We're pretty picky when it comes to garage rock/punk, it's really got to be raw, impassioned and at least a little fucked to truly catch our full attention. Traditional Fools blast out the kind of reckless garage rock jams we can totally get behind. Should be no surprise as one of the members of the band is Ty Segall whose solo debut last year was one of our favorite records of the year! Traditional Fools are a bit more on the traditional side of punk/garage rock, but still way blown out, lo-fi and way fun. They cover Red Kross and Billy Childish which gives you a pretty good idea where they're coming from, and this full length really is full of drunken garage rock delights that could have been at home on Crypt or Rip-Off Records back in the hey day of classic garage. Fun and irreverent and totally raw and rocked out.
A co-release by two great San Francisco labels Make A Mess (home to Nodzz, Brilliant Colors) and Wizard Mountain who put out Ty Segall's first cassette. Comes on nice white vinyl and for so cheap. It's a no brainer!
The Traditional Fools were an early group featuring glam garage troubadour Ty Segall, and their sole full length, released in 2008, was a raw shot of noisy garage rock blooze. So here's a companion of sorts, a collection of 7" singles and unreleased tracks, even more raw and lo-fi than the record proper. A gloriously ramshackle and totally trashy surf-scuzz, heavy on the surf this time around, in fact, TF sound like a proper surf rock band here, albeit one that's blown out, gritty and garagey. Plus they cover the Damned, Love, the Mummies, Redd Kross and Gary Glitter!
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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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Inarguably an all-time classic of sixties psych. Peru's Traffic Sound might not be the most famous band from the era, but those in the know, know. At long last we have a cd reissue of their second album, Virgin, a masterpiece recorded in 1969. It's brought to us by the Repsychled label from their homeland, responsible also for that Tarkus reish we raved over a not long ago. And it's about time. Maybe you saw our review last year of the Traffic Sound compilation Yellow Sea Years? It included only one track from this album (the hit single in Peru "Meshkalina") for reasons we can't fathom, except that you'd want the whole thing anyway, and here it is! Psychedelic pop/prog perfection, featuring both dreamy melodies and some freaked out, flutey jazz/krautrock sounding passages, including a dose of backwards weirdness and several tracks of acoustic beauty. They were contemporaneous with better-known American and British acts such as the Beatles, Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, Pink Floyd, and Love, and influenced by the likes of them no doubt. But on Virgin, Traffic Sound make the case for their own spaced-out, groovy, early-prog creativity. And in fact this was the first album by a Peruvian rock band to feature all-original compositions. As albums of the era from Latin America go, this is one of the essentials, particularily if you've been digging, say, Mexico's La Revolucion De Emiliano Zapata, or any of those awesome psych titles from Brazil that we've seen lately...
Repsychled has some interesting packaging notions, this is in a sort of under-sized cardboard digi-folder thing. It seems like each title we get from them is in some different, non-standard sleeve. In any case, for this official reissue they've gone to the master tapes and done a careful remastering job, and the cd booklet is packed with vintage photos and suchlike.
Yeah! Yellow Sea Years is a great collection of tracks from this legendary '60s psych outfit from Peru. We've actually had this in stock since last year and always meant to list it but only got around to it now. Traffic Sound's early influences should be readily apparent from the cover versions that populated their first album, 1968's A Bailar GoGo: Jimi Hendrix, Eric Burdon, Iron Butterfly (nope, not "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" -- they did "You Can't Win"!), and Skip James's "I'm So Glad" (as featured on the Latin American installment of the Love, Peace & Poetry compilation series). Of those debut album tracks, only Eric Burdon's "Sky Pilot" is included here. By the time of their second album Virgin in '69, they'd definitely established their own, wonderfully spacey, groovy and melodic, sound. That brilliant LP is only represented on this disc by "Meshkalina" though this comp takes its name from the epic "Yellow Sea Days" (not included). Following on from Virgin, Traffic Sound continued to explore more mellow, Pink Floydy pop as well as getting into funkier Latin-tinged soul-psychedelia... the latter perhaps being the reason that Vampi Soul has opted to focus mainly on material from the band's third and fourth LPs, Traffic Sound (1970) and Lux ('71), cramming as much of those albums onto this 80 minute cd anthology as possible. And there's definitely some great stuff here! For example, the utter jazz-horns boosted psychedelic grooviness of "Tibette's Suzettes" (with a slightly Ozzy-ish vocal). Badass track that one. Yep, if you're into upbeat, '60s psych-pop rock that draws on prog, folk, and funk, you need to check out the Traffic Sound. Now if they'd only also reissue all of Virgin!
Tragedy are the reigning kings of (underground) U.S. hardcore. Without even a website or a label behind them, they have managed to become an infamous live proposition, a band whose records sell in the thousands, with no publicity other than their devastating live shows, and with a die-hard cult of followers who are absolutely rabid about the band.
Nerve Damage is the third release from this Portland-via-Memphis outfit, whose members have formerly done time in such legendary acts as Deathreat, His Hero Is Gone, Union of Uranus & Copout so you know this is gonna be punishing stuff.
While Tragedy is known for its powerful "D-Beat" (think Discharge via Motorhead) approach to hardcore, on this record they infuse their fat chugging riffs with plenty of melody, but don't think for a second that means they've gotten soft.
