New release from one of our favorites of this new breed of sludgy metallic post rock, the strangely named Mouth Of The Architect. Their sound, unlike many of their sonic brethren leans much more toward the melodic as is evidenced here on the opening of "Sleepwalk Powder" a lilting, melancholy guitar line, hovering above warm swells of high end feedback, mournful and so so pretty. But don't be fooled, or lulled into thinking this is some sort of post rock dreampop record, oh no, moments later, the drums enter the fray, all tribal and chaotic, until finally the guitars drop. And drop HARD. Suddenly we're in churning, roiling sludge doom country, big riffs roll and rumble, vocals are howled and the whole band lurches like some rampaging behemoth. But beneath it all, remains the melody, the sweetness, the light. It's like Godspeed or Explosions In The Sky, being overtaken by Conifer or Minsk, a huge ugly growling monstrous sound barely concealing glistening harmonies and majestic melodies. A pretty killer combination. The second MOTA track follows a similar path, drawing out its post rock dreaminess nearly to the 10 minute mark before kicking out the jams, this time it's a lurching stumbling groove, minor key and massive.
Kenoma are up next, we'd heard of them but never actually heard them, but they do occupy a similar sonic space as their pals MOTA (and plus they indeed are, in the liner notes, there is an extremely heartfelt note about, the two bands being friends since childhood, and both having had a rough time lately, and how this release was very cathartic, bringing the two bands, these two sets of friends closer than ever before, pretty dang sweet actually). But again don't be distracted by the sweetness, where there is light there is most definitely also dark. Kenoma are more postrock than metal never really unfurling any sort of massive sludginess, rather stretching out in a heavy hypnotic groove, dense tangled guitar lines, killer propulsive drumming, minor key melodies and a big wall of thick rich headspinning sound. Reminiscent of the recently reviewed Shora record but with a bit of that post sludge vibe we can't get enough of. This almost sounds like a super charged Godspeed or a metal Tortoise. Epic and meandering, droney and hypnotic and so killer. Definitely a new band to keep our eyes on. And a perfect match for their pals in Mouth Of The Architect. Definitely recommended. Killer octopoidal artwork too!
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AS we mentioned elsewhere on this list, we were a bit put off by a rather blah live performance from these two Brooklyn based noise makers, but on record we're definitely digging them more and more. Two side-long epic noise jams, some transcendental long form psychsludge ur-drone of the highest order. Think Skullfower, Total, a definite Bower-ish wall of droning sound vibe, but with a thicker, grittier heaviness, that just sort of churns and roils like it's about to spill over and burn everyone alive. Not sure if guitars are the main musical implement but it sure does sound like guitar after guitar after guitar, thicker and heavier and noisier. Pretty dang great.
Hand screened covers. LIMITED TO 350 COPIES. Each copy is hand numbered as well and includes an insert.
An unlikely freerock avantnoise match up that works a whole lot better than it should. It's hard to tell if each band got a side, or if they are collaborating on together the whole way through, hardly matters really, as both sides are pretty dang great. Recorded live in 2004, this collaboration definitely brings out the softer side in Mouthus, the whole thing is dreamy and droney, the two exploring some dark drifting ambient exploration. One side is a slow builder, gradually growing in intensity as the soft swirl grows into a near static raga, a wall of warm buzz, while the other side is much more guitar heavy, a huge soundscape of rumbling riffage and soaring high end shimmer.
Packaged in a super striking yellow and white collages sleeve, with a full color insert.
LIMITED TO 550 COPIES!!!!!
It's been a while since we've heard from Move D after a number of releases for Warp, Fax, and Source in the mid '90s. Here, Move D (real name David Moufang) has hooked up with writer / musician Thomas Meinecke for an album "committed to deconstructive feminism." With slowly looping drones, pulses of electronic static, and various academic texts of "political discourse on the discontent of the sexes," this album starts out quite nicely, recalling the information theoretics of the Hafler Trio. But then things goes jazz. On the same label that brought us that great Philip Jeck double cd.
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I had forgotten how beautiful this album was, often thinking that this paled under the spectrum of Movietone's narcoleptic masterpiece of listless Mediterranean moods in Day And Night -- their first album with its radioluminscent tremolo guitars dotting notes on top of a consummate post-VU strum. As fantastic as any of the Fursaxa records or any of Galaxie 500's songs.
Drowsey guitar and piano paired with languid vocals are the perfect soundtrackto end-of-summer garden lounging. This Bristol UK band's follow-up to their great "Day And Night" album is a much wispier affair, but certainly lovely.
