Interpol meets XTC. What could be better? Not much if you ask us. Yet another band in the moody eighties new wave revival dance party (Futureheads, Killers, Bloc Party, Interpol, etc...) a genre we tried desperately to steer clear of, but what can we do? Band after band keep managing to take that totally played out sound and infuse it with new found energy, punk rock snarl and killer killer songs. The first track here "Apply Some Pressure" is easily the single of the year. Angular shards of guitar, insistent tribal drumming, and a hook that just won't quit. All topped off by a halftime, arpeggiated chorus that is absolutely PERFECT. One of the few songs of late that we just listen to over and over and over and over. But then track two is almost just as good, and it's then that Maximo Park's XTC worship becomes totally (and perfectly) obvious. Herky jerky rhythms over swoonsome guitar melodies, warm warbly synths and brainy lyrics (they even rhyme 'lost' with 'riposte'!). Tack on two more amazing tracks and you've got the most brutal tease of an ep in recent memory. Four songs in eleven minutes leaving you desperate for more More MORE. If this was a full length it may very well have been record of the week. As it is, fans of Interpol, the Strokes, the Futureheads, the Killers and all that sort of stuff should get all over this.
We went apeshit for Maximo Park last year and we don't regret it at all. A testament to the kickassnes of the 'Park is how much they still get played in the store. ALL THE TIME! For those of you who don't know what the heck we're talking about, pick up Maximo Park's A Certain Trigger (one of Andee's top 10 records of last year and a unanimous store fave) and then we'll talk. Lumped in with the new breed of dance punk, Kaiser Chiefs, Franz Ferdinand,the Killers, but for our money Maximo Park trump them all. Taking the influence of all -those- bands, Gang Of Four, Interpol, Ultravox, Joy Division, and most importantly XTC! And it's the XTC that really separates MP from the pack. The dance element is tempered by a huge swath of snarky intelligent pop, and it doesn't hurt that in the middle of a wildly propulsive dance punk rave up MP will unleash a hook straight out of XTC's classic pop songbook, taking everything to a whole 'nother level. Fun and funky, clever and quirky, angular new wave guitars, bouncy power pop rhythms and synths all over the place. The songs on Missing Songs, a collection of B sides, are slow growers, not as immediately catchy as ALL the tracks on A Certain Trigger, but they're the kind of songs that on repeated listens seep into your brain and end up superseding the 'hits' and becoming you new favorites. EXCEPT for two tracks from the first Maximo Park that were as immediately catchy as ANY song they'd written which were inexplicably left off the full length, "Fear Of Falling" and "I Want You To Leave", both bouncy and churning and choppy and punky and fucking perfect. With strange stop start arrangements, lush harmony vocals and impossibly off kilter and improbably catchy hooks. Even if this were a $15 single with JUST those two songs it would be SO worth it. But instead you get a whole batch of other songs destined to be you new favorites, as well as three demo versions of tracks from the full length!
We made the first Maximo Park record of the week and here we are two years later and it still gets daily plays. An impossible hooky combination of new wave swagger and classic dour pop, Interpol meets XTC is how we described it, and that was pretty much spot on. Maybe a bit more modern and a lot more caffeinated. So we were counting the days until this here disc dropped, and it's everything we had hoped for. Not as immediately as catchy, and a little bit more introspective, but after repeated listens, Our Earthly Pleasures has blossomed into THE POP RECORD OF THE YEAR. We sort of gushed endlessly about the first record, so you might just want to head over to that review (A Certain Trigger) and see what we had to say, and heck, while you're there, if you don't already own it, you might was well add it to your cart. All the folks who flip over stuff like the Kaiser Chiefs and Franz Ferdinand and the Killers will probably love this too. But the rest of you, who couldn't quite get into the whole new wave revival (like us) might just find yourself digging this anyway. It's more classic pop sounding than the current wannabe Gang Of Four sound... Smart pop, with killer hooks, crunchy guitars, playful piano, and some super clever / funny / wry lyrics. Epic sweeping melodies, killer chunks of fuzzy synths, some electronic squiggles here and there, but ultimately perfect pop through and through.
From the super anthemic "Girls Who Play Guitars", to the lilting minor key new wave miserablism of "Books From Boxes", to the sweeping dramatic epic-ness of "Karaoke Plays" to the surprise gem of the record "Nosebleed", tucked away in the second half of the record, featuring the unforgettable line "Did we go too far? Is that why your nose is bleeding?" that you'll find yourself humming to yourself all the time. Every track here is impossibly catchy, packed with hook after hook, amazing harmonies, clever turns of phrase, all wrapped up tight into some of the catchiest, most perfect kick ass pop we've ever heard. And if it even needed to be said again: POP RECORD OF THE YEAR!
