THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Latest issue of this UK metal mag, stoner rock heavies Orange Goblin on the cover, inside, the usual fantastically varied cast of black/doom/noise/sci-fi/sludge/post metal (and not quite metal) outfits: Voivod, Suffocation, Tomahawk, Satan's Wrath, Septic Flesh, Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell, Cult Of Luna, Exhumed, The Bronx, Enforcer, Ghoul, Andee's new obsession the Chinese outfit Tengger Cavalry (who fuse epic metal with Chinese and Mongolian folk music, including horse hair fiddles, throat singing and more!), Vried, Koldbrann and more.
There's tons of reviews of course, as well as a Hard Of Hearing, Invisible Jukebox style listening session with Canadian metalheads Cauldron, and some back page mix tape mayhem from Nick Barker of Cradle Of Filth, Lock-Up, Dimmu Borgir, Old Man's Child, Brujeria, etc.
And as always includes a cd sample featuring new tracks from Suffocation, Devourment, Helloween and a bunch of bands we've never heard of including the awesomely named outfits Teaspoonriverneck and Fuckshovel!
Looks like a good issue of ye olde Terrorizer here. Darkthrone on the cover, also Kvelertak, Ghost ("And The Rise Of Occult Metal"), Clutch, Rotting Christ, Spektr, Kongh, Necrowretch and tons more. Including an article about a band called Sabzius, blurbed on the cover as "11 F*cking Hours! The World's Longest Song?!" Gotta read about that.
AND, you get not one but two free cds this time, one the usual "Fear Candy" sampler with tracks from Darkthrone and others, the other being an Eastern European metal compilation with a whole bunch of bands mostly new to us.
A monthly metal must-read. Cover star: Lee Dorrian of doomsters Cathedral on the occasion of the release of their final album. Also: Repulsion, Uncle Acid, Carcass (new album coming soon!!), Nails, Meads Of Asphodel, Moss, Taake, and plenty more good stuff. Reviews galore, news too, and as always this comes with a free cd sampler stuck to the front cover.
So we like metal and we like to read, most people we know do, so that's why we stock Terrorizer. This issue's got stuff about Dillinger Escape Plan, Ghost B.C., Autopsy, Blood Ceremony, Ides Of Gemini, Satan, Kvelertak, Gama Bomb, Electric Wizard, Altar Of Plagues, Horna, and plenty more!!!
Sealed in a plastic bag with not one but two free cd samplers.
Another issue of UK metal mag Terrorizer, always a good read for those who want to keep up with the latest in the world of metal. We've been reading it for years and always look forward to perusing every issue. This one's got Finland's Children Of Bodom on the cover, also inside you'll find pieces on Kylesa, Blood Ceremony, Dark Tranquility, Sodom, Arckanum, Evile, Age Of Taurus, and plenty more. All the usual reviews and news and whatnot, plus the free sampler cd stuck to the cover. Oh, and the back page "mix tape" feature this time reveals favorite tracks picked by Metatron of Meads Of Asphodel, that's gotta be interesting, he talks about song by Stiff Little Fingers, Sigh, and The Doors among others.
The cover story in this new issue of the UK's Terrorizer magazine delves into the future of black metal, with a symposium of sorts on the subject featuring speculation from members of Gaahl, Ihsahn, Dani Filth, and Tchort (and if you don't know who they are, you probably don't CARE about the future, or past for that matter, of black metal anyway).
Also: Autopsy, Aborym, Jex Thoth, White Wizzard, Skinny Puppy, Orphaned Land, Deicide, Necropsy, and plenty more. Including the usual news, reviews, ads for awesome European metal festivals you probably won't get to go to, and the free sampler cd stuck to the cover! Plus, in the 'Mix Tape Mayhem' feature, Kreator's Mille Petrozza picks a song by Lana Del Rey. ----* ----* In Stock, Not Yet Reviewed : ----* If you want to order one of these, just search for the item, then click on the buy button and it will be added to your cart! AGE OF TAURUS "Desperate Souls Of Tortured Times" (Rise Above / Metal Blade) cd 14.98 ALTO! "s/t" (Raheem) lp 14.98 ANGST SKVADRON "Flukt" (Obscure Abhorrent) lp 21.00 ANGST SKVADRON "Sweet Poison" (Obscure Abhorrent) lp 21.00 ASH BORER "Bloodlands" (Gilead Media) lp 16.98 ASTROMASON + BLUE SABBATH BLACK CHEER "Endless Black" (self-released) cassette 5.98 BATAGOV, ANTON & YUNGCHEN LHAMO "Tayatha" (Cantaloupe Music) cd 17.98 BATILLUS / WHITEHORSE "Split" (Vendetta) lp 16.98 BAXTER, LES "Hell's Belles OST" (La-La Land) cd 8.98 BEGGARS "s/t" (Lotus House) 2cd 13.98 BIRTH CONTROL "Operation" (Repertoire) cd 14.98 BIRTHDAY PARTY, THE "Live 81-82" (4AD) 2lp 22.00 BLACK DICE "Beaches & Canyons" (DFA) 2lp 23.00 BOYCE, R.L. "Ain't The Man's Alright" (Sutro Park) lp 14.98 BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS, THE / TEENAGE MONSTER (WALTER GREENE) "OST" (Monstrous Movie Music) cd 27.00 BRAN (...) POS "Den Of Ordure And Iridescence" (Rescipiscent) lp 15.98 BUG, THE "Filthy EP" (Ninja Tune) 2 x 10" 22.00 CARGO "s/t" (Pseudonym Records) 2cd 31.00 CLOSED ROOM "s/t" (Valse Sinistre Productions) cd 12.98 CLOUDS & CANYONS "A Challange To The Dark" (20 Sided) lp 9.99 COFFINS "Sewage Sludgecore Treatment" (Haunted Hotel) lp 14.98 COFFINS "The Fleshland" (Relapse) 2lp 27.00 COH "Retro 2038" (Editions Mego) cd 16.98 COLD STEEL "20 Years Of NY Thrash: The Demo Anthology" (Stormspell) cd 11.98 CRYSTAL SHIPSSS "Yay" (Three Ring / Raw Onion) 10" 12.98 DEAFHEAVEN "DFHVN (aka Demo)" (Sargent House) lp 16.98 DEATHCHARGE "Bad Dream Forever" (Unseen Forces) lp 14.98 DEN SAAKALDTE "Ol, Morke Og Depresjon" (Aesthetic Death) 2lp 21.00 DEVIL'S BLOOD, THE "III: Tabula Rasa Or Death And The Seven Pillars" (Metal Blade) cd/2lp 14.98/35.00 DIABOLIKAL SUPER-KRIMINAL, THE "ost" (Cinedelic) cd 15.98 DIE ANDEREN / APOCALYPSE "Kannibal Komix" (Long Hair) cd 19.98 DOVES, THE "The Lord Is My Shepherd" (Tembo) cd/lp 17.98/24.00 DRIVE (CLIFF MARTINEZ) "OST" (Lakeshore) cd 17.98 ECLIPSE BAND, THE "Inner Reggae Rhythm" (Onlyroots / Sydney Crooks) lp 15.98 ELEKTRO GUZZI "s/t" (Macro) cd 17.98 ELOY, JEAN-CLAUDE "Gaku-No-Michi" (Hors Territory) 4cd 60.00 ELOY, JEAN-CLAUDE "Shanti" (Hors Territory) 2cd 39.00 ENCOFFINATION "Elegant Funeral For The Unknown Dead" (Debemur Morti) lp 17.98 ENCOFFINATION "Ritual Ascension Beyond Flesh" (Self Made God) lp 17.98 EXTINCTION DE LOS INSECTOS "Untitled" (Lupus / Chingaste La Confianza) lp 19.98 FACTRIX / CONTROL UNIT "Elegy For Rusted Souls" (Backwards) lp + 7" 38.00 FLESH EATERS "No Questions Asked" (Mono) lp 17.98 FLOWERS, PHIL AND HIS UNITED FAMILY "Alpha And Omega" (Tuff City / Funky Delicacies) cd/lp 16.98/14.98 GIBSON, DAUGHN "Me Moan" (Sub Pop) cd/lp 14.98/15.98 GUITAR RED "Hard Times" (Funky Delicacies) lp 21.00 HACKAMORE BRICK "One Kiss" (Sony / Real Gone Music) cd 14.98 HIDALGO, JUAN "Tamaran" (Cramps) lp 15.98 HIGUCHI, KEIKO "Ephemeral As Petals" (Utech) cd 14.98 HUNX & HIS PUNX "Street Punk" (Hardly Art) cd/lp 12.98/13.98 HYETAL "Modern Worship" (True Panther) 2lp 23.00 ITO, AKIRA "Japanesque" (Bamboo) cd/lp 17.98/24.00 J. TEAL BAND "Cooks" (Vintage / Rockadrome) cd 13.98 JACUZZI BOYS "Double Vision" (Hardly Art) 7" 5.98 JANDEK "The Song Of Morgan" (Corwood Industries) 9cd 29.00 JERI-JERI "800 Percent Ndagga" (Ndagga) lp 22.00 JONES, GLENN "My Garden State" (Thrill Jockey) lp 19.98 KING GEEDORAH "Take Me To Your Leader" (Big Dada) 2lp 28.00 KING LOSES CROWN "You Can't Escape" (self-released) cd 7.98 KINSKI "Cosy Moments" (Kill Rock Stars) lp 17.98 KOWTON "Shuffle Good" (Boomkat Editions) 12" 17.98 LANEGAN, MARK / KAREN DALTON "Same Old Man" (Light In The Attic) 7" 6.98 LEE, OKKYUNG "Ghil" (Ideologic Organ / Editions Mego) lp 22.00 LEO BUGARILOVES, THE "Feelings" (Karkia Mistika / Ektro) cd 15.98 LESBIAN "Forestelevision" (Translation Loss) cd 14.98 LOS MICROWAVES "Life After Breakfast" (Dark Entries) lp + dvd 17.98 LYCIA "Cold" (Handmade Birds) 2lp 30.00 MAD RIVER "s/t" (Sundazed) lp 24.00 MAN OR ASTRO-MAN? "Defcon 5...4...3...2...1" lp 17.98 MASTER MUSICIANS OF BUKAKKE "Far West" (Important Records) cd/lp 14.98/17.98 MASTER MUSICIANS OF BUKKAKE "Twilight Of The Kali Yuga Tours" (Important) lp 21.00 MOIRA SCAR "Scarred For Life" (Resipiscent) lp 15.98 MOOMAW "Don't You Just Love" (Gazebo Music) lp 9.98 MORBUS CHRON "Sleepers In The Rift" (Pulverized) cd/lp 17.98/21.00 MOTION SICKNESS OF TIME TRAVEL / NOVA SCOTIAN ARMS "Crystal Anniversary" (Aguirre) lp 25.00 MR. ONDIOLINE "Le Siffleur Et Son Chien" (Finders Keepers / Cacophonic) 7" 10.98 MT. HAMMER "Dionysus" (self-released) cd 5.98 NATH FAMILY "Sounds Of The Indian Snake Charmer Volume Two" (Hanson) lp 21.00 NECROBUTCHER "Schizophrenic Noisy Torment" (Nuclear War Now! Productions) lp 17.98 NURSE WITH WOUND & GRAHAM BOWERS "Parade" (Red Wharf) cd 17.98 OCEAN CHIEF "Sten" (I Hate Records) cd 16.98 PALE MIST "Where The Darkness Is Praised" (Sinister Stench / Werewolf / Legion Blotan) cd 14.98 PALM HIGHWAY CHASE "Escape Fom New York" (Spectrum Spools) lp 22.00 PANZERPAPPA "Astromalist" (Rune Grammofon) 17.98 PARISH, JOHN "Screenplay" (Thrill Jockey) 2lp 19.98 PARMEGIANI, BERNARD "De Natura Sonorum" (Recollection GRM / Editions Mego) 2lp 32.00 PARTCH, HARRY "The Bewitched" (Finders Keepers / Cacophonic) lp 24.00 PEOPLE OF THE NORTH "Sub Contra" (Thrill Jockey) lp 17.98 PINK, ARIEL AND JORGE ELBRECHT "Hang On To Life" (Mexican Summer) 7" 9.98 RAINBOW "Rising" (Polydor) cd 5.00 RAINFOREST SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTENMENT "Black Magic Cannot Cross Water" (Blackest Ever Black) lp 23.00 RAMESSES "Misanthropic Alchemy" (Ritual Productions) 2cd 23.00 RAZOR "Armed And Dangerous" (War On Music) lp 17.98 ROGIE, S.E. "The Sounds Of S.E. Rogie Vol. 1" (Mississippi / Domino) lp 14.98 SACRED STEEL "The Bloodshed Summoning" (Cruz Del Sur) cd 17.98 SADISMO "ost" (Kritzerland) cd 8.98 SAI, YOSHIKO "Mikko" (Bamboo) cd 17.98 SALEM'S LAW "Tale Of Goblins' Breed" (Skol) cd 15.98 SALTY DOG "s/t" (Strawberry Rain) cd/lp + 7" 16.98/33.00 SATANIC THREAT "In To Hell" (Hell's Headbangers) cd 10.98 SCHLOSS TEGAL "Oranur III : The Third And Final Report" (Cold Spring) cd 17.98 SCHNITZLER, CONRAD "Conrad & Sohn" (Bureau B) cd 17.98 SCREAMING SAVIOR "Infinity" (Metal Hell) cd 14.98 SHANNON & THE CLAMS "Dreams In The Rat House" (Hardly Art) cd/lp 12.98/14.98 SHARPE, EDWARD & THE MAGNETIC ZEROS "s/t" (Vagrant) cd 14.98 SOKEA PISTE "Valikasi" (Ektro) cd 15.98 SPACE "Magic Fly" (Repertoire) cd 14.98 STEAMBOAT SWITZERLAND / WERTMULLER, MICHAEL "Zeitschrei" (Trost) cd 17.98 STRATOS, DEMETRIO "Metrodora" (Cramps) lp 15.98 STREETS KILL STRANGE ANIMALS "Plan B: Back To The Analog Time" (Modern Sky) cd 12.98 SUDO "Caligula" (Ektro / Harmanov) cd 15.98 SUN ARAW / RALPH WHITE "split" (Monofus) 12" 13.98 SUN RA "Continuation" (Saturn Research) lp 12.98 SURPLUS 1980 "Arterial Ends Here" (Delphine Knormal Musik) 10" + cd 10.98 SVETOVID "Natures Fury" (Brotherhood Of Light / Werewolf Promotion) cassette 5.98 T2 "1971-72" (Acme) lp 25.00 TAIST OF IRON "Resurrection" (Skol) 2cd 16.98 TENGGER CAVALRY "Sunesu Cavalry" (Metal Hell) cd 14.98 THE SOURCE FAMILY: MUSIC FROM THE ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK (Drag City) lp 17.98 TOODY / THE WESTERN FRONT "split" (Mississippi) 10" 14.98 V/A "Bollywood Bloodbath" (Finders Keepers / B-Music) 2lp 28.00 V/A "C'est Chic: French Girl Singers Of The 1960s" (Ace International) lp 25.00 V/A "Frozen In Time: Music To Accompany The Films Of Ingmar Bergman" (Black Horizons) 3 x cassette 19.98 V/A "King Funk" (Ace) cd 16.98 V/A "Psychedelic Pernambuco" (Mr. Bongo) cd 14.98 V/A "Rough Guide To African Disco" (World Music Network) 2cd 14.98 V/A "Summer Of Fuzz Volume 2" (Fuzz City) cassette 8.98 VELA EYES "The Pleasure Sunrise" (self-released) 10" 9.98 VHK "Veled Haraptat Csillagot!" (Full Contact) lp 21.00 VINLAND SPECIAL SERVICES "Cemetary Without Crosses" (Brotherhood Of Light) cassette 5.98 VINLAND SPECIAL SERVICES / COSMIC BREATH "Hanoi Hilton / Five Pointed Snow Mound" (Brotherhood Of Light) cassette 5.98 WAKE, THE "A Light Far Out" (Factory Benelux) lp 41.00 WALLS "Urals" (Ecstatic) 12" 14.98 WATSON, CHRIS "In St. Cuthbert's Time" (Touch) cd 15.98 WHITE POPPY "Drifters Gold" (Constellation Tatsu) cassette 5.98 WILD ONES "Keep It Safe" (Party Damage) cd/lp 9.98/14.98 WOO "Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Going Wrong" (Emotional Rescue) cd/lp 17.98/26.00 WORK / DEATH "Phone About To Ring" (Type) lp 22.00 XEX "Change" (Dark Entries) lp + dvd 17.98 XX, THE "Fiction" (Young Turks) 7" 6.98
All the latest in the world of metal here, folks: on the cover, Watain, also there's stuff on King Diamond, Annihilator (yes!!), Exhumed, Cauldron, Powerwolf, Revocation, All Pigs Must Die, Ramming Speed, Morne, Arabrot, Huntress, and more. Free cd sampler stuck to the cover btw.
No good reason not to buy this, even if it's hard to read while banging your head, you can get the hang of it eventually.
Cover stars (of course!!) are Carcass, back doing deathgrind surgery after so many many years. Also in this issue of the UK's premier 'extreme' metal magazine: Emperor (also making a return!), Saint Vitus, Satyricon, Gorguts, Vista Chino (aka Kyuss, basically), Fyrnask, Ministry, Subrosa, and plenty more. Plus the usual magazine stuff - reviews, ads for cool European metal festivals you'll never get to go to, reports on cool European festivals you didn't get to go to, etc. And, a free sampler cd stuck to the cover.
Paradise Lost & Lacuna Coil on the cover. Also: Onslaught, Kataklysm, Brutal Truth, UFOmammut, Skeletonwitch, Corrections House, Sepultura, Monster Magnet, Sahg, Toxic Holocaust, Pestilence, Dimmu Borgir, and more - including a look at the history and origin of Roadburn Festival. Plus a free cd sampler stuck to the cover. If you like metal, and you have a bathroom, you should be purchasing Terrorizer (and Decibel) every month, really.
Shane Embury of Napalm Death (and a million other bands!!) is on the cover of this, the venerable UK metal mag's 20th anniversary issue (congrats!), plus Deicide, Hell, Sepultura, Avatarium, Rosetta, Beastmilk, Vaura, Glorior Belli, Code, Conan, and plenty more - including a big 20 year retrospective on the magazine and metal itself. Tom G. Warrior among others (like ol' Shane) provide commentary. There's also the usual plethora of reviews, news, etc., and a free cd sampler too, stuck to the cover.
Another month, another issue of this metal magazine out of the UK that we've been reading for YEARS. This issue's got their preview of what to look forward to release-wise in 2014 (including a chat with Tom G. Warrior of Triptykon among others... personally we're most excited about the impending Immortal), also a bit of a look back at 2013 in the form of their critics' and readers' poll results (Carcass #1 in both!). Other stuff: Satan's Wrath, Ghost B.C., Year Of No Light, Iced Earth, Carcass, and more. Reviews, news, cd sampler stuck to the cover, all the usual stuff!
Bow before the might of Behemoth... 'cuz they're on the cover and that's what it says. In this new issue of the UK's premier monthly metal magazine, you'll also find stuff on Grand Magus, Slough Feg (yay!), Kampfar, accapella metallers Van Canto, Amon Amarth, sweater-wearers Alcest, Indian, Cradle Of Filth, Mayhem, and more, including a label profile on our pals at Pesanta Urfolk (Ash Borer, Hell, Merkstave...).
Also included, a cd sampler stuck to the cover, with tracks by a couple of the aforementioned and bunches of unknowns too.
