THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Yes, it is stating the obvious; but the AQ endorsed dronologist duo Troum does in fact round out their Tjukurrpa triology with an album centered upon their use of rhythms, loops, and percussive mantras. Given their prediliction for post-industrial sensibilities, sonically represented on their Mort Aux Vache album and in their previous incarnation as Maeror Tri, Troum's ritualist approach toward percussion makes sense. Within the first couple of tracks, Troum condense a tight mechanical loop from a metal bashing clamor in line with Test Dept and early Einstuerzende Neubauten. When Troum introduce their effects laden guitars to those rhythms, they come up with a weird fusion of My Bloody Valentine's heavy-lidded distortion and Throbbing Gristle's rhythmic palette. After these tracks, the rhythms drift into the background where aqueous fluctuations become the foundation for their guitar excursions. Here, Troum are far more successful, where their ominous drones can really take off and rival such dronecore guitar gods as Sunn O))), Earth, Main, and Boris. The percussion returns on the album's finale with considerable more panache than the album's earlier workouts. Looping a simple pattern from a set of hand drums, Troum sweep guitar drones and sublime melodies like the best work of Muslimgauze or Rapoon.
Troum's second installment in their "Tjukurrpa" trilogy is self-evidently subtitled "Drones" (and makes us ask, the first one wasn't?). Since their days in the prolific isolationist ensemble Maeror Tri, the two members of Troum continue to masterfully
For their first full length since 2003, German instrumental organic drone alchemists Troum have teamed up with Nina Kernicke aka All Sides to create one of the most amazing records we've heard in ages. A gorgeously expansive single track, epic and cinematic, dark and delicate...
Beginning life as the guitar based drone unit Maeror Tri, the band morphed into Troum and expanded their sonic palette to include all manner of instruments including guitar, bass, voice, accordion, balalaika, flute, mouth-organ, melodica, gong and even field recordings. Every record since has slowly expanded their sonic universe, but Shutun is a revelation.
The sound is dramatically different from past Troum outings, so one has to assume that Ms. Kernicke has something to do with the new direction. That said, it's impossible to tell who is doing what. This single 51 minute piece is like an organic entity, a living sound, shifting and stretching, subtly changing shape assuming new forms. From the strange processed voices that open up the piece, creating a strange pagan sort of ritual, the voices are quickly subsumed by soft metallic shimmers, that seem to materialize from out of nowhere. A hypnotically looped refrain that glistens and glimmers, the sound is not dense at all, but nearly weightless. Within these delicate shimmers are darkly melancholic melodies that repeat mantra like, creating super intense emotion, and occasional muted bursts of resonant sound, huge billows of metallic rumble like massive bells slowed way down. The result is impossibly lush and dreamlike. cinematic and dramatic. It's like an impossible blend of Oval's Diskont, the blissed out blur of Pop Ambient, and the sepia toned fuzzscapes of Tim Hecker. But Troum and All Sides, take those sounds and blend them into something new and unique, looping certain parts, stretching out others. Drone music can be dark and ominous, but to imbue it with such emotion and such intensity, is a rare thing indeed. About 11 minutes in, the whole piece becomes saturated with some intense minor key miserablism, it's impossible to not get chills, or to imagine the music as the backdrop for some incredible tragedy. The sound of terror, heartbreak, loneliness, it's amazingly powerful. And that's just the first half of the record.
About halfway through the record, the lush sonic backdrop recedes, leaving a slow shimmery landscape of bleak minimal rumble and slow droning swells. The creaking and groaning in the background are definitely reminiscent of the ghost ship minimalism of Nurse With Wound's Salt Marie Celeste. And this portion of Shutun plays out as a similar sonic journey. A creeping musical terror, an endless walk into a grey nothingness. But before everything fades to black, a strange pulsing machinelike throb surfaces, a crumbling, heroin house pulse buried beneath roiling swirls of hiss and creaking ambience. Eventually, the clouds clear, the strange relentless murky rhythm becomes more sporadic and scattershot, and the gloom dissipates, leaving warm muted streaks of color in the sky, with the haunting looped melody from the beginning resurfacing, but just briefly and barely as a not-really-there ghost-like coda. So completely spellbinding.
Packaged in a printed metal canister with a textured paper and silver ink insert.
Christian Renou and Troum are veterans of the post-industrial / avant-garde cassette culture from the '80s, as the members of German drone outfit Troum previously recorded as Maeror Tri while the French composer Renou produced countless cassettes as Brume back then. The two received a commission from Fario to join forces for their first collaboration, which they developed from the weighty themes of melancholia and death. Renou begins the album with a four part solo series entitled "Himmelweg" (Way To Heaven), stretching metallic chimes and musique concrete abstractions into ghostly melodic drones. As grey and rainy as Renou's compositions appear, Troum's expansive ambience on Dissolution is all the more grim, morose, and blackened. Their heavy ominous sounds of guitar, voice, and accordion cycle through doomy melodies erupting over atavistic percussive loops, expressing a far less optimistic outlook on life and death. On the two collaborative tracks with Renou, Troum remix and manipulate source material from Renou's "Himmelweg" tracks, imploding those dreamtime sounds with nightmarish rumblings and subterranean echoings. Troum conclude the album with the darkest track on the album, an extended, all-consuming drone-mantra whose gravity field slowly sucks everything into its monochromatic void. Bleak to say the least.
Few who conjure the dark ambient arts have the credentials of Troum and Raison D'Etre - the former being the longstanding German bass/guitar/fx industrial drone duo with an exceptional track record and the latter being a staple of Cold Meat Industries always seeming to score the soundtracks for crumbled cathedrals wrecked by European decline and weather. Emotional portent is what both of these artists have mustered through their sculpted echo and reverberation flecked with spectral atmospheric melody; and that is exactly what these two produce in their first collaboration. An oppressive misery hangs on these expansive cloaking drones and ghostly ephemera, and De Aeris In Sublunaria Influxu is all the better for it!
The Germanic and dark drone outfit Troum embark on a collaboration with the equally dark, Russian ensemble Reutoff, although the conceptual framework of their album isn't one wholly wrapped in mystery, occlusion, and shadow. Creatura Per Creaturam Continetur is based upon the cosmology of Hildegard von Bingen, the 12th century German abbess, whose richly detailed visions through her unshakeable Christian faith offered feminine descriptions of the cosmic order sprinkled with sexually charged metaphor. In addition to her writings, Hildegard had developed an impressive musical canon of monophonic chorales and plainsong melodies, whose recursive elements certainly look forward to all sorts of drone-based musics of the 20th and 21st centuries.
While the drone connection is easy to make, how Troum and Reutoff view Hildegard von Bingen's faith and art is unclear. Regardless, the majestic swells that immediately surge at the introduction of this album are some of the most beatific and heavensent that either project has produced to date. Troum have always been known for their glacial pacing of drone crescendos for spiralling guitars heavily processed in effects; and on this album, they leave no doubt that they excel at their craft. For those seeking the dark, almost blackened ambience that both Troum and Reutoff have mustered in the past, there's plenty of industrial bellows, clanking rhythms, creepily whispered vocals, and subaquatic reverberations to cast a somber pall across these recordings.
This is a Russian import, and may be very difficult to get back in stock once we sell out of this initial batch.