The ever present feeling of despair and their furious "will to fight back" is still in full effect, in fact, it's like they've finally learned the art of "the dynamic" and are proving it over and over and over. While in the past their songs relentlessly bludgeoned the listener square in the face with a scream and a riff, Tragedy have mastered the art of subtlety, with sweeping guitars, gorgeous harmonics, and even a bit of piano here and there.
Now if only all punk rock circa 2006 was this good...
The fourth album (their third on Bloodshot Records) from this Chapel Hill, NC quartet is a dark bewitching jewel very much along the same path as their labelmates the wonderful Sadies. Characterized by Melissa Swingle's haunting, lilting drawl, highly reverbed feline pluck and twang, and ghostly musical saw, this is the sultry music of shadows that stretch and creep across your
On this their fifth full length, Trailer Bride offer up a dozen more immensely forlorn songs of journey and flight filled with their recurring references to birds, drifters and heartache. Although none of these songs can truly hold a candle to the pure, deep, raw heartache of "Bird Feet Feelings" from their last album High Seas (a song that could make Cup weep), a couple do come pretty close. No vast departures from the Southern gothic country path they've travelled on their four prior albums, and actually song by song this album follows remarkably close to the mood and tempo swings of High Seas, but things are perhaps ever so slightly more lush and fleshed out. Lead vocalist Melissa Swingle delivers her distinctly sedated plaintive vocals as (mostly) sloooow creeping melodies unfold on the central instruments: Tim Barnes' lilting effected guitar, Daryl White's loping standup bass, John Bowman's understated percussion and Ms Swingle's guitar and piano. She also adds further depths to the dusky, yearning atmosphere with some musical saw, harmonica, organ and accordion. FYI: Trailer Bride received some kind assistance from their fellow North Carolinan friends Southern Culture On The Skids... Rick Miller recorded the songs in his studio, and Mary Huff lent her lovely voice to the song "Vagabond Motel".
Record number three from these local country punks, and the first one we've reviewed, which is weird, since some aQ-ers have long been fans, but also because Trainwreck Riders include amongst their members, Andrew from SF pop gods the Ovens, but while TWR are in fact a bit poppy, their sound is much more twangy, bringing to mind, most obviously, Camper Van Beethoven, Uncle Tupelo, Dieselhed and that whole No Depression crowd. And sure none of those bands exist anymore, and really that whole scene sorta dried up and disappeared, but these guys definitely remind us of why we loved that stuff so much, and have us again wondering why more bands still don't do the whole country punk / country rock thing. It sounds as good now as it ever did. And it's easy to imagine these guys being huge back in the nineties, records on Bloodshot, touring with the Old 97's or the Mekons, but these days, they're definitely doing something WAY outside of what's hip and cool. But goddamn these guys nail it. Big jangly guitars, lush arrangements, loping rhythms, plenty of twang, drawled, laid back vocals, crazy catchy songs, with some occasionally exploding into kick ass start/stop almost mathy breakdowns, like on the second half of "Gypsy Stealin', which finds the band unfurling a dense tangle of progged out twang flecked post rock churn, which somehow fist perfectly with the rest of the songs droned out blugrassy groove.
The band definitely have their pop down too, every song here impossibly catchy, "House On The Hill" being one of our favorites, heavily beholden to Uncle Tupelo, sounding like it could be a cover of some Anodyne B-side, which is a huge compliment for sure! "Orchard Keeper" too, definitely displays a huge UT influence, the song shifting constantly from country gallop to woozy twangy dream pop and back again. But the more we listen, the harder and harder it gets to pick a favorite, as more and more of the songs become potential candidates, which is always the sign of a great record, in fact we only just now made it to the brooding closer, "Shark Attack", a moody woozy reverb drenched country ballad with some seriously grim lyrics about, yep, a shark attack, the music appropriately dirge-y and ominous, a serious chunk of grim dark twang.
The cd comes in a digipak, the vinyl pressed on 180 gram vinyl, also includes a cd version of the whole record!
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From the lead-off track "Delia", Trainwreck Riders come galloping at ya, and they maintain that fevered clip throughout the rest of the album's eleven kick-in-the-pants songs. Where The Neon Turns To Wood is filled with scruffy, whisky-soaked country rockin' that brings to mind the hoarse Jeff Tweedy yelp of Uncle Tupelo, but the band also occasionally veers into more straight-up indie rock territory a la Modest Mouse.
Rejoice! For it is another ugly offering from Florida's Absolute Contempt Records. II comes courtesy of Tampa's Traitor Crucifix and offers up a short sharp shock of blistering d-beat infused metalized hardcore. All static rage, slashes of razor sharp feedback, pummeling drum rolls & anguished screams. The kind of recording that leaves you for dead & is out the door before you even know what hit you. Awesome! Includes a download code!
Alright, Thanksgiving has just passed so we figure we can offically start unfurling the holiday cheer (heck, the department stores started weeks ago!). Let's begin with these New York pop kids Tralala and their cleverly titled Christmas EP Falala-la-la With Tralala. There's no "Little Drummer Boy" nor even the somewhat expected "Deck The Halls" here. Nope, what you get are three Tralala originals "Christmas Never Comes (When You're Alone)", "Holiday Hearts" and "Everybody Christmastime". Sorta like a tinsel-adorned hybrid of The Donnas, Bananarama and The Flatmates.