No point in being coy or beating around the bush. Might as well come right out and fess up (as if the aQ list faithful didn't already know). We LOVE this band, ever since the Apply Some Pressure cdep released way back in 2005, and every record since. Sure, A Certain Trigger might be their best record, but we dug Our Earthly Pleasures BIG time. It was definitely a grower, but it didn't take long for it to end up a daily play. Same thing with Quicken The Heart, at first we weren't sure what to think, we're always sort of hoping that MP will return to the hyper caffeinated Interpol meets XTC sound of that first record and come up with another song that rivals the impossibly kinetic hook filled jam that is "Apply Some Pressure", but just like with Our Earthly Pleasures, after a few listens we no longer found ourselves wishing for that sound of old, we just let these new songs wash over us, and with every listen they blossom more and more, and now at least half of the songs here rank as some of our favorite MP jams. Jangly new wavey guitars, propulsive drumming, buzzy synths, and killer vocals, amazing melodies, and hooks galore. There's only bum in the bunch, and weirdly enough it's the first single, hearing that before the record showed up had us a bit worried, but now that it's here, we just skip that song (and heck, even that one is growing on us) and play the shit out of the rest of the record. Killers, Franz Ferdinand, Interpol, Kaiser Chiefs, Arctic Monkeys, Nine Black Alps, we love all those bands, but there's just something about Maximo Park that makes them our favorite.
We get so spoiled working in a record store, we know what records are coming out months before they do, and we sometimes get them a few days ahead of time, it does make you less excited, how you were as a teenager, but every time there's a new Maximo Park record, we find ourselves counting the days, and then heading to work on that Tuesday knowing that it'll show up sometime that day. That's a cool feeling, one we miss for sure, and one that is evoked by a surprisingly few bands. Needless to say, this record rules, if you're in the market for some smart, angular, new wave-y pop, you couldn't do much better than Quicken The Heart.
A few years back, there was a glut of bands doing that whole dance punk new wave thing, which we happened to dig a LOT: the Killers, Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party, Kaiser Chiefs, but these guys were always our favorite, their debut full length A Certain Trigger remains one of our favorite records, even to this day, and their song "Apply Some Pressure" might very well just be the best song that whole scene produced. Check out the video on YouTube, it's pretty great as well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZrZ83tdW_k
We've dug every record since, and each one definitely had a handful of killer jams, although none was quite as good as A Certain Trigger. It had been a while since the last full length, and the vocalist released a sort of lackluster solo record in the meantime, so we were pretty much figuring they were done and gone, but then all of a sudden this new full length showed up, and it's actually super great, in fact, we're liking it more than the last few already. The title track could easily have come right off of A Certain Trigger, as could a bunch of these songs, which is positioning this as maybe our favorite since the debut, catchy and super rocking, a perfect balance of driving super rocking new wave and more brooding jangle pop jams, hooks galore, crunchy fuzzy guitars, just listen to the samples, you'll know right away if this is your cup of new wave dance punk, but between this and the Grand Magus, we're finding it hard to listen to anything else. (Well, Andee in particular might be the one listening to both back to back on heavy rotation...)
During a brief three years in the early '80s, Y Records enjoyed a roster of amazingly funky, post-punk groups that included The Pop Group, The Slits, Shriekback, Pigbag, and bafflingly enough Diamanda Galas (not taking on the typical guise of the label, mind you). Maximum Joy was another outstanding entry from Y Records, having been formed by Tony Wrafter after the dissolution of the agit-pop punk ensemble Glaxo Babies. Wrafter recruited vocalist Janine Rainforth, another Glaxo Baby in Charlie Llewellin, and the Pop Group's John Waddington. After a couple of singles, the band released Station MXJY under the production thumb of Adrian Sherwood. His dub inflected engineering worked perfectly to render Maximum Joy's jaunty punk-funk tunes as a sunny doppleganger of The Pop Group. Amidst Sherwood's tape echo and delay workouts, the band adventurously march through a taut rhythm section that tightropes between a militant funk and a doleful rocksteady swagger, while chicken scratch guitars map out the simple song structures and saxophone solos splatter across the stereo. It's a very good thing that this record has been reissued (complete with four excellent bonus tracks), as Maximum Joy were clearly a talented bunch who might have been forgotten otherwise. It's just unfortunate that Station MXJY is only available as an expensive Japanese import. Ouch!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Once again, the punk rock newsprint bible returns jam packed with, well, loads and loads of PUNK ROCK!! But this time we get a piece on all time AQ faves Redd Kross, with an extensive history of the Redd Kross early years!! Woo hoo!! Also, Swedish scene report, Blackpool, UK scene report, and tons of bands we've never heard of: Italy's Out With A Bang, Derek Lyn Plastic, We March from Ohio, Alan Milman, Rat Traps from Tennessee, the Scarred, Gilbert Switzer, killer classic Japanese hardcore photos, another excerpt from Lance Hahn's (J-Church) upcoming book on the crusty Anarcho scene, this time the Blood Robots, stories from New Orleans part 3 plus book reviews, record reviews, punk rock news, tone of columns and more more more!
