Best sketch comedy show ever. Hard to know what else to say. Everyone here has been OBSESSED with Mr. Show since it first aired on HBO years ago. To the point that some of us even spent a fortune buying crappy quality bootleg tapes on Ebay just to be able to see the show again! So we were SO EXCITED that HBO finally planned on releasing all four seasons! FUCK YEAH! A crazy mix of video and live sketch comedy starring Bob Odenkirk and David Cross. Cross you might recognise from his numerous guest appearances: Men In Black 2, Scary Movie 2, and about a million TV shows as well as his comedy record on Sub Pop 'Shut Up You Fucking Baby.' Mr. Show is brilliantly twisted, offensive and foul mouthed, ridiculous and unbelievably clever, obsessed with sex, drugs, rock and roll, reality police shows, old folks, streaking, British people, and of course cock rings! This is season three and features the amazing Sid And Marty Croft spoof Drugachussetts which is worth the thirty five bucks all by itself. And if you decide you are as obsessed as us, we can also order you the first and second season DVD set!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Hip hop remix
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Hip hop remix.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Mr. Velocity Hopkins, a name familiar to fans of Couch (the one on the pleasantly obnoxious Bulb label). Six guys on drums, guitar, bass, and sax playing as many notes every 45 seconds as possible, resulting in a jazz-rock freakout assault similar to Zorn's Naked City or The Flying Luttenbachers (Weasel Walter of which appears here). A noisy racket, indeed, but with lots of oomph. Not produced or engineered, but sequenced, by Warn Defever.
Strange Heaven, the debut from San Diego garage poppers Mrs Magician, was and actually still is one of our favorite records of the last few years, played to death then and now, overflowing with fuzzed out surf-garage jangle pop gems, with some of THEE best songs we've heard in ages. In fact, just writing the first few sentences of this review, has a bunch of those songs rushing back in filling our head with a swirl of crazy catchy hooks and jangly fuzzy garage rock bliss. Needless to say, after about the millionth listen, we started hankering for more, for a new record, for some new songs, there was a Record Store Day split 7", and that song immediately joined the rest of Strange Heaven on heavy rotation, and now finally, there's THIS. Which is technically not a new record, but it is, a whole new collection of songs, new to us at least. All the B-sides, and demos, and unreleased tracks that never made it on any records proper, but which all sound like they COULD have. In fact, if the quality of the tracks MM did NOT use is any indication, we can only imagine how great record number two is gonna be. But until then we have B sides, which is essentially like Strange Heaven part two. A bit more lo-fi and unpolished, but the songs themselves are crazy catchy, and honestly, so goddamn great. Anyone and everyone who bought Strange Heaven, you are gonna want this one too for sure. And while if given the choice of an introduction to Mrs. Magician, we might suggest Strange Heaven, the more we listen to B Sides, we're pretty sure it would work just as well. Destined to be our most played record, at least until the next proper full length comes out. We can not wait!
Before we relay the weird way in which we fell in love with this record, let us just say right up front, this is our new favorite garage pop record, hands down!
So as you probably know, the increasing habit of listening to music on our computers has changed the way we listen to music so much. Lots of folks listen to everything on shuffle, others just play their favorite tracks, the idea of full, programmed albums is almost a thing of the past for some folks. And while in some ways those changes enhance the listening experience, in others, it definitely feels like something has been lost. But for whatever reason, at least in this one case, the quirkiness of said computer listening was the key to our obsession with Mrs. Magician.
We had been listening to this new record from the weirdly named Mrs. Magician, a garage rock combo who we had only really heard of cuz they were on tour with the Hot Snakes. And we definitely liked what we heard but were not yet totally blown away. Then for some weird reason, we accidentally sorted our music library by 'date added' and ended up listening to Strange Heaven IN REVERSE ORDER, from back to front, and holy shit, suddenly it all clicked, our socks were knocked totally off, and ever since, we can't stop listening to this (and yeah, we dig it in the proper order now too!).
Not sure if the record is just weirdly back loaded, or we just needed this little twist to unlock the magic of Mrs. Magician, but we're just grateful it happened. To help simulate our listening experience, the first two sound samples we've provided are of course the double shot (in reverse order) that sealed the deal, the sort of one-two punch you find yourself listening to over and over and over (just ask the other aQ-ers how many times Andee has played these two tracks over and over the last few weeks), and then once you can convince yourself to move on, the third and fourth sound samples, are the album's proper opening two tracks.
But c'mon, "Dead 80's" has to be the jam of the year, crunchy, jangly, fuzzy, with a chorus that KILLS, all dreamy oooooh's, some falsetto crooning, warbly organs, ramshackle riffing, and the sort of gleefully profane chorus you'll find yourself singing along too even after just one time through ("Oooooooh, Fuck the world, Oooooooh, Fuck the law, Ooooooooh, Fuck the kids!"). And if "Dead 80's" wasn't already THEE jam here, then "Hours Of The Night" sure as shit would be, a dead ringer for late great post grunge Nova Scotian pop group the Hardship Post, all post Nirvana strum, but with hooks galore, a shuffling rhythm, and snarky heart broken lyrics, not to mention plenty of reverby dreaminess, and so it goes, those two songs are the key, that unlock a whole record of crazy catchy garage pop bliss, that to be honest, is really all we want to listen to. Can't remember being as excited about a pop record since Jaill's That's How We Burn, which trust us, is huge praise indeed. Definite contender for record of the year, pop or otherwise.
