THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
3 krautrock albums (from groups you may want to first sample on the "Unknown Deutschland" comps, see below) that were supposedly issued in the 70s in tiny editions of, like, 50 copies or something. The Pyramid album sole track is a mysterious 35-minutes of spacy drone with mellotron, moogs, and Tibetan bells. The Nazgul cd, our favorite of the three, is from 1975 and features 4 long tracks of droning ambience that's easily as good as any current space rock outfit could put together; i.e. Magnog, Labradford or anything else on Kranky. Bonus weirdness: the bandmembers are named Frodo, Gandalf, and Pippin.
It's been ages since we've heard from these groovy doom sludge Swedes, and very little has changed. The riffs are still massive, distorted, and Sabbathy, the vibe is still druggy, and groovy, and heavy as fuck. As always, harsh vokills are draped over surprisingly melodic riffage, there are swirls of feedback, squalls of tribal percussion, and the occasional soaring lead, the drums crushing and bombastic, the arrangements a bit proggy, especially on this new one, the songs much more varied and dynamic, their sound having definitely progressed from the early days, combining the caveman crush of those early records with something much more ambitious, with long stretches of slow build heaviness beholden to stuff like Godspeed and Isis as much as classic sludge and doom, with some classic metal-isms throughout. But really, these guys have managed to take downtuned, knuckle dragging sludge, old school true doom, and epic post rock drama, and fused it into something that manages to transcend what at this point is a very overcrowded genre. While we were expecting another disc of decent sludgy doom, Saga reveals itself as something a bit more, a sort of progressive doom, infusing all manner of non metal, or at least not so overtly metal, elements into their sound, without losing an iota of their bludgeoning brutality, which is a rare thing indeed.
Besides having an awesome logo, and killer creepy elephant cover art, these filthy Swedes have conjured up a seriously brutal, and weirdly groovy slab of sludge-y doom. Exploding out of a swirling storm of whipping winds that open the disc, these guys waste no time in getting down to it. IT being some gut punching, ear destroying heaviness. We were actually expecting something much less musical, much more abstract and slooooow, Moss, Bunkur, Khanate, that sort of thing, and while it does get downright glacial now and again, Pyramido mostly traffic in something much more groovy and stonery, think Electric Wizard, Church Of Misery, Cough, Eyehategod, Bongzilla, Green Machine...
In fact, Pyramido totally sound like they came straight out of New Orleans, that distinctly NOLA groove, but here that sounds is twisted up a bit, given a little blackness, a little crustiness, the songs stretched out a bit more, the groove not so much the focus as simply part of the sound, a sound that is a HUGE, churning, pounding, downtuned beastly thing. The guitars thick and corrosive, the drums a Cro-Magnon pound, vocals buried in the mix, always on the verge of cracking, a throat shredding howl, and within these blackly groovy, crust laden jams, lurk not only some serious hooks, but some fucking KILLER riffs, and although it doesn't make sense, music like this is often bereft of actual great riffage.
Slow, low, sludgy and brutal as fuck, by now it should be obvious if this is your cup of muck, it most definitely is ours...
This is a doozy of a release, and one that seems custom made for aQ. Weirdo black metallers Pyramids sent songs and sounds to a bunch of bands to rework, reinterpret, remix or reimagine in any way they saw fit. The list of bands alone should havemost aQ folks frothing: Tenhornedbeast, Fear Falls Burning, Windy & Cark, Wereju, Burial Hex, Yen Pox, Josh Lay, Black Seas Of Infinity, Encomiast, Bones Of Seabirds, Nicholas Szczepanik, Rise Of Because, Jeremy Bible, Amber Asylum, Bass Communion, Hoor-Paar-Kraat, Light Of Shipwreck, Mamiffer, Ulan Bator, Across Tundras, At The Head Of The Woods, Blood Fountains, Oakeater, Neuntoter Der Plage, Rabbit Girls, Wicked Messenger, Sigullum Dei, Black Roller Crop Rotation, 9922, Exit In Grey, The Spirit Dies, Luasa Raelon, Wyrm, Sin Of A Higher Strain, Drowning The Virgin Silence, Paradin, Bjerga/Iverson, Fences, Le Knell, Andrew Weathers, Mystified, Nils Helstrom, True Colour Of Blood, Teeth Collection, Great Falls, Hiroki Sasajima, Offthesky, Ala Muerte, Romance Of Young Tigers, This Will Destroy You, Ghoul Detail and Lunar Miasma. Phew. Instead of going through the whole collection song by song, group by group, we'll let you suss it out for yourself, the sounds are all over the map, noisy, heavy, pretty, ambient, rhythmic, brutal, psychedelic, some of the tracks sound like remixed Pyramids, others you'd never know, it's an epic and sprawling collection, that for the most part is pretty fucking great. The packaging is incredible too. SIX HOURS of music of FIVE TAPES, the tapes red, printed in silver, all housed in one of those plastic clamshell cases, like for language courses, but his one has a custom stamped placeholder in the otherwise empty sixth tape slot, and is covered in a full color printed glued on cover. Inside is a black on silver metallic printed insert, and all of this is housed in a red cardstock slipcover, sealed with a metallic silver wax seal! WOW. Limited to 300 copies, we're taking pre-orders for this, we're only getting as many copies as we get orders, so if you want one don't dawdle...
