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Tortoise' first 2 singles (one from back when they were called Mosquito), long out of print and unavailable (not even on the rare Japanese compilations). Thrill Jockey printed just 1000 more of each of these, so they'll be gone too before long. Buy now or cry later. Coming first week of April: Soul Static Sound reissues what may be Tortoise' best single, "Why We Fight."
Another special Record Store Day release, one that we managed to get few extra copies of, for our mailorder customers unable to make it out in person for RSD, a double 7" reissue gathering up two early singles from legendary post rockers Tortoise, in fact, their first two proper releases, both from 1993, the Lonesome Sound 7" and the Mosquito 7", which were released just months before their seminal self titled debut.
And sonically, these five songs definitely point what was to come on that full length, and were the songs that made us go nuts for these guys in the first place. Strangely enough, "Lonesome Sound" is in fact a Freakwater cover, and it's definitely Tortoise at their most twangy, sounding a bit like old Palace Brothers actually, a shuffling, hushed ballad, with just a hint of the group's usual post rock jazziness. The flipside, though, is a bit more post rocky, still woozy and washed out, shuffly and jazzy, but darkly skeletal, with a weird Slint like spoken word, and some dubby melodica wheeze, the gives way to some super minimal droned out bass heavy creep.
"Mosquito" is more 'classic' Tortoise, a shuffling groove, beneath thick swells of smoldering distorted guitar, and all maner of swooped backwards effects, and some dubbed out jazzy horns, while "Gooseneck" gets downright funky, lacing a loping looped bassline, over a shuffling rhythm, and subtle chiming melodies, all wreathed in soft smears of shimmery thrum. Awesome.
And super limited of course, A Record Store Day release that might not be long for this world, so grab one while you can, we've only got a handful left....
Here's the thing. Nobody here at AQ likes this record much. No, we're not trying to be all contrary-like -- we just honestly can't seem to figure out why everyone's wetting their pants over it. Proclaiming it to be the last word on modern music/jazz/post rock/the avant garde/whatever. Now, the record does SOUND fantastic, production-wise. Everyone here loves Tortoise's first two records plus that cool remix one, and there's no doubt they're great musicians. But when you're a post-rock band (and face it, that's what Tortoise is, they'll tell you themselves they're not trying to be jazz), and you decide to add ever more moody layers of complexity and percussive polyrhythms to your sound, and you wanna venture even further into "out" (-jazz!) realms of experimentation -- all that only works if you leave your audience something to sink their teeth into. It doesn't work here. The "funky" elements of this record are pretty cringe-inducing. That said, Tortoise fans that liked TNT may also like Standards, and fans of their first couple of brilliant records will still find a track or two that fulfills the promise of sublime understated melody mixed with subtle groove and lots of texture.
But if we can be allowed to wonder out loud for a moment... This is a band that has everything (and has earned it) that any band could hope for but will probably never get: all the time in the world, access to a state of the art recording studio, talent, a world class producer, a hip successful label, a public clamoring for new music -- with all those wonderful things also comes a responsibility to deliver. There's no rule that every record by every band has to make some huge leap in quality, but c'mon, it'd be nice if the "standards" Tortoise previously set were at least met here. Maybe if you make everything safe and easy and remove the need for sacrifice and exhaustion, the music itself becomes safe and easy. Maybe that's what happened here. But then again, maybe not. Standards doesn't *completely* suck. So... Buyer Beware. The emperor has no clothes. Trust your own ears. Don't believe everything the rock critics tell you.
Rumors of Tortoise's premature lameness have been greatly exaggerated.
Chicago's potentates of post-rock, Tortoise, are back with their first new album in seven years. In the past, we've been fairly wishy-washy about how much we like Tortoise (or don't), but this gets the thumbs up, despite the deliberately unappealing cover art, and equally puzzling choice of cover song (they do a version of "Rock On" by David Essex), both of which suggest to us a Trans Am album, not Tortoise! But in any case we like it, 'cause it's got plenty of the sort of fusion-y, electronics-infused post-rock grooves that we haven't heard since the last Tortoise album that we really liked, with the buzzing, hypnotic "Gesceap", the album's longest track, being a particular highlight among these burbling, languid offerings. And the "Rock On" cover, well, it reminds us what a cool, weird, dub-glam '70s hit that was! Tortoise don't even have to mess with it much, for it to fit right in - they even include vocals, courtesy of US Maple guitarist Todd Rittman. A departure for Tortoise, but it's not the only non-instrumental on this album, by the way - the gentle "Yonder Blue" was cowritten and sung by Yo La Tengo's Georgia Hubley.
