Primitive proto-metal reissue alert here, folks! Reaction were a heavy, hairy power trio bashing out boogie-blooze-based hard rock. Technically, Reaction could be considered a krautrock group, we suppose, since they did hail from Germany and this rare record originally came out back in 1972. But it's nothing cosmic nor proggy that's for sure. No flutes, no synths, no motorik beats. Instead it's just loud and lumbering and riffy and mean (well with a bit of poppiness at times, those lumbering riffs being fairly catchy after all).
Yer basic, raw, fuzz filled rockin' good times, the nine tracks here taking the likes of Cream and Cactus to the next (lower) level, more wasted, more fuzz, more cowbell! (There's plenty of the latter on the awesomely titled "The Funeral March Of A Marionette".)
Some of the obscure and not-so-sophisticated heavy psych acts of era we'd compare 'em to include Moses, Blues Addicts, Road, Toad, and Speed Glue & Shinki, plus fellow "krautrockers" like Tiger B. Smith, Blackwater Park, and Hairy Chapter (their first album Eyes anyway). Like we said, in the vein of Cream and Cactus, moreso than Can or Kraftwerk! Nothin' wrong with that though, when you wanna rock.
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Hand painted, 30 minutes, lo-fi, member of Sword and Sandals.
The return of these dreamy jangle poppers finds them sounding even dreamier, their retro sound drifting ever further back to the days of Sarah Records, all crystalline guitar shimmer, swirling softly psychedelic jangle, reminding us once again of the late great Field Mice. And with every record, their 4-track home recorded beginnings seem further and further away, the group's polished pop landing positioning them closer to say, Belle And Sebastien, than Ducktails or Woods or any of their other former label mates.
The opener "Had To Hear" might be the darkest (and maybe best) of the bunch, adding just a bit of darkness, some sonic pathos, that had us thinking of Scud Mountain Boys (or the Pernice Brothers), the above mentioned Woods, and for some reason pre-New Pornographers power poppers Zumpano, but it's a gem, all minor key melodies and a verse as catchy as its chorus. That said, it's still plenty ethereal and shimmery and dream poppy. But not nearly as much as the rest of the record, which dials back most of that shadow leaving just pure, lush, shimmer-pop dreaminess. Some folks around aQ are finding Real Estate a bit too twee for their taste, but really, if you love the Field Mice, Belle And Sebastien, Heavenly Beat, the Go-Betweens, the Pastels and the like, this will definitely be right up your alley.
As much as we love distorto noise rock, and heavy crunchy blown out garage rock, and swirling FX heavy lysergic pop, we also love dreamy, shimmery, jangly sunshiney pop, sans noise and effects and experimentation, just perfect major chord, breezy vocals, simple jangle, washed out summery dream pop. And while on past records, Real Estate did show hints of the current crop of reverb drenched pop combos, a little psychedelia, a pinch of lo-fi warble, on this most recent record, they've cut the cord completely, and instead, created something that requires we haul out adjectives like sparkling, and glimmering, and glistening. We mentioned in a past review, that these guys were barely even underground, in the sonic sense, sure the sound is a teensy bit lo-fi, and rough hewn, and for however perfect pop this is, no one will mistake this for FM radio Rolling Stone magazine pop, but it's about as close as a little DIY band can get. We're reminded a lot of the late great Field Mice, the same sort of hushed whispery crystalline pop that just seems to float weightless, the sounds lush and lilting and so lovely. There's definitely some urgency here and there some subtle crunch, cuz really this is not all that far removed from past Real Estate records, but it is definitely continuing the group's move away from home brewed and lo-fi toward something much more pretty and polished, and we like it!
Another in the new breed, Ducktails school of shimmery fuzzy tropical garage pop, comes Real Estate. The sound, while perfectly at home amides the current crop of noise poppers, also manages to sound quite Pavement-y, especially the vocals. Minimal tribal drumming, tangled spindly guitars, drawled indie box vox, super catchy, but laid back and drifty, with just the right amount of buzz and haze and shimmer.
Flip it over and the sound is all fuzzy jangle, with caffeinated drumming, sounding VERY eighties, or even early nineties, classic indie pop for sure, but slightly off kilter and just a little bit twisted, and some truly gorgeous guitar/vocal harmonies and reverby new wave chorus to die for.
And yeah, it is, of course, LIMITED.
Another brand new batch of jangly, sunshiney, garage pop from these aQ faves, who continue to hone their sound, distancing themselves from the reverb soaked low fidelity hypnogogia flavor du jour in favor of something much more classically poppy, soaring guitars chime and jangle, sweet vocal harmonies, lush tangled melodies, reminiscent of the Shins, Pavement, Death Cab, etc. Both tracks here have that timeless pop sound that so few bands are able to capture, taking the sound of nineties indie rock, and infusing it with just a bit of the fuzzy garage sound of today, the result is probably a little too polished and poppy for the Ohsees/Ty Segall set, but pop fanatics into that classic jangle and strum sound will be in heaven.
