Here's another tough one. An amazing black metal band. A gnarled convoluted blackened blowout equal parts Watain, Funeral Mist and Deathspell Omega, insane blasting drumming, super complex riffing buzz, tons of parts, all tangled and dizzyingly serpentine, laced with strange spoken word interludes, bits of choir, stretches of ambience, little bits of folk flutter, a seriously over the top chunk of black metal majesty, as epic and expansive as it is utterly grim and cult.
BUT, these guys have some seriously fucked politics. Although they claim to not have any specific agenda, and claim to not be an National Socialist Black Metal band, that's a little hard to believe, the lyrics implying master race / white pride stuff, and other similarly distasteful subject matter. Lots of concern with the supposed purity of their "Nordic blood" and the shame of bowing down to those their "race" once conquered. Not hard to read between the lines here.
But if you can manage to ignore what's between the lines, as we are sometimes forced to do, with some of the more problematic black metal hordes, one will be rewarded with some of the most abstract and musically forward thinking extreme blackness we've heard in ages. This isn't new or anything. We've had copies for ages, but we have never been able to get enough copies to list properly. And then the more we dug into the lyrics and the politics, we figured, we oughta just list the ones we have, so at least a handful of folks who are so inclined can hear this stuff. And the thing is, minus the above bullshit, this band is mind blowing. SO fast and furious, their black metal layered and lush, so much stuff going on all the time, headphones are a must, every blast is laced with all manner of background noise and texture, the brief interludes are rife with sonic weirdness, the riffs sound bent and fractured, a little Voivod, a little Greg Ginn. In addition to claiming they are not in fact an NS band, they also claim to not even be black metal, which in some ways they might not be, they are definitely pushing the boundaries of that specific BM sound, but it many fundamental ways, they are, which is not at all a bad thing. Still they most definitely incorporate enough musical eccentricity to be far from typical, enough that we, while despite despising their philosophies, dig their music, a lot.
So, you've been warned. If you order this, we'll hopefully assume you're like us: into the music, not the bullshit beliefs.
We only have 7 cds and 11 lps (the vinyl is super deluxe with amazing packaging) and since we haven't been able to get more in, what? Three years or so? We'll just assume that once these are gone they are gone for good.
Quite simply, this album is a beauty. These days, the fact that Sigur Ros are Icelandic seems to overshadow the music itself. However geography books aside, there is definitely something palpably distinct about the music that's been coming out of that country (eg. of course Bjork, Emiliana Torrini and Mum). Indeed, an "Iceland sound" exists which is in full bloom with this Sigur Ros album. It may draw parallels to that which has come forth from Montreal (Godspeed You Black Emperor, Fly Pan Am, Do Make Say Think, et al) in recent years. Perhaps it's that they originate from countries that offer some degree of support for the art community? Hmmm. That said, there's a strong sense of focus and patience in their songcraft. Each song unfolds slowly releasing ethereal wisps of notes - both vocal and instrumental - to the air. Clearly SR are fully attentive to detail with a firm grasp of scale - the grand and the minute. Much like groups such as GYBE and Radiohead (they've toured with both, and actually some of their vocals bear a striking resemblance to Mr. Yorke's wavering, mournful wail), Sigur Ros are crafting meticulous, immensely moving compositions whether it be an epicly soaring soundscape or a fragile ghost of a ballad. Although just as the other two groups do, SR does have a tendency to occasionally go a little overboard in the overwrought / melodrama department, overall the result is an album of grace and beauty.
WE WISH WE COULD SAY THAT THIS IS TOTALLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE, BUT NOW IT'S BEEN REISSUED DOMESTICALLY... SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER THIS VERSION, GET THE OTHER ONE, IF YOU MUST.
Here's a list of the accolades given to Sigur Ros: a near sweep of the Icelandic Grammys, constant praise from the UK rock gossip mongers, and bookings for a European touring opening for Radiohead. First, while Aquarius has nothing against the island state of Iceland, are there all that many entrants in the Grammys contest there? Second, putting critical faith in what NME has to say is about as sensible as brushing your teeth with e-coli laced toothpaste. Third, if you have heard the new Radiohead record, the differences between "Kid A" and "OK Computer" are so vast that anybody who sees Radiohead is not going to concern themselves with who is opening, rather they'll be scratching their heads wondering why "Karma Police" sounded so weird.
No, we still don't much like the much hyped Sigur Ros, but if you like heavyhanded soundtracks to excessively melodramatic movies that patronize the audience with self-aggrandizing pseudo-philosophies, and sub-Cocteau Twins vocalizing, then boy have we got an album for you. For Sigur Ros fans not already put off by the above (and we'll admit that our Allan liked their last ep quite a bit -- the super bombastic parts reminded him of something by the Icelandic black metal band Potentiam, who should have won the Grammy, maybe they were even up for it?), we should mention that this full-length includes two tracks you probably already have, from their 2 prior Fat Cat eps.