Triptykon. Twilight. Annihilator (yes, of "Alison Hell" fame). Pilgrim. Behemoth. Coffinworm. Autopsy. And plenty more extreme/metal sounds! (Including some -actual- sounds, via the free sampler cd stuck to the cover.)
A tremendous cassette only release from the Terrors, an unknown project presumably based out of Los Angeles who offers up some totally desolate, bedroom recordings for cheap synths, guitar, voice, and -- because it's on Monorail Trespassing - snippets of noise. The first track has this creepy, nocturnal repeating motif of minor key melody that is trying to be a Rhodes keyboard but is probably something much more disposable, but that melody could be something easily found on a Labradford album or even a Bohren and Der Club of Gore track, but run through William Basinski's tape machinations. Ghostly splashes of droning guitar ebb and flow around that melodic passage, furthering the darkened gloom which settles around the track. This alone is worth the price of admission! The next track and a few fragmented moments on the other side feature vocals from the Terrors. It's a painfully lonely voice singing into a crappy microphone, which accentuates the melancholy vocal melody wrapped with plenty of tape hiss and an occasional downer strum on an acoustic guitar. These songs appear as a cross between Devendra and Grouper, as these roughly hewn takes on whatever was at hand with the pure emotion coming through the songs, cast in a hue that is profoundly depressed for the Terrors. The last track on this cassette ends with a arcing wash of white noise, that almost sounds like Terrors set up his recording under the flight path of LAX, just to get the rush of a plane taking off to conclude this track. It's a C-30 tape, and limited to 125 copies. Really great!
Finally! The debut full length from these Bay Area punks, after two kick ass singles, and we have to say the full length definitely fulfills the promise of those 7"s, the sound is essentially the same, if anything even more kick ass, big crunchy, fuzzy guitars, pounding drums, super melodic basslines way up in the mix, that totally drive the songs, and the super distinctive vocals, which had some of us thinking of the Smoking Popes, that sort of Morrissey style croon over buzzsaw punk pop. We mentioned the Undertones and the Buzzcocks in our review of the last seven inch, and it's hard not to hear that here as well, but listening to these tracks as an album, the sound really blossoms, and somehow the sound seems way more pop than punk with every listen, the songs just impossibly catchy, hooks galore, and unlike most records, that tend toward being front loaded, Killing Time, seems to just get better and better, catchier and catchier, with some of these tracks sounding like classic pop songs from years past, albeit with crunchier guitars, fuzzier bass and pounding-er drumming, occasionally wreathed in feedback too, even some cool boy/girl vocal interplay, and that's sort of what makes Terry Malts so good, that undeniable punk energy, but wedded to some of THEE best songs we've heard in ages. Haven't found ourselves listening to a record this much nonstop since the Veronica Falls record...
Latest from these Bay Area punks, and like the Barreracudas 7" reviewed elsewhere on this week's list, originally available as part of a subscription series, but now available individually. And like the Killing Time full length we dug so much, the A side is another gloriously distorted punk pop blowout, the sound super raw this time around, the guitar blown out and crumbling, the vocals, even more dramatic, again reminding us of the late great Smoking Popes, a Smiths like croon, over churning pounding fuzzpunk poppiness. The flipside finds the band taking on "over 21" by legendary SF jangle poppers, Henry's Dress, and gives it fantastic fuzzed out makeover.
A couple of years ago, San Francisco's Magic Bullets reinvented themselves as Terry Malts. The former owed their existence to The Housemartins and The Smiths, in an admirable rehash of sashaying / hipswaying UK mod-pop; but the latter embraced those all American punk icons, the Ramones (with Andee here at aQ positing Terry Malts as deadringers for the Smoking Popes). Snotty petulance, suburban boredom, slacker idiocy, oversexed / underfucked moodiness, and lyrics that seem to always start with "I don't wanna..." before issuing a cornflakes-n-beer statement of punk philosophizing. Vocalist Phillip Benson was the Morrissey impersonator in the Magic Bullets, and strains of that maudlin theatricality lilt throughout the three-chord, 1-2-3-ROCK, power-pop punk riffs that Terry Malts trade in. The bashed punk tunes are deliberately simple stomps that make no bones about referencing the iconic punk songbook (a bumbled bassline right out of The Damned here, a gloriously fuzzed out punk riff from any given Lookout! 7" circa 1993 there); and yeah, it's totally dumb. Shit, they even admit it in the feedback dusted ballad "Comfortably Dumb." You know exactly what you get with Terry Malts, and it's a hell of a lot of fun. Yup, the vinyl comes with a download code too!
Bet you never thought you'd see Charles Manson on a Slumberland record. At least he's been made up with some blue eye shadow and some pink lipstick, and the record is pressed on pink vinyl. It's record number two from SF punk pop combo Terry Malts, who definitely find inspiration from classic punk combos like the Undertones and the Buzzcocks, but who make that sound their own, cranking up the echo and the reverb, adding some seriously muscly drumming, anchoring some fuzzed out guitar buzz and some thick low slung basslines, all shot through with little melodies, the band doing a fine job of balancing pop dreaminess with fierce punkiness. The A side would be a hit for sure if punk rock had 'hits', while the B side takes their sound and makes it even more distorted and murky, wreathing everything in swirls of feedback, finishing things off with a crazy catchy short sharp blast of pro-atheist punkiness.
Brand new split 7" from East Bay pop punks Terry Malts, whose two songs here are just as good as anything on their recent full length, two new blasts of fuzzy poppy punkiness, all crunchy fuzzy guitars, woozy basslines, hooks galore, some rad guitar freakouts and of course those vocals that continues to remind us of Morrissey, or maybe more accurately Morrisey-worshipping punks the Smoking Popes. Both tracks here kill, although the second might be our fave, the vocals taking on a distinctly echo drenched eighties vibe that perfectly suits TM's punky garage pop.
Terry Malts share the split with a group called Dead Angle, who we'd never heard before, but who remind us a bit of Veronica Falls, which is a very good thing. Fuzzed guitar jangle, dreamy female vox, a bit lo-fi, with some seriously dirgey breakdowns rife with feedback, and of course hooks a plenty. The second track is all wiry riffs and kinetic rhythms, sounding more post punk than garage pop, but both tracks have us definitely wanting to hear more!