As much as we love that Hydra Head sound, huge churning riffage, pummeling drums, crushing metallic dirges and all things heavy heavy heavy, we're becoming more and more obsessed with the releases that don't fit so comfortably on HH, don't necessarily embody that classic Hydra Head sound. Although that's not necessarily fair, as the more bands HH sign that sound different, the more diffuse and varied that HH 'sound' becomes, which renders this whole theory moot. But whatever, stick with us for a second, there is a point. It's sort of how we were with Sub Pop, sure we loved Green River and Soundgarden and Mudhoney, THAT sound, but we got crazy obsessed with stuff like Rein Sanction and Hardship Post, the stuff that stuck out, that sounded WEIRD, maybe almost more than the regular Sub Pop stuff.
It might be just that for a band to kick someone's ass SO much, that they're willing to release a record by them, even though sonically it's a whole different ball of wax, means that the record in question is that good, that fucked up, that unique, or could be that we just like to be contrary. Either way�
Whatever. We love Isis and Cavity and Pelican, but lately, we, like a lot of you, have been obsessing over Jesu, Hayaino Diasuke, Austerity Program, Torche, Pet Genius and now Pyramids, who hail from Denton Texas, and who sound like nothing on Hydra Head. If we had to pick one band, it might be Jesu, but even then, the similarities are minimal. Pyramids are blissy and fuzzy and gauzy and pretty, almost ambient at times, drifting dreamily, their sounds shimmering and glistening, everything blurred and washed out and totally fucking gorgeous, BUT, they do have some surprises up their sleeves. And it's those surprises that make this record such a mind blower.
But let's start at the beginning. The first three tracks here are totally lovely, guitars are wisps, vocals are fluttery shadows, melodies are delicate and fragile, the production is warm and sun dappled, rhythms are muted shuffles, effects swirl and sway, here and there, the sound thickens into something almost heavy, but never quite gets there, remains on the pretty drifty side of heavy. It's like a more avant freaky version of Mazzy Star or Galaxie 500, that same sort of windblown washed out blissy vibe. Until the fourth track.
Beginning with some minimal guitar buzz, amidst a whirl of chiming harmonics, shortwave interference, and blown out buzz, the drums kick in, and the riff locks into an insectoid buzz, and suddenly the Pyramids are some sort of black metal band, still bleary and blissy, but with pounding drums and buzzing guitars, eventually vocals come in and it's like a metalgaze Sigur Ros, which is most definitely awesome.
The next track too offers more of the same, a sort of swirling chaotic shoe gaze-y black metal, and in fact the rest of the record continues on in that vein, each track a twisted convoluted take on blissed out black metal, sometimes grinding and furious, but even then swathed in a warm sonic glow, sometimes more poppy and swirly, like a more abstract Swervedriver. As you can tell, it's pretty hard to describe. Not sure it's really black enough to appeal to black metallers, it's more like some shoegaze ambient metal pop band just borrowed some black metal tropes and wove them into their gorgeous blown out soundworld.
There's a second disc too, of remixes, by the likes of Jesu, James Plotkin, Loveliescrushing, Birchville Cat Motel, Blut Aus Nord and more, and we would have assumed that remixes by those folks, of this sort of music, would just render them more blissed out, but instead, at least the first two, transform the songs into furious blown out black jams. The first, remixed by Toby Driver of Kay Dot, Ted Parsons of Prong and Swans and Colin Marston of Behold the Arctopus, begins all soft and swirly, but by the end has added super distorted drums, and all manner of fried buzz. The Plotkin remix up next, strips away most of the bliss, and leaves a seriously fucked sounding lo-fi in-the-red black metal blast. The Jesu remix sounds just like you might imagine, a gauzy slowcore drift, with the vocals jacked way up, soaring through the ether, a fluttery falsetto. The two Loveliescrushing mixes bring out the soft blurred ambience of the originals, making them even more tranquil and serene. Birchville turns his mix into a virtual BCM track, using bits and pieces of the original, creating a thick slow growing drone, that builds to a buzzing crescendo before fading back into a dark moody drift. Blut Aus Nord is the most fucked up remix. Not sure if they added tons of stuff, or just did some crazy mix, but the guitars groan all dizzy and woozy and angular, the drums, pounding and machinelike, the vocals a hissy evil howl, the whole track a lurching black lope. All the mixes here are amazing, utterly transforming the originals, but in doing so hewing to the spirit of the original record, which was already pretty schizophrenic and all over the amp as it was.