The A side here features Daniel Lopatin from Oneohtrix Point Never, adding some background atmosphere and some swirly synth melodies to RE's warm jangly shimmer!
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Finally a full length from these guys. Up until now, all we'd heard was a two track 7" and a couple tracks on that Underwater Peoples Summertime Showcase 2009 compilation, but what we heard we liked, A LOT. And this full length is more of the same. Bucking the trend of lo-fi murk, tropical psychedelic haze and noise drenched weirdness, these guys offer up something much more classic and timeless sounding. A little fuzzy, a little jangly, a bit psychedelic, and super catchy, Real Estate sound a bit like long time aQ faves the Dodos, with a pinch of Pavement, and a definitely a little of that current crop of hazy reverby garage pop.
But again, the sound of Real Estate is barely even lo-fi, or underground for that matter, this is pure sparkly pop perfection, summery and sunshiney, with just a hint of melancholy, with nods of course to the Beatles and the Bee Gees (baroque pop BG, not disco BG), but also Sebadoh, Built To Spill, Death Cab, although not nearly as 'pro' as any of those groups. Rough around the edges, definitely more raw and immediate, but still earnest and emotional, the songs catchy and hooky and fun, definitely about as mainstream as most Woodsist stuff gets, which is not a bad thing AT ALL really. We're loving this record, been playing it non stop, and we have a feeling a lot of you might just feel the same.
FYI: Real Estate just so happens to include Matthew Mondanile, aka aQ faves Ducktails!!
What a strange and wonderful mixed bag of an album! While listening to The London Book Of The Dead you can easily forget it's the work of one band, let alone one man -- British solo artist Stephen Coates. It's almost like flipping the radio dial at random, but one that can receive transmissions from the olden days of cabaret, ragtime, chamber ensembles, and vaudeville. Part of the charm of The Real Tuesday Weld is that much like Portishead, his recordings have been prematurely aged to sound like authentically crackly hissy vintage recordings. Somewhere about two thirds of the way through the album though, we noticed the vibe shifting to more even-keeled modern day feel conjuring comparisons to The Doves or Badly Drawn Boy's Damien Gough's laidback shambolic folktronic sounds. Additionally Coates does share Gough's penchant for the bittersweet and downright embittered in the lyric department. Darkly playful and captivating.
Been eagerly awaiting this!! The 2nd coming of this strange band and their rather outsider-y epic true metal. The hermetic duo of JH Halberd and Czar, have indeed built upon their realm, expanded their empire, brought forth further examples of their special sound, one that's triumphant (heck they even use trumpet!) and weird and raw and curiously poppy. Realmbuilder, while certainly under the sway of such cult '80s fantasy metal acts as Manilla Road, Brocas Helm and Cirith Ungol (along with sharing the same literary inspirations like Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith), aspire to actualize a unique vision of their own. And for us, their stirring striving is quite effective, as well as eccentric!
The album begins with an anthem to a mythic highwayman, wherein the basic building blocks of Realmbuilder's sound are made apparent: catchy old school heavy metal riffing, accompanying somewhat amateurish but expressive clean vocals that are far from the usual sort of polished power metal wail (and become quite glorious when both band members harmonize together). The oddity of the vocals will be the most make or break thing regarding your reaction to this band; we love 'em. And the choruses are quickly skull-lodged, with lyrics that usually contain commands: "Yield or perish!" "Swing your pick axe!" "Pull the wagon!"...
Another significant Realmbuilder trait: psychedelic soloing (courtesy session guitarist Brian Koenig) that adds to the emotional impact of these songs rather than being mere shred.
Realmbuilder's compositions tend to be filled with an energetic choppiness, but just as often possess a more solemn, droned out vibe... as, especially, on the album's spacey, dreamy final epic, with the suitably lengthy title "The Stars Disappeared From The Sky When We Uncovered The Bones Of The First Gods". It's a strange sort of pop indeed.
Again, probably to be appreciated by fans of the likes of early Manilla Road, Max Planck, the long forgotten but utterly genius Coven, and the lordliest weirdest of Slough Feg. Also you could certainly consider this to be the even more DIY cousin of Dawnbringer, whose new one is reviewed elsewhere this list.
Oh, and once again, we love the Crystal Logic of the cover painting, by Czar...
