From the album cover -- an oddly staged photo featuring four long haired dudes with peculiar, only-in the-seventies fashion sense (high top Converse sneakers or bare feet, tube socks, floral print shirt and white vest and pants, bathrobe, shorts, little red hat...) relaxing at a cafe table -- you wouldn't necessarily guess that this is as heavy as it is. But it is. Though this first (and best) album by Spanish hard rockers Leno dates from 1979, it definitely sounds a few years older than that. Total early '70s heavy proto-metal in sound (which means that if you come into the store looking for it, you'll find it in our new "heavy '70s proto metal" section that lives in our "vintage psych rock" rack) for fans of all that stuff like Dust, Toad, Bang, Buffalo, Budgie, Blues Creation, Socrates Drank The Conium, etc. Wild, riffy stuff with tough, rough wailing (Spanish-language) vocals and lots and lots of *killer* guitar that gets almost Sabbathy in spots. Man, we love finding obscure stuff like this that sounds so classic the second you put it on. Pretty darn kick ass.
It's been a while since we've heard from these Italian atmospheric epic post-prog, math-metal heavies, who in the past have shared a split with psychedelic doomlords and countrymen Ufomammut, and who gave us the stunning Earthen record we raved about a while back, and if anything since then, it seems like everything we dug about these guys has been further honed, their sound still a swirling, chugging, dense and driving, sprawling epic instru-metal, but just, MORE. More mathy, more psychedelic, more proggy, in fact, where most bands like this deliver a handful of lengthy mega-epics, allowing the songs to continually morph and cycle through the millions of parts, Lento cram their metal prog majesty into short, regular song lengths, the longest barely cracking 4 minutes, a few brief two minute blasts, but with most hovering around the 3 minute pop song mark. But there's no way any of these tracks will be mistaken for pop songs, sure, some are dangerously catchy, but for the most part, each song is a dizzying collision of multiple parts, constantly shifting textures, flitting from moody brood, to howling metallic fury, to fluttery folky drift, to loping post rock drift, to hushed jazzy shuffle, to churning almost blackness, to soaring Godspeed worthy, keyboard wreathed swirl and soar, and really, in lesser hands it all might feel like too much, like a band cramming way too many parts into way too little song, but somehow Lento make it feel strangely natural. It's a wild ride for sure, and one that is pretty sonically dizzying, but the songs all feel linked sonically, some sort of prog-math songsuite, and while their Earthen record had a bit of a churning industrial feel, we likened it to Godflesh, and Jesu, as well as more obvious comparisons like Isis and Nadja, the sound here is way more varied, and organic, more math rock and noise rock, with hints of power metal and post rock and spaced out psych and whatever else these weirdos want to mix into their strange sonic brew.
We hear lots of Isis and Nadja still, but plenty of Dutch instrumental metal legends Gore too, as well as LOTS of longtime obscuro aQ faves Fuehler, definitely some shades of the Fucking Champs, the aforementioned power metallisms in places, the mathy chug of Meshuggah for sure, but for the most part, Anxiety Despair Languish is just a fantastically forward thinking, wildly progressive, sonically heavy rock record that RULES, and should have metalheads (and heck adventurous non metalheads) of all stripes losing their shit big time.
The vinyl version is 180 gram and includes a download code.
When we got the Supernaturals Vol.1 cd that teamed up Italy's UFOmammut and Lento (or Lent0?) we knew who UFOmammut were. The snailkings of psychedelic heavy sludge stoner metal awesomeness, a perfect hybrid of Electric Wizard's drugged-out doom and Hawkwind's even spacier, uh, spaciness. Big fans of UFOmammut we already were. But who were this Lento?? Now we have that band's out-on-their-own debut, and now we know. Lento are Italy's all-instrumental answer to Isis. They're Italy's masters of sinister, atmospheric, super-heavy post rock chugga chugga. The seven tracks of Earthen are divided between full-on, blown-out, heavy-riffing clobber and more restrained, near-ambient dronology, usually dynamically within the same song, though there's several tracks given over entirely to the latter, as on "Emersion Of The Islands" a drone-piece with crackling sferic-like sounds... It's a majestic, metallic post-rock soundtrack to a trudging trip across the cratered surface of some airless planetoid, an epic slog under unknown stars, bathed in space radiation, amidst the ruined remains of ancient alien technology... Or at least that's what we're getting from all their drone and grit and feedback, crashing cymbals, and monolithic riffage. Though Earthen's theme, as expressed in the song titles and artwork, appears actually to be more "Subterrestrial" than extra-terrestrial.
First off & obviously we'd recommend this to fans of their pals UFOmammut... the rigid, mechanical Godflesh-like elements that we've detected in UFOmammut's music are more prominent here, with some isolationist Lustmord ambience thrown in as well. Certainly check out Lento if you're into Godflesh (and Justin Broadrick's Jesu too), Isis, Nadja, Dumb & The Ugly, Hyatari... and of course if you liked that Supernaturals Vol.1 disc. This, and UFOmammut's new one Idolum also reviewed this list, are both fine follow-ups to that.
Similar to that new UFOmammut, this "regular" edition of Earthen is packaged in one of those newfangled rounded-corner jewel cases. There is (or was) a special limited edition of Earthen, too, with arty inserts and all, but we got precisely one of those 'cause they cost so damn much. If you're interested, ask, we might still have it... $49! Otherwise, this $19.98 edition is recommended!
We missed the first two singles from these self proclaimed 'ice-poppers', but we're digging this new full length a bunch, the sound not that far removed from the current crop of garage-y jangle pop, not hard to imagine this coming out on Sacred Bones or Captured Tracks, and like some of those groups, these guys look back to the eighties too, but more toward groups like Modern English and Echo & The Bunnymen. There's a definitely new wave vibe, and lots of the tracks here sound like they would have fit perfectly on some John Hughes soundtrack for sure. But unlike a lot of bands with similar influences, Lenz don't seem to spend as much time and energy aping that era's sound and production, although much of this does sound genuinely eighties, but much of it sound way too polished and modern, opener "Moody Michelle" melodically is a total throwback, but otherwise, it's a sweet slab of super hooky jangle pop.
"Roman Holiday" though IS a bit more lo-fi, with a distinctly old school production, and a cool angular guitar melody/vocal line that sounds like it could have come from some classic MTV era new wave pop hit, with a verse and a bridge that are equally crazy catchy, and that has us hearing Thompson Twins and Duran Duran, albeit a lot more gritty and psychedelic. But really, of the current crop of retro pop, this Lenz record has been stuck on our turntables, and lodged in our heads nonstop, and if the measure of a record is how hard it is to actually stop listening to it in order to listen to something ELSE, then this is most definitely a new fave. Fans of Blank Dogs, Big Troubles, Craft Spells and other sonically similar eighties jangle pop throwbacks will be in heaven (seventeen?)...
