Here the latest of the warehouse finds we've been able to dig up stock on Unsound - the seminal underground San Francisco magazine from the '80s focusing on the amorphous regions between punk, industrial culture, the performance-art world, and outsider shock tactics. Volume Two designates the year being 1985 for Unsound with the typically wonderful array of underground miscreants in this issue including interviews with Controlled Bleeding, a young Karen Finley (well before her 'controversy' from receiving grant money from the NEA for making 'obscene' art... and there's a transcription of her "I'm An Ass Man" performance as well!), Negativland right when they were on the verge of seriously fucking with the San Francisco media with their Escape From Noise pranks, and the lost performance artist Ellen Zweig. Reviews galore from records we could only dream of getting to hear, plus all the networking one could need to begin one's own industrial culture in the pre-Google days. A vintage collectible, hence the price.
Another batch of sonic mysteries from UK tape label The Tapeworm, and if you didn't think the Tapeworm was eclectic already, these two will undoubtedly convince you. Johnny Remember Me is not a band, or really a record, instead, it's actually a book on tape, written by UK author Cathi Unsworth, who has a pretty serious resume (Sounds, Bizarre, Mojo, Uncut, not to mention a handful of novels), and besides writing about music, also writes about crime, but through a pop culture, new music filter, a hip hybrid of bands and artists and gangsters and criminals, which is what you get here. Unsworth is teamed up with musician Pete Woodhead, from the group O Yuki Conjugate, who did the music for awesome Rom-Zom-Com Shaun Of The Dead, for a pretty straight reading of Unsworth's novel Johnny Remember Me.
It's a pretty cool story, rife with pop culture references, loads of music, and yeah, some criminal activities, with Unsworth and Woodhead each tackling half the story, both with appropriately thick UK accents, which gives Unsworth's tale the perfect British crime novel vibe.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES. With killer cover art by Savage pencil.
The inaugural issue of this new mag confused some folks around here. A few were unclear why we'd carry it at aQ, as it was mostly saucy photos of hot ladies. Others felt like it was just an extremely expensive, an essentially NOT free version of Vice. And those are both totally valid observations. But then the rest of us countered with: Who doesn't love saucy photos of lovely ladies? Especially when combined with some cool music articles, and a few other things. Not sure we could say we read Untame for the articles, but for some folks it might make you feel better about having a big magazine full of nearly naked ladies on your coffee table. But yeah, it's a new magazine designed a bit like vintage Playboy, no ACTUAL nudity, but LOTS of sexy cheesecake photos, and in the style of Playboy, each model answers a little Q&A after their set, which is fun, funny and sometimes interesting. There's a solid 85 pages of hot ladies before you get to any other content, the first a photoset of skaters drinking beer, fooling around, and of course skating in LA. Up next is an article about a podcast called Everything is Stories, with one of the stories in print, complete with photos, as well as synopses of some other episodes. The Jasper McGandy from Cult Of Youth talks about touring, a comic, and then probably the other coolest part of this debut issue, an interview with Jerry A. from Poison Idea talking about Poison Idea songs, and the stories behind them. There's also some awesome flyer art from Brooklyn artist Alexander Heir (you've probably seen his art before, it's awesome), some fiction from Max G. Morton (head honcho of Heartworm Press), a travel/food diary chronicling the journey meal by disgusting (delicious) meal, an article titled Confessions Of A Headbanging Times Square Grindhouse Peep Show Freak, which is as good as it sounds, and finally, an interview with chef Jamie Bisonette, accompanied by some seriously bloody photos.
So yeah, lots of ladies, a little food, some music, what's not to love? 156 pages, printed on heavy matte paper, in an oversize 9" x 12" sized artbook style format.
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These NW heroes can't be stopped, certainly not by untrue car-crash death rumors.
It's been quite some time since Unwound bestowed an album upon us. Finally, the wait is over. And our reward? A double cd! And the good news is, it seems some definite musical growth has taken place in the interim enough to merit the often unnecessary two cd
Disc two starts off with perhaps the biggest surprise, a dark and smoldering mope rock masterpiece that sounds amazingly like American Music Club (or even Red House Painters); swelling strings and muted minor key guitars, dark droning melancholic progressions with strange whale-like sounds in the background. Absolutely lovely. At this point, much like on disc one, things veer back toward the old Unwound days, but with a definite Godspeed influence. Still pounding and rocking, but much more introspective and dramatic. They really made good use of the double cd format, using the extra "room" to explore new territory while not neglecting their signature sound. A really great record, and quite a nice surprise.
Bristol-based Up Bustle & Out exhibit a genuine fondness for world music (heck I thought this whole time they were from South America), a fetish which can be incredibly annoying when appropriated by talentless DJs, but in the hands of this duo, the results
We first heard of Japanese psych band Up-Tight back in 2004 when their Five Psychedelic Pieces cd came out Stateside, 'round about the same time we also discovered their quite similar countrymen LSD-march, and hailed 'em both as two of the best young bands in the "Tokyo flashback" tradition. But that wasn't actually Up-Tight's first album, the sensibly titled First Album, which has now been reissued (in typical deluxe and limited fashion) by the aRCHIVE label on this Early Years disc.
Originally released on cd-r back in 1999 (btw, remember when that seemed like such a futuristic date??), this too could have been called Five Psychedelic Pieces, as this 5-tracker sees Up-Tight fully launched into the slowburn shoegaze-'til-amplifier-fire trajectory you already know and love 'em for... some songs drift lazily by, with quietly melancholic atmospheres and morose echoed vox. Usually that's just a part of it though, before pedals are stomped, drums begin to pound, and storms of electric guitar overload are unleashed. Heck, you know what we're talking about if you're curious about this, you've heard Up-Tight before, or LSD-march, or their sunglasses-at-night grandaddies Les Rallizes Denudes.
In addition to the approx. 48 minutes of First Album, aRCHIVE has added on two previously unreleased bonus tracks, one studio, one live, dug up from even further back in the band's early daze, circa 1994... another 18 minutes or so of primal psychedelic pulsation and delicate dronefulness.
Everything's been "slightly remastered", it's packaged in folding glossy cardstock sleeve, and is indeed LIMITED to 600 copies and unlikely to be around for too long!!