Psst... if you're looking for more early bird Christmas-y treats, we've also just received Brian Wilson's delightful What I Really Want For Christmas, a collection of old and new tunes. And don't forget Bathtub Shitter's Xmas 3"cd on Andee's tUMULt label!
Do you believe in reincarnation? Well if you do at least musically and fictionally speaking, Tralala are today's Rizzo and the Pink Ladies. Come on, you know who we're talking about don't you? Go on, just give a listen to their latest album and tell us we're wrong. No? You mean you've never seen the movie Grease?! Anyways, these Brooklyn kids really know how to have a peppy, perky, pop party! We don't think it'd be bad at all to be kept after school with them in detention hall 'cause all the good time, bad girl mischief (y'know, smokin' in the girls' room, hangin' out in the parking lot, crackin' your gum in class) would be well worth it.
The bubblegum-y good times are sure hoppin' these days. Joining the pep rally already in progress by the Go! Team, are the seven-member musical bunch known as Tralala! Proving you can't judge a book by its cover, the fashion magazine-y posed photos of the band members in the cd booklet made us expect Brooklyn electro-clash or dance punk, rather than the unaffected, unabashedly youthful, energetic pop contained within. In fact, the super snappy electric guitars and girl-gang harmony vocals of this their self titled debut closely resemble those on The Rondelles' last album The Fox (a particular Cup fave)! Bound to keep the energy of early summer going strong into fall!
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The Belgian duo Trancelike Void have somehow managed to slip through the cracks here, though at least two of us are big fans, but somehow, we've never listed on of their records until now. Which is a shame, especially considering the current obsession with post black metal shoegazers like Alcest, Les Discrets, Lifelover and the like. TV are definitely black metal, but their sound is warm and lush and blissed out, more Sigur Ros or Godspeed than Darkthrone or Immortal.
Which brings us to Where The Trees Can Make It Rain, the latest from TV, which only furthers that sort of non black metal vibe, in that it's wholly acoustic, just acoustic guitars and drums, two long tracks, each, doleful and meditative, dreamy and tranquil, softly reverbed notes ring out and hang in the air, the overtones spinning off into the ether, the drums, simple and spare and skeletal, darkly moody and melancholic, subtly dynamic, building to softy emotional crescendos, only to slip back into a somnambulant drift. Clouds of strummed steel strings hover and slowly dissipate, leaving, stray notes to flutter and fade out.
The two songs here are quite minimal, almost like shadowy sketches of songs that could have been, which is precisely what makes them so appealing, they're hushed and abstract and shadowy, they drift and shimmer, flicker and fade, the sound is lush and organic, but also fleeting, a soft sound, that manages to evoke all sorts of emotional responses, a fleeting glimpse of some otherworld, where these hushed sounds are the soundtrack.
Remixes by Dan The Automator, Prefuse 73, John Herndon (Tortoise), Dabrye, and Jonathan K (Trans Am's sound guy). Three songs off of Trans Am's last studio album, TA, get the treatment ("Cold War", "Infinite Wavelength", and "Different Kind of Love") from these five remixers. That means, in the case of Herdon and Jonathan K's "Cold War" and Dan the Automator and Prefuse 73's "Different Kind of Love", you can compare and contrast the different styles of remix, from dark electro to party-hardy hiphop.
Trans Am keeps getting better, their sound keeps maturing, and they keep surprising us. Rumbling analogue synths, vocoder, disjointed drum beats mixed with Kraftwerk electo beats, strung-out Tubeway Army guitars, just the right amount of emotive distortion, tha funky bass, Six Finger Satellite ass-kickin', cheesey low resolution Apple II cover art. The ingredients of a perfect record.
Imagine a post-rock version of The Darkness. That's kinda how Trans Am started off (hence a name like Trans Am), full of indie irony even as their instrumentals rocked pretty hard. Then, exchanging one variety of '80s kitsch for another, they evolved through a major Kraftwerk phase. Various other avenues have been explored by the band over the years, but they basically remain a Tortoise you can rock out to, or do the electric boogaloo.
Back and broadcasting from our nation's capitol with this kinda politically-themed album (judging by the titles, graphics, and the soundbites), Trans Am continue to kick out the hard-hitting, electro-wired grooves. Heavily rhythmic or synthsationally atmospheric, these 14 tracks oughta do most Trans Am fans right. However, some of the sampling perhaps should have been reconsidered: firstly, the track with President Bush plunderphonically telling the truth about the Iraq war is something we've basically all heard before on the internet, as right-on as their anti-Bush message is. And then what's with the sped-up weather report we're treated to couple songs later? Some of these tracks do sound like they need something added, but sampling isn't it. Real liberation is going to require some new ideas!
The love-'em-or-hate-'em electronic post-rockers' fifth album. Their Vocoder still ain't broken. Over twenty tracks here, including one that I thought was a cover of Black Flag's "Thirsty And Miserable".
For a few years it seemed like Trans Am could do no wrong. Their live shows were legendary, loud and on fire. Albums like Futureworld, Surveillance and The Red Line were some of the best offerings to come out of the post-rock scene for sure. But as the '90s came to end a new decade brought some seriously lackluster releases, including their last and most disappointing outing, Liberation. So when Sex Change came our way we were a bit skeptical. BUT we are happy to report that Trans Am have seriously redeemed themselves with this new record! Their love of vintage prog, '70s rock, and '80s synthesizer glory all come together to create their most cohesive album since The Red Line. At their best Trans Am have always been masters at being both retro and futuristic simultaneously... Pulling inspiration from Magma, Heldon and mid-late '70s Can and crafting a record that cuts out the fat and shows off a revitalized, lean and mean Trans Am.