This is a 20-minute instrumental accompaniment originally created for the Merce Cunningham dance performance titled Split Sides (apparently Cunningham also enlisted Radiohead in this project). First performed live back in 2003 at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music in New York and then again in Paris, the three pieces were partially improvised atop a previously recorded backing track. Later in the year, the band took the work home to record in their studio in Iceland. As the opening track begins, the cycles of musicbox melodies -- yes, they actually are real music boxes -- might make you think you've stepped into the opening sequence of an old Italian horror movie. And this sense of childlike innocence in an increasingly unsettling atmosphere is made slightly more so with the addition of fleeting faint, non-sung voices (Cunningham's) and some mysteriously scuttling and more percussive sounds which we discovered through doing a little sleuthing are the shuffling of the dancers' feet and Cunningham's tap dance steps... that realization makes things somewhat less ominous. Beautiful.
Sigur Ros on Kompakt!? It kind of makes perfect sense. Especially as this is remixes of their great lead off track from their latest full length, Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endlanst. Their Iceland buddies Gus Gus (and newly members of the Kompakt family) do a really nice job bringing Sigur Ros into techno/dance territory and Thomas Fehlman's mix take it to a whole other deep German techno state of sound.
We will forewarn you that we only have a handful of these super deluxe editions of this Sigur Ros double dvd release! So if you or someone you know is a Sigur Ros fan, and you wanna treat yourself (or him or her), you better hop to it!
This edition of Heima is ultra ultra limited (meaning we won't be able to get more than what we currently have in stock!). It comes packages in an elegant slipcover with a stylin' hardcover book filled with color photographs. As with everything Sigur Ros create, this is a beautiful treasure for the eyes and ears. The title is the clue to what's inside. The word "Heima" translates roughly from Icelandic into English as "at home" or "homeland". Dvd One features an hour and a half long band documentary, and Dvd Two is filled with fantastic live performance footage from their 2006 tour across Iceland (the shows were free and unannounced!). The camerawork is artfully shot in glimpses and lingering gazes of the band and their surroundings. As always the band leaves a haunting impression that's both epic and intimate, formidable and ephemeral!
FYI: We also have the regular version in stock. It's the same dvds but instead of a companion hardcover book, it comes with a considerably thinner but still splendid insert booklet.
This is the regular (i.e., non-deluxe) slipcovered digipak'd version of Sigur Ros' Heima double dvd set. We have a handful of the limited edition hardcover book version, but if you miss the boat on 'em, don't feel too bad because c'mon folks, it's Sigur Ros we're talking about here! Nothing from them is ever ordinary or less than strikingly beautiful. The title is the clue to what's inside. The word "Heima" translates roughly from Icelandic into English as "at home" or "homeland". Dvd One features an hour and a half long band documentary, and Dvd Two is filled with fantastic live performance footage from their 2006 tour across Iceland (the shows were free and unannounced!). The camerawork is artfully shot in glimpses and lingering gazes of the band and their surroundings. As always the band leaves a haunting impression that's both epic and intimate, formidable and ephemeral!
Sigur Ros resurrect a few of their old beloved songs on their new double cd Hvarf / Heim. It could easily have been titled Sigur Ros Plugged and Unplugged, but then again that's trademarked isn't it? Anyhoo, they've electrified some early acoustic numbers and acousticified (uhh, is that a real word? "Unplugged" is so much more catchy!) some previously electric ones. Proof of that old adage that the sign of a good song is if it survives translation in various instrumentations and genres. At once possessed with an ephemeral lightness and a heart-aching gravity, Sigur Ros make it seem so effortless. Hearing these songs again reminds us of the first time Sigur Ros touched our ears. 'Twas (and still is) absolutely enchanting. Now before we get all tear'd up and descend into more maddeningly cliched 'relive the magic!' ad taglines, need we say? As always, glisteningly beautiful.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
NOW ON VINYL!!!
Up until now Sigur Ros has not really been a band we'd associate with wordiness, with spontaneity or with bare flesh. They surprise us with a mouthful of an album title and an eyeful of an album cover. The music as well has floored us -- startlingly different from the trademark blissed out Icelandic grandeur of their previous four full lengths. Nothing tooo drastic, mind you, but Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust refreshes both the band and the listener with songs that are somehow at once both rawer'n'heavier and warmer'n'lighter. Instead of end-to-end waves of dreamy blanketing embraces, there are also moments of bracing starkness and (dare we say?) exuberant immediacy. The combination builds to a (yes, epic!) centerpiece number "Ara Batur" which apparently was recorded in one take and features ninety performers including the London Oratory Boys Choir and the London Sinfonietta orchestra. Whoa, stunning! it's easy to see why they chose to doff their clothing for this one!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This is second release from Sigur Ros for Fat Cat, outside of a half dozen self-released albums. Soaked in a melancholic theatricality, Sigur Ros plays mournful funereal dirges with instrumentation similar to the indie-ensembles of Godspeed You Black Emperor or Rachel's, with expressive cellos and deep horns. While this release never really reaches the majestic tension of Godspeed You Black Emperor, this is a much better outing for Sigur Ros than the dreadful heavy-handedness of their Fat Cat debut - "Sven-G-Englar."
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Here's an unbeatably splendid Sigur Ros deal -- a dvd and a cdep for less than eleven dollars!
Musically there aren't any surprises... but who needs surprises? They stick with their tried and true which is simply more of their gorgeous crystalline elegant atmospheres we know and love. The title track is taken from their most recent full length Takk and the other three songs are new new new!
