Reissued now on vinyl! Here's our review from when we got a cd reish a while ago:
So imagine you're a longhaired Japanese hippy freak in the mid-'70s. You've been grooving to the cosmic sounds coming out of Germany on import lps for the past few years, as well as digging the homegrown stuff too. Taj Mahal Travellers, Foodbrain, Speed Glue & Shinki, Magical Power Mako, yeah. But now you're looking for something even MORE potent. And primitive. And peculiar. Thankfully, on a visit to the Tokyo equivalent of Aquarius Records, you discover this release by a tiny Osaka based record label called Voice. And you, the jaded Japanese hippy, once again your mind is blown!
And thankfully for those of us not lucky enough to be born Japanese hippies in the '70s, this mind-blowingness has now been reissued on by Phoenix, joining that label's reissue roster of other crucial Japanese '70s prog/psych like Flower Travellin' Band's Satori and The Far East Family Band's Nipponjin (reviewed here last list). This one, if you're curious, earned the 19th spot on the Top 50 list found in Julian Cope's book Japrocksampler.
It's record by a mysterious outfit known as Karuna Khyal, entitled Alomoni 1985. We're not sure why it's called that, in fact, we're not sure of much about this, not even the year it was first released ('75? '76?), except that it's freakin' far out and totally amazing. And that they're probably the same folks who recorded another awesome album under the name Brast Burn.
It consists of two side-long tracks, each around 24 minutes of hard to describe insanity. The first one starts off like some sort of krautrock meets Native American pow-wow, stoned vocal chant accompanied by harmonica blowing and slide guitar, flowing into a more murky zone of Can-like groove, with relaxed, rhythmic percolations from hand percussion, caressed by free improv piping. Then about half-way through the track, it takes a plunge into proto-isolationist drones and distortion, with backwards tape manipulations and echoing FX... later still, the throbbing, nodding pulse is adorned by more mumbled Beefheartian blues babble. By the end of the track, it's a looping phantasmagoria of voice, electronics, harmonica, like a backporch Philip Jeck jam! Ok?
Then track two begins. Even further out, in a black void... a beat starts... steady... then it quickens, slows, stops and starts again amidst a sinister swooshing swirl of disembodied voices and electronic detritus. Wow. Weird. Bad trip territory! It builds and builds, with kazoo-like sounds buzzing and blapping over a repetitive martial rhythm violently strummed or drummed on some sort of distended, elastic instrument, a bass heavy chunk-chunk-chunk drilling deep like a trepanist's tool, through your skull into your soon to be free brain. Eventually it morphs into twisted harmonica-blowing jam, hypnotic and disturbed, voices hooting and mewling and laughing and mantrically chanting... The second half of this track is total bedlam, but still utterly hypnotic.
Good grief! We have to assume the Boredoms are familiar with this record. And doubtless Kawabata Makoto would give his left arm, or even his beard, to get his Acid Mothers Temple to sound this far out.
Yes, Kasabian are yet another major label retro-styled buzz band, but what's different with these Brits from the recent flurry is that the sources from which they're copping their sound are much more recent. Rather than drawing from the '70s and '80s, think early '90s Happy Mondays and Pop Will Eat Itself or Primal Scream's awesome rave-rock song "Swastika Eyes" (yeesh, that was from 2000!). However although Kasabian's music in many ways resembles that of those bands, theirs doesn't necessarily further nor better the originals. Plus their referencing of Neu and DJ Shadow does not help matters. Sure, there's plenty of Brit band high-falutin' bombast, but where's the adrenaline rush? Dare we peoclaim that the abovementioned "Swastika Eyes" lays this whole album to waste. Not to mention, their grammar is atrocious! "Trying not to make no sound"?! Uh, that is, unless they truly meant to say that they're trying not to be silent. Who knows? Anyways, if you liked the sound back then and are looking for a new party album of a similar ilk, you *might* wanna check out this glossy, remodelled -- but not necessarily upgraded -- version. Otherwise, you'll prolly be inclined to steer clear.
Most of you probably won't be familiar with the name Stephen Kasner, but most readers of the AQ list, and therefore very likely owners of many weird and obscure and heavy records, will most definitely recognize his work. A well respected visual artist, Kasner is probably best known, at least to us, as the man responsible for lots of iconic album cover art, having created covers for Sunn 0))), Khylist, Integrity, Ruhr Hunter, Himsa, Trephine, Rotting Christ, and tons more.
His art is amazing. Very striking and quite haunting. Bleak, austere, dark, and nightmarish. Mysterious figures, faces and shapes, animals and figures, signs and symbols, all suspended in fields of washed out browns and greys, blacks and off whites, strangely lit, weirdly textured, each image looking like some old parchment, recovered from the ruins of an ancient temple, the images at once hellish and horrific, lovely and utterly entrancing. Layered and textured, incredibly detailed, but subtly so, you can gaze into Kasner's paintings and feel like you're falling in, or being dragged in.
Record cover fetishists will definitely dig, but art freeks into photographers like Joel Peter Witkin, Max Aguilera-Hellweg, and visual artists like Francis Bacon Odd Nerdrum, H.R. Geiger and AQ customer Justin Bartlett (who's done many of your favorite heavy records as well).
It's a gorgeous cloth covered hardback book, 10.5"x10.5", 160 pgs, beautifully laid out, includes text from Dwid of Integrity, Seldon Hunt and more...
ps: Coming soon: a new series of releases on Utech, all with original Kasner artwork and featuring such aQ faves as Skullflower, Aluk Todolo, Vulture Club and more. Can't wait!
After a completely baffling stumble into sort of industrial punk nu-metal (complete with a record cover depicting a homeless crusty punk girl and her skateboard?!?!?), Kataklysm get back to basics and spit out a MONSTROUS record of brutally blackened
How can so much amazing rock come from such a small country?! It never ceases to amaze us! I of course am talking about Finland. Home of Circle, Keukhot, Aavikko, Ajattara, Haikara, Finntroll, Mieskuoro Huutajaat, Pan Sonic, Shape Of Despair, etc. This time
Excellent collection for the Katatonia newbie, with some rarities for fans... though the fans here already had most of the rare tracks. Recommended for those not yet acquainted with this Swedish band's gloomy doom-pop (kinda like a metal Cure).