FYI vinyl version forthcoming next month...
Calling all skweee-jays! Or would-be skweee-jays. We've got four new 7" singles of fresh skweee straight from the source, imported from Flogsta Danshall in Finland. They're in plain white sleeves, the only art to be found here on the labels. If you've followed our other skweee recommendations (both Museum Of Future Sound comps, the more recent Skweee Tooth collection) then you know all about this Scandinavian DIY electro b-boy instrumental 8-bit phenomenon, and you'll also already be familiar with the strange names of the artists on these four singles.
Flogsta boss Limonious' slinky "Swedish Pommak" already wormed its way into our ears via the Museum Of Future Sound Vol. 2, though the jittery yet spacey b-side "Hurri Up!" we hadn't heard before. And all the tracks by Mangrove, Mrs. Queda, and Joxaren (all three artists hailing from Sweden) are new to us as well. Suffice to say, if you like skweee, you'll like these cuts, presented here in skweee's ideal format.
Joxaren's "Ritam Bluz" is a chiming, exotic, slightly sinister groove. Mrs Queda's laidback "Post-Pubertal" bleeps and bloops nicely along aided by robotic handclaps and digital hisses (oddly, her MySpace page lists Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum as her only influence). Maybe our fave of the batch, Mangrove's "Angry Animals", is a bit of a fractured funky banger, bringing down some rigid buzzin' beats. The flip is pretty solidly crunchy / catchy too. The various other A- and B- sides on these 7"s are all pretty darn skweelicious as well! Seriously, if you're a DJ, just throw one of these on in your set for instant skweee cred. Listening at home is fun too.
Go here: http://skweee.com/ for a lot more interesting skweee info, including interviews with some of the folks we just mentioned.
We've had some cd-r evidence a while back pointing to the existence of some mighty black beast, trolling the midnight forests of the New Zealand wilds, the thing they call Mrtyu, some say it's a man, but what kind of man can spew forth such a noxious cacophony? Some say it is a demon from the depths of hell, unleashed after centuries of incarceration in some hellish underground lair, but how did a demon learn to play a guitar and use a 4 track? We've been led to believe however that Mrtyu is actually the musical Mr. Hyde to one Antony Milton's Dr. Jeckyll. What proof do we have? The cd-r label Pseudo Arcana, run by an entity known as Antony Milton, Nether Dawn, a group fronted by a shadowy figure possibly also Mr. Milton, and then there are of course a couple previous cd-r releases, which are now known to be the work of one Antony Milton. This double disc collection gathers up all existing evidence, including previous releases as well as a brand new previously unreleased sonic document. Why the hubbub? Well, friends, it could be that Mrtyu offer up some of the darkest, blackest, heaviest sounds south of Heaven? That to trudge through Mrtyu's sonic world is a journey to the brink of madness? Perhaps, but the best way to truly understand the fury and glory of the mighty Mrtyu is to listen. Each track a blast of primitive power, each with it's own unique sonic energy. Sheets of shimmering feedback drift over crumbly rumbling super distorted guitar background noise. Very static and raga-like, quite reminiscent of Total or Skullflower. A lo-fi doom dirge, with jagged brittle guitars, distorted vocals (not howls or shrieks, but like indie crooning, all 'distorted' up). A brief blast of Melvins-y sludge but with the high end pushed into the red. Almost like a indie pop song, but deconstructed and dipped in stoner sludge. A bit of Sunroof!, a bit of Angus Maclise, a lush shimmering drone, with peals of feedback and throbbing smears of downtuned guitar, all tangled into a gorgeously static thrum. Drones cloaked in black, damaged and druggy, ultra distorted guitars, so downtuned and blown out it sounds like some sort of tectonic event, the guitars form the framework for a truly oppressive atmosphere, a swirl of black clouds and Butthole Surfers-esque feedback, while atop it all, a demonic voice intones and howls and squeals like a rusted hinge. Think Khanate meets Abruptum, but filtered through than NZ noize aesthetic. A howling hellish musical journey through the fires of hell, trudging across pits of black pitch, being dragged bloody and screaming through dark demon infested forests. So harsh and beautifully bilious, drones become dirges, dirges become drones, everything cloaked in black and swathed in buzz.
Bow supplicant, pray for forgiveness, wish for survival, bathe in the blood from your ringing ears. All hail Mrtyu.
These musical missives come housed in a hand screened green and blue, three panel cardstock sleeve, adorned with all manner of pagan and tribal imagery, quite striking!
(Psst... the artwork on the discs got swapped at the plant, so the disc marked DISC 1 actually contains the music from disc 2 and vice versa. Just the demon Mrtyu messing with our heads wethink!)
