First release from Drag City sublabel�Yaala Yaala,�a new Sublime Frequencies style series of West African musics culled from field recordings, found sounds and tapes purchased at flea markets. And much like Sublime Frequencies, these mostly low fidelity recordings are allowed to remain mysterious, no liner notes, very little information about the artists, just a brief bit of text, mostly about the discovery of the music itself, and one can only assume, no system in place for providing the artists with royalties. A sticky situation for sure, one we can only hope the label will eventually address and make right. In the meantime though, these recordings are so fantastic. Raw and intense, gritty and gorgeous.�
Yoro Diallo is from Mali and is a well known singer and here is paired up with Pekos, who plays a guitar-like lute, an instrument whose sound is absolutely mindblowing, a fierce buzzing rhythmic riffing, crunchy and heavy, warm and resonant and so so powerful. Strummed and struck, picked and rubbed, weaving a totally hypnotic groove, on the first track it takes the form of a raw blues jam, the melody looped and repeated mantra like while Diallo, wails over the top, his voice deep and intense, as powerful and raw as the music beneath it. The two trade verses, Pekos offering up a never ending patter, almost scatting, while Diallo swoops in every few measures and destroys, his delivery a super intense almost toasting. The first track has been stuck in the cd player on repeat since we first got this in. All the intensity and emotion of Konono No.1 and the same sort of festive vibe, as well as the same song structure, a looped cyclical jam that could go on forever and ever and oh how we wish it would. The second track is like a slowed down back porch version of the first. The strings weaving a loping laid back backdrop, with simple percussion, and the same vocal interplay, Pekos more subdued, Diallo a gorgeous intense roar.�
Besides the first track, the other highlight is probably the track, a sprawling midtempo jam, way in the background, simple metallic rhythms and softly strummed guitars, while over the top, another guitar is pounded in and out of tune, warbling drunkenly, intertwined with the vocals, eventually dropping most of the melody and becoming another percussion instrument, emitting occasional squalls of tangled melody before returning to its motorik pulse, until eventually evolving into an almost James Brown like detuned funk jam, with the crowd watching going wild. So intense and emotional. One of our favorite 'new' recordings, we can hardly wait for the rest of the series...
Attention, all worshippers of WITCHCRAFT!! What we have here is the next best thing to new music from that more '70s than thou band of Swedish heavy prog downer doomsters, and huge AQ faves. It's the debut solo recording from Witchcraft frontman Magnus Pelander, a four song, 21 minute ep. If you're a real Witchcraft fan, you'll want this. Since Magnus is the prime mover in Witchcraft, and this highlights his distinctive, mellifluous voice as well as guitar playing and songwriting talents, it's one of those "solo" projects that doesn't sound too different from the main band.... except it's mostly acoustic! A few years back, one time when Witchcraft were playing in San Francisco, Magnus told us he had plans to team up with a friend of his back home, who's also his guitar teacher, to do an acoustic album. We'd been eagerly waiting ever since, and it seems that their project has finally borne fruit. Magnus plays 6 string acoustic guitar, electric as well, plus drums and percussion. And of course sings. Meanwhile, his friend Mike (first name only given here, he's shy or something) plays 6 and 12 steel string acoustic guitars, plus piano, bass, percussion, and handles the string arrangements.
AQ's Allan, actually, was lucky enough to get to see the duo's first ever performance, this year at the Roadburn festival in Holland. For him, it was definitely a highlight of the fest, though Magnus and Mike were frustrated by some technical difficulties during their set. Still, they rose to the occasion and delivered some of the most "musical" moments of the whole Roadburn experience. Let's put it this way: Magnus is no slouch on guitar, but this guy Mike was really phenomenal!
The glorious, intricate interplay of guitars Allan heard there is fully on display here, as is the manner in which Magnus bears his heart vocally and lyrically, these songs so personal and emotive, like a lot of the most moving Witchcraft tunes. Some of this has got that sad Sabbath "Solitude" vibe, though the ep starts out on the brighter side with "A Sinner's Child", featuring melodious whistling, and lovely female backing ah-ah-ah's, but also lyrics like "I am a sinner's child / you better wait a while / before you take my hand / can you see Satan smile?" keeping it well within the realm of something dark and occultic that Witchcraft themselves might do. "Hope", which begins just with voice and piano, getting even more intimate in feel than the first track, soon turns into even more of a showcase for this duo's impressive 6 and 12 string chops. They rip... acoustically. Track 3, "You Have Got No Friends To Turn To" is by far the heaviest offering here, Magnus busting out the electric guitar for some plodding riff stomp and amped-up psychedelic soloing, though the track is still adorned with plenty of acoustic filigree and hand percussion. Certainly another one that wouldn't be out of place on a Witchcraft album.
The last, and longest, track, "Stardust", is an achingly beautiful and melancholic ballad, Magus's singing starting off hushed, the strumming almost sacred, a string section gradually building up in the background, piano notes intertwined with the guitar lines, it gets pretty progged out and epic! Allan definitely remembers this one from Roadburn, even in the stripped down way they played it there.
This record recalls at moments the likes of Comus and Six Organs and Aztec Two-Step and even, unintentionally but awesomely, Tenacious D, just a teeny bit. Fellow Swedes Dungen and Bjorn Olsson would be other references. And while in our experience, most people into the whole current indie acid folk scene already do dig Witchcraft, those who haven't heard 'em might find this to be a particularly lush, gorgeous, somewhat mellowed out entree.
LIMITED IMPORT RELEASE, cd version limited to 500 copies. We have black vinyl, with nice thick sleeves.
For an instrumental metallic post rock combo, made up of pretty ordinary looking dudes, Pelican seem, at least compared to their peers, to spend a lot of time being filmed for dvds. Okay that may be a bit of an exaggeration, this is probably dvd number three, but three feels like a lot. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but visually, 4 dudes in jeans is not necessarily fodder for riveting visuals. With Pelican, and most bands, it has much to do with the energy of being there, the sweat and the blood, the physicality of the sound, the deafening volume. Seeing it on the screen isn't always the same. That said, we find ourselves digging Pelican live on dvd. A lot. Much of it has to do with the music, and Pelican just keep getting better, more expansive, more epic, and way less metal. Which in this case is a very good thing. Their vibe continues to draw heavily from nineties mathrock, the soaring melodies, the churning riffage, the complex arrangements, they're like Godspeed, if they released records on Touch And Go. And while their sound references much of what came before, it helps them standout from the way too crowded field of Neur-Isis clones.
So what you have here is a live set from London in 2005, as well as various performances from various locations over the last 3 or 4 years as well as various interview segments and a 'music video'. The London show looks and sounds the best, obviously it was meant to be recorded, and it's a scorcher, the sound thick and heavy, the band rocking out wildly, limbs flailing, head banging, the crowd bouncing and weaving, The songs sound as good as ever. And again, they sound less like a band that spends its time playing metal fests, and more like a band you'd see in some packed sweaty little rock club, who already sound like they should be playing somewhere bigger. They do plenty of favorites, but it's good to see them played live, given new life, and it's interesting to see the songs actually played. A whole different vibe than on headphones.
The other live stuff is good, but the sound varies wildly, as does the lighting, but it's all pretty cool. And the interview footage will convince you of what we already know from numerous Pelican visits to aQ, that besides being a pretty bad ass band, they're some of the nicest guys ever.
Also included is the video for "Autumn Into Summer", the song itself, dreamy and mathy and post rocky, only really getting slightly metal near the middle with some soaring guitar harmonies and double kick, but the video is awesome, animated, and haunting, intercut with home movies, and strange super 8 footage. In addition to that stuff, there's also a photo gallery with tons of photos from various shows and tours.
But even if you're not one for dvds, there's still a reason to pick this up. Included with the dvd is a 3" cd that contains both tracks from the recent super limited Pink Mammoth 10". The first is the title track, epic and majestic and major key, the guitars thick, a throaty roar, the drums simple and massive, heavy but pretty, a definite Jesu vibe for sure, the track occasionally blissing out into stretches of mathy nineties style indie rock, albeit way heavier and way radder. At moments things also veer into Fucking Champs territory, but for the most part we hear some gloriously bastardized and metallized version of Polvo or Pitchblende. The track ends with a super shimmery outro/coda, all swoopy and soft focus, super spare drumming, spacy FX and weird far away production... yet another argument for these guys being one of the finest purveyors of metallic post rock going. The second is a reworked and remixed blend of another couple old Pelican songs, courtesy of Mr. Prefuse 73. A fuzzy expanse of glitchy acoustic guitars, sounding like Oval mixing some super minimal folky prog track, a laid back dreamy electronic folk, that eventually builds until an almost funky rhythm kicks in, simple handclaps laid over glistening harmonics and lilting minor key guitars, more and more fuzzed out as it progresses, a blown out sheen not unlike everything was dipped in a pixelated Fennesz style gritty guitar wash.
