super groovy treatment. Pretty cool, and quite kitschy despite the classical concert-hall, high-culture setting.
Reboot Stereophonic is a new label with a mission to rescue from flea-market obscurity rare recordings that take Jewish identity into some surprising musical directions. What better, then, than this for one of their first releases? God Is A Moog is a double disc compiling the religious-themed compositions of Moog maestro Gershon Kingsley, of Perrey-Kingsley and "Pop Corn" fame. File under: Exotica/New Age/Judaism. And Rock Opera.
Subtitled "The Electronic Prayers Of Gershon Kingsley", this mostly features music recorded circa 1968-1974, much of it never before released. Disc one starts with a five-song suite called "Maven On The Moog", featuring cantor Harold Orbach singing Yiddish traditional folk songs accompanied by Kingsley's space-age synth. Then it gets more far-out sound-wise with "The Jewish Experience" parts 1-5. As this collection progresses, you'll also hear wise words from the Torah gravely intoned over bleepy-bloopy Moog backing, a track with a Bruce Haack-style computerized voice ("I Have A Little Brain", made on Kingley's Macintosh in 1999) as well as much in the way of over-the-top rock opera a la Hair or Godspell, which is simultaneously the best and worst stuff here, perhaps. Kingsley's Moog-laden rock opera efforts ("Shabbat For Today" and "The Fifth Cup") are to be found on the second disc, which has got the most groove and weirdness and inadvertent laffs of the two. Some of these songs are just SOOOO kitschy and, well, let's just be honest: bad. Not the music so much, but some of the lyrics and singing are really terrible (though of course very well-meant). But it's in that so bad it's good, or well not good but darn funny category. Wait 'til you hear the song about the extinct dinosaurs, or the one about the ten plagues. Maybe the word we should use isn't terrible, it's awesome. Awesomely absurd. And sincere, you've gotta give it that. Moog for Moog's sake fans might prefer disc one (and/or yearn for an instrumental version of all of this), but anyone into unfettered goofball expressions of spiritual feeling, and Vietnam-era pop-prog silliness should be quite entertained by these tracks.
Complete with its interesting and informative liner notes, this whole thing is definitely a cool and unusual addition to the discography of Moog-related recordings!
'60s Moog-pop pioneer Gershon Kingsley, of Perrey and Kingsley fame, made some fab music without partner Jean-Jacques Perrey as well -- such as his hit single "Pop Corn" which you'll find on this at-long-last reissued edition of Kingsley's 1969 masterpiece, the incredibly FUN album Music To Moog By. Along with snazzy originals like "Pop Corn" and energetic album-opener "Hey, Hey", Kingsley also gives the Moog instrumental treatment to Simon and Garfunkel's "Scarborough Fair" and both "Nowhere Man" and "Paperback Writer" by the Beatles. He also sneaks in some Beethoven too, and takes writing credit for a manic version of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star"! Sometimes his Moog sounds like a church organ, other times like the whip-whip-wap of a hip hop dj's turntable. It's a frothy, hip, pop-psychedelic space age 'electronica' album all right. Released the year man landed on the moon, you can imagine it spinning on the Apollo 11 hi-fi, had the astronauts been partying up there. Wonderful stuff.
Unlike the space-age Moog pop confections of Gershon "Perrey &" Kingsley's wonderful Music To Moog By (reviewed last list), this simultaneously reissued album was seemingly a more serious proposition, recorded at the prestigious Carnegie Hall in 1970. At the time, a live, four-Moog performance was considered rather astonishing. But with Robert Moog building the instruments and Kingsley training the musicians, they pulled it off.
The weird-sound-effects side of the synthesizer is definitely explored, providing an appropriate backing for some rather bizarre vocal parts including readings of poetry written by kids on subjects such as "The Brain" and "War". The overall effect is kinda new-music psychedelic, and there's a drummer and bassist present so they can fully rock out on occasion. Furthermore, Kingley's Quartet doesn't neglect to switch-on some (contemporary) classics: you get covers of "Sounds of Silence" and "Eleanor Rigby", the latter getting a super groovy treatment. Pretty cool, and quite kitschy despite the classical concert-hall, high-culture setting.
