**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT**
Just wanted to get the attention of the growing legion of Mississippi Records obsessives, as this week we have not one, not two, but THREE new releases from this PDX based all vinyl, mostly reissue label.
All three of the new Mississippi releases are of a more punk rock, post punk bent, abandoning temporarily the blues, gospel, and African reissues that defined the label in the early days. With every release, they get harder and harder to pigeonhole, which is always the mark of a great label.
The Rats might not be an immediately recognizable name to most folks, but what about Rats frontman Fred Cole? Ring any bells? Well, in case you hadn't figured it out already, Cole would later go on to front the legendary Dead Moon, and more recently, the Pierced Arrows, alongside his wife Toody, credited in the Rats as T.Rat. A serious slice of Portland punk rock history for sure.
The Rats existed for only a few years in the early eighties and spit out some awesome organ drenched punky garage rock stomp, liberally laced with some new wave and power pop. The vocals high and wavery, Cole sharing vocal duties with his female bandmate, the choruses shouted singalongs, the drums a simple pound, the guitars swinging from almost twang to indie jangle to punk rock crunch, the songs wreathed in Fuzztone style organs, the vibe wild and wooly, not hard to imagine these guys RULING every sweaty basement and dive club in Portland.
Thick black and white sleeve, with just the most minimal liner notes...
Total '80s gloss thing going on (Andee thought it sounded like The Fixx!) here from these two members of Circle, sorta Talking Heads / Sparks / Oingo Bongo -ish... maybe even Barnes and Barnes? As as Christine put it: "fucked up aerobics music" with "Finnish goth" vocals! Or imagine Circle in tuxes and feathers, with Mika Ratto singing in a Popeye voice. Weird!
As you might have guessed from the review of Ektroverde's "Ukkossalama" above/elsewhere, and will shortly learn from this review, we have to say: the two new Ektro label releases aren't -exactly- our absolute favorites from our fine Finnish friend Jussi and his accomplices. Then again, that didn't stop Andee and Allan from buying copies! But Circle fans should know what they're getting into here: with the Ratto Ja Lehtisalo album it's a stab at vocal and instrumental synth pop (with lyrics like "heyheyshalalalalala") that features lots of Circle-lite spacerock synth-work. Cheesy '80s synths that is. Maybe they can't find cooler ones at the Finnish flea markets? Or maybe this is some sort of obscure and/or drunken joke. Not that it's *bad* or anything, we just don't understand, and would like it better if it wasn't so...smooth. It's very poppy and mild, with gentle psychedelic guitar leads spun out by Aki Peltonen (otherwise, as you might guess from the name, this is the duo of Circle bassist Jussi Lehtisalo and Circle keyboardist/vocalist Mika Ratto, here also playing drums). But fans of Circle's Neu!-inspired rhythms looking for a pleasant, sunshiney listen may well enjoy. It's nothing if not nice. So, check out the sound samples, see what you think...
Remember Kopernikus Hortoilee Nakinkengassa? (Ahhh, like it was only yesterday...) The first Ratto Ja Lehtisalo cd? Well here's Ratto Ja Lethisalo cd numba two, Pari Lepakkoa Transylvaniassa! The duo of Mika Ratto and Jussi Lehtisalo, both integral members of AQ faves Circle, along with guitarist Aki Peltonen, return with another rather pretty pop album that's also rather weird -- of course, what else would you expect from these Finnish freaks? Like its predecessor, this one is kinda light-n-mild, and mysteriously goofy. It reminds us a bit of some modern Czech folk stuff, actually, a la Vladimir Vaclavek (as if that's any help to you!). Guitars and harmonica and drums and whistling and whispering and even a typewriter are worked into these songs' arrangements, and there's at least one track that's got that trademark Circle sorta groove, with Neu!-ish rhythms and krautrocky synth. But it's "the lighter side of" Circle for sure. And the vocals are a major thing here. There's lots of voice-as-instrument playfulness, with lyrics, sometimes in English, often along the lines of "dum de dum" or even "c'mon bay-bee", the repetition of such phrases calling their actual meaning (or meaninglessness) into question.
Is it a nonsense album? Actually we suspect that there's may be a story being told, as certain musical themes seem to carry through the whole disc, giving it the sense of a song-cycle. Or perhaps it's the album's foresty fairytale cartoon artwork that's making us imagine that Uncle Jussi and Uncle Mika are telling us some children's fable. It's a little corny, definitely cute or even cutesy (as per that artwork), and again we're left wondering just what it's all about... Yeah, it's weird, almost in a "why are they doing this?" sorta way, but a lot of it is also quite beautiful.
Raudive's A System Of Objects plays like some lost musique concrete classic, albeit modernized in such a way, that it sounds like it could just as easily be some weirdo noisemaker with a new limited lp on Pan. It's tough one to describe, and as frustrating as that is, it also generally means the music in question is truly unique. And holy shit is this stuff unique. Imagine a latticework of ping-ponging rhythms, built from squelchy synths, echo drenched percussion, garbled voices, various samples, conversations, birdsong, then stir in some Logan's Run style sci-fi bloops and bleeps, all underpinned by softly swirling shimmers, and often driven by pulsing kraut-house rhythms, and you'd only be getting sort of close, but if that sounds at all good to you, how this actually sounds is probably even cooler. It's no accident that this is on the same label that also gave us the warped avant techno of Stefan Goldmann, as well as multiple records of LIVE 'electronica' from Elektro Guzzi. Raudive, aka Oliver Ho, also exists in some strange sonic nether region, the music ostensible techno, or house, or at least electronica, but constructed from unlikely elements, and often shaped into something that most definitely doesn't conform to typical dance music. Check out "Ruins" which sounds like a warped housier avant garde take on Yello's "Oh Yeah", or the horn flecked groovy almost Latin sounding "Visitor", which is laced with what sounds like Japanese voices, and lazer blast blurts. There's the free jazz / fragmented techno weirdness of "Furniture", the sci-fi future-dub of "Carcass", and the spaced out 20th century alien classical weirdness of "Blood And Hair", and the woozy electro of "Summoning". Some of the tracks sound like they could be on Kompakt, others sound like they could be on Hyperdub, but in both cases, that sound is warped and weird, and transformed into something that couldn't possibly end up on either, whether it's clouds of swirling chirping high end skitter, or strange female robotic voices, gristly tarpit rhythms, or prepared piano and sloooooowed down vocals, every track here is a serious chunk of avant electronic weirdness, seemingly designed for some druggy alternate universe dancefloor. So cool!
Underground Finnish freak jazz craziness.
