Another excellent reissue from local label Water. This time from Byard Lancaster, who somehow I had never heard of, even though HE PLAYS THE FLUTE, and he would go on to play with Roland Kirk (my favorite!), as well as Sun Ra, McCoy Tyner, Sunny Murray and loads more. Originally released in 1968, and produced by long time Roland Kirk sidekick/confidante/producer Joel Dorn, It's Not Up To Us finds Lancaster hooking up with legendary guitarist Sonny Sharrock and original Weather Report drummer Eric Gravatt. And while this IS jazz, it's pretty wild and all over the place, mixing in psychedelic rock, dirge-y rhythmic drones, abstract free skronk and rollicking fuzzy funk. The sound is surprisingly contemporary though. In fact everytime we play this in the store people come up to ask what it is, and are surprised to find out it's over 30 years old. And of course, there's wailing flute ALL OVER! This may just be a contender to enter the pantheon of my all time favorite flute records, of which there are an elite few!! So check it out.
A while back, someone made us a really excellent mix tape of jazz. And there were a couple songs by a cat called Byard Lancaster that just knocked us for a loop! He was playing flute and just destroying. A total wildman, singing and shouting, and humming, almost scatting through the flute, spitting out multiple melody lines, sputtering maniacally, but somehow making it sound as natural as whipping out a staid version of Coltrane's "My Favorite Things". So we were a bit obsessed, and it proved pretty dang difficult to track down any proper releases from Lancaster, outside of crazy pricey imports.
Then word came down from Porter Records, a new label started by aQ pal Luke Mosling, who in the first few months of existence, have released more records than most labels put out in a year, about a deal brewing between Porter and Mr. Byard Lancaster that since has been solidified. Which means that over the next little while, Porter will start re-releasing essential Lancaster discs, as well as digging up rarities and lost sets and making them available for the first time.
Such is the case with this here gem, a set recorded at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1971 (a magical year for music, as we've noted in about a million other reviews!). Those three tracks clock in at nearly 21 minutes, at start out all dreamy and moody, piano and flute, ominous and haunting, but that soon gives way to an amazing drum solo, nearly two minutes, skittery and in its own way weirdly catchy, until the band joins in and they're off, that track is super abstract and skronky, very free, but with a definite dark melody running through it, while the 10+ minute track that makes up the bulk of the Macalester set is bouncy and energetic, wild and while less free, still free enough. Each player shines, some serious bop that gives way to some more dark moodiness. Gorgeous gorgeous stuff.
And if that weren't enough there are three loooong bonus tracks. The opener "1324", is 16 minutes of gorgeous free jazz bliss, Lancaster wailing away, the bass and drums slippery and serpentine, Lancaster's horn slipping from classic jazz to Eastern melodies and back again, and fear not, there's a drum solo here too!
The two bonus tracks tacked on the end were recorded in 1973 by the J.R. Mitchel Experimental Unit featuring Lancaster on sax, and features some seriously psychedelic jazz, skronky and free, but with lots of drones and exotic percussion, some tripped out effects and some seriously dense compositions. Awesome and expansive far out freedom for sure! Can't wait for the rest of those lost and impossible to find Lancaster discs to materialize, but this one will hold us over just fine.
Like the rest of the Porter releases so far, nicely packaged with a huge booklet, extensive liner notes, extra notes from Lancaster himself, band and musician histories and a bunch of cool photos.
Byard Lancaster was a revelation. An aQ customer turned us on to him, as a flute player, it might have even been Porter Records head honcho Luke Mosling, which would make perfect sense, regardless, the music of Byard Lancaster blew our minds. We're (not so) mildly obsessed with flute music, especially jazz, so hearing Lancaster completely own the flute, pulling off Roland Kirk style sing/shouting through the instrument and then smoothly slipping into so soft fluttering groove, we were immediately obsessed. And even more blown away to discover it wasn't just the flute Lancaster had mastered. Piccolo, clarinet, sax, piano. We knew we had to hear more. The bad news being that most of Lancaster's recording were impossible to find. Which is why we were so excited when Mosling started up Porter, specifically with an eye to re-release all the lost Lancaster titles. So here's the first one, Personal Testimony, a collection of solo recordings originally released in 1979, and so amazing. From the soulful piano groove of the opener, with softly crooned vocals and dark swirling melodies, to the ethereal drifting fluttering flute of "In Lovingkindness", the melodies moody and mystic, multiple fluted interwoven and gloriously and complexly entangled, to the wild funky soulful flute jam that is "Dogtown", you can almost imagine the bad kicking in behind him, as he whips up impossible clusters and flurries of notes, occasionally offering up James Brown style grunts between breaths, to the deeeeeep droney low end moan of the big horns in "Brotherman", the tones reverberating and rumbling gloriously. There are a handful of sax tracks too, some skronky and FREE, others smooth and jazzy, some all tangled up with other overdubbed horns, all of them amazing. Some of the most intense and beautiful solo recordings we've heard for sure.