Everything about this screams "Cult!!". Cult in the "epic true metal" style of Manilla Road, that is. But even doomier than those eccentric '80s metal masters, who are most definitely one of Realmbuilder's major influences. This band has that obscure, underground vibe for sure, as it should 'cause that's what it is, just two guys obsessed with a certain sort of metal and the imaginative realms of fantasy and history that that sort of metal evokes, those guys being one Czar (also of weird black metallers Charnel Valley), who sings and plays drums, and one J.H. Halberd, who takes care of rhythm guitar, bass, and keyboards, as well as harmony backing vocals, and on one track, trumpet! (Lead guitars are handled by a session axeman from the prog metal band Luna Mortis).
Now released by I Hate Records on compact disc after a limited edition vinyl issuance last year, Realmbuilder's debut album Summon The Stone Throwers really creates an unusual, ancient atmosphere, quite convincingly as if they're relating warriors' tales of long-lost ages. From the primitively painted album cover (featuring a mystic castle, wind-blown adventurer, and malevolently skulking wolf-creature all garishly rendered in sunset purples, yellows, and greens) which gives us a flashback to the cover to Manilla Road's Crystal Logic, it's obvious that Realmbuilder are for a select audience only, those with an innate feeling for the raw, doomy, almost psychedelic heavy metal on offer here. Melancholic, melodic, and above all majestic, the seven tracks here comprise chunky spiralling guitar riffs, expressive/depressive vocals, glorious guitar soloing, wordless oh-oh-oh choruses, effective chant-like repetition of the evocative lyrics (we love hearing the words "silver ziggurat" and "colossal glaciers" being sung over and over in the respective songs of those same names). The clean vocals are somewhat nasal and really not-so-metal, comparable maybe to Snake from Voivod and the guy from super obscure '80s Detroit doomsters Coven. And that really helps set this apart, and add to its strangeness and sense of sincerity.
There's much lumbering riffage and galloping rhythms and clashing of swords... with, also, weird quasi-poppy parts that sneak in amidst the grim bombast, which we think might actually cause this to appeal to fans of Steel Mammoth and other "NWOFHM" acts! Though, as we said, this comes across as serious and sincere. So most likely for fans of the aforementioned Manilla Road, and Coven if you've ever heard 'em... Other bands whose fans might dig this, for various reasons, include fellow I Hate recording artists The Wounded Kings, Doomsword, Dark Quarterer, Reverend Bizarre, The Gates Of Slumber, Slough Feg, Cirith Ungol, Manowar, Hyborian Steel, Ironsword, Ophthalamia, Cloven Hoof, Helvetes Port, even Dwarr and some moments of the more recent Darkthrones, just to throw a few names out there that may or may not be helpful without further explanation... Really, though, despite their obvious inspirations (they cite several bands, some of the above among them, before whom they "genuflect") Realmbuilder is ultimately its own unique thing.
Bottom line: the esoteric metallurgists here at AQ can't stop listening to this! As far as Allan is concerned, his favorite metal cd of the year, quite possibly. And although this is quite new, it still almost seems as if a relic from another time and place, like it should come with a papyrus scroll or better yet carved stone tablets, instead of a cd booklet (though the cd booklet it has, with thick, purple-printed paper, is quite nice). Join the cult and bow down before Realmbuilder!
For whatever reason, we've never reviewed a record by Jay Reatard, which considering the hype surrounding him these days is somewhat surprising, and even though we dug his old band the Lost Sounds quite a bit, we were never all that interested in his solo stuff.
We're kind of kicking ourselves now, cuz if this new one is anything to go on, this shit is SO up our alley. Frantic, jangly, propulsive, power pop. And, yeah, garage rarely enters into it, this is total old school power pop, big guitars, killer hooks, and Reatard's high whiney vocals that have always been perfect for this sort of pop.
If we had to draw a comparison, it would be the Buzzcocks and the Cardiacs. The classic punk pop smithery of the Buzzcocks, and the frenetic high vocal-ed, almost proggy spazzpop of the Cardiacs. And at its most frenzied and caffeinated Reatard reminds us of the Toy Dolls too. Which should give you a good idea of what this stuff sounds like.
The first three tracks are a pretty perfect 1-2-3 pop punch. The first single opens up the record, "It Ain't Gonna Save Me", a total jangle pogo punk pop jam, with a stripped down verse and a soaring anthemic chorus, and a cool angelic vocal bridge that is total Cardiacs. "Before I Was Caught" sounds like it came straight off some Rhino post punk compilation, total classic old school eighties new wave pop, with a hook to die for, and awesome chiming guitars. And finally "Man Of Steel", another very Cardiacs sounding jam, but with a cool woozy guitar part, and a robotic new wave verse, skittery drums, and yet another super catchy, ever ascending chorus. Thankfully, the rest of the record is just as great. Not a stinker in the bunch. And the more we listen, the more the later tracks begin to shine, one of those discs where every track is a possible favorite. Watch Me Fall is definitely one of our biggest surprises, we listen to it DAILY, and it has us backpedalling like crazy, tracking down and checking out all those other Reatard discs we passed by the first time around...
