Stalwart AQ customers, especially the ever-burgeoning subset of AQ customers into the heavier, (low-) end of the musical spectrum, should already be very familiar with one half of the Supernaturals Vol. 1 equation. That'd be Italy's most spaced-out, doomadelic band of amps-to-11 psychonauts, the very very heavy UFOmammut, whose previous albums Godlike Snake, Snailking, and Lucifer Songs have all garnered massive praise both from us and pretty much anyone who thinks that if only we'd been able to put Hawkwind, Electric Wizard and Om albums into the "cultural cache" stowed on board the Voyager spacecraft, the planet Earth would surely long ago have been visited by big hairy aliens eager to smoke up and doom out. And the resultant interstellar jam would sound a heckuva lot like UFOmammut! So a new UFOmammut album, which this is more or less, is cause to celebrate.
Meanwhile, this disc introduces us to another underground psych band from Italy, by the name of Lent0, who are described as specializing in instrumental "ambient postcore". As near as we can tell from this collaborative effort, they must have a lot in common with their friends UFOmammut. We can't really tell who's doing what on this, but certainly these six fairly long tracks of uber distorted rumble, throbbing repetitive riffage, and haunting deep space shimmer are hitting all the mesmeric, droned-out highs we associate with our previous UFOmammut experiences. Maybe it's the eerie sampled voices that occasionally drift through the quieter parts of this that are Lent0's doing? Or the stretches of calmer, more Isis-like, post-rock heaviness that stand like gleaming outerspace monoliths amidst the churning, explosive jams heard elsewhere on this disc? We don't know -- but we'll certainly be curious to check out Lent0's own upcoming album Earthen whenever it comes out. What we do know is that these two bands are right on together at making this brand of mindblowing "metal". To hear anything remotely similar, you'd have to team some Tibetan monks up with Circle AND those aforementioned hairy aliens!
Important info: yes this import cd isn't cheap, but it's a handprinted, numbered, LIMITED EDITION release, in special packaging (accordion folded vellum "booklet" between thick covers) designed and executed by the Malleus psychedelic art collective, of which UFOmammut is the primary musical arm. When these are gone (and they soon will be) we'll eventually be able to get a regular, not-so-deluxe digipack version. You should further be aware that this is but the first in a series of collabs between bands on the Supernatural Cat label. Not a bad start that's for sure!
Heads up for another indie rock super group! The impressive personnel? Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse, Black Heart Procession's Pall Jenkins, John Orth of Holopaw, and Califone / Red Red Meat fellows Brian Deck and Tim Rutili. Together, they are Ugly Casanova. Not sure how their collaborative process went (I've heard grumblings about some mysterious, elusive figure for whom this project is named), but this mostly sounds like Modest Mouse songs as sung by Isaac with the somewhat darker, eccentric influence of Black Heart Procession along for the ride. Moody, ramshackle and weaving with clunky, clatterous found object-esque percussion. Andee said the track called "Ice On the Sheets" reminded him of Red Hot Chili Peppers, but maybe you should be the judge of that one. Fans of their respective groups will surely not be disappointed by this configuration. Produced by Isaac and Brian.
1971 psych obscurity.
The new issue of Ugly Things, celebrating as always "wild sounds from past dimensions" is here, hooray! Ok, we haven't been getting this magazine since the beginning, but if we had, up to 33 of the best days of our lives would have been when the new issue of Ugly Things landed in our mailbox. If you're like us, and love psych, garage, punk and other gunk from the heyday of back in the day, then you'll agree, this is a need-to-read periodical.
In this ish: Arthur Lee's Love (with a big interview with lead guitarist Johnny Echols), Ed Sanders of The Fugs, Hungarian psych/prog treasure Illes, Holland's trippy Group 1850, proto-punks the Electric Eels (or, the electric eels, as they preferred the lower case, please), The Syndicate, The Poets, Wildwood, Barrence Whitfield, The Leopards, and much more. There's a piece on the origins of the term 'Freakbeat', along with features on Freakbeat's finest, Wimple Winch and The Craig. There's an article about forgotten '70s glam rock gems too. And Cyril Jordan from the Flaming Groovies starts a new column of reminisces, wherein among other things he tells the story about the time in '74 when he and his bandmates encountered Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys, who took them to his house to hear his arrangement of "Johnny B. Goode" in C Minor!
And, amidst all this obscurity, there's also an essay about the merits of Led Zeppelin ("The Most Bonkers Band That Ever Was"), from the perspective of someone who first heard 'em back when their debut album came out, and who has an amusing way of putting things as well, like: "as for Bonzo - only another drummer can judge his technical proficiency, and the rest of us - in our teeming millions - would rather stick a pill up a cat's arse on a fork than listen to one drummer's opinion of another."
Plus of course, TONS of reviews of reissues, and books and dvds and some new records too. 176 glorious pages in all. Yowzah!
Oh heck yeah! It's time for a new issue of one of our favorite periodicals, Mike Stax's venerable 'zine Ugly Things. Issue #34 is once again a hefty (184 pages!) collection of tiny type and b&w pictures devoted to, as they say, "wild sounds from past dimensions". This issue's expert enthusiasms, as always, extend to '60s garage groups and '70s psych artifacts and all kinds of coolness. Some stuff, about bands you've never ever heard of before. Other pieces, perhaps pertaining to old faves. All super in-depth and fascinating either way. We're really keen to read the article about French freeks the Rob Jo Star Band, and also the one about heavy Dutch proggers Cargo� We did already read the amazing installment of Cyril Jordan (Flamin' Groovies) regular "San Francisco Beat" column, a full nine pages (with illos by Human Being Lawnmower's Avi Spivak), that make Beatlemania and the British Invasion sound pretty fresh and exciting for those of us who weren't there then by describing the powerful effect that the arrival of the Beatles & Co. had personally on Jordan himself.
Some of the other artists written about in #34 include: The Others, The Bees, The Blue Aces, The Velvet Illusions, The Byrds, The Viletones, Jenny & The Rascals, The Haunted, Spike-Drivers, Virgil Caine, and more.
Plus, there's pages and pages (and pages!) of reviews. Plenty of ads for cool reissues and stuff too. Yup, tons and tons of info here to absorb, and as of writing this review we're only part way through this issue ourselves, taking notes as we go (seriously). As always, recommended; if your attention span can handle it, your reading will be rewarding!
Never fails. This is the umpteeth time we've listed the always-fab Ugly Things fanzine when the new issue has shown up at aQ on pretty much the day of the list. And it's not any easy 'zine to skim through - this issue's a thick 184 pages between two glossy covers! We WISH we had time right now to sit down and delve into this issue's many lengthy features, and huge section of reviews, but that will have to wait until the weekend. We look forward to it. But what we can tell you is, there's lots of good stuff in this issue for anyone into what Ugly Things covers: "wild sounds from past dimensions".
Actually, we already started to get sucked into one of this issue's big feature articles, all about the mysterious saga of golden boy/acid casualty Craig Smith, aka Maitreaya Kali, who made the very collectable and freaky psych-pop album(s) Apache/Inca. As Mike Stax puts it in this issue's introduction: "It's without a doubt the darkest, deepest, saddest and strangest tale I've ever worked on." And it took Stax 13 years of research to bring Smith's story to print.