Few can match Mr. Jon Rauhouse's musicianship, range and artistry. On this his third solo album, he's truly outdone himself! A pure genius at capturing moods that evoke a time long passed, he moves effortlessly from romantic old time balladry to Hawaiian tiki-lit happy hour, twilight swing jazz to chilling spookiness, lonesome range mournings to kicky covers of the Mannix and The Andy Griffiths Show theme songs. There's a little something for everyone here! He's joined by his dear friends Tommy Connell (guitars), Calexico's John Convertino (drums), Joey Burns (bass) and Jacob Valenzuela (trumpet), Paul Rigby (guitar and mandolin player extraordinaire aka Rauhouse's six-string cohort in Neko Case's touring band) and many others who know what's good for 'em. While Rauhouse's main focus is on the magic of the instrumental, he ices the cake with some sweet lady vocals by his pals Neko Case, Sally Timms, Kelly Hogan and Rachel Flotard. Excellent!
Fantastic! The list of Rauhouse's friends/guest players on his second solo album is enough to make you wanna nab it immediately -- a bevy of lovely ladies like Neko Case, Carolyn Mark, Kelly Hogan and Sally Timms (perhaps you've heard/seen him performing with one or all of them?), not to mention a gathering of dapper gents like Tommy Connell, Howe Gelb, and Calexico's Joey Burns and John Convertino! However, you'll soon discover (in case you haven't already!) that all by his lonesome Mr. Jon Rauhouse is something of a multi-instrumental magic man. With a natural ease and mastery of the full spectrum of mood, expression, and vintage style, he captures the sounds of a bygone era. Able to unfurl the amazing melodious sounds of Hawaiian guitar, smoky lounge, country, spaghetti western... you name it, but he just as readily can conjure the most dissonant thunder from the strings of his pedal steel guitar. Really folks, the only place where he stumbles is in the lyrics department, particularly on the songs he sings himself. Kooky rhyming couplets and matching guitar accents just aren't our cup of tea. But fret not! The strengths of this album far outshine those fleeting weak moments.
We had copies of the first pressing of this for like a nanosecond last year, sold out almost immediately, before we could review it, and then it went out of print... typical Grouper-related release behavior! But, thankfully, it's been repressed, as a new white vinyl/white cover version, and so now, finally, we DO have enough to get it up on the list, so if you've missed out on nabbing one of these so far, now's your chance, albeit most likely a very brief one. So what's the hubub? Well, this is in fact the first release from Raum, a collaborative project between Liz Harris of Grouper, and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma of Tarentel, the two crafting a gorgeous ethereal songsuite, that most definitely sounds like the perfect combination of both sounds. Lush and languorous, slowly unfurling Cocteau Twins like guitar figures, buried beneath soft shimmery billows, what sounds like vocals or maybe flute, drifting weightlessly in the ether, the whole thing gauzey and grainy, softly distorted, opener "In Stellar Orbit" does in fact sound like the soundtrack to drifting aimlessly though the cosmos, a hushed ambient komsische, that gradually fades to a muted drift, before a gorgeous, haunting coda, all high end melodies, fluttering psychedelically in a field of smeared static. So lovely. Another one of those instances where this could have ben the only track, spread out over both sides, and we would have been perfectly happy.
The rest of the tracks are shorter, but still feel darkly immersive, and definitely find the duo pushing sonic boundaries. "Blood Moon", is distorted and blown out, the sounds crumbling and chaotic, but still wrapped in softly shimmering sheets of blissed out thrum, distant vocals are spectral and dreamily prismatic, a softly coruscating dirge, heady and hypnotic and weirdly heavy. The title track is a brief interlude, all that noisiness peeled away, leaving just piano and soft vocal drift, haunting and barely there ambience, a sort of moonlit pastoral chamber folk, performed beneath the stars, which morphs gently into "In Held Company", which sounds like it could be a Grouper track proper, the piano still the main melody, those ghostly vocals hovering above, the second half of the track slipping into some moody murkiness, reminiscent of an even more abstract ambient Caretaker or Tim Hecker, before finishing off with "Blood Loss", which manages to sound even MORE ethereal, all weightless hushed sonic whispers, and cooed angelic murmurings, softly smeared into gorgeously indistinct washed of dolorous dreamlike sound. Beautiful.
We do have enough to list, but as mentioned above, odds are these will disappear fast, so grab one quick before they're gone, and as with all super limited stuff, one per customer please!
Hefty Records has been one of the most consistently underwhelming record labels that has emerged in the last five years or so; yet, money won't ever be an issue for proprietor John Hughes III as he is the son of the director John Hughes. So, there will always be a steady supply of Savath + Savalas, Slicker, and other generic post-rock / hip-hop hybrid albums residing in the bargain bins until all of the royalties dry up from "The Breakfast Club" and "Pretty In Pink" (not a likely proposition). Thus it seemed odd that the US debut from Shitkatapult / Kompakt pseudo-superstar T. Raumschmiere would land on Hefty. Mostly known for generating an ironic electro-punk swagger culled from the '70s glam rock of Gary Glitter, T. Raumschmiere (aka Marco Haas) has garnered some incredible press including the media bite on salesticker of "Anti" stating, "If the new rock has no guitars, then this is its Elvis Presley." Well, such claims may be justified for albums such as their brazenly crunchy "The Great Rock 'N' Roll Swindle," but they are far from the truth in describing "Anti." This album finds Haas producing the spartan, swing techno-grooves that Wolfgang Voigt had been composing a couple of years back before going into hibernation after the Gas album "Pop." Sure, the beats have a lusty hip-sway reminiscent of the best libidinal rock 'n' roll, but the rest of the production isn't exactly over the top. Rather, Haas creates quiet, somewhat gritty atmospheres around those rhythms with minor-key drones and sputtering mechanizations. If you're looking for a follow-up to the Gas album "Konigsforst," this will do very well for you, but if you're looking for that electro-punk thing, you're better off with Electronicat or Gold Chains "Straight From Your Radio."
Play this cd loud! Yeah I know, you hear that all the time, but I really mean it! Monster Truck Driver is a mighty good time. It's the electronic equivalent of Big Foot and Quadzilla thundering into your living room or car or headphones... well, maybe not quite! But really isn't T. Raumschmiere's name even rally announcer-ready?! Just a scant four tracks: a "Monster Truck Driver" edit and a Dabrye's Big Truck Remix of the same, as well as a vocal version edit (with spitty, snarky effected vocals courtesy of Miss Kittin) and an uncut instrumental version of "The Game Is Not Over". The latter really reminded me of "Doctorin' The Tardis" by The Timelords. Fun! Each one is a wonderfully heaving, churning and belching thick-necked thumper. But you also get a video of the title track to boot! And - as far as we know - not a single vehicle was harmed.
T. Raumschmiere's Radio Blackout album was one of the best big stompin' glam-techno assaults of the year, and here we have that album's single numba two (after Monstertruckdriver from before the album's release). The draw here is the two remixes by The Bug (Kevin Martin), in his crunchy "dancehell" stylee, one featuring toasting by Ras Bogle. Plus there's a video clip fer yer computer.
