Wow! This is the week for awesome band names, the Chord Fort, Flittermice Of Eld, Maggoted and now The Shitty Listener which might be one of the best band names EVER.
The Shitty Listener is Jason Honea from from the Jewelled Antler outfits The Child Readers and the Franciscan Hobbies, as well as the Chord Fort, the Knit Separates and Teenage Panzercorps, along with some guest guitar from our very own Kerry McLaughlin.
This is an ultra personal abstract ambient artifact, equal parts super intimate crooning vocal and whirring mysterious drone. Recorded on a shitty handheld minicassette recorder which gives all of the multi part, nine minute epic "The Cloud Fort" (not to be confused with Honea's other band the Chord Fort) a super murky, haunted lo-fi vibe. Each part is brief, but beautiful, a blown out shimmering ambience that is soon joined by Honea's way in the background falsetto, before the music drops out completely, and then it's ALL vocals, bare and alone, sweetly singing, lightly draped with reverb, but for the most part super naked and intimate. The next stretch sounds like it could have been lifted off some old Jewelled Antler release, a thick textured soundscape of field recordings, and subtle dronings. Then there's some downright indie rock riffing that seem like they would maybe sound out of place, but here they don't, a cool minor key jangle that gives way to another stretch of even MORE intimate vocals, with no reverb or any natural ambience, almost like one of those cassettes you find in a thrift store packed with some aspiring singer's solo vocals. So intense and weirdly voyeuristic. The disc winds down with a murky, whir drenched snatch of easy listening bliss out that just trails off into the hiss of the tape recorder. So nice.
A gorgeously packaged cd-r. Full color cover, with a dreamlike painting on the cover, a textured paper insert, and the disc is professionally printed and is quite striking.
Only 9 minutes long, but also only six bucks!
Hot on the heels of two super limited cd-r's comes the newest batch of ultra personal lo-fi missives from Jason Honea aka The Shitty Listener. Honea (The Child Readers, Franciscan Hobbies, the Chord Fort, the Knit Separates, Teenage Panzercorps, etc.). A super intimate world of tiny folk songs, lo-fi lushness, strange fragments of sound, and whatever other strange sonics figure into Honea's Shitty Listening.
Strange distorted conversations, chopped up, a looped snippet of some Hall & Oates song, a dizzying found sound collage that quickly gives way to a simple warbly guitar strum, melancholy and struggling to stay in key, a lilting and dreamlike sliver of forest folk, complete with drifting falsetto vocals and a strange bit of tapping percussion way down in the mix. Most of the songs on Hunt To Die are of a similar make up, drifting crooning sweetness. although the lo fi production takes over here and there allowing the sound to become super distorted and bleed over everything else. Some droney buzz, some other snippets of found sound. And more fragile folky dreaminess. Like wandering through the lush foggy musical garden in Honea's mind. Everything gauzy and indistinct, mysterious and wondrous, and oh so pretty.
Feature some guest action from Honea's former partners in Jewelled Antler Loren Chasse and Glenn Donaldson.
Full color cover and a hand painted blue tape with fabric and artwork glued to the front. And as with most things like this probably really really limited...
The music on this cd represents the entire recorded output of this obscure early '70s acid-rock band. Shiver recorded this stuff live to two-track tape in the summer of 1972, and while they never released an album back in the day, it's clear that the world is
Basically, Shiver were a bunch of hard-rocking hippie freaks, brought together by a Texas-bred drummer who moved to San Francisco to take up where his obvious heroes Blue Cheer left off. They soon had a rather rough, tough reputation, playing Haight street fairs and Hells Angels biker parties. At one point they even had a singer with an iron hook for a hand, which he could use as a slide for his guitar, or for more violent purposes. Shiver played "heavy psychedelic rock" at its most primal -- no overdubs, raw as hell.
Portions of this were previously available as an expensive Rockadelic LP, but the cd adds quite a few extra, lower-fidelity tracks as a "bonus."
Another official GoD vinyl reissue (following the Kalacakra we listed not long ago) of a krautrock rarity. Well, is it krautrock if it's from Switzerland? Sorta, it's heavy progressive Sixties blues psych in any case, full of hammering Hammond organ. And being Swiss, these guys were lucky enough to obtain appropriately shiver-inducing (and sexually suggestive) cover artwork by H.R. Giger, for their lone, rare, 1969 album release!
The music isn't quite creepy enough to live up to Giger's cover, though The Shiver can certainly get moody. The opener is fairly ominous, an instrumental called "Repent Walpurgis", with weeping wailing guitars and organ, and bombastic drumbeat breakdowns, though it has a nicely melodic piano passage too. And they sound quite liturgically somber - as well as psychedelic - on "Hey Mr. Holy Man", another of the other tracks here that might invite comparisons to AQ-fave Austrian krautrockers Paternoster. Also, we dig their downer cover of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", clearly inspired by The Animals' version more than that of Nina Simone.
While this is "pop music" it's certainly got something of a dismal, druggy vibe. Also this album is most definitely bluesy - and if you don't like that, then their song "What's Wrong About The Blues" will answer its own question!
Gatefold sleeve, numbered limited edition of 1000.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Live in '95. Hmm, I think maybe that was right about when some of us here at AQ saw this Japanese psych band, they came to SF and played an amazing show at the Kilowatt, back when they had shows there. Tokyo's Shizuka, with their haunting female vocals drifting ahead of an inevitable onslaught of noisy, billowing, distorto-delic electric guitar murk, were one of the '90s precursors to such current bands as LSD-march, Suishou No Fune, and Up-Tight. At the time, we compared 'em to Angel 'In Heavy Syrup and Slapp Happy Humphrey, the latter especially 'cause of Shizuka's extreme mix of delicacy and destructiveness, of melancholic melody and sheer, feedback-laden guitar/amp/earhole abuse. Not abuse, though, not really... it's loud, sculpted sound that's actually quite beautiful. As with so many Japanese bands from the PSF/Tokyo Flashback scene, it's like a cotton candy dream of the most out there Neil Young & Crazy Horse amplifier meltdowns (a la Arc). This raw (but not to Rallizes-like levels of low fidelity) 52 minute live set is Shizuka in their element, and even if you've never heard 'em before wouldn't be a bad place to start, at all. The first song alone should make you a believer if you're at all open to this sort of thing (i.e. maybe already a fan of some of the other bands mentioned above). And it is 26 and a half minutes long! That's the biggest blow-out on the disc, the other three tracks trafficking more in the tranquil side of Shizuka, with long slow-moving stretches of sweet vocals backed by echo and hum and hiss as the shoegazing guitar bides its time before finally erupting into full flight.