We began our review of Katatonia's last full length, Night Is The New Day, with these words: "Nobody does heartbreaking heaviness like Sweden's Katatonia", and really, we couldn't think of any better way to start this review, of their brand new full length, Dead End Kings, which takes up EXACTLY where Night left off, sweeping epic minor key bombast fused to brooding metallic balladry, bordering on the symphonic at times, their metal past only present in the muscular riffing and the occasional bursts of chugging guitar, otherwise these guys continue to craft a super distinctive, and distinctly NOT metal sound that manages to be instantly recognizable, even to folks who may have given up on them long ago, which at this point is probably a good chunk of their original fans. Cuz at one point, these guys were in fact a metal band, their iconic Discouraged Ones record signaling their shift toward something more melodic and to our ears still the perfect hybrid of metal crush and dramatic brood, like the Cure or Red House Painters gone metal. And over the years, they've continued to hone and perfect that sound, and now it just seems so effortless, every song catchy and dark, heavy and haunting, moody and melancholy, soaring and majestic, and just so goddamn good. We know plenty of folks who don't dig this at all, and to a certain degree we can understand why, we hear people make comparisons to Alice In Chains (who we love btw), Three Doors Down, even Creed or Nickelback, and sonically, there are definitely similarities, but Katatonia are so much more, their metal past, even now relegated to a subtle influence here and there, most definitely informs their sound, and they take that brooding stadium rock, and infuse it with some serious pathos, and the heavy parts are still HEAVY, the melodies so mournful and gorgeously miserable, this time around there are even strings, which only make the sound that much more epic and cinematic. As we've mentioned in past reviews, we LOVE these guys, and with every record they just get better and better. Some of us here have been listening to this nonstop since it came in...
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Brilliant melancholy not-even-really-metal-anymore music from this boundary-pushing Swedish outfit. Originally inspired by British melodic doom-death act Paradise Lost, Katatonia on Discouraged Ones is equally influenced by the likes of The Cure, Pink Floyd and the Red House Painters!
After making the recent domestic release of their "Tonight's Decision" opus our "record of the week" on the last AQ-L, we are now very happy to present this BRAND NEW import-only (as yet...) album from these Swedish gods of melancholy. Genius heavy downer pop
Nobody does heartbreaking heaviness like Sweden's Katatonia. Nobody. Every record is just the perfect blend of dour gloom pop, and crushing massive metal crush, and Night Is The New Day is no different. It's tempting to say this is the best Katatonia yet, but we really can't because they're ALL great, all practically perfect. If you have all the other ones you're obviously gonna need this one too, odds are you've been dying for it since you first found out a new one was coming. For the rest of you, if you've somehow gone this long without ever hearing Katatonia, it's definitely time to fix that.
This is Katatonia's 8th full length in a little over 15 years, originally these guys were something way more metal, but even back then, they sounded more Cure than My Dying Bride, the gloom and miserablism already seeping into their music. But once the focus shifted, their sound was perfect, and has remain virtually unchanged ever since. Dark brooding metal ballads, we've described them in the past as a doom metal Cure, or a metallized Depeche Mode, but they've become so much more. The covered a Jeff Buckley on a past record, and suddenly it wasn't that difficult to imagine what might have happened had Buckley played with a metal backup band.
Katatonia manage the impossible, balancing delicate, hushed classic rock balladry, with epic modern doom, the guitars massive, the drums pounding, the vocals lush, lots of harmonies, no screeching, it's more like Alice In Chains in the vocal department, but it suits their chugging doom ballads. This is one of those bands who are really difficult to describe, their sound definitely borrows from all over the place, but manages to be totally original, it seems like it would be too wussy for most metalheads, yet, rare is the metalhead who doesn't LOVE Katatonia, and we MEAN LOOOOOVE. Must be tied in to that weird phenomenon of most metalheads digging the Cure and Depeche Mode, and in that case, Katatonia makes way more sense, cuz while they do sound a lot like those two bands, they are also HEAVY, when they want to be. Not sure what else to say, check the sound samples, if "Forsaker" doesn't convince you, then another couple hundred words probably won't either. Deep, dark, melodic, doomy, heavy and heartfelt, and just so goddamn good.
Some of us around here have been waiting for this record for months, maybe even years actually, and we were NOT disappointed, a record of the year contender for sure.
We've said it before but it bears repeating, whenever we hear metal bands cover their teenage influences, especially Depeche Mode or the Cure (why do all metal bands LOVE those two bands?), we always secretly wish there would be a band who just actually sounded like that. Not a metal band being ironic or retro, but a heavy heavy band who made incredibly dark and depressing emotional music. Ultra personal and epically miserable. Thus we are massive fans of Katatonia.
Imagine a doom metal Cure, or a metallized Depeche Mode. Katatonia may have started life as a serious doom/death metal band, channeling Paradise Lost, with thick downtuned grinding buzzing guitars, and harsh black metal vocals, but with the release of their classic Discouraged Ones record, they switched to clean vocals and the sound of the band followed suit. A massive, gloomy and dreamy doompop. Exactly what we had been wishing for. Catchy as heck, heavy as hell, but totally morose and melancholy. Since then the band has continued to polish and hone their epic commercial doom, with each record finding them moving closer and closer to MTV rock, but without losing their edge, managing to stay creepy and heavy. But shit, their songs are so good and so catchy, and intense and emotional, it was only a matter of time before these guys blew up. It hasn't happened yet, but listening to The Great Cold Distance, it can't be long now. Lots of moody expanses of bass and drum groove, sprinkled with minor key guitar jangle, bookended by massive chugging metallic choruses, hooks everywhere, gorgeous crooned vocals, dark depressing lyrics, really moody and evocative and so so heavy. There is no reason these guys shouldn't be up there with Tool and the Deftones. They definitely travel the same sonic path, although Katatonia definitely display more of a true doom heritage. But c'mon, all that moody heavy rock that the oh-so-depressed generation Z lap up like Prozac, how have they not discovered Katatonia? If we were 15 again, and hated school and just broke up with our girlfriend, and were always fighting with our parents, we can guarantee you we'd be dressed all in black, wandering around our neighborhood late at night, after everyone was asleep, with The Great Cold Distance blasting in our headphones. And pretty much every track on here would sure as hell make it on all the mix tapes we ever made. But since we're not, we'll just have to make do, luxuriating in these lush depressive epics, wallowing in each glorious wash of miserable metallic doom pop!
