A while back, we reviewed a cd by an SF outfit called Burial Tree, who trafficked in a sort of dusky deserty twang (a la Earth, Barn Owl) fused to a heaving churning mathy postmetal crush (Neurosis, Isis, etc.), well it seems when BT mainman / aQ pal Monte is not doing Burial Tree, he spends his time meticulously crafting a whole different world of sound, under the monicker Time Spent. Four sprawling tracks of haunting rhythmic ambience, sounding at times like Brian Eno jamming with Muslimgauze, especially on the opening track, which unfurls gradually in softly shimmering swells, buried melodies, everything panned and woozily drifting from speaker to speaker, with simple spare percussion surfacing a few minutes in, and transforming the vibe into an almost sort of spaced out dub, we hear hints of African Head Charge too, but Time Spent is much darker, more sonically sinister, the opening track very cinematic evocative of late nights, and cities lit by moonlight, a world in shadow. The second track, the comparatively tranquil/meditative "LaurenClaire", takes the same synth shimmer, but spread it out into soft ethereal billows, more major key, softly sun dappled, a hushed new agey drift, that also finds itself melded to a rhythm, which instead of adding propulsion, seems to add a delicate framework, turning the middle portion of the song into a sort of downtempo shuffle, before drifting into an ether of blurred thrum and field recordings.
"Memories Drift & Fade", begins with a stretch of grey noise static wreathed in sci-fi swirls, before the track blossoms into something blissed out and kosmische, the guitar figures drenched in echo and floating on streaks of spacey shimmer and soft focus cosmic hum, the track, gradually growing less abstract and more guitar driven, the second half sounding like Expo 70 at their most Eno, softly tangled guitar melodies, over swells of prog like synth, all hazy and dreamily druggy, too short even at nearly ten minutes. And finally, the record finishes off with the relatively brief "Warm Chatter", which sounds a bit like one of the more experimental Teenage Filmstars jams, garbled found sounds and random voices, buried beneath a warm liquid swirl of melodic murk and glacial chordal creep, totally hypnotic and mesmerizing, and again, way to brief. Fantastic stuff, and recommended for fans of spaced out kosmische drift, Eno-like new age ambience, and dark, dreamlike dronemusic.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, each one hand numbered.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
I'd be hard pressed to believe that Time's Up has nothing to do with Stock, Hausen, & Walkman, as the outfit replicates the ironic digital cut'n'paste ethos of SHW with surprising ease. This cute little three inch presents a rather nostalgic view of obsolescence in constructing a festive collage of electronic beats littered with samples of early arcade games, Commodore 64 muzak, and Atari bitmap music. "Obsolete" is the science fiction of youth having grown up with Pong, Tron, and Space Invaders. Totally great.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Surely this one will be ending up on the IDM lists in the form of ecstatic hyperbole (probably more so than us!) perhaps more due to the relative obscurity than to the content. Fortunately for us (and therefore for you), we don't have to worry about the obscurity issue as we can get a steady supply of these singles from Orthlorng's label boss - Kit Clayton. While Clayton has had acclaim with his Cytrax label, Orthlorng is a more leftfield venture than the straight techno of Cytrax. Timeblind (aka Chris Sattinger) successfully follows the genre-jumping aesthetic of the likes of Gescom or Lexaunculpt. One track is reminscent of the devistaing low-end hip hop of Techno Animal, the electro fracture of Black Dog, and some quality dubby downtempo electronica. An excellent start to what looks like an excellent label!!!
"Most Eye" is a collection of remixes of one of the more populist cuts "Rastabomba" from the willfully eclectic Timeblind release "Rugged Redemption." Here, Timeblind has enlisted Kid 606, Kit Clayton, and DJ/Rupture to remix alongside the original and three of his own remixes. The original opens this album as a darkened piece of hip-hop futurism, with a relaxed rudeboy toasting in a thick patois that has more in common with the detacted smooth delivery of French rappers like MC Solaar. Accentuated with Chain Reactive dub elements, those thick rhythms recall the brief but noteworthy collaboration between Porter Ricks and Techno Animal. Of all of the remixes, Kid 606 offers the most predictable production as he's mixed out the low-slung rhythmic groove in favor of the dum-dum Rotterdam 909 techno stomps and big Amen breaks. To his credit, the Kid does concede to the original mid-range tempo instead of maniacally reving up the adrenaline as he is oft to do. Kit Clayton turns the original into a thouroughly distressed dancehall hip-hop mix, DSP-dub mangling the original with the Timbaland rhythms behind Missy Elliott's "One Minute Man." DJ/Rupture leaves very little of the original behind a mess of throbbing distortion and kaleidoscopic breakbeats.
Timeblind's "Rugged Redemption" is one of those recombinant albums that has received a handful of praise for rendering a multitude of styles within a singular but multi-faceted vision. Blunted French hip-hop, Chain Reactive techno grit, mirages of DSP
Holy crap is this mind blowing stuff, everything ever recorded by this group of super obscure, early nineties sci-fi death metal weirdos from Missouri, who offer up the sort of bizarre, murky, mathy death metal, we can't ever seem to get enough of. Sprawling, churning, chugging epics, that lurch from doomy death march trudge to stumbling barreling blasts, often devolving into near psychedelic creeps, replete with strange chanted clean vocals, the drums muted and muffled, a furious pulsing pound throughout,comparisons could certainly get made to other sonically similar death metal outfits of the time, but in a way, it seems like death metal doesn't get a fair shake around aQ. It seems to us, that lots of folks who are obsessed with black metal, and doom metal, would fall in love with death metal too, if just introduced to the RIGHT records, or the RIGHT bands, specifically, the weirder, more warped strains of death metal, and it doesn't get much weirder or more warped than Timeghoul, who obviously found inspiration in classic old school death metal, but in crafting their own take, managed to transform the usual guttural grinding heaviness into something almost avant garde. Sure there's the sci-fi aspect, the themes, the lyrics, the imagery, all of which is super cool, but other bands have definitely dabbled in similar imagery, the magic is that somehow these guys conjured up that same sort of arcane experimental sci-fi weirdness with the music too!