After the subtle excursion into heroin house on his "Anti" album for Hefty, T. Raumschmiere returns to his bread and butter with "Radio Blackout" an album of shuffletime techno. Alongside Electronicat and the "Schaffelfieber" compilations on Kompakt, Raumschmiere encapsulates the single minded stupidity of testosterone with a comical b-movie approach to techno that revists the flamboyance of Gary Glitter, The Sweet, and T. Rex. Throughout "Radio Blackout," there are a handful of megawatt stompers that crank out the corroded synth lines emulating fist-pumpin' anthemic guitar licks and shuffling post-glam-rock rhythms. As triumphant and huge as the cuts 'The Game Is Not Over' (which features Miss Kitten barking out the vocals to the 200 mile per hour rhythms) and 'Monstertruckdriver' are, it's easy to overlook how good the rest of the album is. Not content to issue a collection of singles or single worthy material, T. Raumschmiere really did attempt to locate his crunching numbers against low-slung grooves and crackled breakbeats to craft an album. These slower numbers don't appear as the ambient filler, but as the necessary breathing room required before rocketing through more of those tremendous carcrash rhythms. A great album!
While the recent output of T. Raumschmiere exploded with megawatt dancefloor stomps bridging the glizty grooves of '70s glam rock and the insistency of Berlin techno, Random Noize Sessions Vol. 1 is a far moodier affair. This collection of unreleased and live tracks dating back to 1999 oozes with minor-key atmospheres wrapped around subdued rhythms from the Berlin techno template. Marco Haas (the man behind the T. Raumschmiere persona) locates numerous interludes of darkened Pop Ambience throughout the rhythmic tracks; but the rhythms are his bread and butter. This is especially true on the more oblique "GrobMotorOmsk" which is not terribly discreet in its references to the NZ electron loop misanthrope Omit. Just as Haas was pretty obvious in his electro-punk numbers citing Gary Glitter and the Sweet, why not draw from one of the under-recognized masters of modern day electronica?
With that bouncing monotous march and those big dum-dum glam-rock riffs, T. Raumschmiere cranks through six tracks of shuffletime techno as heard in Electronicat and the last Gold Chain's EP. A couple of these tracks venture more into Love Parade rave territory, but still have enough of enough of an electro-strut in them that you have to wonder when some mash-up smart-ass is going make a shuffle mix with this stuff backing Gary Glitter, Sweet, and T-Rex. Four of the tracks had previously appeared on earlier 12" with the other 4 being new to this album.
Metal Blade brings us the blazing attack of Boston's Ravage, and boy do they sound like they belong on Metal Blade - circa 1987 maybe. Total '80s style metal a la Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, extra-energetic and self-consciously classic.
They've apparently been around for a while (formed in 1995) but this is only their second studio album. Otherwise their discography, according to the Metal Archives site on the internet, consists entirely of limited edition live albums (5 of them!! Including, apparently, a mostly instrumental one called Yes, We Have No Lead Singer, 'cause he got lost on the way to the show!) plus a few eps and demo tapes and whatnot. So it's cool that Metal Blade picked 'em up, odd too because Metal Blade has already released plenty of albums by bands that sound a lot like this in the '90s (Wardog anyone?) and they never did that well outside of Germany anyway. Maybe they thought it was time to try again.
We can recommend this, at any rate, it's a good one if you're in the mood for some surefire headbanging action. And, it's got a Repka painting of a giant radioactive spider laying waste to a city on the cover. More importantly, perhaps, this also boasts the vocals of one Al Ravage, who possesses a great shrieky voice, sorta Dickinsonian. Perfect for this heavy and speedy metal, loaded with catchy riffage, some of it recalling Euro power metallers like Gamma Ray and Iron Fire for sure, but also the NWOBHM and American acts like Metal Church and Metallica back in the day. And we're definitely reminded of Judas Priest's maybe-most-metal offering, Painkiller. Possibly 'cause Ravage cover "The Nightcrawler" from that album here. And their own song "The Shredder" could easily have been on Painkiller too. No bad thing, that..
Back in 2004, this underground Australian epic metal band put out a pretty cool self-released cd, called Choose The Dark. But it seemed nobody really knew or cared about them, back then. Nearly ten years later, probably nobody still does, these guys aren't exactly on the radar of anyone not super geeked out about cult, epic, true doom metal. Yet somehow, for this, their long-awaited (?) second album, they scored a deal with big time US metal label Metal Blade! Well good for them. Perhaps pacts with the devil do pay off. Or the time was just right. Who knows? Not that they don't deserve it - this is a pretty rad album for those into, like we said, cult, epic, true doom metal, which would include quite a few aQ customers!
This disc, which includes a couple songs from their debut (redone?), totals twelve tracks, full of fuzzy, rollicking riffage in ye olde heavy metal mode, solos shredding, the production definitely NOT slick or high-budget, in fact, it's kinda weird and lo-fi but works for this, for us. Key to Raven Black Night's peculiar sort of magic is their singer, "The White Knight", who belts it out superbly, his ballsy and slightly bizarre vocals wailing in the upper register, kinda reminding us of Bruce Dickinson, or Ian Gillan circa Sabbath's Born Again - not a bad thing!! Messiah from Candlemass would be another good comparison, probably even a better one. Raven Black Night do kinda sound like a weird hybrid of Candlemass and Manilla Road - again, not a bad thing.
One bad thing, though, is that they chose to do a cover of infamous Black Sabbath piano ballad "Changes" for some reason. That's a song that even a lot of hardcore Sabbath fans loathe, so it's pretty nervy of RBN to cover it, we'll give 'em that, but even if you like the song they don't do much with it. (If you wanna hear a good cover of "Changes", go check out the ultra-heavy interpretation Fudge Tunnel did years ago.) So be warned about that, and it's not the only slow and ballady-song here, they do a few originals along those lines as well, but we like those a lot better, they're more "Planet Caravan" than "Changes", spacey and sorta psychedelic.
RBN are at their best though when boisterously galloping along like riders of doom, The White Knight's battle cries ringing forth, on slaying tracks like "Fire In Your Eyes" and "Morbid Gladiator". All in all, they manage to be both rockin' and doomy and just have damn cool weird epic heavy metal vibe to 'em. Glad they didn't give up after that first album so long ago, but kept working diligently on their arcane sorcery in a secret tower somewhere so we'd get to hear this eccentric second strike!
Like the Depths tape we reviewed on the last list, this is another blast of true underground grimness, Ravendawn however is in fact two Iowa teenagers who reviewed this slab of sonic sickness way back in 1997, and which has never been released until now. And it's a doozy, especially if you like your black metal raw and primitive, and like your fidelity fucked up. This is total practice space / basement / subterranean cavern sound, the guitars a muddy insectoid blur, the vocals a super distorted rasp, the drums total cardboard trashcan lid pound and bash, but all woven together into some seriously fierce black heaviness. And some tracks manage to be weirdly atmospheric dialing back the buzz, letting the guitars weave weirdly tense minor key drones, the drums loping and spaced out, the result sort of cinematic and trancelike, surprisingly progressive for the time certainly, and the weirdness/coolness is only enhanced by the warped recording, cuz when the blown out blasting drum damage swoops in toward the end of the track, that combined with the weirdly woozy psychedelic atmosphere makes for some seriously tripped out sonic radness.