Visually it's nothing short of Sigur Ros-ian shivering sumptuousness -- three breathtaking videos for "Saeglopur", "Glosoli" and "Hoppipolla". Oh la la!
More proof that you should never believe anything that NME or Melody Maker has to say about music. Praised by the UK asskissers at NME as the next thing to follow up Godspeed You Black Emperor, Sigur Ros does attempt to orchestrate lengthy passages for a large ensemble. But, instead of the psychic wastelands of Godspeed which soar with a grandiose majesty, Sigur Ros soaks their orchestral rock in a heavy-handed, melodramatic goop that is inexcusable. The CD has twice as much material as the vinyl!
With each Sigur Ros album it seems that this Icelandic group have perfected their sound -- you wonder how they could possibly make it any better or where they could possibly go from there -- but somehow the very next album brings something fresh to their already glorious world. The highly anticipated follow-up to 2002's ( ) is no exception, sending new blissful shivers down your spine. Sigur Ros' music is the aural equivalent of those glistening intricate patterns of frost that form on the windowpanes of old houses. The crystals existence hang in peril of your warm breath as you gaze out into the wintry night. On Takk, they've encorporated more traditional structured songs and orchestral arrangements, more strings, more singing (you can easily imagine Coldplay's Chris Martin slipping in to contribute vocals on some of them) and even a mini brass band interlude! We could gush further, but you get the picture, don't you? Shimmering. Dreamy. Sublime. Wonderful. And the packaging is too!
Like pretty much everyone else, when we first heard Sigur Ros, we were totally smitten, utterly captivated by the dark delicate haunting soundworld these Icelanders conjured up. But for whatever reason, over the years, many of us stopped paying attention. Not because the band stopped making records, or making great records, they just seemed to fade from our everyday listening. Part of it might have to do with the whole mainstream factor. As crappy as it is, that sort of thing does tend to afflict music nerds/obsessives, and as Sigur Ros got more and more popular, as their songs started popping up constantly on C.S.I. and a million other programs, some of us went looking for new, less overexposed sounds. And often, as is the case with Sigur Ros, much amazing music was missed out on. Listening to this latest feels like the first time we hear Sigur Ros all over again. From the very first song, we're whisked away to some hazy dreamy otherworld, the delicate falsetto vox, the lush layered musical majesty, the haunting heartfelt melancholic melodies, it all sounds as good as it ever did. We had heard much about how this new one was the group's most minimal to date, and while we haven't heard enough of the last few records to know for sure, we're finding this record to be surprisingly dynamic and dramatic, with huge tonal shifts, moments of barely there crystalline shimmer, but also moments of crushing epic bombast. The opener is the perfect introduction, all blurred and shimmery, jangly and chiming, softly fuzzy and wistfully dream poppy. But it's the second track we find ourselves returning to over and over, a dark delicate sprawl of soft swells and haunting strings, buried electronics, and woozy ethereal vox, all wreathed in a thick patina of record crackle, sounding a bit like Sigur Ros produced by Tim Hecker, laced with some strange melodies, and all held together in an abstract but somehow totally compelling arrangement. Cinematic throughout, but shifting smoothly from hushed drift to layered shoegaze shimmer to spare chamber music minimalism, all the while warm and crackly and dreamlike.
The following track offers up some of the aforementioned serious sonic heft, it may start out delicate and fragile, but a la Godspeed, it's a smoldering slow build to a super distorted but still gloriously melodic prismatic big drum pound blowout. Those moments pop up here and there, but the rest of the record does tend toward the delicate drift, with some swirly pop moments, plenty of celestial shimmer, loads of ethereal ambience, all woven into a sound we hadn't really realized we'd been missing.
We just got a mere handful of copies of this, a super limited 10" vinyl single that XL put out for the Icelandic group's long awaited US tour supporting their recent & quite excellent Valtari full-length. This has a song from Valtari, "Varud", on the A side, but then the B side is an exclusive, unreleased non-album track, "Logn". We could tell you more about what it sounds like, but we might as well just let the few of you who manage to snag a copy listen for themselves. What we will tell you, is that both songs play from the inside out, so remember that when you put it on your turntable!
When people first started raving about Sigur Ros, back before they were *everywhere* (we've even just noticed their music used as the soundtrack to an autopsy scene on the TV show CSI!) and we had yet to hear them, we were so excited. This sounded like the band for us. Ethereal but rocking, with strange ghostly vocals, and bizarre production, lush and dark and lovely. When we finally heard them, we were a bit underwhelmed. Not to take anything away from Sigur Ros. They ARE a great band, it was just a case of too much hype and expectations set way to high. But weirdly enough, the first Sigur Ros record we heard was not in fact their first record. But THIS is their first record. And up until recently, pretty much unavailble here in the States. Well, it's finally been licensed and man is it great! If we had heard THIS record first, we would have been totally sold. Von totally lives up to the hype. A weird mix of Radiohead and Pink Floyd and My Bloody Valentine, with those eerie alien sounding falsetto vocals and lots of gorgeous ambience. It sounds kind of like the soundtrack to the scariest movie you've ever seen. The tracks on Von are dark and slowly building, rumbling and creaking, with distant melodies, and whispery vocalisations (in Sigur Ros's made up language 'Hopelandic'). So intense. And when they do rock, they REALLY ROCK. Thumping and hypnotic, heavy and repetitive. A little like Mogwai or Explosions In Ths Sky. One of the highlights is definitely the third track, a swirl of creepy introspective ambience with haunting otherworldly vocals, that eventually turns into a pounding shoegazing / noiserock dirge, simple and relentless, until near the end when the tape starts slowing down and the riff gets chopped up like a skipping cd. Weird and beautifully massive. Most of this record is way darker and way more aggressive than later Sigur Ros and as you can tell from our review, we think that this is a very good thing! Packged in a dark purple jewel case with a creepy doll head on the cover. SO GREAT!