Sure the usual death metal tropes are present, furious downtuned riffing, grunted cookie monster vocals, furious blast beats, but the songs are super complex, and not just that, but convoluted as well, blasts stumbling to a near halt, only to stutter weirdly and then careen off in a wildly metallic gallop, or to sort of bliss out completely and shift to a slo-mo creep, and just as often locking into pure tranced out blasting death metal mesmer. And it's not just the structure, or the sound, it's the timbre, murky and muffled, weirdly reverby and echoey, the vocals too, not your typical DM grunt, much more monstrous and weirdly melodic, and when the clean vocals come in, definitely something you rarely here in death metal. There's also some weird almost sing songy grooves, some stretches that sounds like Cannibal Corpse sea shanties, all woozy and bouncy, swaddled in wild tangled shred-heavy leads, we're reminded a bit of the super tripped out early Esoteric records, only if they played death metal instead of doom. Similarly warped outsider sonic thinking it seems.
This collection combines the group's two demos, with a second disc of rehearsals, live tracks, and their very first ever 4 track recordings. The first disc is non stop weirdo sci-fi death metal freak out radness, the second demo dramatically different than the first, trading much of the murk in for a sound that manages to be even more dizzying and demented, SUPER progged out and seriously next level. And while the actual sound is closer to their death metal compatriots, the song structures, arrangements, clean vocals, weird psychedelic stretches, all remain to make sure this is not your normal run of the mill death metal.
So all you death metal phobes, open your mind, you'll likely be rewarded by some seriously twisted and crushing heaviness. We'd recommend Timeghoul along with groups like diSEMBOWELMENT and Gorguts' Obscura as some sort of outsider death metal primer. Fucking RULING!
Worth it for the first disc alone. The bonus tracks are even weirder and more fucked up, due in part to the varying levels of sound quality, the 4 track recordings are murky and muddy, blurry and buzzy, with some super cool blown out effects, and some of the songs, SO good, too bad they never got recorded properly, but they're almost perfect in this form. The live tracks are near Merzbowian in their speaker shredding intensity, and weirdly, the rehearsals sound almost as good as the demos proper. And the crazy thing is, as much as we love the first disc, and we do, a LOT, we find ourselves listening to the second disc even more, fucked up and totally bafflingly brilliant! Includes extensive liner notes, lyrics, the original demo covers, and killer new cover art by metal artist Mark Riddick.
A brief breezy follow up to Timeout Drawer's Nowonmai that we made record of the week a little while back. This six song, 22 minute ep acts as a asort of addendum to the blown out majestic epic loveliness of the full length. Following firmly in the footsteps of fellow postrock pioneers Mogwai, Godspeed and the like, but with their own strange little twists. On the full length it was massive thick fuzzy synths all over the place, on Alone, the synths are sort of moved into the background, while the band sort of explores different sounds, from the perfect quiet loud explosive rock of opener "Man Must Breathe" to the soft circusy shimmer of "Women And Children Line The Rocky Shore" to the strange DJ Shadowy trip hop shuffle of "There's Just An Empty Space". The last three tracks add some angular Slinty riffing, some My Bloody Valentine guitar wash, even some keening vocals, finishing off with the ultra aggressive "The Exorcist" (yes, they're covering the Tubular Bells music by Mike Oldfield!) with fuzzy synth, shuffling stuttering drumming and freaked out distorted psych guitar squalls over some downright metal riffing. Wow!
If there was ever going to be a band to FINALLY steal the slow-building-atmospheric-cinematic-post-rock-soundscape crown from Godspeed! You Black Emperor it would definitely have to be The Timeout Drawer. Sure there's Mogwai, Explosions In The Sky, the Grails, Mono, Silver Mt Zion and about a million Godspeed! side projects, but as good as those bands are, and as much as we love them, we'd definitely be hard pressed to pass a blind listening test. Sure, they all do their own thing, with subtle differences, but there's plenty of times we couldn't tell you if a certain track was a Mogwai song or an Explosions In The Sky track, even with a gun to our head (okay, -maybe- with a gun to our head). Which brings us to Nowonmai by The Timeout Drawer. A quick listen will reveal all the stuff we love about post rock, pulsing hypnotic rhythms, languorous soundscapes, moody melancholia, intricate arrangements, no vocals, slow building epics. What can we say? We love that stuff. But listen a little closer and you'll begin to understand how the Timeout Drawer manage to avoid sounding like just another post rock band. We haven't actually been this blown away by an instrumental rock band since we discovered German post rockers Fuehler (no longer available sad to say) way back when.
Drifting dreamy atmospheric bliss builds and builds beneath fuzzy synthesizer melodies and throbbing propulsive rhythms, before super blown out distorted guitars explode the whole thing into a dense wall of white hot fuzz, a thick slab of rumbling buzzing guitar drone, that then crumbles to pieces and from the wreckage emerges a groovy jazzy shuffle, meandering lazily through a gauzy soundfield of throbbing low-end and barely-there synthesizer chirps. And that's just the first track! Phew. Not every track runs the sonic gamut like that, some just sort of drift along, dreamy and shimmering, some explode with feverish intensity and never let up, but they all manage to be dense and complex and make every part seem totally essential to the whole, no matter how convoluted or how simple they seem on the surface.