Ravendawn do a pretty great job of fusing those too sounds/vibes, they're at their best when it's a dizzying concoction that can't seem to decide between atmospheric and psychedelic or grim buzzing and black, usually opting for both simultaneously, which results in something fucked up and weirdly original, but still plenty raw and grim and true to keep the metalheads satisfied. Fans of other Universal Consciousness stuff will definitely dig (Harassor, Moonknight, Wrath Of The Weak), and again, if you dug that Depths tape, this one will most likely hit the spot too.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, each one hand numbered, the covers letter pressed on super thick textured cardstock.
New project from Killjoy (of Necrophagist), Dan Lilker (Brutal Truth, S.O.D., etc.) and Chris Reifert (Autopsy). Heavy and weird, sloppy and noisy and according to the onesheet, 'horrifying' thrash metal.
Galloping like a ton of bricks, to mix metaphors massively, Ravensire's The Cycle Never Ends is a must for anyone into triumphing true metal. Storming right out of the gates with opener "Cromlech Revelations", these proud Portuguese barbarians make it quite evident that their new effort possesses a foe-slaying energy, and an arcane, idiosyncratic X-factor, that sets it apart from other, more ordinary efforts by the worldwide true metal legions. There's a powerful heft to their folkish, majestic riffage and an edge to their not-so-clean yet sufficiently melodic vocals (that sound like a bit like Paul Di'Anno gargling with Baron from Amebix) that just delivers the damn goods. We've liked their previous releases - which include a split single with Irish epic metallers Terminus - but this is their best record yet, and gets not just thumbs up from us, but fists waving in the air. It's not only damn heavy and has a dark, atmospheric gravitas, but also brings the riffs - ones that Slough Feg fans in particular (like these guys themselves are, having had Mike Scalzi cameo on their preceding album) will certainly appreciate - they're very Feggy indeed.
I totally loved the first Raveonettes record. An ep of slightly sinister garage rock bittersweetness, buried under a thick blanket of Jesus And Mary Chain grit and fuzz and swathed in heaps of Galaxie 500 reverby shimmer. But part of what I liked was that it was creepy and mean and pretty surprising for a major label/MTV record to evoke such a misanthropic vibe. On first listen, Chain Gang Of Love, the Raveonettes first full length, sounded downright cheerful. Gone is the gloom and doom of their debut. To the point where I decided right then and there that I didn't like it. But on repeated listens, it really started to grow on me, as long as I approached it as a completely different beast. Once I could get over the lack of ominous minor key creepiness, it revealed itself as just a really great pop record. Like a weird mix of fifties rock and roll, Beach Boys surf rock, and lo fi grungy garage, but with stretched out Velvets song structures and that fuzzy haze that infuses everything with a grainy, washed out glow. Not sure I like it as much as the ep, but I sure have been listening to it a lot lately, which I suppose says it all.
Sometimes we joke that a review really could be one line and describe the music perfectly and succinctly. If we were to try that with the latest from The Raveonettes it would read: If you like great pop you will love this record! But of course, where's the fun in that?? We've definitely never been accused for being at a loss for words when it comes to records we love, so here comes some total gushing!
Last year The Raveonettes revealed a much more raw and fuzzy side to their sound making one of the best Jesus & Mary Chain influenced records in a sea of falling-way-short wannabes. Under all of the fuzz and distortion, it was still clear that The Raveonettes are first and foremost great songwriters who know how to create the kind of hooks and melodies that stay stuck in your head for ages. With In And Out Of Control, the fuzz and feedback have been dialed back, but those golden pop chops are flexed with even greater potency as they take their love of girl groups, and that true knack for conjuring timeless cool pop, creating their own special sound, with such ease and confidence, a sizzling sultry shimmery pop that we can't get enough of. It's kind of puzzling to us why this band hasn't gotten even more popular, cuz in our book The Raveonettes have definitely reached a total apex in creating some of the best modern pop we've heard in ages!
Past outings by The Raveonettes have left some of us here only with brief moments and a handful of songs that we really liked, but never quite managed an entire album to fall in love with (although we loved the first ep!). That changes on Lust Lust Lust, as The Raveonettes have found a way to bring their love of garage pop, girl groups, intoxicating reverb, and just the right mix of bubble-gum yumminess vs. those equally delicious moments of wall of sound distortion. In fact this is making quite a great companion to the latest Magnetic Fields album Distortion that we are still so in love with.
Of course The Raveonettes love of Jesus & Mary Chain and the Velvet Underground is still worn on their sleeves with pride but now they have delivered a great album of their own to show that they don't just look and sound cool, but they actually have the great songs to back it up. So good!
Where last year's Raven In The Grave found Danish boy/girl shoegaze fuzz poppers the Raveonettes moving in a distinctly darker direction, the sound much grittier than past efforts, Observator is pretty much the exact opposite, the sound warm and sun dappled, jangly and seriously summery. Opener "Young And Cold" is a lush slab of gauzy dream pop, that sounds more Best Coast than Jesus And Mary Chain, their sixties girl group worship in full swing, the song laced with piano and acoustic guitar, drifting in clouds of echo drenched fuzz, the boy/girl harmonies divine and dreamy. But even amidst all this warm shimmer and washed out bliss pop, the band do still indulge in their knack for melancholia, wrapping minor key melodies around crunchy drum machines, or stretching out keening tones into blurry sonic swells, the vocals languorous and laid back. "Observations" is a bit of a brooder, especially following that opening track, but it still manages to glow with a dark energy, which leads directly into "Curse The Night", which is a dead ringer for Blonde Redhead, all wavery female vocals over spidery guitar melodies, simple propulsive drumming, and a gorgeous fuzzy chorus, druggy and divine.
And so it goes, the band still master popsmiths ("The Enemy" will be stuck in your head for ages), crafting warm fuzzy hook filled gems, with just enough emotion and pathos to keep things interesting. And be sure you make it to the closer, "Till The End", which is a crazy catchy, guitar heavy slab of fuzzed out indie rock bliss, heavy on the shoegaze, and maybe the best track here!
The Danish duo shrug off the hype machine and produce an album that's enjoyable in ways far different from their previous garage-y albums The Chain Gang Of Love and Whip It On. Surprisingly not brash nor rebellious in the least, Pretty In Black is dreamy almost to the point of being downright tame! This time their retro feel draws even more inspiration from '60s American girl group Phil Spector productions. In fact, many of the songs sound as though the band took melodies of old classics and build new Raveonettes' songs around them. While they do offer a couple of actual cover versions ("My Boyfriend's Back" and "Be My Baby"), familiar strains of other old tunes surface in songs that are definitely not covers. Tell me I'm not crazy, do you not hear New Order's "Blue Monday" in the song "You Say You Lie"? Ditto for the following "Ode To L.A." which bears more than a passing resemblance to the abovementioned Ronettes' song, and not just because of the presence of special guest vocalist Ronnie Spector! For additional cool points tho' they got a couple of other rock icons Martin Rev and Moe Tucker on board (to supply some programmed beats and drumming respectively) however their contributions are much less apparent. Anyways, some might find the above concerns a bit problematic, while others might relish in the album's pop nostalgia. We're finding ourselves leaning way more towards the latter.