Another jam packed issue of THE punk rock rag. Dense with bands you've never heard of, scene reports from places you've never been, and ads for hundreds of records you didn't even know existed. A killer little chunk of newsprint that keeps punk rockers around the globe connected!
This month, scene report for Asheville, North Carolina, Spanish punk rockers the Webelos, Danish punx Hjertestop, an excerpt from a book in the works about the anarcho/crust scene, this time focusing on The APF Brigade, the Desperate Bicycles, more reports from New Orleans, pix from the Southkore Fest in Chicago, Texan punk rock photographer Bill Daniel, Swedish hardcore outfit Svartenbrandt, an interview with Disconvenience, the Rosenbombs, Up The Voltage as well as tons and tons of book reviews, record reviews, movie reviews, letters, news and columns!!
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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Newest issue of this long running Bay Area punk rock institution. Still newsprint, still punk as fuck. This issue is appropriately the "Is Business Killing Punk Rock?" issue! With a huge article (just part one mind you) on DIY punk rock and the imortance of independence, with contributions from punk labels like Jade Tree, G7 Welcoming Commitee, Dr. Strange, 625, Havoc, Dischord and more. And of course loads of interviews with a bunch of bands / artists / writers we've never heard of: Soviet Valves (AUS), Suburban Death Machine (US), Frustrations (US), George Hurchulla, author of Going Underground: American Punk 1979-1992, as well as a bunch of cool excerpts from a forthcoming book by AQ pal and J-Church frontman Lance Hahn about Crass and all those anarcho bands, this time around, Icon A.D. and Dominant Patri, also a Vitamin X tour diary and finally an article about now defunct NY club ABC NO RIO.
And as always tons of book reviews, movie reviews, record reviews (only punk rock, and only independent labels), loads of letters, a bunch of columns (including a very metal one by former AQ mailorder monkey Elliott), punk rock news, scene reports (Greece, Czech Republic) and lots more.
Another blast of punk as fuck-ness from this Bay Area bastion of punk and DIY. This month, part two of the article Business And Punk Rock with contributions from the folks who run Fat Wreck Chords, Ebullition, Sound Idea, Razorcake, Give Praise and a bunch more, scene report: Poland with a list of loads of Polish bands, interviews with and articles about The Lawrence Arms, Imperial Leather, Magrudergrind, Boom Boom Kid (don't worry, we haven't heard of most of the bands featured in MRR either!), part two of the Vitamin X tour diary. tons and tons of columns, including one by former mailorder master Elliott, lots of letters, news, politics, book reviews, record reviews and MORE!
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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Latest issue of the punk rock bible. This time around, on the cover: Mika Miko (?), inside: The Fall, Cardiac Arrest, Digger & The Pussycats, Massmord, Insect Warfare, The Four Slicks, The Fallout, PAWNS, punk rock news, scene reports for Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, a Swedish scene report, tons and tons of columns, including one by former mailorder master Elliott, lots of letters, news, politics, book reviews, record reviews and MORE!
Ms Maya (pronounced May-ah) is a dear friend of Edison Woods' Julia Frodahl, and the two artists definitely are of kindred spirit albeit the former is a bit more heady, mystical and dusky than the latter. On the front cover she may bear a strikingly waifish resemblance to actress Mia Farrow, but her vocal delivery is strongly reminiscent of Kendra Smith, Rose McDowell and perhaps Carla Bozulich, particularly when she's singing the lower octave layers of her multi-tracked vocals. Y is comprised of four ethereal numbers steeped in shadowy somber atmospheres. String and piano tendrils wind gracely around her voice. Utterly captivating. The music may be slow creeping, but you should act fast because this release is limited to 500!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
A new improv trio starring Fred Frith (avant-guitarist extraordinaire!), Larry Ochs (from SF's much-lauded Rova Saxophone Quartet), and Miya Masaoka (the Bay Area's most adventurous improvising koto player--some may remember her performance with a hive of bees not long ago). Three long tracks of careful musical interaction that delves into the quiet and beautiful as well as the difficult and noisy. Anyone who saw this trio perform at SF's Great American Music Hall a few weeks back will know that all the players really delve into their respective bags of tricks: Ochs both blowing lovely melodies and squawking violence, Masaoka both coaxing soothing drones and plucking chaos, Frith both fooling with little noises and grinding out immense ones...a tour de force of improv abilities.