Sonically it's the synthesizer really that is the most noticeable addition to the Timeout Drawer's post rock pallet, not that most bands don't use a synthesizer, it's just that the Timeout Drawer use it for everything. Weird warbly melodies, rumbling drones, wild wigged out space rock swoops, every track is laced with that warm synth fuzz, sometimes replacing the guitar or the bass, sometimes just adding more and more layers of sound. Add to that a penchant for unlikely stretches of Calexico-ish deserty twang, pounding metal guitar crunch, bursts of manic angular riffing, lonely moaning horns and even shuffling programmed beats. Programmed beats? Well, that sort of makes sense when you realize the band started out on hip hop label Chocolate Industries when they were more of a post rock / IDM hybrid, and that skittery shuffling IDM sensibility translates strangely well to these brooding epic instrumentals.
Plus how can you not love a band with song titles like: "What Looked Like Morning Was The Beginning Of Endless Night", "Bursting With Tears I Commit To Destroying You", "I Fall So Far And I Fall So High" and "Blue Eyed And FIlled With Horror"!
The kings (and queen) of shitgaze return once again, to prove once again, that none of those wannabe noiseniks can even come close. It's not about your shitty 4-track, or your busted ass equipment, or recording onto a boombox in Mom's basement, it's about songs and hooks, the riffs and the melodies, and TNV have it all covered. The songs rule, impossibly catchy, with weary drawled indie sad boy vocals all tangled up with dreamy girl group la la la girl vocals, the guitars are crunchy and angular, the drums are blown out, in-the-red basement crunch, the keyboard is warm and warbly and wheezy, not sure if there's an actual bass, it's hard to tell since most of these tracks lean toward the trebly, and the production varies, from surprisingly clean and shimmery (on "Martin Luther King Day"), to crumbling and distorted almost everywhere else.
But again, that's all incidental to the songs, which manage to be sort of pop, sort of punk, a little new wave, a bit crusty, all wrapped around unlikely, but irresistible hooks, a few songs get super jagged and no wave-y, and the sound totally suits them, but then there are jams like "Martin Luther King Day" which sound like classic nineties indie rock, albeit a bit rougher around the edges. And the rest of the tracks fall somewhere in between, raw, blown out garage-y new wave-y pop, that easily outshines all the other shitgaze combos, as well as positioning TNV comfortably amidst a similar but parallel scene, the weirdo lo-fi new wave garage pop scene that Thee Oh Sees, Sic Alps, The Fresh & Onlys, Ty Segall and Tyvek all call home.
We LOVE this band!
A brief blast of murky scuzzy garage pop from our latest fave Siltbreeze combo. This 3 piece kicks up a serious racket, a sort of Guided By Voices via The Strapping Fieldhands stomp but with plenty of Dead C skree sprinkled on top. Boy / girl vocals, trashy distorted guitar, the whole sound a fuzzy lo-fi blur, but everything dominated by the ORGAN, big blown out buzzy blast of melody like some long lost Fuzztones organ riff played through a wall of Marshall stacks. So good.
We're obviously not graphic designers, or even all that computer savvy considering it took us a little too long to get the band name joke (hint: it's a font, sort of). Anyway, this newest release on the always impeccable SIltbreeze comes in the form of this here crusty noisy blast of aggro garage scuzz. Maybe the best part is how they got signed to Siltbreeze. A found cassingle, lodged in some sort of street shrine discovered according to the label "on a street corner during our annual litter crusade. Inside the cassette's handmade case was scrawled 'This am band. Good band!' Next to that was a crude drawing of what appeared to be three people playing instruments. It smelled musty and had a real creepy, cultish vibe to it."
I mean, c'mon, how could it not be great? And it sounds exactly how you think it would after that sort of story. Straight from the gutter, to a practice space, some fried mics and a blown out 4-track, and then slapped on a cd. Fuzzy superdistorted guitars, wheezing blasts of organ, splattery drumming, shouted male female vocals, all buried in tape his and amp buzz. Mostly noisy and ramshackle and stumbling through a minefield of Dead C outtakes and broken GBV cassettes, but once in a while, like on "Skull Versus Wizard", they'll whip out a veritable pop gem, a little slice of Pavement, beaten and bloodied and rolled in the mud, but still a sparkling pop gem under all that grit. Speaking of "Skull Versus Wizard", they have other killer song titles too: "Lions And Oil", "Fuck Books", "Fashion To Talk About The Moon", "We Got Rocket" and more. At times it almost sounds like a not-annoying Kim Gordon fronting Gate or the Dead C while they try to record popular indie rock favorites. Fans of the Bunnybrains, Icky Boyfriends, Liquorball and grimey gritty scummy noise pop rejoice!
Yet another blast of fuzzed out, hook heavy shitgaze from these long time aQ faves, who as hard as they may try, can't seem to keep their sound from getting more and more polished, same with their songwriting. Sure it's still pretty rough and tumble, loose and ramshackle, the drumming a little stumbly, the harmonies wavery and woozy, the synths, slipping from simple sing songy melodies, to wild squalls of detuned chaos, the sound still plenty lo-fi, but there's that saying about not being able to polish a turd, well, with these guys it's exactly the opposite. You just can't disguise their perfect pop, no matter how fractured or fucked up you make it, and their core, these jams are pure pop, and catchy as all get out. Reminding us as always of old Sebadoh, Guided By Voices, the early Days of Matador, and the poppier side of the late great Homestead Records. The sound this time is heavy on the boy/girl harmonies, the songs rife with spidery melodies, lots of fuzzy crunch and dreamy jangle, the opening one-two punch of "Sleep-In" and "Telephone Wires" is tough to beat. But then the group get all angular and dirgey on "Y2K2" and as if to prove our point, somehow transform a weird bass heavy tangle of murky churn into something crazy catchy, the female vox drifting over a strange keening snake charmer melody, all wrapped around driving tribal drums, and crunchy jagged guitars. And then it's right back to the crunchy garage pop on "Future With Girls", and then, for the remainder of this all too brief ep, the band toss of one classic lo-fi pop gem after another, culminating in "At The Bars" which might just be one of the catchiest TNV jams yet!
Includes a download code!!