Also we're excited to delve into the latest installment of Cyril Jordan (of the Flamin' Groovies) regular column about, basically, why we all wish we had been living in San Francisco in the '60s and into rock n' roll like he was. Yeah, everybody's full of stories about how things were so much better back when, but he's pretty convincing. As he puts it, aside from the fact that bands still use electric guitars, pretty much everything else has changed. "You know, things like roots, chops, talent, looking good, and let's not forget the most important ingredient: knowledge of classic rock'n'roll music - has all been washed away by BULLSHIT!"
Also in this ish: Andrew Loog Oldham, The Motions, The Haunted, The Dream, The Radiators, British beatnik writer Royston Ellis, and tons more. Plus all those reviews already mentioned. Yep, we know what we're doing this rainy weekend, curling up with this magazine and a cup of tea.
It's always a great day when all these stories of "wild sounds from past dimensions" invade our minds via a new issue of one of the bestest garage/psych/punk/etc. fanzines ever, Ugly Things! This issue, another thick, tightly-packed 176 page tome adorned with one of UT's usual eyesore cover designs (it's called Ugly Things, remember), features LOTS of cool stuff, starting with a vintage 1978 interview with legendary unsigned California punks The Screamers, and a more recent interview with the band's drummer. Also: bassist Dennis Dunaway of the original Alice Cooper band, Dave Davies of The Kinks, Texas psychedelic band The Golden Dawn, proto-metalers Blue Cheer and Dust, disc jockey Dave Diamond, an article about rock crit Lester Bangs' teenage years, and even a "belated appreciation" of Bread. Plus plenty more, including tons and tons of reviews!! Oh, and of course one of our favorite regular features, "San Francisco Beat" by Cyril Jordan of The Flamin' Groovies - so many great stories and words of wisdom.
Even if you're a fast reader, this issue should keep you busy for a while!
"Wild Sounds From Past Dimensions", indeed -- this thick tome (192 pages) of a magazine covers in great depth all sorts of psych, garage, proto-punk, etc. rock n' roll from decades past. Definitely one of our favorite magazines! Whether you're familiar with the subjects or not, their features, full of information and anecdotes, are always fascinating. This time, attention is paid to The Yardbirds, Love, Eater, Public Nuisance, The Treniers, The Misunderstood, and many more. Plus, "Food and Wine" editor Johan Kugelberg offers part 2 of his DIY 7" overview (required reading for those of you into Hyped To Death's Messthetics cd-r comp series) and, in the print reviews section, is sure to rile some tempers with his delightfully brutal rip on Sonic Youth and Steve Albini (in his review of Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life). Oh yeah, record reviews, there's lots of those too. A solid week's worth of reading there, I'd think. Mike Fornatale's reviews deserve special mention: #1 he's hilarious, #2 he makes you want to jump up and slap on whatever record he's writing about, his enthusiasm is so infectious. Kudos to editor/publisher Mike Stax and co. for once again demonstrating how good a music 'zine can be.
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SORRY.
Yay, a new issue of Ugly Things! I don't think there's a single magazine that I (Allan) look forward to a new issue of more than this one. Seriously. And though I don't want to get into an argument about whether rock is dead or not, I can definitely tell you that it lives on in the pages of Ugly Things. Dedicated to "wild sounds from past dimensions", this 'zine is an over half-inch thick, 200-page tome densely packed with enthusiastic writing about garage, psych, beat, punk, n' rock n' roll from the sixties and seventies (mainly). You might find mention of prog and metal and folk and funk and even reggae too if you look hard enough. And there's lotsa lookin' to do -- I read fast, but even with spending every free moment the last few days paging through this thing, I still haven't gotten to the article on Spanish beat magazine Fonorama, or finished the massive cover story on the saga of The Misunderstood or checked out part 2 of the Metal Urbain piece continued from last ish or gotten through the various artists reviews. But I did read already was entertaining and informative. Ugly Things has a stable of lively, often hilarious writers who can make even the most record-collector-obsessive subjects pretty darn interesting. There's tons of reviews (the kind I take notes on to remember to order things for Aquarius), tons of interviews, tons of weirdness -- like a piece by Neuromancer author William Gibson about his one-time meeting with the legendary (and well-dressed) Skip Spence, or Jack Hemsley's article on Tucson teen killer Charles Schmid. There's so much in here it's hard to single stuff out, but maybe I should also mention Johan Kugelberg's article about rare punk rock records that suck, despite their high collectible value. Anyway, every issue is an inspiration and this one's no different. Once again, kudos to Editor/Publisher Mike Stax and co. for another essential installment of Ugly Things.
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SORRY.
Allan's favorite music magazine strikes again! Ok, maybe if you absolutely hate all (good) rock music from 1960-1980, you won't find anything of interest here. If you ain't got no use for psych, punk, garage, exotica, etc. then yeah go elsewhere for your reading pleasure. But if you're even marginally interested in those genres -- "wild sounds from past dimensions" as the mag's masthead so broadly and enticingly puts it -- then we'd suggest picking up a copy. If you're a music fiend like us you'll soon find yourself absorbed in a story about some obscure '60s band you've never heard of before, but now will be searching out reissues by... In this installment, the Ugly Things crew delves into the dim past to bring forth fascinating facts about Brian Jones, the Pretty Things, the MC5 (actually about the recent 'reunion' tour), Plastic Bertrand, Ace Kefford of The Move, and even Columbian crazies The Speakers. Among much else, including a gizillion often quite amusingly written reviews. And of course there's the continuation of editor Mike Stax's epic story of The Misunderstood. Part III heads off on some strange tangents but if you've come this far the saga remains a page-turner. And all the stuff in there about the draft (and draft-dodging) suddenly seems sadly so much less historical and even more messed up. For us, an issue of Ugly Things is kinda what we hope in a much much smaller way getting an AQ-list email is all about...a visit with some friends who are sharing their enthusiasms and passions about some probably rather obscure music in an interesting way... I personally can't get enough of it and whenever a new issue of UT lands here at AQ it's tough not to just sit down immediately and dig in. Certainly there's a lot of meat here, and we're promised (perhaps) another issue sometime soon in 2005! Whoo-hoo.
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SORRY.
A new issue of Ugly Things shows up and I know what I'm going to be doing in any and all upcoming free time that week!! Hours of music-obsessed readin' here, for those of us who share Ugly Things' fasination with the garage and psych sounds of past decades, that is. Packed with essays, interviews, and reviews (only of reissues and archival releases, no new things, even though current bands in the genre appear in the ads). This issue features the fourth part of editor Mike Stax' epic telling of the story of his favorite '60s psych rock act, The Misunderstood. Part four is about the '70s, tracing the lives of the bands ex-members into all sorts of weirdness and adventure, with intelligent crows, Sammy Hagar, and hidden ruby mines entering into the narrative. But of course there's lots more this ish besides: The Belfast Gypsies (aka Them) on the cover, Kim Fowley, eulogies for both Bomp's Greg Shaw and The Outsider's Wally Tax, an unpublished interview with the late Keith Relf of the Yardbirds, Michael Yonkers, and lots more stuff about a whole bunch of bands that we'd never heard of before but enjoyed reading about nonetheless, as always with this informative and entertaining music 'zine. Recommended.