The German drone ensemble Troum and its predecessor Maeror Tri have been long-time favorites of Aquarius, never failing to deliver powerful recordings of bleak atmospheres densely folded upon fragile melodies. We are pleased to announce that Troum's collaboration with the American dark ambient duo Yen Pox is no exception. Both Troum and Yen Pox rely upon the metaphoric characteristics of the drone to evoke dream like states. Within their prediliction for gossamer melodies from guitars, lutes, accordion, and flutes all buried under many layers of reverb, delay, and other blurring effects, Troum's work fixates upon the language of dreams and hypnogogic states (even their name is an archaic German translation for dream), as something of a semiotic / transcendental escape route from the confines of earthbound reality. On the otherhand, Yen Pox relies upon the hauntings of nightmares to shape the contexts of their drones, often referencing the sci-fi paranoia of black holes or the Gothic invocations of unknown horrors found in the best Lustmord recordings.
On "Mnemonic Induction," the two outfits seemlessly merge their respective sounds into a sublime droning hybrid that thrives on billowing oxygenated washes and delicate melodies floating up from a continuously thundering low-end rumble. Consequently, this album is far darker than anything that Troum / MT has ever done, but provides a greater focus beyond the scope of death-obsessed imagery common within the Yen Pox dark ambience.
This album should not be missed.
This is a preorder, for what might be the most extravagantly packaged 7" we've ever seen, and quite possibly the most expensive. Which is precisely why this is a preorder, as it's incredibly pricey, so we can only afford to get as many copies as we get orders for, and it's extremely limited (only 179 copies!!), and even with the crazy price tag, they're going fast, so if you want one, now is the time to order one, cuz again, we'll only be getting enough copies for the people who actually order them. What's the hubbub you ask? Well have a look at the picture, the record is a gorgeous picture disc 7", pressed on super thick vinyl, and housed in a transparent waterproof plastic die cut sleeve, filled with blue gel and shimmery glitter, which when combined with the picture disc, creates psychedelic underwater effects, it's really quite breathtaking, and considering the packaging, and how few they made, well, that's exactly why they are so crazy expensive.
But it is a record after all, not just an object d'art, and as always, it's another fantastic collection of "guitar drone-muzak" from this German duo, the A side a lush and luxurious, almost symphonic soundscape, all chiming melodies, hazy loops, lush orchestral swells, warm swirling chordal shimmer, very epic and cinematic, sprawling and majestic, laced with strange effects and glimmering electronics. The B side is darker and more minimal, but still hauntingly cinematic, woven from softly undulating drones, dreamy and melodic and a little dirgelike, a slow dramatic build that begins hushed and abstract, but soon blossoms into another miniature soundtracky epic.
As with pretty much all Troum releases, sonically totally recommended, and as for the packaging, well, we've maybe never seen such a deluxe and over the top 7".
Again, this is a PRE-ORDER, which means if you want one, order one now, you will be charged for the price of the record, but it won't ship until later, at which point it can either ship with your current order, or we can calculate the postage when the records arrive, and charge you the shipping then.
While Troum and their previous incarnation Maeror Tri may be familiar to Aquarius customers, the other two participants in this three way split release, Kallabris and Tam Quam Tabula Rasa, are certainly far more obscure entries from the post-industrial, noise 'n' drone community. With loose connections to the anagramatically complex, post-industrial ensemble Cranioclast, Kallabris detaches from most external references with two lengthy cuts of clinical Minimalism, subduing all sounds into purely concrete ambience. Tam Quam Tabula Rasa hails from the Italian scene of industrial ritualists, which has presented outfits like Ain Soph and Sigillum S. The restrained atmopsheres of Kallabris are again present; yet TQTR situates clanging metallic percussion and death-industrial allusions into the perpetual droning. AQ favorites Troum are in top form on their two lengthy tracks which are clearly the strongest amongst the three. With hissing drones, muffled distortion, and bleary reverberations built from guitars, bass, and source material from Yen Pox, Troum again position themselves as the malevolent doppelganger of My Bloody Valentine, with their beautiful guitar drones creeping into empathically haunting and occasionally threatening references. Limited stock!
MPEG Stream: KALLABRIS "Napping" [/audio/kallabrisnapping.m3u]
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Rose de Shiraz is the lovely Deluxe-label debut for Vienna's Ulrich Troyer, who previously released a 3" cd on Mego. Troyer's "experimental electronic pop" music is a blend of quirky, downtempo electronics and actual live instrument playing (guitar, bass, clarinet, sax, percussion, etc.), with occasional vocals from friends in Persian, Kurdish, Italian and other languages. The exotic, globetrotting aspect is enhanced by the inclusion of field recordings from such diverse locations as a bazar in Cairo and a market in Mexico. Some Matmos-like weird sound sources (1000 mg calcium dissolving, for instance) are utilized along with the dance-floor beats and romantic melodies... Cut-up but not chaotic, this is a very appealing album, to file with your Tarwater, Mouse On Mars, Amon Tobin, Matmos, etc. discs.
The jurors for the 2000 Ars Electronica competition were so generous to Carsten Nicolai that they handed down an honorable mention to his aesthetic twin Uli Troyer. "Nok" is the first release by Uli Troyer and is dominated by a simple incremental building of crystalline sinewave tones, quick algorithmic glitch sequences, and slow moving bass booms -- offering a near complete mimesis of Carsten Nicolai.
*** COLLECTIBLE USED VINYL ***
Music from the TRON Legacy soundtrack. Features Daft Punk and Ariel Pink.
Electric blue vinyl.
Media: VG + (looks clean)
Sleeve: Vg+ (minor seamwear on the top)
The "Icelandic Invasion" continues, as Shadoks reissues some more crucial '60s/'70s psych-prog action from that island nation. Last time we highlighted the groovy "hairy funk" heaviness of Odmenn. This time, two more: the sole album by Svanfridur (1972), and this one, the debut from Trubrot (1969). Both bands demonstrate definite Beatles influence, and do so well, but also are quite eccentric in their own right, which perhaps can be ascribed to their Icelandic heritage?
Trubrot at their inception were already basically Iceland's #1 "supergroup", consisting of members of two popular R&B acts, Flowers and Hljomar. Big things were hoped for 'em, they even played for a few weeks in New York City, but they never really broke outside of Iceland, though they did go on to make several more well-regarded albums (which it would be nice if Shadoks would reissue as well). This one got them off to an excellent start, and as we also said about the Svanfridur reissue, we think it would go down well with fans of current Scandinavian psychsters Dungen. It's a mix of pop and prog, with bits of jazz and folk, and besides their own ambitious originals, it notably includes a diverse selection of cover songs, Trubrot doing Icelandic language interpretations of tunes originally performed by The Beatles ("Things We Said Today", to which they've added an amazingly kickass instrumental intro), Jose Feliciano, and The Supremes. And one more, the band's organist having worked up an arrangement of a song from the Richard Wagner opera "Tannhauser", which astonishingly enough got them some grief from the classical music authorities of the day. Ah, the old high brow/low brow battles fought by so many prog bands back then...
Likewise, their originals (also all sung in Icelandic, of course) also range all over the place, from the serious and sombre (in keeping with the Wagner) to much zanier fare, like the "dinner party" sound effects that take over in the middle of "Konopujufirinn" to the 24-second long "Bryjenda Boogie" which in its brevity is basically the boogie equivalent of Napalm Death, we guess. On the opposite extreme is the album ending programmatic nine-minute "Afgangar", a schizophrenic "rock opera" of sorts. Here, and everywhere, Trubrot will go from fuzzed out groove to gentle female vocals to vaudeville music hall numbers to musique concrete... hey why not? We said they were ambitious.