This reissue has six new tracks tacked on as bonus material, recorded last year, a sort of 'now' to the first half's 'then'. Not so into the a capella opener, maybe a little too soulful scat, but soon we're back into some serious flute territory, laced with hand drums and shakers, various vocalizations, and some wild playing. Three tracks worth of kick ass, wild and free, fluttery and free flute action, that sounds almost as good as the first half. The second to last track is solo piano, dark and moody, some gorgeous flurries of notes, dense clouds of thick chords, wild free explosions of sound, eventually building to a super chaotic wild piano freak out, pounding, with all the pedals down, before drifting back into more tranquil territory. The final track is hymn like, soft fluttery flute, delicate piano, and crooned vocals, lilting and melancholy, and quite lovely.
An awesome and essential reissue, well worth it for just the '79 release alone, but the bonus tracks make it just that much sweeter. Lots of liner notes, past and present, as well as a bad ass photo of Lancaster shirtless, in tight white pants, wailing on the sax!
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Boy armed with sampler creates sweetly satisfying and danceable record, looping casio tones, sampled south asian female vocals, & other fun bits o' pop culcha, and ends up sounding v. Much like the lighter side of Steve Fisk (how many people remember that Duck Hunt single on K).
Regardless of which verb in this album's title you choose to exercise when addressing Montreal, Quebec's Land Of Talk -- we opted to cheer! -- we're sure you'll agree that these three young pop upstarts are an absolute deadringer for fellow Canadians Metric. They certainly seem equally influenced by those punchy '90s gals Veruca Salt, Elastica and Garbage too. They pack each of these seven songs with edgy energy, crunchy guitars and vibrant female vocals. Good good good!
With songtitles like "How to Feed a Sea Monkey" and "Automotive High School", you know that Land of the Loops is up to the same ole delightfully silly, sweet, and catchy ditties as before. Lots of cute loopy sound samples, round casio tones, and samples of that bird-voiced girl that's appeared on all the previous Land of the Loops recordings. Not particularly new or groundbreaking, but does music always have to do that? Let your ears rest to this record.
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Haven't heard from sweetie electronicians Land Of The Loops in ages! But they've finally returned, Sippy Cup in hand and trip-hopsters Tipsy in tow! And neither seems to have changed a bit! Still as champagne-bubbly and playful as ever.
Around these parts, Rhode Island artpunk noise rock combo Landed are probably most infamous for featuring soon to be ubiquitous SF rock luminary John Dwyer (Coachwhips, OCS, Ohsees, Dig That Body Up It's Alive) among their ranks. But for those in the know, Landed is the musical repository for most of the dudes who once called Six Finger Satellite home!!! And it sounds like it.
This is almost like a noise rock dance record, with a relentless groove, thick ropy synths, squawked almost black metal vocals, the eventually transform into weird sung/spoken singing, all over a relentless bass throb and buried in tons of space-y effects. There's a definite Six Finger vibe, but a lot darker and damaged than that, but still almost sort of funky. There's even an almost-jungle breakdown at the end of side A!
The flip side begins as a spaced out ambient drift, all warbly synths and sweeping expanses of whir and buzz, eventually though those funky drums kick back in, and the record locks into a krautrocky noise groove, again bordering on totally danceable. They almost sound like a way scarier, way druggier Excepter. Once again, everything is drenched in FX and peppered with fucked up and freaked out sounds. Definitely the heaviest scariest dance record of the year. And features some killer garish cover art that would almost be more at home on a Buzz-Oven record!