Way way way recommended. A new aQ favorite for sure...
Another record that was slated for release on Black Friday "Record Store Day" and was delayed, only finally reaching us well after the day, and one that we have VERY few copies of, and it's unclear whether we'll actually be able to get more, so this might be your only (non eBay) shot at it, if you're quick. A sprawling collaboration between black metal / guitardrone soundscapers Horseback, and abstract sort of black metal ambient alchemists Pyramids (whose mainman also runs the Handmade Birds Label), a sprawling epic spread out over SIX sides (a 7" AND an lp), which finds each band offering up their own little thing, and then putting their heads together for the bulk of the release.
The 7" comes first and features Pyramids on the A side, who after a chaotic stuttery programmed drum into, slips into a dreamy blissed out stretch of cinematic ambience, all softly swirling effects and hazy melodic drift. Horseback handle the B side and counter with a blast of black metal, a frantic blast beat beneath buzzing guitars that almost sound more like blackened gypsy folk than black metal proper, until the vokills come in, and the demonic shriek clears that all up, before changing gears half way through and transitioning into a gorgeously decayed crumbling distorted dronescape.
So when it came time to throw on the lp, we were imagining some sort of black metal / drone hybrid, or something similar, instead, the epic 4 part album length A Throne Without A King, plays out more like some lost Nurse With Wound album, heavy on the abstract soundscapery and mysterious collaged atmospheres, the processed garbled vocals, and truncated melodies, lots of drones and textures, and strange industrial filigree, it's haunting and hypnotic and very abstractly cinematic for sure, and finds a mysterious middle ground where neither band's influence is obvious.
Woozy industrial thrum drift beneath sine wave tones and fluttering high end melodies, all over fields of crackle and whir, mysterious voices doused in effects intone some ominous warning, as the listener is slowly pulled under, swallowed whole by deep drones and ethereal melodic drifts, wild squalls of white noise and grinding machinelike textures, the track most often settling into long stretches of UNsettling ambience, sounding not unlike Philip Jeck or The Caretaker, ominous and sinister, cinematic and haunting, the various textures constantly subtly shifting and transforming, as much a part of the sound as the melodies, everything floating in some epic expanse of nothingness, tethered to one another by thread like slivers of fuzz and buzz and thrum.
Vinyl and cassette only for now (although we have yet to receive the cassette), cd in January...
Killer combo for sure, blissed out doom metal shoegaze duo Nadja, and sort-of-black-metal Hydra Head weirdos Pyramids, we weren't sure what to expect, heavy? Spacey? Trippy? Would it be more Nadja? Or more Pyramids? Having listened to this a bunch now, we can safely say, we have no idea.
There are definitely elements from both bands, but the two entities seem to have merged into something wholly new. Which seems ideal, why bother starting a new band just to sound like your old band. Four long tracks, each one a slow burning, gradually sprawling experiment in blown out sound, the opener definitely more toward the blissed out and ambient side of things, with ethereal vocals, huge sweeping sheets of shimmer, sun dappled and psychedelic, until three quarters of the way through, when the team up gets HEAVY, and suddenly we're in Nadja territory, a slow billowy lumber than pushes all out Jesu buttons, the vocals buried beneath an avalanche of swirling buzzing sound.
The second track starts off a bit more aggressively, with some crunchy FX laden guitars, only to drift off, the sound thickening, some skittery rhythmic splatter, some keening melodies, moody and ephemeral, the beats get a bit more caustic, almost jungly, super clipped and jagged, while underneath the soft sounds continue to swirl, and then vocals, LOUD vocals, way up in the mix, total keening indie boy croon, dreamy and heartfelt, before a big heaving swell of low end, and then a gradual drift to silence.