This reissue includes six bonus tracks mostly from a couple 1970 singles, and the cd booklet has lots and lots in the way of liner notes and photos.
Here are the few facts we've gathered about this band Truck and their (apparently only) album entitled Surprise, Surprise: they were from faraway Malaysia, released this rare record back in 1974, and were obviously pretty big Beatles fans by the sound of it! And (less of a fact, more of an opinion) they're pretty rad. Sung in English, the ten tracks here are wonderful pop psych that could have come out of London in '68, by a band like Kaleidoscope... well, except for one element: the unexpected strains of spacey analog Moog synth heard in many of these songs. That helps make this Truck album extra-special. But it would be pretty special anyway, with its blend of dreamy, sunny melodies, lush studio orchestration, and a bit of fuzz guitar riffing. And while seemingly inspired by the Fab Four, Truck aren't just about them. We hear hints of The Who, The Creation, and even Joe Walsh in there just as much as ELO or Badfinger. But of course we'd recommend it to people who like obscure, Beatlesy bands like The Aerovons or Peru's We All Together. Released on cd (supposedly limited edition) by the Spanish label Guerssen, this is one of those cool out-of-the-blue reissues we're always stoked to hear! Nice!!
From the sounds of their rather raunchy tune "Titties", these gals had us wonderin' if they might be horning in on Peaches' sexed-up pottymouth territory. "Yikes!" we exclaimed. And they are in a way, at least here and there, lots of sassy shit kicking tough girl action, and of course plenty of the f-word peppering The Trucks' lyrics, but as a whole, theirs is a much less abrasive and much more endearingly perky approach. Snappy, quirky synth pop / electro / indie jangle with vocals that alternate between pep squad (Go! Team), pre-teen soul diva (Smoosh) and indie popster (Mirah). Lots and lots of girlish fun fun fun! But with a definite dark undercurrent, in both the lyrics and the melodies. Beware to the boys (or girls) who might wish to do them harm, split up the group, or break any hearts. You will be dealt with, in song form: a wicked musical lashing. But even at their darkest and meanest, they still manage to make it fun. Judging from the photos, their shows must be crazy wild and over the top, and while the music is totally different, they seem like the perfect band to share a bill with party black metallers JonnyX And The Groadies!
Latest in the ongoing series of super limited 3" cd-r's, paying musical tribute to H.P. Lovecraft. Past installments have come courtesy of UK avant black metaller Caina, Appalachian heathen metal horde Harvist, black noise occultists LVTHN, Kentucky one man USBM outfit Sapthuran, blackened French metal combo Smohalla, legendary Italian dark metallers Frostmoon Eclipse, aQ faves, Texan black metal Lovecraft worshipper Brown Jenkins, Frostmoon Eclipse side project Stroszek, and now, Italy's The True Endless, whose split with Angmar was a big favorite around here (we still have a few copies, just ask), and whose sound we described as buzzing black Mayhem worship, and very little has changed, the guitars buzz maniacally, the drums pound relentlessly, the songs are epic and majestic, blazing and frenzied, but often slowing down into churning chugging stretches of lumbering doom, before exploding back into another burst of frenetic Norwegian style classic blackness.
The True Endless here sound a bit like some weird hybrid of Khold and newer Funeral Mist, with midtempo almost-grooves, killer stuttery start stop arrangements, some super intense and epically anguished guttural vokills, woozy melodic guitar melodies, all wrapped in a gauzy blurred black buzz production, and surrounded on all sides by furious bouts of blown out blasting blackness. Awesome.
LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES, we got 20, and can't get more, so grab one quick, cuz these always disappear right quick. Packaged in a slim jewel case, with a 4 panel booklet and a thick card insert with a photo of Lovecraft on one side and an essay on the other. And it's always worth mentioning, that TTE bassplayer Soulfucker, is still quite possibly the foxiest babe in black metal...
On The last list, we reviewed the very UN-pop punky #Poppunk release from L.A.'s kraut-rap nerds True Neutral Crew, which features members of drum driven noise rockers Foot Village and Daveed Diggs of Clipping. (also more recently of historical hip hop Broadway musical Hamilton). #Monsanto is another sprawling experimental dive into some fractured form of hip hop, that is only really only tangentially rap, the title track is a sprawling nearly nine minute blowout, that is constantly shifting gears, tribal live drums (the whole album is all live drums too!) pounding over swirling synths, tinkling chimes, playful melodies, a stretch of grey noise drone, before dropping into some loping hip hop groovery, only to get all super abstract again, before TNC introduce their secret weapon, nerdy art rock vox, the song splintering into a frenetic angular noise-punk workout. That angular nerdery is all over the other tracks, from the hazy, low slung drift of "X-Files Clan", which features a pretty sweet Diggs verse, in-between more nerd-hop and some swirly new aginess, to the Boredoms meets beatbox nerd-rap of "I Guess", all chaotic and crunchy, with some wicked female flow in the second half.
The cassette also tacks on True Neutral Crew's debut single, which includes a collaboration with Lightning Bolt's Brian Chippendale, which means, yup, MORE DRUMS. Fuck yeah.
One of three slabs of weirdo cassette hip hop on this week's list (elsewhere check out Signor Bendick The Moor and Abdu Ali), this the first we've reviewed from this art punk / noise-hop crew from LA which just so happens to be made up of members of damaged drum collective Foot Village, rapper Daveed Diggs from avant hip hop aQ faves Clipping. and prog-hop / krauthop MC Signor Benedick The Moor. If that sounds like a weird mix, it definitely is, and it plays out as weird as it sounds, with wild squalls of psychedelic hip hop, with some killer flows from both Diggs and SBtM, coupled with quirky nerd pop, that sounds sorta new wavy, a little bit like nineties bedroom indie pop, with vocals that sound like Devo via K Records. Some WTF happening for sure, but it's pretty rad, and unlike ANYthing you've heard. The rest of the jams deliver equally baffling outsider brilliance, acoustic guitars wound around bouncy mechanical beats, those nerdy vox surface throughout, reminding us of aQ outsider staple Steven Schultz, while the rappers get weird too, sometimes killing it on a verse, other times devolving into silly falsettos, and ridiculous sing song singalongs.
And the production, for all its goofiness, is pretty fucking spot on, crunchy and crumbly in places, dark and droney in others, lurching deftly from ominous throb, to dorky groove, to noisy, chaotic clatter, to full on slowcore indie pop (yup). Some strange stuff for sure, and maybe an acquired taste, but for those into WTF, outsider, weirdness, WAY recommended.
SUPER LIMITED!!! These are likely the last copies there are, and for sure the last copies we can get!