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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Take note, this is a very limited pressing of all the tracks from the Tortoise 12" remix series. You've seen the expensive Japanese import cds that have these tracks (and more) but now they're finally at a domestic price. Tortoise is selling these on tour but a few indie stores who order direct from Thrill Jockey have been able to acquire these discs. You can't live a second longer without owning U.N.K.L.E.'s remix of "Djed", really, it's so good. Buy now or cry later.
We've had a sort of love / hate relation ship with Chicago post rockers Tortoise. Their Millions Now Living record will probably always have a spot in our All Time Favorite Records, and the boxset compilation A Lazarus Taxon, collecting all of their early records, is pretty dang tough to beat, but then something happened, and their records just stopped sounding as good as they once did, we couldn't be sure if it was the band, or if it was us, but for a long stretch, we just weren't digging much of what was coming out of the Tortoise camp. That is until the recent Beacons Of Ancestorship, a definite return to form, lots of the classic Tortoise sound was present, but it sounded like the band were exciting to be making new sounds, exploring, pushing and expanding, and we have been listening to that record like crazy, anxious to hear more from the reinvigorated Tortoise. And voila, a new 4 song Japanese import, that totally surpasses anything we could have hoped for, it doesn't really sound all that much like Tortoise, at least the first 2 of these 4 songs, instead, they sound like some abstract super distorted Autechre, all electronic sounding beats, lots of beeps and glitches, streaks of electronic buzz and hum, stutter and skitter, weirdly dubby and groovy, a little electro, the beats dropping out and leaving long lush drones, layered and textural, moody and mysterious, and that's just the first song. The second track is even more far out, a swirling collaged glitchscape, subtly industrial, hauntingly ambient, lush and droney, and meditative and seriously dense and heavy, processed vocals, thick bursts of grinding glitched out electronics, wow. It's not until the third track, that the organic Tortoise sound shows up, but even then, it's a sort of remix, the bands skittery jazzy lope, transformed into a sort of post This Heat workout, complete with that very This Heat hand clap, a similar rhythm, steel strings buzzing, looped and hypnotic and really awesome, especially the second half that features a weird sort of multiple drummer / synth duel. Finally there's the 13 minute closer, a dark, moody bit of post rock, still with that This Heat feel, that same sort of groove, the track shifting from skittery, to jazzy, to almost funky, and finally to blissed out and serene. So good. Even better than Beacons maybe!
If that weren't enough, there are three bonus videos, two live tracks, with Tortoise in more traditional Tortoise mode, and a super stylized music video. Cool!
The first 'classic Tortoise records. Easily one of their best (along with Millions Now Living Will Never Die). Gorgeously melancholic, hypntoic and gently propulsive.
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As this collaborative all-covers effort sets sail, our initial reaction was that it sounds like a bunch of really good musicians taking a cruise together to cut loose and be a little silly after a long career of 'serious' musicianship -- an odd tropical vacation of sorts from their normal proceedings. In the first half of the album there's lots of messin' around with bloopy synthesizers and effects. It reaches its apex of questionableness with their eyebrow-raising rendition of Elton John's "Daniel" and reaches its pinnacle of wild goofiness with the seventh song, Devo's "That's Pep!" From that point The Brave And The Bold (fortunately) settles down into something that more closely resembles the recent Bonnie Prince Billy recordings, but executed expertly by a stellar cast of players. In fact, the interplay between these artists brought to mind the recent pairing of Iron & Wine and Calexico in which Burns, Convertino & co. took on the role of what was essentially backing band for Sam Beam, and 'twas with fantastic results. Don't miss the sobering final two songs -- Richard Thompson's beautiful "Cavalry Cross" and Quix*O*Tic's "On My Own"! That pair are simply terrific and serve as an effective memory eraser for the abovementioned winceful moments. Also included in this eclectic selection of covers are songs by Melanie, Lungfish, Milton Nascimento, Minutemen, and Bruce Springsteen!
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The second remix 12" from Tortoise's TNT album.
From the liner notes: "Konkurrent invited Tortoise from Chicago to contribute some of their hypnotic, catchy instrumental pieces to our series. They gladly accepted and asked The Ex to join them. Both bands began from very different points when constructing songs. The Ex work with dynamics and tension building while Tortoise work at a more introspective and subdued level, adding layers and texture to their sound. Where they meet is in how they work with repitition and introduce very specific atmospheres into their songs."
Fortunately, there's more of The Ex than Tortoise.