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Like the LSD-march reviewed two list ago, here's another young Japanese psych outfit who first came to our attention on one of the Alchemy label's recent Night Gallery compilations (which we'll hopefully have stocked and reviewed in time for our next list, by the way). Up-tight are kinda similar to LSD-march: drugged, dark, hypnotic garage psych from folks who must have invested many hours of their life in listening to the Velvet Underground. As the no-nonsense title states, there's five tracks, three studio n' two live, all certainly very psychedelic in that night-soaked, black-cloaked, Tokyo Flashback/Fushitsusha/Les Rallizes Denudes/Kousokuya way. All are pretty long too, with lots of room for Up-Tight to stretch out with their mantric, rhythmic clatter, guitars fuzzed and scrabbling. As befits their name, they've got a rigid menace to their playing. So much of this is dark, distorto, doomy grinding that just wants to do your head in. But at least one of these 'pieces' is a bit more peaceful -- driftier, lighter, sadder. And even the harsher pieces have their melodic moments... Our verdict: really good, recommended to all lovers of guitar-squall and nod-worthy groove. What with all the recent releases from the likes of Up-Tight, DMBQ, Miminikoto, LSD-march, and Green Milk From The Planet Orange, it seems like ol' Acid Mothers Temple are this year getting some serious up-and-coming competition!
First dvd release from both Up-Tight and Last Visible Dog, sees (or allows us to see) one of our favorite heavy Japanese psych trios kicking out the jams live in Tokyo. There's 52 minutes of footage here, the band performing four songs: "Day Dream Believer", "Cool Eyes", "Never Come Morning", and "Sweet Sister".
Musically Up-Tight are their usual dark and distorto-delic selves, some of this an amped up assault, some of it achingly beauty displaying their softer side, all in all a pretty awesome performance from them. And visually this is very cool too, the raw video having been given a psychedelic special FX treatment done tastefully enough to enhance, rather than distract from, the experience.
And no matter where you live, this all-regions dvd should be compatible with your TV, as it's double-sided, PAL on one, NTSC on the other.
Dark, heavy Japanese guitar psych!! We love it. If you do too -- we're talking bands like Fushitsusha, White Heaven, Kousokuya, Shizuka, and grandaddies of 'em all, the deservedly-legendary, decades-old Les Rallizes Denudes -- then this new release on the Alchemy label by Tokyo's Up-Tight comes highly recommended. We reviewed their US debut release, the aptly titled Five Psychedelic Pieces, just a few months back, and have been looking forward to this new album, a Japanese import, ever since. It doesn't disappoint. If anything, a lot of this has got an even heavier, dronier edge than what we heard on the last one. Super fuzzed guitars, sad ballads, grinding distorto epics. Not to be messed with. Along with that other great up-and-coming Tokyo psych outfit with an admittedly better name whom you probably also dig, LSD-march, these guys are the heirs to Les Rallizes' black-clad, acid-fried, downer dirge throne. Drop the (figurative, laser) needle on this and soon you'll be transported to the cloudy peak of their majestic solid rock night-black mountain, where maybe you'll find a guru willing to show you how to conquer your fears and walk on those clouds... Five tracks, four in the 8-10 minute range, culminating in a final 23 minute tour de force.
We've long loved Japanese psych crew Up-Tight, and this new disc on aQ beloved Brazilian label Essence is another good one, another slab of dark heavy psych from these masters. From the first few seconds, we're hurled into the void: thick, distorted bass, simple, pounding drumming, and wild, shredding, blown out, in-the-red guitar-shred freakout, no preamble, no slow build, just straight into some heart-of-the-the-sun heaviness. The leads do fade out, letting the song breathe a bit, the vibe dialed down a notch, for the echo drenched vocals to drift in, and suddenly, it's like a super distorted, even more blown out Les Rallizes Denudes, and before you know it, that guitar swoops in, and whips the song into a noise drenched Japanoise-psych squall. But as fans know, it's not all freakout, these guys are capable of brooding beauty, which is what the second track offers, a woozy crooning drift, a dark psych ballad, all wreathed in reverb, it's not until the last minute that things get at all heavy, wild vocalizations, swirls of guitar noise, a quick blast, and then right back into the dark chanted creep that began the track. Two of the remaining three tracks are more pretty than heavy, the first, a dreamy bit of sun dappled jangle, that almost sounds more like American slowcore than Japanese psych, the second, a brief bit of dark strum, murky, and haunting, hushed and mysterious. And then right in between, the nearly 16 minute "So Alone", which is ALL noisy and distorted, a churning death march pound, swirls of jagged feedback, arcs of guitarnoise, the guitars grinding and howling, fields of skree and shriek, hurts of face melting buzz and shred, all the while the bass and drums, locked into a churning, doomic pound, the vocals too wild and feral, doused in FX and battling the wild guitarnoise. Awesome!
The dark shadows cast by this underground Tokyo psych trio have been getting longer of late. We've had two cds from them, both of 'em well-received by the AQ community (the excellent US release Five Psychedelic Pieces on Static Records, and then the maybe even better Lucrezia on Japan's Alchemy label), and some of us here were also just lucky enough to get to witness the power and intensity of Up-Tight's live show when they played in San Francisco quite recently, bringing their melanchoic vox, mantric drum beating, rigid bass pulsations, and guitar-heavy sadness and squall to the tight confines of the Hemlock. As displayed there, Up-Tight's sunglasses-at-night music is aligned with the likes of current Tokyo scene brethren LSD-March in worship of '70s Japanese distorto-psych legends Les Rallizes Denudes, and that's nothin' but a good thing. So another new Up-Tight document is cause for excitement. That this one also features the guitar and drones of Acid Mothers Temple beardlord Kawabata Makoto, is only the icing on a rather heavy cake. Jamming together on such co-compositions as "The Scat Singer At The Gate Of Midnight" (?) and "Rainy Day Girl #12 & 35", the Up-Tight/Kawabata alliance turns in a particularily anguished, feedback-filled set. Demons being exorcised here for sure. It's noisy and droney and dark, and the presence of guest guru Kawabata only further stimulates the spirits of Les Rallizes that swirl about Up-Tight's amps. Sure Up-Tight have their softer side, but with Kawabata on board, it's the destructive jet engine guitar sound that gets emphasized! AMT fans who haven't heard Up-Tight (but like the harsher, "Electric Heavyland" side of Kawabata's output) will happily "Mellow Out" to this! Produced and mixed by Kawabata as well, for maximum void-dwelling clangor. It's a limited edition disc, too, we're told...