When we discovered the debut full length from Texas slowcore doomgaze trio True Widow, it was a revelation. How could a band like that exist and not be HUGE? Why were they not everyone's favorite band? No one we knew had heard of them, in fact, a few random folks claimed to not even like them. But we were smitten. More than smitten. OBSESSED. It had been years since a record, or a band, had blown us away like that. We contacted the label, ordered the record, made it our Record Of The Week, and sold HUNDREDS. Just at aQ! We had them play our showcase at South By Southwest, where they blew everyone away (even after SXSW asking us why we wanted them to play at all?!). We got them to play Noise Pop out here, and again, everyone was mesmerized, watching slackjawed, utterly entranced� That record, it made us zealots, we felt like we were spreading the good word, the True Widow sonic scriptures, trying to convert everyone we could. Playing that record incessantly, for everyone, all the time. And guess what? It seems like maybe all that proselytizing paid off. Oh and maybe it was the relentless touring those guys did, but c'mon, all we wanted was the rest of the world to catch on, and these guys (and gal) to be adored, and worshipped, their music to move people the way it moved us.
So here we are, a couple years later, and lo and behold, True Widow find themselves on ultrahip label Kemado, and getting showered with the praise we knew they so deserved all along. And more important that any and all of that, it this here is a BRAND NEW True Widow record! Which we've essentially been waiting for since we first got the last record, and we're happy to report, it RULES.
Not as immediately as catchy as the first one, although it's hard to be objective after hundreds of listens, but it hasn't take long for this one to sink it's claws in. The sound remains essentially the same, the guitars thick and liquid, super distorted, almost crumbling, the bass, dense and buzzy, the drums solid and motorik, all wreathed in a druggy haze, a psychedelic soft focus gauze, the boy / girl vocals laid back and languid, a sound like Beach House on Thorazine, or a doom metal Low, or some sort of impossible Codeine / My Bloody Valentine / 4AD hybrid, pressed onto a 7" and spinning at 16rpm, this is total cough syrup slo-mo jangle pop doom drift bliss. Warm and whirling, hushed and minimal, mesmerizing and enthralling and totally hypnotic.
Opener "Jackyl" is a super distorted dream pop craw, the vocals sultry and witchy, the guitars pouring from the speakers like black tar, the song lit by streaks of sunlight through the slats of an old barn, blurred droney chugs spread out over swirls of low end thrum and lush reverbed shimmer. And then "Blooden Horse" begins, with some chiming minor key guitar, and when the band come in together, it's magical, super melodic, impossibly catchy, the vocals perfect, weary, but emotional, the various chiming melodies, the heaving downtuned doomic crush at one point, all woven into a perfect slab of slowcore doom jangle bliss. Our tendency is to go song by song by song, and we most definitely could here, but we'll just mention two more, "Skull Eyes" another perfect pop song, here cast in black, and wreathed in crumble and crunch, the female vocals so warm and enveloping, the melody so impossibly catchy, the boy/girl harmonies make this sound almost like like a slowed down drowsy Heavy Vegetable, the same perfect interplay, it's like it must be a cover of some classic pop song, but it's not, which is what makes it so good. And finally, the epic closer, "Doomseer", 9+ minutes of brooding slo-mo twang, the guitar not so much riffing as unfurling thick layers of rumble and whir, a sort of minimal dronerock ballad, laced with ethereal angelic background vox, a killer high end squall of psychedelic feedback near the end, and a groove that sounds like it's gradually melting before your ears, the whole thing somehow sounding impossibly too short at 9 minutes. So goddamn good. We want to go on, and describe every song in exquisite detail, but by now, it should be abundantly clear how we feel about True Widow, and about this record, and odds are, all it'll take is a few minutes of the below sound samples for you to be as utterly and completely under their spell as we are. Record of the year contender for sure...
The vinyl version is limited to 2000 and hand numbered.
Longtime AQ faves True Widow are one of those bands that people seem to naturally want to assign some new genre tag to. "Doomgaze" is one that gets tossed around, and "Stonegaze" is one that even the band use to describe themselves. But neither one of those really seems right. Terms like that seem to imply that True Widow just shoves adverse sounds together to try and find something new, which so many bands seem to do nowadays. Nor are they all that doomy or stonery when it comes right down to it ("Trollstigen" is the only song here that gets anywhere close to doom, or metal of any kind, but it's definitely to great effect). It's almost over thinking and under thinking the band simultaneously (if that makes sense). Like most great artists, they don't need to fit into a cozy genre - they just need to sound like themselves. And simply put, what True Widow sound like is very slow, very atmospheric, very effective rock music. You certainly wouldn't be miles off drawing comparisons to Codeine or Slowdive, but True Widow seem much less confined by scene constraints than many of the bands they get compared to. Circumambulation is at times quite dissonant (some of the riffs definitely recall Spiderland-era Slint) while at other times can be beautifully melodic. The production on the record is absolutely fantastic. There is space everywhere - giving the songs tons of room to breathe. The drums are perfectly understated. The duel vocals of Dan Phillips and Nicole Estill are gorgeously disaffected and aloof, and compliment each other perfectly (the circular nursery rhyme vocals melody of "Fourth Teeth" is a perfect example of how hypnotic a vocal part can be). The guitars flutter back and forth between a dirty bonfire crackle and a moody, almost country twang. It would be easy to describe True Widow's music as sad, but that's not really accurate. A better word is "moody" or "brooding" - maybe even a little bit sexy. A bit like the hint of a lost echo carried on a Summer breeze. A bit of an over the top descriptor?? Maybe! But don't be surprised if similarly poetic imagery crosses through your mind while you're strolling down an empty city street at 3 am, with only a pair of headphones and Circumambulation for company! Above all it's a perfectly subtle rock record that rewards patience and attention - utterly alluring and completely bewitching.
What more can we say about Texas slowcore doomgaze heavies that we haven't already? We made their debut our Record Of The Week and sold TONS of them, they played our South By Southwest showcase and completely destroyed, they played the Noise Pop festival here and totally stole the show, they are without a doubt one of our favorite bands of the last few years, and we are so psyched people are finally discovering these guys (and gal). But then how could they not, one listen, the very first time we heard the very first song on that very first record, that was it. That record still gets played ALL the time, as does their equally ruling follow up, they're like some modern version of our nineties slowcore faves, Codeine, Low, Seam, but way heavier, their songs brooding and moody, the sound lush and blown out, and so utterly distinctive, at this point, they may be reminiscent of those other bands, but they sound like no one else. Hooks deftly woven into droned out dirges, fuzz drenched dream pop rendered in thick slabs of sun baked guitar, simple doomkraut drumming, and weary washed out vox, we could listen to this stuff forever, and pretty much do.
This latest 12"s is a sort of odds and sods collection, with some alternate versions, and some tracks from the demo that were left off the new record, it might not be the best place for newbies to start, but really, even hearing this record first, we'd be surprised if anyone wasn't immediately blown away.
The acoustic opener is an alternate version of the closing track on the most recent full length, a gorgeous acoustic folk number, which leads directly into the epic title track, the main reason to pick this up, 14+ minutes of hazy heaviness, of blissed out dreamdoom slowcore dirgery, the band letting it rip more than they often do, building to a serious psychedelic blow out, before finishing off with 4+ minutes of droned out abstract psych guitar drift. So awesome. "Bathyscaphe" is up next another track from As High As The Highest Heavens, which doesn't sound that different from the album version, but it's a beauty, and well worth hearing again. And again. And again. The last two tracks are from their 2009 demo, "S.Y.B.", a slithery sun dappled creep, gauzy and woozy and washed out, the distinctive shimmery guitar twang in full effect, the band drifting and meandering hypnotically, the whole this wreathed in warm fuzz guitar shimmer, and finally "S.F.H.D.", which displays the band at their poppiest, sounding like some lost nineties classic, the vocals powerful and not at all buried in the mix, and the boy/girl harmonies utterly divine.