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The legend on the back of this split seven inch reads "Ugly Providence Boogie Rock". Well it most definitely is ugly and from Providence, but boogie rock might be stretching it a bit...
We're still grooving to that last Landed 12" that found the ever shifting outfit unleashing some alien scuzz rock dancefloor technology, but this track here is a bit of the classic Landed sound, grungy and sludgey, blown out rhythms and buzzing guitars, super thick distorted bass, the whole thing a sort of plodding dirge, but peppered with wild squalls of angular mathiness and freaked out new wave damage. Pretty awesome stuff.
The flip side is by fellow Rhode Island noise makers Snake Apartment, who do their own sludgy dirgey kind of thing. Channeling the Brainbombs through thick sheets of East coast art rock, and dipped in the black tar of classic old school Amrep noiserock, lots of stretched out guitars, strangled vocals, throbbing bass, all tangled up into swaggery Stoogesy grooves, that is surprisingly catchy.
As Brocade begins you are immediately greeted with a repetitious krautrock line reminiscent of both Neu! and Can. From the immediacy of that sweeping hook, they take themselves into sounds that begin to start moving through the sky. Like an instrumental early 4AD record you always imagined in your head.ÔTheir ability to slow down and change time creates a space where you can wander with intensity. They let you look at that one thing for so long and with so much devotion you begin to start seeing the bigger picture just by the magnification of one sound, one idea, one deep focus.ÔLanding want to see how close they can get to the sky -- they feel wind shake them -- sun blast them -- air refresh them. Highly recommended!
Add this to the flurry of Landing releases we've gotten in recently. If you liked the swirl-icious sounds from their split with Windy & Carl or their first full length, this will surely please you as well. This EP floats along in their instrumental spacey
Spaced-out swirling post-rock mellowness with dream-girl vocals. Definitely for fans of Windy and Carl (with whom they have toured and shared a split cd also listed here) who've been looking for a bit more melody and less drone. Lovely.
Landing have issued forth what just might be their most lovely and fully realised work to date. No vast departures from their usual path of spacy, slowly drifting mellowness, but each track seems to more fully envelop the listener. Whisking him/her gracefully away into their wispy, languid dreamscapes. Sooooo calming with their veils of shimmering drones and barely there strummed guitars, it almost ventures into new age territory. Their unobtrusive, ethereal male / female vocals add but another layer of lightness to the soothing atmosphere. Actually the song "Against The Rain" really reminded me of Yo La Tengo's wonderful The Sounds Of The Sounds Of Science soundtrack. Beautiful! The only shortcoming is the length. Unfortunately at only 31 minutes long, this disc might require the repeat setting on your cd player if you need longer than a half hour's escape!
Recorded during the same sessions that yielded Landing's Sphere album from 2004, Gravitational IV is a much more tripped out and experimental beast. OK, maybe not -much- more, as Landing are generally pretty trippy and far out, but this disc still manages to take it to a whole 'nother level. And we love it!
Dubby grooves, reverb drenched ethereal female vocals, slippery underwater bass lines, blissed out deconstructed krautrocky jams, thick coruscating sheets of psychedelic guitar flare, full on space rock blow outs, gentle lilting otherworldly dreamfolk, the parts are all over the sonic map, but somehow they all sound so totally perfect together. It's almost like someone took all the leftover bits from the Sphere sessions, dumped them in a huge pot, added tons of reverb and delay, and then set it on the stove to shimmer, but forgot all about it until hours, maybe days later, only to realize the concoction had become something else entirely, a mind bending druggy swirl of abstract psychedelia and experimental free fuzz ambience. The kitchen filled with thick clouds of fuzzy gauzy guitars, the floor sticky with gooey puddles of acid drenched trippiness. Equal parts Mazzy Star, M83, My Bloody Valentine, but all stripped down and then built back up with layer after layer of guitars and effects and strange studio fuckery. A gloriously blissed out psych rock head trip! Quite possibly our favorite Landing record yet!
Super limited, LP only. LIMITED TO 450 COPIES. Packaged in an ultra thick gatefold sleeve with super striking psychedelic artwork. Pressed on massively thick 180 gram vinyl, each copy stickered and numbered.