There seems to be two sides to Siltbreeze. The arty noisy side, represented by bands like the Dead C and Harry Pussy, and the fractured pop side, with bands like Guided By Voices, Psychedelic Horseshit, the Strapping Fieldhands (be prepared FINALLY for a cd reissue of SFH's mindblowing classic Discus this year!) and of course, Times New Viking, who sonically have much in common with labelmates Psychedelic Horseshit, but where PH do a sort of post new wave jangle filtered through nineties noiserock, TNV are much more jagged and sing songy, a definite post punk pogo vibe. Less deconstructionist that their Horseshit pals, instead, they just write perfect indie rock jams, but when committed to tape, they somehow turn into something much more raw and intense. Howling teenage noisepop jams that stick in your head as they're destroying your eardrums. Dig past the distorted buzz and lo-fi crunch, and there's all sorts of crazy stuff going on in there, chunks of classic new wave, riot grrl howl, groovy sixties style jangle, furious garage rock stomp, but all wrapped up into something that really only sounds like Times New Viking. We LOVE it.
We only just reviewed the -last- Times New Viking on the most recent list, even though it had been out for a while. And now here we are two weeks later, with a brand new TNV, and it's more of the glorious blown-out in-the-red chaotic ultra catchy pop same.
As it says on the back of the record "Times New Viking play pop songs with guitar keyboards drums." Which is definitely simplifying it a bit. Since they also incorporate a huge amount of NOISE, and feedback, and buzz, and tape hiss, and all manner of distorted blur and skree and howl. That said, this new one is even poppier and catchier than Present The Paisley Reich, and even more buried under thick slabs of crumbling sonic chaos.
But even with all the noise, at it's heart, TNV is definitely a pop band through and through, the dueling boy/girl vocals, the warbly keyboard, the bouncy indie guitar jangle, sometimes it sounds like Superchunk, but if they were on Siltbreeze and recorded all their songs on a microcassette recorder and mastered it with a tin can and twine. They also sound a bit like Mates Of State, but way less polished, way more punishing, thick bolts of high end and dense clouds of hiss bombarding the lilting sweet pop, the bouncy keyboards and crooning earnest vocals. Here and there, the noise drops off a bit, revealing the pure sweet sunshine underneath, but it's quickly swallowed up again, by another wash of speaker shredding buzz and soaring hyperdistorted melodies.
We just can't get enough of this stuff. Pop record of the year contender? Absolutely, and it's still January. If there was ever a band who deserved the sobriquet of 'noise pop' it's definitely Times New Viking. And it certainly doesn't get any noisier or poppier than this. Certainly not at the same time!
Ed Ball, the mastermind behind the headfuck shoegaze genius that is Teenage Filmstars, is not just a master of sonic manipulation and avant audio alchemy, no he's also a POP genius, which in some ways is precisely why Teenage Filmstars was so compelling, for every whatthefuck collage of bizarre sounds, or the dizzying spinout of backwards drums and warped reverse guitars, was some perfect melody, some kernel of absolute classic pop tunesmithery, even at its most obtuse and impenetrable, it was always weirdly poppy, or subtly melodic.
The long running classic British pop combo The Times is the groop in which Ball let his otherwise sublimated pop demons loose, gobbling up every trope of classic pop music from the sixties, seventies, and especially the eighties and the nineties, and spitting them back out as his own brand of primo pop, which sounds quite a bit like some ever shifting, and slightly tweaked fusion of Oasis, Ride, the Happy Mondays, the Style Council, Depeche Mode, Tears For Fears, Pop Will Eat Itself, and the like. But only slightly tweaked. Don't be expecting any freaked out sonic fuckery, or some fractured meta-pop, the Times were never meant to be experimental, they're more like a musical time capsule, for Ball and his cohorts to go skipping through the history of pop music. And to bring back bits and bobs that he then assembles into the Times museum of classic pop. And classic it is. From mod jangle, to new wave synthy groove, to big guitar power pop, to strummy slow jam, to string soaked balladry, to glimmering soft focus shoegaze, no quirky prog-pop, and pretty much every stop in between. And it's not just the sounds, it's the songs, lush and jangly and melodic, hooks galore, catchy as all get out, total retro pop bliss, every song a gem. Another glorious chapter in Ball's long and storied sonic history, or chapters, this double disc reissue consisting of 3 different The Times records, originally released in 1989 and 1990...
Like all Artpop! releases, comes with a huge, somewhat confusional booklet, packed with liner notes and pics, and also includes a bunch of killer bonus tracks!
Hard to believe it's been nearly a decade since we first heard Timesbold, and come to think of it, it's been almost as long since we've heard any new recordings from these guys. We originally discovered them, when aQ fave Greg Weeks was performing in town, and the opening act was none other than Timesbold, whose sound was a dizzying hybrid of mournful dark country dirgery, lush experimental pop, and a certain classic country rock vibe. We compared them to Palace, Songs:Ohia, Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, Neil Young and the Band. And somehow these guys did channel all of those, into something entirely their own.
This record is not new, it's from 2008, and we can't tell when it was recorded, could be even older, and heck, we're not even sure if these guys are still a band, but what we do know, is it's so good to hear them again, and these songs take up right where their self titled record on Blue Sanct left off.
Lush instrumentation, banjo, organs, big guitars, slippery slide, moaning cellos, crystalline harmonics, urgent steel string strum, the drums slipping from shuffle to pound and back again, the sound warm and lush, twangy and surprisingly rocking, a darkened country drift melded to an apocalyptic swamp folk, the vocals super distinctive, emotional and heartfelt, very reminiscent of Will Oldham and Jason Molina (of Songs:Ohia), fragile, often on the verge of cracking, yet still powerful, the songs smolder and brood, occasionally introspective and minimal, but also occasionally explosive and intense, the songs rife with subtle hooks, all the hallmarks of classic country folk, but wreathed in experimental tendencies, and a wide reaching sonic palette. It's a shame these guys aren't more well known, these songs, all of their records, this is most definitely the kind of thing that would inspire some serious obsessiveness in fans of Palace, Souled American, 16 Horsepower, Woven Hand, Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat, Munly, the Decemberists, Low Anthem, Sparklehorse, Giant Sand and other purveyors of dark twang...