Achtung! Here's another kool krautrock reissue brought to us by the Lion label, continuing their noble efforts in that area recently represented by reissues of Sergius Golowin, Guru Guru, and Emtidi. This is one that some of us here (well, Allan) had been looking forward to for a while - he'd been trying to find a copy of a previous, out of print, import only reissue of this album ever since hearing part of it on his own kraut/psych/prog radio show Klaus To The Edge (co-DJ Alison had played a track), so it's nice to have this new domestic reissue! The deal with Tetragon is that they performed a wonderfully proggy, mostly instrumental, technically accomplished style of krautrock, very much inspired by classical keyboards of British proto-prog act The Nice (Keith Emerson's band before ELP, dontcha know), as well as by Soft Machine, the electric jazz experiments of Miles Davis, and the heavier sort of psychedelic blues rock a la Cream.
Originally a teenage three-piece (keys/bass/drums) named Trikolon, formed in 1967, in 1971 they added a guitarist and thus became Tetragon. Their keyboard dominated sound (Hammond organ, clavinet, piano) now had distorted wah wah guitar to increase its heft and complexity. That same year saw the release of Tetragon's sole album on their own label Soma, in an edition of just 400 copies, housed in a lovely green cover to match the ecologically "green" nature theme of the title. It's a virtuoso performance, particularly considering each track was recorded in just a few takes, with no overdubs! While some krautrock music we dig is all about drugged out primitivism, this is the sort of thing that benefits from the players' tasteful musicianship. The first track, "Fugue" sorta sets the tone for this melodically moody, yet grooving, album. It's 16 minutes long, and based on a piece by J.S. Bach (though we don't think Bach ever envisioned an electronically-effected drum solo, or wild acid rock guitar soloing!). Elsewhere on the album, Tetragon also adapt some of Gershwin's music from West Side Story (via jazz drummer Buddy Rich's arrangement, apparently) on the 13+ minute "A Short Story". But not every track here is long - there's the mere 19 second bizarre electronic outburst of "Jokus" to balance things out.
This is another album to feed our fantasy of someday opening another store called "1971" that ONLY sells reissues of records originally released in 1971! Whaddya think? It could happen. Maybe we will change Aquarius to that format.
As we've come to expect from Lion, this reissue is quite nicely done, with lengthy, informative liner notes and photos in the cd booklet, plus on the disc itself a significant bonus track, the live 14+ minute mega-jam "Doors In Between" from '72.
We highlighted the Lion Productions reissue of Nature, the (until now) sole album from way-cool, keyboard-heavy, progged-out krautrock obscurities Tetragon, just a few weeks ago, and now here's ANOTHER, entirely unreleased album from the same band unearthed by krautrock specialists Garden Of Delights! If anything, this one's even more badass. Recorded live in the studio towards the end of 1971 (just a few months after Nature came out), these five tracks here meant for release on LP at the time, but that never happened, the efforts of Tetragon's four very talented musicians never getting the exposure they deserved back in they day (heck even the album that they did manage to get released was done in a VERY small pressing). Well it was 1971, so record buyers were presumably a bit overwhelmed. Still, Nature and now Stretch are worthy of being part of the class of '71, a year we consider one of the best ever in the history of recorded music - particularly of the psych/prog/kraut variety.
Stretch is all-instrumental, the band members just goin' off, doin' their thing, which was virtuoso, jazz-fusion inflected prog influenced by Miles Davis, The Nice and ELP, various Canterbury bands... and especially here, British jazz-rock organist Brian Auger. There's lots of solo action, as well as much precision ensemble playing. With wild widdly Hammond organ jamming, acid rock fuzz guitar, a heavy backbeat, and tons of technical chops, this simply cooks.
Of the 5 tracks on Stretch, which, um, stretch over 43 minutes, Tetragon do two covers: "Listen Here" by Eddie Harris and "Dragon Song" by John McLaughlin. Though perhaps as far as Tetragon were concerned, they were Brian Auger covers, 'cause their hero had previously done both of these songs on albums of his own, and Tetragon were inspired by his arrangements. The Eddie Harris one in particular is super funky but fuzzed, a heavy groove with drum solo breakdown, well actually everybody gets a solo. Of the three originals, "Snowstorm" is actually smokin' hot, "The Light" a laidback wah'd out groove, and "Hovering Stones" the most proggy and changeable, ranging from frantic keyboard runs in lockstep with martial drumming to more blissed-out solo sections. If you liked that Supersister reissue we recently highlighted, we'd imagine you'd be into this too. Likewise of course if you dug the other, original Tetragon disc!
Garden Of Delights reissue cds are even more exhaustive than Lion's, this includes uber-detailed liner notes in both English and German, plus vintage photos, and even the cover art from every single recording that the members of Tetragon were ever later associated with, including jazz-rockers Passport and folksters Falkenstein.
The latest batch from Utech is all excellent stuff (as usual), we're reviewing three this list, including the Locrian double disc (one of our Records Of The Week), the new Gog, and this, from Japan's Tetragrammaton.
The first thing one of the AQ Overlords here said when he heard this one is, if not entirely accurate, a good starting point for a description: "Sounds like a black metal Taj Mahal Travellers!" While it's NOT black metal, there's a menacing, mesmeric vibe here that some black metallers might appreciate. Possibly also some Buddhist monks, too. Part freeform psychedelic rock exploration, part dronological soundscapery, Tetragrammaton's Points Of Convergence is a beautiful and frightening trip into the void-dark expanses... that this trio is Tokyo-based is no surprise, seems like if Utech hadn't put this out, PSF should have. Band members TOMO, Cal Lyall, and Nobunaga Ken utilize a wide array of instruments to conjure up intense music that's both detailed and active, and droningly atmospheric: hurdy-gurdy, guitar, saxophone, crystal bowls, percussion, voices, Rhodes piano, hydrophone, gongs, drums, bells, bowls, taisho-koto...
Track one, "Disjecta Membra", begins as if recorded inside of a giant cauldron; echoing, haunting, with mysterious scrapings and billowing distortion, it builds up and up, over the course of 14+ minutes, spiralling into dense hypnotic drones, before a climax that takes the form of a free improv freakout, an electric tangle of guitar, sax, percussion... As quick as that erupts, it subsides, and track two, "Portrait Of Turab (Part I)" starts in with sustained bell tones, shimmering in the cauldron-blackness. Later still, the textural drones of "Sol de Paula" evoke all the awe of the 2001: A Space Odyssey monolith! And elsewhere watery textures and strange pipe-fighting percussion take center stage.
This unit's previous release, a double disc, was one of Julian Cope's Records Of The Month some time ago (btw, whatever happened to his Record Of The Month? the Head Heritage site hasn't been updated with one since the summer). If there's enough interest in this (which there should be!), perhaps we can import some of those, too.
The usual Utech packaging, nicely designed, slim sleeve, oversized. Lots of black.