A surprisingly subdued direction for Ted Stevens' new project called Mayday. "Who is Ted Stevens?" you might ask. Well, you may better know him as the guitarist for considerably more aggressive emo-princes Cursive as well as the vocalist for Lullaby For The Working Class. Or you might've spotted him on the road with labelmates Bright Eyes. You might have also noticed the positive trend lately with members of the Nebraska / Saddle Creek Records family, of everyone helping everyone else out. Case in point? Look no further than this very album! There's plenty of familiar faces on Old Blood, some of which include the lovely Azure Ray, mister melancholia himself Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst, and some of Stevens' former Lullaby bandmates. This here's some fine, solemn and mature songwriting, check out the shadowy, dramatic beauty of "Captain". Might appeal to fans of Scott Walker or the Tindersticks (although Mr. Stevens' voice doesn't quite reach the deep deep theatrical depths of Stuart Staples').
Somehow this is the very first full length from Michael Mayer we've reviewed, although we've long been fans, and have dug his tracks on a bunch of the Kompakt total compilations. But this new one is a doozy, don't let the goofy title fool you. The record starts out super dark and atmospheric, thick swirls of textured shimmer, haunting melodies, everything wreathed in a druggy haze, the sound less Kompakt techno, heck, even less Pop Ambient, and more sort of electronic chamber music / drone folk, super soundtracky and cinematic, the opening track sounds like it could have been plucked straight out of the opening credits of some mysterious foreign art film. The second track starts out similarly, before dropping a big beat, into the almost Bernard Hermann sounding soundscape below, but it makes for a heady combo, the gauzy soundtracky backdrop infusing the beat with some serious pathos, and then Mayer adds in all sorts of electronics, and eventually adds female voices, blurred into an angelic smear, the sound blossoming into something strangely groovy and weirdly funky, but still dark and moody.
Not all of the record is so cinematic, with the sound dipping into more straight ahead Kompakt style techno, or retro Goblin / Carpenter style synth grooves, but throughout the record, Mayer continues to return to that murky mysterious soundcaping of those first few tracks, like on "Roses", where he samples some old folk song, and stretches the final word of the lyric into a gauzy blur, before adding the beat, or the strange harp driven birdsong laced exotica of "Baumhaus", or the horn flecked, xylophone heavy, techno-ska thing that is "Rudi Was A Punk", which might be the coolest/weirdest track here. But then there's the closer, which is total Euro techno electro pop, right down to the crooned dramatic vocals and house-y groove. It's goofy for sure, but after a minute or two of thinking "I should skip this track", you find yourself not wanting it to end...
Finally available on vinyl!
Damn. Not only was this here disc cooked up by a badass, totally STONED sounding R&B infused greasy garage rock n' roll band from Deeeetroit, featuring members of heavy hitters like the Black Keys (guitarist Dan Auerbach), Dirtbombs (bassist Troy Gregory), Outrageous Cherry (guitarist Matthew Smith), and the Sights (drummer Dave Shettler) but check the top billing - there's a bona fide, veteran black soul singer fronting this combo, maybe you've heard of him, maybe you haven't, but he was the real deal, Nathaniel Mayer. He had his first hit single, "Village Of Love", in the Top 40 back in 1962. We've had (but haven't yet reviewed) a pretty cool anthology of his '60s stuff, I Want Love And Affection, Not The House Of Correction. But that certainly didn't prepare us for this. Don't call it a comeback, this is something else altogether. Ol' Mayer didn't sound like this back in the sixties. We mean, yeah, this IS retro, but also totally something that could only be made now, the unlikely meeting of a versatile, veteran voice and young 'uns who grew up worshipping the Stoogesy rock action, who bring a fresh dose of fuzz and loose, laidback druggy psych to the proceedings that's pretty special.
Even more special though, is Mayer's marvelously ragged, hoarse voice. Weary and burnished with time - you can hear every one of his 64 years. Yet he's also totally in command of it, butter smooth one moment, croakingly gruff the next, belting out the James Brown style "owwwws!" like he coined the phrase. Yeah, the man can sing. And lyrically, he's all about sex and desire. Beggin' his girl. "Why Don't You Give It To Me?" Sometimes, "Doin' It" (which is a nearly 9-minute, wasted wild wahwah'd jam). In keeping with Mayer's phlegmy voice, the whole album is wrapped in a lo-fi murk, adding to the battered, bluesy, psychedelic mood. One that we might compare to some of the more soulful obscurities on that ol' Chains And Black Exhaust comp. The 1995 solo album by LSD casualty and former Funkadelic, Tawl Ross comes to mind as well.
And we'll remind you ('cause you DO read his site, right?) that this was Julian Cope's Head Heritage Record of the Month back in May.
Sadly, Mayer has passed away since this album first came out (it's a 2007 release, now here on vinyl), but there's a pretty cool posthumous album called Why Won't You Let Me Be Black that's just been released as well that we'll be reviewing soon on an upcoming list.