And of course, those already into Shizuka know they're one of the best, unique within the pantheon, and should be pleased have another rare document of their sad dark mystery.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Japan's Shizuka were once (and maybe are again) an up-and-coming four-piece Tokyo psych outfit, you might know 'em from their contributions to PSF's Tokyo Flashback compilation series, or their studio album on that same label, or their amazing but now sadly out of print live cd on Persona Non Grata. They even played a great show here in San Francisco at the Kilowatt some years ago that some of us were lucky enough to witness. The prime elements of Shizuka's sound are the Keiji Haino-esque guitar storms of ex-Fushitsusha man Maki, combined with the haunting, sad female vocals of the band's namesake Shizuka (Japanophiles reading this probably also have seen her beautiful and spooky handmade dolls, on the cover of a Land of the Rising Noise comp and elsewhere). This band broke up a while ago, but have apparently recently reunited. No new material has been forthcoming, however, but they have released this live cd-r (recorded in 1995, before the break-up), which will be some consolation to fans. It's a 40-minute long live performance (complete with a fragment of the music being played through the PA prior to their set!) from a club in Tokyo. The recording is great, and their songs are phenomenal. Gorgeous, melancholic stuff, with the gently lulling singing of Shizuka being heartbreaking enough by itself, but also setting the listener up to be destroyed by the fantastic heavy psych controlled-noise outbursts of the guitar when they begin (usually a few minutes into each song). If you're already a Shizuka fan, you'll want this, and if you're into bands like Nagisa Ni Te, Slap Happy Humphrey, and Fushitsusha, you probably do too. Those with less expertise in modern underground Japanese psych -- but who dig the Velvets, Neil Young, or even an imaginary mix of Mazzy Star and Mogwai -- could do a lot worse for an introduction as well.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Beyond two-step, dark step, tech step, and hard step, Shizuo embodies his own mutant brand of drum 'n' bass... Fuck Step. This music is so fresh and vital it will get your blood going like Black Flag and the DKs did for that 35 year old who lives next door to you. (Hey hey now don't get defensive, Grampa, I'm over 30 too.)
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Shizuo, one of the noise/breakbeat/punk standouts on the intense Digital Hardcore label (with a great 7" out on Grand Royal), releases this studio & live ep, 10 tracks of Berlin electronic mayhem.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
One of our favorites from Alec Empire's Digital Hardcore stable, with a new ep the title track of which is apparently a Cramps cover.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
One of 4 singles from Digital Hardcore Recordings, Germany's nastiest, most extreme hardcore techno label, issued here in tasty uninitiated-friendly 7" format by the Beastie's Grand Royal label. A cheap way to learn all about what the hell is going on.
The weirdest of the Digital Hardcore crew breaks out with his first full length. Unanimous store favorite. Includes his stellar Sweat single, and features some of the hardest, most distorted yet intelligent bass and drums this side of Panacea. Recommended (esp. the next time you're pissed off.)
We don't care what the rest of the world says, we still love Witch House, or drag, or grave rave, or cave rave, or whatever you want to call it, we still can't seem to get enough of it, the murky slithery soundscapes of slo-mo rhythms, tarpit soul, slowed down vocals, everything wreathed in a cough syrupy haze, it's the perfect late night music, like a bastardized drug addled Portishead, which sounds amazing right? We've been particularly partial to the recent spate of groups crafting a sort of abstract soul, a minimal, washed out, woozy RnB that takes the tropes of the original sound and stretches 'em waaaay out and slows them waaaaay dooooown, the result being a blissed out sonic comedown, all lumbering shuffling beats, woozy washed out melodic swells, vocals alternatingly chopped and screwed or left to drift angelically amidst hazy clouds of druggy drift. Think How To Dress Well, Crypt Thing, D'eon, Holy Other, Dirty Beaches, Hype Williams and the like.
We had never heard Shlohmo before, and actually first discovered him via a recent local show featuring Water Borders, oOoOO, White Ring and other sonically similar soundscapers (think Witch House if you want, it's okay). Shlohmo definitely traffics in a similar sound. fans of any of the above mentioned bands, will no doubt dig Shlohmo as well, his sound leaning more toward the swirling slow motion melodicisim of Balam Acab or Clams Casino, the sound all slow strummed chords, wreathed in effects and layered beneath blurred vocals, occasionally deep and dramatic, but more often, a fluttery Prince like falsetto, spidery melodies, creepy rickety rhythms, slow motion stutters and woozy warble, those distinctly witch house-y female vox all layered into a sort of chordal thrum, the sounds here hovering mainly in some ethereal sun dappled Technicolor dreamworld, but once in a while the sounds gain momentum, and become darker, the sounds more caustic and crunchy, but even then, the vibe is more shoegazey and dreamily druggy, with the sound eventually slipping back into something much more drifty and ephemeral.
Gorgeous stuff. WAY recommend for fans of prettier dreamier drag (Balam Acab, Clams Casino, etc.)�
Packaged in a super swank full color gatefold sleeve, includes a download code as well.