Second full-length meanders from pretty amazing (if completely derivative) boomin' electro lowrider themes to distortion-happy techno. Way less 'rock' than previous album.
Trans Am unleash their new synth rock assault in the form of TA. And it appears they've really gone and done it... crossed the point of no return. Taken up permanent membership in the league of joke bands. With irony and silliness in full effect, there's no more trying to camouflage it. Although it sounds really great, a total hi-fi quality recording with a good synthy dance sound to it too, musicianship and production values can only carry it so far. This just sounds like an '80s parody utilizing 2002 technology. Geez, the first track "Cold War" sounds just like ZZ Top circa "Legs". I know I'm not alone in totally embracing that decade's keyboard dance music, and welcoming any current valiant attempts at its revival, but come on! Some quality control please! There's an enormous difference between the fun yet vacuous Dead or Alive or Animotion and the brilliance of artists like Gary Numan. Although the term 'new wave' has been bandied about lately with offensive, reckless abandon, distinctions need to be made. Not all '80s music was fluff and cheese! When Trans Am perform live they're a lot more guitar heavy and less synth-laden, and in my opinion sound sooo much better. I wish they could capture that energy on their recordings. Anyways, while I was listening to this and criticising it, some nice customer came in, loved it and bought it right away. Me, I'm extra disappointed that I can't even applaud their band photos this time around as Miami Vice dudes. You may recall their past press shots, so amazingly, so hilariously composed and executed.
There's a wonderful track on this album that sounds just like "The Song Remains the Same."
2010 album from these post rock vets!
We were super stoked on the Life Coach album Alphawaves last year. Turns out Life Coach mainman Phil Manley is also in some band called Trans Am, who have a new album out now too - their TENTH full album, actually, hence the title Volume X (it also has exactly ten tracks on it). Life Coach fans should definitely check out Trans Am.
Joking aside, we've been with Trans Am since the beginning, giving their eponymous 1995 debut the "thumbs up" and lauding such releases as Futureworld as being "perfect"... though we admit that, for us, the band's career has had its ups and downs; however, right now, they're on the up, Volume X providing a varied showcase for a lot of what we love about Trans Am, in particular the trio's talent for making mostly instrumental, heavily synthesized music energized with live band ROCK chops. Their Kraftwerk meets Tortoise meets the faceless new wave / hard rock band from the soundtrack to some '80s VHS tape retro-futuristic aesthetic is in full force, sounding sorta like a post rock version of Neil Young's Trans at times. Or imagine an album of groovy 'library music' from the '60s - the 2060s that is!
Volume X is chock full of spacey synth-splorations, big blurpy electro beats, vocodered vocal mantras, and krauty motorik grooves - the album, as usual for 'em, very rhythmically oriented, but not without some effective doses of emotive melody in the mix (in particular the acoustic guitar laced finale, "Insufficiently Breathless", the song's title a clever Captain Beyond reference, perhaps).
Other highlights include the maniacally shredding "Backlash", which is basically thrash metal done Trans Am style (Manley used to play in The Fucking Champs, remember); the ominous, throbbing distortion shuffle of "Megastorm"; and the lovelorn robot balladry of "I'll Never" (the album's lead single?), to name a few.
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Live stuff, where they excell!!
...can't decide whether it wants to be guitar- or synthesizer-based rock but all things considered this debut album generates a decent wall of sound. The boys of Aquarius give it the thumbs up.
A collaboration between SF math metallists The Fucking Champs and Washington, DC's electronic rock boys Trans Am? The concept sure sounded promising to me. The actual outcome? Well, have to say, somewhat disappointing. Aquarius loves the Champs, and has been a big supporter of both bands, but in all fairness we have to express our true opinions of this particular release. The first song
*** COLLECTIBLE USED VINYL ***
Special Green Vinyl Edition with bonus lp.
Media: VG+ (close to NM)
Sleeve: VG
Sleeves and jackets are solid. Outer slipcover has some minor seamwear and corner wear.
The angular, carnivalesque madness that we love from The Need, applied to the rock opera formula! This is the story of "The Corporation" and their tyranny over the lowly plebs: the "Transfused." Rockin' guitars and synths follow the Transfused through three transformative days as they "encounter new ideas, experience devastating loss, and ultimately find that they possess a power far greater than the Corporation could ever hope to."
Sometimes a pedigree can tell you a lot about a band. For instance, take Transitional. Here's a list of bands the various members have been a part of: Novatron, Head Of David, Jesu, Grey Machine, God, Fear Falls Burning, and if you include the guy who mastered the record, add to the list: Jesu, Godflesh, Final, Ice, Techno Animal, Sidewinder and Napalm Death. Phew! You probably nailed that last one as Justin Broadrick, who does indeed master this second disc from Transitional, and the group does not stray too far from this sonic lineage, as Stomach Of The Sun is indeed intense, drone-y, grim, ominous, noisy, distorted, rhythmic, blackened, atmospheric, hypnotic and HEAVY. Fans of any or all of the above mentioned bands will most likely find this much to their liking.