Once again, it's time to dig deep into the murky musical underground of the great white north, Finland in particular, home to sooooooooooo many aQ faves over the years: Circle, Aavikko, Pharaoh Overlord, Doktor Kettu, Islaja, Avarus, Circle Of Ouroborus, Dead Reptile Shrine, Cleaning Women, Fleshpress, Magyar Posse, Hanoi Rocks (!), Kemialliset Ystavat, Keuhkot, Smack, Mr. Peter Hayden, Death Trip, Worms, Nightsatan, Reverend Bizarre, Ride For Revenge, Skepticism, Tiermes, Uton, Will Over Matter, we could go on and on and on. Oh and let's not forget recent Record Of The Weekers Billy Boys, who seem like the perfect segue into THIS week's Record Of The Week from another group of Finnish oddballs, The Leo Bugariloves, who are most likely virtually unknown to all but the most obsessive Finnophiles, or Bad Vugum completists, their sound pretty warped and WTF? even by weirdo Finnish standards. The label mentions Suicide, the Residents, and krautrock, which all definitely apply, but the LB's also have a weird sort of lo-fi exotica vibe going on, fusing looped Casio rhythms, to warbly synths, primitive programmed skitter wrapped around angular detuned twang, deep growly vocals delivered in a gruff barked croon, bits of Morricone-ish melody surface throughout, but there's plenty of swagger too, some songs slip into full on glam rock Gary Glitter style big beats, all under fuzzy synthy swirls, and chiming almost rockabilly guitar crunch, others get all Stoogesy, bluesy and buzzy, and still others get sort of Gobliny, some tracks laced with woozy horn bleats, others with swoonsome faux strings, but always, the LB's transform the sounds into their own twisted home brewed outsider avant electro pop concoction, and it's one that's weirdly addictive, and unlike the willfully difficult damaged sonics of the Billy Boys, the music of the LB's is playful, and melodic, and actually pretty fun, sure it's dark and brooding and fractured and fucked up at times, but even then it's often shot through with goofy melodies, or gradually transforms into some weirdly abstract bit of stumbling carnivalesque exotica. We can't help but mention another past record of the week, local outsider one man band Fastest, there's much of the same sort of idiosyncratic cinematic electro rhythmic weirdness going on, but the LB's are Finnish too, so this definitely has that weird ineffable Finnish special something that transforms what could have been pure home recorded weirdness, into something that's kind of warped genius, the LB's peppering their difficult listening with quite a knack for melody, plenty of popsmithery lurking in these buzzing, skittering, twangy, quirky, fractured and fragmented electro pop oddities, so much so, that repeated listens reveal these tracks to be more than just oddities, more like some alternate universe pop gems, that seem to have maybe been slightly damaged in their transmission between universes, and odds are, you'll find yourself impossibly hooked, with any of these tracks liable to get lodged in your head like crazy.
The Leo Bugariloves features members of legendary Finnish punk outfits Terveet Kadet and Death Trip (whose collected works reissued on Jussi from Circle's Ektro label we reviewed and raved about recently) but this is about as far as you can get from either of those bands, sounding more like some lo-fi mad scientist concoction of Devo, Fastest, They Might Be Giants, Dirty Beaches and Felix Kubin all run through some cracked Finnish music filter, and then molded into some sort of surreal David Lynchian Las Vegas lounge act. This two disc collection gathers up all sort of vinyl only rarities, long out of print gems, as well as a ton of unreleased stuff, including a handful of live and demo tracks, those tracks in particular displaying more of the group's mesmeric and murky lo-fi krautrock vibe...
Twisted, and bizarre, and most definitely baffling, but crazy catchy, yet another batch of fantastically fucked Finnish weirdness that we can't recommend highly enough!
We're so glad that the world is finally waking up to the genius of Ted Leo. We have been huge fans since his early days fronting the aggro mod-pop band Chisel. And the things that made Chisel so appealing have only intensified and matured since then. Jangly, super catchy hooks, classic riffs, amazingly literate, clever and funny lyrics, and that voice! A soaring almost falsetto that is keening and straining at impossible registers one moment, belting it out at others. So awesome. The sound is still sort of mod-pop, think the Jam/Style Council, Thin Lizzy, Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson all wrapped up in a sensitive thirtysomething emo boy! And all filtered through Leo's knack for inventive arrangements and weird chordal choices. This is not easy or simple pop. This is the kind of stuff that rewards repeated listens. The hooks are there, but they aren't obvious. And the melodies are infectious, but not cloying. And to me that's the best kind of pop record. One that stays fresh and offers something new everytime you hear it. Leo is seriously one of the best pop songwriters around. And he just keeps getting better.
We've pretty much always loved Ted Leo, and his totally thrilling, energetic mod pop. Ever since his early days with his first band Chisel, Leo has proven himself a master songsmith, always backed up by a crack band, always armed with a clutch of killer songs that manage to be poignant and meaningful, but also catchy and anthemic, guitars howl and riffs crunch, and that voice, so clear and powerful, the second he opens his mouth, he's got you. The Jam has always been an obvious reference point, so too Thin Lizzy, and nothing has changed on that front. In some ways The Brutalist Bricks is a little less immediate, and requires a few more listens before it really sinks in, but that's usually the case with records that are bound to end up favorites. That immediate super satisfying sugar rush of sound is replaced with a record that will have the same impact in a week or a month or a year, maybe even moreso. Songs that blossom a little more with each play. The Brutalist Bricks also sounds a bit more polished, a little more commercial, a smidge less raw and urgent, which will no doubt bug some, but it actually suits him, and like we always say, we'd WAY rather hear Ted Leo on the radio than John Mayer, and even with that extra bit of polish and occasional big studio flourish, none of that would mean shit if these songs weren't great, and if Leo weren't in fine form, thankfully they are and he is. If you dug his other records, you'll definitely dig this one. And anyone into kick ass classic sounding power pop, who hasn't checked out Leo, should absolutely grab one of these right now.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Ted Leo, former leader of the criminally overlooked D.C. mod-pop outfit Chisel, with his pick-up band the Pharmacists, continues on his unique pop trajectory, somewhere between the jumpy caffeinated pop of his old outfit Chisel, the mod emotion of the Jam,
Leo is joined on this record by his brother Chris (who fronts the Lapse) on drums and percussion. Brendan Canty (of Fugazi) plays some drums as does his brother James. And Amy Dominguez (who plays on every indie rock record that needs a cellist it seems like) plays cello.
This record is so good. Really.
If you've been reading the AQ list, you know how much we love Ted Leo. His gorgeously keening vocals, jangly mod guitars, brilliantly funny lyrics, and unique songsmithery have really made him one of the most appealing singer/songwriters going these days. Screw Rufus Wainwright, forget Elliott Smith. A dense heady mix of the Jam, Elvis Costello, and Thin Lizzy, mixed with an undeniable knack for irresistably catchy indie rock. This sort-of-EP is a bit of a stopover until the next full length with a few originals, a few solo vocal/guitar tracks and some unique covers. The Jam cover is an obvious choice ("Ghosts"), then there's a version of the celtic sixties standard "Dirty Old Town", and a Split Enz cover. THAT could have been a travesty, and although it makes me want to hear the original more than anything, Leo manages to make it enough his own that it's worth checking out! Can't wait for the next full length.
Yippeee! Ted Leo And The Pharmacists are back!
The opening track kicks things into gear with sharp crunchy guitars that penetrate right to the roots of your hair and teeth(!). Said guitars are feverishly strummed atop a runaway train drumbeat... oh, and don't forget the handclaps! NEVER! As always, Leo's sound is very mod inspired a la The Jam with a little eighties power pop vocal flavor (Elvis Costello and Rick Springfield) and hard rock (lots of Thin Lizzy) in there. That said, Living With The Living keeps us on our toes with a couple twists that caught us by surprise -- three of 'em being the bizarre jig in the sixth tune "A Bottle Of Buckie", the fiery rock blast of "Bomb.Repeat.Bomb" and the unpredictable reggae turn on "The Unwanted Things". A neat balance of boyish charm, winking pop hooks, and anthemic balls-out rawk power!
Bonus alert! The first pressing of the cd includes a five-song cdep, and the initial vinyl edition includes a coupon for a free MP3 download of the entire album plus some extra non-album MP3s! More Leo to love!
Is Ted Leo the new voice of our generation? We wish. If only music this catchy and smart could be the sound of today's youth (and the not so young, can't leave ourselves out) instead of Good Charlotte and Hilary Duff.