The third track though is brand new, or at least previously unreleased as far as we know. It's another version of "Pink Mammoth", but this time Pelican is joined by the band These Arms Are Snakes, and while this version is quite similar to the original, it's much heavier, double drums, double everything, but also more blissy and washed out, with soaring vocals buried way down in the mix, the rhythm more loping, the sound way more blown out and in the red, but just as epic and dreamlike, if not more so.
As with all Hydra Head stuff, the packaging is amazing. Full color sleeve in a dvd case, thick matte paper full color oversized booklet, double disc holders, 3"cd mounted on top of the dvd, the whole thing housed in a matte slipcover, adorned with super complex blue on black amoeboid designs. Nice! ----* ----* In Stock, Not Yet Reviewed : ----* If you want to order one of these, just search for the item, then click on the buy button and it will be added to your cart! 3/3 "s/t" (P-Vine) 2cd 42.00 ACID MOTHER'S TEMPLE "Festival Vol. 5" (Acid Mother's Temple) dvd 21.00 AHMED, MAHMOUD "Ere Mele Mele" (L'arome Productions) lp 16.98 AHMED, MAHMOUD & EITHER / ORCHESTRA "Tsedenia Gebre-Marqos" (Buda Musique) dvd 14.98 AHOUSEN "s/t" (PSF) cd 22.00 AKIYAMA, TETUZI & JOZEF VAN WISSEM "Hymn For A Fallen Angel" (Incuna Bulum) cd 17.98 ALTER EGO "Why Not?!" (Klang Elektronik) cd 16.98 ANAAL NATHRAKH "Hell Is Empty, And All The Devils Are Here" (Feto) cd 14.98 ARCADE AMBIANCE "'83" (GDG) cd-r 12.98 ARCADE AMBIANCE "'86" (GDG) cd-r 12.98 ASTATKE, MULATU "Ethio Jazz" (L'arome Productions) lp 16.98 AXA HOUR OF DARA BLEU "Clones Of Eros" (Fire Museum) cd 13.98 AXELROD, DAVID "Live: Royal Festival Hall" (Mochilla Films) dvd 28.00 BACH, SEBASTIAN "Angel Down" (Get Off My Bach) cd 13.98 BACHDENKEL "Lemmings" (Ork) cd 17.98 BEHOLD THE ARCTOPUS "Skullgrid" (Metal Blade) cd 12.98 BETTER BEATLES, THE "Mercy Beat" (Hook or Crook) cd 11.98 BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL "Seventh Ruined Hex" (Important) cd 14.98 BLACK COBRA "Feather And Stone" (At A Loss) cd 13.98 BOSMANN, KARL "Eskalation" (You Don't Have To Call It Music) lp 38.00 BOX "Studio 1" (Rune Grammofon) cd 17.98 BOXCUTTER "Glyphic" (Planet Mu) cd 14.98 BOY DIRT CAR "Spoken Answer To A Silent Question" (Aftermusic) cd 14.98 BRIDGEWATER, DEE DEE "Red Earth: A Malian Journey" (DDB Records) cd 16.98 BROTZMANN, PETER / PAAL NILSSEN-LOVE / MATS GUSTAFSSON "The Fat Is Gone" (Smalltown Superjazz) cd 16.98 BRYARS, GAVIN "The Marvellous Aphorisms Of Gavin Bryars: The Early Years" (Mode) cd 16.98 CHERRY, DON "Tibet" (Piccadilly) lp 12.98 COPE, JULIAN "You Gotta Problem" (Head Heritage) 2cd 27.00 DAS EFX "The Very Best Of (Greatest Hits)" (elektra) cd 12.98 DOWN "III: Over The Under" (Down Records) cd 17.98 ESHETE, ALEMAYEHU "Ethiopian Urban Modern Music Vol. 2" (L'arome Productions) lp 16.98 ESKIBOY "The Best Of Tunnel Vision" (Baked Goods) 2cd 22.00 FAUST "Od Serca Do Duszy" (Lumberton Trading Company) cd 24.00 FENNESZ "Transition" (Touch) 7" 8.98 FERN KNIGHT "Music For Witches And Alchemists" (Eclipse) lp 21.00 FOLK SPECTRE, THE "The Blackest Medicine" (Wodsist) lp 14.98 FOOD "Molecular Gastronomy" (Rune Grammofon) cd 17.98 GAZHEART (RITA ACKERMAN / DAVE NUSS) "s/t" (Locust) lp 23.00 GENDAI SOKKYO "s/t" (PSF) cd 22.00 GHOST "Overture; Live In Nippon Yusen Soko 2006" (Drag City) cd + dvd 17.98 GRUDZIEN, PETER "The Unicorn" (Subliminal Sounds) 2lp 39.00 GRUPO AMIGOS "Paloma Mensajera" (Guerssen) cd 22.00 GRUPPO D'IMPROVVISAZIONE "Nuova Consonanza" (Cherry Red) cd 17.98 GUSTAFSSON, MATS / PAAL NILSSEN-LOVE "Splatter" (Smalltown Superjazz) cd 14.98 HABIBIYYA, THE "If Man But Knew" (Sunbeam) 2lp 34.00 HALF MAKESHIFT "Final" (Small Doses) cd-r 7.98 HAVOHEJ "Dethrone the Son of God" (Hells Headbangers) cd 13.98 HEXLOVE "Knew Abloom (Life's Hood)" (Holy Mountain) cd 13.98 HEY WILLPOWER "P.D.A." (Tomlab) cd 15.98 HIGUCHI, HISATO "Butterfly Horse Street" (Family Vineyard) cd 14.98 HUMAN BEAST "Volume One" (Sunbeam) lp 24.00 HUMAN INSTINCT "Stoned Guitar" (Rockadrome) cd 14.98 IDA "Lovers Prayers" (Polyvinyl) cd/2lp 14.98/16.98 INCAPACITANTS "Burning Orange" (Pica Disk) cd 14.98 IRISH COFFEE "s/t" (Set) cd 25.00 ISUNGSET, TERJE "Iceman Is" (All Ice) cd JACKIE-O MOTHERFUCKER "Valley Of Fire" (Textile) cd 15.98 KLIMEK "Dedications" (Anticipata) cd 15.98 LANG, K.D. "Watershed" (Nonesuch) cd 16.98 LOIUS XIV "Slick Dogs And Ponies" (Pineapple / Atlantic) cd 13.98 MACHINEFABRIEK "Bijeen" (Kning Disk) cd 14.98 MASHAYEKHI, ALIREZA & ATA EBTEKAR (SOTE) "Persian Electronic Music: Yesterday And Today (1966-2006)" (Sub Rosa) cd 16.98 METABOLISMUS "Snowy Meadows / Somnia" (The Social Registry) 7" 6.98 MONO "The Sky Remains The Same As Ever" (Temporary Residence Ltd.) dvd 17.98 MONSTER MAGNET "4-Way Diablo" (SPV) cd 16.98 MOULD, BOB "District Line" (Anti) cd 16.98 MURPHY BLEND "First Loss" (Kuckuck) cd 15.98 NEMETH "Film" (Thrill Jockey) cd 14.98 NERVE NET NOISE "Dark Garden" (Intransitive) cd 14.98 OCEAN, THE "Precambrian" (Metal Blade) cd 14.98 ONNA "Katawa" (PSF) cd 22.00 OPETH "The Roundhouse Tapes" (Peaceville) 2cd 16.98 OSCILLATION, THE "Out Of Phase" (DC Recordings) cd 25.00 PARTON, DOLLY "Mission Chapel Memories: 1971-1975" (Raven) cd 22.00 PATTIE BLINGH & THE AKEBULAN FIVE (AKA GEORGIA ANNE MULDROW) "Sagala" (Ramp) cd 14.98 PINCH "Underwater Dancehall" (Tectonic) 2cd 22.00 PLANES MISTAKEN FOR STARS "We Ride To Fight" (No Idea) cd 13.98 POLLARD, ROBERT "Superman was a Rocker" (Needmore Songs) cd 10.98 PROTEST THE HERO "Fortress" (Vagrant) cd 14.98 RADAR BROTHERS "Auditorium" (Merge) cd 14.98 RANDALL OF NAZARETH "s/t" (Drag City) cd/lp 14.98/15.98 REED, LOU / ZEITKRATZER "Metal Machine Music" (Asphodel) cd+dvd 17.98 REID, STEVE ENSEMBLE "Daxaar" (Domino) cd 15.98 REITZEL, BRIAN "30 Days Of Night OST" (Ipecac) cd 16.98 RELIGIOUS KNIVES "It's After Dark" (Troubleman) cd 13.98 RIGGS, DAX "We Sing Of Only Blood Or Love" (Fat Possum) cd 14.98 RIMPOCHE, BOKAR "Sacred Chants & Tibetan Rituals From The Monestary Of Mirik" (Sub Rosa) cd 15.98 ROBEDOOR "Rancor Keeper" (Release the Bats) cd 15.98 ROBIN WILLIAMS ON FIRE "Jungle Gym Of Crucifixes" (Deathbomb Arc) 7" 5.98 ROCHE, JEAN C. "Rossignols: A Nocturne of Nightingales" (Fremeaux & Associes) cd 15.98 ROOT "Daemon Viam Invenient" (Shindy) cd 15.98 ROSETTA "Cleansing Undertones Of Wake/Lift" (Translation Loss) cd 9.98 ROSETTA "Wake / Lift" (Translation Loss) cd 13.98 SIMONETTI, ENRICO & GOBLIN "Gamma" (Cherry Red) cd 17.98 SINCLAIR, JOHN "Guitar Army: Rock & Revolution With MC5 And The White Panther Party" (Process) book+cd 22.95 SKEPTA "Greatest Hits" (Boy Better Know) cd 21.00 SKULL DEFEKTS, THE "Open The Gates Of Mimer" (AA / Nosordo) cd 14.98 SKULL DEFEKTS, THE "The Sound Of Defekt Skulls" (Utech) cd 14.98 SORE THROAT "Death To Capitalist Halmshaw" (Area Death Productions) cd 14.98 SOUTH SATURN DELTA "Experience The Concreteness" (Cold Spring) cd 15.98 STRIBORG "Trepidation" (Displeased) cd 14.98 SUN RA "Disco 3000" (Artyard) 2cd 33.00 SUN RA "Some Blues... But Not That Kind Of Blues" (Atavistic) cd 15.98 SUPER FURRY ANIMALS "Hey Venus!" (Rough Trade) cd 13.98 SWIRNOFF, PRESTON "Maariv" (Last Visible Dog) cd 11.98 SZCZEPANIK, NICHOLAS "Astilbe Rubra" (Small Doses) cd-r 7.98 TAKAYANAGI, MASAYUKI "Dislocation" (Jinya) cd 17.98 TAKAYANAGI, MASAYUKI "Inanimate" (Jinya) cd 17.98 TAKAYANAGI, MASAYUKI "Mass Hysterism" (Jinya) cd 17.98 TAKAYANAGI, MASAYUKI "Shibito" (Jinya) cd 17.98 TAKAYANAGI, MASAYUKI NEW DIRECTION UNIT "April Is The Cruellest Month" (Jinya) cd 24.00 TAU EMERALD "Travellers Two" (Important Records) cd 14.98 TEMPLE OF BON MATIN "Flower Footed Ghost" (Ruby Red Editora) cd 16.98 TENNISCOATS "Tan-Tan Therapy" (Hapna) cd 16.98 THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS "Here Come the 123s" (Disney Sound) cd 17.98 TURBONEGRO "Retox" (Cooking Vinyl) cd 14.98 V/A "10 Tons Heavy" (Planet Mu) 2cd 13.98 V/A "Asian Flashback: Underground Music From Asia" (PSF) cd 22.00 V/A "Dr. Boogie Presents: Rarities From The Bob Hite Vaults" (Sub Rosa) cd 15.98 V/A "Garden Of Forking Paths" (Important Records) cd 14.98 V/A "Golden State Funk" (BGP Records) cd 19.98 V/A "Greasy Truckers Party" (EMI) 3cd 38.00 V/A "Melodii Tuvi: Throat Songs And Folk Tunes From Tuva" (Dust To Digital) cd 15.98 V/A "Messthetics #104: D.I.Y. '77-81 South Wales" (Hyped To Death) cd 14.98 V/A "Messthetics #105: D.I.Y. 77-81 Scotland I" (Hyped To Death) cd 13.98 V/A "Pillows & Prayers" (Cherry Red) 3cd+dvd 42.00 V/A "Realistic Patterns" (Psychic Circle) cd 17.98 V/A "Runeology 3" (Rune Grammofon) cd 9.98 V/A "Smashits" (Shitkatapult) cd 16.98 V/A "Welsh Rare Beat 2" (Finders Keepers) cd/lp 23.00/30.00 V/A "You Got Yours!: East Bay Garage 1965-1967" (Big Beat Records) cd 19.98 VEEDEE "Glimpses Of Another World" (Criminal IQ) 7" 5.98 VERDUNKELN "Einblick In Den Qualenfall" (Van) cd 13.98 VETIVER "You May Be Blue" (Gong) 12" 8.98 VILE CHERUBS "The Man Who Has No Eats Has No Sweats" (Afterburn) cd 13.98 WANDERING MIDGET, THE "I Am The Gate" (Eyes Like Snow) cd 15.98 WEISMAN, KURT "Spiritual Sci-Fi" (Important Records) cd 14.98 WHITE MICE "Excreamantraintraveinanus" (Blossoming Noise) cd 14.98 WILLITS, CHRISTOPHER + RYUICHI SAKAMOTO "Ocean Fire" (12K) cd 14.98 WOELV "Tout Seul Dans La Foret En Plein Jour, Avez-Vous Peur?" (K Records) cd 14.98 WYATT, ROBERT "Comicopera" (Domino) cd 15.98 YEASAYER "All Hour Cymbals" (Are We Free) cd 14.98 YEH, C. SPENCER "Violin, Objects" (Tone Filth) lp 17.98 YOSHIMIO "Yunnan Colorfree" (Shock City) cd+dvd 50.00 YOUNG, NEIL "Chrome Dreams II" (Reprise) cd 17.98 _______________________________________________________________________ ABOUT MAILORDER
It's been a while (three years!) since we've heard from these instru-metallers, this being their first record since their Southern Lord debut What We All Come To Need, from back in 2009, a record which find them sounding less heavy, and more melodic, which seemed like a strange twist considering they were now on what many consider to be a proper metal label. But that shift continues here, with the opening track, which immediately moves even further from the Neur-Isis crush of old Pelican, and drapes vibe like melodies over shimmering low end buzz, peppering the proceedings with bits of static and a strange pulsing synth like rumble, it's pretty awesome actually, very cinematic and hauntingly melodic. But this is Pelican after all, who can, rock with the best of them, and do so on the second track, which explodes out of the gate with a seriously killer riff, that sounds somewhere between old school noise rock and super melodic classic rock, like Thin Lizzy via the Hellacopters with hints of some old Touch And Go band, the song sounding like it could burst into a proper full on rock song at any second, like the vocalist is gonna come bounding in, but instead, they draw it out, the guitars adding melody, the drums uncharacteristically flashy in places, but it works, might just be our favorite Pelican jam yet, capturing the mesmer of their old sound but sort of cranking it up. There's plenty of variation too, the middle section gets all darkly psychedelic and a little dubby, but before long they return to that riffy crunch and it kills. "Parasite Colony" is a bit more brooding and loping, a low slung bass driving a slithery main riff, building to some seriously muscly crunch, before the final track, "Taraxis", which seems to bookend the ep, similar in style to the opener, tangled almost Appalachian guitar, over thick swells of distorted buzz, squiggly feedbacky melodies, urgent strum, all over a simple stripped down looped rhythm, before blissing out into some moody deserty smolder, only to get seriously metal for the last few minutes, a churning sludgey pound, all super dirty sounding crumblingly distorted guitars, all wreathed in feedback, those acoustic guitars still strumming away beneath the din. Killer stuff, the band definitely pushing their sound in new and exciting directions, and making us hope we don't have to wait another 3 years for more!
Chicago instru-metallers Pelican are back, with the full-length follow up to their brilliant "Untitled" debut ep. Like that disc, this is almost the perfect blend of heaviness (METAL heaviness, to be precise) and post-rock. There's prettiness and precision, darkness and dynamics. From slow and powerful downer grooves to mellow melodic interludes to rapidly riffing, sheer super heavy metal, could Pelican do it any better? There's even one track where they've got a guy playing the singing saw. It's freakin' beautiful. Influenced by epic black metal, academic minimalist throb, psychedelic Floydian rock, and the post-rock of their hometown (among much else) these guys have shaped their band into contenders for the avant-stoner throne, positioning themselves somewhere between Mogwai and Melvins, with some flashes of Morbid Angel. Or, imagine the Growing's The Sky's Run Into the Sea album (AQ Record of the Week back in September you'll recall) as performed by The Fucking Champs! It has the oceanic warmth of Growing's droning heaviness lashed to some more mathy, metallic constructions. Our customers who love all things heavy (Isis, Boris, Gore, 5ive, Tarantula Hawk, Dead Meadow, etc.) and who have a soft spot for spacier, sleepier stuff too should dig these six tracks for sure!