The record begins with a 13+ minute slow burn guitardrone, that builds and builds, growing ever more intense and caustic, but somehow remaining warm and lush, before stumbling into a lurching industrial Godflesh-ed pound, dirgey and dense, but with a bit of a melodic element, a feedbacky melody draped over Transitional's tarpit plod, totally brings us back to the early Earache / Pathological days, but with a slightly more modern sheen. "In My Collapse" follows up with more rhythmic metallic crunch, this time a bit more dubbed out, a little space-y, like a Godflesh ballad if there could ever be such a thing, which leads directly into "Drowning", a gorgeously washed out doomic drift, spare drums, swirling effects, and lots of streaked longform tones, hypnotic and dreamy. The rest of the record pretty much shifts between those sounds, the more Jesu-y metalgaze drift, the post industrial metallic plod and the dreamlike ambient shimmer, the three sounds rarely remaining totally distinct, instead, constantly blending and mixing, creating gorgeous hybrids, sometimes dense and ominous, othertimes soft focus and otherworldly. "Hideaway" is the best song Jesu never recorded, the title track begins all spaced out and dubby, before introducing one of the most crushing (and weirdly processed) riffs ever, and the record closes with an epic swath of noise drenched free form ambient soft noise drift, that manages to be soothing and serene, as well as intense and haunting at the same time.
Seriously awesome stuff, not sure how we missed out on their debut, but this one is so good we're definitely gonna have to track that one down as well... On limited (naturally) vinyl and cd.
"Core members Mason Jones, Melynda Jackson and Chris Van Huffle of San Francisco's SubArachnoid Space gathered one evening in July 1998 with some compatriots for a night of musical freedom. Th�s event was recorded, but nothing came of it initially and the tapes were misplaced for over eight years. Finally given the attention it deserves, the session was transferred to a better system and improved as much as possible.
The seven songs respectively phases were finally presented under the moniker TRANSITIONAL PHASE in 2007, released on Last Visible Dog - an excellent collection of improvised space and krautrock jams in best SubArachnoid Space tradition."
Every now and then a reissue will come our way that totally exceeds all of our wildest expectations. Unbeknown to us, Swans drummer Jonathan Kane made an ep in 1981-82 with Daniel Galliduani under the name Transmission. This was before The Swans even existed and demonstrates an unparalleled world of east meets west blistering percussive mastery! Imagine LaMonte Young leading a no-wave band with The Boredoms as his players and you'll start to get the idea of how ahead of their time Kane and Galliduani's sonic explorations actually were. With Kane's drumming creating a feverish trance and Galliduani's sax processed toand transformed into some sort of snake charming wall of guitar sound, the two created a relentless 22 minute polyrhythmic excursion that just drips with sweat, life and blazing rhythm. Decades after this recording was made a new wave of no-wavers and sonic explorers like Black Dice, Excepter, Lightning Bolt, Gang Gang Dance and countless others began to explore this same intense sound manipulation, rife with percussive heavy psychedelia, but truth be told this record is pretty impossible to top! In our minds the best record Jonathan Kane has ever made. Totally scorching, wildly creative and rushing wildly through our veins!
Note to bands. Go all out on your cover art. It's really the only thing setting you apart from a record that gets listened to and about a million that don't. And as much as we try to listen to every single record we get, it's just not physically possible. So we almost passed right over this one. The artwork's not bad really, just sort of blah, black and white, a little abstract, but considering how weird and heavy and great this record is the cover just doesn't do these songs justice. Transmission 0 are another one of those bands that are really tough to pin down. They're pretty metal, with super stacatto, chugging riffs, howled vocals, sort of Helmet meets Converge. Thick and almost metalcore sounding. But then there's keyboards everywhere, all over the place. Not right up front, but just a sort of hazy melodic fuzz lingering behind the dissonant riffing or draped like some sort of gauzy curtain across the pounding rhythms. But that's not all, the band will often bliss out and simmer down into some weird reverb soaked moody post rock lope, all clean guitar and almost croony vocals, sort of swirly and krautrocky with heavily affected guitars that sound like they were lifted from a Smiths song, but before you know it, the song might burst into an ultra-aggro head pounding metal riff-down. There's even some stretched out spacious doom all slow motion riffs and plodding drums, that sometimes dirge down to a downright SUNNO))) / Earth-like crawl. There's also a couple downtempo electronic beatscapes, skittery and shuffling, with thick grinding synths and super distorted bass, some kickass Iron Maiden dual harmony riffing, some Godspeed-like dreamy slowbuild epics, and on and on and on. Sounds impossibly confusional on paper (on computer?) but coming through the speakers it sounds divine. Maybe a little bit dizzying in their sonic scope, but we think you can handle it.
We reviewed the debut recording from these metallic post rockers almost three years ago, and spent a good portion of the review talking about the cover art. Well here we are years later, and it seems they took our advice and ratcheted it up a notch. The new artwork is all woodcut and classical looking, a gorgeously drawn stormy sea, all blacks and greys and browns. A look much more mature and dramatic than the cover of their debut, which makes sense as the music here is much more dramatic and mature as well.