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In the last few years before his tragic death, Jay Reatard was responsible for some of the most kick ass, and hooky as hell garage pop we had ever heard, singe after single of amazing catchy as fuck tuneage culminating in his last record Watch Me Fall, which was pretty much pure power pop. And it's that pop side that made it easy to forget that Jay Reatard started out as the frontman for a super scuzzy lo-fi garage rock combo called appropriately enough, the Reatards, and this here comp, gathers up the first Reatards full length, as well as a bonus album of early tracks, previously only available as super limited cassettes. And to be honest, we were sort of ready to write this off as a bullshit cash-in revisitation of Reatard's earliest, and what we only assumed would be far inferior, releases, but holy shit were we wrong, this stuff is so frantic and fierce, fuzzy and blown out and in the red, but at the same time, hooky and poppy, subtle here, but for sure hinting at the Reatard power pop to come.
Opener "I'm So Gone" sounds like an even more lo-fi Dwarves, the guitars raw and ragged, the vox raspy and emotional, and the song hook heavy and totally rocking, we find ourselves playing this 90 second blast over and over and over. Follow up "Stacye" is another blast of Ramones / Toy Dolls bouncy scruffy garage punk pop radness, and then there's Reatard's cover of Fear's classic "I Love Living In The City", that's transformed into something way more fierce and feral, noisy and geniusly chaotic. They also cover Dead Boys, Buddy Holly, the Beatles and more, turning those old classics into noisy, crunchy, catchy modern garage punk killers.
And so it goes, a relentless onslaught of pop infused garage punk madness, that slips easily from hooky almost power pop jangle, to grinding caustic punk rock, to fuzzy groovy surfy garage, the bonus tracks, are only marginally more low fidelity, still hooky as hell, with the poppiest moments reminding us a bit of Thee Oh Sees. Awesome!
This isn't that much different than the Tsurubami disc also just released by Strange Attractors, in large part because it's another two long tracks of spacey psych guitar jamming featuring Kawabata Makoto of Acid Mothers Temple! So get 'em both, is what we're saying. Compared to the Tsurubami though, this is more late-night and eerie. Rebel Powers sees Kawabata joined by guitarist David Keenan of Telstar Ponies (whom you may also know from his rock criticism in The Wire). Also in the band is AMT vocalist/synthethist Cotton Casino and original AMT drummer Koizumi Hajime. They went into a London studio back in '98 during an AMT UK tour, and now these black pools of sound they created finally seep into view, with further touring/recording promised. Rebel Powers is all about nightmarish and indistinct psychscapes, Keenan adding some more insistent, nay sinister, bent-metal guitar figure repetition, while Cotton's voice wordlessly haunts the Rebel Powers chapel. Their improvised droning is enhanced by Kawabata's occasional sarangi bowing. As with Tsurubami's new one, we can't help but add Rebel Powers to the ever-growing pile of AMT-related successes.
Right up front, we'll go on record and say this is likely the best cd you'll EVER buy... that comes packaged in a diaper. Prove us wrong. We dare you. But until someone does, revel in awesomely monikered Rebel Wizard, another project by the mysterious madman behind Aussie blacknoise one man band Nekrasov. And unlike the Nekrasov record reviewed elsewhere on this list, where you'll find said man indulging his face melting, amp shredding, ear drum destroying harsh noise tendencies, Rebel Wizard goes just as far in the opposite direction, whipping up a frenzy of classic metal riffage, harmonized leads, galloping drumming, a hybrid of old school black metal and NWOBHM maybe? Hell, the diaper even displays the legend NWONM, scrawled in sharpie, alongside a drawing of what looks like a dead eyed stick figure metalhead. And yup, it stands for NEW WAVE OF NEGATIVE METAL!
It's just blackened enough, the vokills just harsh enough, to give this the negative edge, but the stretches without vocals, it could be some lost demo from some obscure UK band from the eighties. But this shit is so good, a band like that wouldn't stay obscure for long. Any metalhead worth his salt and with a halfway decent record collection while find these tracks push all their very metal buttons, eminently headbangable, super melodic, epic, majestic, but also plenty grim and fierce and fucking heavy. We won't go on at length, since we have less than 10 copies, and these are the very last of an extremely limited run of just 50 copies, needless to say, highly recommended, and for the few of you who will manage to nab one of these, you will not be sorry.