Frosty, shimmering and yes, oh so distinctly Icelandic. This is the new album from Valgeir Sigurdsson. An unfamiliar name perhaps? Well, if you looked closely to the credits for some of your favorite Icelandic artists' albums, you'd probably find his name listed as the producer, engineer, collaborator among other roles... particularly for Sigur Ros, Mum and one Ms Bjork! Sigurdsson steps to the other side of the recording studio console to make his solo debut. It's a tapestry of delicate, stuttery IDM waves and chiming melodies. On tracks such as "Focal Point" the airiness is countered by the sound of heavy fingers on (toy?) piano keys. Enchanting!
Features guest appearances by Bonnie Prince Billy and Dawn McCarthy of Faun Fables!
Silberbart's one-off LP from 1971, with its non sequitur of a bleeding silver gnome on the cover, is one of those heavy krautrock rarities spoken of in hushed tones, in record-collector tomes like Cosmic Dreams At Play ("...legendary...extreme...") and the equally authoritative Crack In The Cosmic Egg ("...excellent...schizophrenic..."). It's desirable in part 'cause it's so darn obscure, yes. But also 'cause it IS heavy. In a loose and demented, frayed and jangled, utterly freakish way. The four tracks here (long ones, with great titles demonstrating Silberbart's psychedelic illogic: "Chub Chub Cherry", "Brain Brain", "God", "Head Tear Of The Drunken Sun") are crazy quilt of distorted guitar riffing, acid-fried songwriting, and unusually frantic, strangled vocals. The band's hippie power trio psych is played with an escaped lunatic's "what's next?" abandon, making for progged-out, crooked-grinning, drug-induced weirdness that deservedly garners comparisons to early Guru Guru.
Compact disc reissues of this have always been hard to come by. But we found a small supply and thought that there had to be some AQ customers who've always been curious about 4 Times Sound Razing...it's not exactly a work of genius but it's odd enough to please a few of you we wager!
The Silence is the new band formed by Masaki Batoh and a few other ex-members of longtime Japanese psych faves Ghost (not to be confused with the Swedish metal Ghost). Drag City released their self-titled debut earlier this year, we slept on it then somehow, but now that the band's 2nd album is already out we're listing 'em both together, 'cause they're both great!
Making up for lost time we guess (the last Ghost album, In Stormy Nights, came out eight years ago), these two records by The Silence are solidly in the Ghost tradition - that is, underground '70s psych-kraut-prog-folk stylings with chamber music chops, timeless and tight, able to veer from smoothly poppy pleasures to sudden freakout weirdness in the course of a single track. Gentle vocals, lovely melodies, hypnotic windups, sweeping symphonics, spacey synths, flute flutter, grandiose organ... there's all sorts of proggy psych-y goodness all over both of these, equally recommended albums. For the record, the s/t debut has their intriguing interpretations of the traditional "Black Is The Colour Of My True Love's Hair" and Can's "Tango Whiskeyman" that fit right in with the surrounding, trippily varied originals; while Hark The Silence may be the more ambitious of the two albums, with mostly longer, jazz-inflected compositions, including the three part "Ancient Wind" and the propulsive "Fireball" (12+ minutes of motorik minimalism that sounds like Ariel Pink meets Acid Mothers Temple).
Sorry, the cd of the s/t is currently out of stock, so we're just listing the vinyl for now, but they should be back...
The Silence is the new band formed by Masaki Batoh and a few other ex-members of longtime Japanese psych faves Ghost (not to be confused with the Swedish metal Ghost). Drag City released their self-titled debut earlier this year, we slept on it then somehow, but now that the band's 2nd album is already out we're listing 'em both together, 'cause they're both great!
Making up for lost time we guess (the last Ghost album, In Stormy Nights, came out eight years ago), these two records by The Silence are solidly in the Ghost tradition - that is, underground '70s psych-kraut-prog-folk stylings with chamber music chops, timeless and tight, able to veer from smoothly poppy pleasures to sudden freakout weirdness in the course of a single track. Gentle vocals, lovely melodies, hypnotic windups, sweeping symphonics, spacey synths, flute flutter, grandiose organ... there's all sorts of proggy psych-y goodness all over both of these, equally recommended albums. For the record, the s/t debut has their intriguing interpretations of the traditional "Black Is The Colour Of My True Love's Hair" and Can's "Tango Whiskeyman" that fit right in with the surrounding, trippily varied originals; while Hark The Silence may be the more ambitious of the two albums, with mostly longer, jazz-inflected compositions, including the three part "Ancient Wind" and the propulsive "Fireball" (12+ minutes of motorik minimalism that sounds like Ariel Pink meets Acid Mothers Temple).