Along with a new record from one of our favorite purveyors of kosmische kraut-psych and spaced out synthscapery, Expo '70 (found elsewhere on this week's list) there's another new release, from Japanese psych crew Up-Tight, also on aQ beloved Brazilian label Essence, and like that Expo '70, this is in fact a PRE-ORDER for the super deluxe, super fancy, handmade BOX SET version, which comes not only with a bonus disc, but also housed in a crazy handmade box. It's limited to 91 copies and that's IT. We might be able to get 15, but even then, we're only getting as many as we get pre-orders for, so if you want one, order it now, we'll get them in sometime in the next few weeks, and they can either ship with your current order, or on their own. You will be charged for the box NOW, but then the shipping will be sorted out when we actually send the box (and it'll ship by weight, not as 1 item).
We've long loved Up-Tight, and this new one is another good one, if you're already a fan, maybe a super fan, odds are you're gonna want one of these, the box is super striking, all bird beaks and eyes, in an oversized, handmade boxset, that unfolds revealing still more artwork, along with a hand drawn third eye canvas collage. And along with the new record proper, it also includes an exclusive bonus album, a cd-r called Sweet Sister Session (Uncut) - For Lucrezia, a whole set recorded in 2004 during the sessions for their Alchemy release Lucrezia, and is ONLY available in this box. So needless to say, Up-Tight nerds grab one before they are gone.
The record itself, The Night Is Yours, is another slab of dark heavy psych from these masters, and from the first few seconds, we're hurled into the void: thick, distorted bass, simple, pounding drumming, and wild, shredding, blown out, in-the-red guitar-shred freakout, no preamble, no slow build, just straight into some heart-of-the-the-sun heaviness. The leads do fade out, letting the song breathe a bit, the vibe dialed down a notch, for the echo drenched vocals to drift in, and suddenly, it's like a super distorted, even more blown out Les Rallizes Denudes, and before you know it, that guitar swoops in, and whips the song into a noise drenched Japanoise-psych squall. But as fans know, it's not all freakout, these guys are capable of brooding beauty, which is what the second track offers, a woozy crooning drift, a dark psych ballad, all wreathed in reverb, it's not until the last minute that things get at all heavy, wild vocalizations, swirls of guitar noise, a quick blast, and then right back into the dark chanted creep that began the track. Two of the remaining three tracks are more pretty than heavy, the first, a dreamy bit of sun dappled jangle, that almost sounds more like American slowcore than Japanese psych, the second, a brief bit of dark strum, murky, and haunting, hushed and mysterious. And then right in between, the nearly 16 minute "So Alone", which is ALL noisy and distorted, a churning death march pound, swirls of jagged feedback, arcs of guitarnoise, the guitars grinding and howling, fields of skree and shriek, hurts of face melting buzz and shred, all the while the bass and drums, locked into a churning, doomic pound, the vocals too wild and feral, doused in FX and battling the wild guitarnoise. So good!
And as we mentioned above, we'll only be able to get about 15 copies of this box, and that's IT. So if you want one, order it now. We'll charge you and let you know when it arrives. If you're after the normal version, let us know that too, and we can put you down for one of those, but this listing is specifically for folks who want to nab one of the boxes before they're gone for good.
Relapse's latest grindcore wunderkinds, California's Uphill Battle manage to hold their own along side of Relapse heavyweights Origin, Burnt By The Sun, Human Remains, Nasum, et al. Chugging, grinding fury, with tense and ridiculously complex song structures, blurry blast beats, blazing downtuned riffs, crushing drums and weird melodic harmonies, while a demented madman howls above the whole thing! Listen to the sound clips, you know if you need this. God knows I do.
Along with the Bogus Blimp reviewed recently, here's another new Jester title, from this Autechre-ish glitchtronica act from Norway. We liked their first, self-titled album quite well, and now they're back with Obliterated...and again it's what you might call extreme IDM, a complicated construction of clicks and cuts and beats and yes some melodies. Machine music madness! A nicely done return (let us wax nostalgic) to the exciting heyday, not so long ago, of stuff like Aphex Twin, Autechre, and Squarepusher at their most complex and bewilderingly beat-frenzied craziest.
Like Autechre and Squarepusher, Norway's mysterious Upland (a person? a duo? a group?) offers up the sort of instrumental electronica that in some ways could be seen as the avant-garde player piano music of the 21st century. Upland's densely clicking, stuttering, sputtering geiger-counter frenzies are manipulated into impossibly broken yet pleasing rhythms. These glitchy textures are backed by by ominous synth drone-tones and thick buzzes. Rather noir-ish and quite listenable.
Norway's always-interesting, and stylish, Jester label has provided this with a 16 page cd booklet with no text, just beautiful artwork: scratched up prints of a repeating moon-shape that's a good visual analog for this sort of abstract digital music. It's becoming more and more ridiculous that Jester's releases seemingly only gets distribution in the States via metal outlets, as they've quickly become one of our very favorite labels for electronic, experimental, and even pop (When) music. Most of Jester's releases have only tangental connections to the realm of metal, if any at all. Upland is a case in point. As we said, very much a la Autechre, not Abigor or Abruptum.
Uprock Rhizome And The Aphasia Group sputter, stutter and belch out a heaping platter of sampled noise stew titled Jungle Green Memes. Did we say "heaping platter"? Nay my good lord and lady, this is more like a truckload of live instrumentation and sampled field recordings, improv jazz jams, etc that have been processed and pulverized to virtually unrecognizable shards. Although the label's press release for Jungle Green Memes likens it to a namedrop-heavy meeting between Nihilist Spasm Band, Milford Graves, Tom Ze and Masami Akita or Peter Brotzmann, Eugene Chadbourne, Matching Mole, Mission of Burma and Throbbing Gristle, a closer comparison would actually be to the brutal doom'n'bass of Panacea or Atari Teenage Riot's Nic Endo. The cd comes with an accompanying book that you might think will help make some sense of the mysterious murk. but no! It's 48 pages of equally cryptic, hazy microscopic images.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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From San Diego, completely aggro, instrumental free-jazz-math-rock. Complete with weird time signatures, baffling arrangements, plenty of skree and skronk. Noisy and off-kilter. Definitely for open minded fans of Don Caballero, Ruins, and the like.