Idiosyncratic electronic producer Shlohmo returns at last with the follow up to 2011's Bad Vibes, and if anything, the vibes on Dark Red are even badder, the witch-housed RnB basis of some of his earlier work somewhat subsumed by an even darker, deeper, drums 'n' bass 'n' drone style. The eerie bombination and boom bap of Sholomo's shadowy, slo-mo sound here is quite satisfying, dreamy and drifty. It gets into almost epic, post rock territory at times; really you could imagine some of these spaced out, slow build sounds emanating from a Mogwai or Trans Am record, even though this is in fact coming from the electronica/hiphop/breakbeat realm. Anticon's D33J guests with vocals on one track, "Apathy", but otherwise Shlohmo (aka Henry Laufer) goes it utterly alone and instrumental, other track titles like "Fading", "Ditch", and "Remains", and "Slow Descent" telling the story, kind of a downer one, but Shlohmo always still has soul. You kind of get the idea, right? We hope so, 'cause we only just got this in, and are really digging it, but right in the middle of writing this review, I actually had to stop 'cause a bunch of us here decided to go see the latest Fast & Furious movie at the IMAX - a movie with so many brilliantly STUPID moments in it that it was almost worth watching, though, like, it erased half my brain I feel like. So that's it for this Shlohmo review. Recommended, though, with a lot more real feeling than Furious Seven could ever muster.
Latest 12" jam from local label Voltaire, and the first we've heard from local trio Shock, their song "Heaven", starts out all noisy and synthy, driven by a dark house-y pulse, which sort of had us expecting something all Carpenter/Goblin-y, but then the vocals come in, and the song is transformed into a gorgeous slab of retro electro pop shimmer, all groovy low slung bass line, reverby guitar jangle, ominous synth pulse, dubbed out handclaps, skittery beat, and some seriously divine, sultry vox, all wreathed in a gorgeously lush production, that had us thinking M83 for sure, a fantastic blast of fuzzed out shoegaze electronic house-pop.
The remixes are pretty bad ass too, probably most exciting for aQ-ers, is Steve Moore from Zombi's mix, which transforms it into a glistening cascade of percolating synth melodies, the house music pulse left intact, but the vocals blurred and smeared into long stretches of breathy looped drones. So good!
The other remixes are less dramatic, Beatbroker, as his name would suggest, goes heavier on the beat, while letting all the other sounds blur into something more ethereal and washed out, while Hatchback go the other direction entirely, and take the song in a much more eighties pop direction, more fuzzy retro-pop, all hazy and almost Beach House-y at times.
This is another one of those instances where we're able to judge a band solely on the music, and not the band's pedigree, since we're almost wholly unfamiliar with all the previous bands that have led up to Shocked Minds. Some of which are apparently a big deal, but fuck it, we threw this on, not really knowing what to expect and BLAM, song one had us totally sold, fuzzy garagey-punk, liberally infused with lots of power pop hookiness, and some seriously catchy melodies, but plenty of snarl and swagger too. It actually sounds like the band were thinking punk, and the pop component was just a happy accident, which in our experience, ends up being the best possible combo. The sound of Shocked Minds, while heavily indebted to classic punk and Yellow Pills power pop, and a whole mess of rad outfits from the seventies and eighties, also isn't that far removed from many of their labelmates on Hozac, various garage rock contemporaries like Heavy Times, Far Out Fangtooth, Black Bug, Holograms, Fungi Girls, Liminanas, not to mention groups like Thee Oh Sees (check out the Dwyer-like yelp on "Suspect"). There's also a killer cover of a track by UK pop punks The Eat, which sounds like it could be a Shocked Minds original. Every track here rules, and along with the new Heavy Times record (reviewed elsewhere on this week's list), we're finding it difficult to listen to anything else!
The latest from Ms Michelle Shocked is quite a doozy! Three differently themed full length albums -- Mexican Standoff, Don't Ask Don't Tell and Got No Strings -- offered up as a limited edition triple disc set on her own label, Mighty Sound.
DFA and Flying Nun Records unite, finally? Who knows why in the hell those two labels would ever get together, other than the fact that DFA's James Murphy seems intent on sticking his finger into every single existing part of music history -- sometimes effectively updating sounds and creating some interesting syntheses. Mr. Murphy's possible personal ambitions aside, the resulting product is pretty great. New Zealand's own Nick Harte comprises the one-man indie arsenal Shocking Pinks, which is an adept synthesis of its own. Try to imagine an album conceived and executed on a strict dietary regimen of Flying Nun, Sarah, and Creation Records, maybe even a little bit of Afghan Whigs' Gentleman. The result is a super chunk (wink, wink) of indie-pop goodness. Controlled, fuzzy guitars find a comfy home next to simple drums and simpler, more twee, slightly out-of-tune vocals, plus a dab of new wave synth-ibility. Not bad! Are we saying this is on par with what amounts to the absolute best indie labels of the '90s? Nah. But it is an awesome trip down memory lane, back to the days when indie rock wasn't perceived as being burnt-out hasbeens playing mediocre material for arena crowds or seriously lame highschoolers with black eyeliner. These were the days when it was acceptable, nay, required to embrace your inner (or outer) nerd and run with it. Yup. Mix tapes, 7"s, and '60s-style bowlcuts. Hell, do lovelorn, daydreaming teenagers even know what tapes are now?! Sigh... Well, half those labels are bankrupt, barely licensed out, but dammit, some of us just aren't done with it all yet. There is one little aberrant track entitled "Smokescreen," which isn't bad at all, but its cowbell and post-punk drumming really have no place on this record. Also, don't be scared of Harte's album closer, a warm and hazy cover of Arthur Russell's supremely beautiful "You Can make Me Feel Bad." Ah, but it feels so good. Recommended.
A very prescient, and very good, record by the sound-artist / field recordist Matt Shoemaker, Erosion Of The Analogous Eye pushes his work of tonal exploration and exaggerated found sounds into the neighborhood of many of the post-noise cosmic explorers who have been blossoming in every corner of the US it seems. At the same time, this is very much a Matt Shoemaker record, following a trajectory set forth through his acclaimed work on the once-mighty Trente Oiseaux label.