In the overcrowded world of metallic post rock, or post metal, or whatever the heck you want to call it, there seem to be two forces constantly battling it out, Pelican and Isis. But it's hardly a battle, as both bands are friends, share a label, and share a sound too. And the interesting thing is they both seem to be developing in a similar fashion. Each band, in their own way, and at their own pace, seems to be phasing metal out of their sound. Not completely. But where Isis once sounded a LOT like Neurosis, they now sound much more like a post rock band with metal bits here and there. Expansive and epic and only heavy to balance their ultra melodic side. And while Pelican seemed to be on a serious metal bender there for a while, this new record, while indeed rife with metallic moments, finds them at their post rockiest, and we have to say it suits them.
From the opening track, with its loping minor key math rock intro, to it's downtuned metal chug middle, to a killer harmony guitar / double kick bridge, the band never go all out metal, even if it might sound like it on the surface. Sure, we're loving the occasional flurry of maniacal kick drum, and the occasional Fucking Champs like Carcass riffery, but it never completely transforms the sound into pure metal. Metal plated maybe, but regardless, it sounds amazing!
Pelican nowadays sound like the very heaviest band you loved in the nineties, come back to life, supercharged and metallized. We hear lots of Slint, Bastro, Polvo, Shellac, Don Caballero, June Of 44 and bands like that, in the riffs, the arrangements, the melodies, which is fine with us. In fact, a lot of City Of Echoes sounds like a heavier Explosions In The Sky, who obviously owe a great debt to the loud-quiet-loud math rockers of days gone by. Sure it's metal enough to hit the spot for that sensitive metalhead in need of a melodic instru-metal fix, and yeah it may be heavy, and it may be metallic, but c'mon, this is indie rock, a kick ass, heavy as fuck indie rock maybe, but still...
While they last, we have the limited Japanese import Daymare double disc version of City Of Echoes, much like the fancy version of Jesu's Conqueror we carry instead of the domestic Hydra Head version. Ultra deluxe packaging, gorgeous design, thick 6 panel digipak, spot varnish gloss on matte finish, Japanese obi, Japanese liner notes, but most importantly, a bonus dvd of the band performing live at the Knitting Factory in L.A., playing mostly new songs but a few Pelican classics like "March To The Sea". The dvd looks great, sounds great, and unlike some past performances we've seen, the band are on fire -- they've always sounded great, but they didn't always move that much, but here the band are super active on stage, jumping around, swaying, head banging, which makes it way more intense and fun to watch. And it's cool to see the new songs played live too...
Ephemeral is the first new music from instrumental post rockers Pelican since they switched from Hydrahead to Southern Lord. Definitely an interesting development, as Pelican was definitely one of the bands that defined the Hydra Head sound. But heck, listening to these three tracks it's obvious they sound right at home on SL.
The side long first track is immediately recognizably Pelican, if anything the sound is a bit heavier, a little meaner sounding, there's definitely a Champs vibe, with lots of guitar trills and plenty of low slung chug, the weird thing is that unlike past Pelican efforts, this one in particular really does seem to scream out for some vocals. Any minute we expect some voice to just start howling or bellowing. We're imagining Wino, but there is that feel, a weird bit of tension, which works instrumentally for sure, but still had us hankering. But it's a killer jam, the drums especially, dense and wild, some intricate of kilter double kick action, plenty of mathy pound, and when the band lock into that main groove, it's like a massive black bulldozer made out of drums and amps and guitars.
The title track on the flipside is anything BUT ephemeral, sounding like an extension of the A side, but with even MORE chug, and a distinctly doomy vibe, even a bit of grunge. We could totally picture Mark Arm swooping in to sing a verse. And the record finishes off with a bad ass Earth cover, the band joined by Earth mainman Dylan Carlson, and while not too far removed from the original, it's definitely heavier, and darker, a little noisier, with seriously beefed up guitars, and a much more muscled rhythm, but retaining the same gorgeous, and ominous windswept vibe conjured up by Earth on the original.
Super thick sleeves, fancy Stephen O'Malley cover art. And probably wicked limited.
SUPER LIMITED!!! Pelican fans snap to attention! Fans of sludgy downtuned dirge do not dawdle. We got a small batch of these limited edition Pelican live DVD's and we will most likely not be able to get more ever again. Four epic tracks of Pelican's gorgeously massive instrumental pummel, videotaped live in 2003 in Chicago, shot from the crowd, a bit dark (dark enough that you barely see the drummer) but it sounds soooo good and if you've never seen Pelican before, it's cool to watch four regular looking dudes conjure up a seriously massive slab of metallic post-rock brutality. It's almost like being right there in the sweaty crowd, ears ringing, head banging! Packaged in a slimline jewelcase with new artwork from Seldon Hunt.
Oh man, if this record was only a full length, and not an EP, it would have been record of the week for sure! Even so, it's a pretty hefty EP clocking in at 33 minutes, especially when you consider it's only two songs! And not only is it quite possibly the best Pelican song so far, with a completely unforgettable, loping seasick main riff, relentless double kick drumming, totally heavy and MASSIVE, occasionally slipping into indie rock, with deliriously jangle-and-chime drenched melodies that eventually becomes a dreamy acoustic coda complete with flute, but the second track is a JK Broadrick (Godflesh, Jesu) remix that ends up sounding like the best Jesu track yet, all My Bloody Valentine blissed out with fuzzy backward melodies, industrial machinellike rhythms and epic alien arrangements.
People have been asking for this slab of beautiful heaviness forever, and for the longest time, we were beginning to think that its existence was just a hipster vinyl collector nerd urban legend, but whaddaya know, at least a year after we first heard about this two song vinyl only ep, it shows up, and of course as is par for the course with Pelican, knocks our fuckin' socks off.
Two tracks, both apparently reworked versions of older Pelican numbers, the A side is a killer, the title track, epic and majestic and major key, the guitars thick, a throaty roar, the drums simple and massive, heavy but pretty, a definite Jesu vibe for sure, the track occasionally blissing out into stretches of mathy nineties style indie rock, albeit way heavier and way radder. At moments things also veer into Fucking Champs territory, but for the most part we hear some gloriously bastardized and metallized version of Polvo or Pitchblende. The track ends with a super shimmery outro/coda, all swoopy and soft focus, super spare drumming, spacy FX and weird far away production... yet another argument for these guys being one of the finest purveyors of metallic post rock going.
The other side is a reworked and remixed blend of another couple old Pelican songs, courtesy of Mr. Prefuse 73. A fuzzy expanse of glitchy acoustic guitars, sounding like Oval mixing some super minimal folky prog track, a laid back dreamy electronic folk, that eventually builds until an almost funky rhythm kicks in, simple handclaps laid over glistening harmonics and lilting minor key guitars, more and more fuzzed out as it progresses, a blown out sheen not unlike everything was dipped in a pixelated Fennesz style gritty guitar wash...
Gorgeously packaged as always, thick sleeve, printed inner sleeve, heavy vinyl, in a variety of swirled colors... And yeah LIMITED like crazy...
This album prompted a discussion here about how there's the post rock bands that throw in some heavy, riffy metal bits to make things weirder and more interesting (and maybe so they don't seem quite so wimpy). And there's also the metal bands that write some pretty, quiet post rock parts also to be weird and interesting (and so as not to seem like total Neanderthals). In both cases, when things work out well, the results are a band that sounds not like, uh, wimpy Neanderthals but rather like intelligent and sensitive types who also possess crushing might. Pretty much every boy's ideal, eh? And Chicago instrumental heavies (and big AQ faves) Pelican are a great example of this, even though -- especially with this new album -- we can't quite decide if they're a metal band first post rock band second or the other way around. The very first track on The Fire In Our Throats Will Beckon The Thaw, "Last Day Of Winter", is seemingly more on the post rock side, all simmering moodiness and storm-yet-to-be-unleashed power. It IS big and loud but not really metal. Eventually the album offers up some truly uber metal moments, though, yes. Pelican's vaunted heaviness remains. But things are overall at least equally dreamy...dreamy and layered and melodically mathy, with post rock dynamics that dip into quiet, relaxed territory as much as they charge into heavy rock battle. Track four, for instance, is ALL gentle acoustic string-strum, with hints also of glitchy electronic crackle. We were prepared for this by their warm-up ep March Into The Sea (the title track of which is reprised here in edited form) wherein those acoustic guitars were added to Pelican's sonic palette. Pelican's vast, riff-ravaged landscape now has little lovely flowers growing, and expands to even further horizons. Funnily enough, "March Into The Sea" itself also offers some of the most metal (fast, furious) passages on here. Whatever you call it, the music of Pelican is (and always has been) totally mesmerizing and epic. Even if this album makes us think that it's almost like Pelican are turning into Kinski. Who aren't metal even though they are sometimes quite heavy. And who we also like a lot after all.