Jason Kahn has come a long way, now a respected sound artists and minimalist composer, it's still a little hard to believe he played in bands like the Leaving Trains, Trotsky Icepick and the Universal Congress Of, and normally, this is where we would say, but actually you can hear much of those past groups in his new sound, but actually you can't. Not at all. Kahn's new work is world's removed, and we've come to love that stuff nearly as much as we love(d) the late great Leaving Trains.
Which brings us to Tetras, a trio featuring Kahn, whose sound is a sprawling rhythmic abstraction that touches on everything from This Heat (especially This Heat!) to Aussie minimalist jazz combo the Necks, exploring the same sort of stretched out propulsive mesmer and textured dronescaping, each of the four side long tracks here a totally mesmerizing sprawl of layered buzz and deftly arranged melody, but with the rhythmic element really holding it all together. The songs, for as minimal and abstract as they are, not at all static, alive and full of energy, with a barely contained momentum, that makes the tracks seethe and thrum. The Necks vibe is huge, especially on the opener, which takes the cyclical slow build of that group and gives it a sort of avant / post industrial makeover, the drums a skittery shuffle, the bass loping and looping, all beneath layers of blurred organ chords, static wreathed melodies, and all manner of constantly shifting textures.
The other three tracks follow suit, subtly altering the equation, part two is much more droned out and noisy, the clouds of hiss and static ebbing and flowing, over a buried jazzy shuffle, the bass bowed unfurling long moaning tones, everything wreathed in an insectoid buzz, the result hazy and hypnotic. Part three opens up with a wall of crumbling chaotic white noise, a squall of warped blown out psychedelia, which gives way to some hushed shimmer, which is soon overtaken by some weirdly gorgeous feedback drenched melodies and distorted dynamics which soon explode into some awesomely blown out jazziness that reminds us of Laddio Bolocko or the Psychic Paramount, but so in-the-red, the tones blossom and expand transforming the sound into some strange heavy psychedelia. And finally, part four finishes things off with something a bit more dialed back, a scattering of tribal drum splutter, more bowed strings, and moaning melodies, this time under weird digitally processed guitar skree and crumbling distorted drones, eventually slipping into something slightly more straight forwardly jazzy, which also eventually morphs into a weirdly abstract but druggily dreamy electronic noise drenched jazziness.
Housed in a super thick, ultra deluxe, hand screened heavy cardboard jacket, and includes a download coupon as well.
First in a planned trilogy of live recordings from this turntablist duo's Europe 2003 tour. Grrr 'cause it's noisy.
More turntable strangulation from two masters of that very avant-garde (even today!) art form. Quebec's Martin Tetreault and Japan's Otomo Yoshihide (the latter of which, at least, should need no introduction to most AQ customers, known as he is far and wee for various projects, among them his famed Ground Zero band) have tangled before, and right away get down to business here, in a selection of live duo performances recorded on their tour of Europe in the Spring of 2003. Together they manifest an intriguing sound-world, liberating from old LPs variously sandpaper textures, helicoptering drone, and spluttering screams. Volume 2 of a planned trilogy, 2. Tok concentrates on their most "fragmented" improvs of the tour. We didn't review it, but we do also have the first volume, 1. Grr, so-named as it's devoted to what the duo deemed their noisiest material.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
"An electromechanic meeting around turntables. 21 improvisational settings dealing with science fiction, education, jungle, cartoons and 17 other surprising themes!" says the top-obi. From Quebec and Japan, respectively, Tetreault and Yoshihide (of Ground Zero fame among other things), certainly don't sound like conventional DJs as they positively torture the vinyl on their turntables.
By now, most readers of the aQ list know just how much we love the turntable, and all the non musical sounds associated with it, hiss and crackle and pop, skips and scrapes, we've reviewed records featuring turntables without records, recordings of ONLY the surface noise of lps, we love it. So of course we love folks like Philip Jeck, Martin Tetreault and Strotter Inst., who have truly stretched the boundaries of turntable as instrument, but our first exposure to what could be done with a turntable, as was probably lots of folks', was via hip hop and DJs. aQ used to be the source for all things turntablism, Qbert, Invisbl Skratch Piklz, and especially Kid Koala, who had amazing DJ skills, but gave them his own distinct spin (remember the Charlie Brown "I gotta rock" jam?, Or the warbly record player horn solos?). For whatever reason, that stuff seemed to fade back into the underground, or the more under, underground, whatever happened, we hadn't heard a peep from Kid Koala in almost 3 years.
But what a return! Two masters of the turntable, both approaching it from different backgrounds and with different influences, a dizzying mash up of textures and beats, of loops and song fragments, a live multiple turntable jam session captured on tape, and holy shit is it good.
Scratchy old jazz records begin to skip before morphing into big booming low end rhythms, wild drum solos are looped and layered, strange voices surface and then fade away, scratches are transformed into bird calls, blurred streaks of melody, crackle everywhere like rainfall, gorgeous sheets of low end buzz underpin skittery squiggles and jagged shards of hiss, effects drenched scratching unfurls like wild spaced out psychedelic freakouts, groovy fractured funk assembled from strange voices, nature records, and who knows what else, left to drift through a sea of haunting rumbles and mysterious grinding noise, finishing off with a wild assemblage of manipulated voices, super minimal click and thump beats, deformed music box melodies, and a symphony of scrapes and scratches and pops and clicks. Really amazing stuff. Weird and dark and playful and wild. Turntable freaks will dig this big time.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
A collection of solos and duets for turntables and samplers from these four vangardists, incorporating a distinct rhythmic edge previously alien to the Fluxus / electro-acoustic improvisational schools.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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From the same Japanese label that brought us Bathtub Shitter (still the best band name ever!) comes Tetsuo, a band that has way more in common with Corrupted or Boris than their bathtub shitting labelmates. Sludgy and repetitive, heavy and crushing with lots of solid state feedback a la Eyehategod and loads of midtempo wall of guitar pummel a la Neurosis. One epic twenty minute track that goes from slow motion sludge to furious almost-death-metal to crusty grind to stoner groove and back again. Fans of any of the above mentioned bands definitely need this.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The films Tetsuo: Iron Man (1989) and Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (1992) are two completely amazing pieces of Japanese sci-fi / horror splattered with a hyper-exaggeration of sexual desire, megalomania, haywired man-machine hybrids, and one massive cyborg drill for a penis. The soundtracks, especially for the first movie, are of equal acclaim, both scored by Chu Ishihawa, who created masterpieces that hold up to much of the explosive industrial and noise that Japan was producing in astronomical proportions at that time. This was less of the Merzbow / Hijokaidan model, and much more of the tightly controlled sound of Dissecting Table / K2 / Grim / Contagious Orgasm of metal-machine jackhammering on junk steel along to synchronized electronic anxiety, gloom, and psychic unease. The edition pulls the best material from both soundtracks (which had been issued in Japan as part of a triple cd set a while back), marking the first time any of this material has been on vinyl.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Another volume in Table Of The Element's amazing Lanthinides series of silkscreened single sided 12"s. This is the first offical release from Text Of Light, a loose ensemble made up of Lee Ranaldo, Alan Licht, DJ Olive, Christian Marclay and Uli Krieger. Originally formed to improvise to the silent films of Stan Brakhage (Brakhage's film Text Of Light is the band's namesake), Text Of Light rumble and drone and meander through a dark and moody sonic soundscape, littered with the detritus of music concrete, avant turntablism, dronology and dark ambience. Dark and minimal and quite beautiful.