An ur-drone of analog synthesis opens the album, obviously harkening to '70s kosmische activities certainly a muscular revisitation of Schulze or even an extraction from Richard Pinhas. Such a lazerbeam of a drone has a lysergic sunrise feel to it, with the light and shadow brought into sharp relief, the colors shifted and separating into spectral bursts of yellow, red, pink, and orange. Yet, slowly, Shoemaker introduces atonal drones which clash with that introductory suspension. At first, the metallic slashes have almost an Andrew Chalk and Jonathan Coleclough feel, but Shoemaker quickly dispels those notions with a layer of field recordings of insects ravenously scurrying about. That introductory tone, which still continues through this first track, bends like a divebombing plane with Doppler tones trailing behind, descending in a series of bell tones. All of this in a seamless 17 minutes. A steady rhythm of gamelan bell tones opens the second track with accumulated complimentary drones shimmering and vibrating while harmonic dissonance abounds, collapsing into a quiet stream of percolating textures. Spread across 24 minutes, this track seems ancient and sounds beguilingly beautiful. Bellowing rumbles amplify out of recordings of rain, mud, and water and steadily arching through a metallic rattling of various pipes and gongs for the final track, which eventually gives way to an uneasy set of recordings of birds in a rainforest whose calls echo through the trees.
As with all Helen Scarsdale releases the packaging is stellar. Letterpressed text with hand-dyed paper. Each are different, each are quite special. Oh yeah, limited to a mere 300 copies!
Before the days of email blasts and newsletters, mail order was almost always done by way of xeroxed lists from various outlets. One of the more incredible lists cam courtesy of Anomalous Records, who had itemized hundreds of records, cassettes, and various shapes of vinyl on one or two pieces of paper by printing everything an incredibly small font, often hovering around 3 pt in Helvetica or something like that. Not only was the list a task to read in terms of the sheer volume of material crammed into a very condensed amount of space, but the list also held an extraordinary amount of incredibly cool experimental, post-industrial, and avant-garde music that could not be found anywhere else. Sadly, Anomalous Records decided to close up shop about five years ago; but their importance as an outlet for obscure music is still felt today.
Matt Shoemaker's Groundless was one album that had been stocked from time to time on the Anomalous list with a curious description that said something to the effect that Groundless resembled the work of Andrew Chalk. Then in 2001 when Shoemaker's debut was released on Trente Oiseaux, references to Andrew Chalk were not all that common, as his seminal project Mirror had only just begun and his solo records had yet to catch the imagination of every producer of dronemusik. Needless to say, such a parallel was one that caught our attention; and the album was quickly ordered only to discover a strident realm of quiet crackling that was quite foreign to Chalk's all-consuming dronescaping. While Groundless sounds nothing like any of Chalk's recordings, it is still a brilliant piece of tactile sound abstraction. It may seem a stretch but perhaps Anomalous was only making comparisons on the impeccable quality of both Shoemaker and Chalk as composers, even if they don't share much in the way of aesthetics. Instead of the expansive drone, Shoemaker posits a dizzyingly cinematic sound design of streaming crackles, agitated piles of sand, and sympathetic field recordings that burst in dynamic fashion out of extended passages of queasy stasis into sharp snaps of electromagnetic propulsion. These techniques have more of an avant-garde film drama to them as blurry, soft focus objects give way to something which snaps to the foreground announcing all of its ugly bruises and scars with a sharpened clarity. Groundless emerges as yet another amazing recording from Matt Shoemaker.
Seattle's Matt Shoemaker has long stood as one of the few consistently great drone tacticians around, principally because his take on the drone supreme is punctured by humid field recordings laced with occasional bellowings of atmospheric dread. His previous works such as Erosion Of The Analogous Eye and The Wayward Set are demonstrations in equal parts of rich transcendence and hallucinatory isolationism. Given the titles of the two pieces on this gorgeous picture disc released by Elevator Bath, you can make a pretty solid bet that this tends more toward the latter aesthetic of Shoemaker's black-hole expressionism.
Shoemaker begins with a tense diamond-shot drone from overlapping sinewaves generated from controlled feedback. These pierced frequencies slide downwards amidst a curious set of clattering noises, almost like the amplification of a paramecium undulating its way into the crevices of its host body. Extended wheezes of grey gasps of air and motorized growlings swallow everything that came before with a ghostly echo of those feedback tones broadcast from way back at the event horizon. The second side (which may be the first, as Elevator Bath's picture discs are very trickly to discern track listings!) immediately expands into one of Shoemaker's signature pieces of lysergic darkness, with all of his ill-tempered vibrations colliding into huge phase patterns that mutate, deviate, and detour the linearity of his cold drone fundamental. Always bending and set off-kilter this composition is dangerously slippery as if set upon quicksand with the various layers upon layers splitting off in asynchronous, oozing, droning directions.
Very highly recommended as with all of Shoemaker's work! Limited to 233 copies.
If Aquarius Records wasn't located in the temperate climate of San Francisco, would we be so enamored with the sounds of ice? If we had to deal with burst water pipes or having to shovel through several feet of snow just to get to the front door or trying to stay warm in bone chilling temperatures, the romance of ice would probably be lost on us. But as it stands, we love the sounds of a frosty winter. Give us the sounds of the windswept Nordic tundra, the subaqueous squawks of Antarctic penguins, the clank of Finnish oddballs building instruments out of ice, and these frigid recordings from one of our favorite sound artists.
Ice, the source material for Matt Shoemaker's contribution to the Ferns series of 3" cds, which seems to be on the way to rivalling Metamkine's Cinema Pour L'Oreille series of electro-acoustics through their set of expressive drones and molded field recordings. This all-too brief composition begins with a stoic set of raw field recordings from drippings of cold water, the crack of ice breaking under temperature fluctuations and pressure, and unsettled squigglings of water being forced through tiny fissures. After several minutes of this squishy introduction, Shoemaker sets forth a parabolic arc of dense gray drones whose frosty demeanor matches the source material. Eerie blasts of pierced electric tones mark the track's crescendo, after which Shoemaker authors a steady retreat in density back towards the dripping and crackle. Fans of William Basinski, Chris Watson, and BJ Nilsen should definitely take note of this excellent recording!