And yeah, these are in fact housed a (unused!) diaper, complete with polka dots, and little cute cuddly animal pictures, and those sticky tabs holding it shut. LIMITED TO 50 COPIES, each one numbered on the inside, each one hand adorned with the record title, the NWONM legend, and the aforementioned dead eyed skull thing. Also includes a printed insert with the track listing.
Not only does this mix come from our favorite 'techno' label, Kompakt, but it was compiled by a Mexican DJ/producer, Rebolledo, who's got a thing for Filipino '70s psych rock guitarist Wally Gonzalez (of Juan De La Cruz fame, down & dirty Filipino proto-metallers par excellance). aQuarius customers might remember, we even reviewed cd reissues of Wally's two late '70s solo albums some years ago, one of which, 1978's Wally On The Road, provides the intro and outro tracks on this disc, via Rebo's edits of "Wally's Blues" from that album. Perhaps surprisingly, Wally's space-ily effected soloing totally works in the context of all the propulsive and powerful electronic music elsewhere on here. Not only that, but the cover photo has been done as an homage to Wally On The Road, as well - Rebolledo has carefully recreated that album's cover scene, posing identically to Wally, seated on a dirtbike in front of a Porsche, with a pair of fancy cowboy boots on the ground nearby.
So that's pretty cool, and odd, as is this disc, really one of the most captivating, hypnotic, groovy techno mixes we've heard in a while, with lots of interesting standout tracks. 'Bangers' if you will. Among 'em, several exclusive cuts, including Rebo's own studio contribution, the amazing "Windsurf, Sunburn and Dollar", an intensely, relentlessly mesmeric track with bizarrely accented/inflected vocals repeating the title phrase over and over with fierce emotion. The duo Rebo's in with Superpitcher, Pachanga Boys, is here too, and they and he both do some remixes as well. Other artists appearing: Wolfgang Voigt, Red Axes, The Love Supreme, Justus Kohncke, The Twins, C.A.R., Christian S., Sebastian Bouchet, Gebr. Teichmann, Barnt, Slove, and Vox Low. An excellent, idiosyncratic mix we just kinda can't stop playing!
Cd-only, but in June Kompakt will be releasing a 12" vinyl ep featuring an extended 'raw' mix of "Windsurf, Sunburn and Dollar" as well as two more cuts taken from this album also previously not on vinyl, so any discerning DJ's out there ought to look for that when we have it.
Last list we highlighted the Kompakt mix cd from Mexican DJ/producer Rebolledo, Momento Drive. This 12" ep with the same name features three of the rarest trax from that mix, released on vinyl for the first time, including probably our favorite from that mix, Rebolledo's own "Windsurf, Sunburn and Dollar", here presented in an 'extended raw version'. Again, totally mesmeric and relentless, and a bit bizarre as well due to the vocal part (the title, repeated over an over in a weird, intense accent and manner). The other two selections have Rebolledo's hand in 'em too, one's the Pachango Boys (Rebo's duo with Superpitcher) doing a remix of "Flash" by Stove, the other a Rebo remix of a track by Red Axes. DJs, in particular, ought to think about grabbing this.
You gotta love Tom Recchion. What a totally unique and idiosyncratic music maker. One of the founding members of the Los Angeles Free Music Society, Recchion takes his music quite seriously, but seems to have an incredibly goofy sense of humor, that most definitely informs his music, but without turing everything into a joke. Recchion's music is fun and playful, goofy and garrulous but at the same time just a little bit dark and creepy. I Love My Organ, even though it's only being officially released now, was actually recorded in the mid eighties (with some more recent remixing and a couple contributions from David Toop!), and is a dizzying hodge-podge of carnivalesque lounge music, bleeping blooping exotica, dreamy droning Krautrock style ambience and all sorts of abstract synthesized sounds, weird throbbing rumbles, ping pong like minimal percussion, goofy Wooly Bully meets Benny Hill horns and some sublimely gorgeous droney shimmer and chordal drift. A look in the booklet offers up more of Recchion's bizarre musical and non musical world view, songs dedicated to Terry Riley, Ferrante And Teicher, Brian Eno, William Basinski, even Jad Fair, a list of ten easy to make sound effects, complete with the items you'll need and directions to follow, and then quotes from Mr. Rogers and Herman Munster! Not many folks can balance the silly with the serious, at least not without one or the other being robbed of its effectiveness, but Recchion manages quite nicely. A truly weird and wonderful record.