And it's got an unfinished Christmas ornament designed by Harry Smith is silkscreened in glow in the dark ink on the non-playing side. And in response to the complaints of folks who bought any of the first eight 12"s and experienced the brittle / easy-cracking plastic sleeves, these new 12"s come in an improved sleeve, much softer, and way less fragile.
Live document of a TOL performance recorded at the Rotterdam International Film Festival in January of 2005. This rotating collective of improvisers, which this time around include Alan Licht and Lee Ranaldo on guitars, DJ Olive on turntables, Tim Barnes on percussion and Ulrich Krieger on sax, continue their practice of performing to the films of Stan Brakhage and other members of the avant-garde cinema of the fifties and sixties. While only 20 minutes long, each musician is allowed their moment to shine before the piece culminates in an otherworldly full band racket. Although, it would be nice to see the film with the music meant to accompany it, the overall piece works well without the aid of visuals, and is a good introduction to anyone curious about this organic collective of experienced free-players.
This is the first full length release (after a 12" on Table Of The Elements) by the group Text Of Light, named for a 1974 Stan Brakhage film and made up of Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo, Alan Licht, DJ Olive, Christian Marclay and Uli Krieger. Originally Text Of Light was formed to perform along with Brakhage films, and while Brakhage was an inspiration for these recordings they are not "potential Brakhage soundtracks". Text Of Light weave spare soundscapes of clatter and creak, enviornmental sounds, free jazz splatter, No Neck Blues Band style hippy rock-brut, avant turntablism, deep drones and abstract ambience.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Another mysterious little noisy sonic gem from the Small Doses label, one of our new favorite small labels, due in part to the cool shit they put out, but also the fact that no matter how limited a release is, the packaging is super deluxe.
We won't go into too much detail with this one, as it's limited to only 77 copies. We got a handful, but as with most of these things, they will probably go pretty fast.
tH. is the work of a guy named Taylor Holdgraf, and Afflux is a strange composition for glitch and static and feedback and basically all the parts of music that aren't traditionally music. On the surface, Afflux sounds a bit like someone dragging a needle across an lp, or changing radio stations while driving through a tunnel, but it's arranged and structured into strange little microrhythms, drawn out expanses of super minimal drone, high end sine waves waver and shimmer, chunks of white noise are chopped into stuttering sort-of grooves, bits of feedback transform into what sounds like chirping crickets, some parts the hiss and glitch and crackle are smoothed into thick whirring textures, while other parts the grind and crunch are unfettered, allowing for little jagged bursts of super dynamic buzz and speaker rattling bzzzt.
Very noisy for sure, but structured and arranged in a surprisingly listenable, and surprisingly musical way.
As always, gorgeous packaging, a miniature three panel two sided full color vellum sleeve. And again LIMITED TO 77 COPIES.
We managed to get a small handful of these from a distributor, they're priced super cheap, as the label has since folded, so these are the very last copies we'll ever be able to get, and we have only THREE of these...
We reviewed a handful of releases from Italian post-industrial / dark pop combo T.A.C., all part of this batch of Small Voices releases, along with those albums proper, came this, TH25, a project of T.A.C. member Simone Balestrazzi, which the label describes as: "Hard electro-core, pure rhythmic & synthetic EBM sounds, rumoristic experiments & great filtered vocals." Not sure what 'rumoristic experiments' are, but the rest is pretty spot on. Super pulsing, pounding minimal electronics, skittery and stuttery, with darkly crooned vocals, occasionally sung/spoken, for those of us without deep roots in electronic music culture, it's difficult to make any sort of sonic cultural references, but much of this sounds to us like a more gothic/gloomy Meat Beat Manifesto, if that makes any sense, there's also some references to old Ministry, which is never a bad thing, it's that sort of industrial pound, fused to dark minor key synths, and deep vocals, creating a sort of beat heavy gloom pop if you will, the vibe in many places more new wave or cold wave, minus those step sequenced synths and pulsing beats, but the vibe is definitely dark enough, that this would probably appeal to folks into the whole new wave of dark pop and cold wave electro. We're actually digging this quite a lot!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Kraftwerk songs "interpreted" on the piano, with extensive liner notes explaining Thaemlitz's approach. Quite beautiful, although the Kraftwerk component is not always immediately obvious. One of several now domestically-priced releases from the European electronica label of the moment, Mille Plateaux.
The third in trangressive experimental musican Terre Thaemlitz's series of unlikely piano recitals... Previously he's turned the melodies of both Kraftwerk and Gary Numan into gorgeous, sort-of-ambient piano meditations. Here, completing a twisted trinity of
Wow, 2011 is ruling so far, so much good stuff has come out this year already. Here's one we REALLY flipped for when we saw it was available - the third and apparently final album (bar the inevitable reunion tour!) from everyone's favorite all-elephant ensemble. That's right, the Thai Elephant Orchestra of the Thai Elephant Conservation Center in the jungle locale of Lampang, Thailand. We're huge fans of their other two albums, made both of 'em Records Of The Week, and this one is just as good - or actually maybe even better, 'cause as they say it's a "purist" recording of the Elephant Orchestra, with no human guidance at all, edits, or overdubs. It's indeed all-elephant, with the exception of a Buddhist monk's chanted prayer for the elephant spirit heard on the very first track (also we're guessing a human came up with the song titles). All the music is entirely improvised by the elephants themselves, playing the special over-sized instruments built for them by conservationist Richard Lair and experimental composer David Soldier as part of their project to help preserve these amazing creatures and their ever-threatened habitat. Lair and Soldier just hit record and let the elephants go to it on these ten tracks. They really seem to enjoy expressing themselves, these tracks truly lovely and mesmeric, with all kinds of percussive textures, gently tinkling chimes, occasional crashing gongs or drums, gamelan-like tones, harmonica drones... and it's all remarkably rhythmic, at a stately pace. Beautiful! They definitely know what they're doing, they've got big ears after all, and it's incredible the feeling and careful restraint that they bring to the music they're making (for such large animals especially). We doubt humans could do better. NNCK, Sunburned Hand Of The Man, Kemialliset Ystavat, et. al., you're no match for these elephants... as we've said before, if you didn't know dem wuz pachyderms, you'd think this was some new weird krautrock-inspired improv group, or a reissue of something by the likes of Amon Duul, the Taj Mahal Travellers, or Yahowah 13 perhaps.