The last time we heard from Mrtyu, was a cd on Campbell Kneale's experimental metal label Battlecruiser. It was quite the heavy and noisy affair, a head on collision between Skullflower / Total style free skree and throbbing sludgy dirgey doom. And obviously we loved it. Only later did we discover that Mrtyu was none other than Mr. Antony Milton, infamous NZ noisenik and head honcho of the PseudoArcana cd-r label. This is the first full length from Milton and his Mrtyu, and if anything, the sound of Mrtyu has gotten more metal, or at the very least more HEAVY, but without sacrificing the drone element. The first track still channels a bit of Sunroof!, a bit of Angus Maclise, a lush shimmering drone, with peals of feedback and throbbing smears of downtuned guitar, all tangled into a gorgeously static thrum. The second track though finds Mrtyu cloaked in black and playing a much blacker music than before, crumbling, ultra distorted guitars, so down tuned and blown out it sounds like some sort of tectonic event, the guitars form the framework for a truly oppressive atmosphere, a swirl of black clouds and Butthole Surfers-esque feedback, while atop it all, a demonic voice intones and howls and squeals like a rusted hinge. Think Khanate meets Abruptum, but filtered through than NZ noize aesthetic. The rest of the disc is follows a similar path, a howling hellish musical journey through the fires of hell, trudging across pits of black pitch, being dragged bloody and screaming through dark demon infested forests. So harsh and beautifully bilious, drones become dirges, dirges become drones, everything cloaked in black and swathed in buzz.
Latest bit of obscure musical alchemism from the mysterious cave dwelling horde known simply as Mrtyu, but around here, also known as Antony Milton, head honcho of the Pseudo Arcana label, and the man behind numerous musical endeavors we dig BIG time: Street, Nether Dawn, Claypipe, With Throats As Fine As Needles, The Stumps, we could go on and on...
Mrtyu was always Milton's outlet for his darker side, a sort of blackened drone metal behemoth, never full committing the the black buzz, always sort of skirting the grim true BM sound, taking elements of that sound and fusing it to his more abstract, folky dronemusic, the results invariably kick ass. On this latest slab, the Mrtyu sound is markedly different, for all the noise and skree and buzz and general heaviness, it's also probably the prettiest Mrtyu yet. As if the ever raging battle between his folkier dronier 'good' side and his buzzier sludgier 'bad' side, has finally tipped to the side of good. But not too good, fear not.
Unlike some of the more grim noise drenched rituals of the past, the first side could almost be one of Milton's other projects. Sure there's plenty of guitar skree, sheets of feedback, and dense layers of soft chaos, but beneath it all lurk gorgeous lilting melodies, each avalanche of crumbling distortion can barely disguise the weirdly pretty, woozy, spidery, dreamy melodies within. Swirled smears of muted buzz wrap around delicate jangle and simple strum, dense cacophonous walls of sound tumble beneath crystalline chordal streaks.
It's not until the B side that things get seriously heavy. A gorgeous little Middle Eastern sounding tangle of melodies drifts over a soft layer of muted feedback, the strings sawed intensely, then suddenly, a buzzy blown out riff comes in, locked and looped, a mesmerizing lurching groove beneath the ever intensifying tangle of melodies, a twisted metallic Easter drone raga (or something) that could have taken up the whole record and we would have been psyched. Thankfully it takes up half of the second side.
The record finishes off with more abstract blackened folkiness, vocals enter the fray, a weird effected mewl, over rumbling distortion and shards of feedback, more squiggly little melodies, and some warm almost tranquil sounding guitar shimmer underneath.
Perhaps not so much for the weirdo metal obsessives anymore, this Mrtyu record will probably find a home with the more avant folk / abstract drone / free noise freaks, although truly adventurous metalheads should definitely not be dissuaded.
LIMITED TO 350 COPIES. Pressed on 180 gram vinyl. Housed in hand screened linen paper sleeves. NICE!
Mrtyu is Antony Milton's musical Mr. Hyde, allowing him to weave blackened musickal rituals, and strange downtuned noise drenched dronedoom when he's not creating gorgeous soundscapes, crafting jangly pop, or keeping the underground alive with his PseudoArcana label. Ritual Terra Continuii is not as doomy as some of the other Mrtyu releases, but it's still plenty dark and scary. Disembodied vocals drift amidst slithering low end riffing, bells and chimes drift on thick swells of squealing feedback, everything a glorious murky lo-fi crawl. Dripping with distortion, a lurching lope through some damaged wasteland of sound. Crumbling walls of guitar buzz, bent strings, minor key melodies, simple music box percussion, and that voice, like Whitehouse being broadcast through a tin can and twine, barely audible through the sheets of gloom and mire. So good.
Killer blood splattered hand painted tape in a cryptic black and white sleeve, with a black and white insert, and a folded up short story printed on super nice textured paper. LIMITED TO 120 COPIES!!!