Very recommended!!
We listed this before when it was only available as a super-expensive, hard to get import. And even then we were like, you gotta get this, it's amazing! Now, at long last it's been issued domestically, at reasonable price -- and it's even been repackaged in a slipcase (jewelbox inside), with two previously unreleased bonus tracks! So now there's nothing to keep us from making it record of the week, which Tonight's Decision so totally deserves. It's the follow-up to 1998's Discouraged Ones, a record that threw everyone for a loop, with clean singing and an hypnotic, almost Cure-like (but ultra-heavy) sound, refining their earlier and harsher black metalish doom-death style. This time around, these Swedes are even more mellow and depressed. They even do a great Jeff Buckley cover (better than the original we think)! In fact, the more we listen to it, the harder it is to understand why they're not huge. They should be huge, but they're ghettoized as a European metal band on a metal label. Don't take this the wrong way, but if Katatonia could somehow get into heavy rotation on MTV or your local alternative rock radio station, they'd be SO popular. But never fear, it's still metal. Just artful, gloomy, doomy, post-death metal with enough melody and emotion and atmosphere to make you cry. Really, one of the best metal records of the year. Yet, one that supposed non-metal fans could easily love as well, for its gloom-pop brilliance. Highly Recommended to all!!
They actually have a new album as well, Last Fair Deal Gone Down, coming out sometime later this year (maybe even later than that in the U.S.) and we can't wait!
Swedish doom metal / doom pop band Katatonia are established by now as big AQ faves. Their signature sound -- morose metallic heaviness that's utterly melodic and catchy, like some unholy marriage of The Cure and Opeth, or Tool and My Dying Bride -- is in full force on this, the follow-up to their last three brilliant albums ("Last Fair Deal Gone Down", its Aquarius Record Of The Week predecessor "Tonight's Decision", and stateside breakthrough "Discouraged Ones"). Fans of those albums won't be disappointed with "Viva Emptiness", indeed, this may be a case of sticking a little too close to the formula, but heck that's how they're perfecting it. We're not complaining. And we can say that perhaps this rocks a bit more, and faster, overall than some of those others, though the harder metallic assault still leaves plenty of room for quieter piano dirge ballads... Definitely sheer ear candy for those of us who like suicidal heaviness that's also totally radio-ready. Not that we can imagine actually hearing this on the radio, but you know what we mean. If you haven't gotten addicted to Katatonia yet, go ahead and check this one out. And if you have, then you're gonna have to get it!
MPEG Download: "Ghost Of The Sun" [/audio/katatoniaghostof.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Ghost Of The Sun" [/audio/katatoniaghostof.m3u]
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Panacea, our favorite formerly-corpulent German beat terrorist returns under another pseudonym (after also going by Rich Kid, Bad Street Boy, and M2) -- Kate Mosh. The music is trademark Panacea -- crushingly heavy beats and super doom-laden atmospheres, staccato highs and scattered static-laden vocal samples. It's very fun, very aggro and heavy. Everyone from fans of Atari Teenage
If there is a black metal label these days that truly defines elite and kult and grim it's for sure gotta be Norma Evangelium Diaboli. So far they've released the utterly amazing Funeral Mist, the most recent Deathspell Omega, the Katharsis Kruzifixion album, and now this, a reissue of Katharsis' first album the appropriately titled 666. We loved Kruzifixion but were informed by Wrest from Leviathan that 666 was way better. And while it's maybe not WAY better, it is pretty fucking great and a lot weirder. Just the first song alone lets you know what sort of hellish ride you're in for, obviously there's the requisite buzzing riffs, chaotic blastbeats, demonic vocals, but there's something about it that sounds truly posessed and just a bit fucked. The vocals occasionally slip into freaky falsetto screams, the whole thing is drenched in reverb so it sounds like you're witnessing some sort of black metal ritual in a cave you stumbled upon at the base of a huge dark mountain. By the end of the track the vocals and the riffs get all tangled up and become a slowly devolving swirl of black metal chaos, splattered drums and howls of "666, 666, 666, 666" drift up from the abyss as the whole track slowly slips into some subterranean netherworld. And it goes on and on like that, brittle buzzsaw riffs are repeated mantra like over pounding thrashing drums and squiggly alien sounding leads and creepy black ambience all swaddled in massive amounts of delay. But unlike a lot of black metal, 666 is full of actual songs, catchy songs too, not just a series of BM riffs strung together. No, like Satyricon or Immortal or more appropriately in this case, Darkthrone, these are the sort of black metal invocations that actually get stuck in your head. Nothing quite like humming some little melody while you're walking down the street only to realize it's "Raped By Demons" by German "Kommando Metal" outfit Katharsis. Fuck yeah. And if somehow you forget that you are listening to transmissions from the darkest pits of BM hell, the liner notes not only advise that you "Listen in darkness and at maximum volume" but also to "burn your local church!"...
The 2009 return of Germany's completely unhinged Katharsis has proven to be one of the year's best and most evil surprises. The awesome recent split with Antaeus had metalheads wondering what Katharsis had been up to since their essential VVorld VVithout End album from 2006, but like the return of the similarly amazing Funeral Mist with Maranatha, folks everywhere were getting ready to shit all over Fourth Reich based on some vague initial responses from people who obviously have no clue what they are talking about. The big griping point seems to be that Fourth Reich is not as frantic and universe destroying as its predecessor, and there's no denying that the boys from Saxony had their work cut out for them. But after two spins of Fourth Reich it is clear that what we have here is one of the best metal records of the year, no question. Perhaps it is *slightly* less insane than VVorld, but more than anything it seems like the logical extension of that unruly beast, sounding exactly like what you would expect from something recorded at "Rape of Harmonies".