Sorry, the cd of the s/t is currently out of stock, so we're just listing the vinyl for now, but they should be back...
It seems like a lot of the black metal we've been digging lately has been of the 'tortured anguished vocals' variety. Sterbend from last list is probably the most obvious. But Marblebog too. Also Hekel elsewhere on this list. But go back a ways and you can find plenty of black hordes who not only buzz grimly, but howl and wail as if their souls were trying to escape from their bodies, Bethlehem, SF cult legends Weakling, and of course Silencer. This record isn't really new, and actually we have been trying to track down copies of this forever. Silencer are spoken of with hushed reverence, and for good reason. Death - Pierce Me is dark and damaged, grim and suicidal miserablist doom-drenched black metal of the highest order. Talk to any of the current crop of the black metal elite, Wrest from Leviathan, Malefic from Xasthur, and they will fawn unabashedly over Silencer. Thankfully, Autopsy Kitchen have stepped up and rescued this all time black classic from oblivion. And now you can finally experience one of the original black cults who expressed their blackened misery through impossibly anguished vocals. Hysterical shrieks, frenzied and overwrought howls of absolute terror. Never has a band captured grief and misery and loneliness so perfectly and in such an utterly frightening way.
But it's not just the vocals, the music is completely intense and seething as well, with an unrestrained turbulence, dense and buzzing and so emotional and personal and overwhelming. Heart rending minor key melodies emeshed in black swirls of buzz, the riffing so intense and totally manic, exposing a tortured inner world wrought with drama and tension, a dark soul exposed, a damaged personal hell expressed through shriek and buzz. The anguished blasts of blackness are separated by dark doomy ambient passages, from simple mournful acoustic guitar to droney piano fugues to simple melodic doom metal minimalism, but when the riffs and the vocals kick in, a huge brutal blackness dropping on you from above, it's the sort of musical moment that gives you chills, makes your hair stand up on end, and in the right frame of mind makes you want to just break down. Which is precisely why Silencer and Death - Pierce Me are so revered, this record set the template for ALL depressive suicidal black metal to follow, and while some have come close, Xasthur and Nortt certainly, there is just something so special, and so utterly frightening about this record that keeps anyone from ever capturing the same black musical world of abject fear and unmitigated misery.
Imagine Penguin Cafe Orchestra at a krautrock bluegrass hoedown, and that's close to approximating the sonic mind trip of this one man band (but it sounds like ten!) from Austin, Texas. Built on uplifting repetitive grooves, there's a little bit of everything here thrown on top: acoustic guitar, accordion, ramshackle percussion, bits of studio banter and electronic noises. But the signature instrumentation is violin and viola played in an intense minimalist bluegrass style (yet not trying to be like Henry Flynt) that keeps the proceedings electric and nervously frenetic. It almost sounds like too much to take, but the underlying songforms are highly engaging and the hodgepodge collection of sounds work in such an alchemical way that it all just inexplicably comes together perfectly. Even the recording style seems like Anthem Of The Sun era Grateful Dead, where they took multiple takes of the same piece recorded in a range of fidelities (many of them low) and magically filtered them together. This is a collaborative release from Time-Lag and the band's own label Indian Queen, and we must say it's one of the most refreshing and unique records we've heard in awhile!
It's been awhile since we heard from Austin based one man band Silent Land Time Machine, not that Jon Roberts hasn't been busy. He runs his own Indian Queen imprint as well as co-running the fantastic tape label, Holodeck (from which we've reviewed releases by Thousand Foot Whale Claw, Smokey Emery and the other band Roberts does times with, the awesome kraut-psych drone outfit, Lumens). His debut, & Hope Still on Time-Lag, felt like a host of musicians in a full-on psychedelic Henry Flynt whirlwind, but all instruments were deftly played by Roberts himself. Here on this six song vinyl ep, he gives his compositions more space. With treated violin as his primary instrument, he carefully crafts beautifully layered psych-folk dirges that sound as if they were transmitted from some far-off place and time. Billows of static over looping and cascading filigrees of melody, murky percussive rhythms, and field recordings add to the songs' haunting remote quality. With harmonium and parlor piano on a song like "An Own To One's Room", it feels like some old west paean to days gone by. The long title, I Am No Longer Alone With Myself and Can Only Artificially Recall the Scary and Beautiful Feeling of Solitude, is a quote from Carl Jung, and it aptly describes not only the overall feel of the recording, but also the mysteriously romantic notion of how experience is shaped by continuous yet selective entanglements with the memories of our past. On 180g clear vinyl. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!! Highly Recommended!