Undeniably, this is a Matt Shoemaker recording. This Pacific Northwesterner has long been a favorite dronologist here at Aquarius with his ominous recordings spawned from electro-acoustic feedback systems, humid field recordings, tonebent mood engineering slanted toward audio hallucinations, dense guitar swarms, and elongated, zoner synth passages that give John Elliott a run for his money. Soundtrack For Dislocation is a self-evident title for Shoemaker, given how his work fractures temporal / psychogeographical planes, teleporting the listener from one opiated mirage to another. His process is just as interesting as the sounds that he produces, as he drives and controls feedback through a system of slinkies that act like something of a hybrid between a stereo spring reverb unit and an omnidirectional microphone, with Russian synths, VCO filters, and noise-aggregators positioned at various points on the feedback loop track. We had once thought that the pre-digital Merzbow recordings had developed into something of an organism that thrived on electricity, had an intelligence that dictated the course of the noise, and begrudgingly entertained a relationship with Masami Akita. Shoemaker's electro-acoustic contraptions seem to be approaching this Frankensteinian, electric organism on par with Merzbow's, although the architects of both projects have very different designs.
Hence, this is not a torrent of distortion, but a vertiginous path of drone, hiss, blur, shadow, grit, and decay. Placid atmospheres shimmer at times with all of the cinematic grandeur of Stars Of The Lid, only to dissolve, mutate, and crumble into hallucinatory slippages where flecks of environmental sounds breaking through, twisting once again into a metallic resonance on par with the most haunting of Nurse With Wound constructions. Thrumming tones pulse into skittering vibrations that build to rupturing crescendos that snap into near-silent voids of disquieting rumble. All of this comes together in another magnificent album from Mr. Shoemaker. Highly recommended!
BACK IN STOCK!!!
Have a glance back at our most verbose descriptions about anything from the avant-garde fringes of music making, and you'll most likely find a common metaphor of specific locations, or rather the memories that the author attributes to that space -- good, bad, holy, abject, transcendent, etc. Upon listening to Spots In The Sun, we find ourselves returning to the well-trod linguistic device of comparing sound to the detached memories of place; however, Shoemaker's exploration of psychogeographic sound never grounds itself upon a specific location -- like a crumbling hospital, reclaimed World War II bunkers, or even his own favored locations of the jungles of Indonesia. Rather, Shoemaker drops the listener into a sunbleached environment, where heat, humidity, jetlag, fatigue, and general environmental claustrophobia prevent any of the specifics to make themselves known. While Shoemaker's landscapes are openly hostile toward the listener, these swarming masses of sound are incredibly alluring, drawing us in even though we may know better than to enter these openly toxic spaces. Shoemaker is always teasing us with small hints as to where we might be, with screeching birds, temple bells, and the patter of rain; but before we can begin to triangulate a position, Shoemaker rips us from our locale with a ruptured crescendo and drops us somewhere else. It is through the drone that Shoemaker achieves all of this and more, his swarming monochrome morphs from complex vibrations into radioluminescent clouds. Spots In The Sun is an exquisite manifestation of abstracted field recordings pushed to the point of grotesque minimalism, and is indeed some of the finest that we've heard (comparable to the likes of BJ Nilsen, Machinefabriek, Loren Chasse, Philip Jeck's Surf, and mnortham).
The music found within Matt Shoemaker's Spots In the Sun certainly makes for one of our favorite records in recent memory, unfortunately this ultra limited version is already out of print and will most likely not be around for long (but fear not, the regular version will follow soon after).
Shoemaker's exquisite manifestations of abstracted field recordings pushed to the point of grotesque minimalism is some of the finest that we've heard (comparable to the likes of BJ Nilsen, Machinefabriek, Loren Chasse, Philip Jeck's Surf, and mnortham), but what makes this "special edition" so unique is the packaging. You may remember many moons ago that The Helen Scarsdale Agency issued an edition of the BJ Nilsen & Stilluppsteypa release with a copper foil cover mounted within a jewel case as the artwork. Well, Matt Shoemaker's Spots in the Sun sports similarly dazzling packaging, a corroded sheet of brass upon which the album text has been silkscreened, only to be slightly distressed in order to give it a beautiful worried quality. How limited is this edition? Fifty, of which we only got less than a dozen. So act fast, or bide your time until the regular version comes out in a month or so...
It has been far too long since we've been graced by any recordings from Matt Shoemaker, Seattle's electro-acoustic hermit who sculpts field recordings and electronics together into vibrantly imagined visions of virulent algae blooms, prismatic growths of crystal from magma, and hallucinatory fever dreams from consuming some quasi-mystical, mostly-nausating tea boiled by a madman passing as a sage. His work has never garnered the acclaim that it should in part due to his deliberately low-profile and grotesqueries of composition that vertiginously twist and turn beyond the scope of the drone and conflate the purity of a field recording with mutations and disease. The Late Day Spectrum is the first published work in nearly four years, and the format of choice isn't doing Shoemaker any favors in expanding his audience. But this micro-edition release exhibits a further refinement of Shoemaker's craft with his sheared metallic timbres carved into elegant arcs following downright melodic phrasings, albeit at the stately pace of Morton Feldman's late period compositions. During the four year absence, Shoemaker has wandered the islands of Indonesia, and the gilded hues of gamelan have clearly struck a chord with Shoemaker, who maps similar sounds out of his tangles of wire. Beautifully eerie is this cassette, and we really do hope it ain't gonna be another 4 years til we get to hear more.
In the handful of exceptional records from concrete/drone composer Matt Shoemaker, the field recording has been central to his work. Take the aggregate tumblings of minerals from Groundless or the woozy humidity from Spots In The Sun, Shoemaker's use of the field recording in his pieces is miles apart from the pastoral use of bird songs or a gentle rainstorm to offer something 'natural' for an electronic ambient record. No, Shoemaker amplifies the more threatening aspects of nature with insects emitting nightmarish chorales, beetles aggressively scurrying towards hapless prey, and the air of a landscape so heavy and pungent with decay as to be impossible to breathe. For Shoemaker, the world may be nasty, brutish, and short; but he's discovering a weird beauty way out there amidst the grotesqueries of the world.