Slow and shimmery... you can always count on Landing to gently encircle you in a delicate sonic mist of translucent drones and sparkly chiming notes. Songs gradually take shape out of barely-there guitar tones that drift and accumulate until a tentative, cyclical melody materializes. Landing don't stop there though, adding ultra-mellow female and male vocals that introduce words into the nebulous, soothing atmosphere. Lovely.
The fourth record from this atmospheric space rock outfit from Connecticut and their debut on the NY-based Ba Da Bing! label. Dreamy reverb-heavy, tremolo guitars drift along and encounter occasional interplanetary submarine radar bleeps that at times seem rather intrusive next to the breathy male and female vocals. Check out the ultra-soothing track "First Snow". Blissed out and glistening. If you like Surface Of Eceon or Windy and Carl, you might find yourself sinking into Landing too.
Landing's third album, Sphere, spills out sky-gazing psychospheric pop songs with guitar harmonics, e-bows and layers of sustained effects. So pleasant and meditative, we accidently had it playing in the store here almost three times in a row before someone realized. Highly recommended!
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It's been ages since we've heard from psychedelic space drifters Landing, and we DEFINITELY don't remember them sounding like this. The swirling spaciness is still present, as is the group's dreamlike electronic psychedelia, but here, it's delivered in a much different form, one that's more sort of new wave electro synth pop! Yup, sequencers, drum machines, ethereal female vox, The first track might have you thinking you're listening to some new record on Captured Tracks or Sacred Bones, which if you're a fan of either, snag this right now. Crystalline guitars wound around loping rhythmic skitter, and low slung bass thrum, chiming and dreamy, the song more than just retro leaning electro-pop, at one point the guitars and vocals drop out, revealing the tripped out psychedelic electronic experimentation that lurks below/within, which the band has deftly crafted into something incredibly poppy and blissed out, equal parts 4AD, M83, and the new wave of, er, new wave. In fact the whole A side is made up of this sort of swirling prismatic kraut-pop, looped and mesmeric, trance-y and super hypnotic, the sounds pulsing and shimmering, loads of echo and reverb, the last track on the A side is all cool loping downer electro pop, crooned male vox, over a driving, but still laid back, twinkling harmonics, reverby jangle, a total throwback, but with a modern, more experimental sheen.
It's on the B-side that we get a little taste of the Landing of old, a sprawling epic that sounds like it could/should have been on Kranky, all blurred drifts and murky melodies, bass thrum and synthy swirl, but some of the group's new elements are still present, a fractured, minimal glitchy rhythm, some of the sounds blown out, and glowing with a muted intensity, before being smeared into the softly undulating backdrop, over this slo-mo groove, drifts flurries of tangled synth, mysterious percussive fragments. About halfway through, the song seems to blossom into some swirling electronic dream pop, the female vocals rejoining, before as quickly as the sound changes, it changes once again, and spends the rest of the side's 8 minutes gradually unwinding and unfurling, a heady dreampop psych-drift headtrip that definitely proves that the whipper snappers these days, trafficking in similar sounds, have NOTHING on their sonic elders. Dreamy, droney, poppy, psychedelic, electronic perfection!
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!! Includes a download coupon as well.
Sooner or later, it seems like EVERYTHING gets reissued - even an album entitled "From The Tea-Rooms Of Mars... To The Hell-Holes of Uranus"! Actually this reissue is perfectly timely, as this UK band's futuristic electronic new wave nerd pop from 1981 fits right in with the retro eighties styles popular again today. Though, as "computery" as it is (they sing about microchips!) Landscape aren't exactly cold wave, not with their bopping, popping horn section (which might be entirely synthesized, however - electronic trombone anyone?).
They're allegedly best known for the hit "Einstein A-Go-Go" (don't worry if you don't remember it, we didn't either, they may have been bigger in England), that's from this album, along with another hit they supposedly had, "Norman Bates", those are fun, look 'em up on YouTube if you want to see the videos, but there's other songs here we like just as much if not more, actually.
Danceable (due to proto-techno beats, and handclaps) as well as dramatic (in a way that's charmingly pretentious and/or put on), Landscape offer up synth laden goofy good times with very much of an "only in the '80s" vibe. We especially like the weirder bits, like "The Doll's House", and the tick-tock title suite. Including a few bonus tracks, there's 14 cuts here in all, including an innocuous instrumental, "Computer Person", that reminds us a bit of Cluster, and a song, "It's Not My Real Name", that sounds like a mixture of Depeche Mode and Rockwell. Elsewhere, we're thinking Howard Jones, Gary Numan, or Wang Chung... Not a bad (obscure) nostalgic New Romantic fix.