We'd never reviewed a proper record from mysterious ambient industrial folk duo Kinit Her, the only thing we'd heard before now was a collaboration with Clay Ruby's Burial Hex project, but as with most collabs it was tough to tell which sounds were contributed by which outfit... which brings us to Gratitudes, the brand new full length from Kinit Her, and right off the bat it defies easy categorization / description, beginning with a SUNNO))) like churn, all detuned chordal drift, before that sludgey riffage is joined by strange guttural monklike chanting, and what was sounding like some droney doominess is suddenly transformed into some sort of pagan ritualism. But it doesn't stop there, soon, some even strange vocals swoop in, inhuman wailing, distorted and haunting, the result a sort of No Neck Blues Band pagan folk jam, until about six minutes in when some black metal guitar buzz surfaces, fast picking, epic and majestic, as if the band might explode into a blurry blast any second, but instead, that guitar fades out leaving a folky strum, accompanied by what sounds like funereal trumpet. then some swoonsome strings, the sound becoming darkly cinematic, before devolving into some sort of high end dronescape laced with weird bird call like trills, and gurgly demonic vokills. Weird, but pretty great. And it continues on in that fashion, the whole records like some sonic document of arcane rituals, a field recording made of some strange sect, found in the darkest depths of the forest, observed surreptitiously, as they unfurl these sonic rites, the thrum of what sounds like throat singing, strange swooping effects, guttural voices, urgently strummed guitars, deep dramatic crooned vocals, the folkier bits definitely heavy on the acid folk, but then out of nowhere, some crazy squiggle distorted theremin like psychedelia will play the melody of acoustic guitar and martial snare, before slipping right back into what sounds like some mysterious medieval court music, very Renaissance Faire, but much more sinister and caustic, and the record progresses similarly, slipping from dark droney creep, the tripped out psychedelic doom folk, to jaunty medieval folk music, often with those elements bleeding into one another, culminating in the final track, a bookend of the opener, darkly liturgical, all layered drones and choral voices, mysterious and malevolent.
Most definitely for fans of the darker strains of acid folk, a la Comus, Death In June, Cromagnon, Hexvessel and other sonically similar musical cults...
Kink Gong is the long running project of Laurent Jeanneau, a Sublime Frequencies contributor, who as Kink Gong uses some of the actual field recordings he collects to create a strangely avant experimental world music, virtual collaborations with the musicians he records, often manipulating the various songs and sounds, but just as often, he'll simply play an indigenous instrument, process those recordings and then combine them with the originals. The sound is pretty remarkable, in many cases Jeanneau contributions super subtle, to the point of seamlessly weaving his own sounds and manipulations into the unaltered recordings, resulting in what essentially could be a field recording proper, but here and there, the changes are radical, and the combination of computer processed sounds and organic acoustic recordings makes for some truly wondrous and mysterious 'world music'.
The liner notes on the lp sleeve are super explicit, describing the original recordings, and just exactly what Jeanneau did with which sounds, the remarkable thing being that even knowing all that, none of the magic is lost.
The record opens with a collage of 10 voices, from two women and a man, those voices are layered and blended over a slowed down mouth organ, resulting in something strange and lovely, and almost alien sounding chorale, with just enough of the original sounds to keep it sounding like some impossible indigenous music, the organ droning darkly in the background, the drones and the voices producing all manner of sympathetic overtones and strange sonic colorations.
The second track features a woman, reciting text over a 4 string lute, processed by Kink Gong, and eventually accompanied by two women singing, the sound laced with actual field recordings, chickens, and voices in the background, the lute transformed into a swirling drift of soft focus drones and blurred melodies, the singing voices tangled up in that droning drift. And finally, the A side finishes with a recording of a percussion ensemble, accompanied by Kink Gong on bronze cymbals, played and processed, all beneath the voice of a female vocalist. Super tribal and trancey, a definite No Neck Blues Band vibe, also a very doomy feel, glitchy and gristly, the electronically modified background a strange contrast, but one that creates a strange sort of psychedelia.