Two un-manipulated field recordings of two very different jungle ecosystems made by this long-standing member of the Los Angeles Free Music Society. A dawn chorus from Oaxaca presents a variety of bird calls - the endemic sparrow, finch, and rooster all feature prominently; plus some strange cawing and twitter that sound nothing like the birds we have here in California. The vocalization continues unabated even as as early morning rainstorm encroaches on the area; but as the avian chorus fades, distant dog barks and even the gobble of a turkey announce their place in the audio ecosystem. The flip side is from a bamboo forest on one of the Hawaiian islands. There is a strange squiggling that emerges in the white noise from the rain and the sporadic clomping of the bamboo stalks striking each other in the wind. Recchion posits the squiggle as the sound of the bamboo's thin leaves flapping and sliding against a hedge of other plants. It has much more of a strange mud-spluttering sound that has all of the tropes of some weirdo sound-artist blowing bubbles into water saturated soil. We'll take Recchion at his word that these were not him but the bamboo! Still, two very compelling sets of field recordings. Released on picture disc via Elevator Bath in an edition of 270 copies.
Tom Recchion has been making weird and wonderful sounds since the 1970s as one of the leading figures in the Los Angeles Free Music Society. In a constant rotation of projects and bands, he cranked out ear-damaging skree, zonked tape collages, anti-musical comedies, and all sorts of other illogical strategies for making fucked-up sound. Compared to pretty much everything he's done previously, Proscenium - his first record in nearly seven years - is downright sensible; and one that fits neatly alongside all of the other releases from Elevator Bath, a label which specializes in rarified dronemuzik and oblique ambience (e.g. Keith Berry, Matt Shoemaker, Rick Reed and even our own Jim Haynes). The album began as the musical accompaniment to Janie Geiser's play "Invisible Glass" itself an adaptation of an Edgar Allan Poe short story, with Recchion attempting to craft a moody atmosphere that slowly creeps into the audience's unconsciousness. Strange melodies emerge through a shimmering hum at the onset of the record, sounding like an underwater version of Aphex Twins' Selected Ambient Works Volume II. Recchion smudges everything beyond recognition, although the thrumming of a piano does seem to peek from behind the veil of his aqueous mystery. Dense applications of reverb are common throughout, as is a strange echoing ripple that has a funhouse, helter-skelter vibe - probably the only commonality with anything from LAMFS! Whatever melodic phrases Recchion might have started out with have blurred into oceanic swells of nocturnal droning that by the end of side two morphs into an algae bloom of dread. The tracks on the seven inch are somewhat different from what's found on the lp, with a Dada-inspired splatter of haptic rhythms on one side; and a slow-crawling calliope slashed with sporadic gasps of noise on the other. While the seven inch follows Recchion anti-aesthetic through LAFMS, the ambient horror of the lp tracks are the true prize of the set. Think Basinski. Think Koner. Think Nurse With Wound. And, then you're getting close to where Recchion might be coming from.
Previously only available as a limited edition posthumous 8-song vinyl LP, here's the cd re-issue of this compilation documenting the Recoys' recordings from 1997 through 1999. As an added bonus for those who missed the vinyl edition (or for completists), the cd includes three more songs! Very raw and Paul Westerberg/Replacements-y (especially in the vocal department). FYI: This band's roster included future-Walkmen Hamilton Leithauser and Peter Bauer as well as French Kicks' Hugh MacIntosh. Actually Walkmen fans might recognize a couple of the tunes here, as they were eventually reworked for their Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone album.
Not sure what you might expect from a band called Rectal Hygienics, but if you weren't expecting squalls of feedback, downtuned caveman riffage, buried drugged out vox, and blown out wasted heaviness, well then, you might be a bit disappointed. We however got exactly what we were expecting, and hoping for. Falling squarely somewhere between Brainbombs and Rusted Shut, late period Black Flag, and some mutant strain of slo-mo hardcore, these bruisers deliver some fucked up and fierce noise rock that lurches from psychedelic and freaked out jammage to pure Neanderthal churn, more often than not cramming those two together into something beastly and seriously bad ass. Easily one of our new favorite slabs of brain damaged brutality.
Vintage psychedelic freakout stuff, including a track with guest John Fahey.
NOW ALSO HERE ON CD, with bonus trax!
Awesome obscure late sixties/early seventies British blues rock outfit's only album, originally released in 1970, newly reissued! Some of it's melodic acoustic folk psych with mellow, rustic vocals, while other tracks are more like lumbering, proto-metal blues, with heavy guitar riffs and really raw, rough vocals, kinda like Captain Beefheart singing for early Black Sabbath. There's some harmonica blowin' too along with the grungy guitars. Other reference points: Edgar Broughton Band, High Tide, The Doors, Fraction, Josephus...
This compact disc edition includes five bonus tracks, getting more Tull-soundin' but with violin instead of flute!