Finally, a new release from Campbell Kneale's (Birchville Cat Motel) 'metal' label Battlecruiser. This time from the cryptically named Mrtyu. And upon first listen, not all that metal. Not to say that it's not good, it is. Really good. It just sounds like it might have been just at home on Kneale's more drift / drone / freenoise oriented label Celebrate Psi Phenomenon. Sheets of shimmering feedback drift over crumbly rumbling super distorted guitar background noise. Very static and raga-like, quite reminiscent of Total or Skullflower. But then track two hits and we understand why this is a Battlecruiser release. A lo-fi doom dirge, with jagged brittle guitars, distorted vocals (not howls or shrieks, but like indie crooning, all 'distorted' up). A brief blast of Melvins-y sludge but with the high end pushed into the red. Almost like a indie pop song, but deconstructed and dipped in stoner sludge. Cool. And SUPER LIMITED. We only got 15 and will not be able to get more.
An amazing release in this new series from the always kick ass Honest Jon's label. An offshoot of the equally amazing London Is The Place For Me series (which we've yet to review, but we're working on it!), Gwigwi Mrwebi is a sax player from Johannesburg, who moved to London in 1960 to appear in the musical King Kong (!) and who back in South Africa had recorded with Hugh Masekela among other jazz luminaries. We've been listening to this for months and months and are only now finally getting it reviewed and listed!
Mbaqabga Songs is a reissue of an impossible to find lp, and is totally delightful, groovy, jazzy, danceable, playful, rambunctious, a bit boppy, super happy and most certainly sets the toes a tapping. While this definitely has some African elements and will appeal to fans of all things Ethiopiques and Zanzibara, it's much more of a straight jazz record, performed in the Kwela style popular in Africa at the time, a happy, lilting, jazzy bounce with a definite fifties big band vibe (we even hear some rocksteady in there too), the melodies exuberant, the playing smooth and crisp, just so fun with a totally carefree vibe. It's easy to imagine a warm summer evening, the sun setting on an outdoor dancefloor, strung with multi colored lights, Mrwebi and his band playing on late into the night, everyone dancing and drinking and celebrating life. So great!
Beautifully packaged in a 8 panel digipak, packed super extensive liner notes from Steve Beresford.
Another fantastic soundtrack from UK vinyl reissue label Death Waltz, this one the the never before released score to director Abel Ferrara's infamous exploitation classic Ms. 45, one of many rape/revenge 'slasher' flicks, this one particularly heinous, featuring a woman who is raped, only to return home in tears, where she is raped AGAIN by a burglar. Which of course sends her on a rampage of murder and revenge, culminating in the iconic finale, where she dresses as a nun to attend a Christmas party (hence the striking nun cover art). It's a seriously intense film, loathed and loved in equal measure, and the soundtrack, by longtime Ferraro composer Joe Delia is also quite intense, the music sonically depicting the main character's transformation, the before and after. Lots of tense, moody, minimal, atonal piano music, the playing aggressive, the keys pounded, wreathed in swirls of Moog synth, giving it a darkly psychedelic vibe, a little bit harrowing, and haunting, and very very tense. The A side culminating in one might be the most intense moment here, a noisy, blown out buzzscape, that ominous tension ratcheted way up, swirling fuzzed out synths, piano pound, disembodied voices, seriously chilling. The post transition is even stranger in a way, sort of seventies NY funky, disco drums, wild funk bass, wailing sax, it's more sexy and smokey, slithery and seedy, like some wild jazzy disco-funk, that removed from the film, is super cool, but when coupled with the movie's ultra-violence, makes for something truly strange indeed.
Needless to say, like all Death Waltz releases, the packaging is OVER THE TOP. The vinyl is super heavy, milky clear in color, housed in an impossibly thick, full color gatefold sleeve, new cover art, that art also recreated on a massive fold out full color poster, inside the gatefold, a booklet, with tons of photos, reproductions of the original movie posters, along with new liner notes from composer Joe Delia, and as always, Death Waltz records have a way of disappearing super quick, so grab one while you can...
Coming from the cross-pollinating community of Bavarian post-rock and electronica hybrids, Ms. John Soda is actually a duo comprised of Micha Acher (of Tied & Tickled Trio, Village of Savoonga, and the Notwist, often times working with his brother Markus) and Stephanie Boehm. Both worked together six or seven years back as Couch, a data-pop / post-rock ensemble with not a thing in common with the Michigan scum-rock band by the same name. Their reunion as Ms. John Soda for their first album "No P. Or D." doesn't stray far from the Morr label template of bittersweet ambient-pop; so we give a word of caution to fans of Village of Savoonga's angular darkness, which you won't find in any Morr productions. Boehm's simple if slightly detached vocals wistfully float through each song not unlike those of Laetetia Sadier on early Stereolab albums like "Peng." Barring their Neu! references, those early Stereolab albums make for an adequate parallel to Ms. John Soda in their mutual applications of retro fetishism, effortless indie-pop grooviness through jangliness, and an unassuming intelligence (which Stereolab has lost as of late). It's almost as good as the Notwist's "Neon Golden," which has grown to be one of the sleeper gems of 2002! Certainly worth checking out.
Ms John Soda make pretty pretty pop-tronica, the kind that very much defines the Morr Music label. With their droll yet airy female vocals, chiming electronic effervescence and occasional counterweight of electric guitar, this German duo are very very akin to their dreamy Morr labelmates LaliPuna, if perhaps a little bit more insistent. Heck, the striking resemblance is really not all that surprising since each group has an Acher brother in its lineup (fyi: Micha and Markus Acher are also prominent members of The Notwist, Village Of Savoonga, Tied & Tickled Trio, 13 & God, among others). Also very much for fans of Broadcast or Postal Service.