The flipside begins with a vocal choir, and a collage of three recordings from another ensemble, as well as an electronically modified lute, the alterations here so subtle, it's quite difficult to tell what's been done, we're guessing it's mostly the collaging, but it's done so deftly, that it sounds untouched, but even in its seemingly unaltered form, it's dense and layered and lovely. Then two lutes and a woman's vocal choir are merged into a rumbling, skittery tangle, a droned out low end swirl beneath which gorgeous vocals drift and soar. And finally, Jeanneau takes traditional Chinese instruments, and processes them into a lush sprawl of dreamlike shimmer, all smeared into a soft swirl of almost synth sounding ambience.
Gorgeous stuff, and fans of Ghedalia Tazartes' invented world music and imagined sonic rituals should check this out as well...
We've been meaning to review this for a while now, a fantastic release from composer / ethnomusicologist / field recordist Laurent Jeaneau, who is also a contributor to the Sublime Frequencies series, which makes sense listening to Xinjiang, a gloriously mesmerizing world music audio collage, named for the province in China where all of these sounds were captured. Xinjiang has a similar vibe as those 'Radio' collections on Sublime Frequencies, a dizzying sampling of local musics, but also the sounds of the city and the country and the people, a series of seamlessly arranged soundscapes made up of gently manipulated field recordings, voices from the radio, rural folk music, the sounds of animals, the clip clop of horses' hooves, bowed and plucked strings, simple percussion, mournful melodies, the various recordings varying dramatically in tone and timbre, some lush and vibrant, as if you were right there, others tinny and warbly, as if being broadcast from the past, but all blurred into a mesmerizing whole.
In places the music gets super frenetic with wild percussion and manic melodies, but for the most part, the vibe is much more meditative and laid back. The sound slipping effortlessly from almost bluesy twang to dense melodic tangle, often rhythmic and tranced out, at times sounding like some sort of Chinese court music, with fluttering woodwinds, strange detuned string buzz and martial percussion, while other times like some timeless folk music. The A side is much more varied, and peppered with much of the more obviously constructed elements, while the B side is much more tranquil, stripped down and mostly acoustic. The collage aspect is really quite subtle throughout, with much of the record sounding more like an actual recording of indigenous musics, complete with the ambient sounds of the locations, the only overtly collaged aspect is the mix of the broadcasts, and the occasional shortwave interference, but strap on some headphones, or crank those speakers, and the machinations become a bit more obvious, and the record reveals itself as a gorgeously and meticulously arranged sonic construct, all of which only somehow makes it that much cooler.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!
Double disc collection compiling the entire surviving body of the Kinks recordings for the BBC between 1964 and 1977. Includes an 18 page booklet with information on each of the sessions and a bio of the band.
This total Kinks classic from 1968 receives the deluxe remastered reissue treatment... and deservingly so! Such an utterly expansive, deeply influential work that has more than stood the test of time. It's a whopping three discs -- the first is the album in stereo with four bonus tracks, the second is the album in mono with six bonus tracks, and the third is filled with 22 rarities (alternate versions, BBC sessions, etc). As an added treat, the liner note booklet includes interviews with the Davies brothers. 'Nuf said!
One of the so-called Terrastock Nation's heaviest ass-kickers, Pacific NW "space-rock" troupe Kinski continue their levitational ascent with this new full-length. We've especially been looking forward to it ever since Sub Pop released the teaser "Semaphore" ep late last year, which garnered high marks from us. The so-heavy-and-wintry-majestic-that-it's-almost-black metal title track from that ep reappears here, alongside seven new cuts that both drone-on and rock-out. Lengthy epics abound, structured to begin with moody, melodic mellowness before bursting into denser action at the half-way point, and are primarily instrumentals, with the fuzz of the overdriven guitars and the wallop of the drums taking full flight. From repetitive shoegazer post-rock to experimental pop to ambient Floydian psych, Kinski never falter, always full of energy, with sheer "set the controls for the nearest black hole" gravity-multiplying heaviness never far from kicking in. With "Airs", Kinski should be taking their place in the space/drone rock fandom realm next to the likes of Circle, Sonic Youth, Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Subarachnoid Space, and a host of your cosmic krautrock greats of the past. Ol' Klaus would be proud.