Whoo-hoo! As always, the latest issue of editor/publisher Mike Stax' well-researched magazine devoted to "wild sounds from past dimensions" is a major event here. Aware of its impending arrival, we had to block out some time ahead of time just to spend reading the thing, which surely does require some hours indeed, as each ish is bigger (and maybe even better, tough as that's got to be to achieve) than the last. #24 weighs in at 208 pages, more than 50 of 'em filled with small-print reviews of desirable reissues of rare old albums and so forth, the '50s / '60s / '70s garage punk psych beat r&b stuff we need to hear about. A great resource. The rest of the magazine's got the usual columns and features, including super in-depth articles and interviews dealing with various obscure and semi-obscure bands. This time around: The Mustangs, The Bush, The Phantom Brothers, Sweetwater, Stiphnoyds, The Flamin' Groovies, The Rubber City Rebels, Mike & The Ravens, and more. Haven't heard of most of those? Well for just $7.95 you could become an expert on 'em. Seriously, we -always- find something of interest in these stories. A couple of the other features this issue that caught our attention: Johan Kugelberg discusses the joys of what he terms Australian "grillfat rock", Mike Stax waxes enthusiastic about vintage radio show airchecks, Randal Wood runs down the Peruvian '60s scene, Patrick Lundborg lists twenty hard to find collectibles that he'd like to see reissued, and Jeff Jarema talks to the recording engineer who worked on the first Blue Cheer album. Turns out the guy was talking time off from his job as a police officer, of all things, and lets just say didn't quite appreciate the pro-drugs, proto-metal heaviness churned out by the 'Cheer!
Now we count the days until #25 comes out...
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SORRY.
Curses! It's the worst when a new issue of one of our favorite magazines, Ugly Things, shows up on a "list week"! All we want to do is sit and read the darn thing -- and there's A LOT of it to read, this ish is up to 224 pages -- but instead we can only skim thru and save it for next week when we're not quite so busy writing music reviews. Yeah there will be a lot of work to do then too, but we'll MAKE time to relax and read our Ugly Things. After all, it's about a lot of our favorite types of music: '60s psych, garage, freakbeat, proto-prog, "wild sounds from past dimensions" as they say on the cover. This time around, there's features on The Music Machine, The Attack, Radio Birdman, The Namelosers, Freedom's Children, The Light, The Rubber City Rebels, and much much more... some of these bands more obscure than others but in all cases, whether we'd heard of 'em before or not, totally fascinatin' reading (well, what we've gotten to so far anyway, but we know all of it's gonna be good). We did delve into the articles about South African psych legends Freedom's Children, which included a interesting tidbit about the use of psychedelic lighting at their live shows. Apparently they'd gotten someone to rig up a primitive strobe light, without realizing the effect it might have on people prone to epileptic seizures... soon they figured that out and put warnings on their show posters, but funnily enough non-epileptics, who just thought it was "cool", would go on and have "seizures" anyway, they'd call it "having a frothy". Crazy hippies!
A few other articles of note: there's a fascinating piece entitled "Everything You Know About 'Louie Louie' Is Wrong" (by Bruce Duff -- is he the Jesters Of Destiny Bruce Duff we wonder?).... And perhaps the most bizarre and interesting investigation this issue, is the article about the sneaky "karaoke rock" of Steve Kaczorowski, a possibly delusional wanna be rock star from Long Island who released several now-collectable records of himself singing OVER other people's music, totally uncredited... you got to read it to believe it. Of course, there's also the usual informative and entertaining pages and pages and pages of music, dvd, and book reviews, among which you'll find Johan Kugelberg's offering: "Times Ain't Like They Used To Be: Good Records That Came Out During The Suck Years", delving into some personal faves from 1983-1997. Ok, gotta stop flipping through this and get on with my other reviews, though I don't want to...
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SORRY.
Egads. As usual, our favorite magazine (a thick as a brick magazine, 224 packed pages, more like a tome!) shows up on a "list week" when we're too busy writing our reviews to do what we WANT to do, which is curl up with this new issue and enjoy all of their reviews, interviews, articles, and whatnot. That's what we'll be doing Saturday for sure, this rainy weather is perfect for that. Giving it a skim (and tearing ourselves away from it to get back to work), we can tell you that this ish is, as usual, full of good stuff pertaining to garage, psych, punk, freakbeat, acid folk, and other "wild sounds from past dimensions" as it says on the cover. Some of the contents include a 1988 interview with the late Rob Tyner, singer for the legendary MC5, a history of UK folksters Trees, an extensive, informative piece on the amazing '60s Norwegian scene, another about Napa Valley's, interviews and essays about the likes of The Sons Of Adam, The Pop Rivets, Jeff Simmons, Fire, Cedars, and as always a Pretty Things update. And, unbelievably, much more. Notably, Chris Stigliano shoves Julian Cope aside to present a "Beginner's Guide To Les Rallizes Denudes". And the 13 pages devoted to Johan Kugelberg's expert fan feature on "Punk Before Punk" is probably worth the price of admission alone, looking forward to delving into that one!
Plus of course there's dozens upon dozens of reviews of reissues...and ads and playlists and columns and rants and (sadly) obits and so much much much more, as we keep sayin'. Recommended if you have any interest in the cool, cult, collectable music of yesteryear. And copious free time to spend readin' about it!
It's baaack! Another mammoth (216 pages!) issue of one of our favorite magazines, all about "wild sounds from past dimensions" as they put it - garage, beat, psych, punk, etc. Now, a lot of you reading this probably have some idea of what it's like to be a musician in a band today. You're in a band, or were in a band, or have friends who are in bands. But not so many of you probably know what it was like to be in a band back in, say, 1964. Sure in 2008 we have garage bands - and GarageBand too - but things were different back then. Let's see, the band you were in, did you have a manager, and were they your drummer's mom? That's part of what makes Ugly Things so interesting, the way it delves into what might be termed the "human interest" or "behind the music" stories of bands that otherwise you haven't heard, and in some cases, will never ever hear. For instance, the 30+ pages devoted this ish to a teenage surf/R&B combo from Orange County called The Spats. Remember them? And their bottom of the Billboard Top 100 hit "Gator Tails and Monkey Ribs"? No, well us neither of course, but we still enjoyed reading their detailed history here, which included regular gigging at Disneyland, and some tantalizing brushes with fame.
And of course Ugly Things isn't all about things quite that obscure - The Who and The Small Faces are also featured in this issue, with an article detailing the story of their tempestuous tour Down Under in '68. Also you get stuff about The Animals, The Koala, Beatles manager Brian Epstein, Bo Diddley (R.I.P.), Chile's Los Vidrios Quebrados, "Beat Girl" actress/singer Gillian Hills, '70s punks The Victims... There's also a glam rock/junk shop top 50 from Johan Kugelberg (as always with his contributions, a highlight of the issue), a psych top 10 from Clinic's Ade Blackburn, and the usual gizillions of reviews. Plus loads more. This will keep you busy reading for a while, though maybe not 'til the next issue is due out, in early 2009, which we're looking forward to already.