We had never heard of Dutch blackened dirge/drone outfit Torture Corpse, before, but we have to say, with a name like that we were most definitely intrigued, and the fact that we first heard about them via a wholehearted recommendation from one half of aQ faves Teeth Engraved With The Names Of The Dead, and if someone responsible for that sort of bleak heaviness and abject ambience says they thing something is scary and heavy and amazing, well, then odds are it probably is. And it only took a few seconds for us to be converted, starting out with some softly caustic crunch, only to shift into a bit of hazy ambient drift, the record then really takes off with TC unfurling what sounds like some buzzing blackened riffage, all droned out and blurred, over a mysterious field of rhythmic glitch, and what sounds like buried vocals, singing in tongues, a textural garble that only adds to the chaos. Almost as soon as you're utterly entranced, TC jettisons all the noise and buzz and crunch, leaving, just a shimmery field of soft chordal thrum, and hushed sonic swells, tranquil and warm and woozily washed out, a blissfuly bit of dreamy drift, with the sounds seeming the grow gradually more distorted, but very subtly so, eventually fading out and leaving a strange and ominous industrial landscape, laced with thick speaker rattling low end, all manner of clatter and crunch, a blurred post apocalyptic creep through some sonic wasteland, slowly building to a lurching lumbering almost doomic blackened trudge, almost like Wolf Eyes doing sound design for a remake of Pitch Black, a machinelike, black industrial ambience that manages to be haunting and heavy, but also weirdly melodic and mysterious. There are strange vocal samples too, wreathed in reverb, draped over strange percolating anti-rhythms, laced with bits of creepy melody, the sounds throughout the tape seem to be constantly shifting, no single song sounds like the next, some are crushingly heavy, others breathlessly beautiful, but they're all woven into something epic, a super cinematic slab of grim black beauty.
Sweet packaging too, intricate designs on both the inside and outside of the heavy cardstock J-card, as well as a printed insert with liner notes and sing titles.
The return of this Dutch drone/dirge/doom weirdo, courtesy of local label Sanity Muffin (their second for the label), and yet another batch of gloriously grim atmospheres, psychedelic power electronics, and twisted avant industrial noise. Like the previous two, it's a dizzying din, with SUNNO))) like guitar heave wedded to garbled, demonic vokills, all wound around streaks of blown out feedback, coruscating guitar noise, and constantly shifting sheets of blurred noise, and somehow, amidst all that going on, some of the sounds seem to coalesce into some sort of rhythm, giving the sound the momentum of some sort of lumbering sonic behemoth. We're reminded a bit of Gnaw Their Tongues for sure, as well as Teeth Engraved With The Names Of The Dead (who turned us on to this guy in the first place), but Torture Corpse inhabit their own bleak corner of this harrowing sonic universe, the tracks peppered with all manner of strange sample voices, moaning, or chanting, crooning or mewling, all the while a black cauldron of sound roils and churns in the background, often oozing into one massive black hole swirl, but just as often, splintering into jagged shards of grey noise and clattery percussive splatter, and in both cases, the sounds are often processed into something else entirely, dense tangles of squelch and glitch, or stuttering fields of hiccupping static, and yet, those processed sounds are still set amidst haunting shimmers, and mesmerizingly psychedelic drones. Sans headphones, it can all sound like a wild, chaotic jumble, and it sort of is, but deep listening definitely reveals a sonic underworld of surprising complexity, a twisted landscape of sculpted white noise, of looped raga-like mesmer, of punishing, head cleaving skree, and of droned out industrial bliss, all woven into something sinister, blackened, brutal and beautiful.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Each one hand numbered in gold ink, the distressed black and white artwork also splattered with gold ink.
A while back we discovered this Dutch dirge / drone outfit thanks to our pals in Teeth Engraved With The Names Of The Dead, and you know when a band like that is raving about something being dark and heavy and bleak and AWESOME, then you best listen, and we did, and we went a little crazy for TC, and were super excited to discover that TC had a new release coming out on one of our favorite labels, Auris Apothecary, who have FOUR different new releases on this week's list (Unholy Triforce, Sitar Outreach Ministry, (((o))) and this one!), and once again, they've pulled out all the stops packaging wise with all of them.
Torture Corpse's Ooru Naito Rongu comes packaged in either grey or green scouring pads held together with metal wire, wrapped in a printed transparent Japanese style obi, sealed with a black wax seal, and inside there are printed inserts. It's pretty dang striking, and the rough scouring pads are a hint at the rough and raw sounds that lurk inside, as this is a way noisier proposition than the other TC we reviewed, starting out with a weird bit of super distorted and totally garbled noise rock, which then transforms into a sort of blackened industrial dirge, before finally slipping into a more black and droney drift, but that drift is caustic and chaotic and noisy for sure, a thick corrosive black sonic smear. And so it goes, the sound a blown out, in the red, speaker melting series of jams, dirgey rhythmic krautrock one second, doomy creep the next, stumbling noise rock heaviness one second, and blissed out crumbling Sunroof! style ur-drone the next, everything here slathered in blacknoise, streaks of hiss and whir and shards of keening feedback, all except the nearly nine minute closer, which is a surprising bit of dreamy droney drift, complete with some strange haunting vocals just below the surface.