Really fantastic!
We had never heard of these folks until AQ fave Greg Weeks came to town with his travelling musical revue (Timesbold in tow) and I have to say I was BLOWN AWAY by this band. How a band could be this good, sound this polished and self assured, share so many
Finally a full length from the amazing Timesbold! We first discovered them as the opening act for AQ fave Greg Weeks last year and loved the shit out of their debut ep. This full length fufills every promise their ep made and then some!! A dark and lonely trip down some very familiar paths, but the scenery is quite different and the company is much better. Taking the mournful, bleak country rock of Palace or Songs:Ohia, the lush melancholia of the Flaming Lips or Mercury Rev, and the classic songsmithery of Neil Young or the Band, Timesbold emerge with something at once totally timeless and classic, but also fresh and unique. Piano and acoustic guitars are the foundation for these expansive and gut wrenching tales of misery and hopelessness. Spare and sparse, evoking wastelands, both physical and spiritual, these tunes are so intense and brutally poignant, furtive peeks into the souls of men damned by love and loss. Breathtaking and intense, dark and dreary, but gorgeously recorded and produced. Thick throbbing low end, wisps of shimmery harmonium and that voice, a warbling, cracked cry to the heavens for forgiveness and salvation. So so good. This is probably the saddest, most beautiful, best sounding record we've heard in a really long time. Fans of Woven Hand, 16 Horsepower, Palace, Songs:Ohia, Souled American and all that sort of rickety, dreamy, country/folk/rock will LOVE this as much as we do.
MPEG Download: "Giniwin" [/audio/timesboldginiwin.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Giniwin" [/audio/timesboldginiwin.m3u]
Lucid dreaming and hypnogogic mirroring of a drift towards unconsciousness. These are the goals presented through the electronic experiments from Timm Mason and Cathartech, two artists operating under the banner of conducting a "Sleep Study" through sound. The Seattle based electronic artist Mason set up his modular synths with a series of augmented circuit patches that he manipulated and modified over a series of 10 nights attempting to find a set that mimicked his own dissolve from a waking state into the earliest stages of sleep. While there is a bed of hushed white noise slowly pulsing like a slightly snoring bed partner above a placidly undulated set of sustained sawtoothed tones, this is not the banal, braintuning drivel of much of the '80s / '90s new age and ambient poppycock. Mason's hand-off patches allow for very slow cycles of squelched blurts and whirring clatter to burst forth throughout the piece. Cathartech on the other hand wanted to work within the liminal state of dreaming and being awake, thanks to a holistic recipe of various chemicals, tinctures, and yes stilton cheese (!!!) that promotes the recall of dreams. Cathartech woke himself up after two hours of deep sleep over the course of several weeks to capture whatever automatic writing may come through him in that state and be recorded through his gear of electronics, contact microphones, etc. By comparison to the electronic sequences and sci-fi rigor of Mason's work, this is far more of an abstracted cauldron of drone, smoke, and dislocation not at all dissimilar to those recent collages from irr. app. (ext.). Limited to something like 60 copies.
After a handful of primarily country-infused solo albums (and countless others with her ol' band the Mekons, not to mention many collaborative efforts), Sally Timms has assumed an altogether new sound and persona for her newest full length, In The World Of Him. And it seems fitting that this release should appear on the broader-scoped label Touch & Go rather that her usual rootsy homebase of Bloodshot Records. We caught a hint of the image transformation from the album's coverart, a photo of Timms (oddly and uncomfortably) scantily clad in clear platform heels and lingerie slip sitting on the edge of a rumpled bed of satin sheets. Whoa Miss Sally! What's going on? And the first song made us go "oh my!" once more. It's a startlingly moody breakbeat driven number with her singing in a very smoky cabaret style. Once we got over the initial disorientation though, we took a shine to this 'new' Sally. As the album's title eludes, all the songs were written by men -- Jon Langford, Kevin Coyne, Johnny Dowd, Mark Eitzel, and Ryan Adams. Fine singer/songwriters all of them, but one thing's for sure, she makes each song wholly her own. The key? Her voice is at its most expressive in years, at once embodying both a comforting warmth and a brittle throaty weariness. For those yearning for the Sally of old, fear not! She does drift back into a more familiar dusky twang further into the album, and sort of weaves back and forth between the two worlds. An impressive reinvention.
Latest blast of garage punk filth from these Detroit weirdos, and at first blush, unlike the noise-rock-space-garage what-the-fuck chaos of their last record, Rise Of The Green Gorilla, this new one, album title Raw Sewage Roq notwithstanding, seems to be a bit more reeled in. It's classic Stooges-y swagger and fuzzed out garage blooze crunch, the opening one-two punch of "Cats On The Moon" and "Bouncing Boobies" sounding more like something you'd hear from some SF garage rock combo, a sound not that far removed from Ty Segall, Mikal Cronin and all the rest, but then once we get to "Monster Walk", things start to go wonderfully wrong, and slip back into something much more warped and tripped out, thick swaths of wah guitar, weird almost Beefheartian vox, not to mention strange bellowed background vox, but somehow, it still manages to be catchy as fuck. Which is pretty much TO's M.O., a wild swirling cacophonous mess, piled atop crazy catchy hooks and indie pop jangle, everything wreathed in super distorted lead guitar shred, and thick buzzing low end bass thrum, often driven by some weirdo vox, just check out the weird punk rock gang vox sing along of "Unhook My Leash", or the almost death metal growls of "Take The Castle", which by the way, might be one of our favorite jams here, a sort of epic near-metal dirge jam, all tribal drumming, and woozy wah wah guitars, the aforementioned vox, all murky and muddy and freaky and psychedelic. And thankfully, the record never lets up, slipping easily from dark almost ballady creeps, to churning garage punk snarl, and from classic fuzz drenched pop to the full bore noise rock garage pound of the title track that finishes things off. So good!