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Record of the week runner up! The second album from Movietone (which features Rachel from Flying Saucer Attack) conjures more cinematic references than musical ones...as it could stand in for a soundtrack to a Godard film that was bleached out by Mediterranean sun...a strange reference, but we have no other way of defining the languid acoustic guitars and washed out drones and lovely voice...an amazing record!
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Rachel from Flying Saucer Attack. English import.
Like their fellow Bristolians Crescent, Movietone have polished up their sound for their most recent recordings, dropping all of the rough edges, murky atmospheres, and evocative juxtapositions which dominated their earlier recordings. Thus, The Sand And The Stars is a far cry from the band's origins, as bassist Rachel Brook grounded the radioluminescent guitar wash of Flying Saucer Attack during their earliest recordings. While Movietone never really ever sounded like Flying Saucer Attack, their underappreciated debut album and their masterpiece Day and Night enveloped themselves in overcast production and drizzled plenty of lethargy and melancholia over their post-Galaxie 500 strum, that at least reflected similiar ideas as Flying Saucer Attack. Instead of the huge guitar feedback of FSA, Brook and vocalist / guitarist Kate Wright were searching for a preciousness in their music. Since the aforementioned Day and Night album, Movietone has moved away from the empathic nature of the soundscapes and towards the storytelling potential of songsmithery. The Sand And The Stars was intended to be a "jazz record being played across the bay," and well, that's sort of accurate. The languid, marine themes of that image are definitely present in these somber orchestrations, that could have been found on a Nico album tumbling in slow motion with any given Mediterranean jazz combo. Yet, the implications of distance are misleading, as this album is immaculately produced and gives the impression of a sort-of jazz album being played quietly and intimately in your living room. Pleasant to say the least.
Another one from Akarma's back catalog of classic and obscure LPs reissued on cd, now in a jewel case at a cheaper price than before. This is a reissue of a 1968 recording by Houston, Texas' premiere psych-rock band The Moving Sidewalks, which featured none other than Billy Gibbons (guitar & vocal) who later grew his beard really long and earned his fame in ZZ Top. Along with the 13th Floor Elevators, these guys were one of the major bands that put Texas on the '60s garage psych map. On Flash, they rocked the house with groovy organ jammin', Gibbon's Hendrixy guitar, a dose of the blues and some trippy hippiness.
This reissue also contains five bonus tracks taken from singles that The Moving Sidewalks also released, including their classic "99th Floor" and a cover of The Beatles' "I Want To Hold Your Hand."
Here's a taste of these up and comers for you, sounding a lot like A Certain Ratio and Gang Of Four. I saw them in L.A. and everyone was loving it. They are dance-y and tight and the drummer hits really hard which helps with the danceability factor, but they are so obviously derivative of this certain sound that when you remove the dancefloor, it's hard to be impressed.
Is it just us or did you think the same thing?! Hmmm, the title of Moving Units' new album made us immediately think of the Kids In The Hall movie Brain Candy ("It's a PILL!... that gives WORMS!... to EX-GIRLFRIENDS!!"). Heh heh, anyhoo, these LA fellas continue to strut their stuff, and keep their sleek dance rock comin' with this their second full length. They're now on Metropolis Records (formerly on Palm Pictures), but they haven't jarred us with any other surprise changes, they're still very very indebted to the '80s. In fact, few bands have ever sounded quite so 'Duran Duran' circa Seven And The Ragged Tiger. Made us daydream of Simon LeBon singing atop the phat synth tracks of Daft Punk. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. Sure to be packing the hip kids' dancefloors across the nation.
A four song introduction to the Moving Units from Los Angeles in preparation for their forthcoming full length. It would be admirable of me if I could write this entire review without drawing comparison to the obvious. Every review I read about these guys says they sound exactly like this one band whose around right now who sounds exactly like this other band who is no longer. So I don't see the good I would do in repeating that. I'm so jaded, weird and bitter about the resurgence of the 80's new wave punk sound, soooo I am not going to even go there. I'll simply say that this sounds like a band that grew up listening to this certain kind of music with quirky funky bass lines, hectic high guitar melodies and staccato, stop-start, dancy drums. I must say though, it is completely successful post-punk dance music. Smooth and fun with alternately sullen / angstful boy vocals. I'm so over this recent trend in music, but they are doing it well. And I'm sure they'll go relatively far if only on nostalgia points alone.
Hip hop remix. Rhythm = "Can't Deny It" (Fabolous). B-side says "version" but actually has Capleton's "Forward Inna Clothes" on it.
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Hip hop remix. Rhythms = "Ugly" (Bubba Sparxxx) and "Get Ur Freak On" (Missy Elliott). B-side says "version" but has Elephant Man singing his theme song to the "Spiderman" melody.