Why oh why does it seem when a new issue of this this fantastic, biannual magazine finally shows up, it's always, like, the day before we're doing a list? (Though that's better than the day after, of course.) 'Cause all we want to do is sit and read it for hours and hours, but instead we've got to write reviews instead. But, since we need a review of it too, at least there's an excuse to spend *some* time flipping through it today rather than doing other work... Ugly Things #28 is again a monster-sized (208 pages!!) installment, everything within its colorful glossy covers fully devoted to "wild sounds from past dimensions", i.e. garage, punk, psych, power pop, freakbeat, and even some prog and proto-metal, circa the '60s and '70s for the most part. There's some not-so-obscure acts covered here (with big features on The Move and The Dave Clark Five this issue, for instance) but also some bands that absolutely couldn't be any more obscure, who barely released a single 7". Some (just some) of the other bands covered in depth this ish include: The New Dawn, Roky Erickson's The Spades, The Good Feelins, Daughters Of Eve, and The Dandy Girls (an all-girl group from Norway who toured South East Asia in the late '60s!). Like we said, we haven't had time to read the whole thing yet - but we will!
So far, a few of the pieces that have caught our attention include an article about Stooges-worshipping French psychedelic punks Angel Face, an interview with shoulda been huge (or at least properly reissued) NYC one album wonders Hackamore Brick (who are back together!), a feature on "50 Reasons Not To Hate The Synthesizer" (citing everything from the Silver Apples to the Normal to, much to the writer's surprise, Uriah Heep), and a special section all about the seminal DIY fanzines of the past, including interviews with V. Vale (Search & Destroy 'zine) and Claude Bessy (Slash 'zine). Plus all the usual stuff, of course - TONS of super-knowledgable reviews, entertaining rants, intriguing ads, and few eulogies for folks (like Ron Asheton and Pretty Things manager Bryan Morrison) who've sadly passed away since the last issue went to press.
In Mike Stax's editorial, he waxes rhapsodic about some of the old school fanzines he grew up with, such as Kicks, Who Put The Bomp, Gorilla Beat, and Bam Balam, writing about how much they stoked his enthusiasm for old and underground music with information he couldn't get anywhere else, clueing him in to the existence of so many amazing, obscure records and bands, and subsequently inspired him to do Ugly Things. Well, we hope Mr. Stax really realizes that his Ugly Things itself is now just as inspirational and important of a 'zine, as far as we're concerned!
The best thing about Ugly Things' rather irregular twice-yearly schedule is that it's always a pleasant surprise when the latest issue of this magazine of "wild sounds from past dimensions" suddenly shows up here! And, somehow, it's always a day or two before "list day" so we can't totally kick back and spend as much time reading it right away as we'd like, 'cause there's work to do. And we do mean we'd need to spend time, lots of time, it's a big ol' magazine (224 pages this ish) packed to the gills with text and vintage photos.
However, since our list-work IS to review New Arrivals, and since this Ugly Things is a New Arrival, we WILL take a moment now to leaf through it... ah, maybe sit back a bit, put the feet up, settle in... whoops, better be careful, hours and hours of "lost productivity" will go by as we read about cover stars The Masters Apprentices ('60s Australian psych-pop sensations we know better in their later proto-metal mode). That article is 27 pages and it's only part 1, another of editor Mike Stax's multipart epics, to be continued next issue! Then there's several eulogies to the late Sky Sunlight Saxon of The Seeds (who passed away the same day as Michael Jackson, who gets mentioned here in Ugly Things for probably one of the only times ever on account of that). And the usual slew of obscure groups are dug up and examined, in depth - this time 'round, The Fenmen ('60s UK harmonizers with Pretty Things connections), The Reactor ('70s Mexican-American Inland Empire punk), The Nomadds ('60s Midwestern garage rockers), The Bittersweet (all girl garage from Ohio in the '60s), The Wildflower (mystical ballroom era SF "lost band"), Dentist (late '70s French punkers), and PLENTY MORE. As usual, we most often find the stories told quite fascinating, even when we've never heard a note of a band's music, nonetheless entire long gone music scenes open themselves up to the imagination, the world as it once was, somewhere, elsewhere, underground, rockin' out.
Leafing through (ok, we'll stop in a second and get back to work) it's easy to come across any number of treats, from the reprinted super-harsh one line putdown album reviews from '70s fanzine Future (a sample: "Foghat - Night Shift - The title of this LP should not include the 'F' in shift"), to the piece about recently rediscovered proto-punks the Imperial Dogs (look 'em up on YouTube!!!), to fanzine editor Phil Milstein's tale of trying to release a Nico bootleg some 30 years ago, a difficult saga which somehow manages to involve both his mom and Penn of Penn & Teller fame, as well as Nico herself of course. If we keep reading we'd find more to mention, haven't even delved into the pages and pages and pages of reviews yet, but we have other reviews of our own to write, so we'll reluctantly set aside our copy of UT#29 to pick it up again after our remaining list-duties are completed. Ah, yes, recommended. A magazine by music obsessives, for music obsessives, of almost any nostalgical variety.
Without fail. The new issue of this awesome, and HUGE, magazine all about "wild sounds from past dimensions" (aka the '60s and '70s) always arrives, like, the day before we're doing a list. I think we've mentioned this before. So, there's no way we could read through the whole thing -and- write all our other reviews. Heck, probably couldn't read the whole thing in one night even if we played hooky from work and that's all we did, that's how much stuff is packed into its 176 pages. So, struggling to give it just a skim right now, we can tell you that it's got in-depth (and often, we mean REALLY in depth) features on, among others: our favorite Dutch beat rockers Q65, Australia's The Master's Apprentices (part II to the saga begun last ish), The Kinks/Ray Davies, ESP's Connecticut "tribe" Cromagnon (all right!!), Texan punks The Nervebreakers, SoCal garage rockers The Hysterics, Milwaukee teen psych sensations Finch, guitarist Oli Halsall's proggy Patto, and plenty more. Also Johan Kugelberg captures our attention with "A Loser's Guide To '60s Punk Compilations", and then there's the pages and pages (and pages) of reviews. Whew! As always, recommended reading. And congrats to the UT crew on their 30th issue, 27 years after they first started publishing! Keep 'em coming!!
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SORRY.
Holy crap. 200 pages! And, as always, it lands here (with a weighty thud) just a day before our list. So we'll have to wait until the weekend to really delve in, but also as always we're damn excited to.
One of our favorite magazines ever, now up to its 31st fat issue, wow. If you're into almost any interesting bands of yesteryear, of the garage/punk/psych variety, you should read this magazine!! Girl groups, surf rock, freakbeat, even some esoteric prog, it's all here. (For metal bands, check out Snakepit, also reviewed this list.)
Tons of great stuff this ish, about bands both infamous (The Stooges) and obscure (The 40 Fingers). Let's see... Them, The Masters Apprentices (part 3 of a monster feature), oud master John Berberian, Wreckless Eric, Ollie Halsall, The Zachary Thaks, The Cobra Seas, The Mountain Men, The Pleasure Seekers, The Missing Lynx, Them, and others! Guaranteed each article or interview is both more in depth and more interesting than you could ever imagine.