A blurry blast of noise-rock-space-garage-what-the-fuck distorto rock from this Michigan weirdo, the opening track is an in-the-red chunk of amp melting blown out Stooges style riff rock swagger, the vocals in your face, snarling and mewling, while the drums pound, and the guitars swirl and smolder, run through an arsenal of pedals, flanger, phaser, wah wah and DISTORTION, captured on a busted 4 track, totally psychedelic and maniacal and awesome!
That's only one facet of Timmy's twisted sonic Organism, a schizophrenic sound that flits from off kilter garage rock groove to damaged glam trash blooz, to gorgeously tripped out lo-fi dream pop ambience, to crusty ramshackle fuzzed out indie rock, to full on abstract pop experimentation, the whole thing constantly on the verge of collapse, little bits of perfect melody emerging from fierce squalls of noise drenched heaviness, Joe Meek like production wrapped around full on noise psych brutality, Chrome-like sci-fi space rock gives way, to drawled Jandekian reverb bedroom folk, which transforms into some sort of synthwave weirdness, before finishing off with a gorgeous bit of lush epic and majestic indie pop mood music. Weird as fuck, and all over the map, but definitely total bliss for anyone with a sweet tooth for totally cracked pop and unhinged lo-fi noise rock weirdness.
Viktor Timofeev is probably better known as a visual artist, this NYC resident hails from Latvia, and has been making a name for himself in the art world, but he also counts himself a member of electro synth-wave downer poppers Nihiti (whose new surprisingly folky ep is reviewed elsewhere on this week's list) and painted the very distinctive cover of the first Nihiti, his solo record is something totally removed from Nihiti, both the electronic and the folkier versions, on his own, he instead traffics in expanses of layered drones, and looped riffage, of atmospheres and ambience, but active ambience, with sounds blurred and tangled, rhythmic without actual rhythms, the label drops names like Stars Of The Lid, SUNNO))) and Godspeed, and we do definitely hear elements of all of those, it's droney and dirgey and haunting and almost classical sounding in places, but the tracks are super varied, while retaining an oblique cohesiveness, the opener is all dirgey blackened atmospherics, reminding us a little of Blackwolfgoat, looped and layered riffage, lurching and stuttering but super hypnotic, ultra lo-fi, muddy and murky, but the sort of thing we would have been into seeing fill up both sides of the record. The second track is totally different, instead it's lush and shimmery, a dreamlike dronescape laced with streaks of feedback and a haunting distorted melody that runs throughout. The final track on the A side begins with field recordings, birds and running water, all beneath a series of warped and woozy tape experiments, lush chordal swells, repetitive and mantra-like, finally transforming into an almost orchestral looped industrial outro.
The flipside is separated into three tracks, but they seem to be woven into one sidelong epic, a cinematic symphonic landscape of drone and melody that almost sounds like a black metal Arvo Part, droney and dirgery and dramatic, sinister and ominous, the vibe menacing and super intense, the sort of track that broods malevolently, but is totally hypnotic and mesmerizing, the whole side is like a sonic black hole, the listener immersed in the dense deep blackness, until the last few minutes, where the track finishes off with a strange bloopy almost new wavey sounding outro.
Definitely recommended for fans of dark drones and droney darkness, and for sure has us wanting to hear more sounds, and see more art from Timofeev.
Whoa, this first few songs on this new Mary Timony album sounds about as close to her old band Helium as it could possibly get. And in our opinion that is a mighty good thing because although we've appreciated her many solo flights of fancy into fantasylands filled with castles, wizards and unicorns, our hearts still pine for the good ol' college radio solid Helium. On The Shapes We Make, Timony slips easily into each of her different musical guises that she's assumed over the years. Medieval maiden, indie rock firecracker, piano parlor princess, woodland pixie, dissonant axe goddess... yes, she's been all of those and then some. This is one of her best, most well-rounded albums to date! Recommended for old fans and neophytes alike!
For her third solo outing, Mary Timony appears to have slipped away from her previous two albums' land of fantasy themes into more earthbound personal subjects. Ex Hex is certainly much more immediate and direct. The change is a refreshing one and is in many ways a return to her 'old' self. Indeed, some of these songs come closer to capturing the spark of her old beloved band Helium than any of her recordings since that band's demise. We're particularly happy to hear the return of that great bending guitar tone which was such a perfect foil for her distinct winding vocal style. The album balances her majestic side (check out the beautiful "In The Grass") and her more edgy side ("Hard Times Are Hard!" -- yes, the title has an exclamation mark!), effectively drawing together key elements from throughout her career into this one place.
What can you expect from Mary Timony's first solo album? Well, from an initial look over the song titles and lyrics... more mystical tales of another time and place. Painted horses, poison moons, and golden fruit. Musically, many a bent note, deep rough strings, and those oh-so familiar vocals that sweeps from low, almost spoken phrases to prickly falsetto. Not surprisingly, this does sound quite like a Helium album, but here all music is performed by Ms Timony and Christina Files with guests John McEntire and Ash Bowie. As you might expect, the three tracks that Mr. McEntire plays on (especially the instrumental "An-Deluzion") end up sounding a bit like Tortoise and a bit out of place.