The 22 minute "Sound Of Ice And Grass" seems to be the centerpiece of the record, beginning with delicate piano, deep rumbles, ghostly vox, and swooping backwards effects. Dark and hushed, until those vocals return, sounding more choral this time, and laid over big distorted doomy guitars, reverb and delay pushing everything closer to chaos, before a blast beat erupts, but way down in the mix, the rest of the song continues to plod and drift, the vocals soft, the ambience muted and minimal, while the drums thrash wildly beneath, a strange juxtaposition, but cool sounding for sure. The second half of the song is a series of string laden, effects drenched chordal swells, and fractured melodies, gauzy vox, and all manner of buzz and crackle and whir, eventually building to a wall of grey sound.
The record closes with what sounds to these ears the most like a distillation of the two bands' sounds, beginning with layered melodies, Animal Collective like vocals, layered drones, downtuned guitar buzz, thick slabs of rumbling riffage, and some blasting metallic drum action, again muted and washed out until it's almost textural more than rhythmic, but the stretch with the bast beats is divine, dreamy, ethereal and gorgeous, eventually exploding into a full on Nadja+Pyramids drone / shoegaze / post metal / dream pop blow out. Cool!
Gorgeous packaging too, a min lp style gatefold sleeve, adorned with lush landscapes of trees and forest and streams on the outside, a strange drawing of trees and an owl on the inside, with a printed full color booklet featuring more abstract foliage.
Super limited one sided collaborative lp from avant metal weirdos Pyramids and blackened noisesmiths Wraiths, featuring Clay Ruby from Burial Hex on piano. It's a sprawling 25 minute side long single track, that starts out all dreamy and drifty with female vox over pounding reverb heavy piano, before the song kicks in proper, big chiming distorted guitars, and martial drumming, which instead of launching into blasting blackness, devolves into some strange glitched out droniness, all crumbling distortion, and crooned almost chant-like vox, and that piano from the opening few seconds. The sound is almost liturgical, certainly ritualistic, and for the next 10 minutes, the track drifts woozily, those female vocals return, the piano drives the haunting ambience, a funereal dirge of sorts, that finally explodes again at about the 15 minute mark, the drums, the bombastic crashing chords, but again, the song quickly devolves, this time into a blurred blackened squall of smeared noise and crumbling heaviness, obviously the work of Wraiths, who pull the song apart into a roiling tangle of grinding heaviness and blurred blacknoise, the whole thing laced with weird effect-ed guitars and the occasional stray melody, before, settling into a weird outro, all distant feedback, blasts of feedback, strange electronics, minimal percussion, and that haunting female voice, intoning some strange incantation, as the noise gradually dissipates leaving only emptiness...
Pressed on clear vinyl and housed in a gorgeous vellum sleeve with super striking artwork from tattoo artist Simon Erl. LIMITED TO 350 COPIES!!
Hot on the heels of German label Disko B's release of Otherworldly, the first lp in 35 years from the incredible cosmic Afro-jazz-funk ensemble The Pyramids, comes this, a triple cd box set containing all three of The Pyramids original '70s albums - King Of Kings, Lalibela, and Birth/Speed/Merging. All are fantastic! Birth/Speed/Merging is the only one to have previously been released on cd, back in 2006 by Japan's EM Records, who can take credit for turning us on to the music of The Pyramids and their bandleader, Idris Acakamoor - a great guy who turns out to be a neighbor of ours here in San Francisco! We've reviewed each album separately in the past, as the other two, while never on cd, were eventually reissued on vinyl. So, here's what we wrote (a lot!) about each album, in chronological order:
Lalibela from 1973 was the first recording by this previously little known spiritually tribal free jazz unit, The Pyramids. Originally formed in Europe by students from Antioch College, The Pyramids were based in Yellow Springs, Ohio, before moving to Oakland, California around 1975. The Pyramids were led by Irdris on saxophone and his then wife Margo on flute and piccolo, backed by four other musicians using an arsenal of African tribal instruments such as clay and talking drums, Ugandan harp, bailofone, and masenqo.
That presence of ethnic instrumentation makes itself felt right away. The nearly thirty minute title track (comprising a side and a half of the original lp) begins with some raucous Morroccan-style funk rhythm with horns and piccolos swirling over the top before some soft chanting and Ackamoor's sax lay down the key melodic figure. Then everything sets in at once, hectic sax skronk, the percussive rhythms undulating at times claustrophobic and intense filling the space then gradually separating, becoming airier, sparse and placid before laying down a more martial rhythm that once again collides into a cascade of bamboo flutes and chants, and cymbal washes that becomes a serene idyllic pool of intense calm.