Mr. Airplane Man are a Boston female duo playing Howling Wolf covers and songs with rad Bo Diddleyesqe back beats. Fucked up punk/ blues, reminiscent of the Gories, which coming from me (Sadie) is an enormous compliment. They formed in 1995, playing on the streets for rent using a battery powered amp and 5 gallon bucket for a drum. It's said that these two ladies' mutual love of Howlin' Wolf is what brought them together, his songs being where they got their band name and the name of this record. This is not fuzzed out chaotic garage like The Bad Times cd from the last list. It is old style Delta back woods blues but it's smooth in an amazing rockin' way. Recorded in Detroit by Jim Diamond (who is affiliated with other Detroit greats like the Dirtbombs and the White Stripes), and was mixed by Doug Easley and Greg "Oblivian" Cartwright. So recommended!
Certainly music doesn't get any more brilliant, epic, meticulous, and retarded than this. Really. Absolutely unbelievably genius musicianship, twisted imagination and craft. Always recommended!
A complex, chaotic and challenging record... so chock full of interesting sounds (bandoneon, old synths, hammond organ, "difficult" piano, double bass drum, etc) that I, at least, am kept fully entertained enough to listen closely the whole damn 72 minutes. An incredible tour de force! Featured guests include William Winant (Mills College teacher and famed percussionist) and Noe Valley's own Graham Connah on piano. Recommended.
Metabolics were the least crazy of all the WordSound artsists, being just a solid, old school rap group, albeit with some added darkness. But on what we assume is the Metabolics second album, Mr. Dead becomes the focus and things get a little weirder. But only a little. The cover is demented, and there are some weird intros, and the lyrical bent is a little more 'crazy', but overall, it remains just a solid, old school rap record.
One of a whole handful of Chinese indie rock and noise pop releases on this week's list, this is the first we've heard from Mr. Graceless, who like a lot of the other Chinese bands we've been digging lately, seem especially beholden to a certain era of American music, that we too are quite partial to, that would be the nineties, and the sort of college/indie rock we still love to this day. And sure, it could be cuz we sort of musically came of age in that era, but we don't seem to ever get tired of My Bloody Valentine, Sonic Youth, Sebadoh, the Pixies, and the multitude of bands who carried that sonic torch ever since. So yeah, if you like that sort of stuff, or have been digging the recent Chinese releases we've been featuring on past lists (White+, Boyz & Girl, Car-Sick Cars, Dear Eloise, Duck Fight Goose, etc.), then Mr. Graceless will be right up your alley. And while they do obviously count all that nineties American stuff as a huge influence, they also seem to push that sound into more overtly poppy indie jangle realms, with lots of soaring chiming clean guitar and some seriously sweet vocals, positioning the sound of Mr. Graceless a bit closer to pop outfits like the Shins, Avi Buffalo, Spoon, Death Cab, Papercuts, etc. But imagine that sound with just a bit more crunch and fuzz. Super melodic, ultra poppy, crazy catchy, and way recommended for all you (indie/nineties) pop nerds...
a.k.a.. Brian of the Thinking Fellers.
The Holy Trinity of underground hip hop, Company Flow / Def Jux / Anticon, can seemingly do no wrong. And here they strike again. This time it's Mr. Len of Company Flow, with a record of dark and sinister gloom-funk, all staticky a.m. radio wah wah and crunchy
New hip-hop mix by Lexxus -- a.k.a. Mr Lex - featuring the rhythm track to Missy Elliott's "Get Ur Freak On". Depending where you stand on Missy's new album and blatant dancehall rip offs of important American artists, you may hate this or love it. I like to tell people that this is the alternate take of "Get Ur Freak On" when Missy had a horrible head cold and was possessed by the
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Hip hop remix.
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Hip hop remix. Rhythm = "We Thuggin'" (Fat Joe). B-side Elephant Man's "One" using that Mystikal break from "Shake Ya Ass".
Boston's Mr. Lif releases an eight-track cdep, a concept album of sorts, wherein Lif the MC has supposedly been taken by government agents or something, presumably because his clearly-delivered message is so insurgent. The liner notes are even written by his compadre Akrobatik: "As one of Lif's closest friends, I know that he provided sociopolitical commentary in hopes that his listeners would discuss the issues brought forth..." Cannibal Ox's El-P lends his talents to two tracks. The cd comes with two videos you can play on your computer. It's good.