Three of the five songs here clock in at over 10 minutes, giving Katharsis plenty of time to sear your face off with their furious, unrelenting attack. Things kick off as out of control as you could ever hope for in a record with "So Nail The Hearts". In classic Katharsis fashion, the song is blazingly fast and like a tornado taking in everything in its path. And then of course there are those vocals... Try to imagine the general approximation of a demon clawing its way out of Hell, punctuated by moments that sound like a hysterical witch being tortured with some sharpened medieval object. Lyrically, the song tells a tale of blasphemous, Satanic destruction with choice couplets like "Our throats becometh an open grayve; vve'll use our sperm to deceive/the venom of asps is to be under our lipps; vve'll be armed vvith lyonne teethe." Woah. There is a brutal midtempo part halfway in, but even as the band slows for a brief moment, the super windy ambience of the recording keeps you firmly aware of Katharsis' cosmically blackened powers. Most unexpected with this song are the female vocals towards the end. STOP: we already know what you're thinking, and just be aware that this is nothing like what you generally find screwing up lots of black metal. Instead, the presence of the undeniably beautiful voice does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to change the vile tone of this number, in fact, as Katharsis buzzes their way to the song's conclusion, it almost seems like the female vocals are simply there as some sort of religious mockery. Which, you know, is totally fucking awesome.
Next up we have "Eucharistick Funereall", beginning with a punkish riff and more unbelievable shrieking. It's so rad, and impossible to ignore, as we observed with customers desperately trying to focus on which record to buy as this beast buzzed all around them. The guitars are like napalm, and things eventually lead into a super thrashy groove with an uber-heavy D-beat brutalizing your skull. There is a gloomy breakdown with surprisingly melodic guitar melodies wrapped in the non-stop riffing before an awesome rock n' roll ending.
"Reckoning" is pretty much the sound of the black metal holocaust, an unwavering, hypnotic buzz of psychedelic proportions followed by the unexpected synthscape of "Emeralde Graves". Strangely majestic, but also ominous as hell and just plain creepy, this piece is quite cinematic and plausible enough reason to believe that the dudes in Katharsis may own a Goblin record or two. It serves as a cool segue before the final song, "Sinn Koronation", a perfect closer that is slower, dirgier, and maybe even heavier than anything else on the record. Of course, things do reach lightspeed eventually with a very METAL guitar solo, but after a few minutes, Katharsis go back into their hateful lurch. Interestingly, their slower moments are incredibly powerful, not only on their own, but especially in contrast to the majority of the record. When Katharsis get all doomy toward the end of the song, it's like they've decided to just leave your mangled body in the wreckage they created, and then synths take over for a beautiful ending to an ugly, ugly record.
You get the impression that this band is unstoppable. They certainly sound like it. When one thinks about how reactionary parents have responded to metal over the past four decades, it usually turns out to be a whole lot of concern over nothing; Katharsis is exactly what they *thought* you were listening to all these years. So basically, we're giving this one our highest possible recommendation.
From the label that brought us the amazing Deathspell Omega that we listed a few months back, comes yet another missive from the black metal underground, this time it's the German horde Katharsis and it doesn't get much more grim than this. A buzzing blasting winter wind of thrashing riffs and furious blast beats. Primitive and lo-fi and totally brutal and ferocious. You'll be sold in the first ten seconds, with the opening scream, a terrifying glass shattering shriek, like a flock of angry ravens, over a throbbing fuzzed out riff. The whole record is a mesmerizing slab of droned out black metal riffery, all soul shredding buzz and warm subterranean buzz. Fans of ultra raw black metal will definitely be blown away. Packaged in a cool black on metallic silver sleeve with the image of a crucified black metal ghoul.
Similar to the West Coast axis of US black metal, Leviathan, Xasthur, Draugar, Crebain, etc... there is another less geographically based hub, centered around French label Norma Evangelium Diaboli, a label that has managed to gather up most of the super intense, ultra progressive new wave of black metal bands: Deathspell Omega, Funeral Mist, Antaeus, Katharsis... Every record gorgeously designed, and inside each, all manner of black metal conventions twisted into uniquely hellish shapes. It's a bit surprising NED hasn't swooped in and tried to add Leviathan to their elite black brood. But while Leviathan is indeed twisted in his own way, there is definitely a distinctly European feel to the bands on NED.
Where as DSO are like a black metal Slint, with epic arrangements of black buzz and plenty of brooding post rock passages, and Funeral Mist are a grim black horde with massive production, creeped out ambience and thick swaths of impossibly pummeling brutality, Katharsis are a spastic, "Kommando Metal" blast of blackened thrashing drums and buzzing insect guitars, bizarre reverb drenched psychedelic leads and freaked out vocals that scream, howl, growl and shriek, all smeared into massive black squalls of relentless blackthrash. This German outfit are not about subtlety, their sound is intensely furious burst after harsh hellish blast of ultra intense, brittle and buzzy black metal, channelling the old school classics through their own cracked and screwed perspective.
But it's the epic album closer, the 16 minute title track "VVorld VVithout End" where the band really push the limits, and take their own peculiar black metal into totally new realms, slowing down to a buzzing Burzumic midtempo lope, slipping into a weirdly propulsive groove, when suddenly insane falsetto vocals, and keening high end lead guitars whirl into a bizarre super dramatic, super tense minor key crescendo, then returning to the same buzzy groove. This happens a few more times, before everything sort of collapses into thick swirling thrashing chaos, multiple vocals, some shrieking, some grunted and spoken, bits of hysterical laughter, tangled and convoluted buzzing riffs, angular melodies, all crashing and slamming into each other, drunkenly slipping from lightning fast blast to lugubrious crawl to midtempo lurch in a dizzying fade to black. So goddamn good.
And as with all NED releases, amazing packaging!
There is something so nice & refreshing about this slab of D.I.Y. vinyl. Makes us wanna listen to each side and then jump on our bikes and take a long ride to the park and play with our friends till the sun goes down. Sterling Says are a SF band who bring pop hooks and catchy melodies to their fuzzy and rocking pop-punk (not the Warped tour kind...the other better kind!) that falls somewhere between Big Drill Car and Cheap Trick.
Katie The Pest come from Long Beach, CA and their song instantly transported us to that great bygone era of twee that's not afraid to pack some punch into its delicious indie-pop. Their track "Spit it Out" had us thinking of Tiger Trap and early Aislers Set and that's most definitely a good thing.