Some of the other features that jumped out at us include a discussion of the merits of the many posthumous Jimi Hendrix records, also a piece all about the Norton Records label. And of course there's pages and pages and pages of reviews. Awesome - as always!
Oh boy. Editor / expert in chief Mike Stax and crew have done it again. Here's a fat new issue (176 pages) of our favorite magazine of ye olde rock n' roll (garage, punk, psych, power pop, and maybe a side of prog). This time 'round, there's typically in-depth, heavy duty features on a whole lot of interesting artists, some more obscure than others... Them, The Vibrators, Finchley Boys, The Sloths, Creation Of Sunlight, The Contrasts, freakbeat faves Wimple Winch, and plenty of others - including one REALLY obscure group with the amazing name of $27 Snap On Face, some Sonoma county weirdos circa '77. Along with a look at the psychedelic side of Paul Revere & The Raiders, the usual vast array of reissue reviews, the regular columns, et cetra. Oh, and a page devoted to "The 20 Worst Hard Rock Obscurities" to be avoided. And really that's just scratching the surface, as always an issue of Ugly Things requires a few solid hours of devoted study. For anyone who loves "wild sounds from past dimensions" this is sheer manna in magazine form.
About the only bad thing we can say about a new issue of this great magazine of "wild sounds from past dimensions" coming out, is that it means we're all just a little bit older. Other than that, always a happy occasion. #35 is their 30th anniversary issue, so they know what we mean about getting older. Wow, editor Mike Stax started doing Ugly Things (aka "the fanzine that refused to die") back in 1983?! And it's still going strong, this 176 page issue is proof of that. As usual it's packed (in tiny print) with lots of interesting features and interviews on obscure and otherwise bands of years and years past, mostly in the psych/garage genre, also power pop, acid rock, hippie folk, early punk, etc. This time 'round there's stuff on The Seeds, The Nazz, heavy rockers Thunder & Roses, The Radiators From Space, The Paragons, and plenty more, including a piece called "The Secret Police Vs. Hungarian Rock", also a guide to New York Dolls collectibles. Plus of course tons of reviews, and the usual columns and such, like The Pretty Things page and Cyril Jordan of the Flamin' Groovies "San Francisco Beat".
Tons and tons of stuff here you maybe didn't know you'd care about, but the stories are so in-depth that they end up always being interesting on a historical, human-interest level even if you never have heard a note of music by the artist in question, though of course the likelihood is that you'll soon want to�
So as always, a recommended read - set aside some hours or weeks to fully delve in!
Ready to revisit (or discover for the first time) some "wild sounds from past dimensions"? One good thing about the march of time is that every six months or so, we get treated to a new issue of this magazine, one of our faves, THE magazine for '60s/'70s psych, pop, garage stuff, celebrating and illuminating both the legends and the obscurities. Issue #37, which weighs in at 184 pages, is now here and we wish we could sit down and absorb it to the obsessive extent that we want to, except first we have other reviews to finish. But, a cursory flip-through gives us plenty to look forward to readin'� There's a super in-depth interview with singer Phil May of The Pretty Things (who'd pretty much be the Ugly Things house band, if they had one). Also interviews with Ian McLagan and the late Steve Marriott of The Small Faces, pieces on East Germany's Joco-Dev Sextett (see, obscurities!), Thursday's Children from Texas, psychedelic sixties songwriters Carter & Gilbert, San Diego's class of '77 alumni The Hitmakers, LA punks The Gears, prae-kraut pandaemoniacs The Loosers, and much more. All of it super informative and interesting, even if you didn't think you'd think so� Plus, there's another installment of our favorite feature each ish: Cyril Jordan's San Francisco Beat. And of course tons of reviews of reissues, books, etc.
There's a Cyrillic transcription affixed next to the name of this project, which is even more cryptic in appearance than the onomatopoetic moniker Uhushuhu, rendered as Yxywyxy. Supposedly in both languages, this transliterates somewhat close to the call of one of the larger predator owls bellowing to another owl in the forest. U'hu! Shu'hu! - or the Boy Scout mnemonic "Who Cooks For You?" asks the Barred Owl (whose habitat includes both Russia and North America, fyi). But taken outside of the context of avian communication, the hushed blur in whispering Uhushuhu could easily stand in as a whoosh or hiss as pure description of their dreamy, forest-dwelling drones. And yes, the Uhushuhu collective have been known to perform and produce their work under the canopy of the Russian forests outside of St. Petersburg, making them something of a Russian reincarnation of Jewelled Antler. There's much more of an electronic underbelly to Uhushuhu than Jewelled Antler, while retaining the pine-cone drone ethos of luminously radiant psychedelic dronescaping. The first track actually holds a number of aesthetic similarities to the long form works of Motion Sickness Of Time Travel - sinewy, seductive, and slippery passages of intertwining synth melodies softened through reverb and spaciousness, furthered along by watery field recordings and damp ruminations on subterranean lairs, wormholes, and caves. Each of the album's three tracks clock well past the 15 minute mark, leading towards deeper, more shambolic explorations of sublime atmosphere. Quite a lovely piece of work, but it's limited to just 77 copies!
Two releases, originally UK imports on Hemiola and Soul Static Sound, finally available on cd at a domestic price. American instrumental trio fans of Tortoise will dig. And hey, Stereolab likes them, see next review.
Nearly a decade ago, Sasha Frere-Jones began what has amounted to a prolific career as a music critic for The Village Voice and The Wire, often providing insight into the slippery logic of the groove whether that be about his childhood love of Liquid Liquid and ESG or recent musings on the newest Missy Elliott record. During this time, Frere-Jones has been actualizing his own boogie machine with the sporadically active Ui, which centers on Frere-Jones playing bass alongside percussionist Clem Waldmann and a supporting cast of multi-instrumentalists. "Answers" is just Ui's third album, and is a far cry from the current strain of mutant disco from bands like The Rapture or Tussle which boast a similiar lineage dating back to the golden era of Arthur Baker productions and Gang of Four punked out grooviness. No, Ui would never be caught wearing hotpants or delving into the facile behavior of Fischerspooner; rather, Ui's take on the groove is based upon complexity and willfull angularity, paralleling much of the organic composition found on Tortoise's "Millions Now Living Will Never Die," any of the Minutemen's albums, and the perpetually obscure prog-punk band the Embarrassment. "Answers" is a series of intellectual explorations of the interplay between two basses, drums, and a number of quirky flourishes which counterpoint the mathematically challenging times and herky-jerky chord progressions. This is a solid recapitulation of where post-rock might have gone, if it didn't devolve into banal jazz-fusion pretense.
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Some will claim that instrumental trio UI is doing the funky tortoise, but we know this is their best album to date, the heavy bass and melodic lines finally coming together for a fleshed out, confident record. Fans of the UILAB ep will like this a lot.
New York trio's long-anticipated full-length is finally out; too bad they chose to package the cd in one of those paper sleeves that doesn't even qualify as cardboard and will thus assuredly fall apart next week. Often described as "prog-Tortoise."