Def Jux alert! Mr Lif's first full length is pretty great, something I didn't expect after hearing his (admittedly good, but not great) two prior EPs Emergency Rations and Enters the Colasus. I Phantom is a concept album, but don't let that deter you -- it's kinda nice to have an album length narrative with which to gain insight into Lif's vision of the world as full of the pressures and stress of social, governmental, cultural fucked-ness. Basically, as Lif spells out in exruciating detail in the liner notes, the story is one black man's life, starting with him getting killed during a robbery, resurrected by hip hop, gets a normal job, hates it, quits, etc etc, lots of tragedies involving marriage, suicide, murder and the end of the world. Pretty bleak but super interesting, and the production is courtesy Cannibal Ox's El-P, Fakts One, Insight, etc. -- brighter and cleaner than the rest of the Def Jux catalog but just as apocalyptic and heavy and layered and weird sounding in all the right ways. Aesop Rock, El-P, Insight, and others also guest on the mic. Compelling, but I'm worried it's not going to get the attention it deserves, so listen to the soundclips for sure.
It's been so long since we could whole heartedly rave about a Kool Keith record. A LONG time. Since Dr. Octagon maybe? Yeah, okay, we sorta dug Sex Style, but we much prefer the sci fi alien what-the-fuck KK to the kinky pervert KK for sure. And while Mr. Nogatco is no Dr. Octagon, it's as close as we've gotten in a long long time, so we'll take what we can get. This is some more of that Kool Keith freaky conspiracy theory shit, something about aliens, secret autopsies, you know the sort of thing. There's even a live alien dissection at the end of the disc, after a blissed out ambient skitterscape, with Keith nimbly leaping lyrically all over the fucking place, there's a strange microcassette recording of Keith talking all sorts of weirdness about some alien bodies they found in the desert, talking about their gel-type blood and stuff. What a nut. And so good to have him back in full freaked out space cadet mode. And while the music isn't quite as dense and deliriously wacked as the Automator's Octagonal beatscapes, producer IZ Real does all right, managing some pretty ominous X-FIles worthy sonic swells, plenty of haunting creep and cinematic crawl, moaning horns, rumbling drones, heavy metal guitars, a dark and doomy late night, rain soaked, blood drenched, government conspiracy, invaders from Mars series of freaky sci fi hip hop instrumentals for Keith as Mr. Nogatco to freak out over, and freak out he does, a flurry of surreal non sequiturs delivered in a lazy stoned drawl, an outerspace pod people mad as fuck flow, tales of dark space, bionic fuses, space men, eBay, elevation power, kinetics, mass gasses, credit cards, galaxy waxers, astronauts, dictators, force fields, green hands, slushies, rocketships and bikinis, laser corps, sneakers, lightning bugs, bubblegum, galactic foes, Jolly Ranchers, black hearts, hot milk, laser beams and all the other things Mr. Nogatco is fighting for, or battling against, or using to create a subatomic lightspeed jetliner, or just plain making up, in order to get in the pants of some three legged two headed space princess that he's supposed to be rescuing. Phew. Or maybe he's just plain nuts...
A few weeks back, we got an unsolicited email from someone called Mr. Peter Hayden. Not being someone we had ever heard of, we might have just deleted it, if it weren't for the subject line, which read: "Finnish music trying to impress you." Hmmm. Still skeptical, we opened the email, only to discover that Mr. Peter Hayden was not in fact a person, but a five piece psychedelic combo from Finland, who had recently got some serious love on Julian Cope's Head Heritage website. The email also ended with the line: "I know every word I write here is a waste of our time until You take an hour off and dive deep in to the worlds the album will take You." We were pretty much sold. After all, Finland. Check. Psychedelic. Check. Cope. Check.
And once we threw it one, we were not disappointed, in fact, we were wondering, being the weirdo Finnish music obsessives we are, and being super obsessed with all strains of psychedelic space rock heaviness, how the hell we had missed out on these guys? Well, better late than never, and really all it took was about a minute and we knew this probably had to be a Record Of The Week. Heavy, atmospheric, druggy, dynamic, psychedelic, pounding drums, soaring guitars, streaks of feedback, wailing melodies, long stretches of swirling spaciness between bursts of chugging heaviness, and that's only a couple minutes in, total trip out heavy head music for sure. A single seventy minute jam, that builds and builds and builds, from that first blast of psychedelic heaviness, chugging, and churning, the sound gradually grows less and less spares, more propulsive, more metallic, by about six minutes in, the song has transformed into a roiling sprawl of psychedelic doom, but sort of freeform, and a little bit jazzy, the guitars riffing, but also splintering into wild squalls of tangled melodies, and unfurling lush swirling textures, the sort of rare sonic beast that immediately entrances, first time we listened to this, we listened to the whole thing all the way through, totally mesmerized, and in a druggy, hypno-rock trance. And speaking of hypno-rock, just wait a few more minutes and the band locks into a seriously cyclical groove, seemingly channeling vintage Circle, but augmenting the minimal riffage of Circle with clouds of psychguitar shimmer, and what sounds like a phalanx of buzzing humming synths (maybe just more guitars), wild dense tangles of thick corrosive guitar buzz, chordal swells, all wrapped around a main riff that just chugs along all hypnotic and motorik.