Japanese bass player (with some help from friends) takes on the US invasion of Iraq! That's right, the new album from electric four-stringer Kato Hideki (Ground Zero, Death Ambient, Dying Ground, Bass Army, etc.) is an instrumental concept album taking a critical view of Bush's Iraq war and occupation. We're probably in full agreement with Kato's views, though the problem with making INSTRUMENTAL music to "say" something non-musical is evident -- other than guessing from the song titles, you wouldn't know without being told what the heck Green Zone was "about". However, Kato's concern with the situation in Iraq is what's on his mind and so why not use it to give purpose to his art? The resulting music is definitely powerful and passionate and now we know why. Political ideas aside, Green Zone is definitely the sort of thing that fans of Japanese bands like Ground Zero and Ruins will enjoy, heavy-duty prog power trio skronk from professionals. These slow burning build-ups of distorted grinding guitar over Magmoid bass burps and hard-hitting drumming are gonna also appeal to anyone into the likes of Gone and Stinking Lizaveta, we'd imagine.
Like most Doubtmusic titles, packaged in a nice digipack featuring a distinctive die-cut hole in the cover.
Trace Of Voices by Japanese composer Masaya Kato is the latest collection of blissful ambience from local label Time Released Sound, who most readers of the aQ list should now most likely be well familiar with, their near monthly release schedule overflowing with all manner of hushed experimentation and dreamily atmospheric psychedelia. This new one might be the most pensive and minimal of the bunch, mostly piano, draped over all manner of field recordings, the sound cinematic, but not sweeping or grandiose, instead, intimate and contemplative, chimes tinkle delicately over the sound of whipping wind, motorcycles drive by in the distance, sounds rumble and murmur, conjuring up some overcast, autumnal otherworld. The piano delicate and crystalline, drifting hauntingly through a haze of hum and thrum, sometimes fading into the ether, leaving the listener lost in this other soundworld, but soon those sounds surface again, unfurling aching melodies, and fluttering chords, airy and ephemeral.
Here and there the sound does grow more animated, and distinctly Eastern, others sound like broadcasts from another time, another world, but even then, it all happens beneath a patina of crackle and thrum, everything hazy and gorgeously washed out. The bulk of the record though is spent wandering empty streets, lit by guttering flames, the backdrop a broken toothed smile of skyline, or laying on grassy hilltops, in the shadows of storm clouds, yet to let loose, the sky stretched out in endless smears of slate grey, all of these sounds crumbling, decaying before our very ears, from elegy to threnody, a dreamlike melancholia that is easy to get lost in. A perfect rainy day record, that sounds like it was actually recorded on a rainy day. So lovely.
And as always, the packaging is lovely as well. The deluxe version, limited to just 65 copies, is presented as handmade, Japanese style scroll and calendar, with beautiful photos by photographer Irina Urumova. Made from cloth book binding paper and sporting a sheet of Japanese wallpaper, there's a string, so it can be hung on the wall, and features a pocket housing the disc, a hand printed insert, in a sleeve crafted from an antique Japanese book of floral drawings. The calendar comes in a hand stamped/sealed envelope made from block printed wallpaper, and inside is all sorts of extra goodies including gingko leaves. And fear not, there's also a handsome standard version, limited to 150 copies, which comes in a full color digipak.
Trace Of Voices by Japanese composer Masaya Kato is the latest collection of blissful ambience from local label Time Released Sound, who most readers of the aQ list should now most likely be well familiar with, their near monthly release schedule overflowing with all manner of hushed experimentation and dreamily atmospheric psychedelia. This new one might be the most pensive and minimal of the bunch, mostly piano, draped over all manner of field recordings, the sound cinematic, but not sweeping or grandiose, instead, intimate and contemplative, chimes tinkle delicately over the sound of whipping wind, motorcycles drive by in the distance, sounds rumble and murmur, conjuring up some overcast, autumnal otherworld. The piano delicate and crystalline, drifting hauntingly through a haze of hum and thrum, sometimes fading into the ether, leaving the listener lost in this other soundworld, but soon those sounds surface again, unfurling aching melodies, and fluttering chords, airy and ephemeral.
Here and there the sound does grow more animated, and distinctly Eastern, others sound like broadcasts from another time, another world, but even then, it all happens beneath a patina of crackle and thrum, everything hazy and gorgeously washed out. The bulk of the record though is spent wandering empty streets, lit by guttering flames, the backdrop a broken toothed smile of skyline, or laying on grassy hilltops, in the shadows of storm clouds, yet to let loose, the sky stretched out in endless smears of slate grey, all of these sounds crumbling, decaying before our very ears, from elegy to threnody, a dreamlike melancholia that is easy to get lost in. A perfect rainy day record, that sounds like it was actually recorded on a rainy day. So lovely.
And as always, the packaging is lovely as well. The deluxe version, limited to just 65 copies, is presented as handmade, Japanese style scroll and calendar, with beautiful photos by photographer Irina Urumova. Made from cloth book binding paper and sporting a sheet of Japanese wallpaper, there's a string, so it can be hung on the wall, and features a pocket housing the disc, a hand printed insert, in a sleeve crafted from an antique Japanese book of floral drawings. The calendar comes in a hand stamped/sealed envelope made from block printed wallpaper, and inside is all sorts of extra goodies including gingko leaves. And fear not, there's also a handsome standard version, limited to 150 copies, which comes in a full color digipak.
For songs like "Borscht Riders In The Sky" and "Yiddish Mule Train" look no further than this compilation of the best of the one and only Mickey Katz, "The King of Klezmer Comedy," who (obviously) specialized in comedic parodies of popular tunes back in the '50s. And of course you don't have to be Jewish to enjoy these songs. You may also remember Katz as the fella that inspired trumpeter Don Byron's popular tribute album a few years ago.