Shake The Streets is the newest release from Ted Leo and his band the Pharmacists and continues where the last record left off, channelling classic rock (Thin Lizzy), mod rock (the Jam), classic new wave pop (Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson) and indie rock (Leo's former outfit, the indie-mod Chisel) into music that somehow sounds like all of those and none of those. Huge riffs collide with indie jangle, Leo's soaring vocals (often slipping into an impossible falsetto) spinning tales of love, loss, politics, drug policy (!) and all sort of other subjects not often sung about in pop music. This is definitely Leo's least immediately catchy record so far, but as is often the case, now that it's been out for a while and we've had a chance to listen to it a bunch, it's blossomed into an absolutely amazing pop record. Unforgettable riffs, those sort of muted major key Thin Lizzy hooks, really strange and convoluted arrangements (not so much so that they ruin the pop element), clever sharp tongued lyrics and of course Leo's crystal clear vocals. Leo's music is really something special, kick ass rock that sounds perfect blasting from your car stereo flying down the highway, but works just as well on a mixtape for that special someone, and works even better sitting on your bed with headphones reading along with the lyrics!
This is a reissue of one of those deep "in-the-know" records that we're perplexed that we had somehow never heard of before now, especially given its pedigree. It seems to be one of those weird anomaly recordings that when it's not acting as a "proto" example of genres that now exist today (dub-step and minimal techno), it works as a bridge between genres we never imagined being connected before (new age and industrial music, minimalist composition and new wave, minimal synth and ethno-folk music). It's a rare six-degrees-of-separation record that bafflingly connects Suicide to John Fahey, and it's utterly gorgeous to boot.
Craig Leon may not be a well-known name to most, but he was the producer or co-producer behind many of the bands of our youth including Blondie, The Ramones, Talking Heads, Richard Hell, Suicide, The Weirdos, DMZ, The Zero's. The Bangles and 45 Grave. But he's also a classically trained composer and orchestrator who has worked with Lucio Pavoratti, Sir James Galway and The London Symphony Orchestra. Nommos was the first album of his own material, originally released in 1981 on John Fahey's Takoma label and there really is just nothing quite like it.
With evocative titles like "Donkeys Bearing Cups", "Four Eyes To See The Afterlife" and "She Wears A Hemispherical Skull Cap", Leon uses minimal synthesis to explore repetitive rhythm and texture in hypnotic trance inducing compositions. The opener, "Ring With Three Concentric Circles" explores a kraut-y kosmiche sound employing cosmic synth washes over skeletal mechanical rhythms, but it's the second track, "Donkeys Bearing Cups" that prognosticates many of the production tropes of modern dubstep and minimal techno, the shuffling almost dance-y mechanized rhythms, as well as the squelched siren noise that opens it. Many of the tracks could be paired down backing tracks for Suicide songs, minus Alan Vega's vocals and Martin Rev's knack for propulsion. Instead Leon seems to dwell on the nuance of his robotic rhythms, tweaking the reverb and decay in bass pulses and cymbal clangs, but encasing them in a beautiful floating stasis.
The longest track at nearly 12 minutes, "Four Eyes To See The Afterlife", seems to have the least going on. It's plodding hiccupping rhythm stretching for minutes before we notice a woman's voice almost operatically singing way off in the background. Her voice almost feels like another synthetic texture in the composition and we at first had to turn the volume down to see if we were hearing things, but it's just another impeccable detail that Leon is carefully layering and weaving into seemingly bare-bone compositions making us ever conscious of the meditative nature of the work. This is definitely a producer's record, and an incredible one at that! If you are a fan of modern techno composers like Vladislav Delay, Andy Stott, Demdike Stare, anything on the Dead-Cert label, or even outlier composers like Moondog, Julius Eastman or Barton Smith, this is essential!
Download card included!
Here's a unique kind of movie soundtrack, and an excellent one at that! Leonard Cohen I'm Your Man features live recordings of Martha and Rufus Wainwright, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Teddy Thompson, Nick Cave, Antony (of And The Johnsons), Beth Orton, Pulp's Jarvis Cocker, The Handsome Family, Perla Batalla, Julie Christensen, U2 and the man himself, Leonard Cohen. The performances (except for the Cohen/U2 one) were part of Hal Willner's production "Came So Far For Beauty: An Evening Of Leonard Cohen Songs" which took place twice in Brighton, England (2004) and Sydney, Australia (2005). Cool!
In January 2009, the Bay Area sound-artist and composer Cheryl Leonard embarked on a residency program at the Palmer Station in Antarctica. There, she took every opportunity to venture out into the summer's perpetual daylight to make as many field recordings as possible and to collect an array of penguin bones (with the permission of the Palmer Station, of course) to use in her rather elegant, beguiling compositions. In the past, Leonard had used a variety of branches, rocks, and other natural elements in these beautifully textured compositions whereby she would bow and clink those objects into masses of textures that came across somewhere between the work of Loren Chasse, Jeph Jerman, and Small Cruel Party. So, it shouldn't come as a surprise that she actually released a split 7" with SMC's Key Ransome some 15 years ago.
While Chattermarks is a collection of pure field recordings, the use of those abraded sounds within a composed swarm points to what she was listening for in Antarctica. In hearing Leonard talk about her Antarctic adventure, she is quick to describe the brutality of the wind and the intensity of the cold, all of which wreaked havoc upon her binaural mics and hydraphones. Many of her recordings feature the noises of Antarctic animal life: adelie penguins, elephant seals, skuas, and gulls. The slumbering snore from a couple of the elephant seals is particularly striking as are their bellowing barks and guttural thrumbings. But the sounds of ice are probably the most intriguing recordings on Chattermarks, from the huge rumbles of a glacier that crumbles into the ocean with smaller tinklings of ice racing down an embankment to the searing hiss of millions of shards of ice clattering together next to a disintegrating wall of packed snow. The only document of the Antarctic wind was captured in a haunting recording of wind whipping around an antenna punctuated by the booms of a glacier splitting in two somewhere in the distance. An obvious treat for anyone keen on Douglas Quin's polar recordings, but Leonard has an excellent flair for subtle drama that's also heard in those impeccable Chris Watson field recordings. Highly recommended!
The musical saw has long been used in popular music as a mysterious embellishment much like the similarly haunting theremin, but on Jim Leonard's Super Saw the instrument's ghostly howl takes center stage. Leonard is nothing short of virtuoso (he also wrote a book about the instrument!) and was a bit of a saw renegade. Here he incorporates some of his own distinct playing innovations, namely the speedy "saw shredder" bowing style which stand in stark contrast to other saw players' extended tones. On the first few numbers his performance is accompanied by delightful sounds that resemble actual construction (like sanding, gentle hammering and yes, sawing). Mind you, it's in a most melodic and playful fashion. The rest of the album is a strange coming together of lonesome cowboy twang, rousing ragtime, mystic waltzes and cocktail exotica. At times it's so otherworldly, you'd almost expect a vocal appearance by exotica great Yma Sumac. Additional instrumentation fleshing out the selection of nineteen originals and familiar standards includes banjo, Hawaiian style guitar, harmonica, and organs.
Apparently this Japanese import is the only release of Leonard's music currently available. And as always beautifully and painstakingly packaged by those folks at EM record in Japan!
Ambitious power-prog-pop!?! Mixing elements of everything from Magma to the Fiery Furnaces, The Boredoms to the Dirty Projectors, Van Dyke Parks to Heavy Vegetable. A fun and colorful ride.
1970 obscure Xian acid psych folk classic, reissued!!
The second full length from this Norwegian heartbreaker has arrived! And from the very first couple of songs, who can deny the heartmelting power of Lerche's sensitive boyish croon? In-store play has drawn plenty of enthusiastic queries. Definitely brings to mind the music of Jeff Buckley or Rufus Wainwright -- particularly the latter with the grand Bacharach-ian orchestral flourishes. However on the very next tune, he shifts his delivery to a much more forthright Robyn Hitchcock quirkiness and the music follows suit. Indeed, it's a finely composed, lush and sophisticated pop album that covers a much broader scope than Lerche's impressive debut Faces Down. And although it's certainly much less obvious this time around, in each song you can catch more than fleeting glimpses of his clear Beatles and Beach Boys worship. If you have a penchant for heaping spoonfuls of well-crafted pop sugary sweets, this is for you!