The sound shifts constantly, without ever losing momentum, slipping at one point into a sort of doomy dirge, only to blossom into what might be the poppiest part of the record, all major key melody and soaring majesty, and then seconds later, to dial everything back, and unfurl a brooding stretch of ultra minimal meander, all super spare drumming, guitar buzzing like sitars off in the distance, the sound laced with fragmented riffs, strange FX, bits of squiggly melody, and all manner of slow shifting textures, woozy and washed out and dreamily druggy, all of this dreaminess eventually interrupted by some seriously metallic heft, a crushing drum heavy distorted riff churn, but still surrounded by a swirl of psychedelic shimmer, that somehow keeps it from being just heavy, and makes it both heavy, and blissfully psychedelic.
The heaviness seems to ooze and expand, the various guitars switching from riffing to spiraling soaring melodies, a lurching lumbering groove that as far as we're concerned continue to the end of the record, but Mr. Peter Hayden have other things in mind, slipping into some soaring near Godspeed like post rock epic-ness, not to mention a weirdly mathy almost metallic breakdown, and throughout, more stretches of hushed minimal drift, softly psychedelic, drowsily dreamy, a continual push/pull between blown out psych and space rock crush, and blissed out mesmer and shimmery lysergic ambience, but like any great record of its stripe, Born A Trip ends with a serious blast of psychedelic heaviness, sounding like Neurosis almost, epic and crushing, blown out and metallic, a heavy psych coda that eventually fades into a final stretch of droned out slo-mo minimalism. Wow. So great.
obviously so very recommended for fans of Carlton Melton, White Hills, 3 Leafs, Gnod, Sylvester Anfang, and other interstellar psychedelic space rock explorers, as well as all of you who dig motorik Circle style hypnorock, Finnish freakiness, and just trippy spacey heaviness in general. Definitely a Record Of The Week, but a serious contender for Record Of The YEAR as well...
A while back we made the most recent record from these Finnish spaced out psych-kraut drone-rockers our Record Of The Week, a single song, spread out over a whole record, rife with pretty much everything we love, crumbling distortion, swirling FX, motorik rhythms, lush swirling textures, heavy, heady, hypnotic, the kind of sound that should never end, even one record length song is not enough, total kosmische hypno-rock heaviness that we, and most of you, can't seem to get enough of. Sadly it seems like that record is no longer available, and word is, the band is working on a new record, a new SONG actually, that will fill up TWO whole cds, but until then, we got this new 7" to tide us over, and as is there want, it's just one song, about 13 minutes long, and another epic psychedelic space rock sprawl, one that sort of ups the sonic ante, taking the sound of that last full length, and pushing it even further out, a dark distorted field of slo-mo riffing, shimmering billows of blurred FX, and then the sound explodes into some seriously heavy, spaced out dirgery, echo drenched vox, simple Teutonic drum pound, everything hazy and prismatic, the sound shot through with swirls of synth buzz and spidery guitar melodies, gloriously epic and majestic, fans of Godspeed style bombast will flip for sure. Totally tranced out, transcendent, psychedelic, space-drone, hypno-rock bliss. Not sure how limited these are, but guessing they won't be around for too long...
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What will it take for us to convince you that Mr. Show is the greatest "sketch" comedy show EVER? Thimbles? Fake poo? Wyckyd Sceptre? Marilyn Monster Pizza Parlors? Probably nothing will do it at this point, you're either with us or against us. Us Mr. Show fans have to enjoy our obsession in secret (some of us here even have to sneak out of bed late at night and watch with headphones, so as not to wake our significant other who'd surely discipline such behavior). For those of you who do love Mr. Show and miss anticipating a new season every year, be sated with these final two discs. Not only will you get to relive the final ten episodes, but also enjoy some new items. Like the DVD reissues of the earlier seasons, this one has the usual hilarious commentary with Bob & David on all but one episode. Plus there's outtakes from the first three seasons, bloopers, "The Naked Improv" from a 1998 Comic Relief appearance, "The Grand Reunion" featurette and a Mr. Show Jukebox of songs from the entire series.