God! How we love instrumental rock records! And while we'll be the first to admit that there have been some great vocalists, almost always, when we throw on a new record, we wait all tensed up, cowering, just waiting for the vocals to come in, and make or break the record. Well, thankfully we've never had that problem with Kinski (even on the rare occasions they do add vocals), a four piece mostly instrumental space rock band from Seattle, who we've loved from day one. Not just 'cuz of their killer monicker (we LOVE Klaus Kinski!) but for their blissed out shoegazey Hawkwind meets My Bloody Valentine meets Pink Floyd instrumental spaced out bliss rock. So the first thing we noticed when we threw on Alpine Static was how much, well, more rocking it was! I mean, they definitely rocked before, no doubt about it, but in much more of a laid back, stoned and moody and a little bit mellowed out way. But on Alpine Static, Kinski most definitely kick out the jams. There were moments on past records that hinted at the heavy and/or poppy rocking the band was capable of, but this is the record where uptempo RAWK is the first order of business. So take Kinski's knack for droning repetitive hypnorock, and then wrap that around some hyperdistorted Heavy Rocks (a la Boris), a bit of technical shredding (a la the Fucking Champs), some pulsing propulsive krautrock (a la Neu!), some ultra caustic squalls of guitar noise (a la Comets On Fire), some crunchy, stacatto dirgerock pound (a la Circle at their fiercest), a bit of moody post rock (a la June Of 44), some epic and blown out guitar freakouts (a la Dinosaur Jr., Swervedriver, Pixies) and then the occasional return to that blissed out cosmic dronerock Kinski are also so adept at and you've got a seriously solid slab of head banging, hip shaking space rocking kosmik heavy rock jams!
We initially wrote this band off after a really uninspiring and boring S.F. performance, but this record is something else entirely. Dense and hypnotic, warm and droney guitar rock. Everytime we play this in the store, everyone in the store wants to
Like the sticker on the cover of this says, it's "the next Kinski record but not the NEXT Kinski record". That is, it's not a studio album follow-up to Airs Above Your Station, last year's brilliant opus from this growing-ever-more-popular Seattle space rock outfit. What it is, is an album of live improvs played by Kinski minus their drummer -- just guitars and guitars and synth and effects, lots and lots of 'em. Apparently they enjoy doing shows of improvised material like this under the pseudonym Herzog, and this disc collects recordings of what they feel are some of the best of those sessions. For sure Kinski fans will be pleased, as these three guitar-wielding seekers of truth sure know how to craft some dense and beautiful sonic excursions, spacey and magnificent, especially the album's 29 minute tour-de-force "The Misprint In The Gutenberg Print Shop". Crackling with potential energy and eerie with tripped-out drone, Don't Climb On... is a document all 'heads' will surely appreciate, only upping our anticipation of their next (NEXT) venture.
Such a good blend of glorious spaced-out shoegazing FUZZ and sheer toe-tapping POP. The Kinski guys and gals have mastered it. Maybe some folks aren't up for that combo but we can't get enough, and Kinski have plenty of fans so... Their latest is another slab of blown out, heavy yet gentle guitar explorations, this time adding more in the way of vocals to the mix (but they're still more-or-less an instrumental act, with singing only on three of the nine cuts here). Some moments seem really rock n' roll, others totally placid and lovely. It's space rock, it's indie pop, it's post rock (with that loud/soft dynamic, the loud parts adorned with hecka psychedelic fuzz though), it's uh, Kinski. As always, should get the nod from those into Dead Meadow, Monster Magnet, Bardo Pond stoner jams... and who are fans of the likes of Boris and Circle and Acid Mothers Temple... and who dig Kinski's Northwestern grunge ancestors on Sub Pop... and oh yeah, who love SONIC YOUTH.