Ok, enough about all this post rock vs. metal stuff (though we will say that the presence of an extensive "thanks" list argues for Pelican indeed being a metal band at heart). What's important is that anyone into massive sonics of riff-shifting symphonic complexity OR blissful simplicity, should bow down to the juggernaut genius of Pelican's lastest opus...now that sounds fairly metal, don't it? Mention should also be made of the really quite lovely cd packaging here -- the cd booklet's got a translucent vellum cover and some cool interior artwork. Recommended!
Four massive tracks of instrumental heaviness here, folks. Chicago's Pelican debut with this untitled document of dirge (actually this Hydra Head version is a reissue of their self-released debut from last year). Teetering on the cusp betwixt being a melodically melancholic and rhythmically clever post-rock band and being a punishing doom metal behemoth, Pelican don't let down either side. This is HEAVY. Epic, intense, and always interesting. Slow, trancey sludge riffs and chugging rhythms are interlaced with kinda pretty melodies and sudden tempo shifts. The result is a LOUD, almost psychedelic listen that should be very satisfying to fans of similarly droney and heavy outfits like 5ive, Tarantula Hawk, Boris, Pharoah Overlord... Gore and the Melvins and Harvey Milk too.
Pelican are the kind of band that plays shows with Isis and High On Fire, and reference La Monte Young and Ash Ra Temple in interviews...i.e. our kinda band! Kudos to Hydra Head for picking 'em up, and we look forward to their upcoming full-length on that label.
MPEG Download: "Pulse" [/audio/pelicanpulse.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Pulse" [/audio/pelicanpulse.m3u]
We were all kinda wondering what would happen with Pelican's first record for Southern Lord, after leaving Hydra Head. Would it be more metal? More black metal? More evil? Would it be more ANYTHING? Well, the answer is yeah, it is -more- a lot of things, but weirdly enough, at least to these ears, Pelican moved in the opposite direction, more melodic, more catchy, more hooky, LESS metal, and the weird thing is, in some ways it makes the music much more lyrical, which helps when you're an instrumental band, but still, here and there it does just the opposite, the sounds seemingly screaming for vocals, thankfully, those moments are few and far between, which leaves another bad ass chunk of heavy instrumental post rock. And few do it as well as Pelican. One thing we noticed this time around is a lot more grunge, some of the riffs, the changes, sound like they could have been lifted right off some classic Sub Pop 7", and Lord knows there ain't nothing wrong with that. Makes it sound heavier too. The guitars sound amazing, thick and crunchy, the melodies pretty catchy, some subtle Sabbath-isms here and there, some serious grooves (in a cool, heavy, UNgroovy way), and the drumming sounds better than ever, solid, tight, with just the right amount of swing, and there seems to be a lot more pretty parts, more space, letting the songs breathe, and sprawl, and open up, which in turn of course makes the heavier parts sound that much heavier. The band tackled an Earth cover on the Ephemeral 12", and it sounded great, so it makes sense that we're hearing some of that same epic sweeping twang, albeit more subtly on some of the songs here.
The cool thing about Pelican these days, is that they just sound like Pelican. Sure they inhabit a scene where there's plenty of sonic overlap, but these guys are just so good, and they've really turned into ace songwriters, which is critical when you're writing all instrumentals.
So yeah, if you already dig these guys, or love heavy rock, or metallic post rock or any of that sort of stuff, odds are this will totally hit the spot, and we were gonna say that if you didn't like Pelican already, then this probably wouldn't change your mind, but the more we listen to it, the more we're beginning to think it just might!
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It's been a little while since we've heard from the boys in Pelican, due in no small part to a seemingly endless world tour. They show up in the shop so much, we sometimes think they must have relocated to SF. And this is not exactly a 'new' record, in fact, it's a different version of a song that has already surfaced once a while back on a now out of print 10", "Pink Mammoth", Pelican's 'hit', or about as close as a heavy metallic instrumental post rock band will ever come to a hit, but it's a killer song, and here it gets redone a little with help from Pelican pals These Arms Are Snakes.
It's hard to tell just how different it is without doing a side by side comparison, but on first listen it does sound a bit more washed out and droney, the sound a tad thicker, and more guitar-y, which is obviously because of the various extra players. But it hardly matters, if you haven't heard this song before, you must, and if you have, you probably already dig it and definitely won't mind hearing a slightly different version. Soaring, epic, heavy without actually being metal, the guitars crunchy but clean, the drums busy but restrained, and then there's the hook, that pops up a few minutes in, and seals the deal. There seem to be plenty of extra guitars, getting all tangled up into warm swirls of layered harmonies, and every time that hook resurfaces it's fucking magic!
The flip side finds These Arms Are Snakes redoing one of their songs with the various members of Pelican along for the ride. Loping and mathy, chiming guitar harmonics over a crumbling distorted main riff, the vocals going from weary indie drawl to snarling growly wail, all over a churning motorik rhythm. The vocal harmonies and stripped down rhythmic lope, lock into these dark grooves that totally remind us of late great San Diego trio Three Mile Pilot. Cool stuff for sure.
The vinyl packaging, as with all Hydra Head stuff, is over the top. A blue on blue printed 10" gatefold, incredibly thick, with a third layer of reflective clear ink over the top, and the text in white on top of that. Pressed on thick black vinyl. And probably limited too. The cd packaging ain't so shabby either, blue and pink and clear inks on a brown cardstock, screen printed fold over origami style sleeve, also most likely very limited...
Pell Mell was an instrumental combo formed in Portland in 1980, and their early incarnation respresented here was far more ferociously angular punk than the smooth groove version of Pell Mell that developed when Greg Freeman and Steve Fisk joined the band years later. Although this previously-cassette-only release came out *after* their wonderful debut album "Rhyming Guitars", it's even rawer than that album. It's good! Limited to 500 copies, so buy now or cry later.
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Geffen's loss is definitely Matador's gain. Not surf, not prog, not jazz, these guys (Steve Fisk and co.) invented their own brand of smooth guitar-based instrumentals.
'Tis the third album from Denmark's Lars Pellarin, but the first we've heard, and is a nice introduction to his austere yet hypnotic world of minimalistic, muted beats, simple melodies and pleasing drone. Pellarin makes calm, crackly (we love crackle!) electronic music in a dubby, Chain Reaction vein, that fans of Pole and Vladislav Delay and recent Dopplereffekt should certainly check out. In fact, Gundso is such relaxed, gorgeous, atmospheric stuff, that we really hope it finds an audience outside of the utterly techno-centric who are most likely to encounter it.
It's mostly instrumental, but there's some hushed, whispery singing on track 2, "Whistle Like You're 56", giving it more of a Tarwatery feel... and again on the song "Iran" there's some vocals, this time suggestive of Middle Eastern or African chant, to go along with that track's more ethnic infected beats. A bit Muslimgauzey, that one. It's also the longest piece on the album, at 13:42, and by the end builds into something almost psychedelically krautrocky, yet techno. Elsewhere, Gundso is mostly much more minimal.
This cd also includes a Quicktime video, a slowly-shifting computer graphics animation based on the track "Over Faellenden" that compliments the music perfectly, a fly-over of a ghostly, virtual landscape / seascape in shades of grey, black and white, the "camera" smoothly gliding ever forward, past icebergs and over mountain crags and curving freeways, towards some continuously receding vanishing point.
Peloton are a new Bay Area band who make fuzzy dreamy pop that cozies right in between bands such as Yo La Tengo and The Sundays. Their self titled debut ep is a perfectly autumnal lil' treat. Check it out!
Killer two sided single track raga drone epic from these masters, dedicated to legendary musician Angus Maclise, this jam is a magnificent mesmerizing sprawl of harmonium, gong, singing bowls and more, all woven and smeared and blurred into a smoldering slow motion raga, that pulses and throbs, seemingly near static, but so alive, overtones everywhere, constantly shifting layers, deep rumbling tones surfacing now and again, slipping from lush and warm and lustrous to delicate and crystalline, from melodic and dense to atonal and alien, like a Reich or Riley piece smoked out and spread way out into some seriously next level ur-drone bliss. The flipside / part 2 adds still more layers, more shifting tones, as well as wordless vocals, moaning and crooning, another layer of hypnotic sound, veering into frenzied chaos, but remaining utterly dreamy and hypnotic.
In lots of reviews a band does something incredible and we always wish they would take that one track, and stretch it out to fill up a whole record, the result being something like this, although in the case of A Stone For Angus Maclise, we find ourselves wishing this sprawling extended lp length raga drone was stretched out even farther, an endless expanse of looped and layered buzz extending forever and ever, into the unknown.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Cool metallic stickered cover with tiny printed insert.