Ms. John Soda's previous album No P. Or D. was a great complementary record to the the likes of Notwist's Neon Golden, the Postal Service's Give Up, and Broadcast's Ha Ha Sound, as this Bavarian duo of Stefanie Boehm and Micha Acher (who also plays in the Notwist) successfully recreated much of the same wistful indie-pop sensibility of those other bands while adding their distinct signature of retro chic mired in technologically advanced programming. This new While Talking EP moves a bit away from that pop sensibility, at first picking up more of an avant-rock groove by adapting their sound to incorporate the jagged guitar riffs of Blonde Redhead or Sonic Youth around their Fake Can Be Just As Good or Goo albums, respectively. Elsewhere the songs begin to fragment into pretty electronica splatters smoothed over by Boehm's voice. 5 tracks, 27 minutes.
First solo record from Ms. Toi, the girl we all loved from that Ice Cube record ('put your back into it, put your ass into it') that seemed to play every five minutes a year or so back. We were kind of hoping M. Toi would follow the same trajectory as Amil,
Courtesy of Mr Campbell Kneale and his impressive Celebrate Psi Phenomena label comes the latest snarling beast of a record from Japan's MSBR. One thirty minute track of NOISENOISENOISE. Harsh electronic wall of sound. Sharp and severe, thick and impenetrable. MSBR fans and Merbowmaniacs might want to check this out. Gorgeously packaged as are all of CPP's limited cd-rs.
This one's a doozy, one to add to the WHAT THE FUCK section of your collection (you do have one of those don't you?), you know, Fastest, Steven Schultz, Rodd Keith, heck we might even include Ween and the Frogs and other twisted practitioners of their own peculiar sonic songcraft, and now you can add MSG to that group. (Not to be confused with the -other- MSG, the Michael Schenker Group, by the way.) It might be good to listen to the samples first, odds are you'll have one of two reactions, both of which were experienced by listeners at aQ, one was like 'what the fuck is this, for god's sake please take it off', while the other was 'what the fuck is this? This is totally fucking nuts and I love it', which is where most of us ended up.
It's hard to tell from the liner notes if these songs were actually recorded by a child, but we're thinking it was recorded by an adult, channeling his inner child. As the liner notes describe, and the title alludes too, these songs were born of a bored mind, trapped in a gated community, obsessed with MTV, heavy metal, hip hop, BMX bikes, candy, cars with boomin' systems, the man (boy) behind MSG inheriting a shitty keyboard after his grandma died, and creating songs that somehow combined all of his (above mentioned) loves at the time, set to what sounds alternatingly like lo-fi Kraftwerky robotic electro pop and DIY hip hop, imagine dorky sing songy melodies, shitty programmed Casio beats, and vocals delivered in various 'voices', from falsetto croons to faux robot voices, and some amazingly painful rapping.
"Liquid Titanium" is total sci-fi robo-funk, with stiff programmed grooves and sci-fi synths, not to mention some rad robo-vox, while "Boom Boom Boom" is super lo-fi pop electro-pop, with an infuriatingly catchy chorus, "Calculator Machine" might be our favorite though, some fuzzy squelchy synth-wave, with pounding drums, snake charmer synth melodies, more robo-vox and some anguished monstrous bellows, not to mention some hilarious lyrics. And of course there's the sort of cock rock anthem / public service announcement of "You Want To Party / Don't Do Drugs", replete with raspy arena rock star vox, but belted out over some dorky damaged synthesizer, and another cloyingly catchy chorus. Sure it's dumb, and goofy, but it's weird and pretty goddamn hilarious, and we end up finding ourselves listening to this way more than lots of other, less dumb things, which says a lot!
Includes a download coupon.
Brenna Murphy and Birch Cooper are two Portland-based multimedia artists who have collaborated over the past six or seven years in various guises, first being the Oregon Painting Society, which was a loose collective that also included Matt Carlson (of Golden Retriever and Bonus) and Barbara Kinzle (of The Slaves with Birch Cooper). MSHR (pronounced 'mesher') has been the main project for Murphy and Cooper for a couple of years now, with the duo garnering installations and performances at such high profile venues as the Yerba Buena Center For The Arts in San Francisco and the Transmediale Festival in Berlin. Murphy's sculptural elements appear as some weird hybrid of Thai architecture and sci-fi futurism affixed to a latticework of mirrored surfaces and backlit illumination; and Cooper's hand-built electronics are often interwoven into the sculptural elements, activated in part by motion and light sensors. Their performances can appear to be a kaleidoscopic / libertine explosion of circuit bent squiggliness and saw-tooth wave acceleration, that has its sonic aesthetics which bridge the gap between Nautical Almanac's day-glo / haywired electro-blurt and Francoise Bayle's pioneering freeform sampledelic research at INA-GRM. Limited to 100 copies, and it is extremely unlikely that we will be able to get more once these are gone.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
On his latest musical excursion (which took us a while to get back in stock after it first appeared a couple months ago!), Microphones mainman Phil Elverum orchestrates the Mt. Eerie Singers. If that name sounds familiar, you might recall that Mount Eerie was the title of his last Microphones studio album released back in 2003. Elverum has gathered together an album's worth of his off the cuff impromptu (?) recordings from the past five years. He's the lead vocalist and he's joined by an ever-changing chorus of singers. It's a downright homespun folksy singalong from start to finish.