Besides the added presence of vocals, also new to the Kinski scene this time 'round is Hammond B3 electric organ, heard on a few cuts, notably the driving "Child Had To Catch A Train". Shades of Deep Purple!
FYI for some unknown reason, the cover of the digipak comes in red, green, and blue tinted versions, other than that they're the same and if you're a mailorder customer you'll get a random color. And guess what? The cover of the vinyl version is purple!
Here's a little 23-minute ep from Pacific Northwest outfit Kinski, following up their excellent "Be Gentle With The Warm Turtle" debut on the Pacifico label. Now they're on Sub Pop, with a new album to follow in the new year. Kinski are a band who obviously love their krautrock and their Floyd, playing that space rock / post rock / psychedelic rock stuff we love too, a la Circle, Mogwai, Codeine, MBV...
"Semaphore" starts things off in the now expected Kinski manner, erupting into a warm fuzz bath for yr ears, heavy and doleful enough to almost be mistaken from some instrumental Norwegian black metal concoction at moments! The next song, "Point That Thing Somewhere Else" pops things up a bit, with a lively drum beat and some indie-rock vocals (the only singing on the disc). Following that, "The Bunnies Are Tough" gets all droney and experimental and scary. Fourth and final track "I Wouldn't Hurt A Fly" returns to the loud guitar zone for a dynamic and heavy eight-minute epic that recalls Godspeed You Black Emperor! mixed with Mogwai. We look forward to Kinski's upcoming full-length!
Hot on the heels of their fine new full-length Alpine Static comes these long-awaited reissues of this Seattle space-rock band's first two albums: their debut, SpaceLaunch For Frenchie, originally self-released by the band, the second, Be Gentle With The Warm Turtle, originally issued on the now-defunct Pacifico label. Both have been tragically out of print for the past few years. Now that Kinksi is popular and all, it's about time these became available again! Both come with bonus tracks making the wait all the more rewarding.
1999's SpaceLaunch For Frenchie (what's up with that title, exactly?) is loaded down with the bonus tracks, actually. In addition to the original six songs on the album, there's four songs from an earlier 4-track demo tape, as well as a stormy, unreleased SpaceLaunch outtake. In total, 73 minutes of hummable, jamming, shoegazing, effects-pedal-reliant rawk! Whoo-hoo! Fans, feel free to freak out. Kinksi's Chris Martin notes on the back cover, "There are a few goofy moments, perhaps, but what the hell." I mean, you can't complain, it's the first album that a lot of us have never even heard before, plus more stuff. (Except we can complain that there's just just one flimsy square of paper for a cd "booklet" which is always lame.)
The album is definitely a youthful version of the Kinski you know and love: warm, fuzzy, floating melodic space rock instrumentals. And non-instrumentals too, with indie-rock vocals emerging on such tracks as "Floundering & Fluctuating" and their energetic cover of Spacemen 3's "Losing Touch With My Mind". Mostly this is mopey, mellow post-rock prettiness with plenty of hints towards the more massive sound that Kinski now reliably delivers. Some of the 4-track demos are maybe a bit poppier, but are still indicative of both their influences and future direction -- take the overtly Sonic Youthish "E-Jam (Daydream Intonation)" for instance. That's a track later re-recorded for their second album, demonstrating that Kinski fans going back to this older, unheard material won't be thrown for too many loops.
Then there's Be Gentle With The Warm Turtle, the 2001 album that first said to us, hi I'm Kinski! We quickly made friends with the music and wrote something like this about it: "Dense and hypnotic, warm and droney guitar rock. Everytime we play this in the store, everyone in the store wants to know what it is. Like some weird mix of old Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine. Big extended jams, simple and dumb, noisy and epic. Pretty great." It's still totally recommended, a fuzzy favorite for sure. Get it now if you missed it before! And this reissue also boasts a bonus track, only one of 'em but it's quite nice, a quiet coda to the album called "Montgomery".