Japan's EM records strikes again. Without a doubt, the coolest, weirdest, most amazing re-issue label EVER!! We could list again all the killer reissues we've carried and reviewed and raved about over the past year or two, but we've done that in pretty much every other EM review, so do a label search for EM Records on the AQ website, and prepare to have your mind blown!
Another long lost, long sought after holy grail of sorts, dug up and dusted off and beautifully presented by EM, Travelon Gamelon, a piece by Richard Lerman for amplified bicycles! Performed on stage with upturned bikes, but also, performed on the streets, the bikes mic'ed and each with it's own tiny amplifier broadcasting the various sounds of the bike rolling along streets, the metallic flutter of spokes, the sounds of passing cars, squeaking brakes, whipping wind, all woven into the organic whole. A piece of moving music, constantly shifting, obviously improvised and random, and so totally wonderful.
There are two versions of the piece, which has been performed for years all over the world, one is the concert version, which features musicians on stage, with upside down bikes, using various implements with which to strike, rub and bow the different parts of the bicycles, these are the versions that are the most gamelan like, a gorgeous assemblage of metallic clangs and percussive clamor. From dreamy and spare, to cacophonous and wildly chaotic. A sort of junkyard gamelan, definitely clattery but also strangely melodic.
But it's the other versions, the Promenade versions, that are the most exciting. These pieces are basically field recordings of cyclists on mic'ed and amplified bicycles, every sound their riding creates being broadcast through little speakers affixed to the bikes, and recorded by Lerman! So not only is this group of bikes creating this gorgeous whirring mechanical ambience, that sound is also travelling through city streets, a self contained performance of sorts, a strange little cloud of metallic shimmer and buzzing mechanical ambience performed for all passersby. It's also cool to hear the organizers' instructions, children laughing and playing, running alongside, ringing their own bike bells, you can hear Lerman giving orders to the cyclists as they prepare to begin the piece, and various warnings like "Watch out for the metal!" Street cleaners, random cars, voices and footsteps, all a sort of organic backdrop to the divine slow shifting whir the bicycles produce. Constantly shifting, and changing, depending on the speed of the bikes, the direction of the amplifiers the placement of the mics, the people or cars, amazing. It reminds us a bit of the Taj Mahal Travellers in fact, TMT's method of broadcasting their sounds out of loudspeakers, and then recapturing them with microphones placed at various distances, well, Travelon Gamelon is almost like a mobile Taj Mahal Travellers. So cool!
This collection would be well worth it for disc one alone, 5 lengthy excerpts from various performances of Travelon Gamelon, but also included is a second disc, of various other pieces Lerman composed and performed over the years spanning 1964-1986.
"For Two Of Them" is a soundscape of old records, a spring reverb, and manipulated tapes, very dark and dreamy, a fuzzy, multilayered drone shot through with streaks of metallic shimmer and sounding not all that different than contemporary noismakers like the Starving Weirdos, the Skaters and the like. In fact, most of the pieces on disc two, could just as easily come from some super limited cd-r we just managed to track down. "Sections For Screen, Performers And Audience" features the score presented as a film projected on a screen, the performers face the screen with their backs to the audience, and their improvisations are electronically modified into a gorgeous bit of twisted Twentieth Century. "End Of The Line" is a very dramatic tape piece based on the deaths of close friends, and is another piece that sounds presciently modern, huge dramatic swells, very melancholic and resonant, huge fields of drone and buzz. Even tracks like "Soundspot", a piece for amplified 40 foot Slinky, with its gorgeously resonant creaking and moaning and whistling metallic buzz, and "Music For Plinky And Straw", a piece for bendy straw and reverb, creating a dense field of abstract melodies, crystalline shimmer and percussive chimes, sound less Twentieth Century and more like any number of modern free noise abstract drone releases! This is the sort of collection we wish had been expanded to 4 discs, or 8 discs!! We want more.
But even with two discs there is plenty here to keep you busy and your ears full and happy for sure. Two hours plus of remarkable sound, a massive booklet, with tons of photos, liner notes in both English and Japanese, as well as notes on each individual piece, but also included are a rare video of Lerman performing his piece for bendy straw, as well as scores for several pieces, and a killer photo guide to building a tape delay out of two walkmans!! SO SO SO RECOMMENDED!
The perfect record to bring music nerds and bike nerds together (most of us here are both!)...
Long overdue reissue from this seventies African supergroup, which included legendary vocalist Salif Keita as well as Amadou Bagayoko (now one half of Amadou & Mariam) along with a handful of other notable musicians, all of whom were gathered together by an ambitious army lieutenant in 1969 who decided he needed a top notch band to entertain visitors and VIPs at his favorite hangout, the Motel De Bamako of the title. He of course needed a band as good as the other other popular band at the time, the Rail Band De Bamako, who already performed at another hotel near the train station! Les Ambassadeurs coup was luring Keita away from the Rail band, making Les Ambassadeurs THEE preeminent Malian band of the time, with a slew of hits, big tours, and even a handful of international performances!
Beyond the back story, and the dramatic rivalries, the music itself is fantastic, a mix of traditional African music, jazz, R&B even some Latin American sounds found there way into Les Ambassadeurs music (and much of the African music of the time), and while the vibe is very traditionally highlife, an amazing horn section, lush guitar jangle, soaring emotive vocals, it's also kind of psychedelic, with some seriously distorted lead guitars, and plenty of wild xylophone, everything lush and layered, warm and softly distorted, rhythmic and funky, the songs effusive and bursting with energy, often slipping into groovy psych jams, before slipping right back into something a bit more traditional.
According to the notes, the visiting VIP's and tourists would also bring some of their favorite records for the band, which they would dutifully learn in the afternoon, practicing for a few hours, before playing those songs the very same evening!
The disc is housed in a full color slip cover, and includes a big booklet with liner notes, rare photos and reproductions of the group's various record covers.
A totally twisted blast of primitive outsider garage rock from this mysterious sixties French combo, whose sound exists in some what-the-fuck nether region between the Shaggs and Hasil Adkins, a woozy, stumbling, low fidelity workout that begins with a warped cover of Gene Vincent's "Be Bop A-Lula", which pretty much lays it all out, detuned angular guitar strum, shuffling drum stumble, slightly off key vocal croon WAY up in the mix, the whole thing loose and off kilter, weaving drunkenly from verse to chorus and back again, total bad ass swagger wrapped in a utter earnestness, the sort of band who can only pull off stuff this weird and fucking nuts, cuz they're convinced they rule, and rule they do. Every time we play this in the store someone asks what it is an invariably ends up buying it. We were smitten from the very first listen.
Two long lost eps combined into one mind blowing sixteen minute 'long player', a record that our pals at WFMU are nuts for, as we are now too, and like them, we were suspicious that this was not in fact some modern band taking the piss, crafting some fucked up fractured 'lost gem' but by all accounts this is the real deal, which makes sense cuz this sort of warped genius is tough to fake, and genius it is, catchy has heck, even in its damaged sonic stumble, we find ourselves humming along to every misstep, sour note and warbly vocal, and also find ourselves listening this pretty much more than almost anything else, which really says it all.