I'm beginning to think that Pelt are the real heirs to the "drone throne(tm)" formerly kept warm by Tony Conrad, LaMonte Young and John Cale. Middle Eastern flecked skree-scapes of slowly bowed strings and rich overtones that beat against each other to produce
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We've definitely mentioned it before, in other reviews, but with every release it does seem more and more that Pelt are perhaps the only group of minimal dronelords truly occupying the dark mysterious sonic space vacated by the long lost legends. Tony Conrad, LaMonte Young, John Cale, Taj Mahal Travellers, Pelt sonically fall somewhere in that list, often leaning more toward one position than another. Sometimes unfurling whispered shimmers and deep crystalline metallic whirs, other times spewing thick sheets of upper register skree, or spreading thick layers of reverberating buzz over Eastern style ragas. Whatever they're doing, and however the hell they do it, the result is truly diving. Especially for the drone obsessed among us.
And here, on their latest, within four long tracks they dabble in all of the above, the opener is all gongs bowls and bells, deep murky metallic sprawls, ringing out, tones drifting into the ether, but with a strange propulsion, not usually found in Pelt tracks, that makes it almost sound like the Necks, if all three of the Necks were playing cymbals and bowls. Dark and languorous and gorgeous. The second track is all scraping fiddles and moaning cellos, bowed and rubbed and sawed feverishly a la Henry Flynt, pizzicato melodies, distant melodies, LOTS of space, dense squalls of malfunctioning string quartet drones, bits of percussion and tinkling chimes, very abstract and obtuse but still quite hypnotic. Up next is the record's centerpiece, 31 minutes of deep multi-timbral drones, thick swirls of harmonium, and according to the liner notes, the only track that utilizes electricity, to power something called the New Jupiter Machine. No idea what that is, but we like it. Fiddles and cellos join the fray, until there are so many layers your ears a gloriously overwhelmed, all the various notes and tones vibrating, beating, interwoven, offering up all sorts of incidental melodies and mysterious sounds that only reveal themselves gradually. So transcendental. Worth it for this track alone. In fact we often say this, but we would have been just as happy if they stretched it out for another 30 minutes, or 60, or 90, well, you know.
The disc finishes off with a brief coda of glistening high end. Sounding a bit like an analog Ryoji Ikeda, all super high harmonics, bells and chimes, all glimmering in the impossibly high upper registers, like listening to ice crystals, or the sounds of stars sparkling, or a recording of sunlight reflecting of the water, or the sounds of dew on morning grass. Delicate, crystalline, and fantastic.
Recorded live in 2011 (in a yoga studio and a synagogue), the latest from these Virginian dronelords, once again prove these guys are still the modern masters of the raga. Seven extended tracks of exquisite modern minimal drone music, lush, layered tones, constantly shifting textures, and ever shifting overtones, multiple instruments deftly woven into one single organic whole, all recorded live, on acoustic instruments, with no overdubs, this is pure sound, Pelt masterfully weaving this pure sound into expansive/expressive sprawls of mesmerizing, meditative minimalism, the sound varying greatly from track to track, whether it's the near atonal din of opener "Of Jack's Darbari", or the downright folky "Wings Of Dirt", they both revolve around the drone, as do all the tracks here, the thread that binds all these sounds together. And the fact that the various instruments can be busy on their own, unfurling flurries of notes, that on their own, would have a completely different vibe than as part of the whole, where all of that business, simple adds texture, and propulsion, tonal color and depth, and these songs are deep, the sort that require deep listening to truly appreciate the sort of spiritual sonic tradition these guys are a part of. LaMonte Young, Pandit Pran Nath, Henry Flynt, Charlemagne Palestine, Catherine Christer Hennix, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Pelt's incredible body of work most definitely fits among those masters, and this live document demonstrate that Pelt can still channel that cosmic energy and form it into gorgeous, transcendental sound. In almost any form. The band really do explore every facet of the raga/drone here. Deep sonorous tones crafted from scraped bells and bowed metal, become a hushed metallic shimmer, rife with subtle movement and endless tonal variation, huge clouds of blurred shimmer are formed from piano notes drifting atop abstract percussion, and lush room reverb, wheezing chords are layered and layered, wreathed in keening streaks of high end, fiddles and harmoniums woven into a lustrous prismatic soft focus skree, dark bell tones hover over muted rhythms, wrapped in woozy metallic shimmer, and a mournful fiddle emits an aching, scraping tone, while below, thick slabs of metal rumble and whir. So incredible.
Packaged in a super striking, gorgeously psychedelic, full color, heavy gatefold jacket. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
Four stunning live recordings of droning psychedelia that falls much closer to the hazy feedback improvisiations from Matthew Bower (Skullflower, Total, Sunroof) or the bowed cymbal/"pipe fights" of Organum. One of the tracks included is from their amazing show they did for the Terrastock festival in 1998.
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If there was ever a band suited to the double lp format it would be Pelt. Their massive drone raga epics can fill a cd in a blink of an eye. Theirs is the sort of transcendental inner space music that you want to drift on for ever and ever. So four side long slabs of glacial buzz and dreamlike drift is just about perfect. Each side a slow shifting swirl of buzz and whir, thick layers of shimmering swaying creakling crumbling colossal sound. Epic expanses of grinding bombinating active ambience. On Heraldic Beasts maybe more than any other Pelt record, the band get seriously fierce, kicking up super caustic walls of gritty guitar and harsh feedback, huge Total like dins that often (but not always) settle down into more familiar moody murkiness. Neo Appalachian guitar hero Jack Rose is in there somewhere, as Pelt is his musical day job, but he's not channeling Fahey here, instead, he's possessed by the spirit of Haino, spitting out huge surges of molten guitar skree which the band then twists into dronelike shapes. Most of this disc occupies the dreamlike raga space we've come to associate with Pelt, but there is most definitely plenty of supercharged blown out psychedelic freakout scrabble and skree, that fans of SUNN, Skullflower, Fushitsusha and the like will find well worth checking out.
Packaged in an ultra deluxe full color gatefold and pressed on super thick vinyl!
"The third album of down flowing, long on trip drone out and free-form out jams from Virginia's leading explorers of gravitational let-go. Seven tracks of multi-multi instrumental out of body frozen bliss removal. Most excellent." --handy description from the fine folks at Revolver.
Pelt, those Terrastock-levitatin', coolie-hat wearin' boys from Virginia have a new disc (along with Sunroof! and Vibracathedral Orchestra, one of three new VHF goodies). We've been lookin' forward to more from Pelt ever since their fine 2001 double cd Ayahuasca, and Jack Rose (1/3 of Pelt)'s contribution to that great Wooden Guitar compilation also whet our appetite for more. And more we get, the Pearls From The River being three long tracks of instrumental acoustic pseudo-ethnic drone-folk psych raga. Repetitive, mantric, stone-zoned.
Are Pelt ISB wanna-bes? Sure. Why not? Are they white guys inspired by the musics of other cultures, from India to Appalachia? Sure. Of course. More power to 'em. Tune in, or turn on your own drone makin' mojo. We can't say Pelt are a better listen than some Indian classical music, or your old Incredible String Band LPs, or whatever -- and they wouldn't either. But you'd have to be super uptight not to enjoy their bowed, bassed, and banjoed journeys into both darkness and light. And I also dig Byron Coley's parody of radical '60s drug-speak styled liner notes. They're a joke right? I mean, "Fuck Death"? I dunno how this music exactly expresses resistance to the regime of George W. Bush & Co., as Coley suggests, although it's true that somehow it doesn't seem like it could have been made by Republicans!
Jack Rose may be the new John Fahey, the modern master of neo-Appalachia, his steel string skills unsurpassed,Ôbut he still calls Pelt home. Rose, lets his bandmates in Pelt, Patrick Best, Mikel Dimmick and Mike Gangloff take him away from his pick and twang and together they explore a slow motion soundscape of ghostlike ragas and endless drones. Dark dense landscapes of chiming bells, buzzing strings, and warm whispery whirs.ÔThe first track here is actually a Jack Rose song, and it sounds like it. Lilting mournful steel string guitar, with the other guys in Pelt swirling and swooshing, in, under, around and over Rose's guitar with an assortment of exotic instruments, harmonium, sruti box and singing bowls as well as gongs and flutes and fiddles. The rest of the disc is made up of the lengthy 3 part "Bestio Tergum Degero", a cavernous wash of rich overtones and metallic reverberations, huge swells of sound like metal waves on an iron sea, microscopic vibrations traveling lazily the length of a soft metal soundscape. Lush and hauntingly alien, a dark dreamy, slightly ominous drone drenched drift. As always, so nice!