For those unfamiliar with the Thai Elephant Orchestra, you're in for a treat! And anyone already a fan will be thrilled too. Previous albums contained a fair number of tracks with humans participating too, so it's nice to have one that's elephant-only, and it's sooooooo good. Utterly, utterly wonderful, both musically and conceptually. How can you not love these elephants?
FYI, a new documentary about the Thai Elephant Orchestra can be found on YouTube, part one is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZHLPrYkpRc
First it was Frogs of North America invading our record bins, then it was Antarctic Seals and Penguins, followed by Insects in Stored Foodstuffs... now it's Elephants from Thailand! Brilliant recordings by non-human, um, sound-artists that we just can't get enough of here at Aquarius. In this case, the elephants are not just making their natural noises, they are indeed playing instruments! You may have read about this project in the New York Times -- when we found out about it we immediately contacted the label and ordered a whole bunch (based also on the on-line sample we heard at www.mulatta.org) and now here they are. These are elephants from a elephant preseve in Thailand who have been trained to play specially-built instruments (many marimba-like instruments similar to the traditional Thai renat, as well as such things as harmonicas, drums, and even a stringed "electric bass"), but they haven't been trained *what* to play, it's all improvised with minimal human guidance! Yet it's definitely music. It was kind of an experiment to find out how the creatures might express themselves, and we'd say it was very successful indeed. If we didn't know these were elephants, we'd think this was a strange No Neck Blues Band recording or something. Imagine a stumbling, primitive hippy folk jam on gamelan instruments, but not one that's random or erratic. The elephants play steady beats, the struck gongs or chimes interspersed with their vocalizations as well. With no overdubs and few edits this is certainly a very impressive recording!
The Thai Elephant Orchestra was dreamed up, and this disc produced, by David Soldier (New York musician and academic) and Richard Lair (American expatriate elephant expert, who advises the Thai Elephant Conservation Center where this project goes on). The two came up with the idea that elephants, being social animals, might enjoy playing music together, and proceeded to investigate... Happily, not only did the elephants enjoy playing, they were good at it, demonstrating that they were able to decide what sounded good (to them) and what didn't.
The booklet features photos and detailed, fascinating liner notes by both men. Here is what Soldier says the criteria was for the construction of the instruments, which were made by New York instrument builder Ken Butler (of "Gravikords, Whirligigs..." fame):
"1. The instruments must be suitable to the elephant's anatomy, which means large instruments operated by the trunk.
"2. The instruments must withstand jungle heat, humidity -- and the elephants.
"3. The instruments should require minimum upkeep.
"4. The instruments should have a Thai sound, because the regular daily audience is Thai, the mahouts would enjoy the music more, and the elephants have heard Thai music all their lives."
Some more great tid-bits from the notes: "The elephants took easily to the harmonica, which sparked the first elephant music fad: one morning I arrived to hear the sound of harmonicas from all over -- from the hills and from the river. The elephants were walking in from the forest playing harmonicas, which they hold easily in the tip of their trunks."
"The elephants didn't seem interested in the bells or theremin. At first they were spooked by the synthesizer keyboard, but later two animals were entranced by it. They disliked playing Ken's reed instruments with a large mouthpiece, or rather, trunkpiece. A mahout told me they were afraid that a snake might jump into their nostrils!"
As sort of bonus tracks, in addition to the forty-plus minutes of elephant improv, there's also some non-instrumental elephant field recordings, several tracks of humans and elephants playing together, and even a few traditional Thai songs played by humans, about elephants.
Sure there's a bit of simple amusement to be found here just from the concept alone, but in actual fact the music these elephants make is, to our ears at least, quite beautiful. We could go on and philosophize about how this project speaks to the relationship between man and animals in this world, but we'll leave those thoughts for you to explore if you chose to check out this album, which we highly recommend! Amazing and wonderful.
Expectations are set pretty high when your band is compared to This Heat, Swell Maps and The Ex, but for Baltimore math rockers Thank You, the comparison is pretty apt.
Over the course of six songs and about 30 minutes, the band unfurl some seriously intricate and dense sonic workouts, forgoing traditional song structure, and instead trafficking in tension and release, repetition and texture, whipping up super repetitive cyclical jams, the guitars alternately jangly and crunchy, the vocals yelped and anthemic, the record opener sounding like a post punk no-wave take on Animal Collective, with long stretches of frantic drumming and swirling droned out guitar.
The rest of the record spreads out, dipping into blissed out tribal psychedelia, motorik minimal krautrock, angular jagged punkish crunch and manic super intense mathiness. Chiming guitars swell and soar over avalanche like rhythms, laced with playful flurries of tinkling melodies, occasionally getting super abstract and dubbed out, just as often slipping into something more gnarled and chaotic, but when the vocals come in, all high and harmonious, the transform whatever is going on into some unlikely psychedelic pop.
Crunchy indie rock explodes into something much more frenetic and frenzied, before slipping into a slithery buzz drenched bit of woozy swirl, only launch into some organ driven psychedelia, noisy and loose, and again the vocals grounding the sound, while the organs and drums do the best to drag everything heavenward, and finally, the record closes with maybe the poppiest of the bunch, the guitars and drums locked in a rollicking tumble beneath the soaring vox, again the Animal Collective comparisons are unavoidable, but those vocals coupled with a sound more angular and jagged and noisy, make this a sort of avant post punk psych pop, that should appeal to modern pop kids, as well as folks who lean more toward sounds with prefixes like post and kraut...
We don't always list each issue of this long running indie (and otherwise) rock magazine out of Brooklyn, but we should... On the cover this time, the Vivian Girls. Inside, interviews with the likes of Best Coast, Fountains Of Wayne, Edwyn Collins, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, The Left Banke, Steve Ignorant of Crass, and members of Iggy & The Stooges (James Williamson and Steve Mackay).
See, various faves both new and old. Note: some of these interviews are, like, parts 2 or 3 of extended sessions, continued from previous issues of The Big Takeover. Plus, there's tons and tons of reviews of records and live shows, an article on D.O.A. and other old school Vancouver punk, short bits on Animal Collective, Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Slumberland Records, etc., and editorials on such subjects as politics, REM, and the music biz (including one about cd pricing in which Andee is quoted in his capacity as tUMULt overlord)... Total page count: 174.