What is it about the flexidisc? We were shocked by the resurgence of interest in cassettes, but we could NEVER have predicted that the flexidisc would be next. But hell, we actually love those things, and for what they lack in fidelity and sound quality, they make up for in cool quirkiness. Take this flexidisc right here, a sort of picture flexidisc, a square record adorned with a naked woman's torso, housed in a printed plastic sleeve covering up the sexy bits, includes a postcard with liner notes and a download code, this is in fact the debut release from Les Demoniaques, a duo made up of gothy songstress Tamaryn and Dee Dee from The Dum Dum Girls, and sounds pretty much exactly how you might imagine, a gloomy gothic ballad / sixties girl group fuzz pop hybrid, all woozy and warm, reverby and shimmery, the vocals softly echoed, the music repetitive and trancelike, no drums that we could hear, hazy and drifty and jangly, a super short and sweet bit of dreamy gloom pop, peppered with some synthy swirl, and some divine "oooh's" and "aaah's", oh yeah, and it's a Jesus And Mary Chain cover! Definitely has us hankering for more and has us wondering if they can whip up some originals that can live up to this psychedelic shoegaze classic, here's hoping...
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES.
Latest from these French post black metal shoegazers, who seem forever doomed to live in the shadow of their countrymen Alcest and Amesoeurs, which makes sense, cuz most folks might in fact have a little trouble telling them apart. It's a shame though, because removed from the whole 'post black metal' equation (like really, all three of these band should be at this point), Les Discrets are masterful practitioners of fuzzed out, distortion drenched shoegaze dreampop heaviness. While they have essentially given up any pretense of being a black metal band of any stripe, their are some hints of blackness here, mostly in the occasional atonal riffage, and the brief stretch of guitar buzz and blast beat, but if anything, they definitely have more in common with the soaring dramatic metallic gloom pop of Katatonia, or the shoegaze blissiness of 4AD and Creation. There's plenty of buzz and pound, big soaring guitars, epic riffage, but even at their heaviest, Les Discrets are still a pop band, which is really what makes this stuff so great, every song here, gorgeously melancholic, epic and hook filled, maybe not necessarily in the classic verse chorus verse sense, but their knack for unforgettable melodies, for lush enveloping textures, for hypnorock mesmer, are unmatched, and yeah, we'll say it, even by their more famous countrymen. And when they slow it down, LD are capable of great beauty, of hushed crystalline mystery that sounds even more dramatic in the midst of a sprawling progged out black pop shoegaze epic. And all that said, of the three flagship post BM shoegaze combos, at this point we'd have to say LD might be out favorites. It could be simply because this is new, and these songs are fresh, but we're thinking it's much more than that.
The easiest way to describe Les Discrets is thus: anyone who loves Alcest or Amesouers, is gonna love these guys too. Which makes perfect sense, they're French, their sound is a blissed out shoegazey post-black metal pop, and heck they even share members with Alcest.
But unlike Alcest, whom these guys shared a split release with not too long ago, Les Discrets have pretty much eliminated all and any blackness from their sound. Only the barest traces, only shadowy vestiges remain, no harsh vocals, no blast beats, no frenzied riffing, no Les Discrets is like an even more poppy blissed out Alcest, all jangle and chime and soar and shimmer. And as we mentioned in the Alcest review elsewhere on this week's list, these guys are inexplicably beloved by black metallers. With Alcest it makes a bit more sense, as there is actually some blackness, but the blackness in Les Discrets has been infused with sunlight, transforming black into bursts of greys and blues, hazy and gauzy, a sound more akin to Katatonia really, majestic and epic and heartfelt and emotional, still heavy for sure, even a little mathy, but more than anything, lush and dreamy and shimmery, shoegazey and softly fuzzy, lots of clean guitars, acoustic jangle, crooned vocals, warm whirling effects, all mixed into the woozy distorted crunch and softly blown out buzz, the result, while not remotely black metal, is turning out to be one of our favorite shoegaze gloom pop records ever!
Yes. Yes. Yes. Hmmmm, yes. Yes. And Yes! While some people around here might be incredibly annoyed by our ridiculous French-Canadian electropop-artrock-postpunk friends, Les Georges Lenningrad, others of us can't get enough of 'em. Ainsi, pour nous qui t'adore [so for those of us who adore them], this remix cd ep lands on open ears and, um, dancing feet. And as always, it features some cool handmade-or-sewn-'n-scanned artwork. Meow. I wish they would handmake me a fuzzy shirt.
Ahhhh ouuuuiii... Le nouveau super rockin' release from our French-Canadian friends Les Georges Leningrad. Poney, Bobo and Mingo (a trio now after losing one member through interpersonal conflict) deliver astounding electronoisepop compositions on Sur Les Traces De Black Eskimo. Groovy beats and spastic outbursts are prominent characters in the song craft they call petrochemical rock. Why they are obsessed with 'black eskimo', je ne sais pas. Mais, je t'aime, Les Georges. If you have the chance to see them live, they generously offer an award-winning show, featuring self-made costumes and an arresting stage presence. Their artwork is all done by the band members themselves and est la superbe. Check it!
We have to say, that lots of the time, when a band is touted as being some lost heavy psych or proto-metal classic, it often eventually turns out to sound sonically more like blues rock or bar rock, with merely HINTS of that psychedelic heaviness that lured us in, in the first place. Such is most definitely NOT the case with obscure French psychedelic rockers Les Goths, who within one track, establish themselves as a serious sonic juggernaut, obviously beholden to Hendrix and Cream and Blue Cheer, and yeah, with hints of sixties blues rock, but with a tendency for wild super distorted guitar playing and wicked bombastic drumming and dramatic vox, not to mention a raw, in-the-red production which only enhances the band's fierce sound. Some of us were definitely reminded of sixties Swedish psych trio Baby Grandmothers, and anyone who bought their now out of print reissue on Subliminal Sounds (and that was a whole lot of you!) is for sure gonna want this. Check out the first song and see if you're not totally sold, a four minute non-stop blast of buzz drenched riffage and effects soaked garage psych pound, the guitars thick and distorted, the drums WAY up in the mix, the vox too, everything reverbed and echoey and a little blown out, some wild psychedelic leads, a total lost classic garage psych classic for sure. We've probably listened to this track a hundred times since we first got this in, it's the sort of track that would steal the show on any vintage psych comp, in fact it's the sort of track that would inspire someone to CREATE an obscure psych comp. The song gets more and more distorted and druggy as it goes, we dare say worth the price of admission alone. But once you get over being obsessed with that track (if you ever do), there's lots more here to dig into.
Tracks like "I Remember" are bluesy groovers, displaying the band's love of groups like the Animals, but even here, the sound is a little twisted, the arrangements a bit off kilter, with a little bit of that girl group vibe, cool soaring harmony vocals, with some super intense about-to-crack lead vox, all hazy and dreamy, and then the band slip right back into something a bit heavier and more propulsive like "Out Of The Sun" with its low slung bass groove, wild tangled guitars and chaotic super busy drumming, the whole thing sort of sun baked and druggy, with some cool churning chuggy riffage surfacing throughout.
The rest of the record offers up more of the same, long stretches of brooding bluesiness, groovy psychedelic shuffles, and pounding garage-y stomps, in equal measure, always with some killer guitar work and easily some of the best drumming we've heard, which had us wishing there was a way to nominate Les Goths drummer Bruno Frascone as should have/could have been drum legend. Consider him so nominated! One of our favorite new garage / psych reissues for sure!
Like with all Shadoks releases, plenty of rare photos, lyrics and liner notes.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We have a tiny handful of these, and it's likely we won't be able to get more, so we won't go into too much detail, and even then, if you want one, you better act fast. Les Hommes-Chiens are a duo from Montreal, and are credited with "basse psychedelique" and "machines psychedeliques" respectively, and the two put those psychedelic implements to good use, crafting a sidelong sprawl of slowburn shimmer, lush layered swells, pulsating beneath glimmering clouds of electronics, a glistening smear of sweetly tranced out sound, minimal and mesmerizing, held in place by a simple motorik bass pulse, unfurling like a more abstract, minimal Expo 70, but similarly spacey and cosmically psychedelic. The track builds momentum, the noise slowly cranking up, but muted and blurry, a washed out background of guitarbuzz and arcs of keening melody, all beneath undulating sheets of soft focus sound, and that relentless pulsing bassline. Super trippy, but also strangely and mesmerizingly tranquil.