Get your nose back in those math books 'cause Upsilon Acrux are back. Slowly simmering tension builders of abstract, prog-y, post rock-ification. Proggy and chaotic, stop/start mayhem and ultra complicated instrumental workouts. Dark, repetitive rhythms ripped
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The return of Southern California's masters of super mathematic, ultra complex, maniacally dense and sometimes goofily carnivalesque spaz-prog. This is relentless and uncompromising and brutal in every way, with mind bendingly convuluted song structures, labyrinthine melodies, impossibly octopoidal drumming and just truly bewilderingly accomplished musicianship all around. Definitely for fans of Orthrelm, Hella, Lightning Bolt, Ruins, Flying Luttenbachers and other such confusionally complex out-rock. Beautifully packaged as well, both the cd and the lp!
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We've reviewed a few releases by freaking intense, seemingly unhinged, utterly nihilistic Japanese saxophonist Masayoshi Urabe in the past, stuff released on labels like PSF and Tiliqua, including a collaboration with veteran Tokyo Flashback act Kousokuya, saying in one of our reviews that Urabe is "is pretty far out there in the field of free improvisation", which if anything is an understatement. So out there that he's been quoted as saying "Improvisation can eat shit", apparently considering his music something else entirely. Well, if you're up for some of whatever Urabe's output is, here's a new one from the man via the reliable Utech label, who know their out there eat shit improv all right. Painful beauty, delicate brutality, noisy silence� These are the extremes with which Urabe both enraptures and unsettles the once-innocent listener. And it's not all his anguished alto sax, in fact, the very first nine-minute-plus track is more of an incredibly lo-fi, uber-distorted electric guitar feedback freakout full of raw, choppy riffage. Urabe on this album also makes use of harmonica, bird calls, and even metal chains, the ominous rattle of which we also remarked upon when heard on one of his previous PSF albums. Furthermore, Aural Fit's drummer Teruhisa Nanbu shows up on two of the (longest) tracks here, as well. The skitter and skree can be quite lonely and lovely, for sure...but beware, as Urabe has his bloodthirsty side, too, as alluded to above (and below)! Making music 'difficult listening' is his mission.
The usual nice, slim and oversized Utech packaging includes some, uh, motivational liner notes by Urabe ("If there's someone you want to kill, stop working out how you're going to do it and just do it"), in English translation by Alan Cummings.
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Tokyo's great psych/jazz/folk underground label PSF previous released this album by contemporary alto saxophonist Urabe on limited vinyl LP only. Now, thankfully, they've made it available on cd. Minimal but intense, unusual solo sax improv which explores, according to PSF English-language guru Alan Cummings, "the relationship between sound and silence, and all those mysterious spaces in between ('ma')." And he's right, this is all about momentary shimmering shards of saxophone whisper-skree, with plenty of that 'ma' goin' on.
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Japanese saxophonist Urabe Masayoshi is pretty far out there in the field of free improvisation. A former visual artist, he switched from painting to music because he wanted the process of creation itself, that activity, to be the whole of his art, for all to witness. In his improvisations, he is said to have developed "an extreme language, built on unbearable body positions and blocks of silence" (to quote Franck Stofer's Japanese Independent Music book). He has collaborated with Japanese avant-rock acts Kosokuya and Che-Shizu for albums on Tokyo psych label PSF, and as well has recorded solo for the same label.
Recorded in 2001, Urabe's music as documented on "Urklang" is slow and abstract, encompassing much emptiness, vast emptiness (with track one on this disc being an epic for solo alto, over fifty minutes in length) populated by lonely notes, hollow hoots from Urabe's sometimes barely-there horn. Urabe's breath and guttural exclamations are heard along with his sax. Fiercely physical shrieks erupt from his instrument without much warning, although much of his playing is gentle and not un-pretty. The second track, a seventeen minute soprano solo, equally invests both silence and shrieking with Urabe's intense, and delicate, feelings. "Urklang" is an emotional experimental saxophone improv set for those with both Arthur Doyle and Keiji Haino discs in their collections. The debut release from Belgian label Tiiqua, this cd comes packaged in a sturdy mini-LP style cardboard sleeve (like many a '60s/'70s psych or jazz reissue from Japan), with drawings by Urabe on the cover, perfectly conveying his music's timeless vibe.
Normally we don't like to quote too much from an album's press release or its liner notes, but we have to share this statement from Japanese improv saxophonist Masayoshi Urabe himself, which accompanies this release: "My joints ache so much that I walk weird. Improvisation?? Improvisation??!? I've never seen it, heard it, or played it. You say that you're uncomfortable. I felt so good that I stopped laughing. I love silence because I am so brutal, but because I breathe there can be no silence. I call it Rock 'n' Roll. Because I breathe -- because I have a mouth. Duo 1988, Ju/A Brute, Urklang, Soingyokusaiseyo -- Improvisation can eat shit, that's what I've always said. Musicians are the scum of the earth, and hell's a lie, that's what I've always said. Do you know a word that means both look at me and leave me alone? I'm so fuckin' glad that I've got no reasons, no dreams, nothing to believe in. I'm so fuckin' glad that I have no interest in the occult, in salvation, in playing my part, in meanings. I'm so fuckin' glad I met you and left you. I'm so fuckin' glad that I'm not you. What I really mean is that I'm so fuckin' glad that you're not beautiful. What I really mean is that I'm so fuckin' glad that you mean nothing to me."
Whoah, dude. And there he is on the album cover, a knife clenched in his teeth and a maniacal glint in his eyes. We've been fans of his lost-n-lonely sax scrape in the past, and with this album he brings that style of sparse improv into more sinister focus, also gettin' intense with metal joints (?), chains, harmonica, and electric guitar along with the alto sax. Recorded live in Japan and Belgium, Urabe's sax a death-breath, the man clanking those chains like a ghost, this disc is an ominous work, the silence found within seeming like the loudest thing in the world until our man lets loose with some rough-and-tumble, high-end shrieking guitar grind. You'll believe every word he said, above, and like it.