Damn. Not only was this here disc cooked up by a badass, totally STONED sounding R&B infused greasy garage rock n' roll band from Deeeetroit, featuring members of heavy hitters like the Black Keys (guitarist Dan Auerbach), Dirtbombs (bassist Troy Gregory), Outrageous Cherry (guitarist Matthew Smith), and the Sights (drummer Dave Shettler) but check the top billing - there's a bona fide, veteran black soul singer fronting this combo, maybe you've heard of him, maybe you haven't, but he's the real deal, Nathaniel Mayer. He had his first hit single, "Village Of Love", in the Top 40 back in 1962. We've had (but haven't yet reviewed) a pretty cool anthology of his '60s stuff, I Want Love And Affection, Not The House Of Correction. But we that certainly didn't prepare us for this. Don't call it a comeback, this is something else altogether. Ol' Mayer didn't sound like this back in the sixties. We mean, yeah, this IS retro, but also totally something that could only be made now, the unlikely meeting of a versatile, veteran voice and young 'uns who grew up worshipping the Stoogesy rock action, who bring a fresh dose of fuzz and loose, laidback druggy psych to the proceedings that's pretty special.
Even more special though, is Mayer's marvelously ragged, hoarse voice. Weary and burnished with time - you can hear every one of his 64 years. Yet he's also totally in command of it, butter smooth one moment, croakingly gruff the next, belting out the James Brown style "owwwws!" like he coined the phrase. Yeah, the man can sing. And lyrically, he's all about sex and desire. Beggin' his girl. "Why Don't You Give It To Me?" Sometimes, "Doin' It" (which is a nearly 9-minute, wasted wild wahwah'd jam). In keeping with Mayer's phlegmy voice, the whole album is wrapped in a lo-fi murk, adding to the battered, bluesy, psychedelic mood. One that we might compare to some of the more soulful obscurities on that ol' Chains And Black Exhaust comp. The 1995 solo album by LSD casualty and former Funkadelic, Tawl Ross comes to mind as well.
And we'll remind you ('cause you DO read his site, right?) that this was Julian Cope's Head Heritage Record of the Month back in May. This is actually a 2007 release (hey better to list it now than never) so maybe there'll be another one soon from Mayer and the boys, but we don't really know, since it was reported Mayer suffered a stroke earlier this year. Hope he's doing ok.
A while back, Alive Records released Why Don't You Give It To Me?, a pretty darn badass slab of psychedelic R&B garage funk fronted by Detroit soul singing sixties legend Nathaniel Mayer. It was the man's "comeback album" of sorts, and definitely helped introduce him to a new generation of fans. The combination of his charismatic, age-burnished voice with the super stoned and sometimes Stoogesy jamming of his much younger band (featuring members of such acts as the Black Keys and the Dirtbombs) was pretty darn killer. Sadly, Mayer suffered a stroke last year and eventually passed away at the not so ripe old age of 64. But it's good to know that up until then, he was pretty darn active, doin' his music, touring and recording and finding an eager audience. We're also now glad to learn that a lot more was recorded at the sessions that produced Why Don't You Give It To Me? than could fit on that one record, and now here's a posthumous second volume of modern day shack shaking Nathaniel Mayer soul singing rockin' and rollin' action! If you liked WDYGITM? then you'll also dig WWYLMBB? It consists of eight tracks, six electric numbers from those sessions plus two "unplugged" radio performances full of bluesy strum. The disc starts off surprisingly mellow, with the slow jam "Dreams Come True", Mayer's ragged voice to the fore. A voice that couldn't come from a younger man, that's for sure, but is also still quite supple and expressive. Pretty soon thereafter the fuzz kicks in, this disc featuring its share of thwomping electric muzz, that sort of thing reaching its zenith perhaps on the penultimate track "The Puddle", wherein Mayer sings about just how high he is. Again, we're sad that Mr. Mayer is no longer with us, but happy that these recordings (and maybe more to come) exist to allow us to enjoy his raw soul talent eternally (or, at least for our lifetimes).
A strangely compelling album of outsider pop, dreamtime electronica, post-rock languor, and distant memories of '80s bombast. If this sounds either like something M83 might attempt or perhaps like something that just shouldn't work, that's pretty much where we were upon hearing Cut Up for the first time. But upon the second, third, fourth, tenth listen, Mayerling's cinematic orchestrations became all the more spellbinding. Ambient trails of luminous synth drones spiral around pastoral guitars that wouldn't be out of place on some Explosions In The Sky or Notwist album, until the urgent baritone vocals leap forward out of the mouth of Sylvain Bombled. His gruff, throaty delivery would seem more appropriate barking for somebody like Mudhoney... yes, we know that replacing Mark Arm is a blasphemous statement, but the late '80 / early '90s Sub Pop, cigarette'n'whiskey approach to throat jagged is very similar to Bombled unique croon. The songs however are not punk. These spacious, desolate pieces have the baroque emptiness of some of the latter period Scott Walker records, flushed out with the post-rock ellipsis of intertwining bass and guitar melodies constructing dark, brooding passages that could be right out of Mogwai's Young Team or Come On Die Young. Drum machines gird half of the tracks on the album, but even then it's little more than a click track, leaving all of the darkened riches to rain down on this moody album. Limited to 100 copies!