Planet Mu continues to shower us with all sorts of killer grime and dubstep. This latest chunk comes from Neil Landstrumm, who offers up two sides of dubbed out block rocking bleeping buzzing groove. Side A rocks a totally hypnotic, skeletal rhythm, beneath some Beverly Hills Cop synth bass, huge bursts of distorted grinding grit and lots of strange jungly (as in THE jungle, not jungle) electronic FX. The B side is all super blown out space age skitter, with thick swirls of synthy fuzz and bleeping and blooping outer space effects, as well as some twisting buzzy basslines. Like the soundtrack to some futuristic outer space adventure movie. Shit like this makes some of us wish we weren't so deathly afraid of the dancefloor.
So far we've only reviewed a single 12" from Mr. Neil Landstrumm, which is weird cuz we've been pretty nuts for his fractured electronica, especially his last record Restaurant Of Assassins, which melded drill and bass, old school jungle, electro skitter, and video game sounds into something totally tweaked and fucking kickass.
This new one follows the same template for the most part, but with a bit more focus on dubstep this time around, which is fine with us, as Landstrumm's take on dubstep us pretty demented to say the least. The opener is a dubbed out low slung jam, complete with deep reverberating bass, eighties Goblin-y Knight Rider synths, cinematic strings, and chopped up and processed vocals. A sound falling somewhere between Richard D. James and Venetian Snares, but a bit more dubbed out. The second track has 'Krunk' in the title, but if anything it's even more dubby and stripped down than the opener, the main melody a whirring grinding bass synth, and some playful bleeps and bloops, the rhythm stuttery and skittery.
Dubstep really is the cornerstone for the whole disc, that wavery bass buzz anchoring most of the songs, but it's what Landstrumm adds to the mix that makes things so cracked, whether it's a barrage of malfunctioning video game glitchery, haunting orchestral 8-bit swells, Miami bass handclaps and slithery fuzzy keyboard stabs, super blown out rumbling low end rumbles, whatever it is, it all gets tangled up with whatever dubbed out bass heavy groove Landstrumm has assembled mad scientist style, from stuttery loops, old drum machines, analogue synths, bass guitars, and lots and lots of video games. Might be our favorite dubstep record of the year, if it wasn't so unlike most other dubstep records...
Fifth solo album from Ex-Screaming Trees vocalist Mark Lanegan and he just keeps geting better. Dark and smoky, evocative and atmospheric. Slow, whiskey soaked ballads with a country tinge. With a beautifully dreamy and washed out (but still crystal clear)
A fantastic career retrospective of long time aQ fave Mark Lanegan, two cds or three lps collecting tracks from most every one of Lanegan's solo records, going all the way back to our favorite, his debut The Winding Sheet, originally released on Sub Pop way back in 1990. But we've been fans of Lanegan since he fronted classic grunge combo Screaming Trees, where his deep, dramatic, smokey and soulful vocals helped define that sound, but solo, with a more stripped down minimal sound, those distinctive vocals are front and center, right where they belong. You'd have to be a pretty obsessive fan to want this, since most of this is culled from records you probably already have, but most of the Lanegan fans we know (ourselves included) are in fact pretty goddamn obsessive, so having what is essentially a killer greatest hits, or a practically perfect Lanegan mixtape makes it worth picking up for sure. PLUS, there's also TWELVE unreleased tracks, all of which are pretty goddamn great. And hell, if you're new to Mark Lanegan, this is a pretty stellar introduction, we have trouble imagining ANYone not being totally mesmerized. The music throughout, is pretty consistently stunning, dark, and brooding, haunting and moody, simple and stripped down, laced with subtle slide guitar, bits of twang here and there, it's a dark, smokey, late night, softly psychedelic back room blues, all heartbroken balladry and tragic slowcore miserablism, but really it's all about THAT VOICE, rough and ragged, a warm whiskey soaked rasp, that's so perfect. And that's not even mentioning the classic songsmithery at work here, and when Lanegan teams up with other vocalists, PJ Harvey, Isobell Campbell, etc., the results are pretty goddamn fantastic, like a darker more demonic alternate universe Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra. And we should mention the cover of the Leaving Trains' "Creeping Coastline Of Lights", which was already one of the greatest songs EVER, here, made even slower and darker, with vibes and xylophone, and woozy guitar shimmer, total wasted, rainswept, Hollywood wasteland, nothing-to-lose grim heartbreak balladry that is untouchable.