Funny, before we even knew about this, we were wondering just the other day if Andy Kaufman had ever made a comedy album? Seems like every comedian in the seventies had them. Though we didn't imagine any of them to be quite like this. Kaufman was not your typical stand-up guy anyway, so his more famous bits such as, the Foreign Man (which he developed into the TV character Latke for the show Taxi), the Mighty Mouse and Elvis record player bits, and the like, wouldn't translate to a pure audio format as they had necessary visual components and punchlines. But between 1977 and 1979, he recorded 82 hours of material on a new hand held micro cassette tape recorder he bought for himself seemingly documenting bits and sketches in hopes of eventually releasing a comedy record. But this was also a time that marked a turning point in Kaufman's comedic trajectory from the wide-eyed surreal innocence of his early material, into a much darker antagonistic form of humor most noted by his abusive taunts to get women to wrestle him and the creation of his most unlikeable character, Tony Clifton, an audience abusing lounge singer that would sometimes be played by Kaufman's brother or partner in crime Bob Zmuda, as an on-going prank to suggest Kaufman and Clifton were actually separate people. So these recordings definitely showcase Kaufman's more assholic tendencies and the bits are never really "ha-ha" funny as much as they are "cringingly uncomfortable" funny. Often recording prostitutes or girlfriends after they had sex and plying them for details, for instance, or yelling at a cop for a traffic ticket he received while trying to convince his grandmother that the car was driving itself. "Andy, turn that *&*%& tape recorder off!!!!!" is heard often. There are moments where he's actually trying to make comedy bits (often introduced with an annoying narrator for some reason), like "Sleep Comedy" which is only supposed to be played for sleeping people, but there are very few of these, which tells us that he was much more interested in making people uncomfortable with the tape recorder, than he was in making them laugh. Still, for folks who like prank call tapes, the Dion MacGregor dream recordings or Judson Fountain radio dramas, this is pretty hilarious!!
Theremin!
"Extreme Onction" is the first collaborative production between Acid Mothers Temple's guru Makoto Kawabata and France's Jean-François Pauvros. Kawabata has led the Japanese collective on some wild trips through psychedelic mayhem and eerie dronescapes, and Pauvros has a number of releases of improv guitar work on Spalax. These two have revisted the guitar isolationist sounds that found their way on Sentrax and Subharmonic in mid '90s: thick guitar reverberations taking on the challenge of creating a dark ambient music entirely out the guitar (and of course a shit load of effects). Just as Buckethead (he's got a bucket on his head - that's funny) and Bill Laswell had the ability to produce some amazingly expressive and dark atmospherics, Kawabata & Pauvros have succeeded in getting their guitars to speak with a bleak torpor. But similar to their predecessors, Kawabata & Pauvros want the listener to know that they are masters at their instrument and can shove 30 million notes in less than 10 seconds. Wow. What virtuosity.
If it wasn't enough that this hairy hippy rock guru, leader of Japan's prolific Acid Mothers Temple, is busy releasing NEW music at a frantic pace, now he's begun digging through his closet to find old stuff he made years and years ago and is re-releasing that as well. No complaints though, if the "Kawabata Makoto's Early Works" series turns up more material as enjoyable as this, originally released in 1981 on (Kawabata's own?) Revolutionary Extrication Project cassette-label, now reissued on cd in a limited edition of 500 copies.
Osaka Loop Line's title is suggestive of trains, and indeed the two long (22-23 minute) tracks here, parts one and two of the same extended piece, can be heard as chug-chugging (if not choo-chooing) along, a droning but active, abstract soundscape-in-motion composed of electronic hum and mechanical pulse. It's a bit different from the amped up and/or blissed out psych guitar explorations we're used to hearing from Kawabata, indeed we don't even know if he's playing guitar at all on here (he's simply credited with "all instruments and voice"). The Eastern ethnic elements found in much of his later AMT and solo work aren't so much in evidence, as this seems to be primarily influenced by '70s German "kosmische" electronics and proto-industrial experimentation, we'd guess. At the same time, it's not like he was making skinny tie New Wave punk or mimicking Journey or doing rockabilly covers or something -- this music does fit in logically with the krauty psychedelia we hear from the man today. Not bad at all for a youngster -- check out the cute photo on the sleeve of a youthful, beardless Kawabata!
Now the question is, how many Early Works are there? If he was as prolific back then as he & his cohorts are now, then from 1981-199? whenever we first encountered AMT, there's got to be a lot more cool Kawabata musical history to hear...!
Attention Japanese psych fans!!! All bow and bear witness to the divine collaboration between two pillars of modern Japanese psych, Kawabata Makoto, temple lord of Acid Mothers Temple, and Michishita Shinsuke, frontman of LSD-march! Blown out, fuzzed out, and tripped out, this monumental collaboration delivers much of what you'd expect from these two long-haired masterminds, spastic improv, dueling electric guitar, unearthly walls of damaged freak-out. Recorded live in Sapporo, Japan, Basement Echo is completely unedited and improvised, a true documentation of, like, two generations of Japanese underground meeting for the first time!
Triple electric guitar attack, from Acid Mothers Temple mainman Kawabata Makoto, ex Reynols axeman Anla Courtis and underground Japanese guitarist Rokujenkin. We know what you're thinking, but you're probably way off. This is no psych rock blow out, some FX drenched jam session, instead, Kokura is two huge slabs of epic ambience, shimmering, chiming, glistening, sparkling, all of those ING things guitars do when they are creating gorgeous soft swirls of sound. Thick sheets of guitars are bathed in soft focus effects, and allowed to drift and gently intertwine, slowly and dreamily melting into each other. Even the noisier moments are strangely beautiful, soft fuzzy melodies colliding with dense waves of distortion, all over hypnotic melodic runs and subtle barely-there rhythms. The label describes Kokura as sounding like SUNNO))) at half volume, but it's a lot more delicate than that, at moments monstrously heavy, but at others, like a soft whisper or a ghostlike sonic shimmer. Really nice.
It's really difficult to not start off every Acid Mothers Temple or Kawabata Makoto review with something about their ridiculous prolificacy. Which makes sense of course, especially when we're faced with a new release probably every two months, if not more frequently. But as we've stated before, the point is almost moot, as pretty much everything we lay our ears on is great! So it all boils down to how much you need, or how different each recording is, a sort of personal preference. Allan probably has 40 or 50 Keiji Haino albums, and probably thinks that is not nearly enough, whereas Andee has maybe one or two, and is positive that that's plenty.
So here we have the latest slab of divine psych from Acid Mothers Temple guru Kawabata Makoto, functioning here in his solo shaman incarnation (as opposed to his role in AMT's freaked out psych rock space rituals) and it's awesome. Really. A deliriously dreamy swirl of electric guitar, bouzouki and sitar, all woven into two sidelong tracks of glorious ur-drone! Glistening, sparkling expanses of slow shifting overtones and overlapping melodies, steel string buzz and deeeeeeeeeep resonant rumbles. Hard not to hear a bit of fellow countrymen Taj Mahal Travellers. The more static passages sound downright Niblock-like with their almost imperceptible sonic shifts.