The latest in the ever expanding Sublime Frequencies collection of audio and video sonic treasures from around the world. This most recent dvd focuses on "ancient mystical brotherhoods' in Morocco, small groups of stringed instruments and drums, players managing to create intense and intensely emotional sounds and songs, that range from dark and simple, sweetly contemplative, to fierce and fiery and jubilant, explosive and over the top.
As always, the scenery and setting is as breathtaking as the music., lots of amazing shots of Morocco, crumbling buildings, bustling harbors, cobblestone streets, vast deserts, winding highways, cozy apartments and most importantly, bustling street markets, lit by fires and lamplight, a huge after dark celebration, story telling, eating, socializing but most importantly making music...
Small lantern lit clusters of people gather around old record players, home made amplifiers, rusty old speakers, strange (to our eyes) stringed instruments, all manner of drums and percussion, the crowd eager to bask in this amazing music, and just as often to participate, whether it be as another drummer, a singer, a dancer or even just as an onlooker.
The music, is a stripped down blues, the buzzing strings, the gorgeous hypnotic melodies, looped and cyclical, so hypnotic and catchy, the vocals soulful and impassioned, from solo crooning to strange harmonies, to chanting, and lots of festive sing alongs. The focus is the buzzing strings and the pounding drums, and there are plenty of both, but there are also buzzing snake charmer style horns, wild dancing, costumes, and of course the usual outdoor crowd sounds, folks talking and laughing, cars driving past. It's so much like wandering through Morocco, it's amazing. And sonically, WOW. The rhythms and the melodies, a constant barrage of groove and drone, simple percussive thumps and shuffles, haunting melodies, huge tribal drum jams and of course some incredible riffing.
Our favorite segments feature what appears to be a traditional banjo, but electrified and plugged into a rusty old handmade amplifier, turning the banjo into an awesome buzzing sitar like beast, emitting intense almost metallic chunks of incendiary riffing, raw and emotional, super distorted and intense, underpinning the wailing vocals and dense drumming.
As awesome as this is to watch, the sounds themselves are plenty, so even after a few viewings, you'll end up listening to this dvd over and over. Fans of the sadly out of print Group Inerane lp, also on Sublime Frequencies, as much of the music here has that same feral blues buzz and dark looped riffing.
Pretty much everything we've heard on Sublime Frequencies has totally blown us away, the music so emotional and passionate, and in many ways so alien, sounding like nothing we've heard before. It's a music that transports us, fills our minds with images of the musicians, of their homes, the clubs, of all these places we've never been, the people, the children, their families, the instruments, we can't help but imagine this music as it's being made. Thankfully, the fine folks at SF have also been releasing dvd's, allowing us to see these musicians performing, recording, each dvd focusing on a region or a style of music, and every one breathtaking, whether it's the impossible expanse of the desert, the gorgeous landscape, the houses and town squares, experiencing late night markets, wild parties, impromptu performances, crazy jams, we've never been anything less than enthralled and blown away by these documents. And this one is no different.
Shot over two years, Mayet travelled all over Africa, specifically Southern Morocco and the Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott, no narrative, just a dreamlike journey across vast expanses of land, long stretches of ragged road, amazing buildings, and ruins, into people's homes, and public spaces for (sometimes private) performances with some amazing groups, in particular aQ faves Group Doueh, whose two songs are dramatically different, one is at home, and features a man on guitar, and a woman on drum and vocals, the two reclining in what appears to be their living room, the second, is an actual performance, in a club, packed with women in the most dazzling clothing, Technicolor and elaborate, a huge video screen playing videos, and the band just chilling on a couch against the wall jamming, while some of the ladies dance. So awesome!
So much amazing music, lots of it by groups we hadn't heard until now, but need to hear more from, so much to see, to take in, sometimes it's just the ambient sounds, the people, the cars, daily life, other times those scenes of daily life are set to music, but the real magic comes from being transported right into someone's home and getting to sit right in front of the players and experience the sound, as it's being created. Magical.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES. All region.
The Mayfair Set sound exactly how you would imagine a band made up of members of Blank Dogs and Dum Dum Girls would sound, AWESOME!
Equal parts gloomy retro cold wave and that reverbed sixties girl group sound, two great tastes for sure, the sound washed out and murky, the boy vocals buried beneath angular jangle guitar and simple drumming, the female vox all shimmery in the background on some tracks, way up front in the others, with the boy vox drifting off in the distance, brooding moody verses and soaring choruses, gothy cold wave basslines, lilting and sing songy jangle gives way to driving woozy gloom pop, the guitar lines are spidery and skeletal, the distorted drumming skitters and stumbles, locking into simple propulsive rhythms, holding things together, white the dueling girl / boy vocals drive most of these songs, surrounded by shimmering clouds of glitchy effects, warm whirring keyboards, the sound warm and washed out and dreamy, another one of those records that gets played like crazy every single day. No better recommendation than that! And the fact that's members of Blank Dogs and Dum Dum Girls...