Folks around these parts (including us) have been freaking out over the gorgeous post-Fahey, neo-Appalachian guitar playing of Jack Rose, whose last few records have been massive AQ faves and whose dark and droning, delicate fingerpicked guitar work had us completely mesmerized from the first time we heard it. Makes it easy to forget sometimes that Rose has been making music for years with his equally talented bandmates as Pelt, a group that conjures up extended instrumental ragas, expansive pusling suites of drone and shimmer, from all manner of bowed strings, bowed metal, hurdy gurdy, sundry Eastern instruments, and simple percussion as well as more traditional instruments like guitar and cello albeit utilized in highly unconventional ways. Makes sense in a way, as Rose's solo guitar is definitely informed by his years exploring the extended drone in Pelt. This new Pelt record, featuring a slightly expanded lineup, continues their quest to discover the heart of the drone, nirvana attained by never ending sound, sonic ripples that pulse and reverberate into infinity, a lovely and mind blowing musical head trip. The first track is a static shimmer, a swirling keening drone, that unlike much drone music, is not at all simple, instead it is a lush and multi layered wash of minor key melodies, stretched and smeared into a slightly ominous, almost cinematic extended dirge, intense and gorgeously imbued with all sorts of feeling and emotion, not often found in experimental minimalist musicks. The second track features Rose's immediately recognizable steel string guitar, which is soon disrupted by creaking streaks of sound and eventually overtaken by a thick fog of moaning cellos, morphing from an Eastern-tinged raga, to a throbbing fuzzed out drone, and eventually settling into a spare ramshackle soundscape of creaks and clatter. Track three is classic Ur-drone, not all that dissimilar to Sunroof! or Total or Vibracathedral orchestra, a cloud of keening high end skree cobbled together from percussive overtones, bowed metal, and ringing harmonics. The final track is a brief splatter of madly sawed cellos, creaking and squeaking strings and random splattery percussion, almost a musical version of 'shaking it off', sort of decompressing after nearly an hour of intense spiritual musicality. All you cd-r hounds / drone-heads that slobber all over everything Sunroof!, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Celebrate Psi and the like should definitely explore the magical mystical world of Pelt.
Killer live set from this avant supergroup, featuring, as the name suggests, Pelt, Gate and Part Wild Horses Mane On Both Sides, who performed together at a festival in 2012, mostly on gamelan as unlikely as that may seem, not the sort of raga-like psychedelic skree we had expected, instead, the set sprawls over both sides of this lp, unfurling dreamily, a totally tranquil expanse of tinkling chimes, warm and languid, the A side delving into something a bit darker part way through, adding some dense rumblings, before settling into something even more hushed and minimal, clouds of metallic shimmer underpinning warm chordal drifts and still more hushed tinklings. The B side is more of the same, this time adding some bird song, the field recordings adding an even more pastoral vibe to the already tranquil proceedings, the second half two is marked by a brief passage of more sinister sound, with droned out low end reverberations, but it too returns to a lovely shimmery drift to finish things off. Quite nice!
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. Comes with a printed insert, and includes a digital download!
It's always exciting when we get a new release on Jussi from Circle's Ektro label. Will it be South American stoner rock? Will it be an unearthed Finnish psych/folk rarity? Will it be an L.A. sort-of-glam band Andee was obsessed with when he was a freshman in high school? We never know. This latest release is from a man named Markku Peltola and there's very little information to be gleaned about him from the Ektro website. Only that he is a famous Finnish actor. Nothing about whether he has always played music or how he ended up making this record, but none of that is really neccessary to enjoy this beautiful gem. Dreamy, almost chamber ensemble-ish pieces, with strings and acoustic guitar and occasional electronic embellishments. The first band that leapt to mind was the Penguin Cafe Orchestra, and it's the comparison that seems to make the most sense. Light and breezy instrumentals with melancholy strings soaring over bubbly, bouncy rhythms. With the very lo-fi casio beats cropping up occasionally. Sometimes lounge-y, sometimes soundtracky, sometimes a little like a wedding reception. It may sound very pastoral and tame, but there are moments where there's some sort of weird creepiness hovering just below the surface with droney horns and the occsional garbled vocals. Although for the most part this is pretty and simple and quite nice.
MPEG Download: "Sahkosatula" [/audio/peltolasahkosatula.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Sahkosatula" [/audio/peltolasahkosatula.m3u]
MPEG Download: "Ou-Ou-Ah?" [/audio/peltolaou.mp3]
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Everything's in Finnish here so we're not totally sure where the band's name stops and the title begins. We've heard from this Markku Peltola guy once before on the Ektro label, with a lovely disc in 2003 called Buster Keatonin Ratsutilalla. Now it seems that Buster Keaton is part of the band name? Of course the real Buster Keaton was a brilliant silent film comedian way back when, and it would seem that Markku Peltola, apparently a famous actor himself in Finland, is a big Buster Keaton fan. Beyond that all we know is that this music is all instrumental, very moody and pretty and sort of chamber-proggy. We compared the other Peltola disc to Penguin Cafe Orchestra and that still applies. It definitely makes sense that this was released on Jussi of Circle's label, since some of this, especially the 13-minute "Juuri N�in!", sounds just a bit like Circle side project Ratto Ja Lethisalo. Also Peltola was a member of a weird Tom Waitsy Finnish prog outfit called Motelli Skronkle of which we know Jussi was a big fan (and in fact a Motelli Skronkle collection is forthcoming on Ektro!).
So, how to describe this? These songs are mild and melancholic, but also rather peppy. There's strings and violin and acoustic guitar and sad horns and clip-clopping, tip-toeing percussion. It all has a sort of genteel, old world charm...nice nice nice. It could be a soundtrack to a quirky Finnish indie film, or the recording of the house band in some really hip cafe where the everyone sits around nodding and smiling wistfully and tapping their feet. We imagine the habitues of this cafe being well-dressed, wearing hats, maybe giving each other sly looks or staring dreamily into space, and perhaps spilling their coffee when the music suddenly gets nervous and frantic (which it threatens to do sometimes, but doesn't really). Strangely irresistable.
It's not often you hear a record with matter-of-fact song titles like "Drums, Accordion and Ambient" or "Orchestra, Accordion and MW-radio #1". More to the point, such instrumentation is a bit unusual. But that's what we have here with Finnish accordionist Aki Peltonen's quite wonderful (and ever so slightly weird) Radio Banana. He's part of the music scene in Pori, Finland, home to AQ faves Circle, some of whom participate here (the cover painting is by Circle's Mike Ratto). Quirky and cafe/cabaret-like, Peltonen's accordion can be delightfully melodic, dancing alongside an 'orchestra' of trumpet, alto sax and trombone. Or, equally entrancing, it's sometime accompanied only by just drumming. In both circumstances, what might be too jaunty and 'fun' and NPR-friendly gets subverted by Moog noises and medium-wave radio sounds, seeping into these tracks from the ether and establishing the queer reality of Peltonen's Radio Banana.
A nice breath of fresh air for our woefully understocked Latin / Mexican music section, this cd features Rene Pena-Govea and her family; Rene plays button accordian and sings, while her parents supply back up vocals and pluck the guitarron, sexto, etc. Father
Wow. This has got to be the thickest heftiest gatefoldlp sleeve we've EVER seen. Not just the kind that cracks and creaks when you open, no, it's the sort of lp that when you do finally crack it open, it's like in the movies when the main character is finally opening the long lost crypt, muscles bulging, tendons straining, sweating and grunting, as it slowly opens with the grinding scrape of metal on concrete... Okay, so maybe it's not quite -that- intense, but heck, EVERY single person who picks it up does a sort of double take and utters something like "Woah, wow... WOW!" Plus the cover images are gorgeous, the front is a stark black and white landscape of gnarled dead trees, the back is a makeshift gallows, occupied by two unlucky souls, with an ominous pile of human skulls in the foreground. Crack it open and inside the gatefold you'll see a acid drenched burnt out kaleidoscopic photo of Krysztof Penderecki behind a huge pile of analog studio gear. Penderecki? Yep, Pendercki! This is the long lost soundtrack to the 1965 classic The Sargassa Manuscript, AKA Rekopis znaleziony w Sarogossie, AKA The Manuscript Found In Saragossa, one of the greatest Polish films ever made, and most definitely one of the strangest, most fucked up visual trips EVER. Think Bunuel, Lynch, Jodorowsky, Tarkovsky, Gilliam and then realize you'd most definitely need to include Sargasso director Wojciech Has. But the sounds are as strange and wondrous as the sights, due in no small part to Penderecki's lovely, haunting and downright bizarre score. Dark delicate piano filigree hovers in wide expanses of barely there ambience, grunts and groans and mumbled vocalisations drift in and out, western steel string guitars play tiny boleros before being overtaken by majestic church organs, snatches of refined chamber music are interrupted by strange soundscapes of what sounds like thunder or trees being felled, hypnotic stretches of No Neck Blues Band-like rattle and clatter, mysterious percussive interludes, woodblocks and rattles and shakers, and surrounding it all, little bits and pieces, scraps of sound, all manner of strange audio delights. A completely intense and intensely strange musical trip, even without the equally bizarre visuals of the film. In fact the images these sounds conjure up in your head, in the dark, with headphones on, might just be even stranger than the movie itself. If that were even possible...