Obviously, everyone who bought either/both of the other True Widow records (and that's a LOT of you) is probably gonna want this, at least to tide you over until the next proper record, but even not as a stopgap, as a proper release, this half-hour ep stands up pretty gosh darn well, and is actually the sort of thing most other bands spend their whole careers trying to pull off...
And FYI, we got as many copies as we could, but like a lot of vinyl-only Kemado stuff, this is limited, no doubt, and we don't know when/if we will be able to get more...
Records like this come along so rarely. The sort of record that immediately reveals itself as something so more then just another disc to add to your collection, or the sort of record you play once or twice and then file. The second we heard this, we knew we had to hear more, and hear it over and over and over again. We discovered these guys online, heard a few songs and immediately bought a copy, and then set out to order them for the store (one of us was so obsessed, he even ordered all the records by the True Widow mainman's OLD band).
Not sure what it is exactly about True Widow, it could be that after hundreds of records of rumbling dronemusic and blasting grim buzz and hushed ambient shimmer, that a band that writes songs, incredibly catchy and melodic and heavy songs, is exactly what our ears craved. Not to take anything away from the band, even if we were immersed in straight up pop and heavy rock (which we sort of are also), these guys (and gal) would most definitely shine. This is the sort of music we rarely hear anymore. We originally expected this to be metal, maybe some sort of heavy post rock metal hybrid, and while it is heavy, it's way more indie rock, or maybe slowcore, more like some haunting mix of the two, the guitars are thick and distorted, but not metallic, and they drift into slow drifting creeps as easily as they do pounding majestic roars. Other reviewers have described True Widow as 'sonic noir' and 'stonegaze', both of which are fairly appropriate, it's definitely dark and moody, certainly shoegazey, and a little bit stonery, but it's really just some sort of perfect gloomy heavy postrock. We hear Codeine, Low, Seam, the vibe is laid back and disaffected, weary and washed out, but still somehow completely rocking.
Every song here is practically perfect, and each one segues seamlessly into the next, the sort of record where you don't just remember the melody or the lyrics, but which songs comes next, and how long the pause between songs is, the sound just so hypnotic and mesmerizing, a sort of lyseric doom pop, a druggy post rock, but the thing is, none of that really explains how addictive these songs seem to be. Literally, from the moment we first heard this record, we have not been able to stop listening to it. We've found other reviewers elsewhere who had the same reaction. Which speaks to the power of the songs, so well crafted, brooding, yet incredibly catchy. Just check out opener "Aka", with its strange mesmerizing main riff, the mysterious pause, and then when the band kicks in, it give you chills, and it's 40 seconds into the record.
The second track, "Duelist", is one of the few tracks that features vocals from bassist Nicole Estill, her warm purr draped over big drums and a simple minimal bass throb, before the band launches into a slow burning minor key lope, only to crank up that opening part, infusing it with just a bit more muscle, and peppering the proceedings with a cool woozy chorus. Then there's "Sunday Driver", a gorgeous hazy reverby almost ballad, skeletal guitars, the drums still solid and loud, the vocals laid back and drugged out, the main melody so catchy, and a chorus that kills. Just writing this now, we've skipped back to the beginning of that song 3 times!
This isn't really new, it came out last year, but we only just discovered it, and it had such an impact on us, we figured it was worth sharing with the rest of you. Cuz even if only a fraction of you have the same sort of response to True Widow that we did, it was well worth it. This has immediately leapt to the top of our year end best of list, even though it didn't come out this year, and hell, for some of us, True Widow immediately made it onto our best EVER list. And yeah we know, we traffic in hyperbole a lot around here, we can't help it cuz we love music so much and are excited to turn people on to the music we love, but there's no denying the empirical evidence, we can't seem to listen to anything else but this record. And that doesn't look like it will be changing anytime soon.
Just listen to the sound samples, the first two tracks alone should do the trick. So goddamn good.
On both cd and 2lp, the vinyl version is super deluxe (hence the price, sorry), 180 gram vinyl, full color ultra thick gatefold sleeve, two printed color inserts, pretty fancy, and very limited.
This new recording has Cat Power's Chan Marshall guesting on a track and a fellow from the Supreme Dicks on some others.
Jonny Trunk is a true tastemaker. With his Trunk label he has unearthed gems from the likes of Basil Kirchin, John Baker, Sven Libaek, Desmond Leslie, and more more more. His fine taste for rare soundtrack grooves and left of center electronics has always totally hit the spot for us here in AQ land. But with the release of Scrapbook, Trunk mixes it up and shifts into the role of musical creator instead of just music aficionado and the results are totally terrific.
If you've followed the releases on Trunk, his own musical stylings should make perfect sense as these are all instrumental jams and grooves that could be the sounds of some great lost library music collection. Short satisfying tracks filled with breaks you could totally imagine on a J Dilla or Madlib record. Trunk is extremely self deprecating in the funny liner notes and you can tell as someone who has released other people's exquisite music over the years he has been reluctant to release his own bedroom recordings from the last decade, and while we appreciate his humble and self-conscious musings they are so not necessary as Scrapbook more than holds its own, held up alongside any of the lost treasures he's helped shine a light on. We'll take Jonny Trunk's scraps anytime!
We were never able to review the debut single from this Canadian dark-dance-pop-wave combo, cuz for whatever reason we could never get enough copies to list, which is a shame cuz we dug it like crazy. But this extended 12" single takes the dancier elements from that 7" and pushed them right up front, the A side a sizzling, pulsing, buzzy blast of bass heavy almost housey sounding new wave, with some thick bassbuzz that sounds almost dubsteppy, weird vox with a serious eighties vibe transforms this into something more than retro dancefloor worship, and then there's the last few minutes where the song (d)evolves into an ominous John Carpenter / Goblin like bassy, droney super cinematic outro. Killer.
The flipside starts off with a brief bit of eighties electro pop, all synthy and propulsive, and seriously eighties, and again with some truly strange vox, before slipping into a remix of the track on the A side, which adds some heft to the proceedings, making it fuzzier and more distorted and a lot more shoegazey, all washed out and dreamy, but still finishing off with that same killer creepy outro.
Cool gothy disco big hole 12" sleeve too...
The bizarre full frontal, naked-man-in-mid-air cover image definitely doesn't prepare you for the woozy moodiness inside. It's on Sacred Bones, and it definitely has that SB sound, a tripped out eighties style minimal electro pop, lush synths over simple programmed beats and minor key melodies, the vocals are strange and super distinctive, crooned and dramatic, there's an awesome bloopy moody synth solo too. Near the end of the track, the sound ramps up, the vocals become more heartfelt, and the track approaches Interpol / Cold Cave territory, albeit more lo-fi and home brewed.
The B side is another chunk of warped electro synthwave, again the vocals even more unique, drawled and deep, heavily reverb, slipping into some serious falsetto, the sound lush and warm, the synths swirling and dreamy, everything warbly as if the pitch control on your turntable is malfunctioning, which only makes the sound that much more woozy and psychedelic.