When we first encountered these guys, they were all over the map, from groovy Helmet like start stop groove, to Iron Maiden harmonies, SUNNO))) style sludge to epic Godspeed drama, all woven into a sort of metallic post rock framework. Three years down the line and those parts all seem still present, but are much more seamlessly integrated into the music. The core sound is a churning majestic downtuned Neur-Isis like groove, Howled vocals, drop-d riffing, huge pummeling drums, synths too, but used much more judiciously than on the last record (which is not necessarily a good thing, it's part of what made that record so weird). There's also some clean vocals, that croon over the same riffing, giving those songs an almost Faith No More vibe. A few songs drift moodily almost all the way through and end up sounding a bit like the Deftones (not a bad thing btw), but even those tracks eventually explode into Neurosis like crush.
So if you're a fan of the epic and majestic brooding heaviness of bands like Isis, Neurosis, Pelican, and more modern metal/post rock hybrids like Irepress, Angel Eyes, Mouth Of The Architect, Rosetta, Tides and Conifer, and don't mind a little extra moodiness or melody, then Transmission 0 just might hit the spot.
Labels like Minimal Wave and Dark Entries had been chomping at the bit trying to reissue this long sought after slab of weird 'n' wonderful minimal synth pop circa 1981. But it's the German label, Anna Logue who get the prize, putting out Transparent Illusion's album at a time when its sounds are more relevant then ever.
A one man band, Roy Young used his synths and off kilter voice to create music that reminds us of a slightly drunk Gary Numan joining forces with R.L. Crutchfield during the early years of Dark Day. We also hear the blueprints of the sound that would make Mute one of the most successful labels of the '80s. But what makes Transparent Illusion so fucking cool is just how DIY it sounds and feels. This definitely also foreshadows the current wave of weirdo pop peddlers like John Maus, Genevieve Jacuzzi, and Gary War. Dark primitive synths injected with infectious melody and a sinister disposition that feels totally punk in spirit. Weird and fucking cool!
Two new releases this week, from this relatively new world music label, whose past releases have totally blown us away, in particular, a collection of songs from legendary musician, Yoro Sibide, master of the ngoni, a traditional African stringed instrument, but almost more importantly, a donso, one of the traditional hunters of Mali, a mysterious group of men who live separated from the rest of society, the music of the donso, performed to inspire the other donsos for the hunt, epic tales of battles fought and won, lives lost, and worlds gone but not forgotten. Sibide is particularly relevant as both of these new releases on Yaala Yaala are records by student apprentices of the master Sibide, who spent years learning the way of the donsos, as well as of course, the music passed down from generation to generation.
Unlike Toba Seydou, featured on the other Yaala Yaala release on this list, who tracked down Sibide with the intention of becoming his apprentice, Abdoulaye Traore, learned to sing and play as a child, at the foot of his father, who eventually gave up music to return to farming, while Abdoulaye continued on, only to eventually be discovered during a performance, by Sibide, who was so impressed, he specifically requested that Abdoulaye become his apprentice. He studied for years and eventually become Sibide's main accompanist. This cd gathers up his first seven cassette releases, and again like Tora Seydou, Abdoulaye's music bears a striking resemblance to his master's, as well as to Tora Seydou's, the same sort of buzzing low strings, locked into repetitive grooves, looped sounding, repeated over and over, totally trance inducing, the vocals slipping from passionate wail, to hushed croon, the percussion super minimal, each track, a single riff, one part, the percussion and ngoni in perfect unison, in fact, in some ways, Abdoulaye' music is the most hypnotic of the three, the most stripped down and minimal, but equally as passionate and inspiring, spiritual and transcendent, these sounds, this music, is so magical, we could listen to this forever, even removed from its traditions, existing simply as notes and rhythms, these songs still retain the music's history, the blood and tears, the years of struggle and survival, of life and death, of birth and rebirth, imbuing the sound with an ineffable energy, a mysterious power, which is a rarity in most music for sure, and makes these sounds so special.
Two new releases this week, from this relatively new world music label, whose past releases have totally blown us away, in particular, a collection of songs from legendary musician, Yoro Sibide, master of the ngoni, a traditional African stringed instrument, but almost more importantly, a donso, one of the traditional hunters of Mali, a mysterious group of men who live separated from the rest of society, the music of the donso, performed to inspire the other donsos for the hunt, epic tales of battles fought and won, lives lost, and worlds gone but not forgotten. Sibide is particularly relevant as both of these new releases on Yaala Yaala are records by student apprentices of the master Sibide, who spent years learning the way of the donsos, as well as of course, the music passed down from generation to generation.