The second track,"Indigo" is more lyrical, though it begins with some powerfully heavy drum fills, with lilting flute, melodic sax laying on top of lurching bass rhythm and percussion. The vibe is more majestic and pulsating then "Lalibela", with a lone shaker being the wildcard instrument for a bit as slow dramatic drums build, offset by metallic bowls and noises before the wooly skronk of the horns and woodwinds sets in and all the players ride that manic torrent before finally settling into a more subdued ending of call and response between Margo's flute and Idris's saxophone. It's that intuitive dynamic between the players, how they stay afloat through recurring periods of noise and calm that make listening to The Pyramids such an enjoyable and worthy experience!
Then, released in 1974, came King Of Kings, which opens with "Mogho Naba", featuring some mantra-like chanting over a frenetic groove straight out of something on one of the Ethiopiques comps while the lead flute and saxophone played by husband and wife leaders Idris and Margo Ackamoor duel it out in a sort of ritualized frenzy, the saxophone becoming more smeary and free, ending with the reemergence of different kind of flutes playing around the same tone like a busted calliope, before that riff comes back and takes us out to the next track, "Queen of the Spirits". Leading with a beautiful lilting flute melody that gains energy and dynamics with lots of ethnic percussion. But being about the Queen, this is Margo's track with the sax kept at bay except for some key transition moments, merging into a Brazilian carnival percussive breakdown and ending with beautiful languid flute and Ethiopian harps.
Side Two has the record's shortest and longest tracks. The first one is the 18 minute "Nsorama (The Stars)" that leads with Margo's intoning the word over a piano and a soft percussive riff, sounding like a more tribal version of a Doug Carn or Alice Coltrane track full of brooding majesty as the horns and flutes come in all plaintive and slow that keep this pace for awhile before the flutes let loose over the calm, but the frenzy on this track is minimal, in fact it becomes really minimal in parts with just a sole percussive rhythm taking the space for a few minutes before the key elements slowly reemerge. Definitely, one of their loveliest tracks! The final number, "My Africa" is more call and response mystical chanting over a repetitive piano and bass riff. This is the most vocal-centric track and in its listing of African homelands suggests a settling peace as it fades out. Such a beautiful record!!
Finally, their third album (and the first we heard), 1976's Birth/Speed/Merging is definitely one of the most amazing rediscovered free jazz gems we've ever come across. And it's not just free jazz, all wild swirl and skronk. Instead it's an exotic blend of Don Cherry's Orient, Funkadelic's Maggot Brain, some Art Ensemble Of Chicago, with wild Eastern sounding tribal rhythms, shuffling jazzy post bop, fluttering flutes and skronking horns, chanted vocals, droning buzzing ragas, seventies psychedelic free folk, propulsive krautfunk jams, some totally chaotic free jazz here and there, octopoidal drumming and wild shrieking sax, haunting percussive soundscapes, replete with strange creaks and whistles, and then before you know it transforming before your ears into what sounds like traditional African music with warm muted thumb piano melodies, chanted harmonies, bird calls, and sweetly melodic flute, rollicking bass heavy grooves under wild hand drums and carnivalesquee noisemaking. The final track, the 16 minute long "Black Man And Woman Of The Nile", is a mellow slow burning groove, with a throbbing bass riff, warm rich sax runs, shuffling percussion, the whole thing a laidback, sun drenched, barefoot funkjazz jam, warm and dreamy and hypnotic, with a short break in the middle for a brief skronky freakout, and then straight back into it, eventually drifting off into abstract ambience, softly moaning horns, dreamy melodies and barely there percussive chatter. Awesome!
These three albums, on 3 remastered cds, come in a handsome little box, with a 44 page booklet. And, on one of the discs you'll find a video for your computer, of The Pyramids live on San Francisco's KQED TV, from 1975!
We're getting to the point now where EM Records could sell us pretty much anything. We've come to trust them that much. Whether it's singing saws, some lost psych oddity, sixties symphonies made entirely from bird calls, space age bachelor pad music, or lost jazz funk artifacts, they have such a knack for unearthing true gems, and then lovingly compiling liner notes and photos and extra track so that the final product is almost as impressive an -object- as it is a piece of music.