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6 tracks chronicling a year-long collaboration between Ui and Stereolab, featuring 4 (yes four) version of Brian Eno's "St. Elmo's Fire" and one track ("Impulse Rah!") whose writing credit goes to the 2 bands plus Sun Ra. This is very pleasant record -- the music is closer to Ui's sound, yet the presence of Stereolab seems to have been a good anchor for the group, and Laetitia and Mary's vocals mix wonderfully with Sasha Frere-Jones' voice. The 10" vinyl for this is on its way, should appear next week, and is extremely limited (you know Duophonic) so please reserve your copy. The cds should be around for a while.
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We recently discovered this excellent 'zine from Australia, which has as its focus experimental music from that country/continent (such as the minimal electronicism of Pimmon and Minit, who are two of the better-known names here, at least to us). Part of the beauty of this 'zine is how it serves as an introduction to a interesting scene that you probably haven't heard much about if you live in this hemisphere. Also, there's a healthy review section covering not only Aussie artists but all kinds of other international AQ-approved things from the Melvins to Sensational, from Schoolly D to Mouse on Mars, all well written and individual. You'll also notice some seemingly incongrous coverage of stuff in the metal realm (there's reviews of Immortal and Peccatum, and pics of metal-oriented graffiti!), demonstrating a broadminded taste in all forms of extreme and unusual music, something that we always applaud here at Aquarius.
By now you probably realize, that it's easy to win us over with the right band name, at least initially. Fuck I'm Dead, Bathtub Shitter, Throne Of Blood... Tempting and tantalizingly teasing us with whatever weirdness may lurk inside. Often, it stops at the band name, as if in a single burst of creativity, the band came up with THE NAME, and then were forced to soldier on with the whole job of writing songs and recording a record, made even more difficult by the completely drained reservoir of creative juices.
So as always, we were immediately tickled by Uke Of Spaces Corners County, but then entered with a certain amount off trepidation, having been burned before. Thankfully, So Far On The Way was anything but a disappointment, in fact, if anything, not only did it manage to not disappoint, it also didn't sound anything like we expected.
It's on Corleone to begin with, home of Landed, The Body, Throne Of Blood, Mindflayer and plenty of soundfuckers, so we were sort of expecting something, noisy maybe, and there's the band name, but instead, UOSCC are some sort of folk music, damaged and what-the-fuck enough to seem right at home on Corleone, but undoubtedly folk music, of the freaked out, stumbling and strange weirdo outsider stripe that we dig so much.
The opener, "Dead Pens", is downright gorgeous, minor key distorted main riff, the vocals plaintive and emotional, lyrics appropriately bizarre and random, the track a convoluted crawl, peppered with sound FX and finishing off with a haphazard choir of back up vocalists. But for all its weirdness and musical damage, it's totally beautiful, like Bright Eyes on some brain melting cocktail of Thorazine and peyote...
Things continue on in the same druggy musical haze, on the verge of falling apart, but without losing any emotion or becoming any less catchy. From the distorted beat driven folky strum jam of "Today The Mirror", with it's strange staccato break down, and awesome juxtaposition of damaged drum machine sounding beat and steel string riff. To the hiss drenched Appalachia of "This Old World", an old timey classic transported direct from some a Southern homestead in the thirties, to some broken 4-track in a musty old warehouse in New Orleans today. And like all the tracks, it's the vocals again, tying it all together, soaring and crooning, sometime slipping into a haunting and wavering falsetto, cracking here and there, but always weaving a mysterious and powerful spell.
In some ways it reminds us of a less Brit obsessed Strapping Fieldhands, a lo-fi bedroom folk, strangely lush for all it's lo-fi-ness, and filtered through classic back porch twang, spacy reverb drenched drone guitar, sweet major key melodies, and of course random streaks and squalls of psychedelic noise, angular guitar scrape, splatters of percussion and random other bits of sonic detritus.
Something even freakier than all that freak folk, original, heartfelt, ramshackle, and so goddamn good.
By now, we should be able to safely assume that most AQ list-readers know who Steven R. Smith is. Not only that, but we know a lot of you are in fact big S.R.S. fans, of his solo projects under his own name and as Hala Strana, as well as for his participation in such outfits as Mirza and Jewelled Antler flagship Thuja. Certainly this should be the case after the last few S.R.S. releases. First there was his Owl album that came out a month or two ago, with his first ever vocal performance to go along with his lovely psych-drone guitar. Then two lists ago we had the cd reissue of his Anchorite album, which we made Record Of The Week in fact. And now there's Ulaan Khol. On it you can almost imagine that Steven has donned the black shades and leather jacket of the Tokyo psych underground scene, as this sounds like something that LSD-march, Up-Tight or even Keiji Haino himself might conjure. Acid Mothers Temple's Kawabata Makoto too. But even then, it probably wouldn't be this cosmic and bleakly beautiful.
Suitably majestic sounding, as part of a proposed three album trilogy, Ulaan Khol I consists of nine untitled, instrumental tracks made with guitar and organ. It's a spacious drift of big fuzzy distortion and fragile drone bliss... utterly entrancing. The sort of thing that you just want to keep going, and going... well thank god there's another two volumes of Ulaan Khol yet to come! Recommended.
It may be odd to single out one component of a series for Record Of The Week, especially when it's the second of a proposed three record trilogy. It's not that we didn't love the first installment, we did very much! And it's not like the Academy Awards where we're belatedly acknowledging the first installment by rewarding the second. It might be just that we didn't realize at the time the magnificent depth and far reaching direction in which Steven R. Smith would take his latest project. And as we have heaped tons of praise on his past work, we wanted to single out this project and particularly this installment as something utterly amazing and wholly breathtaking.
Despite the tons of killer music that goes in and out of the aQ doors, it's not everyday we get an album that really lifts us out of our seats and straight into an alternate dimension. The latest release under the Ulaan Khol moniker is a celestial trip into desolate plains where the water rises and the skies are ripped open.
A prominent member of the Jeweled Antler family, Steven R. Smith has been seriously influential in defining the California psych/drone sound for over a decade. We've mentioned it in plenty of reviews, so folks gotta be by now pretty aware of Smith's extensive discography, ranging from countless solo records to his releases as the Eastern European-tinged Hala Strana or with the famed JA flagship act Thuja.
The first Ulaan Khol record, though made up of nine untitled tracks, felt like one spacious drifting piece of big fuzzy distortion and fragile drone bliss. Something like the gorgeous feedback-laden free music of Les Rallizes Denudes or others from the Japanese Underground scene. We loved it a lot, but didn't go into extensive detail about it, probably because we had also just reviewed his Owl record (released under his own name) around the same time.
On II, we hear a lot more range. There are still the big swaths of massively distorted psych heaviness, but the eight untitled tracks feel more distinct and structured. Some tracks have faster Spacemen 3-like tempos and fuller driving progressions with pummeling drums mired way deep in the mix, while others feature more calm, drifty drones made up of intimate guitar, electric violin and organ passages that conjure up gorgeous swells of luminous sound. The pieces are more varied and layered, dense yet melodic and at times more rock-ish. The majestic guitar radiance Smith manages to create is not unlike the solo work of Kawabata Makoto or Tom Carter, but here we also hear shades of Roy Montgomery, Flying Saucer Attack and even Asa Osbourne from Zomes and Lungfish (Zomes being a recent Record Of The Week too).