Silent Servant's dour techno emerges from the now defunct Sandwell District collective of techno-heds keen on bending the Detroit / Berlin axis to allow for the grim pathologies of Industrial culture and all of its post-punk offshoots to infiltrate the boom-boom-boom of a 909 drum kick. Sandwell's Karl O'Connor is certainly the most vocal, hardlined, and aggressive of the District's members through the brutalist techno that he's produced over the years. His DJ sets are notorious for dropping Whitehouse and other power electronic squalor amidst furiously hard breakbeats. Juan Mendez (aka Silent Servant) strikes a gloomier pose than O'Connor through the Sandwell District and carries this over into the ethereally witched-out Tropic Of Cancer. Silent Servant's Negative Fascination drops from Hospital Productions, whose ghastly noise aesthetic parted once before for Cold Cave's gritty synth pop, making room for head honcho Dominic Fernow to follow suit with his own adventures in rhythm (e.g. Vatican Shadows, Christian Cosmos). If one were to imagine what Dom would want out of a techno record on Hospital, Negative Fascination is exactly what comes to mind - Chain Reaction's dub-inflected heroin house, Clock DVA's cybernetic futurism, and the atmosphere from the mournful dirges of New Order's first album.
A fine grit coats the production of Negative Fascination, and it's something that electronic purists may find off-putting, but it suits the bleakness and dystopian overtures that Mendez injects into his production. Acid-like gurgles propel the minimalist techno thump of "The Invocation Of Lust" and "The Strange Attractor" both of which rise and fall through a complex sequence of churning rhythms and shifting drones. "Temptation & Desire" lifts a taut rhythmic stab straight from The Sisters Of Mercy circa Body Electric and mutates it into a punchy minimal wave number with appropriately coldly theatrical drones hovering in the distant. The finale "Utopian Disaster" is right out of the Sandwell playbook of modulated techno sequencing, Chain Reactive dubby rhythms, and stealth bomber vibes. A fucking great record. (FYI, turntable types: the vinyl version's first pressing sold out, but is being repressed right now, so back in soon.)
Second release from Silentist, a bizarre grindcore twentieth century classical hybrid. At least that's what they used to sound like. Originally described to us as a classical pianist playing with a relentlessly blast beating drummer, their sound ended up being more like a grind band with a pianist and no guitarist. Which was still pretty darn amazing. This time around it's a whole different beast. All the metal and the downtuned fury, the blast beats, the shrieked vocals, all gone. In their place is a strangely avant garde piano, vocals and drum cabaret. Wild and splattery, ultra dramatic and completely unlike anything we've ever heard. Wild atonal piano intertwined with pounding tribal drumming, accompanied by over the top super dramatic vocals. A brief flurry of manic and impossibly intricate piano drum interplay before the drums drop out and the piano becomes a multiphonic blur, a lush jazzscape of shimmering cymbals, repetitive piano figures and crooning keening vocals. A strange pop song with fuzzed out rhythms, affected vocals, shuffling jazz drums, sounding a bit like a jazzier Animal Collective... But it's the final track that kicks in with a bit of Silentist's old heaviness. But only a bit. A super distorted low end rhythmic buzz over haunting creepy piano melodies, and wailed mournful vocals, all drenched in reverb, laced loosely to a lurching loping tempo, a weirdly catchy minor key epic that builds and builds with manic drumming surfacing beneath the seasick tempo and turning an already harrowing sounding track more and more intense. Really really strange and completely amazing!
We've pretty much totally fallen for these guys. Big time! Initially we were lead completely astray by a friend who described them as a classical pianist / grindcore drummer duo. We were expecting something like that weird Dave Lombardo record where he drums along to Vivaldi. What we got was much different but no less satisfying. A demented dark grind band with a pianist who added all sorts of unlikely tonal color, and weird melodic flourishes. On their second ep, they ditched the grind completely and replaced it with some sort of damaged cabaret, with super dramatic vocals, insane piano, and all sorts of swirling jazzisms. Well, here we are at ep #3 (what is it with the ep's guys?) and they've gone and done it again. It's almost like they're a different band each time. But there's always something that links all their disparate musical personalities no matter how tenuous. On House On The Hill, Silentist are some sort of doomy, gothy slowcore band. The opening track is a loping dirge, simple shuffling drums over a rumbling bass drone and drawled sung spoken vocals, with occasional bursts of anguished howls and extra-pounding drums, almost like a much more malevolent Codeine with some distinct Swans influence. The second track is equally as dark, but is a super dramatic sort-of-industrial version of the first song, music box melodies, weird distorted electric piano, grinding fuzz synths, pounding drums and moaned baritone vocals, that also occasionally shift into black metal screams. Imagine some neo-classical, black metal Birthday Party and you might be close. Very dark, and very creepy and strangely psychedelic. Heavy too, but not like metal heavy, more sort of dense and disturbing. This record is almost like the perfect mix of the first two, wild whiplash grind and super glammy cabaret, a blackened glam grind maybe? Some tracks are sweeping and epic, some are blasting and chaotic, but always the interplay between the drums and piano manage to hold it all together. Dreamy minor key melodicism jammed up against lightning fast blast beats, howled tortured vocals draped over sweetly melancholy ambience, dizzying and confusing, but so fucking great.
Local noiseniks the Yellow Swans hipped us to this band, describing Silentist as a classical pianist, with a drummer playing blast beats behind the piano. Hell, we were sold without even hearing it! Their descption was not all that far off the mark, although we might have described them as a grindcore band with a pianist instead of a guitarist. Either way this is pretty weird stuff. Manic twentieth century free jazz piano, angular and melodic, occasionally picking out mournful minor key melodies, sometimes pounding out chords and riffs, all kept in check by an incredibly kick ass drummer who swings from ultra complex, polyrhythmic jazz freakouts, to blurry lightning fast blast beats. Occasional shrieked vocals and downtuned guitars add some more typical 'heaviness' to the proceedings, but to be honest its the interplay between the drums and the piano that has our head spinning. Imagine Matthew Shipp jamming with Dave Lombardo, backed up by Brutal Truth here and there! Woah! Free jazz grind? Um, how about grind jazz? Or twentieth century grind? I know, modern free grind! Whatever it is it's fucking amazing!