We sorta flipped for these new wave electro gloom pop weirdos when we heard their first single, which sadly, we were never able to get enough of to list (although the A side is included here!). We did review the follow up 12", which found the band cranking up the dancier side of their sound, which seems to be the direction they've continued to move in with this, their debut, but, and this is important, this is not just some sort of retro Breakfast Club soundtrack worshipping MTV style eighties electro pop, these guys are fucking WEIRD. Fusing a sort of draggy dancy witch house sound, to classic eighties new wave tropes, adding plenty of cold wave chill not to mention a sort of M83 bombastic electro pop shoegaze vibe. Sound like a mess, and it sort of is, but a glorious, impossibly irresistible mess.
Just check out the opener here, the oddly named "Shoom", and you'll be sold, a creepy industrial intro gives way to some pulsing eighties synths, and then when the vocals come in, total WTF, a mush mouthed super affected creepy old man mumble, the sound stripped down, creepy and haunting, and then when the beat kicks in, the vocals remain weird, just differently weird, a sort of maniacal whine, over some super propulsive krauty gloom, and then after a long instrumental stretch, where all the sounds seem to be melting and slipping out of tune, a super hooky melody swoops in and it sounds like some weird witch housey M83, and then female vocals come in, adding even more of a pop element, until those creepy male vox return and the song finishes up with a cool gothic electro dirge before disappearing into a cloud of electronics. So good! Another one of those cases where we listened to the first song at least ten times before we dug any deeper.
But if that first one does it for you, the rest will hit the spot as well. Even when the sound is more traditionally new wave, those vocals add a twisted vibe to the proceedings, and the production is super tripped out, with fat slabs of bass buzz, big stuttery beats, some almost dubstep sounding bits, not to mention long stretches of brooding minimalism, that in places sound like they were cribbed from an Interpol B side, while others touch on Kraftwerk like robotic krautrock and woozy gloomy house music (?). The track from the aforementioned 12" is included here, as is the A side from that 7" we never got to list!
Definitely a new weirdo goth pop gloom wave favorite for sure!
We had a reissue of this beloved badass '70s psychedelic proto-metal obscurity some years back (list 127) on the now-defunct Monster label. Rockadrome kinda took over from Monster, and now they've gotten around to making this available again as part of their Vintage series. The graphic design has been improved, but otherwise it's the same as the previous edition (including the bonus tracks) with no additions.
Here's what we said about it before: Reissue of a rare 1976 album by this legendary (among collectors anyway) trio of hard-rockin' Midwesterners. Truth & Janey were heavy and energetic and had some great songs but disco apparently killed 'em off. We're left with this album and the the bonus singles tracks that comprise this cd. Guitarist/vocalist doesn't quite have the voice for the two blues covers they attempt, but the rest is mighty good. These longhaired youngsters were into bellbottoms and fully-cranked Marshalls -- so if you are too, check this out! Another authentic '70s stoner rawk classic for today's fans to listen to and learn from!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Reissue of a rare 1976 album by this legendary (among collectors anyway) trio of hard-rockin' Midwesterners. Truth & Janey were heavy and energetic and had some great songs but disco apparently killed 'em off. We're left with this album and the the bonus
By their very nature, Moog records are inherently goofy. And to a certain degree, to modern ears, the Moog keyboard too just sounds kind of silly. There's probably not a Moog record, commercial or otherwise, that would convince the Moog haters out there otherwise. You either love that instantly recognizable sound or you don't. The other possibility is that somehow, you've never heard a Moog (or at least didn't realize you had since, those pesky Moogs pop up all over the place!) and in that case, it's a record like this that might just open your eyes and blow your mind.
That's the other thing with Moogs, it's what you do with them and how you use them. Plenty of modern outfits use Moogs, and in those groups the sounds they conjure up are more textural, thick undulating slabs of analog buzz and bleep, space rock is and has always been all over the Moog, but when it was first introduced, as a modern sound making synthesizer, people's first response was of course to try all sorts of applications, one was bound to strike a chord with the record buying public. So thus there was a glut of 'popular music played on the Moog' records, everything from top 40 to soul to rock and roll, and yes country.
Which brings us to Gil Trythall, an academic who ended up achieving a modest bit of fame (or infamy) for his renditions of classic country tunes, performed on the Moog, and collected on two volumes: Country Moog: Switched On Nashville, and Nashville Gold: Switched On Moog, both released in the first few years of the seventies.
Before these records, Trythall was a musical academic, creating experimental sound and performance pieces, music concrete, using light shows and tape manipulation, film projections, and all manner of sounds. He was convinced to try his hand at a record of country Moog renditions, and thus spent months buying 45s and painstakingly creating new sounds and his own version of classic country jams, and these are the results. And they are pretty fantastic, lots of faves, here transformed into something much more futuristic, at least seventies futuristic, anyone into Perrey & Kingsley know exactly what we mean. The rhythms and the tones of the Moog are so immediately recognizable, the sound warm and warbly, but also mysterious and magical, and just a little bit robotic, this disc opens with the Moog-ified "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" and it's a rapid fire totally silly, Moog jam, you can almost picture this as the soundtrack to some wacky montage where everyone's moving in fast forward (in fact elsewhere on this disc, Trythall tackles "Yakety Sax", better known as the Benny Hill theme, here transformed into "Yakety Moog"). The tones are clipped and relentless, woven into an alien robotic hoedown. Right after that there's Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues", with vocodered / Moog-ed vocals, and some buzzy crunchy Moog leads. "Harper Valley P.T.A." gets a woozy warbly makeover, "Orange Blossom Special" sound almost like a countrified ELP jam, and Trythall's version of "Wichita Lineman" is surprisingly sweet and easy listening-ish, the Moog muted and subtle, not difficult to imagine this as the music for some love scene in a Spike Jonez movie or something.
And so it goes. Moog obsessives, fans of exotica and incredibly strange music freaks have probably been after these discs for ages, for everyone else, this is some wild wonderful, fun and funny stuff. And as with everything Omni puts out (like recent record of the week Plantation Gold, which this fits right in with as a weird country record), beautifully packaged with extensive liner notes and rare photos and artwork.
Shadoks somehow does it yet again, digging up an obscure, fuzzed out psychedelic gem from one of the far corners of the globe. This one must have really required some digging, as the disc is not even an actual full album reissue, but a collection of mostly unreleased tracks by three different but related groups from the jungles of Venezuela - late '60s / early '70s underground acts pretty much unknown outside of their home turf. Obscure indeed, but pretty dang cool, makes you wonder about all the even more obscure bands never documented at all. Shadoks has already brought us one classic Venezuelan psych record by Ladies W.C. and this stuff is in much the same vein of freaky high energy hard psych and fuzzy popsike.
These recordings, taken from 7" singles as well as unreleased tapes, date from roughly 1967 to 1972, and are all by these three bands that featured many of the same members, always including guitarist Josetio Romero. First came LSD, an acid rock act obviously, then they morphed into the Led Zeppelin influenced Tsee Mud (the name a reference to the bloodsucking, disease-bearing tsetse fly), and then finally the all-instrumental and super groovy Bacro. Romera was involved with some other bands too during this period, like one called Heavy Load, but none of the others left any recordings. He apparently even toured the USA (playing Madison Square Garden!) with the American R&B band The Del-Vikings, during the break between Tsee Mud and Bacro. As you might suppose, Romero was a pretty wild guitarist, starting off as a devoted Jimi Hendrix acolyte and going from there.
None of these bands (who played live a lot and must have been great on stage) ever made a full-length lp which is a shame but at least this collection brings together what they did record, and it really works as a cohesive set, basically a 'best of' one band with three names.