The newset mysterious missive from EM is this long lost mysterious jazz record, originally released in 1976. We haven't been able to glean too much about The Pyramids, there are no liner notes (if that tells you how obscure this recording was/is) and a Google search turned up almost exclusively Japanese language sites. But don't let the lack of background keep you from enjoying this record, cuz it's definitely one of the most amazing rediscovered free jazz gems we've heard in ages. And it's not just free jazz, all wild swirl and skronk. Instead it's an exotic blend of Don Cherry's Orient, Funkadelic's Maggot Brian, some Art Ensemble Of Chicago, with wild Eastern sounding tribal rhythms, shuffling jazzy post bop, fluttering flutes and skronking horns, chanted vocals, droning buzzing ragas, seventies psychedelic free folk, propulsive krautfunk jams, some totally chaotic free jazz here and there, octopoidal drumming and wild shrieking sax, haunting percussive soundscapes, replete with strange creaks and whistles, and then before you know it transforming before your ears into what sounds like traditional African music with warm muted thumb piano melodies, chanted harmonies, bird calls, and sweetly melodic flute, rollicking bass heavy grooves under wild hand drums and carnivalesquee noisemaking. The final track, the 16 minute long "Black Man And Woman Of The Nile", is a mellow slow burning groove, with a throbbing bass riff, warm rich sax runs, shuffling percussion, the whole thing a laidback, sun drenched, barefoot funkjazz jam, warm and dreamy and hypnotic, with a short break in the middle for a brief skronky freakout, and then straight back into it, eventually drifting off into abstract ambience, softly moaning horns, dreamy melodies and barely there percussive chatter. Awesome!
Finally available on vinyl!
This amazing slice of majestic tribal funk free jazz was briefly reissued on cd from Japan's EM Records a couple of years back, but due to legal disputes became quickly unavailable. We've been waiting patiently now for the proper reissues of this and the two other full lengths from this previously little known group, The Pyramids, biding the time by listening over and over again to the awesome 2cd set of The Pyramid's main founder Idris Ackamoor's solo output (also reissued on EM) ...and now finally they have reappeared in beautiful vinyl format (a long ago promised cd box set has yet to materialize!). Here's what we said about the cd reissue back when:
Originally released in 1976, we haven't been able to glean too much about The Pyramids, there are no liner notes (if that tells you how obscure this recording was/is) and a Google search turned up almost exclusively Japanese language sites. But don't let the lack of background keep you from enjoying this record, cuz it's definitely one of the most amazing rediscovered free jazz gems we've heard in ages. And it's not just free jazz, all wild swirl and skronk. Instead it's an exotic blend of Don Cherry's Orient, Funkadelic's Maggot Brian, some Art Ensemble Of Chicago, with wild Eastern sounding tribal rhythms, shuffling jazzy post bop, fluttering flutes and skronking horns, chanted vocals, droning buzzing ragas, seventies psychedelic free folk, propulsive krautfunk jams, some totally chaotic free jazz here and there, octopoidal drumming and wild shrieking sax, haunting percussive soundscapes, replete with strange creaks and whistles, and then before you know it transforming before your ears into what sounds like traditional African music with warm muted thumb piano melodies, chanted harmonies, bird calls, and sweetly melodic flute, rollicking bass heavy grooves under wild hand drums and carnivalesquee noisemaking. The final track, the 16 minute long "Black Man And Woman Of The Nile", is a mellow slow burning groove, with a throbbing bass riff, warm rich sax runs, shuffling percussion, the whole thing a laidback, sun drenched, barefoot funkjazz jam, warm and dreamy and hypnotic, with a short break in the middle for a brief skronky freakout, and then straight back into it, eventually drifting off into abstract ambience, softly moaning horns, dreamy melodies and barely there percussive chatter. Awesome!
This is the reissue of the second album from The Pyramids, whose other two records we raved about last list. Released in 1974, it opens with "Mogho Naba" with some mantra-like chanting over a frenetic groove straight out of something on one of the Ethiopiques comps while the lead flute and saxophone played by husband and wife leaders Idris and Margo Ackamoor duel it out in a sort of ritualized frenzy, the saxophone becoming more smeary and free, ending with the reemergence of different kind of flutes playing around the same tone like a busted calliope, before that riff comes back and takes us out to the next track, "Queen of the Spirits". Leading with a beautiful lilting flute melody that gains energy and dynamics with lots of ethnic percussion. But being about the Queen, this is Margo's track with the sax kept at bay except for some key transition moments, merging into a Brazilian carnival percussive breakdown and ending with beautiful languid flute and Ethiopian harps.