LHC are teamed up with an existential industrial noise metal crew from Ireland called Spermicidal, that sound a bit like Godflesh crossed with Merzbow. Machine-like beats (which while mechanical in timbre, do sound like they could be played by a human), wrapped in roiling clouds of fierce guitar noise, and heavily effected vocals, the sound often settling into something a bit more trancey, the noise abating for long stretches, leaving just the rhythm, trudging through fields of hum and static, buried vocals and amp buzz, a twisted metalnoise that somehow is actually a pretty good foil for the black thrum of Les Hommes-Chiens.
Packaged in an oversized clamshell case with a full color cover. Inside a color sticker and two printed inserts. LIMITED TO 80 COPIES, each one hand numbered.
Previously a vinyl-only reissue, now also available on cd -- the crazy French-Canadian sound of 1968! Collectors (like Jello Biafra) have apparently been salivating over this bizarre record for years. A wild psychedelic big-band instrumental soundtrack
Putain de merde!! '70s French noisy garage punk rock insanity here, courtesy of France's Born Bad label who know their shit (they brought us some early '60s French rock insanity not too long ago from Les Blousons Noirs, remember). We've been wanting to review this for a while too, finally got a few imports in on both cd and vinyl. It's an offical compilation of most what remains of the recorded legacy of these cult '77 era punks, named after psychiatrist and drug addiction treatment specialist Claude Olivenstein. They were worthy contemporaries of the great Metal Urbain, sounding totally killed by death. The 13 tracks here range from their killer singles to even rawer and wigger demos to live material, some of it previously unissued, rescued from dusty old cassette tapes and so forth. Like their countrymen and early '70s forefathers Rotomagus, they never made a full-length album - or rather, this is it, 30+ years later!
Savage, slashing stuff, the vocals en francias delivered with a snotty sneer, the rhythms chugging and cooking like rock 'n' roll should, guitar jangle mixing it up with some wild lashings of noisy fuzz and distortion. Crazy. Like certain other obscure '70s French faves we can think of (Angelface, Soggy) there's plenty of Stooges-y shake appeal here. Also, if Metal Urbain was in fact the French answer to the Sex Pistols, these guys were ready to back 'em up in a pinch. They also have a cute little doo-wop thing going too with the ironically sunshiney "La Nuit Tragique", while the groovy twang of "Olivenstein Je T'ai Dans Les Veines" (performed here live) reminds us of both Radio Birdman and The Stranglers. Oui oui, recommended! (Compact disc version comes enhanced with a QuickTime video of Les Olivensteins performing "Euthanasie" on TV.)
Les Raillize Denudes (alternatively, "Hadaka No Rallizes") are the legendary and obscure '70s Japanese psych-rock combo that exterted a huge influence on the Keiji Haino/Fushitsusha/High Rise crowd. They're so obscure that it's just about impossible to find recordings of any of their music. Rare cd-r releases trade for big $$$, and the "Live '77" double vinyl bootleg that surfaced last year is now long gone. But, here's another volume. It's live, the sound quality is poor, there's no information about anything given (tho the color insert sleeve is nice) -- but the music is psychedelic grail-worthy. We've only got four copies, and won't be able to get any more. So, collectors: ready, set, go!
What the heck? There's FIVE new Les Rallizes Denudes archival releases on this hitherto unknown label Ignuitas? And three of them are ALREADY out of print? (Sorry!). That's right. We were only able to get a handful of each, and they sold out in the store almost immediately. But we do have A FEW copies left of two of 'em that we were able to get more of, and by a few we mean like 6 or 8... so act fast, Rallizes-heads. Not even sure if we should bother with a "review" since in this case it'd be a mere formality, but here goes, briefly... Les Rallizes Denudes were/are a seminal underground Japanese psychedelic rock band, totally influential on the current crop of Tokyo guitar psych acts like LSD-march and Up-Tight (for instance), yet obscurely under-documented. What you CAN find, is primitive lo-fi genius (?). For more possibly dubious but nonetheless very interesting info get Julian Cope's recent book the Japrocksampler (when we have it back in stock, it's on backorder right now). And check out the recent Rallizes "best of" cd entitled Yodo-Go-A-Go-Go reviewed on AQ list #282.
These two releases, since we have so few, are reserved for the devout fans. There's Are You Rallizesed?, subtitled Shizuoka Stupa 1974, a double disc of material recorded live in '74 (natch). 115 sprawling minutes of classic Rallizes murk, nine tracks total. It's all moodily melodic psych drift that's a wraith-like presence, about to spontaneously combust into ashes even as it echoes irresistibly in your mind, ever out of reach. Is it band leader Takeshi Mizutani's searing guitar making that distorted sound... or just the deteriorating recording medium? Either way, once you've ingested the entirety of these two discs you won't be able to listen to any "normal" or "correct" recordings, quite the same way again. What else has this much fragile emotion, or needs your ears to meet it more than halfway, to hear the music within the magnetic tape miasma that they made that night 34 years ago? (Or maybe it's not all from the same night, since they do one song twice...)
The other one we've (barely) got is called Live May 25 1975 Yaneura. And that's about all the info we have for you right there. Four tracks, about 31 minutes of Rallizes' damaged distorted jangle as captured by someone's cheap, tinny tape recorder. It's a mysterious meeting of the shrillest of feedback and the sweetest of psych pop. You can put your imagination to work to try to figure out what it actually sounded like in person or just go ahead and assume it's meant to be so fucked up and muffled and utterly destroyed... that's right, we probably don't need to spell this out, but be warned: these are EXTREMELY lo-fi, dub-of-a-dub, Nth generation, ultra-bootleggy sounding recordings. The tape hiss is almost as loud as Mizutani's guitar. It's like this Rallizes music is psychically appearing on tape from beyond the grave a la EVP, Ghost Orchid style... But of course, you wouldn't expect anything less. It's all part of the Rallizes mystique anyway. Half the reason folks like Rallizes is 'cause nothing else is ever allowed to sound like THIS. What we can legitimately complain about is the crappy cheap graphic design Ignuitas has thrown together for these releases. Good grief these look terrible. But you're not buying 'em for the packaging anyway. And the ARE real cds, not cd-rs... so that's something. Rallizes fans will take what they can get, when and if they can get it, we know 'cause we are. First come, first served...
All right, time to crank the stereo! There's no way to listen to these, but loud. Two rather crucial entries in the distorto-delic discography of seminal '70s Japanese underground rock band Les Rallizes Denudes are now reissued, on proper compact disc for what we think is the very first time, these having being previously only "available", if you can call it that, as cd-rs. Blind Baby Has It's Mothers Eyes, and Heavier Than A Death In The Family, woah, you know with titles like that they've gotta be good. And before you go running to your Japrocksamplers to look 'em up, we'll save you the trouble: Julian Cope rated these two albums at #11 and #3, respectively, on his top 50 of Japanese psych artifacts. Deservedly so.
Heavily mythologized and mysterious, this lo-fi, in-the-red, sunglasses-wearing, Motown-loving, airplane-hijacking (??!), studio-recording-avoiding, raw outsider rock and roll unit provided the inspiration for every latter day underground Japanese psych band who have ever slipped on shades, cranked up their amps, and had a Tokyo Flashback. (Like Fushitsusha!) And these two discs, both equally recommended, are essential documents as to how and why.
Heavier Than A Death In The Family features six songs, all but one of 'em in the double digits, with some great titles, no less than three of 'em referencing the night in some form or other: "Strung Out Deeper Than The Night", "The Night Collectors", "Night Of The Assassins", "Enter The Mirror", "People Can Choose", and "Ice Fire". All were apparently recorded live in '77 (except one from '73). Blistering is the word. Super echoey, reverbed out, almost like Ariel Pink producing Wooden Shjips or Comets On Fire gone dub... Sounds also like some Siltbreeze shitgazers, or current psychsters like Heavy Winged, plodding and throbbing. And "Ice Fire" is 16 minutes of proto-Merzbow meets Hawkwind howl. Wow.