Got a super small handful of these ultra limited lps, commemorating a collaboration between Northwestern psych rockers Kinski, and British visual artist Jim Hobbs, whose most recent installation, featuring multiple 16mm projections, was scored live by Kinski, and the whole thing was captured on this here lp. Originally only available at the art show and via the band, each one of these, besides the record, comes with an original silkscreened print (hence the price). But we're a record store first and foremost, so let's talk about the music�
Three long tracks, all on the dreamy droney side, barring a few explosive psychedelic freakouts, the opener is a lush, minimal bit of slow building shimmer, hazy and dreamy, a little bit krautdrone new age-y, soft pulsations, swirling overtones, the sound getting more lush and thick as the track progresses, harmonious and lovely. The second track is more of the same, softly smoldering, muted metallic buzz, stretched out into softly undulating waves, hushed and meditative, at least for the first 7 or 8 minutes, that's when the guitar explodes, thick, and downtuned, a spidery buzz, wreathed in feedback, that quickly splinters into a full bore freakout, and is then woven into the hushed background drift, the squall dropping out briefly, only to return even more intense, the sound growling and buzzing, then the drums come in, spare at first, offering up flurries of tom fills, no rhythm, just another layer of psychedelic noise, eventually, the noisiness winds down, leaving a barely there bit of shimmer, which drifts dreamily into a haze of surf like static. The final track, a nearly 29 minute epic, is like an expanded version of the previous track, more super minimal drone leading into a wild tangle of feedback drenched frenzied psychedelia, the drums coming in almost right away, the opening and closing drones much more stretched out, the explosive psych breakdown significantly shorter, the last 10 minutes, a slow shifting, lush layered driftscape, a slow winding down to silence. Quite cool. Hard to imagine the visuals that would accompany these tracks, even harder to imagine the response of a museum crowd to those blasts of incendiary psych noise. Great stuff.
LIMITED T0 389 COPIES. Each one hand numbered. Housed in super swank, thick full color gatefold jacket, and each record includes a silkscreen print by Jim Hobbs. Includes a download coupon.
This lovely (and bargain-priced) record is the result of a beautiful band-meets-band story. You know, two bands with beards meet and make friends for life. Actually, does Kinski have beards? We're just guessin'. (Note: there's ladies in both bands, we're not accusing them of having beards or anything.) Seattle cosmonauts Kinski and guitarist/guru Kawabata Makoto of the popular Japanese underground musical commune Acid Mothers Temple go way back, to when Kinski opened for Mainliner's 1999 US tour. Sooner or later they had to collaborate, and we're not complaining. Even if you find AMT a mite too prolific, at least this release is 50% Kinski, who haven't yet reached the product overload stage that AMT share with Merzbow and precious few others. Thus no need to feel guilty about adding this to your shelf of AMT releases.
So, we get four tracks to absorb here. First up, is Kinski's "Fell Asleep On Your Lawn". Its ten minutes start off all quiet n' pretty before going into spacelaunch mode. They fire their rockets, come back to earth, and then blast off again. Maybe they don't fly as high as the best of their recent Airs Above Your Station album, but it's still a good track. Then, track two sees Kinski visiting Japan, playing a pre-dinner jam at AMT "dancin' king" Higashi Hiroshi's flat, with Higashi and Kawabata sitting in on guitar. It's really beautiful, almost ambient, hushed space drone stuff that's so sleepy that I woulda thought it was an after-dinner jam instead. Lovely. The third track comes from the same 'session' but has extra added AMT overdubs, so you hear from the whole AMT crew plus the Kinski quartet. It has a similar mood to track two but is denser. Lastly, track four is just AMT, offering their companion to Kinski's opening cut, though it's twice as long, called "Virginal Plane 5:23". It's a swirling stoned jam not unlike their Electric Heavyland album. All in all, real nice disc from these international cosmic comrades, packaged in some cool Boredoms-meet-Man Or Astroman? lookin' cover art. Vinyl limited, cd not.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Where to even start... HAWKWIND. The mighty lords of drugged out space rock, without whom, most of the bands we love might not even exist. These four Hawkwind records: Doremi Fasol Latido, Hall Of The Mountain Grill, In Search Of Space, and Space Ritual, are pretty much all anyone needs to know about space rock. Or whatever it is that Hawkwind do, long sprawling jams, extended psychedelic workouts, heavy and trippy, totally drugged out and divine, while at the same time, surprisingly catchy. But yeah, aQ folks probably already know how much we love Hawkwind.