On the last two records from Shoemaker, a greater emphasis on synthesized psychedelia shot through his tense drone constructs; so with Tropical Amnesia One, Shoemaker has built an album that's just field recordings, without much of the atypical filtering, gizmos, and effects that turn Shoemaker's studio into a scientific laboratory. All of these recordings came from a two week residency Shoemaker spent deep in the Amazon forest, where silence was never afforded amidst the constant buzz of insects, torrential cloudbursts, and burbling streams all teaming with life. Watery sounds introduce the first 20 minutes to this album with all sorts of sodden creaks, slurping movements, and mud-sucking events amassed together. It's as if the vantage point to Shoemaker's sounds were just below the surface of a stagnant body of water next to a muddy embankment, crawling with leeches, skin-breaching worms, and any other parasitic creature that could come to mind. Shoemaker then shifts his attention for the remaining 44 minutes upward to the tops of the trees, where the insects have conspired to broadcast an ominous nocturnal hiss worthy of horror film sound design. A few insects and birds puncture the swarming noise, making the environment seem a lot less threatening that Shoemaker has contextualized it to be. A powerful, sublime recording, and what looks like to the be first in a series of recordings from the Amazon.
It has been many years since Metamkine has released anything through their highly esteemed Cinema Pour L'Oreille series of electro-acoustic / musique concrete masterpieces; but if they did, one sound artist who should stand shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Eliane Radigue, Luc Ferrari, Jean-Francois Laporte, and Jim O'Rourke would be Matt Shoemaker. If anything, Shoemaker's work has such an intensely cinematic quality as the edits of his sound design snap to and fro in dramatic fashion with static periods for magnetic drone, uneasy field recording, and agitated objects; and this cinematic undercurrent to his work alone would make him a strong candidate. But concepts are only really as good as their execution; and few have the panache of Matt Shoemaker. We recently posted a review of his third album Spots In The Sun, and we had been so taken by the quality of that record that we uncovered some copies of his second record Warung Elusion, which had been released back in 2001 on Bernhard Gunter's Trente Oiseux label. This is an album of sheer sonic abstraction whose sun-bleached, disquieting dreaminess parallels many of those 'lost-memory' albums that we have lauded so many time in the past (e.g. Phillip Jeck, Jasper TX, Tim Hecker, etc.). Yet, Shoemaker is not one to sentimentalize such sounds, rather he presents these flickering sound, erratic crackles, and deconstructed ambience as a reminder of human failings in the memory process. Here, meditation might drift into a lulling stupor in need of hard smack against the ear. It's a blow that Shoemaker is more than willing to impart upon his audience. Highly recommended!
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Fantastic drones found here! Seattle's Matt Shoemaker has been quietly making some of the best dronemusik over the past decade with little to no aplomb whatsoever. He hybridizes field recordings, modular synthesis, speaker / feedback constructions, psychedelic colorations, and minimalist stasis into forms which grow, twist, and evolve throughout his work. The last album we heard from Shoemaker was his far more tripped out, post-Kosmische zoner album Erosion Of The Analogous Eye; but this live set recorded at the Good Shepherd Chapel in Seattle harkens more to his earlier albums Spots In The Sun and Warung Elusion, which manipulated field recordings into disquieting, grotesque (in his own words) passages of cinematic sound design. Upon introducing an undulating web of sustained tones woven into complex harmonic phrases, dissonant bellows, and lulling hypnosis, Shoemaker gradually introduces a revolving set of field recordings into his mix. At first the tussle and rumble of leaves, mulch, and sticks in the forest give way to a percolating chorus of frogs, probably originating from the Brazilian rain forests given Shoemaker's excursion into the forest through a residency guided by Francisco Lopez. He then embarks upon a slow descension of his magnetic drones into ominous clouds of static and ghostly reflections of grey noise, arching these sounds through harrowing turns as if he were piloting an airplane through that aforementioned rainforest trying not to crash into a cliff obscured by clouds. This is eerie, hallucinatory music for sure, and this release is strictly limited to 100 copies. Highly recommended!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Whenever we review some classic sounding pop record or vintage power pop reissue, we inevitably reference the Shoes, one of THEE seminal power pop groups, but one whose records have been out of print and unavailable for ages. Finally, all of the classic Shoes records are getting deluxe vinyl reissues, and what better place to start than their debut Black Vinyl Shoes (there were a few small run private press releases, but Black Vinyl Shoes was their proper debut)
These Illinois power poppers had it all, fuzzy jangly guitars, dreamy vox, lush vocal harmonies, hooks galore, and some of the catchiest songs EVER, their sound so obviously the blueprint for so many bands that would follow, plus there was a weirdness to their sound too, crazy effects, strange arrangements, all woven into their perfect power pop.
Black Vinyl Shoes is pretty much all killer no filler, every song a seemingly potential hit, in some perfect world where power pop filled up the charts, and you can hear lots of other bands past and present - Big Star, Dwight Twilley Band, Cheap Trick, Tinted Windows, Barreracudas, Jellyfish, Redd Kross, Purling Hiss, Home Blitz, Telekinesis!, we could go on and on and on and on, needless to say, absolutely essential listening for pop fans, and anyone who digs the current crop of fuzzy jangly pop groups, and wonders where that sound came from, well the answer is right here. Seriously, an essential. So glad for the reissue, wish they'd do cds too.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
RECORD STORE DAY 2015!!
1970's Illinois power poppers the Shoes are usually overshadowed by their power pop contemporaries, Cheap Trick, certainly seeing as they formed right around the same time, and in right about the same place, but also by the Raspberries, The Knack, Big Star, Dwight Twilley Band and others. But however unsung the Shoes may be to casual power pop fans, those in the know, know just how goddamn great they really are.
Primal Vinyl is a special Record Store Day, sort-of greatest hits lp, with one previously unreleased live track, and some of the tracks available on vinyl for the first time. For folks new to the Shoes this is an awesome introduction, featuring the singles "Tomorrow Night" and "Too Late" both overflowing with chiming, crunchy guitars, soaring vox, lush harmonies, killer choruses and hooks galore. There's the fuzzy could-have-been-a-hit "Boys Don't Lie", and the seriously SHOULD-have-been-a-hit "I Don't Wanna Hear It". Modern groups like the Posies, Fountains Of Wayne, Material Issue, Redd Kross and all the rest, definitely owe their sound to the Shoes as much as any of the other power poppers that came before.
Pressed on super cool psychedelic swirled vinyl. LIMITED TO 800 COPIES!! And this IS a Record Store Day release, which of course means, we only got a handful, and likely won't be able to get more once we run out.