If you don't own this, for some crazy reason, hopefully this review will convince you to pick it up RIGHT NOW! This is one of the most amazing, soulful, emotionally rich, politically charged, well crafted and musically dynamic albums of all time! His first solo record after leaving The Impressions, simply titled Curtis, was released in 1970 and it still blows us away and gives us chills all these years later.
Mayfield is a true musical genius, not only blessed with one of the greatest voices of all time but also such an incredible songwriter and arranger. The songs on Curtis are filled with lush instrumentation, swirling strings, soulful horns, and deep hitting percussion. And the songs are bold and brave, inspired by the Civil Rights movement and not afraid to speak out against the injustices (still) plaguing this country. But what makes this album so fucking special is that it managed to be both strong and breezy, charged and mellow, poignant and chilling.
We've been playing this in the store so much lately and everytime, customers always know that it's Curtis Mayfield but they usually assume it's a greatest hits collection and are stunned to find out it's an actual album. It's one of those rare albums packed with songs that could have been the best single ever ("Move On Up", "Give It Up", "We The People Who Are Darker Than Blue" are all on this album!) and what's amazing is that the other songs on the record are just as good and maybe even better! It's not surprising that this record has been sampled by loads of folks including EPMD, NWA, Tupac, and Pete Rock, just to name a few. This Rhino reissue adds nine bonus tracks which are all worth having. This is one of those truly special albums that we could, and have listened to hundreds of times, and yet never get sick of, always feeling something and taking something away from the album with each repeated listen. Music for the spirit and soul. A true masterpiece!
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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Warning: extremely graphic cover photo of their singer, not long after his rather messy shotgun suicide. Besides that, and the performance of equally dead guitarist Euronymous (who perhaps snapped said photo after sampling some delectable brain, or so he bragged), this live album has renditions of Venom and Celtic Frost classics to recommend it.
It's here, the first full-length studio recording from these Norwegian black metal legends in years! This is the notorious band that at one point featured black metal martyr Euronymous in its ranks, along with vocalist Dead. Both are, of course, dead now--you can read all about it in "Lords Of Chaos" if you haven't already. But all this murder and suicide didn't stop these guys. Whirlwind drummer/black metal pin up guy Hellhammer and bassist Necrobutcher, along with early Mayhem vocalist the Marylin Mason-ish Maniac and new guitarist Blasphemer soldier on, with a new, more death metal, more extreme, more technical sound. "Grand Declaration of War" simply kills. While Maniac's semi-spoken, semi-pretentious vocal style takes a little getting used to, and some trip hop beats crop up on the more experimental second half of this disc, for the most part this is some very intense, melodic, heavy black metal similar to the intricate attack and evil atmosphere of the late great Dissection (not that Mayhem needed any more help in the evil atmosphere department).
Live stuff recently recorded in Europe and the U.S. by this seminal black metal act. Knowing perhaps that they have perhaps already released too many live albums (granted, some are boots, which isn't their fault), some value is added by the inclusion of a half-dozen or so "preproduction" tracks (i.e. demos) from their "Grand Declaration of War" opus. A fan's disc, therefore. And
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One of Nordic black metal's most legendary, infamous bands returns with a brutal recording featuring new members replacing various deceased ones. Euronymous (R.I.P.) would be proud, though perhaps not happy that his band is now on the same label that releases the albums of that guy that killed him...
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"An ambitious, 50 minute feast of tight harmonies, powerful arrangements, fluid improvisation, and flat out great songs, that serves as a touchstone for twin guitar-driven, west coast styled psychedelia, soaring power pop, and blistering hard rock. The stature of Maypole has been muddied by the previous CD reissues, but this LP edition gets it right. Featuring state of the art remastering and pressing, a high quality full color "tip on" jacket featuring original artwork, and a full color insert loaded with lyrics, photos, and complete historical notes by Maypole founder, Dennis Tobell, this is the closest to 'classic psychedelia' Anopheles Records has delved in to date."
People have been freaking out about the Mayyors for ages now. Before we had even heard them, we knew we HAD to hear them, cuz that's what everyone we knew was telling us. Then we were lucky enough to get them to play our South By Southwest showcase, and whattayaknow? Everyone was right. They destroyed, wild and punk rock, and a little new wave, and s upper distorted and weirdly poppy, pretty much exactly what we could have hoped for. One person we knew even flew from another state JUST to see the Mayyors, and managed to see them play 8 or 9 times. And loved every single minute of it.