Every Silentist review always requires a quick recap of the band's back story. Or at least the story of how we were introduced to the band. We were told they were a duo, a classical piano player, and a grindcore drummer (when in fact the same guy handles both drums and piano!!), and thus it was some sort of classical grind hybrid, and while perhaps there are elements of both in the music of Silentist, it's way weirder and harder to describe.
The sound here is similar to the last record, the A side begins with pounding low end piano, forceful and almost violent sounding, beneath it, super mathy and complex drumming, lots of rumbling bass buzz, the result is a sort of classical metal cabaret if that makes any sense, the howled vocals adding a strange punkish element to the weirdly complicated sort-of-groove.
The B side opens with swirly clouds of piano a la Lubomyr Melnyk, over rubbery rumbling bass and muted crunchy percussion, the vocals this time are heavily effected and crooned, and again, the cabaret vibe is heavy, albeit more evil and demonic. The rums explode and get super heavy, the piano becomes more frenzied, the bass thick and distorted almost like a metal guitar, all the elements tangled up and clashing wildly.
Plus at the end of the A side, there's a super brief track, a 26 second long burst of super lo-fi power violence, just insane drumming and shouted vocals, like Drop Dead or Man Is The Bastard but stripped WAY down.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
There are weird bands, and then there is Silentist. Originally described to us as a classical pianist playing along with a metal drummer kicking out insane blast beats, it ended up being not nearly that simple, and in fact it was even better that that description would have led us to believe, sounding much more like a weird grind metal band who just happened the have a lead pianist.
So after three eps, we have the very first Silentist lp, and it's as weird as we remember, maybe even weirder, and somehow even better. As of this writing, it's been playing for about 5 minutes, and EVERY customer in the store has come up to see what the heck we're playing, a few who were digging it, and a few who were seriously confused. And rightfully so. Imagine doom metal crossed with cabaret, classical music and grind metal, that description alone would lead you to believe that hearing it might do your head in, and actually hearing it, well, it just might, this is some totally insane, totally unique, and absolutely fantastic stuff.
Beginning with solo piano, the record starts of dark and dolorous, melodic and mysterious, but soon the pianist begins playing a bit more wildly, the drums kick in, and the shrieking vocalist soon follows, and suddenly it's some insane black metal / free jazz / whatthefuck hybrid. Imagine Dave Lombardo jamming with Lubomyr Melnyk and Gaahl from Gorgoroth on vocals. Or a grindcore reimagining of "Flight Of The Bumblebee", but all of those descriptions are really too reductive, this is some serious next level shit. Epic and majestic, sometimes sounding like a piano-led Swans... other times sounding like classical black metal, really quite difficult to describe, which in most cases means they're doing something right.
Anyone into weird heaviness or heavy weirdness, this is most definitely for you.
It's rare that you hear music that is cinematic and mathy at the same time, but local duo Silian Rail manage to create and fill space simultaneously. Often recording songs specifically for film, Silian Rail avoid the usual post-rock quiet-loud-quiet dynamics and instead focus on pools of tight-knit melodic intensity and unsettled serpentine intricacy.
Of course, the influence of Tortoise and Slint can definitely be heard, but Silian Rail doesn't solely rely on these influences and manages to create a softly tumultous epic all their own.
The label describes Silk Flowers' music as eerie and experimental pop, which while a bit reductive, is somewhat accurate. Simple electronic rhythms drift through fields of reverb, alongside warm whirring synths, while over the top, deep baritone vocals dramatically croon, very new wave and gothic, it's weird how all of these 'cold wave' sort of bands are just coming out of the woodwork, although we're not complaining, we dig this woozy washed out dour depressive synth driven gloom rock. And Silk Flowers are definitely among the gloomiest, slipping from goth pop, to creepy warbly crawl, to swirling psychedelic cold wave, all the sounds warm and wreathed in delay and echo, the melodies minor key and melancholy, the guitars atonal and fragmented, the perfect foil for the thick washes of synth buzz, the bass unfurling a slow motion Crispy Ambulance / Joy Division sort of lugubrious throb, a gorgeously hazy gothic synth pop, that dabbles into heavier spacey synth psych, as well as muted almost cabaret sounding goth pop, the vocals sometimes dangerously close to over-the-top, but even then they sound pretty perfect with the rest of the music.
Fans of all the gothy, gloomy, synthy goodness that we've been digging so much lately around here, should consider this heartily recommended.