Another super obscure New Zealand post punk rarity dug up by the fine folks at Siltbreeze, this one from a band most folks had never heard, or even heard of, and we mean even folks who fancy themselves New Zealand underground rock experts, hell even the NZ obsessives around here who have pretty much every Flying Nun and Xpressway record, had never heard these guys (and gal) before, which maybe makes sense, when you consider the fact that they only ever recorded one 7" in 1981, and this is actually a live recording, which was discovered in the possession of famed NZ archivist Bob Sutton (although the 4 tracks from that 7" are included on the digital download, or we can order you the 7", which Siltbreeze also just reissued, just ask!). But based on this live recording, these guys were a pretty fierce proposition, propulsive frenetic drumming, angular, guitar crunch and scrape, snarly snotty vox, the songs twisty and tangly, lurching from tribal churn, to super poppy and melodic, to mathy and punky and back again, the vibe a bit gloomy and a little gothy too, a few of the tracks are stripped down and minimal, but for the most part the sound is frantic and jittery, and the sound blown our and vicious, reminds us a bit of 100 Flowers or the Urinals, the Fall too, but with a distinctly NZ bent, we'd heard them compared to pre Bailter Space outfit the Gordons, which is pretty close, but we also hear a lot of Aussie post punk like the Scientists, Celibate Rifles, etc. Really though, these guys are their own special thing, noisy and hooky, jangly, angular and pretty goddamn wild, and listening to this live set, we can't help but wonder why these guys didn't get as big as some of their countrymen, cuz this is fast becoming one of our favorite archival NZ discoveries!!
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, includes the above mentioned download code, complete with the bonus tracks from the original 7"!
Wow!!! Most loyal AQ customers are pretty aware of our total love and adoration of almost all things Finnish, especially pretty much everything released on Finnish label Fonal. They just have not done us wrong yet. Islaja, Kemialliset Ystavat, Paavoharju, Es, the list goes on and on. And while for the most part their releases focus on the more murky free folk side of Finnish underground rock they have proven to be a label that isn't just about one 'sound' but instead are simply about beautiful music. Period. Whether it's random ethereal forest folk, dreamy drifty swooning ambience, or crunchy chaotic tribalistic clatter. Their latest release, from the Helsinki quartet Shogun Kunitoki, is further proof to that effect, and dare we say this might even be the greatest thing Fonal has released. Some of you may be shouting IMPOSSIBLE! And under different circumstances we'd be right there with you. But just listenening to Tasankokaiku has us thinking not only is it possible, it's damn near for certain. Color! So much vibrant color just bursting out of Shogun Kunitoki's instrumental onslaught. It starts out on fire and every song and sound just feeds the flame. It's almost as if Steve Reich and Terry Riley raised a child weaned on the BBC Radiophonic experiments, a young Rick Wakeman who grew up listening to the fuzzy guitarscapes of M83's Dead Cities, Red Seas... and the dreamy and propulsive instrumental jams of Stereolab, and thus cultivated a totally informed yet unique outlook and approach to music and music making. The sounds on Tasankokaiku are triumphant and assured, flickering then bursting, warm and so totally alive! Knowing how to perfectly use repetition to build momentum and then suddenly blast off to sparkling spaces that make you feel like you're being spirited away to a place that you've never been to but have always dreamed about. A sparkling glistening land of thick warm keyboards, hypnotic prog laced krautrockiness, Neu-infused soundscapes, basically a world populated by all the sounds that drive us wild. This is another one of those rare records that is an across the board unanimous AQ favorite. Everyone who works here loves it. We all hear different things too, besides the above mentioned bands, Andee hears bits of Goblin and Zombi and Heldon, Allan hears hints of Aavikko and Cluster and Circle, Irwin noticed a little Broadcast and even some Raymond Scott, but no matter what you hear, or what shades of sound reveal themsleves to you, the sum is SO much greater than its parts. A gloriously dense and warm world of fuzzy sound that we just can't stop listening to. No matter what music you've been obsessed with lately, this is one of those special records that somehow trumps whatever it is, straight to the top of your listening pile, elbowing it's way past all the other discs in your collection right into your cd player where it will effortlessly fend off any other records wanting to get in there. It's that good.
It's been over three years since we made Shogun Kunitoki's debut our Record Of The Week, which was just about the same time we fell deeply in love with this Finnish group's unique approach to songcraft, most noticeably using analog electronics to create dizzying and melodic songs that ensorcell and enthrall as they burst with color and dynamic flair.
This follow up picks right up where that amazing debut left off. So full of urgency and melody. Taking cues from minimalists like Reich and Glass and infusing a catchy intensity, reminiscent of M83's Dead Cities Read Seas & Lost Ghosts. There is a bombastic overload that grabs a hold of your imagination and lets it run wild amidst its bold and immaculately crafted popscapes. Songs that demand, command and pleasure all of your sensations. Shogun Kunitoki are able to make organs, ring modulators, and oscillators sound both classic and futuristic. Imagine a huge church with a high ceiling and stained glass windows, jammed with massive and ornate organs, while members of Broadcast, Stereolab and Black Moth Super Rainbow rock out on a grandiose Rick Wakeman like setup blasting out sounds that bring joy and ecstasy to all in the congregation.
Shogun Kunitoki are one of those rare bands that you can really get anyone into. Prog freaks, electro heads, pop lovers, psych fanatics, 20th century composer aficionados, experimental music fans, there's something for just about everyone in the dense and dizzying sounds that they create. Simply stunning!
As featured on the cd that came with the latest music issue of The Believer, local SF group Sholi tackle a song by the seventies "Queen of Persian Pop", Googoosh, a beloved Iranian singer who brought much glamorous style and beauty to Middle Eastern pop music, before being forced underground by the Iranian revolution. According to Payram Bavafa, the bands singer/guitarist, "'Hejrat' is often regarded as one of Iran's most beautiful and romantic pop songs". Sholi extends the cover tributes to the B-side where they bravely take on Joanna Newsom's "The Sprout and The Bean" with surprisingly good results. Recorded by Greg Ashley it comes with a coupon to download mp3 versions of the two tracks. Nice!