We got a bunch of these 12"s a while back, and they sold out in a heartbeat, before we could even get it reviewed. We got a few more, but then those too were gone in a flash. So the band finally repressed another batch, so now here's your chance, however fleeting to snag one of these 4 song 45 rpm 12"s, same as the first pressing, but now in plain white stamped sleeves, instead of the first pressing's gross dirt covered jackets, but it's the sound that matters, and the sound here is ferocious. Snotty, snarly, fuzzy, punky, noisy, catchy, druggy, crumbling ultra distorted guitars, wild pounding drums, yowled effected vox, tons of feedback, FX all over the place and THICK corrosive buzzing bass that drives EVERYTHING. Imagine maybe a poppier, less fucked up more new wave Rusted Shut, that same sort of chaotic noise rock, that while druggy, manages to be a bit tighter and a whole lot less on the verge of total collapse, while remaining awesomely chaotic.
The final track might be our favorite, the same sort of revved up Brainbombs style dirge, supercharged, and eventually growing more and more and more distorted and in-the-red, culminating in what might just be the raddest post-Buttholes drug rock noise guitar freakout EVER.
We did get a ton of these, but they'll probably go quick, and the band did say they would press more if this pressing sold out, but it could mean a bit of a wait if you don't grab one now.
Mazes are Edward Anderson and Caroline Donovan (aka two prominent members of those dandy Chicagoans The 1900s, a band who caught our ear and wouldn't let go!) plus their pal Charles D'Autremont. Together they've crafted some sweet lilting pop that's not too distant from their main band's lush psych-tinged pop sounds, and that also recalls the glory days of the Elephant Six Collective. Recorded over the course of four years in various apartments and studios, the album definitely feels homespun with a warm off the cuff 'gathering of friends' kind of immediacy. Some terrific, uplifting vocal performances! Yet at the same time the dense, elaborate arrangements also suggest much revisiting, layering on and tweaking of details over the years. Fans of The Minders, Yo La Tengo and Belle & Sebastian, don't miss!
After years of silence, Zbigniew Karkowski (former Hafler Trio collaborator) joins Masami Akita (of Merzbow, who knows nothing about years of silence) for 55 minutes of signature Merzbow noise processed into heavy chugging pulses and brutal psycho-acoustic drones...not for the faint of heart.
With close to 20 years of hindsight, so much of what came out of the 1990s sounds dated and rather predictable, an obvious and angsty cheese, even less palatable than much of the 1980s synthetic curd. Plain Records has chosen wisely to reissue the three Mazzy Star LPs, that, despite containing countless guitar solos, have absolutely no cheesy moments. These three brilliant records draw from the bluesy drones of Spacemen 3 and The Jesus and Mary Chain (amongst others), dropping most of the irony and jagged edges to create music that might be described as the soft(er) psychedelia to Spacemen 3's harder stuff. As readers of this list know, Hope Sandoval, the singer, sometime rhythm guitarist, and (many would argue) the force behind Mazzy Star, has gone on to create amazing records with her new band the Warm Inventions. She has a voice that penetrates with a whisper, that carries like a wind floating above the music, that is instantly recognizable, and that influenced scores of singers. David Roback wrote most of the basic melodies on all three Mazzy Star records and plays all of the guitar solos. He has an innate sense of space and sound, a slightly twangy simplicity that might fade into just a few notes, or that can explode into reverb drenched ecstasy. You won't find better guitar tones anywhere, especially on So Tonight That I Might See. A lot of the arrangements are sparse, almost minimalistic, but the quality of the recordings and the melodies make even a track with only vocals, a guitar and an organ seem full. Especially through headphones, the warmth of Sandoval's voice is a magical compliment to Robeck's guitar. Everyone from Beach House to Grouper to Cat Power to PJ Harvey owes Mazzy Star a huge debt, or at least a big shout-out. All three of these records are HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
She Hangs Brightly came out in 1990 and is the most "rocking" record of the three. The drums are definitely the busiest and the songs less dreamy, less laid back. This record establishes their reverby, slightly twangy sound but hasn't quite found the right mood. This is the Mazzy Star record to listen to with friends because it won't depress the hell out of you.
It's not until 1993's So Tonight That I Might See that Mazzy Star perfects their sonic elegance. The band's most commercially successful record, it's probably got the songs you remember: "Fade Into You", "She's My Baby", the title track. The beats have slowed way down, the vocals have decided to ride parallel to the music instead of right up on it, and the arrangements have become simple and piercing. A shoegaze classic.
Among My Swan is, in our opinion, maybe the best of the three Mazzy Star releases. The overt psychedelia has been taken away and replaced with a confident playfulness, a distinct melancholia. The reverb is turned way down, allowing for the simple compliment of acoustic guitar and Hope Sandoval's vocals to contrast with the sparser layers of fuzzed leads and harmonica. "Rhymes of an Hour" goes all Velvet Underground, losing almost all percussion, floating forward on a drone of strings. A moodier offering for those who find catharsis in despair and loneliness.
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