Note: on the back of the lp sleeve, there's a note that says this lp includes a bonus cd version which due to a superior mastering job has clearer sound quality than that of the vinyl (the cd is the format from which we nabbed the audio clips). So... I guess that means all of you vinyl lovin' Elverum fans will just have to suffer through a little murkiness. Mind you Elverum's recordings have never been the most crisp, clear productions, so maybe you'll find it to be somewhat negligible. Personally we didn't notice much difference.
Record number three from Travis Graves aka Mt. Egypt, and we now find ourselves wondering how we never heard, or heard of, Mt. Egypt before now? Apparently he's toured with Band Of Horses, Cat Power, The Flaming Lips, hell, even Willie Nelson. And as we mentioned above, this is his THIRD record. We're definitely kicking ourselves for only just catching on, but we're doing our best to make up for lost time, listening to this like crazy...
The music of Mt Egypt is a darkly delicate, introspective folk, simple and spare, warm and languid, a hazy sun dappled back porch summer afternoon sound, ethereal steel string guitar shimmer, wrapped in warm tendrils of muted melody, all with a subtly psychedelic cast. The sound is mostly acoustic guitar and vocals, but really nothing else is needed. It's all about the songs, and the voice. The songs themselves are practically perfect, sparse and spacious and stripped down, delicate and hushed, mysteriously and subtly catchy, the hooks are there, but they're hazy and indistinct, and hover in the background, the catchiness an afterthought to the mood, and the emotions, a gentle classic poppiness that informs Mt Egypt's skeletal country folk, and Graves' voice is the perfect match, plaintive and keening, slipping from a weary whisper to a mournful croon, somewhere between Neil Young and Songs:Ohia's Jason Molina. Grave's vocals occasionally woven into angelic harmonies, draped over elegiac stretches of minimal strum and drift. Broken hearted, twang flecked introspective folk, that is simply lovely. And is most definitely recommended for fans of Palace Brothers / Will Oldham, Fleet Foxes, Band Of Horses, Iron & Wine, Mount Eerie, Songs:Ohia, Rocky Votolato, Vetiver, Bon Iver and other similarly dark and introspective folk...
LIMITED TO JUST 100 COPIES!!!!
In less skilled hands the plethora of incredibly diverse styles, source material and directions that come into play on Bilious Paths might've resulted in a total jumbled mess, but fortunately this is not the case at all, for this is a Mu-Ziq album. Under the skilled hand of Mike Paradinas, sonic order and disorder coexist like the best of buddies. Chopped up and assembled meticulously, the flying chunks of farting digital blurts, hard gutteral bass lines, and drum'n'bass-jungle-ragga-gabber-techno beat fragments frolic, engage and disengage at whim. Nothing new or terribly groundbreaking, but we've got Knifehandchop and Hellfish and Venetian Snares to annoy and brutalise us now (in a good way of course). All we need from Mu-ziq is more of the same good stuff.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
If a record could laugh it might sound like this long lost µ-Ziq album on Aphex Twin's label. Musical horsing around, much like his Clear full-length (released under the moniker Jake Slazenger). Very accessible, full of layered sonic elements, like epic difficult dance music for the too-easily bored.
First proper full length in nearly 5 years from Planet Mu label head honcho Mike Paradinas, aka Mu-Ziq, and the first Mu-Ziq record we've reviewed in over a decade! So what's changed since we last heard from Paradinas? Quite a bit it seems, at least based on the last record we heard, 2003's Bilious Paths, at which point he still trafficked in a strain of genre hopping short attention span ADD-core, his modus operandi all splattery splice and dice drill and bass, but with the remarkable ability to weave millions of little blurts and squelches into something both melodic and weirdly catchy, densely rhythmic and furiously frantic.
But on Chewed Corners, it seems Paradinas may have mellowed a bit, which is not entirely a bad thing, and we're definitely digging this new sort of sprawling, rhythmic, atmospheric, almost cinematic sound. Check out the opener "Taikon", which starts off with a wistful little melody, before in swoops a crunk-ish beat electro beat, and some thick almost dubstep bass buzz, woozy and moody, shadowy synths, al shimmery and minor key. And while the beat does splinter and get a bit skittery, the rest of the sounds get sorta cosmic and spacey, sounding a bit like some eighties style Goblin-y synth score, swirling processed voices drifting over the top, all tangled up with bass buzzing skitter. Which is pretty much how all of Chewed Corners plays out, very cinematic and synthy, sweeping and epic in places, "Christ Dust" is a plodding synthy dirge, epic and dramatic, Paradinas tweaking it by adding weird ominous low end pulsations, as well as some prismatic chordal swirls, but otherwise it remains moody and atmospheric. "Wipe" does get a bit more stuttery and manic, but eventually remains tethered by some sinewy bass synth and cool cheesy eighties drum bombast, all wound around some swirly John Carpenter synths. And speaking of Carpenter, some of the tracks get downright creepy, check out "Monyth" with its looped minor key melody, that sounds very Halloween-like, but here it's beneath layers of moaning drones and prismatic synth shimmer, not to mention some cool rhythmic skitter, and so it goes, a pretty fantastic collection of epic sountracky electro synthscapes, textured and atmospheric, darkly rhythmic, a little psychedelic and kosmische as well, all of which should for sure hit the spot for the current crop of cinematic synth nerds without pandering to the flavor of the month, and most likely won't disappoint fans of the old Mu-Ziq. We dig!