New cassette from the talented Sharon Cheslow. The Red Eye piece, which features Tim Green of The Champs and Nation of Ulysses, is a 'soundtrack' of sorts to a film that doesn't exist.
Probably best known for their song "Prehistoric Dog" and its hilarious video, that found the big bearded Red Fang folks, rocking out in their kitchen, drinking about a million cans of beer, and then fashioning the empty beer cans into chain mail, helmets and various weapons, with which they proceed to beat the living crap out of a troupe of L.A.R.P.-ers in the park. That's 'live action role players', but the L.A.R.P.-ers have the last laugh as they procure a magic sword and proceed to slay the members of Red Fang, tearing them limb from limb, head from torso, Monty Python style. And somehow, those visuals perfectly suited the sounds a sort of big riff, slow groove, Karp meets the Melvins stoner metal crush.
This new record finds the band taking that same sound and polishing it up a bit, adding some extra psychedelic filigree, a pretty slick, ultra heavy production, the songs more complex and epic, with a killer bout of dueling harmony guitars, but the Melvins vibe looms large, the vocals sounding especially Buzz-worthy.
But then the second track finds Red Fang getting seriously poppy, slipping into Torche / Floor territory, which to be honest, they maybe weren't all that far removed from in the first place, And that song "Wires" is pretty killer, hooks galore, more catchy psychedelic guitars, almost Queens Of The Stoneage sounding vox, and what sounds like some thick buzzing organ. And actually, much of the record plays out like some alternate, heavier, weirder QOTSA, and hell we're not complaining. Those jams definitely harken back to that Kyuss / QOTSA transition, where the difference between the two was negligible, and the songs were simultaneously catchy as hell, but crushingly heavy. We're also reminded of Open Hand, who for a while seemed destined to be the new QOTSA. But it's not all sweet pop and catchy hooks, not by a longshot, even at it's poppiest, the sound is still heavy, and those poppier numbers sit alongside some serious sonic reminders of their old, more feral sound, that whole Karp thing for sure, but updated with the sound of groups like Kylesa and Baroness, epic downtuned crush and pounding mathy pummel woven into epic stoner metal grooves, which just so happen to be catchy as fuck. Nice packaging too.
And in case you somehow never saw that video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuRKRFjm-HA
Maybe you've already seen it. The best music video EVER. On YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQiHORkdE_0
That's this band, Red Fang, doing this album's lead off cut "Prehistoric Dog". We won't spoil the video by telling you too much about it before you watch, let's just say it involves a most excellent mocking of LARPers (technically speaking, the LARPers look more like members of The Society for Creative Anachronism, but same dif pretty much).
After seeing that, how can you not need the Red Fang album? Which, as we expected is grungy, loud, heavy, shit kickin' and beer swillin' (as per the video). There's a moodier cut or two ("Humans Remain Human Remains" ferinstance) but mostly this is a walloping dose of balls out rockin' from this hairy bunch of stoner metal reprobates from Portland Oregon (who among 'em include ex-members of such bands as Last Of The Juanitas, All Night, Shiny Beast, Trumans Water, Bad Wizard, Party Time, and Facedowninshit). As raw and riffy as it gets, there's still hints of melody, even in the vocals, that are sometimes sung, sometimes screamed and shouted. Should appeal to fans of High On Fire lookin' for a good time, or Harvey Milk's Pleaser... Also, imagine a cross between Karp and Priestess, or a more punk and disorderly Burning Brides.
This debut 10-song full-length incorporates the tracks from their previous self-released tour-only cd-r ep, all except for their cover of Dust's proto-metal classic "Suicide", darn it.
First we've heard from this Canadian drone outfit, but it's definitely got aQ written all over it. Four long tracks, all of which play out like scores to some obscure seventies horror movies, or weirdo European giallos. Cinematic and atmospheric, hushed and haunting, infused with a palpable sense of dread, but suffused with subtle loveliness. Slow shifting textures, long layered tones, creaks and rattles, undulating metallic shimmers, deep echo drenched pulsations, deep, dense dronemusic, that drifts hypnotically from tense, claustrophobic soundtrackery, to barely there, subsonic thrum, to glitchy, fields of electronic static, all seemingly melted down into a viscous black flow, that oozes and bleeds glacially, more tranquil than turbulent, but shot through with enough sinister sonic energy to position it alongside similarly grim dronelords and purveyors of the blackest strains of death industrial.