This definitely benefits from headphone listening, but either way, like the other Torture Corpse (and the other AA stuff), totally recommended.
LIMITED TO 95 COPIES!!!
Two new slabs of TRUE SHEFFIELD BLACK PSYCHEDELIA!!! Elsewhere on this week's list you'll find a new cd-r from Astral Womb, but this right here is record number two from Torture Gnosis, a duo whose first record seemed to slip right by us, for which we are now definitely kicking ourselves, cuz this stuff is seriously ruling.
Fans of the Frequency Thirteen label, the home of 'True Sheffield Black Psychedelia', and the various TSBP bands we've gushed over in the past: Black Vomit, Dukkha, Rape Rack, Ice Bound Majesty and Skultroll, should probably just stop right here and add this to your cart, but for everybody else, imagine a sort of twisted more lo-fi and sci-fi Expo 70, the same sort of psychedelic bliss out, long expanses of cosmic shimmer, but not rendered in the typical tropes of 'kosmische' music, instead, these are weirdo lo-fi metallers crafting a gorgeous fractured songsuite of intergalactic ambience. Their first record was a much noisier beast, with many of the tracks leaning way more toward a dizzying chaotic confluence of black metal, free jazz, and industrial clatter, but even then, the band would pepper these blasts of blacknoise and tangled metaljazz skree with hushed expanses of druggy drift and mesmerizing shimmer, and for II, it seems the band have jettisoned the blackness, ditched the rhythms, and instead opted for something much more tripped out and tranquil, soft focus swirls drifting weightless through clouds of effects, raga like drones layered into lush swells, all the tones stretched way out, meditative and dreamlike. But fear not, there's still plenty of darkness, with a handful of tracks playing out like soundtracks to some low budget VHS Alien knock-off, and we mean that in a good way, creepy ominous cinematic sprawls laced with weird sounds, is that some creature chewing human bones, or the footsteps of some mysterious figure trudging though some alien graveyard, or a mad scientist in a cave assembling some infernal machine, the synths rumble and thrum, occasionally blossoming into something that sounds more like the music from a seventies planetarium show. Killer stuff. And definitely recommended for all you into the current crop of psychedelic space synth and retro-futuristic Carpenter / Goblin worship who might be up for something a bit more fucked up.
LIMITED TO 50 COPIES!!!
Torus is Adam MacGregor, formerly of technical grind outfit Creation Is Crucifixion. Recorded in 1998 and 2001, 'phlogistics' is a collection of noises ranging from metallic tinkerings to guitar-based feedback excursions.
Those Kruder & Dorfmeister gents - both individually and in tandem - do what they do exceptionally well. And what they do is make ultra sleek, mellow grooves always packaged in an exquisite fashion. Case in point, this Dehli9 double disc offering from Tosca. For those unfamiliar, Tosca is a collaborative effort between Richard Dorfmeister and Rupert Huber which predates K+D by a wide margin. Actually the title of this release was the name of an early (highschool!) Huber/Dorfmeister project.
Disc One is filled with what they're known and loved for... enveloping, downtempo jazzy electronic tracks often with guest vocalists. It's the perfect soundtrack for a long, smoooth'n'groovy night of sipping incredibly steep and stiff cocktails in haute couture fashion. Disc Two comes as something of a surprise - a pleasant one - as it's an altogether different affair. You'd never guess it was Tosca... really. It's a dozen of Huber's piano compositions skillfully produced by Dorfmeister. Totally hushed and minimal!
The first cd will certainly please their old fans, and the second just may garner them some new ones.
Following their splendid Delhi9 double disc from 2003, here's a new one from Tosca... also known as Rupert Huber and the 'D' in the K&D (uh, Kruder & Dorfmeister!)... and to his mum, Richard Dorfmeister. Definitely a name you can trust when seeking finely crafted, sophisticated downtempo music. J.A.C. offers sweeping tracks graced by an occasional French female vocals ("Heidi Bruehl") and a more occasional thumpin' beat ("Superrob"). Ultra elegant and groovy, J.A.C. makes the perfect sonic backdrop for upscale cosmopolitan restaurants, boutiques and lounges.
Richard Dorfmeister (as in Kruder & ...) joins Rupert Huber for his Tosca side project. Downtempo trip-hop anthems for fans of Air or the aforementioned Kruder & Dorfmeister.