Frayed and fried, ULTRA fuzzed and feedback-y, of course, and yet for a Rallizes release, the sound isn't all that "bad", compared to some of their stuff we've heard wherein the tape hiss competes with the guitar for domination. Not that that's a bad thing, either, but this will take less getting used to.
Meanwhile, Blind Baby Has It's [sic] Mothers [sic] Eyes consists of three tracks, but clocks in at 54 minutes total: the title track, "An Awful Eternity" (aka "An Aweful Eternitie"), and "The Last One". Presumably also recorded live, we don't know when, sometime in the '70s, the sound here is similar sickness. More of their charismatically clangorous chaos, getting quite hypnotically repetitious across the lengths of these three wandering, wah-wah wailing epics. We'd recommend this as a good gift for your friend who likes the Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray", Circle, and primitive black metal such as Striborg... if they haven't heard Les Rallizes yet they'll be thanking you!
Although due to the confusing nature of the Rallizes catalog, we imagine that some of these tracks might appear on other Rallizes discs that you may or may not have, but in any case these two albums are essentials in their entirety. Get 'em while they last.
Typical Phoenix no-frills cardboard "wallet" packaging, each cd numbered and limited to 1000 copies.
Wow, for a band that legendarily never really made, like, any "official" albums, certainly no studio ones, we sure have written a lotta reviews of releases by 'em! Not that we're complaining, we'll happily gobble up whatever obscure documents by these gents that reissue labels like Phoenix manage to dig up. After all, these Japanese Seventies psych subversives are one of those bands that inspired an entire scene, it seems, with all shades-wearing Tokyo psych acts of the modern era (Fushitsusha, LSD-march, Up-Tight, Miminokoto, etc. etc.) owing them allegiance. Themselves inspired by the dark urban psych of the Velvets, plus a dose of oddly enough Motown rhythms... and an even bigger dose of hiss, distortion and feedback. All noise / psych rock freeks definitely should delve into the mystery and murk of Les Rallizes.
This one, named for a 1970 Sam Peckinpah western (?), is a soundtrack to a live VHS video (we've never seen) released back in 1992, compiled by Rallizes leader Takashi Mizutani himself, a "best of" of sorts, demonstrating that these psychedelic hermits have sounded always as blisteringly blown-out and otherworldly rockin' and rollin' since their inception in 1967... it could be '72, it could be '79, it could be '83, it could be '92, it doesn't matter, when Les Rallizes take the stage they're in their own universe anyway, where time and other natural laws (musical ones too) operate differently. Where were we in '92? Just discovering Fushitsusha, probably, not yet hip to the true godhead that is Les Rallizes.
At first, when confronted with the heavy duty, distorted throb of the first few tracks, you might think, cool, but this does sound like stuff you already have heard by Rallizes, so do you really need more? Well, first off, if you're like us, you probably do... and anyway, wait, 'cause this is a sprawling double cd set after all, and eventually it reveals some sides to Les Rallizes that seemed new to us. Stuff that's so amazingly echoed-out, it's practically dub music. Beyond dub music, even. (Hmm, that'd be interesting, if someone did a dub version of a Rallizes track... would it collapse in on itself somehow?). There's also moments that have to be some of the most melodic, prettiest Rallizes to ever grace our ears... and some of their heaviest stuff is here too.
'Cause this is sort of a "greatest hits", the tracks that sound familiar are of course performances of songs we've heard in other incarnations on other Rallizes releases, and again they are as 'perfectly' realized (Rallizesised?) as any renditions you'll hear.
So, yeah, Cable Hogue easily winds up in the "essential" category... with almost all the other Rallizes records we've heard. Limited, numbered, cardstock "wallet" packaging.
Much like the Great White Wonder 4cd/5lp box from legendary Japanese psych combo Les Rallizes Denudes that we reviewed a while ago, this brand new SIX cd box, capturing a handful of the band's live shows in the early eighties, is most definitely not for dabblers. In fact, we've definitely reached a point, where unless you're a crazed collector, a Les Rallizes Denudes completist, or just an insane record nerd, you've probably surpassed your LRD quota, for, well FOREVER. Thankfully it seems, plenty of you out there are one or all of those things, cuz we couldn't keep that Great White Wonder box in stock, and it looks to be the same situation with this new one. Heck, all the Japanese psych nerds here either need, want or have already bought this, so we imagine some of you do too (although, let's not forget, that one aQ-er, who shall remain nameless, at one point bought a massive FORTY cd-r Les Rallizes Denudes set, which speaks to a whole other set of problems, but we digress).
So this set collects three legendary shows, that took place in 1980 and 1981, and featured the band with their new guitar player, who was chosen by LRD mainman Takashi Mizutani to replace 2nd guitarist Takeshi Nakamura, and the player was chosen with the intent of finding someone more connected with the burgeoning punk scene, so the sound here, is a bit more 'punk', although ultimately the sound is not THAT far removed from seventies Rallizes, pounding drums, wild swirling squalls of blown out guitar, effects everywhere, the vocals dripping with them, many of the songs laid back and poppy, dipping into a sort of Velvets-y dirge (which the band had already proven to be quite adept at), the sound smeared and druggy and dreamy, long stretches of moody meander leading into dense psychnoise blowouts, dubbed out rhythms, heavy and haunting, the vocals especially, powerful and shamanistic, and with a body of work that is mostly raw poorly recorded live sets, the sound here is killer, loud, intense, echo drenched, and supremely psychedelic. And now having listened to this box all the way through yet again, we might have to recant our opening statements, cuz really, how could you NOT want this, it RULES!!!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Every time we come across a new Les Rallizes Denudes reissue, not only are we absolutely thrilled, cuz we're sort of WAY obsessed, as are many of you we're discovering, we just can't get enough of these Japanese underground legends' crazed guitar-heavy freaked out, in-the-red psychedelia, but we also begin to marvel that there even IS another Rallizes release. After all, these guys only ever had ONE single proper release, and spent very little time in the studio, so pretty much every other record is a collection of live performances, some recorded straight through, others collaged into 'proper' records, but hell, we're not complaining, these guys sound like they were made for tearing it up live. And the varying sound quality, only adds to the whole freaked out-ness, the sound crumbling, or the levels peaking and the whole band seeming to disappear in a cloud of muted buzz, before emerging and exploding into another frantic bout of wild tangled leads, or some chugging proto-metal psychedelic blues.
Great White Wonder was originally released in 2006 on the Univive label, and now it's now been reissued with a whole extra disc, the now 4cd set compiling, yep, a handful of live shows from 1974 to 1980, with lots of the same song performed at each, but in true Les Rallizes fashion, you'd never know, in fact sometimes we think the titles were just a formality, the same song will be 9 minutes on performance, 5 the next, 6 the next, super loose and high end and chaotic one performance, dark and muddy and riffy the next, murky and heavily reverbed and way more rocking the next, but that's kind of what's so magical about these guys, and what keeps most of us complaining about the inevitable overlap, cuz it all sounds so good, and it always sounds different, the arrangement, the sound quality, the tone and timbre, and listening to these 4 discs, if you edited out the breaks and between song spaces, it's easy to imagine this would flow pretty excellently as a nearly four hour super jam. And it is pretty divine, these guys are the undisputed masters, slipping from brooding, and soulful crooned balladic blues, the guitar leads super emotional and soaring and epic, to wild and loose and chaotic, the guitars impossibly frantic and furious and freaked out, the sound easily shifting between the two, a moody crooned verse will explode into freaked out psychedelic frenzy, an endless heart-of-the-sun jam will slip smoothly into a loping bit of midtempo brood. And with Les Rallizes, it's totally about the jam, sure there are songs, and there is singing, but most songs eventually (d)evolve into something much more transcendent, total epic majestic psych rock nirvana.