Tora Seydou Traore became obsessed with the music of the hunters as a child, so much so that when his father sent him out to care for the flock, he would build instruments from old junk and bicycle parts, and play music until his father would find him and beat him. And so it went until Traore went away to school, and then later decided to follow his destiny and track down Sibide, to learn from the master. Which he did, until he graduated five years late, and began to take on apprentices of his own. And of course it makes sense that Traore's music would bear such a strong resemblance to that of Sibide, warm and lush, dark and hypnotic, the buzzing strings locked into looping grooves, underpinned by simple percussion, with Traore's clear, strong powerful vocals, sometimes soaring dramatically, other times more subdued and crooned, often engaged in call and response with a chorus, the melodies spidery and minor key, the sound minimal and muted and so gorgeously trancelike, lots of layered buzz, warm whirling rumbles, minimal percussion, hand drums, shakers, unfurling clouds of sizzle and whir, a haunting cloud of soft washed out buzz wrapped around the tangled low end melodies, Traore's music, and the music of the donsos, so drone-y and minimal, so gorgeously haunting, utterly hypnotic, and so emotionally resonant, truly some of the most fantastic spiritual music we've heard...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This was another discovery after digging around through boxes in the back room of aQ, a little stash of tapes from this mysterious band called Trap Of The Trap. They were accompanied by a letter, saying that the band was done, and that the sender of the tapes was embarking on some sort of journey, and they just wanted to find homes for the remaining tapes. Well, somehow it took years for us to finally listen to these, but when we did, holy shit, we totally flipped. Andee played them on his radio show, and we set about trying to track down the band with the intention of getting more, or maybe even re-releasing these ourselves. As it is, we have about 6 copies of each tape, and regardless of future repressing/reissuing possibilities, these are the only copies left of the tape versions, which are all hand screened, and hand drawn, each one numbered, they're super DIY and look amazing, so if you're a tape nerd, you might want to grab one or both of these quick before they're gone, cuz this shit is AMAZING. And like all the coolest stuff, pretty hard to describe. They list a whole mess of instruments, pedals, guitars, monosynth, keyboards, turntables, drum machine, video camera (!), voices, accordion, harmonica, and more, all recorded onto a 3-track (the fourth track was busted), and all woven into a crazy collection of twisted sonic vignettes.
Reverse Mermaid, which is the first one we listened to, starts out with a hazy bit of Philip Jeck like looped swirl, all dreamy and drifty and woozy, which leads directly into "All Cages Open", which is the track that sealed the deal, a strange sort of minimal krautpsych, crafted from primitive rhythms, layered loops, groovy and mesmerizing, everything in a haze of crackle and static, we've probably listened to that track about 20 times. The rest of the tape is just as cool, slipping from Machinefabriek like melodic minimalism, to spaced out dreamfolk shimmer, and from garbled collaged psychedelia to weird outsider kosmische electronic drift, and lots of other strange stops in between.
Poppin' Street Jams, plays out more like fragments, and sketches, there's churning metallic crumbling crunch, there's hazy swirling cinematic post rock minimalism, blissed out gauzy psychedelic drones, primitive outsider electro, blown out melodic crumble, and again, especially on this record, a ton of other twisted fragments and fractured sonic experiments.
Here's hoping this stuff will resurface in some other form down the line, but for now, your tape deck is essentially worthless without one of these crammed in it. Our favorite new (very old) chunk of musical mystery for sure...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This was another discovery after digging around through boxes in the back room of aQ, a little stash of tapes from this mysterious band called Trap Of The Trap. They were accompanied by a letter, saying that the band was done, and that the sender of the tapes was embarking on some sort of journey, and they just wanted to find homes for the remaining tapes. Well, somehow it took years for us to finally listen to these, but when we did, holy shit, we totally flipped. Andee played them on his radio show, and we set about trying to track down the band with the intention of getting more, or maybe even re-releasing these ourselves. As it is, we have about 6 copies of each tape, and regardless of future repressing/reissuing possibilities, these are the only copies left of the tape versions, which are all hand screened, and hand drawn, each one numbered, they're super DIY and look amazing, so if you're a tape nerd, you might want to grab one or both of these quick before they're gone, cuz this shit is AMAZING. And like all the coolest stuff, pretty hard to describe. They list a whole mess of instruments, pedals, guitars, monosynth, keyboards, turntables, drum machine, video camera (!), voices, accordion, harmonica, and more, all recorded onto a 3-track (the fourth track was busted), and all woven into a crazy collection of twisted sonic vignettes.
Reverse Mermaid, which is the first one we listened to, starts out with a hazy bit of Philip Jeck like looped swirl, all dreamy and drifty and woozy, which leads directly into "All Cages Open", which is the track that sealed the deal, a strange sort of minimal krautpsych, crafted from primitive rhythms, layered loops, groovy and mesmerizing, everything in a haze of crackle and static, we've probably listened to that track about 20 times. The rest of the tape is just as cool, slipping from Machinefabriek like melodic minimalism, to spaced out dreamfolk shimmer, and from garbled collaged psychedelia to weird outsider kosmische electronic drift, and lots of other strange stops in between.
Poppin' Street Jams, plays out more like fragments, and sketches, there's churning metallic crumbling crunch, there's hazy swirling cinematic post rock minimalism, blissed out gauzy psychedelic drones, primitive outsider electro, blown out melodic crumble, and again, especially on this record, a ton of other twisted fragments and fractured sonic experiments.
Here's hoping this stuff will resurface in some other form down the line, but for now, your tape deck is essentially worthless without one of these crammed in it. Our favorite new (very old) chunk of musical mystery for sure...
Trap Them are another band that seems to have slipped through the cracks for whatever, maybe it's inevitable with SO many bands and SO many records, but these guys are seriously kick ass, and definitely deserve some aQ love.
These New Hampshire heavies are a glorious grimy mix of grindcore, crust punk, death metal and dirgey Swans like crush, all woven into a blown out, in-the-red, sledgehammer to the skull. Folks constantly compare these guys to Entombed, Cursed, Converge (whose Kurt Ballou recorded this, and it sounds MASSIVE, impossibly heavy, maybe the heaviest record since that Dragged Into Sunlight we reviewed a few lists back), all of which make perfect sense, the sound here is vicious, punishing, brutal, relentless, a definite D-beat vibe going on, the guitars dense and gnarled, the drums pounding, the vocals a glass gargling howl, the songs slipping easily from frantic punkish blast, to twisted proggy weirdness, to doomy plod and back again, makes us actually think of a supercharged Tragedy or His Hero Is Gone, that sort of metallic punk but cranked way up, with a sound SO heavy and distorted, all the sounds seem a hair's breadth away from clipping, which helps make this stuff sound so fucking fierce. One of our new favorite metal records for sure...