Mike P.'s two import-only drum&bass 12-inch records on one cd.
True to its title, Mucca Pazza's new album is a kitschy kaleidoscopic listen of, yes, marching band styled escapades that tumble out of your speakers with a swooning bump'n'grind exotica flair. Lots of brassy horn, accordion and percussion stimulation! We know it's a totally different thing, but if you loved the recently released Daisies soundtrack or Balkan gypsy music inspired groups such as Beirut or A Hawk And A Hacksaw, we'd highly recommend Mucca Pazza too! An ultra fun album that'll put a gleeful smile on any grumpy face.
We first heard the oddly named Mudboy on Last Visible Dog's recent mammoth six-cd Invisible Pyramid: Elegy Box. Curiousity thus piqued, we're pleased to now find a Mudboy full-length cd has now also just been released by LVD (actually, this is a reissue of a recording previously put out by an even smaller label). This Rhode Island feller's woozy music, performed with home-built electronics and modified vintage keyboards (a circuit-bent church organ we're told), would be the perfect soundtrack to a creepy, sleepy sort of imaginary movie... this cd's full of ominous drones and sinister synth but it's also soothingly repetitive and goshdarn lovely. Whooshing interludes bridge the spaced out explorations of minor-key organ melodies that permeate the disc, occasionally infiltrated by field recordings and broken rhythmic glitch. It's an atmosphere of menace that's strangely warm and inviting. If Bo Hansson's ghost made Halloween music, or down on his luck Eric Malmberg (keyboardist of Sagor & Swing) was hired to play a lullabies for a monster baby...they'd sound a bit like Mudboy, perhaps. And if "this is folk music", then Cluster and John Carpenter are folk music too, 'cause Mudboy seems to be inspired by both kraut-tronics and analog fright flick scores. And we're ready to snuggle up with that monster baby...
Kinda Don Cabish, (mostly) instrumental math-rock from Japan, jazzy and intricate. Tzadik would like us to think this trio sounds like This Heat and Massacre but it's just nowhere near that intense. Pleasant enough, but maybe a bit too tame.
Killer collection of demos and outtakes from arguably THEE only grunge band that mattered (Nirvana who?), sure we love Tad and Soundgarden and all the rest, but Mudhoney are one of the few bands who always ruled and somehow STILL rule, swaggery and heavy, and punky and bad ass with some of the catchiest songs EVER.
Head On The Curb goes way back, to when original bassist Matt Lukin was still in the band, a bunch of tracks that would mostly go on to make up Piece Of Cake, although a few jams here went on to be B sides, or never went on at all, which is enough to make this worthwhile. Besides the fact, that this is Mudhoney at their fiercest and heaviest, the sound varies, but for the most part, this is super distorted, ultra heavy, raw and urgent, caustic and chaotic, that Mudhoney sound you know and love, just a bit less polished, the guitars muddy and murky, everything fuzzy and blown our, Mark Arm's yowl in fine form, there's an acoustic jam, a super obscure cover, but for the most part this is prime vintage Mudhoney.
Absolutely essential for fans, newbies might want to try Superfuzz Bigmuff first, but then again, what the hell, if these jams, in all their raw unpolished glory, don't convince you of Mudhoney's rulingness, then hell, nothing will.
Pressed on super thick vinyl, and housed in heavy old school black and white jackets.
Hey Mudhoney fans! Here's 21 of the best from Mark Arm and co. Kicking it all off with the kick ass title track, and continuing on with their raunchy blues-infused rockers: "Touch Me I'm Sick", "This Gift", "You Got It", and "Hate The Police". Awesome. Culled from various sessions of the John Peel show (1989) and Evening Session (1995) as well as live recordings from the Reading Festival '95. Just hearing Mark Arm's trademark howl, sends a warm, fuzzy, nostalgic chill down my spine.
A brief little blast of incendiary grunge godhead from AQ faves Mudhoney. We raved about their recent full length, Under A Billion Suns, and this here is a single from that disc. The totally killer "It Is Us" is the A side, but the B side is worth $4 all by its lonesome. Hard to believe they chose to leave "Dig Those Trenches" off the album. Quite possibly the best Mudhoney track in forever. Murky swampy bluesy scuzzrock stomp, an absolutely monster riff and the best Mark Arm vocals in years, his whiskey soaked yelp/growl is on fire here. It almost sounds like vintage Green River which is a VERY good thing. There's even a cool creepy sixties spy thriller horn section that gets snuck in here and there. Awesome!