The Raveonettes have been on fire over the last several years. Their last two albums remain two of our favorite pop albums to come out last decade, and with their latest, Raven In The Grave, they've delivered another breathtaking and seductive set of songs that we've already been playing nonstop. This album finds the band exploring a grittier and darker vibe that really suits them surprisingly well. The songs are both dirgy and sexy, mysterious and catchy. Before the latest wave of girl group inspired lo-fi pop bands hit the scene, The Raveonettes laid some nice groundwork and offered up a blueprint for how to take those influences and incorporate them into a very modern sound. This album even has some really nice shoegaze undertones, that matched with the grit and grim and ominously dark production make for such a seductive listening experience. Like sleepwalking through deserted city streets on an extra dark night, these are perfect songs for dazed and glazed fever dreams. Highly recommended.
At first I was inclined to hate this band. I see 'em on MTV all the time (the video is actually pretty great), they're a two piece, as is the current fashion, boy and girl duo ala the White Stripes, and they have been saddled with that dreaded (and offensive) NEXT-BIG-THING tag. But I have to say, this record kicks serious ass! It's got some of that garage rock thing going on, which is obviously part of their next big thing mass appeal. Hives, Strokes, White Stripes and all that. But this record is so much weirder and cooler. Really gloomy sounding, kind of like a more punk Velvet Underground, with occasional squalls of white-noise guitar and super noisy freakouts. It's kind of hard to put my finger on just what makes this record so appealing. The songs are catchy, the spare instrumentation still manages to kick out the jams, and the overall sound has this weird horror movie / B-movie vibe. It's really exciting to see a band this grungy and muddy and gloomy and cool hit the big time. It may be a guilty pleasure, but at this point we have so many, why even keep track?
This raw Swedish progg-punk band, whose name, delightfully enough, means "fox piss" in English, got their start back in 1970, a bunch of teenagers drinking beer and jamming and doing the occasional Black Sabbath or Jimi Hendrix cover. As they got a little more serious, they wrote more original songs, but jamming remained a big thing with them. They were part of the Swedish underground music scene in the '70s, playing the summer free festivals and hanging with freaks and anarchists and so forth... also they were friends with such better known bands as Guidbrallan and Samla Mammas Manna.
It wasn't until 1976, not long after they'd started calling themselves Ravjunk (named after some terrible coffee the drummer had been confronted with one morning), that they got around to recording an album, Uppsala Stadshotell Brinner, made on the cheap in their own, primitive but functional home-built DIY recording studio. They pressed up copies of the record themselves, and distributed it as best they could, indeed getting some good reviews and radio-play. It was to be Ravjunk's only album, but they did follow it over the final years of the decade, before their dissolution in 1981, with a number of 7" singles (not included here), the band apparently pursuing more and more of a heavy punk rock sound... which you can already hear hinted at on their album.
The album itself, is a heavily fuzzed out mix of bluesy jams, Hendrixian guitar wailing, krautrockish drone, and plenty of garagey proto-punk attitude, all recorded mostly live, with a raw, lo-fi sound... all the more charming for it, really. It's all here on this deluxe digipack double disc cd reissue, along with unreleased material from the Uppsala Stadshotell Brinner sessions, and recently discovered demos and even rawer live tapes, the complete recorded works of Ravjunk circa 1976-1977. It would have been cool if they had included Ravjunk's 1978-1980 singles too (one of which was banned in Sweden for political reasons), but there is -plenty- of music here, almost two hours of it, from the gruff blues punk of "Hey Little Girl" (something you might imagine the Baby Grandmothers would sound like if they'd heard Motorhead) to the brooding title track to the calm and blissful spacerock of "Nasten (Den Tysta Skogen)"... the krautrock of Can and the like is definitely an influence on these discs' many sinuous, rhythmic instrumental psych excursions like "Vi Ses (Vid Taj Mahal)". Other obvious inspirations include the Stooges, Trad Gras Och Stenar, Cream, the Groundhogs, Hawkwind, etc... the MySpace page for the (recently reunited) band even cites T2, Joakim Skogsberg and Magma! If you're into gritty '70s underground sounds, then this could definitely be your cup of fox's piss! Perhaps grittiest on the non-album material included, such as the 21 minute endless jamming rant and rave of the bonus track that ends disc one, "Naturbarn". (Meanwhile, the second disc ends with a 10+ minute live garage-psych punk stomper, a version of David Peel and the Lower East Side's "Who Killed Brian Jones? Was It One Of The Rolling Stones?"). Very cool.
Finally, the second and final (?) installment in the epic musical/fictional world that is Ray's Vast Basement. Smoke-y and murky song-stories following the life and times of the residents of Drakeville. Dreamy and surreal, By A River Burning Blue is equal parts Tom Waits, Sparklehorse, classic Nebraska-era Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Butch Hancock, Dire Straits, etc. Slow melancholy classic sounding rock songs, lushly produced, intimate and hushed. Sweet and lovely. For those new to RVB, the songs all chronicle the 100,000,000-year history of Ray's Basement, a fictional cave in the town of Drakesville about which all the songs are written. The complete set is also now available with the debut cd, the new cd as well as a songbook and set of beautifully printed cards.
One of the most refreshing listens we've heard in a long long while, Ray's Vast Basement is a collection of perfectly-crafted, honest-to-gosh SONGS written in the tradition of gravelly-voiced observers-of-life such as John Prine, Bob Dylan, and especially Butch Hancock, one of the four founding members of Austin's legendary Flatlanders (who also spawned Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore). Oh, and Andee thinks they sound a little like the Dire Straits. "On the Banks of Time" is a fully formed aesthetic triumph.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS REGULAR VERSION OF THIS CD, WITHOUT THE ADDED EXTRAS: LYRIC BOOKLET, TIMELINE CARDS ETC. WE CAN GET THE DELUXE VERSION FOR YOU. THE COST IS $25.The lyric booklet and stunningly executed, heartbreakingly poignant series of 60 cards detailing the 100,000,000-year history of Ray's Basement, the fictional cave in the town about which all the songs are written (which were included with the original pressing) are now available for purchase at the band's website.
One of the most refreshing listens we've heard in a long long while, Ray's Vast Basement is a collection of perfectly-crafted, honest-to-gosh SONGS written in the tradition of gravelly-voiced observers-of-life such as John Prine, Bob Dylan, and especially Butch Hancock, one of the four founding members of Austin's legendary Flatlanders (who also spawned Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore). Oh, and Andee thinks they sound a little like the Dire Straits. "On the Banks of Time" is a fully formed aesthetic triumph.