Side Two has the record's shortest and longest tracks. The first one is the 18 minute "Nsorama (The Stars)" that leads with Margo's intoning the word over a piano and a soft percussive riff, sounding like a more tribal version of a Doug Carn or Alice Coltrane track full of brooding majesty as the horns and flutes come in all plaintive and slow that keep this pace for awhile before the flutes let loose over the calm, but the frenzy on this track is minimal, in fact it becomes really minimal in parts with just a sole percussive rhythm taking the space for a few minutes before the key elements slowly reemerge. Definitely, one of their loveliest tracks! The final number, "My Africa" is more call and response mystical chanting over a repetitive piano and bass riff. This is the most vocal-centric track and in its listing of African homelands suggests a settling peace as it fades out. Such a beautiful record!!
We're super psyched to finally see these rare Pyramids LPs available once again! (Note, the there's a third one, King Of Kings, that we and suppliers have already run out of, but we should be listing it eventually).
Lalibela from 1973 is the first recording by this previously little known spiritually tribal free jazz unit, The Pyramids. Based in Yellow Springs, Ohio, before moving to Oakland, CA by 1975, The Pyramids were led by Idris Ackamoor on saxophone and his then wife Margo on flute and piccolo backed by four other musicians using an arsenal of African tribal instruments such as Clay and Talking drums, Ugandan Harp, Bailofone, and Masenqo.
That presence of ethnic instrumentation makes itself felt right away. The nearly thirty minute title track (comprising a side and a half of the lp) begins with some raucous Morroccan-style funk rhythm with horns and piccolos swirling over the top before some soft chanting and Ackamoor's sax lay down the key melodic figure. Then everything sets in at once, hectic sax skronk, the percussive rhythms undulating at times claustrophobic and intense filling the space then gradually separating, becoming airier, sparse and placid before laying down a more martial rhythm that once again collides into a cascade of bamboo flutes and chants, and cymbal washes that becomes a serene idyllic pool of intense calm.
The second track,"Indigo" is more lyrical, though it begins with some powerfully heavy drum fills, with lilting flute, melodic sax laying on top of lurching bass rhythm and percussion. The vibe is more majestic and pulsating then "Lalibela", with a lone shaker being the wildcard instrument for a bit as slow dramatic drums build, offset by metallic bowls and noises before the wooly skronk of the horns and woodwinds sets in and all the players ride that manic torrent before finally settling into a more subdued ending of call and response between Margo's flute and Idris's saxophone.
It's that intuitive dynamic between the players, how they stay afloat through recurring periods of noise and calm that make listening to The Pyramids such an enjoyable and worthy experience!
Some years back, in 2006, the Japanese label EM - one of the most eccentric reissue specialists in the world, and just about our favorite - introduced us to the works of a mysterious, long lost '70s cosmic jazz ensemble called Pyramids (not to be confused with the post-rock/black metal act of the same name). They reissued The Pyramids' 1976 record Birth/Speed/Merging on cd, then a double-cd anthology of music by Pyramids bandleader, saxophonist Idris Ackamoor, including more Pyramids material, some of it previously unreleased. We were pretty taken with Ackamoor & Pyramids, calling 'em "amazing, and revolutionary and so brilliantly far out", and comparing 'em to such current underground ensembles as the No Neck Blues Band and Avarus, among others. Birth/Speed/Merging we said was an "amazing slice of majestic tribal funk free jazz" that made references to both Egypt and Jamaica, and the same goes for their other records too.
Then, a little later, the Ikef label reissued all three of The Pyramids' rare albums on vinyl - the ones which we just got back in stock, and relisted a few weeks ago, you may recall. We relisted 'em because none other than Idris Ackamoor himself happens to live here in SF, in our neighborhood in fact, and he brought copies by! As always, we were happy to see him, and happier still when he told us the news that Pyramids had recently reunited with several of the original members, and had recorded a new album, their first in the 35 years since Birth/Speed/Merging - that's this, now out on the German label Disko B. Recorded at Faust Studio - that's right, the studio run by Hans Joachim Irmler of krautrockers Faust, in Scheer, Germany - it maintains and expands the Pyramids' spiritual, ethnic, cosmic, funky '70s jazz vibe perfectly. Otherworldly (so aptly titled) still holds echoes of their contemporaries the Art Ensemble Of Chicago, Sun Ra's Arkestra, Alice Coltrane, Don Cherry, Pharoah Sanders, etc. It's Afro-centric, with some further Far Eastern inflections... Universal sounds, universal consciousness. Both free and freaky but also totally soulful and gentle and groovy too. Definitely worthy of The Pyramids' now much less obscure legacy. The ancient/modern, multicultural connection Pyramids make is quite evident, resonating on tracks "Reincarnation" (which relates the royal drummers of Mali to kids dancing in the streets of New Orleans) and of course "Ancient Funk!". Tracks that find mantric group chant and masterful hand percussion alongside lovely whistling reeds and echoing electronics, both electric and acoustic bass parts intertwined, and plenty of other "otherworldly" sounds.