Our favorite tracks might be the instrumentals by Bacro, those are just killer grooves, no vocals needed. But ALL the tracks are pretty great, the ones with wailing vocals to go with the wailing guitar too. There's no duds, all the tracks are packed with hairy funk, primal prog moves and lumbering, heavy, Hendrix-y riffs out the wazoo. There's a few moody moments but things usually start swinging seconds later. Some of the time, Tsee Mud et. al. come across sorta like a South American James Gang, cool! Also for fans of Los Dug Dugs for sure, and even African psych stuff like Witch. Further proof that awesome, unknown bands lurked in garages the world over, back then!
The cd booklet includes lengthy liner notes in both English and Spanish, along with lyrics, vintage photos and graphics. Although, despite all the detailed information provided, the cd booklet doesn't do a very good job of identifying which of the eleven tracks on this disc were by which bands, though you can probably figure it out if you read carefully, if it even matters, which it doesn't really.
FYI, also available on vinyl, but it's hella expensive ($45), that's how Shadoks do, we can special order it though, just ask.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
"This is a collection of recordings of air vibrations from inside hollow objects." A pretty self-explanatory definition of this humble archive of Toshiya Tsunoda's field recordings. In Tsunoda's investigations, his interest lies in the pockets of resonant sound which often lie undetected by everyday observation (inside bottles, in a crack in manhole cover, etc.). In recording the sound of waves breaking off the rocky coast of Japan as it vibrates within a small cavity no bigger than a fist (amongst other spaces), Tsunoda captures delicately shifting drones from beautiful natural washes of sound. Very nice!
This is the third entry from the exceptional, if self-explanatory archives of Japanese field recordist Toshiya Tsunoda, concentrating here on "solid vibrations" as the follow up to the second volume which dealt with the microphonic properties of air within hollow objects. In his liner notes, Tsunoda explains that most of the interesting properties of solid vibrations are too faint to be heard under normal listening circumstances; yet with the aid of a piezo-ceramic contact microphone (a simple device which translates immediate vibrations into electrical currents), these vibrations can be made audible. Tsunoda concentrates his recordings around distinctly urban environments -- construction sites, wharfs, highways, wire net fences, metal plate fences, and industrial detritus -- due to the presence of large motors and engines which can activate the vibrations he seeks out. These tend to be very-low frequency rumbles and drones dappled with fluctuations from any number of environmental changes and human interactions. As in all of his other recordings, Tsunoda studiously documents all of the details from each recording, providing interesting tidbits about the sources for these vibrations (i.e. that a swinging element from one his recordings is the sway of an anchor deep in the ocean). Tsunoda is careful to point out that his recordings are "for the purpose of being heard. It is for improving the occurrence which one encounters every day. Therefore, pure scientific detection is not being carried out here." This is a really wonderful document, and may be the best yet from Tsunoda!
For several years now, Frans De Waard has been commissioning artists to recycle the sounds of his own recycling sound project Kapotte Muziek. Up until now, the series had been exclusively based upon the live recordings of Kapotte Muziek; but Japanese field recording expert Toshiya Tsunoda took hold of the studio works found on the 1992 cassette Vier Stukken. Given the terminal obscurity of much of the original source material, how much or how little any of the remixing artists put into the recordings is up for debate. Probably Frans, Tsunoda, and maybe ten other people in the world will know the answer to that riddle; but for the rest of us, it ultimately doesn't matter, as this is a great recording. It appears that Tsunoda took that Kapotte Muziek cassette to the Nagaura Bay in Yokosuka City, Japan (mentioned as the recording location on the sleeve) and played that cassette back in a number of contexts on that beach. Sometimes, playing the sounds through a bottle which acts as a rudimentary frequency filter, other times quietly situating the cassette sounds against the distant wash of the surf and birds, and others blasting the source material quite loudly. While these actions are readily discernable, others are not so easy to figure out, such as the suggestive crackling on the first track. Yeah, the detective work can be quite compelling; but fortunately, Tsunoda gives us plenty of reasons to keep on listening.
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We got this sometime last year, but our supplier ran out before we had a chance to list it. Now we've gotten some in again direct from the label, so any Tsunoda fans who missed this have another chance to grab a copy now. It's another installment of his amazing field recordings, microscopic sonic examinations of everyday vibrations -- everything from a signboard creaking in the wind to the rumble of a fishing pier and the tide. (And yes, if you've never heard Tsunoda before, it's good listening, opening up a whole new world that your ears aren't normally focussed enough to hear). The booklet provides information on each track, like notes on location, technical details of microphone placement and such. In addition, there's some more general words from Tsunoda about how he catagorizes the sounds he's documenting here: events on "boundary lines", spacial context, and "observation and object"... giving some conceptual insight into Tsunoda's interest in the meticulous recordings of the seemingly mundane with which he's made his career.
Lucky Kitchen -- those bright-eyed and bushy-tailed purveyors of anthropologically minded, but nevertheless cutiepie electronica -- has commissioned Japanese field recording minimalist Toshiya Tsunoda to do an album for their "Sparkling Composer" series (though he's not exactly a composer, more of a conceptual recordist). Tsunoda's previous releases "Extracts From Field Recording Archive Vol. 1" and "Vol. 2" were incredibly stoic offerings of amplifications of very quiet resonant frequencies, and stand as some of the most challenging, unprocessed field recordings we've ever heard here at Aquarius. Some of us here prefer those discs to this new recording but others really like this new album too. We all agree that this album has all of the prerequisites to be interesting, with Tsunoda's elaborate explanations of the technical set-up and circumstances of his recordings (such as the reflection of prepared test signals of very specific frequencies against a wall, or the placement of microphones in bottles or pipes, exposed to radio broadcasts or the sea). The liner notes certainly make for interesting reading, we'll not try to paraphrase them here. We were touched, though, by this comment: "Track 14 exceeded the input level at the time of recording and thus needed the technical help of my best friend and engineer Yukiharu Higashioji."
And the results of these recordings are fascinating and indeed beautiful listening. Much of "Pieces of Air", though proclaimed by Lucky Kitchen as an example of Tsunoda's sense of "child-like wonder", might actually make for a great horror movie soundtrack. Vaguely sinister thumps, humms, splashes, and drones abound. One of the best tracks is the last, recorded in Istanbul during the noontime call to prayer. Half-audible chants, drifting throught the air from across the city, mingle and merge in an ambient haze.
Toshiya Tsunoda has always impressed us with his impeccable recordings that undermine whatever preconceptions you might have about what a field recording is, or what sound art is, or what constitutes minimalism. For well over a decade now, Toshiya has been trawling around the world (but mostly in his native Japan) with a couple of ceramic contact microphones collecting various vibrations from incredibly simple sources that yield unbelievably dynamic sounds. Ridge Of Undulation is no different, with Toshiya again providing the pithy descriptions as to the contexts of each of the recordings as the track titles. Hence, "Sine waves mixed with the sound of a vibrating surface" is really what it says it is; but Toshiya's prowess is in how he situates those two sounds in the stereo field that instantly makes the hair stand up on anybody's neck all the while rippling into a sublime dronework. Throughout Ridge Of Undulation, Toshiya alternates between studio situations such as the aforementioned track with pieces like the unedited field recordings of a distant cargo ship's motors idling in Tokyo Bay. Toshiya's work is so simple in its phenomenological purity that words really do fail to describe it. As always recommended.