Apparently Urabe was accompanied by a dancer on these recordings, but you'll just have to use your imagination to see what sort of tortured moves he or she was making along to this music.
Adventurous British "stereo guitar" improviser Gary Smith has recorded with some interesting folks before (Hugh Hopper, Joe Gallivan, Nanjo Asahito, Shoji Hano, Aufgehoben No Process, Lou Ciccotelli, and Rhys Chatham among others) and here he teams up with stellar out-alto saxophonist Masayoshi Urabe to head in a new late-night improv direction. These two long tracks are more about the delicate, sometimes painful, yet beautiful style of Urabe (as evidenced on his recent solo set "Urklang" -- see that review for more words on him) than the noisy fusion jazz-rock of Smith's last few projects. Here Smith and Urabe interact like coughing, sputtering, swooping bats in a dripping cave...I mean, that's kind of what it sounds like if you use your imagination. Silence, sudden violence, shrill harmonica (Urabe), jazzy string-skree (Smith) -- it's all pretty dark and intense though not particularily loud n' heavy, which just makes you listen all that harder to this hard-to-listen-to (in a good way) music.
Latest collection of haunting experimental dronemusic from these aQ faves. Ural Umbo is the duo of Reto Mader (RM74) and Steven Hess (Haptic, Locrian) and here they unfurl another sprawling soundscape of sonic ritual and mysterious atmospheric ambience.
Right from the get go, this is some scary stuff, deep thick swells of distorted chordal thrum, metallic bells struck, the sound allowed to gradually seep into the the surrounding buzz, the tension constantly building, the sonic energy gaining momentum as the track progresses, more and more layers, the sound thickening and expanding, getting louder and heavier and more intense, gradually making the shift from hushed low end drift to near caustic blackened noisescape, building to a furious black crescendo, before quickly fading back into a shadowy shimmer. And that's just the first track.
Needless to say dronelords and heavy minimalists are gonna want to dig way deeper into Illusion Of Hope. Each of the tracks here playing out like some sort of blurred message for the other side, delivered via arcane ritual, the messages scrawled in black blood, occasionally splintering into lurching distorted rhythms, blown out and blackened, other times, expanding into glimmering driftscapes, laced with gurgling demonic voices and tinkling chimes, and still other times transforming gradually into strange buzz drenched percussive ceremonies, the sort of thing that would definitely appeal to fans of SUNNO))) and Aun and other slow and low audio minimalists/alchemists. The B side offers more of the same, a series of greydusted drones and grinding blackbuzz liturgies, ancient sonic rites rendered in crushing percussive pummel and wheezing organ drones, moaning horns and skittery rhythmic fragments, delicate crystalline drifts and dense effects doused dirges.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. Super striking cover art, pressed on clear vinyl, and also includes a cd version of the record.
Here's the the vinyl debut from this eerie experimental drone duo, their second album after a cd on Utech. Last list, you may recall, we had a record by Cleared, featuring Stephen Hess of Haptic, On, and Locrian. He's 1/2 of Ural Umbo as well. The other half is Reto Mader, best known to AQ customers for his excellent Utech release as RM74. Together, these two utilize a variety of instruments and electronics (bass, organ, synth, kalimba, tapes, bowed cymbals, percussion, chimes, etc.) to conjure up (or rather, carefully construct) a powerful selection of detailed, dense "nebulous post doom" soundscapes, both amorphous and atmospheric, thick and physical. Yet their heavy drones, however ominous, are soft around the edges, and seem to be lit by a glow from within. 'Tis often more dreamlike than nightmarish, although with an active imagination the listener could find themselves growing frightened, as one wonders not so much about the music itself, than about the darkened spaces beyond it.
Aptly titled Fog Tapes, and not just because it was recorded to analog tape, this record conjures layers of blurry, obscured images in the mind's eye. Nothing fully ever comes into focus, these half-developed images superimposed and fading from one curious scene to the next. At times it sounds like the vibrations that might still lingering in the air in the aftermath of an occult ritual, by an assembly of robed monks conducting arcane, abstract rites. Or maybe it's the sounds of the rites themselves, isolated, slowed down, ghostly, heard through a gauzy veil, dimmed and distant. Ural Umbo's gentle echoes, crackling distortion, swelling drones, mysterious clattering, indistinct voices, and other manifestations, can be quietly creepy, or massively grinding, but at the same time seem mystically serene if you give yourself over to it - possibly psychologically disturbing otherwise. At its heaviest, on tracks like "The Mediums Feed", this should appeal to fans of SUNNO))) and Aun, but also bears comparison to some stuff by Steven R. Smith, and many of the haunting soundscapey things specialized in by labels like Miasmah, and Utech - in fact, this puts us in mind of the "black metal Taj Mahal Travellers" comment we made regarding Utech's Tetragrammaton release.
A quite excellent 8 tracks, 44 minutes! Swiss import, limited edition. Nice silver-printed sleeve, with fold-out poster enclosed.
The latest from this mysterious dronemusic duo comes courtesy of Oakland label Merz Tapes, and finds Steven Hess (Locrian, Haptic) and Reto Mader (RM74) once again, crafting haunting, cinematic black ambience that sounds like the score for some bleak futuristic dystopian sci-fi noir, or some Satanic strain of twentieth century classical music. Dense roiling rumbles, a tense ominous swirl-scape, peppered with the clang and clatter of abstract percussion, the swells gradually growing more and more intense, until deep resonant pulses surface throughout, a strange heartbeat like throb buried beneath this softly caustic sonic tide, woozy and washed out. A hazy Jeck like arrangement of ebb and flow. Heaving undulations that blur texture and timbre, and create a sound that's extremely physical, emanating a strange sort of dark energy. Soon those black swells are joined by soaring string like sweeps, minor key and melancholy, bringing to mind a more dense and driving Disintegration Loops, haunting cyclical melodies that seem the hover just beneath the roiling swells, the whole thing meant to be a sonic addendum to the awesome Fog Tapes lp on Hinterzimmer.