LIMITED TO 550 COPIES, packaged in a super deluxe full color gatefold sleeve. And for a super limited time we have some of the version that comes with a bonus 7", pressed on red vinyl (ONLY 150 COPIES, WE HAVE ABOUT 15), two more brief bursts of buzz, with reverb drenched chant-like vocals added to the already buzzing, droning mix. So good.
It's possible that all we need to say is "limited to 300 copies on trippy colored vinyl." (And "only 5 in stock" too.) Putting aside our sarcasm about the massive output that drives the collector's market for Kawabata Makoto and his Acid Mother's Temple, "I Wished You Were Here Again" is a solid release for Kawabata, who's by himself layering piercing feedback and amp melting distortion on top of his trademark blissful washes of cosmic guitar noise.
What would an AQ-list be without at least one or two new Kawabata Makoto/Acid Mothers Temple releases on it?? Well I don't think we're ever gonna find out... Here's a new solo release, and as ususal, it's really very nice. One long piece for droning electric guitar and sarangi (a kind of Indian droning fiddle), beautifully dark and gentle. The listener will encounter some episodes of tangled string-scrape, but mostly this just slowly flows forward, soft and soothing. It sorta sounds like it should be heard in church. Recorded live (complete with little glitches) in France while Kawabata was over there hanging out with his friends in Ueh.
Although we might be tempted to join some sort of Kawabata Makoto backlash movement on general principles, the fact remains that the uber-prolific leader of Japan's Acid Mothers Temple has maintained a fairly high level of quality in his constant, cosmic output of music. This here release (one of FOUR Makoto-related discs we've received this WEEK) is indeed pretty worthwhile, so we're not ready to ask him to cease and desist quite yet. Utilizing electric organ, electric harpsichord, violin, tambura, percussion and electronics, Kawabata (with a little help from guest vocalist Audrey Ginestet, the bass player of French psych band Ueh) is in the dream-zone on this one, far from the distorto-rock loudness of the Acid Mothers Temple recent "Electric Heavyland", for instance. With high-pitched tones swirling about, this is spacey, droney stuff in a psychedelic Terry Riley/Steve Reich repetitive minimalist vein, that originally spread over the two sides of a limited edition LP released last year on Eclipse. (So limited, that we never saw it.) But this cd reissue appends a 15 minute bonus track anyway, so we're all good. In a word, lovely.
This guy could poop on a stick and someone would put it out! And someone else would pay a lot for it on eBay! Thankfully, so far, he hasn't done quite that. But here's yet another (non-poop) new release from the man...
A blissful, if relatively non-active, listening experience proferred by Kawabata Makoto, leader of the wild psych freakout band Acid Mothers Temple. This is the music Kawabata makes when he's sleepy, maybe, and there are no jarring effects to disturb the blissful vibe, so it's also perfect for *your* bedtime. Improvised on guitar with no overdubs, the music sleepily drifts between good dream vs. nightmare. If you play it loud, the tension will crowd out all your other thoughts. If you play it quiet you'll feel rather soothed in its undemandingness. Three long tracks totalling 74 minutes.
So yeah, about time this was available on compact disc! We've got Inui 2 and Inui 3, but ol' Inui 1 only came out as a limited-edition LP on the Siwa label back in 2000 ("roughly 100 releases ago, in Kawabata terms" as VHF themselves admit) and is of course long gone, a major prize on eBay or so we're told.
Kawabata (of Acid Mothers Temple, need we tell you?) is joined by guest vocalist Audrey Ginestet from French band Ueh for the first track on this dreamy, droning initial installment of the Inui series, Kawabata handling the rest of these three lengthy tracks all by himself using various and sundry ethnic stringed instruments from his collection (violin, sarangi, oud, bowed sitar, bouzouki, lyra, shou, and nei) plus his own vocals -- all very blissful and spacey and psychedelic as you'd expect. The last twenty+ minutes (the track "Son") is such an angelic ambient drift, shimmering, seeming like the magnified sound of a shaft of magic morning sunlight in the floating-dust filled air of an old empty room, awakening to the day.
AMT/Kawabata fans should thank VHF for reissuing this on cd, 'specially as it's so nicely presented in a hand-screened mini-gatefold sleeve done by the folks at Siwa, and guess what? It's also a limited edition!
Japanese avant-hippy sound guru Kawabata Makoto (of Acid Mothers Temple, Toho Sara, Musica Transonic, and countless other projects) releases his first widely available solo cd, following up his "Inui" lp. Four long tracks of instrumental drones and tones, made with a variety of instruments of both Eastern and Western lineage (violin, zurna, bouzouki, cello, organ, electric sitar, sarangi, gong, electronics, and more). He weaves some exotic, beautiful (improvised?) melodies atop said drones as well. Very nice, very psychedelic. Good going-to-sleep music.
It's really wonderful of Kawabata Makoto (the high priest of Japan's Acid Mothers Temple y'know) to let us in to his private inner world of drone-bliss, via this release as well as previous discs like Inui 2, Infinite Love, and O Si Amos A Sighire A Essere Duas Umbras? and his collaboration with Richard Youngs, of which this here disc certainly reminds us.
Inui 3 consists of three long tracks (the last, over 45 minutes long), making psychedelic usage of bouzouki, sarangi, electric guitar, viola and ECS-101 (whatever that is -- we thought at first it was maybe an analog sequencer, but our expert in that area, Cup, had never heard of an ECS-101 -- anyone know?). The results are a lot of shimmering loveliness, with high end tones over droning drones. Really really nice.
So, if all you know him for is the 'motorpsycho' guitar splurge characteristic of AMT and Musica Transonic and the like, then you'll be surprised (pleasantly we think, this is nothing if not pleasant) by the beauty and restraint of these tracks. Of course, AMT followers by now are probably familiar with, and fans of, that mellower side to Kawabata's prolific output. In either case, here's a(nother) recommended dose!
- MPEG stream: Sui
- MPEG stream: Ken
Imagine being in the middle of a hectic workweek, with a project deadline on Friday. Maybe, for instance, you've got to write a ton of reviews of music releases for a bi-weekly New Arrivals list? And it's time to review the new installment in the Inui series by Acid Mothers Temple leader Makoto Kawabata. It's just one track, 68 minutes long, and you take the opportunity to relax in your chair as you listen to it before writing about it. Under the spell of its blissful wash of drones, gently burbling electronics, and mellow, repetitive guitar strum, you might even drift off for a few moments of blessed nap-time, before getting back to work tackling the next offering of indietronic dance pop, cd-r noise folk, or grim black metal in your to-be-reviewed pile.