Ever since The Magic City (Helium's final album back in 1997), Mary Timony's music has descended further and further into the lair of dragons and castles. Her solo full length Mountains in 2000 was nothing but boggling fantasy tales. Truly a puzzling shift in musical direction that left me scratching my head in perturbed disappointment (and I know I wasn't alone in that department). I mean, after Helium's excellent, twisted pop album The Dirt Of Luck as well as their Pirate Prude and Superball EPs, I was so eager to hear more in the same vein. But alas, it was simply not to be with either of the above-mentioned albums... pixies and unicorns? No, not my cup of tea. And from the looks of the Ms-Timony-as-damsel back cover photo on Golden Dove, I shuddered and almost gave this album an automatic pass. But hold your horses honey pie! It appears this fair maiden has wisely blinked her dewy lash back to her sassy Helium days. Surprise! She's achieved a sweeter balance between her two worlds of lilting indie rock and fantasy chamber pop, although as the album progresses it is drawn back towards the latter realm. Swirling and romantic with an occasional glimpse of her old feist.
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With a handful of Kranky-esque 7's and 10's, Tin Foil Star caught the ear of Staalplaat, who got them to appear on the VRPO radio series and consequently issued this limited edition CD. The first release on Staalplaat (normally known for its obtuse experimentalism) by somebody whose name has floated more within indie rock circles (albeit droning circles). Tin Foil Star here manifests a warm if lonely pop-electronica.
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Blankets of thick analog buzzes and hums weave around more delicate ambient tones, textures and vocals. With its repetitive keyboard melodies, at times this brought to mind a tiny, entranced, mad organist in a very large ancient cathedral. Very textural, melancholic and relaxing. A great follow-up to the Mort Aux Vaches cd on Staalplaat. For fans of Spacemen 3!
There's been changes galore in the world of Tin Hat. Most notably Rob Burger, one of the group's founding members has left the fold. They've wisely recruited the wonderfully talented multi-instrumentalist Ara Anderson (Iron And The Albatross, Boostamonte, Tom Waits) and acclaimed clarinet player Ben Goldberg, and dropped the "Trio" from their name. And they've released The Sad Machinery Of Spring, their fifth luminous album. Tin Hat are frequently categorized as a chamber music group but the music they make reaches out far beyond that genre's borders. They effortlessly and seamlessly incorporate elements of classical, jazz, and a broad spectrum of Americana and international sounds. Excellent.
Fantastic! Tin Hat Trio's fourth album Book Of Silk is composed of fifteen shadowy, haunting instrumentals. Filled with a good deal of intrigue and folly, this is darkly enchanting and deeply moving music seemingly from another time that slowly waltzes its way out of your dreams -- sort of like the sonic equivalent of a film by the Quay Brothers (if you don't know what we mean by this, please track down their films!). A creaking, creeping assemblage of accordion, horns and a multitude of stringed instruments (including harp played by guest Zeena Parkins) that take on a life of their own. Tin Hat Trio's own devoted fans already know the wonders of this group, but admirers of bands such as Dirty Three, Kronos Quartet or early Black Heart Procession will surely also want to take note of Book Of Silk. Oh yeah, and for those like us who have a penchant for whistling, check out the twelveth song! Recommended.
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This cherished local group is comprised simply of languid violin, sprightly accordion and gentle guitar, but what a lovely deep full sound they make. Sometimes they're conjuring up macabre cartoon music, sometimes a dusty waltz, sometimes it's a Kronos Quartet-style light romp through several different moods 'n genres within single tracks. Willie Nelson even guests on one song! If Tom Waits opened a coffeehouse, Tin Hat Trio would be the house band.
- RealAudio clip: Bill
- RealAudio clip: Joel
First we've heard from Tin Man, aka producer Johannes Auvinen, who specializes in a gorgeously melancholy, minor key house music, downcast and skeletal, total morning-after, minimal, come down electronica. You can almost imagine this stuff playing at full volume, through huge speakers in a massive, totally empty warehouse, the floor covered with trampled rave flyers, empty cups, and discarded clothing, a sort of dance music 'world without us', Ode playing like the soundtrack to a series of images of empty clubs, of decrepit spaces, night clubs laid bare in the cruel light of day, the beats, dubby, and murky, the surrounding sounds bleary and hungover, super tranced out and mesmeric, most definitely dance music made NOT to dance to, but instead the soundtrack to an endless night, the listener hunkering down in a dimly lit corner both, waiting for a morning that may never come.
A handful of the tracks here are 'vocal' tracks, which we were quite wary of at first, especially considering that with house music, that generally means some sort of cringeworthy diva vocals, but not here. On Ode, Tin Man delivers his own dour vocalizations, a softly effected croon, deep and dramatic, sung/spoken, way down in the mix, laid back and a little bit wasted sounding, perfectly complimenting the wasted nocturnal house grooves beneath. Maybe our new favorite NON dance music, dance music record...
Wow! The latest from this large ensemble from Mali once again demonstrate that they are one of the best bands anywhere on this planet. Their mix of electric guitars with more traditional acoustic percussion comes just flows so naturally with an effortless grace and style that just seeps into your soul. After their great debut from a few years back and a tour of the states (their show here in SF at the Great American Music Hall is still burned into the memories of those of us who were there that night!) there was of course the natural concern that like much great music from the other side of the globe that finally reaches these parts, that some glossy western producer would try to get their hands on Tinariwen and water them down for mass consumption. Tinariwen actually don't need any of that to reach a broad audience as their songs are so well crafted as they are, and so filled with warmth and emotion that they're pretty impossible not to love. Recorded in just two weeks, there is an urgency and undeniable spirit to these recordings, capturing their sound maybe better then any past recording of them has. Their music continues to exude the essence of the desert and what it means to be a nomadic people. The way they are able to find the perfect groove and lock into it is what sweeps us off our feet every time we listen to this. We would love to see them play shows with Brightblack Morning Light, as Tinariwen's warmth and deep grooves would be the perfect match for Brightblack's infectious take on nomad blissed out blues. This is quickly becoming one of our favorite records of the year, one of those discs that we can just say 'get it' with the utmost confidence. And it won't take you long to understand why!