As mentioned above, the bonus tracks are killer too, unclear how they ended up being left off the records proper, another set of brooding balladic blues and swampy twang flecked stomps, that are honestly as good as anything on any of the albums proper, and Lanegan obsessives will not want to be without ANY of them.
Both the cd and the lp version comes with a big booklet full of rare photos and hand written lyrics.
Absolutely breathtaking new record from the ex-Screaming Trees' vocalist performing an entire album of covers (by Fred Neil, Buck Owens, O.V. Wright, Tim Hardin, Leaving Trains, The Gun Club, ...). Dark and languid and completely captivating, from one of the best voices in rock (as per the gospel of Andee who actually is pining for a world devoid of vocalists). Fans of Calexico, Scenic, and perhaps Low should give this one a try.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Mr. Lanegan sure invited all his buddies to be in his Mark Lanegan Band. Just check this roster out: Joshua Homme and Nick Oliveri (Queen Of The Stone Age), PJ Harvey, Izzy Stradlin and Duff McKagan (Guns'n Roses/Velvet Revolver), Greg Dulli (Afghan Whigs and Twilight Singers), Dean Ween and Chris Goss (Masters Of Reality)! Pretty hot shit! And whether rocked up (as on the album's first single "Sideways In Reverse") or slow'n'smouldering (check out "Wedding Dress"), the overall results are absolutely smokin'. The only wrinkles in the album are minor ones. First, Harvey's vocal performance on the second song "Hit The City" seems oddly detached, almost as if her backing vocals were an afterthought with her singing along over a finished recording. Their duet on "Come To Me" fares much much better. More troublesome are the occasional way-out-of-place soul diva background vocals that also marred earlier Twilight Singers records, and seem like some weird requisite big budget addition when an artist makes the shift from hyped indie veteran to hyped major label hopeful. That said, Bubblegum reveals Lanegan's broadest scope to date, encorporating elements from all the stages of his lengthy career (early trippy grunge-y rock to funereal dirge-twang). Throughout the fifteen songs, his unmistakable deep smoky rasp of a voice is in particular top form. Awesome!
Recently we've been getting caught up on a few releases that slipped under our radar! There's so much great music coming out all the time. try as we might, it's darn near impossible to keep and eye and ear on everything!
Brad Laner cruises down yet another musical avenue on this his self-titled solo debut. He got his
electronic itch scratched under the moniker Electric Company and prior to that he got his drone rock on in the awesome early '90s LA noise pop band Medicine. Now he's getting all cozy in a delirious psych pop dream. Very very retro '60s and Brian Wilsonesque, Neighbor Singing could easily be mistaken for a long lost Olivia Tremor Control album... an absolute treasure in our opinion!
Hymns Of The 49th Parallel marks the return of k.d. lang! Golly, it seems like a whole 'nother lifetime since steadfast Canadian Stompin' Tom Connors serenaded her with his song "Lady k.d. lang"! As we recall, one of the lyrics was something like "she jumps around like a 'rang-ee-tan, lady k.d. lang!" Well, it's probably safe to say that her monkeying around days have long been packed snuggly away with her funky cat eye glasses and thrift shop garb. And yet after all these years of living in L.A. her Canadian-ness still shines through.
With the utmost respect and love, she reinterprets the songs of her fellow Canadian music luminaries Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Ron Sexsmith, Jane Siberry, and Bruce Cockburn... but somewhat disappointingly no Stompin' Tom! Despite the unquestionable powerhouse quality of her voice, her renditions are remarkably low-key, intimate and suitably unflashy with warm, bare bones arrangements (often just piano, some with strings). Two particular stand-outs are "The Valley" originally by the equally amazing in her own right Ms Jane Siberry and "Fallen" originally by the equally amazing in his own right Mr. Ron Sexsmith. That said, as with her last few albums, this definitely falls into the adult contemporary territory. So, if you happen to have an aversion to such ultra smoothness, consider yourself forewarned.