The first full length from this young SF band is given an admirable launch on the highly regarded Quarterstick label (home to Calexico, Mekons, Shipping News, Rachel's among many other wonderful music makers), and they've really taken flight! Though the band is certainly not new to us, their sound on this debut sure is. Caught us a bit by surprise, in fact! This is a far different from the by-the-books shufflin' slouchy indie rock Sholi of 2006. Indeed, the band has honed their chops and their songcraft quite a bit since their first (also self-titled) three song cd-r that they brought into our shop a mere three years ago almost to the day!
The 43-minute long album's eight songs feature lots of lush, expressive dynamics and post-rock complexities both in melody and rhythm. Solid from start to finish, but definitely check out the opening track "All The We Can See" and "Out Of Orbit". An impressive warm and beautiful 'official' debut!
Here's a short lil' three song introduction to this new Bay Area trio. This self-titled EP features gentle slouchy, slightly retro-pop sounding indie rock played out on the basics -- jangly electric guitar, solid bass and tumbling drums. Warm summery shades of Olympia, WA / K Records days past, old Sebadoh, or maybe imagine a lower-fi Sloan? Like what you hear? There'll be a full length comin' out soon, and rumor has it that it's gonna be produced by Mr. Greg 'Deerhoof' Saunier!
How can you not love a movie called Wolfcop? Especially with a trailer like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_P4C8x9S28
The music in that trailer kinda rules huh? That just so happens to be the work of a Canadian combo of hard rocking, heavy riff merchants called Shooting Guns, who have sculpted their swaggery, stonery doom into soundtrack form, by fusing galloping grooves and metallic bombast to haunting, synthy swirl and ominous drones. At times Shooting Guns seem to be channeling the Fucking Champs, at others, John Carpenter, slipping easily from muscly hypnorock to psychedelic space rock to kosmische synthscapes, with plenty of moody, atmospheric stops in between.
While soundtrack nerds will dig this, the hard and heavy crowd will likely dig it too, cuz even though it's a 'score', a big chunk of the soundtrack is basically a crazy, bombastic, riff heavy psychedelic stoner rock blowout. "Barn Burner" sounds like Goblin and Pharaoh Overlord jamming with Red Fang, "Buda" is all low slung groovery, a bit like ZZ Top jamming out on "Spirit In The Sky", and "Spy In The Sky" is some sort of perfect Hawkwind / Carlton Melton hybrid.
Needless to say, if you dig big riffs, wild Bonham-esque drumming, psychedelic hard rock, creepy cinematic synths, moody, sinister ambience, tripped out FX and drunk cops that become werewolves, then hell, this is right up your alley. We had this for like a second when it was released on vinyl a short while ago by soundtrack specialists One Way Static, but now it's here on cd instead!!
Rad before/after werewolf cop cover art too!
BACK IN STOCK, new lower price!!!
How can you not love a movie called WolfCop? Especially with a trailer like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_P4C8x9S28
The music in that trailer kinda rules huh? That just so happens to be the work of a Canadian combo of hard rocking, heavy riff merchants called Shooting Guns, who have sculpted their swaggery, stonery doom into soundtrack form, by fusing galloping grooves and metallic bombast to haunting, synthy swirl and ominous drones. At times Shooting Guns seem to be channeling the Fucking Champs, at others, John Carpenter, slipping easily from muscly hypnorock to psychedelic space rock to kosmische synthscapes, with plenty of moody, atmospheric stops in between.
While soundtrack nerds will dig this, the hard and heavy crowd will likely dig it too, cuz even though it's a 'score', a big chunk of the soundtrack is basically a crazy, bombastic, riff heavy psychedelic stoner rock blowout. "Barn Burner" sounds like Goblin and Pharaoh Overlord jamming with Red Fang, "Buda" is all low slung groovery, a bit like ZZ Top jamming out on "Spirit In The Sky", and "Spy In The Sky" is some sort of perfect Hawkwind / Carlton Melton hybrid.
Needless to say, if you dig big riffs, wild Bonham-esque drumming, psychedelic hard rock, creepy cinematic synths, moody, sinister ambience, tripped out FX and drunk cops that become werewolves, then hell, this is right up your alley. We had this for like a second when it was released on vinyl a short while ago by soundtrack specialists One Way Static, but now it's here on cd instead!!
Rad before/after werewolf cop cover art too!
Shooting Spires is one fella, BJ Warshaw from the Brooklyn band Parts & Labor. His debut solo album raises a warmly familiar indie rock racket with its furious strumming, clatterous drumming, wheezing organ keyboards, and hazily bristled male vocals. Very much drawing from the tweaked, buzzy, raucous pop vein of Guided By Voices. Heck, we hope he never does, but if Robert Pollard ever does decide to close up his pop shop, it's comforting to know that he's already left such an indelible mark. And that there are young'uns who will fly his noise pop flag and do him proud.
Only a few of us had even heard of this Scottish '80s indie sensation when this amazing reissue first hit our shelves but as soon as we listened we all instantly became huge fans and couldn't believe how they had managed to slip so far under our radar.
Coming out of the same scene that spawned The Pastels, this is really the precursor to the amazing twee and indie rock that would so dominate the underground music scene in the decade to come. Kind of like an impossibly amazing mix of Heavenly, The Vaselines and the driving spirit of early R.E.M. The songs of the Shop Assistants practically sound like the blueprints for K records. We have to believe folks like Beat Happening and The Softies had copies of this record when the whole International Pop Underground movement started up. We hear so much of our favorite indie pop sounds in this record: Magnetic Fields, Yo La Tengo, Belle & Sebastian, Electrelane, Vivian Girls, The Aislers Set, we could go on and on. It also makes perfect sense that Stephen Street engineered the record as it also fits so nicely sonically next to the records he worked on with The Smiths. The Shop Assistants can sound so dreamy and also so peppy and rocking, fully charming and irresistible without every being cutsey. This is a must have for anyone with a love for any of the bands mentioned above, indie rock, twee, dream pop, etc. Totally endearing and so damn good! If we have anything to do with it, Shop Assistants will no longer be the best kept secret in indie pop history. This is amazing!