As with the first disc, there are no liner notes, just an abstract painted cover, this time in bleak blue-grey winter tones. And inside the sleeve is an awesome painting of a lamp-holding monk (perhaps the same skull contemplating monk from the first disc) at the mouth of a giant cave! Yes!
Finally, the third volume in Ulaan Khol's epic free-psych-drone trilogy. For those who don't already know, Ulaan Khol is in fact Steven R. Smith, a beloved core member of the Jeweled Antler family, who has recorded on his own as Hala Strana, and with the first JA outfit Thuja, among many, many others. Much of Smith's music is hushed and darkly romantic, folky and introspective, he does know how to rock though, and Ulaan Khol is where he really lets loose. The first two installments in the series were both loud and heavy and psychedelic in their own ways, but number three definitely pushes the sound about as far as it can go. The opening track is a dense shapeless cloud of furious effulgent psychedelic guitar, warm and thick and gnarled and epic, the kind of guitarnoise that could fill up a whole record, but there's more to Ulaan Khol's third outing, as is evidenced by the second track, an incredible, super rocking, crazy catchy burst of blown out psychedelic stomp, the drums pounding, beneath a sea of swirling guitar buzz, while way over the top, Smith unfurls wild soaring leads, pealing feedback, dense tangles of notes, long drawn out wailing tones, it's like the perfect frenzied end to some classic space psych jam except it's the whole song.
But fear not, III is not all blown out psych rock for headz, some of the tracks are humid, smoldering raga like dronescapes, buzzing guitar swells, spidery melodies, delicate and crystalline, others take that same ambience and wrap it around urgently strummed acoustic guitars, creating a sort of dark psychfolk, but it's not too long before the record explodes into another incendiary blast of full on speaker shredding freakout.
The second half of the record is heavy on the dark blissy drift, the slow burning drifts, the blurred desert-y shimmer, all of which culminate in the super melodic 10+ minute closer, which sounds poised to explode, but instead channels that energy into something much more sublime, a long drawn out spacedrone/krautrock drift, the guitars thick and distorted, churning and roiling, but laced with gorgeous streaks of melody, dreamy, but still heavy, and pretty much the perfect way to close out Ulaan Khol's epic psychedelic songsuite. Even though this is the third in a trilogy, we're hoping S.R.S. will do an Ulaan Khol IV anyway, or maybe start making prequels, or something, 'cause we want more!
Huh, what, wow!? A fourth album from AQ fave Steven R. Smith's AQ fave epic free-psych-drone Ulaan Khol project! After the "Ceremony" trilogy of I, II, and III released on cd by Soft Abuse circa 2008-2010, the 2nd volume of which we even made a Record Of The Week, we thought that's all we'd be getting outta Ulaan Khol. It was a trilogy after all. But lo and behold, Soft Abuse now brings us a new album, this time cassette only, that once again sees S.R.S. exploring the spacey outer limits of droned-out guitar psych in his Ulaan Khol guise. The six smouldering tracks here, with titles like "And I Dreamt the Sky Was a Great Ocean of Blood" and "Watching From the Cave of My Skull" are quite lovely, actually, with lots of "the dark blissy drift, the slow burning drifts, the blurred desert-y shimmer" we heard on the second half of UK's III.
Uber-limited to just 200 copies. Comes with a digital download for those times when you don't have your Walkman handy.
Ulaan Markhor is the latest sonic incarnation of longtime aQ fave Steven R. Smith, who over the years has given us some amazing records, from projects and groups as varied as Thuja, Hala Strana and Ulaan Khol. Ulaan Markhor seems to be a continuation of Ulaan Khol, focusing on the same sort of heady psychedelic kosmiche musik, but where in the past, those sounds would drift and shimmer, smolder and sprawl, here they are given some propulsion, rhythm playing a bigger part than ever, whether it be simple campfire percussion, shakers and hand drums, or full on motorik drumming, the sound of UM is easily the fiercest we've heard from Smith, the opener, "Pharoahs" immediately launches into a sprawling stretch of pulsing propulsive mesmer, the guitars smoldering, the rhythm insistent, the sound super hypnotic, which leads directly into "White Markhor", which lays down loose abstract jazzy drumming, and wraps it in dense clouds of distorted buzz and swirling psychedelic shimmer, the track gradually building to an almost Sunroof!-like ur-drone, before launching into "100 Birds" which is full on psychedelic rock, a loping stripped down groove, slithery sinewy bassline, and chugging hypnorock riffage.
And so it goes, the whole record a killer collection of dark drone-flecked psych-kraut, which Smith deftly fashions into all manner of variants, from the majestic "Half Ricochet", with what sounds like a horn section, but could just be processed guitars, and whirring organs, to tripped out lo fi hippy jam of "Kites", and from the dense almost shoegazy laid back psych rock bliss out of "Hand In Circles" to the 6 + minute closer "Dancing", a sprawling, slow building, almost post rock sounding psychedelic coda, all lush chordal whir and simple spare drumming beneath thick swirling clouds of psych guitar shimmer and smoldering buzz. Awesome.
Two new releases this week from aQ pal, and longtime favorite Steven R. Smith, in his latest Ulaan guise, the other is a reissue of a long out of print double cassette originally released on Brave Mysteries, and this one, which is a brand new recording, two sprawling, nearly twenty minute tracks. The first opens with a soft cacophony of bells, before some mournful fiddle, wreathed in reverb, and set atop soft billows of low end thrum, a gorgeous, haunting threnody, which gradually blossoms into a sort of swampy folky dirge, immediately reminiscent of Woven Hand / Sixteen Horsepower. But soon, the strum dissipates, leaving, long tones, lushly layered atmospheres, abstract percussion, and soft shimmers, the vibe dusky and windblown, a little bit twangy, easy to imagine, a landscape painted in reds and oranges from the setting sun, and the slowly encroaching shadows. Soon the strings sweep back in, and the sound is transformed into an almost baroque sounding darkfolk drift, underpinned by swoonsome chordal swells, and sitar like drones, giving the sound an almost raga like vibe. After a bit of distorted psychedelia, the sound settles into a strummy, drifty finale, again, lots of twang, and some crackling electric guitar buzz. Moody and mesmeric. The second track starts off all campfire Appalachian folk, before quickly mutating into a droned out tribal drift, muted pulsing rhythms, beneath soft swirls and layered drones, another sort-of-raga, but with some psych-kraut like propulsion, which gives way to some broody gypsy folk, still wreathed in drones, washed out and woozy, a hazy sprawl of dark dream-drone psych folk ambience, that gradually becomes more and more Appalachian again, lots of buzzy twang, long tones, and lush overtones, all over a bed of softly roiling rumbles, and a hushed, distant, slow fading soft psych finale, before those opening bells return...
Housed in super swank, silkscreened Stumptown cardstock sleeves. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!! Each one hand numbered.