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Solo nuttiness from one of the members of USAISAMONSTER. Got the same noise rock and spazz and damaged folk stuff going on, but goofier, allowing for what amounts to rap music on at least one track. A good time was had by Colin putting this together that much is evident!
Here's a solo release from the man behind so many fine Chicago based alt-country rock combos (such as the Pine Valley Cosmonauts and the Waco Brothers... oh yes, and he's a Mekon too)! Of course, no Jon Langford project is ever truly 'solo' though, 'cause he's surrounded by so many wonderfully talented musical friends always ready and willing to chip in an instrument or a vocal. On All The Fame Of Lofty Deeds, he's joined by his Pine Valley Cosmonauts on a couple tunes, as well as frequent Neko Case bassist Tom Ray and Hillbilly Lovechild (featuring drummer-about-town Brian Doherty who has played with the likes of They Might Be Giants, Frank Black and XTC) on a couple others. An ever-engaging frontman Langford sure doesn't disappoint this time out, kicking out eleven hoarse and ragged cow-punk tunes. He ably brings together the caustic and the comic in his lamenting / lambasting lyrics on songs such as "The Country Is Young".
Fans of Beirut and Arcade Fire, imagine the uplifting spirited energies of both those bands taken out to the dusky country plains for a spell. If that sounds delightfully intriguing to you, then maybe you should lend this band your ear. Langhorne Slim & The War Eagles. Frontman Sean Scolnick's untethered, outpouring-of-emotion vocals are a close kin to the abovementioned bands', but they're also in turn quite reminiscent of Neil Young, John Fogerty and Van Morrison. If he looks and sounds a tad bit familiar to you, it may be because you've spotted him over the years touring with the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players. It's by no means a stretch to suggest that if you dig them, you'll probably find much to love with Langhorne Slim, and vice versa!
This long time AQ fave is NOW ON VINYL!! When this soundtrack first came out on compact disc, we made it a Record Of The Week, that was years and years ago, the cd is long out of print, so not only will fans of this great record who would like it on vinyl be happy, but we bet there's folks who haven't encountered it before who will be blown away. So very recommended.
Here's what we wrote about it back in 2004 when we made the Blast First Petite cd reissue a Record Of The Week, for the first time:
We weren't really sure what to expect with this one. A lost soundtrack from 1971 (a magic year for music, just ask Allan - though it turns out the music was recorded in 1969, also not a bad year) to a movie none of us had ever heard of, directed by and starring Peter Fonda. Could go either way. But the second we threw it on, we knew this was IT! A dark and languorous abstract country psych folk gem. Seriously. Hearing this for the first time, you'd be forgiven for guessing it was Scott Tuma, Souled American, Califone, Golden Hotel, Thuja, Woven Hand or some totally obscure cd-r on some little tiny label from some mysterious band of psychedelic country folk minstrels. Slow and mournful, delicate and dreamy, acoustic guitars, farfisa organs, harmonicas and an echoplex. Spare and skeletal, mini epics of melancholic twang. Imagine if Sergio Leone had Ennio Morricone assemble a band cobbled together from members of the Jewelled Antler Collective, the No Neck Blues Band and Souled American to score one of his Westerns. Definitely recommended if you dig any of the folks mentioned above (including Morricone). And if like most of us, you've been digging all sorts of those obscure so-called "new weird America" outfits, maybe it's about time we all dug into some "OLD weird America."
And by the way, now we HAVE seen the movie (it was re-released on dvd in 2006 or so) and it's GREAT! Not a feel-good hit though, or a typical Western shoot 'em up, at all. The soundtrack is perfect, for this beautiful film.
180 gram vinyl pressing, limited to 1000 hand-numbered copies.
FINALLY RE-PRESSED AND BACK IN STOCK! An AQ Record Of The Week back in January, gone AWOL for some months now.