Toshiya Tsunoda never ceases to amaze with his extrordinary field recordings that document a very fine delineation between man-made and natural phenomena. He gives most of his recordings very dry, self-explanatory titles, like Extract From Field Recording Archive #3: Solid Vibrations for instance. As of late, the Japanese sound artist has been choosing rather baroque titles for his recordings (i.e. O Respirar Da Paisagem) and thus presenting an additional layer of meaning to his always incredible work. The word Decalcomania in this disc's title is the highly specialized artisan process of transfering an image onto china, marble, or glass. While the etymology of this term is the same as decal, Tsunoda infers a meaning far more precious and delicate than something you would slap on your skateboard!
On Scenery of Decalcomania, Tsunoda presents several of modes of operation. There are the raw field recordings such as the dynamic whistlings from the wind whipping across a small corroded opening on a handrail, and the unnerving doppler phasing from the resonant frequencies of two passenger ferries reflecting their sounds throughout the Kisarazu Bay. Along with these field recordings, Tsunoda also sets up situations which document the physical vibrations of glass bottles and copper foil. As in all of his records, Tsunoda provides an incredible amount of detail into the specifics of his recordings. And like all of his recordings, this comes highly recommended.
With this, the release of their third-or-so widely available album, the Japanese psych-rock-trance-improv trio Tsurubami start to creep up the path of prolificity that characterizes guitarist/guru Kawabata Makoto's Acid Mothers Temple project. Yep, it's Kawabata again. We wonder if he just didn't put his name on these things we'd be able to approach 'em with fresh excitement? Yet he rarely lets us down -- the issue with Kawabata isn't of quality, only quantity. How much do you need? Well if you haven't reached your personal limit yet, we can't help but recommend this disc. Its main ingredient is a shimmering wash of freeform guitar, the sounds of which almost seem like they're trying to *crawl back into* Kawabata's amplifier, not meekly but because they're already part of the aether and some cosmic balance needs to be addressed. Backing him up there's splashes of drumming, and a gentle bass presence. Real nice, eyelid fluttering, dizzymaking trance-out drone stuff. Sure, Kawabata & co. can by now pretty much do this in their sleep, and hey maybe that's what they're doing 'cause sleep is a state of hypnosis not far from what this music conjures. There's two long tracks that get louder and more active as they progress, but maintain that uneasy yet beautiful soothing shimmer throughout, even when the heavy-duty distortion storms kick in and it starts to sound more like Fushitsusha!
Yet another entry into the exponentially increasing catalogue from Kawabata Makoto comes outside of the realms of The Acid Mother's Temple. Tsurubami has supposedly had a couple of releases, but this super lo-tech CD-R from Last Visible Dog is the only one that we've been able to track down so far. Fellow Acid Mother's Templar Higashi Hiroshi brings his bass to Kawabata's guitar, alongside the newcomer Emi Nobuko on drums. The album opens in similar fashion to Kawabata's "Father Moo & The Black Sheep" album, with a synthetic wash of pitch-shifting / multiverb guitar tones. Slowly these ambient tonalities develop into shimmering fragments of melody half appearing, then dissolving into kosmische haziness. Emi rattles out quiet tinklings across his ride cymbals, which starts off somewhat subdued, but gradually approaches the Fushitsusha arena of freenoise percussion tumble once the full drum kit is employed. Kawabata and Higashi maintain the dronescape mentality for about 25 minutes, before kicking the distortion pedals into overdrive and unleash a dense wall of sound to accompany the percussive squallor. Where the first track is delicate and gradual, the second is immediate and brutal. Cantankerous distortion from overblown bass and guitar join the continuous splutter from Emi. This is a really, really good Acid Mother's Temple related project... it really deserves more than just cd-r status.
Acid Mothers Temple. Acid Mothers Temple. Acid Mothers Temple. Ok, this isn't precisely the Acid Mothers Temple, but it is almost: Tsurubami is a trio featuring two Acid Mothers Temple members -- shaggy guitar guru Makoto Kawabata and equally hairy bassist Higashi Hiroshi, plus drummer Emi Nobuko (not so shaggy, but real cute if we may say so). And this disc was recorded *at* the Acid Mothers Temple, it says. So, to resume: Acid Mothers Temple. Acid Mothers Temple. Acid Mothers Temple...You are, once again, falling into a trance. Don't focus, just let go. The wash of Tsurubami's overpowering psychedelic guitar intensity contributes to your state of utter noise-lovin' bliss. The corresponding quiet passages of pretty, melancholic shimmer and shiver pull you deeper and deeper into what brain scientists call the AMT-zone. At 66 minutes in length (four tracks -- they're stretching out and so can you) this band's krautrock-inspired, avant-hippie psychedelic improv ought to be a sufficent AMT-fix for the week, we'd think. And "Tsukuyomi Ni" arrives with appetites for their particular brand of guitar-freakout mayhem and droned-out improv pre-whetted by the recent proper cd release of their second (?) album "Kaina", reviewed here just about a month ago (and previously, last year when it was but a cd-r). This brand new document of their live, no-overdubs sound is equally transcendent. It's released by Riot Season, the same label that just brought us that Mainliner reissue, so you know they know what's good.
The first chapter of this cool new series of limited edition book/cd sets from Thrill Jockey starts things out in quite a dreamy, downy fashion. Much of the music sounds as though Aki Tsuyuko was composing a soundtrack to a children's fairytale. Hokane is a mostly instrumental album of hushed pastel interludes sprinkled with infant-like cooing vocals. Simple melodies teeter and totter and tiptoe about with a doe-eyed innocence. Imagine a dewy meadow filled with baby bunnies or if you prefer an interior scene, an antique doll slowly coming to life amid a landscape of wooden building blocks and tin toys.
The accompanying hardcover book is filled with comparatively more vibrant saturated colors and striking geometrics. Actually this is like a Japanese counterpart to the recent book'n'cd set by Michael Andrews. Both are musically warm'n'gentle (although Andrews' is more song-oriented) and visually fanciful'n'shapely.
Limited edition of 2000.
French hip hop with elements of IDM.
For whatever reason, this Nashville psych rock combo got just a one sentence review on the aQ site for their self released self titled lp, which most of us here really dug. That sentence goes on to describe Ttotals as "scuzzy, bluesy and dirty" which to still definitely applies, but these songs seem a bit more polished, without losing any of their scuzz, the A side a brooding groover, with deep dramatic vox, and peppered with little blurts of wah guitar (which almost sound like electronics), the song a loping smoldering psychedelic sprawl, which explodes into a crunchy, heavy chorus, all thick bass buzz, and chiming distorted guitars, a killer for sure. The flipside is sonically similar, darkly dramatic, a little bit droney, driven again by some thick bass buzz, super gloomy and gothic, Stoogesy swagger woven into post punk churn, we're reminded of old Aussie outfits like the Scientists and the like, lots of moody atmosphere and swirling sonic texture, with some seriously heavy riffage going on, getting downright metallic, but the crooned vox and gothic atmosphere keep it firmly rooted in the realm of garage gloom psych rock. Mastered by Sonic Boom too which of course makes perfect sonic sense...
Includes a download for the single and a download for a label sampler too!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Psych-rock duo from Nashville. Scuzzy, Bluesy and DIRTY!