Soon the swells recede, leaving just a whirring organ thrum, suspended in a field of tinkling chimes and glimmering metallic shimmer, peppered with bits of glitch and hum, malfunctioning electronics, lending an air of some strange ghost in the machine. Until the drums proper come lumbering in, the sound again transforming, this time into some sort of slo-mo abstract minimal doom, the drums a mutant dirge, while all around, the organ warbles, the tinkling chimes, bursts of cymbal crash, streaks off feedback, clanging metal, detuned string plucks, all seem to morph into some sort of alien machine music, the various clangs and clatters gradually coalescing into a heavily reverbed, deliberately plonked piano melody, pounded out on some old broken piano, adding to the feel of decay, the sound lurching and woozy, everything wreathed in soft billows of chordal thrum, and all gradually sinking into a blackened crumbling sonic morass. Intense, but also intensely beautiful.
The flipside is a bit more buzzy and blackened. A thick sprawl of undulating thrum churns over keening melodies drifting in the murk, fragmented voices swirl and shimmer, a sort of chopped and screwed shoegaze doom crawl, the builds and builds to something much noisier, a gristly squall of soaring tones and tangled flurries of riff like distorto-crumble, all over a haze of synth like whorls, the rhythms driving and propulsive, yet somehow simultaneously bleary and blurry and washed out, after a frenzied coda, the sound settles into a placed, near tranquil outro, a gloriously mesmerizing Caretaker-ish stretch of soft focus, cinematic haze.
Beautifully packaged in a swank multiple paneled J-card, and yeah, most likely VERY VERY LIMITED.
Ural Umbo is the duo of Reto Mader (aka RM74, responsible for a more recent cd on Utech we really dug, highlighted last list) and Steven Hess of Haptic! Scary cinematic dark drone stuff with sudden percussion and electronic glitchery. Rattle and hum! Limited to 500 copies, typical handsome Utech packaging, including a b&w nude cover pic on translucent vellum.
The liner notes claim that "no ambient or field recordings were used during the production of this work," making this album, which really does sound like a collection of field recordings, all the more perplexing. So, instead of wandering outside and capturing the sounds of cars whizzing by on a distant highway, Paul Winstanley (the man behind Urban Space Music) painstakingly constructed an artificial sound ecology to appear as if it were the real deal. Ostensibly using white noise generators and a small army of EQ filters, Winstanley's sounds have all of the trappings of a gritty urban din that really does sound like opening a window in any given metropolis around the world and hearing the collective exhaust of hundreds of thousands of automobiles rumbling around the city grid. As a listening experience, it's not too far off from Organum's Vacant Lights (sans the chain dragging and clanking), and it actually works quite well as Winstanley suggests these sounds as an aural complement to any given urban soundscape, in melding with the street noise so commonplace on Valencia Street here in San Francisco. A strange record, but a compelling one. Limited to just 30 copies.
We loved Urdog before we even heard them. Hell, they're called Urdog for chrisssakes!! But thankfully their sound lived up to the monicker, a ramshackle concoction of tribal rhythmic workouts, free folk weirdness, pulsing progressive lo-fi krautrock, and freaked out noisy space rock -- like a weird combination of No Neck Blues Band, Acid Mothers Temple and Popul Vuh maybe? This new, third Urdog record however takes the band in a new, but not entirely unexpected direction. Five tracks, a little over half an hour of motorik rhythms, angular guitars, and warm pulsing synths, as well as haunting chanted vocals, sound familiar? Well to us at least, it sounds like someone gave Urdog a serious dose of This Heat. And it shows. And we love it! Repetitive and hypnotic, Eyelid Of Moon is a relentlessly propulsive head nodding, freaked out druggy dirgey drone rock trip! The pagan folk is still there too though. Recommended.
Finally one of our favorite slabs of spaced out primitve psych folk is back in print, and now with a bonus track recorded live in Switzerland.
Urdog. With a name like that it's gotta be good. And it is. The sort of swirling hypnotic heavy rock-folk-tribal weirdness we love so much. This is definitely prog, as the whole record is framed and driven by a big fuzzy organ spewing mesmerising prog riffs. Imagine a less heavy Tarantula Hawk, channelling E.L.P. with a healthy dose of Acid Mothers Temple style swirly space-y freakout throughout. A throbbing, urgent, mesmerising otherworldy drone rock. The other side of Urdog's personality is much more hippy, dabbling in the sixties-style avant folk of Devandra, Incredible String Band, Espers, etc. with gently acoustic guitar warbly keyboard ambience, dreamy distant vocals and sweet but haunting harmonies. But these moments of tranquility only exist as small clearings in a dense forest of thick slithering keyboards, druggy fuzzy riffs and fiercely propulsive rhythms. URDOG!
We've been huge fans of Urdog since we first heard them a couple years back. Their shambolic, rambling folky krautrockishness pretty much pushed every weird music button we posess! We raved about both of their full lengths on Secret Eye (one of which is out of print for now) and everyone was so into them we finally managed to track down their first cd-r, which flew out of here and has been out of print ever since. Well, when Andee and Allan were in NYC for CMJ, they ran into one of the Urdogs and he happened to mention that he had a stash of the very last 30 copies of the Urdog demo, we grabbed all of 'em and got 'em here for you, the VERY last copies ever. Here's our review from when we first had this in last September:
Everybody dug the Urdog record we listed a few lists back so when the band got in touch and let us know they had an earlier cd-r, we figured we oughta get that too. And we're glad we did 'cause it's just as good. Another rambling ramshackle collection of propulsive, fuzzed out psychedelic drone / krautrock. Super saturated keyboards, rumbling riffery and tribal drumming. A mix of Jewelled Antler foresty folk, Tarantula Hawk proggy pummel, and lots of druggy psychedelic filigree. Packged in a beautifully silkscreened sleeve with an extensive set of liner notes folded up and pacakged in a little hand stamped envelope. So nice.
The world has been dying for more Urfaust, well, at least out little freaky blackened damaged corner of the world. We couldn't get enough of these guys, their creepy lurching Burzumy metal, totally freaked out super dramatic depressive stumbling blackness, the insane shrieked Ethel Merman like vocals, the bellowed deep crooning, the majestic mournful vocals, a sound so completely insane, but so totally amazing and irresistible. As pretty much all of their recordings have been totally unavailable for a while now, we've been unable to turn new folks on to these guys, which is a shame, since people in search of stuff both baffling and beautiful, heavy and confusing, mysterious and incredibly idiosyncratic, couldn't do much better than Urfaust. And those of us who had played their recordings to death, were in dire need of more more more!