Yo old school grunge fans! Seattle's finest, Mudhoney, have gone and recorded a special, vinyl-only, limited edition live treat. Classics like "Touch Me I'm Sick" and "Hate The Police" performed at a show in Mexico City, 2005. It's limited to just 500 copies -- and we managed to acquire only five of 'em. So act fast. Includes coupon for free digital download of all the tracks, so even the turntable impaired can still enjoy the tunes.
In looking at the two publicity photos which mark the beginning and end of the timeframe of this collection (their singles and rarities from 1988 to the present), you'd never think the photos were of the same band! Bad-ass smug heroin rockers in the first, giggly indie awkwardness in the latest. Don't get us wrong, Mudhoney is good people, and a great band. Doubters need only to pick up this anthology to be set straight. 52 tracks, a decade of rock n' roll genius from the old classics (i.e. "Touch Me I'm Sick", "Hate The Police") to obscure b-sides. One disc is the "best of", the other all rarities. Recommended.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Hat's off to the Mudhoney team for their fucking ass-kickin' cover art. It features super cool, retro, swirling multilayered transparencies. The album title is a bit perplexing though. It sounds more new wave or electronic than grungy rock'n'roll. Nevertheless music-wise, the men are definitely aging gracefully with the knowledge that sometimes it's just best to keep doing what you do best. No need to "keep up with the trends" or "update your sound". Nope, they're keeping it raw and true to the Mudhoney name - in business since 1988. That means high quality, raunchy, blues rock complete with that unmistakable Mark Arm howl. The only notable difference is an even more pronounced emphasis on the drone-y side of things, making that classic Mudhoney sound even more hypnotic and almost Krautrock-like. Almost. Cool.
This is another one of those records that is almost beyond reviewing. A record that if we found out someone we knew didn't own it, we would simply insist they buy it immediately. No questions asked. Of questions were asked, we would respond with something like "Because it's awesome!" or "It's one of the best collections of songs EVER" or more likely "JUST BUY IT! IT RULES!".
But since that doesn't work on everyone, we'll do our best to describe what is one of our favorite records EVER, and arguably the best Mudhoney release EVER. Partially because it's not a proper album, but rather a collection of single tracks. Pretty much every one a perfect chunk of slithery filthy grungy punk rock genius.
When we first discovered Mudhoney, it was because we were super obsessed with Green River, the band that vocalist/guitarist Mark Arm and guitarist Steve Turner called home before Mudhoney. Both quitting as that band leaned more and more toward glam rock and late eighties Sunset Strip rock. But to our ears, Mudhoney didn't sound all that different from Green River. Maybe a little punkier, definitely less bluesy, but from the second we first heard Mudhoney, we were in punk rock love.
A lot of it has to do with Arm's raspy croon, so raw and primal, but managing to be super melodic and versatile. He's a bit like a mop topped grunge rock Iggy Pop, wiry and writhing while spitting out insane punk rock bon mots, wailing away on his axe, bouncing maniacally around the stage. His voice is definitely the defining feature of Mudhoney, but that wouldn't mean shit if the songs weren't amazing, and they are. Punk as fuck, but way poppy, hooks galore, but all wound up in super tight riffs, wiry melodies and wild drumming, the band careening wildly one second, pounding away through some doomy dirge the next.
No amount of flowery description, no review, no matter how well written, can possibly compare to just hearing this stuff. We're so jealous of anyone who gets to hear "Touch Me I'm Sick" for the first time, or their cover of the Dicks' "Hate The Police", or the slithery "Sweet Young Thing Ain't Sweet No More". When we first heard these songs, our minds were BLOWN. Literally, we had no idea what the heck we were hearing. Punk rock. Grunge. Pop. But it was more than that. The energy, the spirit, the groove, the vibe, and holy shit THE SONGS. So with all of that to chew on, I think we're finally at a stage where we can unleash the "JUST BUY IT. IT TOTALLY RULES!!"
We get a little bummed out on reissues sometimes, thinking we have to buy a record all over again, for maybe a few extra tracks, or a dvd, or whatever, but then you have to realize, stuff like this is not necessarily for fans who already have the record, but for folks who might have somehow missed out, many of whom were maybe not even alive, or still toddlers when it first came out. So for you folks, this is absolutely a must have. Whether you're a metalhead, an emo kid, a punk rocker. Mudhoney are one of the few bands whose appeal transcends genre, and rightfully so.
For those of us who already have one or more copies of Superfuzz Bigmuff, well, the new version has three demo tracks, as well as an entire disc of live tracks, one live show, one live on the radio, new fancy pants packaging, deluxe six panel digipak, housed in a slipcase, huge booklet with tons of photos, liner notes, all the original single covers, so yeah, we're all gonna buy one, you might as well too, replace the old worn disc with this new remastered version, support a bunch of cool dudes who are still making kick ass records (in fact, a new one to be reviewed here real soon). But really, all that extra stuff is just icing, on a cake that already tastes better than any other sonic confection we can think of...