The lyric booklet and stunningly executed, heartbreakingly poignant series of 60 cards detailing the 100,000,000-year history of Ray's Basement, the fictional cave in the town about which all the songs are written (which were included with the original pressing) are available in this deluxe version.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS THE DELUXE VERSION OF THIS CD, WITH ALL THE ADDED EXTRAS: LYRIC BOOKLET, TIMELINE CARDS ETC. WE CAN GET THE REGULAR VERSION FOR YOU, TOO. THE COST IS $12.98.
Have the usually completely d.i.y. folks Ray's Vast Basement thrown open their secret subterranean workshop to welcome other like-minded burgeoning music makin' folks? Sure seems so, and the results are nothing short of wonderful. The RBV sound is so burnished, earthy and rustic that if they do indeed have a basement, then we'd imagine it's nestled amid the roots of a great redwood instead of beneath a building somewhere here in the city. Their new album comes to us by way of young Bay Area indie label Howell's Transmitter which is home to the likes of Michael Zapruder's Rain Of Frogs, Modular Set and Black Fiction. It's a perfect fit. The music on Starvation Under Orange Trees grew forth from a soundtrack composed by band leader Jon Bernson for the Actors Theatre Of San Francisco. Each song is inspired by one of the literary works of John Steinbeck -- Of Mice And Men, Grapes Of Wrath, Cannery Row, East Of Eden, and Tortilla Flats. All are infused with an overcast gravity befitting Steinbeck's pervading themes of common man hardships. Bernson is joined by guests Tim Cohen (Black Fiction), Sean Coleman (Kelley Stoltz), Larry Crane (Tape Op Magazine), Enzo Garcia (Jolie Holland), Matt Greenberg (Charles Atlas), Nate Query (The Decemberists), and Michael Zapruder (Michael Zapruder's Rain Of Frogs). Together they strike a balance between their old intimate, crafty charms and some newer, more ambitious compositions. Recommended!
This is it! The complete Drakesville mythology. Those of you who have the first Ray's Vast Basement album know just what we're talking about. For those of you who don't, the Mythology of Drakesville has been in the works for nine years, an interwoven, fictional culture of music, stories, history and imagery, all revolving around an imagined cave called Ray's Vast Basement and the eccentric residents of the northern California town of Drakesville. The story is told via the two RVB cds as well as a gorgeously printed songbook and set of cards. Here's what we had to say about the first RVB album:
One of the most refreshing listens we've heard in a long long while, Ray's Vast Basement is a collection of perfectly-crafted, honest-to-gosh SONGS written in the tradition of gravelly-voiced observers-of-life such as John Prine, Bob Dylan, and especially Butch Hancock, one of the four founding members of Austin's legendary Flatlanders (who also spawned Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore). Oh, and Andee thinks they sound a little like the Dire Straits. "On the Banks of Time" is a fully formed aesthetic triumph. There's also a lyric booklet and stunningly executed, heartbreakingly poignant series of 60 cards detailing the 100,000,000-year history of Ray's Basement, the fictional cave in the town about which all the songs are written.
And elsewhere on this list you'll find the review of the second album and final piece of the Drakesville story:
Finally, the second and final (?) installment in the epic musical/fictional world that is Ray's Vast Basement. Smoke-y and murky song-stories following the life and times of the residents of Drakeville. Dreamy and surreal, By A River Burning Blue is equal parts Tom Waits, Sparklehorse, classic Nebraska-era Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Butch Hancock, Dire Straits, etc. Slow melancholy classic sounding rock songs, lushly produced, intimate and hushed. Sweet and lovely. For those new to RVB, the songs all chronicle the 100,000,000-year history of Ray's Basement, a fictional cave in the town of Drakesville about which all the songs are written.
This set includes both cds, the songbook and the printed cards. So cool!
Japanese reissue label EM gives us another killer reissue from this unsung post punk / dub / reggae icon, this one a fantastic slice of classic late seventies / early eighties DIY weirdness/radness. Ostensibly a post punk record, but WAY heavy on the dub influence, the whole thing was recorded and assembled in a home studio, and overflows with all manner of abstract experimentation and twisted songcraft. From the first few seconds of "The Scream", we were smitten, with its weird processed drumming and handclaps, its weird industrial shimmer, and FX heavy vocals, the pulsating bassline, it's groovy and funky and fierce as fuck, and had us wishing it was way longer than 2 minutes. The second track is all woozy drum machine driven fuzzy sixties pop, sounding like Young Marble Giants or Black Tambourine, all reverbed jangle, hazy vox, and then the next song is some home brewed lo-fi reggae, with wheezing melodica melodies, groovy upstroke guitar strum, weird samples, and cool fractured vocal snippets, and what sounds like pinball percussion.
The whole record is all over the map, tending toward a dub/reggae for sure, but even within that 'sound', Ray mixes it up, processed horn blurts, FX drenched guitars, dueling girl boy vox, tripped out rhythms, and for every straight up reggae dub jam, there's some cool fuzzy pop jam, Ray's dreamy vocals wreathed in reverb and wrapped in angular guitars, surfing atop propulsive grooves, but it's the weirder jams here that get us the most excited, thankfully that's most of them. "Maybe It's Because I'm Not A Londoner", is a dubby creep, all tinkling chimes, skronking horns, woozy low slung basslines, droned out and darkly psychedelic, while "Rahmatullah", is a gorgeous slice of fluttering flute flecked spiritual jazz, with a slight dub bent, Ray's dreamy vocals draped over dense tribal drumming, and all tangled up with the ethereal flute melodies, and "Spring Thing-Hippy Dread" is some seriously dubbed out psychedelic abstract reggae, woozy and warped, and dreamily druggy, and in between all this weirdness, is some seriously catchy, and slightly fractured post punk dreampop, and the combination of the two is weirdly perfect.
Includes extensive liner notes in both Japanese and English and tons of rare photos.
UK post-punk's symbiotic relationship to dub and reggae is not really news to most folks. Especially with the genre's female stars, The Slits, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Poly Styrene, Lora Logic, Patti Palladin and even Annabelle of Bow Wow Wow, all have found voice within dub's flexible framework that embraces both communal grooves and personal politics. Brenda Ray may not be as well known as the others, but since the late '70s has figured in some of the more shadowy areas of post-punk and new wave. Her bands, The Naffis, recently featured on the D-I-Y compilation put out by Soul Jazz, and Brenda and the Beachballs combined reggae rhythms with off kilter dance pop. Here on Walatta, recorded in the late '90s and early 2000s and recently reissued by AQ-beloved Japanese label EM Records, Ray overdubs her breathy vocals as well as melodica and various percussion instruments over heavy roots rhythms recorded much earlier in Jamaica by Roy Cousins that featured heavyweight Kingston session players such as Sly and Robbie and Family Man Barrett. The result is better than it sounds, as Ray brings her own unique style to the proceedings and deftly complements the heavy reggae foundation with an interesting pop finesse. Nice.
Finally available again, after several years! The disc that both saddens and entertains, kind of like a cross between Charles Bukowski and the Jerky Boys!