About time we listed this, people have been raving about this North African band for a while, and this new domestic cd came out last fall...we've been selling 'em pretty steadily but our review slipped thru the cracks until now. So here's the lowdown if you haven't yet heard about these folks. The members of Tinariwen are Taureg, nomadic people from the borderlands of Libya, Algeria and Tunesia. Formed in 1982, the group can probably boast the most interesting circumstances under which they met: in a rebel training camp of Colonel Ghadaffi's while fighting in an insurgency against the Malian government! So it may or may not seem odd that the most distinctive sound they share with another is the lilting electric guitar of Malian guitarist Ali Farka Toure. After 22 years Tinariwen have fused shades of Taureg music with Bo Diddley like rhythms and traditional instruments with electric bass, guitar and drums. Andee thinks the rhythm they keep returning to throughout the album sounds a lot like 50 Cent's "In The Club"!
While the origins and history of this Tuareg nomadic group are so interesting and epic, these days what truly stands out is the amazing records they make. Their last outing Aman Iman, was a bigtime AQ favorite and this follow up does not disappoint.
On each release, Tinariwen tend to ease into their sound with more flow and a tranquil intensity that's very hard to achieve, yet it comes to them so naturally. Their guitars, vocals, hand claps, and percussion all come together to create such a hypnotizing intensely moving musical experience. For sure following blueprints laid down by the late great Ali Farka Toure but truly finding their own voice and signature sound that rings with so much soul and such undeniable authenticity. Tinariwen are one of the few African bands who have managed to slightly cross over into a larger following without losing one ounce of their integrity or musical vision. They truly have crafted a sound that's instantaneously recognizable as their own and it's so awesome that we've begun to hear their influence on lots of American indie bands like Brightblack Morning Light, The Drift, OM, and Wooden Shjips. The album closes with "Desert Wind" which really captures the desolate feeling of sand blowing across the desert sky, a track that most drone acts would kill to call their own. Once again Tinariwen has made a record that we're sure will stand the test of time. Oh, and this also comes with a rad documentary film about the group on an all regions dvd.
Tinariwen have proven to be one of the most dependable and consistently awesome bands on the planet. Each of their records are filled with such soulful desert blues. it was just a matter of time before their sounds began to reach a wider audience, without the group compromising one ounce of their musical integrity. On their debut outing for Anti, they continue to do what they do best. Meditative guitar playing, sweeping rhythms, hypnotic vocals, moments of chant and response, and an overall vibe that that keeps us under its spell from start to finish.
While this album marks the first time big name Western artists have joined them in collaboration, do not fear, if there wasn't a big sticker on the cover telling us this features members of TV On The Radio and The Dirty Brass Band, along with AQ fave guitarist Nels Cline (of Wilco), we really would have never known. That speaks so highly to the amount of respect Tinariwen has received from so many of today's musical finest, as these folks know and respect Tinariwen's sound and vision so much that they just add subtle touches that flow with their sound, instead of trying to inject their own ideas into the sound.
There is more of an acoustic , sparse and dusty feel to Tassili + 10:1 than their earlier records. Yet it keeps intact all the great elements that made us fall in love with them from the beginning. Another awesome outing from an incredible band!
Not exactly a new album proper, but more an anniversary celebration of sorts, Across Six Leap Years finds Tindersticks convening at Abbey Road to re-record an album's worth of lesser known tracks from their illustrious 20 year career. But far from a fans-only affair, this works surprisingly well as an album in its own right. So much so that this particular aQ staffer didn't even realize it wasn't an actual lp until approximately listen number three! For those unfamiliar with Tindersticks, Across Six Leap Years is a sleepy nocturnal wash of lonely xylophones, spacious pianos, gently strummed guitars, and brushed drumming that pitter-pats like rain against a window. Stuart Staples' hushed fragile vibrato lends a weight to the songs that brings to mind the less schmaltzy moments of latter era Roxy Music, while musically the sparse balladeering of Nick Cave's The Boatman's Call or the woozy nighttime lounge of Morphine would be good comparisons. "Marseilles Sunshine" with its twinkling bells and humming violins has an affect that's truly dreamy, like floating over an empty city in the middle of the night. It's all quite peaceful, but lyrics like "I've got memories / I keep them away from me" reveal a gloomy restlessness creeping underneath, while "Say Goodbye to the City" creates a genuinely menacing sensual tension with its slithering bass, blustery horns and shrill female backing vocals. It's not hard to imagine that the patient slumbering drama of Tindersticks might have had quite an impact on relatively newer groups like The National or Antony & The Johnsons in their younger years. Best enjoyed with a bottle of red wine, a crackling fire and a few old memories you've been trying to rid yourself of.
This dvd's title might be a bit misleading for those expecting actual 'films' per se with soundtrack music specifically composed by Tindersticks for the visuals. No, this is essentially a music video collection. Yes, of course videos can be thought of a short films, but.... Anyways, the nine videos on Bareback are sure to make any Tindersticks fan weak in the knees. All were created by someone near and dear to the band, filmmaker Mark Wallace. They're from as early as 1993 ("City Sickness" co-edited by Pulp's Jarvis Cocker) through to 2003 ("Sometimes It Hurts" and "The Art Of Lovemaking"). Most of them were filmed in London and Liverpool, but the one for "Can Our Love" was done in Prague. Not surprisingly, Wallace's visuals are as stunning, elegant and evocative as the band's music. A perfect fit!
The Tindersticks never cease to amaze me. Their unique and heartwrenching sound evolves with each release. "Can Our Love..." is their 5th full length album and the most soulful record to date, taking inspiration from such artists as Curtis Mayfield, Bobby
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Beautiful, lush pop of the most grand & dramatic kind. Tindersticks' deep, slow ballads and velvety songs draw you in. Plus a guest vocal appearance by Ann Magnuson of Bongwater. 'Nuf said. Recommended!