Wasn't sure what to expect with this one. A lost soundtrack from 1971 (a magic year for music, just ask Allan) to a movie none of us had ever heard of, directed by and starring Peter Fonda. Could go either way. But the second we threw it on, we knew this was IT! A dark and langorous abstract country psych folk gem. Seriously. Hearing this for the first time, you'd be forgiven for guessing it was Scott Tuma, Souled American, Califone, Golden Hotel, Thuja, Woven Hand or some totally obscure cd-r on some little tiny label from some mysterious band of psychedelic country folk minstrels. Slow and mournful, delicate and dreamy, acoustic guitars, farfisa organs, harmonicas and an echoplex. Spare and skeletal, mini epics of melancholic twang. Imagine if Sergio Leone had Ennio Morricone assemble a band cobbled together from members of the Jewelled Antler Collective, the No Neck Blues Band and Souled American to score one of his Westerns. Definitely recommended if you dig any of the folks mentioned above (including Morricone). And if like most of us, you've been digging all sorts of those obscure so-called "new weird America" outfits, maybe it's about time we all dug into some "OLD weird America."
And by the way, now we HAVE seen the film (it was re-released on DVD not too long ago) and it's GREAT!
Rural Canadian schoolkids ages 9-12, sixty of 'em, singing pop hits like "Space Oddity", "Good Vibrations", "I'm Into Something Good", and "Band On The Run", backed by shimmering, gamelan like percussion and sparse rock instrumentation??
Yes! And of course it's Irwin Chusid (of "In The Key of Z" fame, a specialist in "outsider" music) who's responsible for getting these 1976-77 recordings finally issued on cd for our enjoyment. Apparently these kids had a somewhat unorthodox music teacher, who, tapping into his student's musical enthusiasm, arranged and captured this amateur outpouring of charmingly naive genius...lovely yet fucked up. And funny. Yet so heartfelt and innocent. Over the course of these nineteen earnest tracks, you'll either lose your mind or fall in love with the Langley Schools Music Project. Genius or not, certainly Paul McCartney, the Beach Boys, Bowie, the Bay City Rollers, Fleetwood Mac, the Carpenters, the Eagles, Barry Manilow, etc. never sounded so...odd. "Lo-fi Spectorian majesty" indeed. It's like an all-Shaggs orchestra playing AM radio covers. We have to agree with John Zorn's cover sticker blurb: "Touches the heart in a way no other music ever has, or could." So terrible, yet so brilliant. Never intended for release (it was originally pressed as a limited double 12" for the kids and their families) but now the 2-track tape reels have been remastered, and this cd, with a detailed 16-page booklet featuring super cute photos of the kids, has been unleashed on the world! Great Christmas gift material, if we may be so bold.
Beloved AQ customer Mike Langlie has put together this picture book and cd, which at first glance/listen would appear to be just a cute children's book. But as the cd progresses, the music, all playful and bouncy, becomes slightly sinister, and when coupled
Here's a solo record from the guy from Iron & Wine. Huh? No, NOT Sam Beam but another fellow, Patrick McKinney, who plays with Sam in I&W live. And also apparently opened the last I&W tour doing his solo stuff as "Langtry". As Upon The Road Thereto is just Patrick and his guitar, and falls into the ever-expanding category of "fake Fahey" records. You know, the John Fahey-influenced avant-folk instrumental acoustic guitar stuff that everybody from Jack Rose to Ben Chasny to Glenn Jones to Stephen Basho-Junghans is doing. Langtry is pretty good at it too. You might guess he's got more of a rock than roots background by his playing, although he could probably convince us he was a back-porch bluesman or Appalachian banjo-picker in another life.
Limited edition Belgian import! Ambient electronic sounds of the delicate, soothing kind. The one drawback to this lovely milky-vinyl 7" that I found is the same as with Languis' last single... it's far too short a medium to fully immerse yourself in the music. Nonetheless if you're in need of a brief moment of calm, this might be for you.
Languis' second album "Last Frequency Presets" pleasantly falls into the blissed-out IDM camp quite literally spawned from Boards Of Canada's "Music Has The Right To Children." A tactile assembly of downer digital sound elemenst to be filed next to Markant, Morr Music, Styrofoam, and even Safety Scissors.
Quite a nice chill room mood. This is the debut album of ultra mellow ambient grooviness from Languis - the Los Angeles-based electronic duo originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Three tracks of dark, subdued electronic murmurings. Gently lulling. Ambient music of the pretty kind that ideally would stretch on much longer than the limited length of a 7".
The third album from Los Angeles-based duo Languis sees them pursuing a new direction of sorts. It seems they've shifted their focus to incorporate much more defined, conventional song structures into their electronic realm. Much less fragmented than their