Tosca is the solo electronic project of Richard Dorfmeister of Kruder & Dorfmeister who is joined not by Kruder, but Huber! Rupert Huber, that is. Of course, Peter Kruder has his own solo endeavors under the moniker Peace Orchestra. This is the dubbed out mix
Much like the Dead C and Vibracathedral Orchestra, the Belgian trio Toss purposefully seeks to bathe their avant-drone rock in the nervous haze of cable buzzings and various terminal disconnections. For the most part the amorphous terrain is shaped by improvisational meanderings past screwdriving-the-guitar-strings vibrato, gentle guitar strum evolving in the distance, spluttered jazz-rock percussion as in No Neck Blues Band or Jackie-O Motherfucker, sporadic emergence of voices sounding more like unregulated bar room banter than intentionally placed lyrics, and on occasion a groovy Crescent organ blast. Certainly will appeal to fans of Corpus Hermeticum and the sound reminds Andee of Philip Jeck in with its hiccuping rhythms and old fashioned sepia tone haze.
Holy shit! Skullflower / Matthew Bower / Broken Flag / early industrial music nerds rejoice! A long overdue reissue of the debut release from Matthew Bower of Skullflower's solo project Total, originally released on cassette way back in 1986 on the Broken Flag label, and now available on cd for the first time EVER. And it's a monster. Amongst fans of this kind of stuff (which we most certainly are, and we imagine many of you are too), this ranks up there as holy grail sort of stuff, and many folks' favorite Bower recordings ever. And it's easy to see why. Even after all this time, the stuff on Hard + Low, still sounds totally fresh, and way ahead of its time. With new bands today conjuring up similarly mysterious murk, with no idea that Bower was doing the same thing, and doing it better more than two decades early.
Sonically, this is a tough one to pin down, the record begins with a live track, which is essentially a squall of blown out white noise guitar skree, through which can barely be discerned the Sex Pistols' "Anarchy In The UK", but soon even that disappears beneath a barrage of feedback and industrial clatter, it's the sort of noisiness that would have the listener battening down the hatches preparing for the onslaught that must no doubt be coming. But instead, the rest of the record, while still plenty pummeling and brutal, shows a surprising amount of restraint, whether it's the weird pulsating dirge folk noisescape of "Transfigured Night", which transforms skronking horns into bagpipe like bellows, all over corrosive drones and strange detuned guitar strum, sounding not unlike an industrial free jazz version of Amps For Christ, or "Charnel House Revisited", which is a woozy Philip Jeck like turntablescape, all warped loops and crackly records spinning over a strange stuttery beat. Or there's "You'll Get Yours Yet", which sounds like some lost cold wave gem, the guitars stretched out into droning buzz, laced with plenty of strange sonic streaks and tangled melodies, over which a darkly dramatic vocal bellows and growls, a sort of ominous drumless doom and gloom drone-noise creep.
The record's centerpiece is the nearly 14 minute "The Sound Of Music", which is essentially solo piano, super lo-fi, and with tons of echo and reverb, wreathed in subtle swaths of haunting buzz, the whole track rife with weird bits of static and tape hiss, and more detuned guitar buzz. Surprisingly lovely, but at the same time, still slightly sinister. There's a studio version of the opening live track too, which is GORGEOUS, driven by what sounds like organs, but must be processed guitars, tranced out and droney, drifting on a bed of static and hiss and gristly buzz, all manner of strange industrial filigree in the background, but weirdly tranquil, and dreamily mesmerizing, easily one of the prettiest 'noise' jams EVER. And finally, the record finishes off with "Terminator", another tripped out psychedelic samplescape, all looped and cyclical, an early industrial Jeck, unfurling a softly noisy, layered loops, and wrapping them in warm swirls of blunted noise and blurred gauzy thrum. Wow. Absolutely essential.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
An awesome artifact from the apparently now defunct Total. Total was another amazing project of Matthew Bower from Sunroof! and Skullflower. And the sound of Total fell somewhere between the droning crush of SF and the dreamy hum of SR! Recorded in 1996,
Another lovingly produced and beautifully packaged cd-r from the only folks that manage to make us like cd-r's! And of course, limited.
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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Total Abuse, a rare modern hardcore band that isn't afraid to turn their amps up, are back with their first full length since 2011's Prison Sweat, and the first we've reviewed since their debut back in 2007. Excluded is the perfect punishing blend of the passionate fury of '80s hardcore, the bleak crunch of Amphetamine Reptile/Touch & Go noise rock, and the moshable energy of '90s powerviolence. Total Abuse aren't concerned with the progression of hardcore, only with the cathartic release it can provide. Violent, heavy, unrelenting, and one of the better hardcore albums in recent memory.
An utterly punishing onslaught of hateful hardcore and feedback drenched punknoise from this Texas outfit, 27 songs in 39 minutes, opening with what sounds like an unholy union between the Dead C, Harry Pussy and the Brainbombs, a full on, downtuned, stumbling, free noise, avant punk crush, and fuck, we would have been happy if that track stretched out past it's already sprawling 3:51 and filled up the whole record, but as the title suggests, this is just the "Introduction". From there on out it's a full on Black Flag / Void style blowout, blistering hardcore fury, vitriolic vocals, frantic riffing, fuzzed out bass, a wild, unhinged, bloody knuckled, sweat soaked hybrid of eighties thrash punk, grind, powerviolence, classic hardcore and new/no wave heaviness, all blurred into a monster blast of skull crushing punk rock pummel.