Features some of our favorite Justin Bartlett art yet, not to mention a big booklet filled with solid black pages (!), the jewel case housed in a fancy slipcover, also adorned with some serious Bartlett visual sickness...
We're currently quite enamored with the happenin' Vienna electro-acoustic improv scene -- especially when it involves the participation of two of the folks you'll find on this here Trapist album, Martin Siewart and Martin Brandlmayr. Recently we reviewed Too Beautiful To Burn, the album both Martins did together for the Erstwhile label, a simply gorgeous merging of live improv playing and electronic dronescape processing. Guitarist Siewart also appeared recently on B. Fleishmann's great "Welcome Tourist" album (contributing to that 2-cd set's second, dronier disc). In addition, drummer Brandlmayr you should know from the fractured propulsion he provides in the excellent glitch-rock instrumental outfit Radian. The Trapist trio is rounded out by Joe Williamson, an ex-pat Canadian bassist much in demand in Euro-improv circles these days.
So, what's going on here that's so great you ask? Well, maybe it's nothin' new to take live instruments and feed them into a computer, but both the playing (melodically blissful) and the editing (restrained, spacious) here are stellar. It's a sort of jazz-electronica, very lovely, with mellow moody drones and pretty details. All five tracks are quite wonderful, seemingly abstract yet focused. It's got a lot in common with Siewart & Brandlmayr's duo disc, but is much groovier, not so minimal. Like that record, the coloration of instruments like vibraphone and pedal steel bleed into an electronic, ambient field conjured by the group's synths and computer post-processing. This 2nd album from Trapist finds them on Thrill Jockey, who also put out the only US release by Radian, Rec.Intern, in 2002. There's similar musical methodology at work here -- fans of Radian will assuredly like this -- but Trapist is less 'post-rock'; more gentle, melodic, and electronica-like. Recommended!
Another twisted chunk of archival Rhode Island underground rock from John Dwyer's Castle Face label. A little while back, Dwyer resurrected the weird stripped down Six Finger Satellite offshoot La Machine, whose sound was all minimal stripped down rhythmic punk-dub and psychedelic bunkurfunk, and while the Traps are similarly minimal, their jams falls much closer to the Castle Face 'sound', a murky, churning, distortion drenched, sweat soaked, bloody knuckled, garage rock, that in a lot of ways reminds us of Dwyer's old band the Coachwhips, the sort of band you can imagine playing in some crumbling warehouse, and tearing the fucking roof off. Two guitars, no bass, those guitars jangly and noisy, the sound seriously lo-fi, heavy and gloriously blown out, gloriously Neanderthal drumming, locked into simple pounding grooves, and the vocals, wild and wooly, howled and shrieked, mush mouthed, and belted through what sounds like a damaged megaphone, we were actually reminded a little bit of another Rhode Island outfit, Thee Hydrogen Terrors, but the Traps were way more raw, their sound way more murky and minimal, it's easy to see why Dwyer wanted to reissue this, cuz it actually sounds like the kind of band he would have played in back in the day. So yeah, fans of the Coachwhips, Pink And Brown, the noisier, more blown out Oh Sees jams, and just wild, loose, noisy, blown out garage rock minimalism, this is your shit.
By the way, the album title is also a song lyric, but the vocals and everything else are so distorted that when one of us here heard it (not knowing what it was), he guessed it was some Japanese speed freak garage/noise band like High Rise!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We neglected list this record for a while because somebody had told me that it wasn't that great--well when I finally took a listen to it, I suppose with my expectations suitably lowered, I was surprised to find that this recent Mille Plateaux release was quite excellent. Kind of a combination of Squarepusherish drum'n'bass programming and Restgeraeuschian drone, this seems to be either a compilation or a collective that goes under the name of Trash, all participants hailing from Bristol, England and perhaps recording for a label called No Future--regardless, DJ Decay, Matt Yee-King, J. Lidell, H. Spymania (Spymania? hmmm) and the others credited here have crafted a rewarding listen.
Trash Talk are PUNK ROCK. And we mean punk rock like some howling feral mix of Fucked Up / Converge / Coalesce, that sort of churning almost metallic punk, the guitars MASSIVE and so heavy, the drums pummeling, and TT have killer dueling vox, one a frenzied almost shriek, the other a more melodic bellow, bit together they make the sound super distinctive. And did we mention CRAZY hooky, this is the sort of punk rock no one really makes anymore, the songs clocking in at around 90 seconds, the sort of stuff that would whip up a pit in seconds, but totally sing-along-able, the sound is epic, the production is kind of weird, but crazy LOUD, and the songs are all over the place, sort of proggy actually, some parts just popping up for a few seconds, others grinding away, the sound occasionally metal, sometimes total D-beat, but again, always impossibly hooky, relentless riffing, feedback everywhere, there's a reason folks are flipping out over these guys, we sort of are too, and odds are even though this single is on the short side, you'll find yourself spinning it over and over and over.
Packaged in super thick nice black and white sleeves, with a printed fold out poster / lyric sheet!