Brand new ep of gloomy cold wave weirdo electro pop from this NYC trio, and we thought their sound was weird and warped before, they just keep getting weirder and weirder, the music sounding just slightly off, giving it a sort of John Maus / Ariel Pink / James Ferraro vibe, everything woozy and off kilter, and actually, the music sounds a bit like it was played on an old Optigan, if the Optigan came with a 'gloom pop' disc. Warbly and dizzying, almost like the sounds are melting, slowing down and speeding up, as if the whole thing was slightly un-calibrated, or better yet, like the calibration is constantly shifting. The vocals too keep up with the weirdness, a deep Ian Curtis like croon, but very dramatic and over the top, a sort of twisted off key cabaret vibe, at first it's all very disconcerting, but it begins to grow on you, and you find yourself humming along with these tracks stuck in your head like crazy. "Brush Fires" is this year's cold wave gloom pop anti-hit for sure. But the rest of the songs here are just as good/weird, adding some squiggly video game like electronics, some swirling synths, some soaring dramatic faux strings, some bloopy sci-fi melodies, all held together by those crazy vox.
The download includes an extra track, an Arp remix of "Brush Fires" which strips away the vocals, adds some piano, dials back the warped-ness, and turns it into a weirdly propulsive bit of epic pretty krautsynth bliss.
Another rapper from the No Limit/Master P stable, a newer release than the above. His best, one of our favorite No Limit releases!!
No Limit, uh huh, No Limit. Master P protege Silkk The Shocker (who is neither silky nor shocking, really) unleashes his latest, 23 tracks (including the obligatory skits) of sure-to-be-big-selling ghetto hiphop, with guests Snoop Dogg, C-Murder, Mystikal,
New label for angsty Northwesterners sans Joel R. Phelps (who, if we are lucky, will be playing instore here next month).
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Amazing compilation of way out of print Silkworm vinyl 1990-94, including their first album L'Ajre, the His Absence Is A Blessing 12", their kickass cover of Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain", their blissfully minimal cover of Tom Petty's "Insider", some four-track demos, and tons more!! And then Joel Phelps left the band and now they kinda suck, but this proves that at one point Silkworm ruled!
Those slouchy Seattle indie rock veterans (originally hailing from Missoula, MT) keep on keeping on and on and on. Now in their 17th year, this is their ninth album. By now the tale's been beaten into the ground that the long ago departure of main songwriter Joel R.L. Phelps from the fold really did knock the quality stuffing out of this band, but they soldiered on. Unfortunately they've never quite been able to match the high songwriting standards nor the engaging noise-pop sound captained by Phelps. The Silkworm sound was gone, and really, it seems a bandname change should've been in order. Now they've taken another unexpected stylistic turn with jazz fusion-y, noodly keyboard and guitar solos popping up unexpectedly. That's fine if you dig such solos (some folks around here do and some do not), but there's some lyrical clunkiness to contend with too. There's even a song based around the metaphor of spending your life in a penalty box. Ouch. You've been forewarned.
Ever since Joel Phelps left, taking with him THAT voice, and some of the most distinctive songwriting in indie rock, Silkworm has been treading water, with uncatchy songs, inane lyrics, and two singers that can't really sing... but really cool artwork!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Here are 4 Silkworm songs performed live & acoustic on the radio and it is simply gorgeous, for fans of American Music Club's Mark Eitzel especially, reminds me of Everclear. The recording is crisp and light, which balances sad lyrics perfectly. Would that I had seen Silkworm when Joel Phelps was still playing with them. Here's what Mark Van De Walle (Artforum, May 1996) has to say about him:
"Back in the days when everyone believed Bruce Lee was the baddest guy walking the planet, they used to tell this story about how he could reach right into your chest and take your heart out so fast he could show it to you, still beating, before you died. Probably Bruce never did that, but Joel R. Phelps sure does: one minute you're pushing the buttons on your stereo, everything more or less fine, depending. Then Warm Springs Night starts up, and midway through you're staring at your heart, pumping away in time, going beat, beat beat...."
Here's a slightly daunting but very worthwhile 2-disc set of pure wonderment featuring the singer-songwriting work of California native Judee Sill. These tracks spoon-out heaping vocal harmonies within crystalline piano-driven singer-songwriter folk ballads a la a fiery Carole King or Joan Baez. Her cult following is deserved, this is really nice stuff!
Disc one features eleven tracks, the first eight from her previously unreleased third album superbly remastered from the original tapes by the ubiquitous Jim O'Rourke and the last three being studio demos. Disc two features nine lost tracks (more demos) and a brief excerpt from a 1973 live performance. A healthy 72-page (!) booklet renders for us Judee's life -- growing up damaged in a destructive family environment and getting into drug-taking and song-writing, an incessant ingestion of classical music, folk ballads, gospel music, Christian mysticism and thee general 60's zeitgeist.
As a self-taught musician, Judee produced some powerfully earnest and haunting songs during the short span of her creative life. Her songs lived within the realm of classical clarity with a folk/gospel heart and a spiritual, personal penetration that could be hard to beat by other singer-songwriters of her time.
Though I could say this would certainly be great for fans of everyone from Joanna Newsom to Tori Amos to Carole King to Karen Carpenter and the like, it may appeal to anyone for a plethora of reasons!
Second album of loping pan-Christian mystic country femme-folk from Judee Sill who short-lived and troubled career produced two absolutely amazing and essential records for David Geffen's fledgling Asylum Records. Like Nick Drake and Joni Mitchell rolled into one. Honestly Heartbreaking.