So here we have it. More. Not much more, only three tracks, but they're long-ish, and more than enough to hold us over. And even at a mere 20 minutes in length, it's almost more than we could have ever hoped for. All of the elements we so loved about Urfaust are present and in full effect, but somehow the band have managed to make their sound even weirder, more fucked up, and somehow also more haunting and beautiful, without losing any of the total what the fuck factor. The opening track begins with some stripped down almost industrial rhythm, over whirring machine like sounds, before the main riff comes in, but instead of sounding like a guitar, it's almost like an organ, wheezing out a minor key melody, jarringly working it's way through each note, while over the top, the vocals are even more shrieky and haunting. The 'riffing' shifts to washed out warble, sounding almost like it was assembled from dusty old looped records. The drums are super distorted, and mechanical, and perfectly balance the washed out main melody and the reverb drenched shrieks, which are later joined by deep growly crooning. But the bridge to the song is so pretty, and so turntable-y sounding. It's a bit hard to explain, but it does sound like a Jeck, or Tim Hecker loop, worked into an almost-riff. Whatever it is and however they did it, it sounds amazing, creepy, mysterious, and so gloriously bizarre and beautiful.
The second track has the same sort �of wooden rhythm, but over it soars a strange machinelike high pitched buzz, a gnarled feedbacky guitar, that buzzes and warbles, the vocals a more punky yowl, buried way down in the mix. Super intense, and relentless, with that main buzz/squall running through the whole song, almost like a depressive black metal, noise rock mash up, but deftly twisted into Urfaust's strange stumbly sound. The close begins with blurred and indistinct voices, swirling in a stretch rife with reverb and delay and distortion, everything creepy and blurred, until the guitars come in, or at least they sound like guitars, sort of. Much like the first track, they sound almost like keyboards, or weird loops, assembled into strange depressive lurchings, The sound is murky and muddy, the drums buried, the vocals too, everything wreathed in some sort of effect, the main melody and riff swaying seasickly, swelling drunkenly, the vocals growing gradually in intensity, to a banshee like howl, a drunken sounding croon, before fading away again, leaving that main melody to buzz and throb, the vocals becoming a growling drone barely audible, the track woozily wavering and finally fading to black. So creepy and pretty, and unlike any Urfaust that came before, but somehow practically perfect. Another absolutely genius slab of bizarre blackness. But sadly, three songs is not nearly enough, as these are bound to get played to death, over and over and over as we wait for more�
I know we always talk about records being "the weirdest ever" or "the most retarded ever" or the ubiquitous "so fucked", but any band we ever said that about before, must now take a step back, give up the crown, and bow before the new masters of the weird, the retarded, the fucked and the supremely damaged and demented. Dutch black metallers Urfaust carry the blackened torch of ultra cult, totally personal, and weird as fuck black metal into infinity with this record. Imagine an opera singer, wandering drunkenly down the street, ducking into a Karaoke bar, only to discover that the back up band is Burzum or Woodtemple or some other stumbling droney black metal outfit, and thus proceeds to CROON maniacally atop their grim fuzzy midtempo buzzing backing, in a ultra dramatic warble that is equal parts Ethel Merman, Devil Doll's Mr. Doctor and Tom Jones. Sometimes the music kicks up a notch into a pounding Viking style shanty, and the vocals follow right along, spat out in beligerent slurred shout / growl, and punctuated by occasional grunts and wild warbling wooooooaaaaahhhh's. The vocals occasionally get even weirder, becoming a wild banshee like falsetto shriek before slipping back into that campy warbly croon. Sounds goofy and it is, but it's also totally compelling and emotional, dark and weirdly wonderfully creepy. And these songs are strangely catchy and will totally get stuck in your head. Every once in a while since we got this in, I'll find myself humming something to myself trying to figure out what it is only to realize it's Urfaust! Holy shit! How often does that happen? With some demented BM band?! As if that wasn't enough, toward the end of the record things get REALLY weird. The second to last track is an extended mournful epic, just minor key strings, majestic and sorrowful, a slowly shifting doomscape, and the vocals fit perfectly here, like a damned and doomed heartbroken shell of a man, standing alone at the edge of the world, staring into the abyss wailing and moaning his anguish, in that by now unmistakable hyper dramatic caterwaul. Then the final track comes out of nowhere and finishes things off with a tranquil swirl, an instrumental new age-y swoosh, all warm and dreamy and blissed out, like the Orb or maybe Labradford, What the fuck?! I LOVE IT!! This is definitely my current favorite black metal record! And for those of you who think this does indeed sound absolutely essential (which it is!) and really want to go for it, we also have the other Urfasut record in stock, to be reviewed next list!
One of our all time favorite fucked up black metal records EVER gets the super deluxe double lp vinyl reissue treatment. Super thick 180 gram vinyl, a completely gorgeous black on black, super heavy gatefold sleeve, all new artwork, limited to 500 copies, each lp hand numbered. This is so deluxe and so swank, it's almost like a whole new record. For those of you who somehow missed out on the bizarre brilliance that is Urfaust, or were just holding out in the hope, however farfetched, that someone would release some Urfaust on vinyl, well, here you go. Don't blow it! WE LOVE THIS BAND!!!