Relapse is really playing up the cyber-industrial-whatever aspect of Red Harvest but it's their least 'industrial' record so far. But, industrial it still is, with machine like beats occasionally overtaking their pounding, flesh and bones drummer, and ultra crisp and precise riffs, processed into expansive sheets of distorted roooaaaaaar. Somewhere between Neurosis, AQ faves Alchemist, Emperor and Machine Head. Not a bad combination at all. Furious death metal gives way to epic and funereal post apocalyptic dirges. Shrieking black metal is chopped and diced into industrial chugs and droning metalscapes. Melodies are stretched and distorted, electronic rhythms are assembled in a desolate wasteland of malfunctioning electronics, instrument buzz and distorted hiss until flesh ripping guitars come raining down like fiery hail from angry gods. One of the coolest metal records of the year so far.
Even reviewing this is a guilty pleasure. Yes, unfortunately, I must admit -- a pleasure. First I reveal my D&D playing lifestyle, now I'm admitting to sort of liking the Red Hot Chili Peppers. It's like I'm the star of Aquarius Records' very own conceptual version of Jackass. All I can say is, I used to like the Chili Peppers, years ago, in college. C'mon, you did too. Uplift Mofo Party Plan, Mother's Milk, y'know, those were good. Then they did that "Under The Bridge" song. Suddenly they're all about MTV ballads, crooning, cloying stuff. Ugh. Plus who told that guy he could sing?? But then, I was repeatedly exposed to Californication (I know, it's kinda embarrrassing even typing that word) while in Europe a few years ago. That broke down my resistance I guess. I liked it. And what's weird, now, is that I like the Chili Pepper's pretty, sing-songy stuff, it's the slap bass funk-punk stuff that sounds really corny and stupid. Fortunately they mostly stick to the ballads on this record, and leave all that funkery to the rap-rock bands like Linkin Bizkit to whom the old Chili Peppers must have been such an inspiration. And I like Anthony Kiedis' voice, now, too. You can always tell it's him, he's got his own style. Ok, so it's not like I'm telling you to buy this. I didn't -- but, if I got a promo I wouldn't necessarily trade it in... Objectively, I'd have to say this is a bad record. Cheesy, wimpy, and dumb, with some truly cringe-worthy moments. But I haven't turned it off yet, while writing this. So I'm just telling you to try to understand if someone you know, a friend or family member likes it. Or if you do.
Even Allan was afraid to listen to this.
Of course, the long awaited new Red House Painters album is wonderful. It doesn't matter how long Old Ramon waited in major label purgatory (3 years) -- it's finally here and it sounds completely fresh and masterful and light and lovely (What a relief!).
Side note: In light of Kozelek's recent, sadly ignorant remarks regarding Koreans and Korean Americans, I have this to say: Mark, jokes about Koreans eating dogs or cats might go over well for you when you're in South Korea, where Asians are the majority, but please do not ever again make the mistake of thinking that just because all Asians look the same (yeah right), we're all going to get your stupid jokes. A little Asian American kid here in California probably got beat up in school over some cat-eating stereotyping that you so casually perpetuated. That's why remarks like yours don't fly here. The experience of Asian-*Americans* has been a *minority* experience, quite different from growing up in Asia. Dude, you should know this already! Wake up.
It's funny when we discover an old aQ favorite that somehow never got a review. We scratch our heads and wonder how the heck that happened... and we get a bittersweet pang of guilt and warm fuzzies - partly because we're a bit ashamed that we never put our affection in print and partly because when we notice it, we are compelled to revisit the record again. Inevitably we end up falling right back under its spell. Trust us, it's not from a lack of love that something might not have a review on our website. There's a seemingly endless torrent of music coming at us at all times, but there's only so many hours... sigh! Anyhoo, that's a long-winded way to announce that longtime aQ fave Mark Kozelek's old band Red House Painters' fifth album has been reissued on vinyl! We shamefully never wrote a review about the original cd version, but that might've been because it came out back in 1996 (i.e, pre-aQ website and email newsletter!). The album is as beautiful and potently melancholic today as it was thirteen years ago. Lovely burnished golden twang! What else would you expect from Kozelek and RHP?! Songs For A Blue Guitar was, for all intents and purposes, Kozelek's first solo album (no other band members are listed in the credits), and in addition to it being the most guitar driven, country rock-ish RHP album up to that point, it also revealed his soon to be notorious penchant for covering seemingly incongruous songs and making them his own. Here he tackles McCartney & Wings' "Silly Love Songs", The Cars' "All Shook Up" and Yes' "Long Distance Runaround"!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This one's got a yukky cover with a very tired-looking woman in transparent bra holding a gun.
Members of Red Monkey also run the DIY punk collective Slampt and started out rocking in UK underground legends Avocado Baby and Pussycat Trash, they now make up 2/3rds of this dynamic group. The songs on this record are political, strong, angular, and almost
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Dancehall mix, b/w hip hop mix.