If you've seen the Simpsons episode with John Waters, you might recall Homer asking the guest star what camp means. Waters' answer: "The comically tragic...the tragically comic." To which Homer retorts "Oh, you mean, like when a clown dies." This classic recording of San Franciscan drunks Raymond Huffmann & Peter Haskett certainly fits this Homeric definition of camp. These two aging roommates spent their days drinking heavily in their Lower Haight apartment and verbally assaulted each other. The slurring barrage of obscenities muddles the difference between the two men. This is one of those documents that had to be (re)released, capturing the torment these two unwittingly inflicted upon their enraged neighbors who in turn recorded their every conversation. Worthy of its status as a late-twentieth century underground "comedy" phenomenon.
We discovered this strange split lp via the always amazing WFMU in New Jersey, a freeform radio station we've collaborated with on numerous occasions in the past, most notably we shared a couple showcases at the South By Southwest music conference in Texas, which by the way was no coincidence, and it wasn't just because we're pals, it's also because WFMU constantly and consistently play the most amazing shit. We think we know about the craziest, most underground music, and then we tune into WFMU and routinely have our minds blown. And yeah, we blow their minds once in a while too, with stuff we recommend on our list, but pretty much every time we listen to WFMU, we have to have a pen and paper handy to jot down all the amazing things we need to track down, which happened recently with this here record. One track was all it took to know this was some serious aQ-worthy weirdness, dark and psychedelic, tripped out and bizarre and beautiful, on a label we love too, with a background story as cool and weird as the music itself. So we got as many as we could (it's limited to 300 copies!) but odds are they won't last, so grab one of these quick cuz once we describe it to you, we're pretty sure you're not gonna be able to live without one...
The oddly named Razen are a duo, who grew tired of the traditional rock band instrumentation, and decided to each pick a new instrument, one they had no idea how to play, which is how they ended up with a detuned santoor (like an Indian hammered dulcimer) and a drumset assembled from metal plates. And thus was born Razen. They've expanded their instrumentation to include still more instruments they don't know how to play (bouzouki, keyboards, horns), and have invited a handful of guests to contribute an even more impressive and bizarre arsenal of noisemakers, including bagpipe, chalumeau (a classical style recorder), sopranino (one of the smallest horns in the saxophone family), bass recorder, duduk (a Middle Eastern woodwind) and shenai (a North Indian oboe), and this is the result: a glorious, mysterious take on world music, dark and haunting, heavily percussive, cinematic, abstract and dramatic, the label mentions Moondog and Bohren & Der Club Of Gore and David Lynch, but we also hear some Sun City Girls, some martial industrial music, while at the same time the sounds dip into African folk music and Indian style ragas, all rife with drone and buzz and strange melodies, lush textures, frantic rhythms, all filtered through Razen's distinctively non-world music perspective.
"Rammelaargong" begins with hypnotic tribal hand drumming, deep low end thrum, fluttering woodwinds, and haunting steel string shimmer, eventually building to a frenzy of howling horns, and frantic drumming, infused with plenty of drone and buzz, and a strangely motorik rhythmic pulse, with everything eventually dropping out, finishing off with a brief flurry of lo-fi percussion.
"Razen Zand" begins with a thick undulating raga like drone, rendered in glitchy electronics, before the drums kick in, and then the horns, and the sound is almost like a marching band playing some abstract African folk music, the drums and horns locked into staccato bursts, while in between those bursts, wild melodies are unfurled from buzzing steel strings, the sound manages to be epic, and majestic and HEAVY. "Richel" is all low end blur, and woozy snake charmer melodies, shimmery spidery buzzing strings, a sun baked sprawling raga-like drift, the vibe dark and emotional and intense, very cinematic, wild fluttering woodwinds flit above that mournful snake charmer cry, the track laced with sharp percussive strikes, and thick low end thrums, hummed chantlike vox, and swirls of metallic shimmer. "Rode Hond" too, begins with a deep metallic buzz, layered and lush, and those exotic intense snake charmer melodies, the percussion, spare and skeletal, but propulsive and rhythmic, the song growing more and more intense the drums more frenetic, the horns and woodwinds more tense, soaring and singing out, all the instruments slipping into a hypnotic groove, that we could listen to forever, and fades out way too soon.
So incredible, it's only 4 tracks, but they're so intense and detailed and blossom a little more with every listen, you might as well set your turntable to send the needle right back to the beginning, and let it play all night.
And that's just the Razen side. The flipside is taken up entirely by a single track from Sheldon Siegel, which is not in fact a person, but rather a group, a Belgian abstract free jazz outfit, made up of cello, drums, percussion, sax, vocals, tapes and music box, and don't be expecting regular old free jazz, they are after all teamed up with Razen for a reason, and not because they're both from Belgium, it's more likely, that like Razen, the guys in Sheldon Siegel approach their music similarly, looking to subvert the old, and invent something new, to create a music that while made up of free jazz elements, is more than free jazz, and what they've come up with does definitely strike out from the confines of free jazz, sure, a quick listen will sound like free jazz on the surface, but as you dig deeper, and the song develops, thick grinding cello drones ground the sound, a thick undulating textural buzz, underpinning, stuttery skronk and little flurries of percussive skitter, beneath clouds of cymbal shimmer. Over the course of the side's 25 minutes, the group shift gears dramatically, slipping into a seriously twisted dirge, with the horns super processed and sounding almost electronic, blissing out, and letting blurts of feedback and spurts of rhythmic sputter spar over mournful cello melodies, sounding super dramatic and intense, after some bursts of almost traditional sounding avant jazz, the sound winds way down, the tapes warble and whir, the other instruments are muffled and muted, a strange landscape of scrapes and thumps, of fragmented melodies, and abstract ambience, before finishing off with a strange stretch of stumbling loping jazz flecked skitter, and swirling droned out weirdness.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!
Um, seriously folks? We've had this Razor reissue sitting sadly ignored in our metal vinyl bin for several months now. What's up with you 'bangers? Well maybe a raging mailorder customer will step up and grab this slice of Canadian speed metal history, the 1984 debut 12" ep from these north of the border thrashers, featuring Dave Carlo on axes and "Sheepdog" McLaren on lungs. True, the best of the seven trax here were rerecorded for their first full-length, Executioner's Song, a year later, so if you've got that maybe you don't need this. But it IS a historical document, with a great cover graphic (if you can't tell, it's a close up of Carlo playing the guitar using a razor blade as a pick), and it's a hard to beat slab of "Fast And Loud" "Hot Metal" (those are two of the song titles) for anyone in the mood for some old school rippage.
"The Surgeon General warns that this album contains Heavy Metal music, that might weld your mind together if played at low volume. To reduce the risk of mind damage play at FULL VOLUME."
Now available on vinyl!