Here's what we had to say about the cd when we first got it in:
Some of you somehow missed out on the first Urfaust record we reviewed a while back. And how anyone missed it is a complete mystery, I mean, c'mon, how could you overlook a band described as an opera singer, wandering drunkenly down the street, who ducks into a live Karaoke bar, only to discover that the backup band is something like Burzum or Woodtemple, and thus proceeds to CROON maniacally atop their grim fuzzy midtempo buzzing backing, in an ultra dramatic warble that is equal parts Ethel Merman, Devil Doll's Mr. Doctor and Tom Jones?? Maybe you guys just needed a little reminder. Maybe you didn't read the part that said ETHEL MERMAN FRONTING FUCKING BURZUM!!! Holy crap! We wouldn't even have to hear it! Urfaust have to be the most damaged and demented and plain peculiar black metal band around. And it's not just the vocals (which we also now realize also remind us a bit of Morrissey), although they are one of the most amazing parts of the package. The band itself play their Burzum-y black metal to perfection, but they manage to take that black metal buzz and wrap it in layer after layer of affects and distortion, giving the whole thing a druggy, blissed out Spacemen 3 vibe. This is tripped out, drugged up, otherworldly, stumbling loping black metal perfection. The record opens up with a haunting 13 minute ambient soundscape of moaning cellos and creepy otherworldly strings before they all explode into a burst of martial brass and percussion. moments before a swarm of buzzing guitars attack, and the vocalist climbs atop them, like a wailing warrior riding a flying dragon. The songs on this record are much dronier and more hypnotic than the first record, riffs melt into one other, effects smear the whole thing into a slithering squirming mass of buzz and fuzz and moan. Halfway through the record, we get another 10+ minute breather, another gorgeously serene ambient drone, that drifts and shifts before agitated strings join in and the whole thing collapses back into a thick black metal lope. We didn't think it was possible for this record to be better than the first, and maybe it's not 'better', maybe it's just different, but WOW is this weird and baffling and totally brilliant stuff. Together, the two Urfaust records make quite possibly the ultimate outsider black metal document.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Some of you somehow missed out on the first Urfaust record we reviewed a few lists back. How anyone missed it is a complete mystery, I mean, c'mon, how could you overlook a band described as an opera singer, wandering drunkenly down the street, who ducks into a live Karaoke bar, only to discover that the backup band is something like Burzum or Woodtemple, and thus proceeds to CROON maniacally atop their grim fuzzy midtempo buzzing backing, in an ultra dramatic warble that is equal parts Ethel Merman, Devil Doll's Mr. Doctor and Tom Jones?? Maybe you guys just needed a little reminder. Maybe you didn't read the part that said ETHEL MERMAN FRONTING FUCKING BURZUM!!! Holy crap! We wouldn't even have to hear it! Urfaust have to be the most damaged and demented and plain peculiar black metal band around. And it's not just the vocals (which we also now realize also remind us a bit of Morrissey), although they are one of the most amazing parts of the package. The band itself play their Burzum-y black metal to perfection, but they manage to take that black metal buzz and wrap it in layer after layer of affects and distortion, giving the whole thing a druggy, blissed out Spacemen 3 vibe. This is tripped out, drugged up, otherworldly, stumbling loping black metal perfection. The record opens up with a haunting 13 minute ambient soundscape of moaning cellos and creepy otherworldly strings before they all explode into a burst of martial brass and percussion. moments before a swarm of buzzing guitars attack, and the vocalist climbs atop them, like a wailing warrior riding a flying dragon. The songs on this record are much dronier and more hypnotic than the first record, riffs melt into one other, effects smear the whole thing into a slithering squirming mass of buzz and fuzz and moan. Halfway through the record, we get another 10+ minute breather, another gorgeously serene ambient drone, that drifts and shifts before agitated strings join in and the whole thing collpases back into a thick black metal lope. We didn't think it was possible for this record to be better than the first, and maybe it's not 'better', maybe it's just different, but WOW is this weird and baffling and totally brilliant stuff. Together, the two Urfaust records make quite possibly the ultimate outsider black metal document.
In our neverending quest to unearth the weirdest and wildest, most evil and grim, most damaged and baffling black metal there is, we not too long ago stumbled upon Urfaust. And we were immediately smitten, as were all of you judging from how difficult it was to keep those discs in stock. Well, all bow down and thank the dark lord, for now we have the latest offering from the strange hunting world of Urfaust! And if that wasn't enough, on this split they're teamed up with an outfit called Circle Of Ouroborous, who are even stranger than Urfaust, if that's even possible.
What is it about Urfaust that has us so in a tizzy. Well, imagine a loping buzzing midtempo black metal, raw, and thick and fuzzed out, but then add in a vocalist that croons and wails and sounds quite a bit like Ethel Merman, his vocals drenched in reverb, a huge thick cloud of croon, so weird but so goddamn amazing! These new tracks find Urfaust getting... you guessed it, even stranger. The first track is a whirl of huge blown out synths or guitars, big swells, distorted and warm and fuzzy, with a strange almost bouncy drum beat. By track two, the old Urfaust is back in effect, a huge wall of Burzumic guitar, a galloping midtempo drum beat, and those ridiculously remarkable vocals. We get so used to shrieking and howling vocals, that we were completely taken aback byt Urfaust's vocals, so much more emotional and passionate, strange indeed, but strange and mysterious and absolutely unlike anything you've heard in black metal. The third track is a creaking industrial soundscape, footsteps, breathing, clattering metal, atonal strings, very 20th century music concret. Really cool. The final ten minutes is a fuzzed out seasick waltz, huge guitars, super dramatic vocals, the guitars a thick whirring drone, the melody so melancholy and intense. Awesome. Definitely still one of our favorite metal bands for sure.
But wait. We've also got the mysterious Circle Of Ouroborus to contend with, and wooh boy, is this one cracked outfit. Half of CoO's six tracks are murky almost punky black metal blasts, super lo-fi, practice space production, the guitar a mumbly warble, the drums tinny and buried in the mix, and as you might expect for a band paired up with Urfaust, the vocalist is totally demented, a growling cracked croon, WAY up in the mix, shouting and howling, almost talking sometimes, making CoO sound a bit like a black metal Fall. The rest of the tracks are even more unlikely, all acoustic, with atonally strummed acoustic guitars and menacing sung / spoke vocals, even some harmonica! Some hellish campfire sing along, Bob Dylan channelled through some musical demon. It sounds a bit like a blackened Jandek, or the black metal folk of Dead Raven Choir, and actually quite a bit like AQ faves Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat (albeit much more low fidelity) or even a little like a more garage-y Current 93. But WOW! Not at all what we were expecting at all. This is something that could definitely pass for some freaky outsider folk record with passages of black buzz instead of the other way around. We never though any band could hold their own agains the mighty Urfaust, but Circle Of Ouroborus pull it off big time. Another damaged and demented black metal (sort of) band to keep an eye on for sure!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