This cd collects the self titled record proper and tacks on 15 bonus tracks (!) from their Sex Pig 7" and demo!
Man, they just keep starting 'em younger and younger, don't they? Pretty soon we'll be hearing covers of old punk classics emanating from the womb (which reminds us of that Mr. Show sketch about pre-natal beauty pageants, but we digress...). This Bay Area trio join the likes of Rock Jack, Eyeball Skeleton, The Stinky Puffs, Evil Wicked Warrior, Mark Shit and of course Old Skull in their prepubescent mission to rock you. Total Annihilation are ten year old Eddy Demon on vocals and guitar, thirteen year old Pietro D'Amato on drums and a young at heart 35 year old Dorkmeister Harmoniak on bass. Noggin is their garage/bedroom lo-fi punky rawk debut cd-r which includes four originals and a cover of "I Wanna Be Yr Dog"!
NOW ON CD!!
After two totally kick ass 7"s, these Aussie electro-punks return with a full length that manages to trump them both. Thee Oh Sees head honcho John Dwyer warned us how good this was, and boy was he was right, a killer collision of dark, brooding retro garage punk and vintage electronic new wave, melded into something totally tripped out and irresistible, weirdly krautrocky, spacey and psychedelic. Opener "See More Glass" could go up against Moon Duo for pure blissed out psychedelic hypno-drift, the monotone intoned vox over the pulsing electronic throb and swirling layered buzz, all wreathed in streaks of muted feedback, the sound slipping from crunchy and caustic to muddy and murky, the electronics glitchy and distorted, all draped over a warm, whirling bit of kraut infused abstract psychedelia, like a fractured new wave take on Spacemen 3, peppered with dreamy little synth squiggles, adding a touch of kosmische to the proceedings. Follow up "Retiree" is a bit more straight ahead rock, but even the, the riffing is locked into these droned out arrangements, and the vocals again hauntingly monotone, making even punkier jams sounds tripped out and spacey.
And so it goes, the sound slipping from loose garagey jangle, to super catchy new wave pop, from weird low slung gloomy synth heavy drum machined electropop to old school power pop, from fuzzy hooky downer pop to creepy primitive abstract electronics, from doomy slow core balladry to tripped out psychedelia, all somehow strung together into something cool and cohesive. The pop songs definitely tapping into the classic Aussie post punk of the past a la the Scientists, Hoodoo Gurus, Celibate Rifles, as well as similarly minded outfits like the Wipers, but the magic is in when those two sides mix, the garagey punk jams laced with electronics, and the crunchy synth electronic workouts that seem to be fashioned into something more rock and roll, and even when those bits remain separate, there's something cool about a wild rambunctious jam devolving into a spaced out bit of celestial shimmer before slipping right back into some gloomy jangle. This is most definitely a new favorite!
We went nuts for the last 7" by Total Control, a side project of Aussie garage rockers Eddy Current Suppression Ring (who we just can't seem to get into), that record was a total ear shredding blast of classic old school synth punk a la the Screamers, Nervous Gender etc. This follow up, while still in the same electronic ballpark is somehow stylistically a huge shift, all the punk has been stripped away, leaving 2 tracks of minimal, robotic, old school electro, stripped down and spare, the beats programmed and clipped, the synths woozy and fuzzy, with some Radiophonic Workshop sounding melodies, occasional deep ominous crooning way down in the mix, bits of jangle guitar, some FX drenched vocalizing, but all wound around super sparse and skeletal beats and arrangements, resulting in some strange super hypnotic alien krautrocky robo-funk. Awesome stuff. Definitely time for a Total Control full length!!