We love dancehall. A lot! Makes perfect sense too, a grinding, pounding, throbbing mix of hip hop and dub, with that totally repetitive, hypnotic, instantly recognizable dancehall beat, you know: BOMP..BOMP.........BOMP..BOMP.........BOMP..BOMP. With tongue twisting toasting over the top. Very similar to grime (which is probably why we love grime so much too). Hard really to improve on dancehall, you could maybe, rough it up a little, and, which gives us ragga of course, but then, you could also make the beats even thicker and crunchier and WAY more distorted, you could have the vocalists toast through a tin can and twine run through a fuzzbox and plugged into a battered old blown out loudspeaker, you could take all that stuff and supercharge it, send it coursing through your speakers as if your stereo was struck by lightning, the resulting sounds coming out of your speaker a hard and heavy, fierce and fucked up, super aggressive and distorted but still totally wild and danceable digital hardcore ragga. Whoowee!! Fuck yeah! Similar to the way Alec Empire and other folks took drum 'n' bass and jungle and turned it into superdistorted hardcore brutality, a few likeminded noiseniks have been doing the same with ragga, giving it a DHR makeover, turning already pretty aggressive ragga music into a brain melting blast of buzzing and blown out dancehall. One of those folks is the UK's Kevin Martin, who after years of lurking on the fringes of the noise underground, running the Pathological label and playing in God, Ice and a handfull of other fucked up dubbed out noise outfits (maybe hinting at what was to come), renamed himself the Bug, and started making dark and dense dubby dancehall, the new sound owing as much to classic dub and dancehall as it did to his time spent playing weird fucked up noisiness. A few years back the Bug hooked up with Rootsman and formed Razor X Production, a dynamic duo that began to whip up all sorts of brutal distorted ragga classics, all big beats, blown out production and toasting by some of the world's best reggae / dub / ragga vocalists: Cutty Ranks, He-Man, Daddy Freddy, Tony Tuff, Mexican, El Feco and more. This double disc collects some of the best singles, beats are jagged and sharp, distorted stabs, rumbling rib cage rattling low end, synths are massive thick smears of speaker shredding fuzz, each track a pulsing, throbbing dubbed out groove as hard and pummeling as it is groovy and funky. If all "dance music" was this fucked up and firece and fun even us wallflowers would be forced to spend all our evenings sweating and slithering all over the dance floor.
Perhaps in homage to fellow Italian Maurizio Bianchi recording under the acronym MB, Roberto Drago took to calling himself himself RD. Drago and his brother Giancarlo had recorded as The Tapes throughout the '80s, releasing a series of impressive minimal wave / cold industrial rhythmic recordings, suitably on cassette. Treni Lirici is a collection of tracks dating from 86-89, all of we are assuming were self-released in small editions back in the day. The electronic emanations of uneasy synth drone and anxious sequencing follow in line with what The Tapes were up to, affixing such forms to a rhythmic spine, amounting to a claustrophobic set of dystopian proto-techno recordings that remind us more of the revered Japanese efforts that dot the enigmatic Vanity Records imprint, as well as Nord or even the synth hymns of Grim. A really amazing archival find!
The crazy success of UK horror movie soundtrack vinyl reissue label Death Waltz seems to have inspired someone else to start a similar concern, so similar in fact, that we were initially convinced that this new imprint Waxwork, MUST be some sort of Death Waltz sub label. Besides being a horror movie soundtrack vinyl reissue label, Waxwork also gets modern artists to design new artwork for the cover, they include a printed inner sleeve with notes from the composer and the director, they also include a poster of the new artwork, the cover is even adorned with a sticker that looks EXACTLY like a Death Waltz sticker, right down to the font and the layout. So yeah, no points for originality, but who can argue with a vinyl reissue of the score to Stuart Gordon's infamous/legendary/genius 1985 horror comedy classic Re-Animator, which if you haven't seen it, you should. Right now. It's gross, and ridiculous, and totally over the top, and scary and really funny, probably actor Jeffrey Combs' finest moment, and there is of course the infamous head-giving-head scene (so infamous it also gets referenced in the liner notes). It's definitely a fine choice for a first release, and not just because the movie is great, the score too, by Richard Band is really excellent. Heavily beholden to Bernard Hermann, and supposedly composed as an homage to the classic Hitchcock thrillers AND Citizen Cane, the liner notes even explain that the original credits in the film were meant to include the line "with apologies to Bernard Hermann", which for whatever reason got left out, and thus ended up with Band often accused of simply ripping off Hermann. So much so that apparently he once got a letter from the Hermann estate claiming that if Hermann were still alive, Band would most definitely have been sued.
And it's a fair cop, the Re-Animator score is a total classic score, lots of strings, lots of dramatic Psycho like moments, but Band definitely makes it his own, especially on the instantly recognizable main theme, which most weirdo movie buffs will recognize instantly. Tense and intense, dramatic and moody, it's essentially like a Hermann score with disco drums, which sounds crazy, but it totally works and sounds amazing. If like us you've seen Re-Animator a million times, that track will instantly bring back a flood of images, crazy, eye popping, gut busting blood soaked images, which is what the best scores SHOULD do. Nothing else on the score is as cool and crazy as the disco drummed theme, but it's all pretty great, and even removed from the film, still makes for a fantastic listen.
And as if we even need to describe it, this new version comes in a heavy sleeve, with cool creepy very GREEN cover art by artist Gary Pullin, inside there's a printed inner sleeve with rare photos and liner notes from both director Stuart Gordon and composer Richard Band, there's also a huge poster of Pullin's new art, and the record itself is pressed on heavy 180 gram green and glow in the dark swirled vinyl!
And up next on Waxwork: Rosemary's Baby!!!!
Philosopher's Walk is like a sonic dissertation using sound structures based on filter improvs and field recordings? Intellectual and academic, musically dense and seemingly clinical. But closer examination and further listens reveal a subtly deft use of layers and layers of filters and digital processing, occasionally broken into by piano, drums, organs, found sounds and synthesizers, creating a gorgeously creepy, haunting alien ambientscape. Fans of Godspeed and A Silver Mt. Zion will not be disappointed.
Re is a duo featuring one of the founders of Constellation Records, who -- it must be stated -- is not a member of their flagship ensemble Godspeed You Black Emperor. Rather, this is the most electronically based outfit to emerge from the Canadian collective. The very slow looping sounds and the occasional clatter of distant mechanized beats has drawn Re to compare themselves to Aphex Twin. Yes, this is wishful thinking. Not to say that this isn't an OK album, but that "Mnant" (with its songs entitled "Scue," "Cipe," "Buke," "Volve," "Ject," "Gulate") is a bit more clever in its semi-ambient electronics than memorable.
Why? and Odd Nosdam from Anticon/Mush mainstays cLOUDEAD and Greenthink demonstrate that they do nothing but record 24 hours a day by releasing their 500th record under as many different names. And again cries of quality control are quashed by just how fucking great EVERYTHING they do is! Reaching Quiet is sort of more song based, with totally tweaked (but amazingly creative) production, bizarre samples, low-fi beats, hammond organs, -and- the kitchen sink all crafted into demented little pop song/hip hop tidbits with lots of strange vocalising, rapping, spoken word, melodic warbling and flat out wailing. Sometimes haunting and otherworldy, sometimes dark and dreary sometimes goofy and silly, but always really, really good.