So if we were to pick six bands to cover classic Hawkwind tunes, we might not have picked these six, but then again, we very well might have: Mudhoney, Mugstar, Acid Mothers Tempo And The Cosmic Inferno, White Hills, Kinski, Bardo Pond. Holy hell! If this were just a comp with those bands, we'd be all over it, but the fact that they're covering Hawkwind seems like it was made just for the aQ faithful, and who knows, maybe it was. Spread out over three 7"s, we almost didn't list these separately, but as a set, 'cause to our minds, who the heck would only want one or two of these? But you never know, so for those of you who didn't already freak out and toss all three into your cart, here's a brief bit about each specific 7":
On volume three, "Lords Of Light", Kinski definitely get their Hawkwind on, covering "Master Of The Universe", and like Mugstar on the first volume, not so much making it their own, as transforming themselves into a vessel through which the spirit of Hawkwind can flow, and flow it does. That main riff is such a killer, all the band have to do is ride it out, adding plenty of freaked out effects and psychedelic leads, the vocals buried in the mix, not getting in the way of the endless spacepsych jamming.
And finally, the series is closed out by another group of modern psychedelic masters, Bardo Pond, who add female vocals to their take on "Lord Of Light", the vocals drifting ethereally, over a roiling black cloud of FX drenched guitars and some seriously pounding drums, even a bit of flute (we think), and maybe more than any of the others managing to meld the sound of the original with their own, plenty of wah wah guitar, loads of effects, most of the track spent drifting through space, cloaked in blown out super distorted psych guitar and shimmering outer space ambience. Surprisingly heavy and totally blissed out.
The packaging is brilliant, perfectly tripped out psychedelic acid flashback, naked lady, geometric design, cribbed from the original Hawkwind artwork (or at the very least, an incredible simulation), the sleeves are printed complete with shelf wear and corner creases (so don't complain, they're meant to look like they've been on your shelf for decades), each one SUPER LIMITED, and already sold out at the label, we have a bunch, but these will be the only copies we'll ever have!!
There's over 70 minutes of high-flying, low-droning instrumental space rock on this here split cd! AQ-faves Kinski start things off with "Keep Clear Of Me, I Am Maneuvering With Difficulty", a twenty-minute long improv which gives them plenty of time to build from quiet, outer-space atmospherics to the sort of loud, fuzzed-out mantric heaviness that we love 'em for. Their driving rock mayhem attains levels of distortion that the Acid Mothers Temple would envy, before Kinski bring things down into a nice cosmic drone zone to end the piece. Easily as good as anything on their excellent new Sub Pop album "Airs Above Your Station" reviewed here last list. Next comes a band with whom we were not familiar, Paik (named after artist Nam June?). Their two tracks clock in at about twenty minutes total too. Ponderous yet shimmery, you probably won't realize you're not still listening to Kinski -- no complaints there. Real nice & pretty. And then Surface of Eceon (another AQ-fave, related to Landing) take a half-hour to soothingly drone their way through this disc's finale. Blissful. These three were definitely a good choice of bands to share a split, style AND quality-wise. Kinski definitely get up to the most rock action, but the other two bands space out beautifully. Recommended to all you psychedelic post-rock drone-heads.