Now we're really looking forward to seeing 'em live, as Idris told us they'd be playing shows soon, here in San Francisco as well as over in Europe (where they got their start, in France back in '72). In fact, he just dropped off some flyers, The Pyramids are playing 3 nights, November 1st-3rd, at the Buriel Clay Theater on Fulton!
Compact disc version packaged in a nice gatefold sleeve with large fold out insert of lyrics and color photos. The vinyl is similarly presented.
Got us a kick ass split here, bringing together a band we had yet to hear (and can barely pronounce), Pyrifleyethon, and aQ faves Ophidian Forest (counting the man behind tUMULt's Botanist as a member!).
First up is Pyrifleyethon, hailing from Greece. We're told pretty much everything we need to know within the intro "Ignipotence", where guitar fuzz takes on the sound of a portal opening up into hell before launching into full on blasts of black metal fury with "Powers of The Second Sphere". Our favorite track from this horde is "Underneath", where the band expertly utilizes melancholy melodies with croaking troll vokills and machine gun riffery with all kinds of queasy runs up the fretboard. The final song, the perfectly named "Hades Landscape" begins with a spooky guitar melody and rides it for a good 5 minutes as a midtempo dirge before shifting gears and launching into full on black metal insanity.
Pretty bad ass stuff from Pyrifleyethon, but Ophidian Forest have no difficulty in staking out their own crazy identity on this split. OF's previous albums, which we gobbled up like crazy, gave us a roadmap for where things *might* go, but goddamn if this band hasn't upped the ante for totally confusional, totally fucked black metal mayhem. Given the band's international makeup and method of creating albums via file swapping, we wonder how these three manage to produce stuff this bizarre while still sounding completely together and musical. No doubt the most immediate reaction is to the keyboards, which almost sound like a jazzy organ at times. In terms of how they are worked into the mix, think maybe of Beherit's Drawing Down The Moon. The songs have a strange sepia-tone quality to them, and it sounds like they could be the soundtrack to some lost Jan Svankmeyer film. On "Never Wish To Sleep", the keyboards buzz about nefariously like a poison fog while the vocals sound like something creeping out of an underground bunker. The song is weird and hallucinatory with a cool end of the world vibe that we can definitely get behind. "The Tower" makes great use of the aforementioned "jazzy" keyboards, thrown in with guttural riffs and uber metal drumming. The song is almost proggy at times, like something Van Der Graf Generator might have made if they were a three strangers from disparate parts of the globe instead of a bunch of old English nutters. Ending with "Paladin Of The Blackest Heart", OF conjures elements of industrial sci-fi craziness and even hints of folk (we think anyway) while still sounding like... well, only themselves. Quite a feat, and highly recommended!
This album has the word "synthesizer" emblazoned on its cover, in letters as big as either the artist name or the album title. And when you hear it, you will know why. This album is all about Pyrolator putting his several synthesizers through their paces. Inland was the debut lp from Germany's Kurt Dahlke aka Pyrolator (also a member of DAF and Der Plan), originally released in 1979 on his own Aka Tak label, and its synth-noise experimentation belongs both to the spacey electronic krautrock genre and to the (currently in revival) '80s minimal-wave scene. Think DIY Kraftwerk. It encompasses the abstract experimentation of someone like Asmus Tietchens, as well as other stuff that's much more melodic and Cluster-y. There's shortwave static, distant schlager transmissions, rhythmically buzzing glitchwerks, musique concrete tape edits, some blissed out white noise soundscapes... For folks who like difficult, mad scientist music, you've got squelchy distortion laced with whining, high end tones ("Inland 1"), and for the new wavers, there's trax with burbling sequenced beats, pulsing like something Zombi or Majeure might do today ("Minimal Tape 3/7.2"). Indeed, Inland is a veritable cornucopia of such ear candy for those of us enamored with the minimal coldwave synth sorta thing, the more experimental side of which, especially. You could file this with your Axxess album (that recent Record Of The Week) though a lot of this is scarier than that - Inland apparently intended as cutting edge "protest music" (those were radical days in West Germany, the Red Army Faction running rampant). But its claustrophobic character is abstract enough for us to enjoy today without any explicit political aspects made plain. Another good reference, perhaps, being Bernard Szajner.
The compact disc version of this reissue comes with 6 worthwhile bonus tracks. Oh, and Bureau B has another early but much poppier Pyrolator reissue we'll try to get to soon...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