The first track on this new record from Aussie new wave garage punks Total Control had us thinking for a second that they had ditched their garage side completely, in favor of going all 'wave all the time, just check out the first sample below. Sure the last record, Henge Beats, was laced with little bits of new waviness, but "Glass" is straight up new wave, sounding remarkably like New Order, all programmed beats, swirling eighties synths, moody, swoonsome melodies, and deep, crooned vox, it almost sounds like it could be some lost gem reissued on Medical or Dark Entries, but fear not, the next track, "Expensive Dog", is all knuckle dragging old school punk rock, a chugging, churning main riff, the vibe swaggery and sloppy, the vocals a mush mouthed bellow, way down in the mix, it's hard to believe it's the same band even, but then in swoops "Flesh War", which somehow melds the two, channeling some synthy post punk via a serious John Hughes soundtrack flashback vibe, a fuzzy riff, a pounding beat, but then over the top, swirling synths, ethereal textures, and the vocals reverting to that new wave-y croon. And so it goes, the band seemingly a little sonically schizophrenic, leap frogging from synth pop, to garage punk, and back again, with plenty of stops in the nebulous region right in between, which for us is really the sweet spot here. Although the more we listen, the more we're smitten by the even weirder, harder to pin down tracks. Like "Liberal Party", which sounds a lot like some actual obscure post punk/pop rarity, replete with angular guitar, kazoo-like buzz and horns! Or the murky electro-pop dirgery of "The Ferryman", which sounds like some lost Flying Nun B-side. Or "Hunter", which is a fantastic blast of swirling-synth, electro-wave bliss out. And while we were prepared for the record to finish with one final burst of bristly punkiness, these guys instead deliver what might be the poppiest jam here, hook heavy, synths galore, a soaring chorus, another nod to the sound of classic John Hughes movie music, and the sort of track that would be all over MTV if it was 1985...
For whatever reason, we could just never get into Aussie garage rockers Eddy Current Suppression Ring. And we wanted to, really, lots of folks we know swear by em, but they just never hit the spot for us. THIS, however DOES, big time. Featuring members of ECSR, Total Control is a modern version of classic synth punk, think Screamers, Units, Nervous Gender, that sort of thing, short sharp furious blasts of pounding angular synth driven punk rock, distorted and snotty and snarky, raw and in-the-red, hooky as hell, the songs averaging about 90 seconds, the verses chuggy and new wavey, the choruses explosive and heavy, shards of synth pop punk crush that totally kick ass. Every time we throw this on we end up playing it like 10 times in a row. Definitely a new favorite. So good that it has us thinking we might have to give the Eddy Current Suppression Ring another chance. But until then, we'll just go ahead and listen to this again. And again. And again...
Another mysterious blast of weirdo Aussie blackness, this one from the awesomely named duo Total Fvcking Darkness, who based on the name and the art and the record title, we would have assumed were gonna spit out some classic Scandinavia beholden buzzing blasting grimness like many of their aQ beloved countrymen, but instead this boy/girl duo kick out some seriously lo-fi blackened doom dirge drone-gaze jams, that sound a bit like blackened new wave via depressive black metal, minus the rasping demonic vokills, this stuff would sound right at home on Siltbreeze, stumbling skeletal drumming, beneath heaving swells of crumbling distortion, and mournful minor key melodies. And hell, on some of the tracks, the vocals are crooned anyway, and then TFD end up sounding like some sort of mysterious lost death rock combo, which is most definitely not a bad thing. Super low fidelity, raw and primitive, and its crooniest and most melodic, this definitely settles somewhere close to Finnish post black metal weirdos Circle Of Ouroborus, that same sort of dour black-wave gloominess. But TFD are definitely a meaner and much grimmer proposition, their sound much more feral and fucked up, and while the band do occasionally get seriously black and blasting and buzzy, even then they still manage to sound less black metal and more sort of like some wildly chaotic blackened gloom punks, the songs all rife with samples too, they're a twisted proposition for sure, and tough to pin down, but we find ourselves digging this quite a bit, and listening to it pretty much nonstop, and we're guessing if you're like us and dig gloomy blackened noisiness, and buzzing lo-fi minimalism, and fucked up doom-gaze dirgery, then Total Fvcking Darkness could be your new favorite band.
Packaged with a full color J-card, and 4 inserts, with different images on one side (including a band photo), while all four can be combined to complete the lyric sheet on the other side.
This head spinning psychedelic collaged freakoutscape is by none other than Total Life, aka Kevin Doria, aka a member of aQ fave dronerockers Growing, but on Ken Bradshaw, Total Life veers well away from the drone and drift of Growing, crafting a totally trippy pulsing sonic barrage assembled entirely from clipped and looped and recontextualized samples of Pet Shop Boys songs. Sounds like it could be a mess, or a play-it-one-time novelty, and it is maybe a little bit of both, but it's also a totally mesmerizing barrage of loops and drones and rhythms, hypnotic and cyclical and repetitive and totally mesmerizing, the sounds swirling and whirling, but always the main beat pounds on and on, some twisted alien dancemusic, the little bits of vocal becomes a strange refrain, the pulsing synths, blur and refocus, wash in and out, the whole sound slowing down and speeding up, blissing out and then snapping right back into a propulsive pound.
It takes a few minutes to let yourself get lost, but once you do, it's pretty fantastic. And the best part, is the sound continues to expand and develop and sprawl and become more noisy and more distorted, until it sometimes sounds like some fucked up noise rock band lock grooving their way through a field of pound and chug, all blown out and freaked out and pretty goddamn great.