Originally released as an ultra limited (just 100 copies) double cassette on Brave Mysteries in 2013, this sprawling songsuite from longtime fave and aQ pal Steven R. Smith, gets new life in the form of this not so limited cd, and finds Smith, slightly altering his constantly in flux Ulaan monicker, conjuring up 4 side long (at least on the original tape) sprawls of haunting, contemplative, abstract, psychedelic drift. Fans of Smith's other recordings will immediately feel right at home, plaintive piano, soft shimmering swells, chiming bells, softly moaning strings, the sound slowly unfurling and blossoming, moving from a freeform psychedelic dronescape, to a brooding dark folk balladry, to a murky minimal softnoise drift, to hushed droned wreathed steel string strum, a sort of droned out Appalachia, to lush string swaddled epic psych folk majesty and finally to a lush, layered raga-like ambience, that gradually fades into silence. And that's just the first side/track! The other three tracks are equally epic and mesmerizing, darkly melodic, hauntingly psychedelic, lush and lovely, the sort of endless epic psychedelia that is so easy to get swept away by, a few minutes into any of the tracks here, you'll find yourself gloriously lost in Smith's mysterious soundworld, drifting weightlessly above fields of Appalachia flecked droned, or softly submerged beneath dreamlike billows of serene psychedelia, or propelled by heady sprawls of minimal psych-kraut mesmer. As always, FANTASTIC!
Housed in super swank, silkscreened Stumptown cardstock sleeves. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!! Each one hand numbered.
This French post-rock band remixed by an all-star cast of characters: Japanese turntablist Otomo Yoshihide, the ubiquitous electronica fella Scanner, French turntablist Erik M and local computer music maven Carl Stone (our favorite mix here), each revising using his respective set of tools. The result: post-post-rock, all hacked and chopped and stuttery. Really quite nice.
"Ego : Echo" is certainly one of the mightiest, ahem, 'post-rock' records of the year, simply because every other post-rock band has unfortunately followed the Thrill Jockey (Tortoise, Isotope) path to jazz fusion. Ulan Bator is a French trio who employed the talents of the Swans' Michael Gira to produce this, their latest album. Gira -- who also released this through his Young God label -- makes his presence known with a majestic yet depressed sound that permeates the strangled grooves of Ulan Bator. If you take both the mellowest and most thunderous extremes of the best Mogwai and filter it through Circle's patented rhythm hypnosis and the Swans' bleakness, and factor in the Frenchness aspect, you'll get close to what Ulan Bator sounds like. Pretty great. Their previous records didn't get much notice over here in the States, but perhaps things will change with this release. And you might also recall seeing a favorable review of their recent remixes disc on AQ-L #97 -- if you were wondering just what this band was that Carl Stone, Otomo Yoshihide, et.al. were messing with, then "Ego : Echo" is the thing to check out.
Ulan Bator's previous album Ego: Echo was released over here on Michael Gira's Young God label in 2000, and we liked it quite a bit ("one of the mightiest, ahem, 'post-rock' records of the year"). Well turns out that UB made a new album just last year, 2003, but being an import-only item from their home country of France we've only just discovered it. And instead of having Gira at the helm, they've enlisted the help of another '80s alt-rock artist, Robin Guthrie of the Cocteau Twins, to mix and master Nouvel Air. Dunno if it's his influence or what, but this new UB has got to be their most 'pop' album yet. Smooth, mellow and melodic French language indie rock, really quite lovely but not immediately encouraging the comparisons to Mogwai and Circle we applied to Ego: Echo's weighty grooves. Languid, sad, romantic...sure it's less post- and more pop, but it's hard to argue with how pretty this is! UB just have a more subtle majesty than before.
U.B.'s second album of Tortoise/Sonic Youth/krautrock stylin's, as featured in the recent Wire magazine article on French post-rock bands.
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Yes, the harmolodic electric guitar of Ulmer combined with the violins, violas and cellos of the Quartette Indigo. Quite lovely. Includes a version of Ulmer's "Theme From Captain Black". On the Japanese jazz label DIW.
Initial has been heading toward Vagrant territory putting out way more pop than punk lately. But who are we to complain. Especially if it means we get records this good. Super produced, kick ass, totally catchy power pop. Haven't dug a straight up pop record this much since the last Get Up kids record or since we discovered The Stereo. Think midwest emo, blossoming into gorgeous four chord pop punk, but not pop punk like Green Day/Blink 182, but punky pop like Weezer or the Posies or any of the Vagrant bands (GUK, the Anniversary). Huge guitars, hooky melodies, scratchy Elvis Costello-ish vocals, and a great production. For anyone in need of a fresh dose of pop, this will definitely hit the spot.
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We brought this in cos folks can't seem to get enough of Dr. Octagon album, which despite being somewhat impossible to find outside of the Bay Area, has turned out to be one of our biggest sellers of 1996. That self-titled record is still available from us (12.98 cd or 2xlp -- cover art by Pushead!), but if you've already got that AND the instrumental version of the record (brilliantly manipulated by the Automator), then you may want to check out this collaboration between Octagon rapper Kool Keith with Tim Dogg. Over more conventional hip hop beats, the rapping is just as deft, biting and funny as the Doc Oc record.
Thin Lizzy meets ZZ Top, basically. Ultra was a mid-'70s quartet of hard rockin' Texans featuring a twin lead guitar attack through some big ass Marshall stacks. Like a lot of Monster Records' other '70s re-discoveries (Truth & Janey, Winterhawk) Ultra's
Weird Japanese indie pop/electronica/jazz group, described as some impossible combination of salsa, beats, and Zappa, or something like that. Their brand of willful eclecticism is of the very brave (foolish?) variety, where they don't so much fuse genres as skip among them from track to track, making this sound almost more like a compilation than a band. For instance, track four is an interpretation of Ornette Coleman's "Skies of America", with saxophones a-plenty, but by track six we're experiencing a hip hop song featuring guest MC Mike Ladd. Other guests and musical approaches are introduced over the course of the album, but at least one unifying factor is the recurrence of saxophones, and another is the recurring vocals of Kyoko Brown, who manages to come as close as a Japanese (-American?) woman can to sounding like Mike Patton, appropriate since I'd imagine that Mr. Bungle fans looking for something in the electronica vein would go for this... Interesting!
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SORRY.
After several releases for the labels run by Telepherique and Troum/Maeror Tri (Drone Records), Ultra Milkmaids was commissioned by VPRO radio in Holland to broadcast their isolationist drones redolent of Main or Rafael Toral with odd electronica bits of processed field recordings that end up sounding like a slow and sparse Matmos. Very nice and very limited.
I've always wanted to give Ultra Milkmaids the benefit of the doubt. They've started out on the wrong foot by acquiring such a horrible name, but like Terminal Cheesecake, have been able to transcend their crappy moniker. Their contribution to the Drone Records singles series was a beautiful cascading guitar drone rippling with subtle melodies. I wish I could say the same for "Peps," but honestly I can't. Ultra Milkmaids has joined the increasing exodus of post-industrialists to the powerbook set (another example Mikael Stavostrand). This is Oval without the detail. Then a questionably used lounge sax solo adds that lost detail. Hmmm... But, that aside, much of this is quite lovely, just nothing super new.