Well under these circumstances, Kawabata's Inui 4 definitely gets the big thumbs up! Seriously, as long as you're not trying to concentrate, even the foghorn sounds at 21 minutes in, or the high-end whistling tones of Kawabata's drones, won't bother you. It's just another welcome relaxing trip to the softer side of Kawabata Makoto's psychedelic cosmos.
Made in Germany it says here, and Fuenfundvierzig is a German label, if you hadn't guessed. And that's where it *sounds* like it was made, back in say 1973, by someone like Klaus Schulze. But the music on this disc -- spacey, trancey, "kosmiche" guitar bliss out stuff -- was actually made in 2004 in Japan by the next best thing to an authentic long haired and bearded '70s German krautrock guitar/electronics guru. That'd be Kawabata Makoto of Acid Mothers Temple! These two long tracks of meditative, astral exploration ("mediation" and "astral" both being words that figure in the titles of the two pieces) also bring to mind the work of Terry Riley with all the wonderfully repetitive delay and reverb goin' on. Anyone into the gentler side of Kawabata/AMT (such as Kawabata's O Si Amos A Sighire A Essere Duas Umbras? and Inui 3 albums) ought to swoon over this glimmersome Jellyfish Rising. And the back cover of the cd booklet is a picture all AMT fans already have in their heads: an unclothed Kawabata in bed, smoking a cigarette, cradling his beloved electric guitar.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Ok, we all know there's a lot of Kawabata Makoto records released every hour of every day, for no better reason than that's what the cosmos seems to require of Kawabata Makoto...but the Acid Mothers Temple guitar guru claims to have a special excuse for this particular release, that it's a tribute to the island of Sardinia where he recently had some sort of undescribed spiritual awakening -- maybe they have really good drugs there, hmm? Thus inspired, Kawabata sat down with his guitar(s), three reverb units and a delay pedal, and created these two lengthy (32 and 43 minute!) tracks of spacious, echoey, glimmering goodness. Actually, on the first track he's playing an acoustic, and on the second an electric. With both he conjures a calm sea of *very* reverby, droned-out guitar tones. This definitely belongs to Kawabata's meditative, mellow side as opposed to his slash-and-burn rock skronk side, and we must that that, and this, is a really nice thing!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Numero uno Japanese long-haired avant-hippy Kawabata Makoto and Acid Mothers Temple compatriot Cotton Casino were just in town to play a sadly under-publicized show, and were kind enough to stop by and sell us a few of Kawabata's latest cd-r release, volume seven in his "Private Tapes" series. Limited (of course) to just 200 copies, this disc sees Kawabata in solo guitar instrumental mode, doing a single 38 minute track called "I Want You To Want Me" (but it's not actually a Cheap Trick cover, as far as we can tell). It starts off quite blissfully, and that's the mood of the entire piece, although it builds in density as it goes along, getting quite a bit louder towards the end. Kawabata's guitar subs for a full string section as he uses effects to create a shimmering backing drone (shall we call this Kawabatatronics?). He proceeds to pick out fragile, repeating melodic phrases, layering them over the pulsing textures of what's come before. It's quite nice. You can imagine Kawabata sitting in his room recording this, as shafts of heavenly light beam down upon him from on high. If you liked his soothing Infinite Love cd on Ochre you'll dig this, as will those into the mellow psychedelic trips of Krautrock guitar/synth explorers like Ashra's Manuel Gottsching.
Those partial only to Kawabata's noisy, freak-out side should perhaps look elsewhere, although this might be the one to convert you to enjoying his more gentle moods. Note: as we said, this limited, and we only were able to get a few, so when they're gone, they're gone...
Kawabata Makoto (better known in his adult incarnation as the Father Yod like ringleader of Acid Mother's Temple) was a precocious Japanese kid at the age of 13 when he made these recordings. Like his Dark Revolution Collective album that was recorded about the same time in 1978, the only instrument that Kawabata had access to was a borrowed synthesizer, which he tweedled and modulated to
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Fulfilling his self-made prophecy as the reborn spirt of legendary hippie music guru Father Yod from Yahowha 13, Acid Mothers Temple ringleader Kawabata Makoto proclaimed a harmonious existence within his own personal "cosmos" in 1999. The perpetual output of material from Kawabata after that incident may indicate that he is merely a medium for the extra-dimensional spirits with which he has come in contact. Or maybe he just took a lot of drugs. Either way, Kawabata's neo-psychedelia has become one of the more wildly divergent expressions of an altered consciousness, ranging from the propulsive psychedelic jams of the aforementioned Acid Mothers Temple, to the thug-rock riffs of Nishinihon, to his miasmic guitar / sitar drones when recording under his own name or the Father Moo moniker. "You Are The Moonshine" falls into the latter category of glistening, reverbed guitar washes projecting the levitationally transcendent images from Kawabata's lysergically tinged personal cosmos. Even better than the recent "Inui" recordings, but painfully limited to 150 copies each. Don't expect these to last.
If a bearded, tie-dyed guy fiddling with the knobs and wires of some vintage synth is your idea of a good time, you're in luck. Here's another three (quite long, of course) tracks of space-out fantasia from the prolific Kawabata Makoto, leader of everyone's favorite band of hippie throwbacks, Acid Mothers Temple. Kawabata's music is just about Japan's number one export these days, isn't it?? Well c'mon, he's got rent to pay (or effects boxes to buy, or something). And as always, we're not complaining... ol' Kawabata can indulge his love for krauty cosmic electronics, as he does here, all the live long day and we'll forever be willing to lend an ear.
At 21, 19, and 34 minutes, roughly, these tracks have plenty of space to develop, and feature quietly creepy stretches of looping seagull static as well as utter sci-fi, videogame zappery, pretty much along the same lines as Space Machine, Masonna's similarly inspired analog synth side project. Good music to veg out to while starring at any remotely abstract pattern, with the last and longest (title) track being the most meditative, basically a central drone-tone and heartbeat-like pulse.