Available on both tape and vinyl, the tapes are red and blue polka dot cassettes, and packaged in super thick, silkscreened blue and red J-cards, the lps are housed in eye popping blue and red almost 3D looking jackets. Both are ULTRA LIMITED. And unfortunately, the lps sleeves are all a bit dinged up, mostly bent corners, so be warned, vinyl nerds and condition obsessives steer clear, or just grab the tape!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Total Shutdown. If you live in San Francisco and you've been following the contemporary music scene with even a smattering of interest, you've no doubt encountered this post-emo / screamo hardcore 'art' rock noise band. And it seems that Total Shutdown has been amassing a sizeable audience of ardent followers. And while we weren't all that impressed in the beginning, they have
But TS -are- one of the few local bands trying to kick up a shitstorm of some kind, and for that we salute them. You can't take it lightly since our once vibrant scene is slowly being whittled away to nothing (fewer bands that don't suck, fewer clubs period, jaded show go-ers, etc.) So keep your eye on these kids, 'cause one of these days everything's gonna hit at once, and maybe then we'll be singing their praises, but for now, recommended only for those with iron ear drums, bowels of steel and a not too discerning taste for skronk, chaos and noise.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Totalitar's functionally titled Wallbreaker: 1986 - 1989 is a 30 track long glimpse into this d-beat legend's early output. That's right, more crusty, political Discharge and Motorhead worship from Sweden's finest. If you need a two minute catharsis, this is it. Oh, and interestingly, Totalitar shared some members with AQ-favorite Brainbombs!
Okay, seriously, how could we resist? The band is called Totally Radd. That's Radd with two D's. That's like the rad version of Hott with two T's. The record is called Shark Attack Day Camp, and features eye poppingly garish artwork depicting two kids playing video games in an arcade full of bloody zombies, including one who has been pushed head first through the monitor of another game. Oh and that game just happens to be called Hammer Hamsters. Inside the illustration is of kids in full Lord Of The Flies mode, wearing animal skins and heads, also covered in blood, in a grassy field peppered with dead elks and bears not to mention a huge pile of dead bloody rabbits, not sure how any band would expect to live up to the promise of all this ridiculousness, but somehow Totally Radd do, delivering totally over the top eighties soundtrack, NES, 8-bit keytar, glam rock, dork pop cheesiness that is hilarious and totally dumb, but crazy fun and way catchier and funnier than it has any right to be. But the second we threw this on in the store, we were immediately obsessed, and have been playing it non-stop, much to the chagrin of some people no doubt, but fuck 'em!
If you've been paying attention to the aQ list lately, you may have noticed us referencing eighties training montage music, several records we've gotten in recently have sounded inexplicably like that music, from cheesy VHS tapes, the sort of inspirational RAWK that always accompanies training for the big fight, or the big race, well, this stuff REALLY does sound like that. It also sounds a bit like metallized video game music, it also sounds like a brain damaged Sparks, falsetto vox slip into monstrous demonic vokills or screamo shrieks, total Legend Of Zelda 8-bit sputter collides with chugging metal guitars, super catchy punky pop becomes wild video game music and vice versa, the lyrics are completely silly, about cross dressing, and video stores, and all kinds of random stuff. There are songs named after video games, and we originally assumed those would be covers, but instead are simply songs ABOUT those video games! And speaking of covers, our favorite part might be the bonus 7" that comes with the lp, which starts off with a killer version of Phantom Planet's "California", given a sort of bubblegum synth / electro pop makeover, with vocodered vocals and squiggly synths, wrapped around a Weezer-ish power pop core. Then there's a cool, goovy, broody chunk of ballady electro-pop, a sort of video game Weezer slowdance number, before the awesomely titled "2 8-Bit 2 Quit", which is the most 8-bit of the bunch, sounding like Perry And Kingsley by way of Donkey Kong...
The B side of the 7" starts off with a jam that almost sounds like nineties era black metal, via 8-bit pop nerd dorkiness, brooding and dramatic, with Rob Zombie vocals, which goes right into a cover of Soul Asylum's "Runaway Train" with a very misleading intro that's essentially a pitch perfect take on beginning of "Just What I Needed" by the Cars, before slipping into a dangerously straight ahead version of the Soul Asylum original, with extremely overly dramatic vocals, and a swirly psychedelic synth solo in the middle, but otherwise, a pretty straight rock (piss?) take...
It's all dumb and fun, and falls somewhere on the sonic spectrum between Steven Schultz and that MSG Songs From A Gated Community lp we reviewed a while back, but with more Mario Brothers, more pixie stix, more gratuitous violence, more blood thirsty zombies, more after school specials, more boobs, more masked serial killers, more BMX bikes, more gleaming the cube, more lost boys, more revenge of the nerds, more� well, you get it. GET IT!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
A blast of improvised guitar and drum action, featuring a member of KIT and XBXRX...