Fans of all things PSF, modern Japanese Psychedelia, and newer psych rock like the Heads and White Hills, odds are you're already as obsessed with these guys as we are. If you're not, well, give the sound samples a listen and try and see if you can resist...
Four cds housed in cardboard wallet style sleeves, all housed in a nice printed box, with extensive and detailed liner notes. And FYI, an eventual (and expensive) vinyl version is on the horizon as well.
All right, time to crank the stereo! There's no way to listen to these, but loud. Two rather crucial entries in the distorto-delic discography of seminal '70s Japanese underground rock band Les Rallizes Denudes are now reissued, on proper compact disc for what we think is the very first time, these having being previously only "available", if you can call it that, as cd-rs. Blind Baby Has It's Mothers Eyes, and Heavier Than A Death In The Family, woah, you know with titles like that they've gotta be good. And before you go running to your Japrocksamplers to look 'em up, we'll save you the trouble: Julian Cope rated these two albums at #11 and #3, respectively, on his top 50 of Japanese psych artifacts. Deservedly so.
Heavily mythologized and mysterious, this lo-fi, in-the-red, sunglasses-wearing, Motown-loving, airplane-hijacking (??!), studio-recording-avoiding, raw outsider rock and roll unit provided the inspiration for every latter day underground Japanese psych band who have ever slipped on shades, cranked up their amps, and had a Tokyo Flashback. (Like Fushitsusha!) And these two discs, both equally recommended, are essential documents as to how and why.
Heavier Than A Death In The Family features six songs, all but one of 'em in the double digits, with some great titles, no less than three of 'em referencing the night in some form or other: "Strung Out Deeper Than The Night", "The Night Collectors", "Night Of The Assassins", "Enter The Mirror", "People Can Choose", and "Ice Fire". All were apparently recorded live in '77 (except one from '73). Blistering is the word. Super echoey, reverbed out, almost like Ariel Pink producing Wooden Shjips or Comets On Fire gone dub... Sounds also like some Siltbreeze shitgazers, or current psychsters like Heavy Winged, plodding and throbbing. And "Ice Fire" is 16 minutes of proto-Merzbow meets Hawkwind howl. Wow.
Frayed and fried, ULTRA fuzzed and feedback-y, of course, and yet for a Rallizes release, the sound isn't all that "bad", compared to some of their stuff we've heard wherein the tape hiss competes with the guitar for domination. Not that that's a bad thing, either, but this will take less getting used to.
Meanwhile, Blind Baby Has It's [sic] Mothers [sic] Eyes consists of three tracks, but clocks in at 54 minutes total: the title track, "An Awful Eternity" (aka "An Aweful Eternitie"), and "The Last One". Presumably also recorded live, we don't know when, sometime in the '70s, the sound here is similar sickness. More of their charismatically clangorous chaos, getting quite hypnotically repetitious across the lengths of these three wandering, wah-wah wailing epics. We'd recommend this as a good gift for your friend who likes the Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray", Circle, and primitive black metal such as Striborg... if they haven't heard Les Rallizes yet they'll be thanking you!
Although due to the confusing nature of the Rallizes catalog, we imagine that some of these tracks might appear on other Rallizes discs that you may or may not have, but in any case these two albums are essentials in their entirety. Get 'em while they last.
Typical Phoenix no-frills cardboard "wallet" packaging, each cd numbered and limited to 1000 copies.
You hear that? That echoing, droning, heavy psych jamming destroying your mind? Yep, at last, we've got 'em. Real cds, not cd-rs. Reasonably priced. More than a handful in stock (for now). The distorto-delic seventies Japanese guitar psych holy grail known as "Live '77", previously released only in an absurdly expensive, impossible to track down double cd-r edition, and in part on long-gone vinyl bootlegs, is now within your grasp (almost). This we expect to have around for more than two seconds at least, and is a comparative steal at only $25. Nicely done too, with a die cut cover revealing a blurry b&w photo of Les Rallizes Denudes guitarist Mizutani Takashi in action.
Disc one starts off exploring Les Rallizes mellow side, all sensitive and lovely, with "Enter The Mirror", but then soon explodes into sheer amplified overload, with throbbing mantric rhythms Circle fans should dig. It's a searing wash of guitars in the most far out VU, Neil Young, Fushitsusha realm, but taken way further out. Rough, raw live sound, but really all the fuzz and distortion and grit sounds just right. There's four long tracks on disc one, three looong tracks on disc two. By the time the epic 20+ minute "The Last One" on disc two marches into white noise oblivion, you -- and maybe your speakers -- will be fried.
Apparently, Takashi and co. are still out there, somewhere in Japan, making music as they have been for the past 30-odd years, but rarely leaving a recorded trace. But this 1977 live set isn't just about the only thing really available, it's also proof of their obscure genius. Next to 60's beat-psych legends the Jacks, they are maybe THE pioneering Japanese psychedelic outfit, obviously a BIG influence on today's underground Japanese psych bands, like Keiji Haino's Fushitsusha, High Rise and Mainliner, Acid Mothers Temple, Nagisa Ni Te, maybe even noiseniks Hijokaidan... All of 'em could simply be Les Rallizes tributes, really. We'd have to imagine that Keiji Haino and co. caught some Rallizes shows back in the day. So, if you like any of that stuff, you need this...and if you're the sort who buys every admittedly fine Kawabata Makoto/AMT cd or LP released every goddamn week, you have to get this just to help with the cosmic balance, man. Get 'em now, while you can!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Dunno what the most blown-out, amped-up, destroyed distorted damaged demented acid rock psychedelic craziness you've ever heard is... but whomever they are, we bet Les Rallizes Denudes could hang with 'em no problem at all. Might even teach 'em a thing or two. For those in the know, the fact that we've got another rare documentation (live, they're always live) of this legendary Japanese underground band is reason enough to buy one. If you haven't yet turned on to them, well, have you head any of the current crop of world-weary Japanese psych bands, in their black leather and dark glasses? Like LSD-march and Up-Tight and Keiji Haino's mighty Fushitsusha? Well they're all basically trying to be THIS band. Whom you'll hear here storming and stomping back in, yeah, 1972, as blackened and bleak and badass as as any of 'em today. This is definitely the Rallizes we like, mesmerizing and mind-numbing, with howling guitar and bleating vocals... The endlessly repetitive, trudging drones of some of the tracks here are relatively mild and "pop", but wait, others are throbbing Excedrin headaches in the guise of rock music. All right!! Live 1972 is lo-fi as hell, and glitches, drop outs, and abrupt edits are all part of the experience. Wouldn't have this any other way. We're just happy somebody recorded this way back when, even if it was on a hand held cassette tape deck! Six tracks, 43 and a half minutes of 34-year-old void-treading, feedback-blurting bliss!!!
You hear that? That echoing, droning, heavy psych jamming destroying your mind? Once more, at long last reissued on vinyl, the distorto-delic '70s Japanese guitar psych holy grail known as Live '77, from perhaps THEE pioneering, influential underground Japanese psych outfit, Les Rallizes Denudes.
The set starts off exploring Les Rallizes' mellow side, all sensitive and lovely, with "Enter The Mirror", but then soon explodes into sheer amplified overload, with throbbing mantric rhythms Circle fans should dig. It's a searing wash of guitars in the most far out VU, Neil Young, Fushitsusha realm, but taken way further out. Rough, raw live sound (as with ALL Rallizes, of course), but really all the fuzz and distortion and grit sounds just right. There's four long tracks on disc one, three looong tracks on disc two. By the time the epic 20+ minute "The Last One" at the end of the 2nd lp marches into white noise oblivion, you - and maybe your speakers - will be fried.
Limited, again, & doubtless not sticking around for long...