Pressed on INCREDIBLY thick vinyl, and oh, did we mention the sleeve?!?!
And as you might imagine, this vinyl-only Polish import is EXTREMELY LIMITED!!!!
Complete sacred works for chorus a cappella 1962-92.
Fflint Central is a U.K. label run by two extraordinarily nice guys and darn fine hosts (good enough to befriend a sick and bedraggled on-tour Andee and buy him Cokes). Fflint specializes in experimental electronics and harsh abstract noise. One would think that there's enough, or too much of both, but the men from Fflint have that something special (fuck-you attitude? undefinable sound? sense of humor?) that makes these records way better and way more interesting than the majority of the 'electronica' we hear these days. Fans of VV/M, Lesser and other 'troublesome' electonica will dig this stuff. Affordable CD-Rs. Go ahead and take a chance. You may regret it...
Album number two from the one man Pendro. A demented odyssey of warped records, chiming atmospherics, and hiccupping robot armies. Squiggly atoms of sound careen wildly between waves of what sounds like groaning bowed metal. Nice.
The Fflint Central factories have slowed down a bit lately, having churned out right around 20 releases in the last 5 or 6 years. But even kicking out 3 or 4 releases a year, that's practically nothing compared to the 50 releases a month we get from all the billions of other cd-r labels we deal with, which is maybe part of why we love these guys so much. Fflint more than any other cd-r label, have definitely focused on quality over quantity. Instead of releasing every single jam, every practice, every get-together-fuck-around, these guys actually spend weeks and months working on music, on SONGS. Every single Fflint disc is totally unique, but still immediately recognizably Fflinty, but more importantly, each disc is good. Really good. Fucking great actually. In fact, we can't think of a single Fflint release that didn't immediately and totally kick our asses. And Nocturne Convolute is no different.
Pendro is the work of Tim Jones, one half of the TimJonesBarryWilliams core that IS Fflint Central, and Nocturne Convolute is Pendro number 5 by our count and carries on in Pendro's quest to reach some strange electronic Nirvana. The beats were almost entirely jettisoned a few records back, but resurface now and then here, less as beats per se, as much as muted pulses, or stuttering throbs, but more often the beats are just rhythmic smears in a larger overall soundfield. Ambient is definitely one word that comes to mind, but not cheesy or new age, more a malevolent, very active sort of ambience, sounds churn and roil, multilayered soundscapes of organic electronic minimalism. Drone is another obvious descriptor, but drones are just a small part of the whole. Almost every track here drones in some way, but all in dramatically different ways. Nocturne Convolute is a dizzying journey through some otherworld of sound...
A huge chaotic din, like Sunroof! vs. the Dead C, immediately chopped into bits, so each blast of skree is separated by murky electronic pulses, and thick waves of freight train rumble, blissed out Muslimgauze like jams, all raga like buzz and throbbing Eastern percussion, peppered with all sorts of little glitches and electronic twinkles, cavernous industrial soundscapes, dark ambient whirs beneath chaotic bits of clatter and crunch, all morphed into a swirling smear of sound, wild blasts of outerspace sonic freakout, swooshes and bleeps and bloops, whipped into an absolute frenzy that eventually blurs into a high end drone, slow burning gongs ring and reverberate like ripples in some huge black sea, some damaged jazz squeaks and skronks in a vast expanse of haunting late night murk, buried within a sweetly melancholic melody, beats and loops chopped and sliced and diced and haphazardly reassembled into blasts of digital splatter, and some almost drill and bass, but as with most tracks the beats sort of implode and become bits and pieces of a swirling electronic glitchscape, gorgeous thick whirring drones are assembled from stuttering tones and blurry notes, creepy but so lovely, building in intensity until the drone becomes a crackling lightning storm of clicks and glitches and bzzt and grrt. Harsh and harrowing, but somehow still totally mesmerizing and beautiful.
By the time Nocturne Convolute comes to an end, you feel exhausted, like you've just BEEN somewhere, experienced SOMETHING. This is not easy listening at all, most Fflint stuff requires some work on the listener's part, some deep listening, every play reveals more sounds and more secrets, each listen builds on the one before, and prepares you for the one after. Which is precisely Pendro's (and Fflint Central in general) blessing AND curse. The sounds here are amazing, the music intense and hypnotic, sounds that make your ears hum, the inside of your head ring like a struck bell, but the sounds are are also abstract, difficult, challenging, and maybe too much for the casual listener. But you know what? Fuck the casual listener, this is not casual music, this is music to luxuriate in, to dunk your head in until you run out of breath and start seeing all sorts of strange colors, this is music that gets inside of you, and suffuses all your senses with it's strange glow. This is not background music, this is music that makes everything around it fade into the background. As with all things Fflint, totally and wholeheartedly recommended!
Most of you who read the list know how into Fflint recordings we are. And what do ya know, the almighty Fflint Central strikes again! Why aren't these guys huge? Especially when they are making some of the craziest, most original electronic music we've ever
We're running out of superlatives ffor those ffuckers ar Fflint. Just to be decent, you think they'd drop a stinker here and there. Give us a breather. But no, every single release has to be ffantastic. And this new one from Pendro is no different. Still ffucking weird, and still ffucking brilliant. Pendro is seemingly becoming less and less concerned with beats and ffocusing more on atmosphere which is just ffine with us. The sounds of children playing and staticky radio broadcasts are transmitted sporadically through a dense haze of reverb into the Twilight Zone, steel string guitars are bombarded by swoops and bleeps and other assorted sonic detritus purchased from Acid Mothers Temple at a London swap meet, dreamy kraut-prog ambience is rhythmically enhanced by lasers and phaser fire, electronic crickets are stuffed into trumpets and fflugel horns and dropped down a well, a malfuctioning player piano is lowered into a cave ffull of locusts and barbed wire. And so it goes. One indescribable sonic adventure after another. Beautiful sounds. Perplexing sounds. Ugly sounds. All masterfully woven into dense, dark swaths of confounding ambience. Once again the boys at Fflint give the old middle ffinger to the established electronica community by making yet another record that is so good, nobody knows what to do with it. Except us. And of course you.
Fflint Central is a U.K. label run by two extraordinarily nice guys and darn fine hosts (good enough to befriend a sick and bedraggled on-tour Andee and buy him Cokes). Fflint specializes in experimental electronics and harsh abstract noise. One would think that there's enough, or too much of both, but the men from Fflint have that something special (fuck-you attitude? undefinable sound? sense of humor?) that makes these records way better and way more interesting than the majority of the 'electronica' we hear these days. Fans of VV/M, Lesser and other 'troublesome' electonica will dig this stuff. Affordable CD-Rs. Go ahead and take a chance. You may regret it...
Pendro (aka Tim Jones, the second half of the FFlint dynamic duo) describe this record as 'psychedelic', but God knows what he must have taken to come up with this. Things start off with a cascade of blips and bleeps that seem quite menacing (that's quite a feat for blips and bleeps, mind you) and slowly evolve into a more psychotic Boards of Canada. The rest of the record is a crazy mix of chopped and mutilated classical samples, found sound, hyper-distorted melodies, malfunctioning cd-player rhythms and gurgling computer glitchery, all of which eventually coalesce into a droning, buzzing coda. Really great.
This recently re-mastered 1976 debut album from the deliberately obscurant and unclassifiable Penguin Cafe Orchestra has always been one of our favorites. Led by the classically trained multi-instrumentalist and composer Simon Jeffes, who frustrated with the limitations and rigor of traditional classical music and inspired by the freeing structures of ethnographic folk music and minimalist aesthetics, created a surreal hybrid of sorts. Forming a chamber ensemble of various players performing with strings, electric piano guitar, ukulele and spinet, this first PCO album is actually compiled from 3 years of recording with different variations of the ensemble under different names (ZOPF, Penguin Cafe Quartet, etc.) that would eventually become the Penguin Cafe Orchestra proper. Neither truly classical nor truly ethnographic in any telltale way, the music has the dreamlike quality of a Jorge Luis Borges short story involving a nonexistent far-flung island colony and the intriguing presence of a foreign visitor who shouldn't be there. Yet, it's highly listenable, oddly structured at times, and sometimes deeply melancholic (the 12 minute "The Sound of Someone You Love Who Is Going Away and Doesn't Matter" is one of the most beautifully sad and amazing compositions we've heard). Originally released on Brian Eno's Obscure imprint, The PCO had several worthy releases, before Jeffes died in 1997 of a brain tumor. Luckily, his son Arthur has taken over the reins and has not only overseen the re-mastering and reissuing of the PCO back catalogue, but has been touring with a new incarnation of the group as well!
