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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A pretty outstanding collection of unreleased material showcasing the talents at 555 - included are Third Eye Foundation, Hood (whose previous work did nothing for me, but here have presented a free-floating spaced-out song as good as Crescent or Movietone), The Remote Viewer (delicate IDM melodies and skittering digital beats), Empress (lush beautiful slow-core like Low or Codeine), and more!
Wow! Of all the various releases for today's 'Black Friday Record Store Day', this one might have been the one we were most excited about. A super swank, ultra deluxe, eleven 7" boxset from Lee Hazlewood, or more specifically, as it says on the box, from Lee Hazlewood Industries. Culled from the years 1967-1970, and from Hazlewood's LHI imprint, much like The LHI Years: Singles, Nudes & Backsides release from earlier this year, which was released on Record Store Day proper. But unlike that collection, the tracks here are mostly Lee Hazlewood -productions- instead of performances, featuring Hazlewood produced tracks from Suzi Jane Hokom, Honey LTD., Kitchen Cinq, Ann-Margaret, The Woodchucks and of course Mr. Lee himself, solo on one single, and dueting with Suzi Jane Hokom! We haven't cracked one open yet, and will give this a more extensive review if we can get more of 'em post Black Friday. But figured we might as well list it today so folks who don't want to wait can grab one now.
The packaging is incredible, a custom made, full color, magnetic flip-top box, housing all eleven singles, each with original labels and sleeve art, an ultra rare reproduction of the Woodchucks 45 picture sleeve, a Lee Hazlewood puzzle (!), for, as the sticker on the box suggests, "those lonely nights", a custom LHI 45 adapter, and a download card for all the tracks. LIMITED TO 3000 COPIES!
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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A very affordable introduction to bands on and related to Load records. The 21 cut compilation features AQ favorites like Brainbombs, Men's Recovery Project and Olneyville Sound System.
Kind of a weird concept for a compilation. Track titles were sent out to a handful of artists who then wrote songs based on or influenced by those titles. One quibble though. A lot of the song titles are really kind of dumb and joke-y: "Tickle Party #2", "Gameshow Contestant Flip-Out", "Not Enough Crayons For Everyone", "Sign Language Tourettes", "Hot Licks For Shredders", etc. Definitely the result of an evening of "You know what would make a funny song title?" and perhaps some serious drinking. That said, there are some pretty cool tracks on here. House Of Low Culture contribute a freaked out drone-y dirge, Mark Arm gives us an ultra lo-fi drum machine metal guitar organ dirge sounding like a teenage Mudhoney practicing in your basement, Godstomper thrash through their 30 second track with a bass that sounds like a washing machine and carboard box drums, and Hella do their hyper spastic cartoon metal blur. The bands that are instrumental fare way better than the rest, since they aren't forced to come up with lyrics for "Dance Of The Drunken Siberian" or "Smut Merchant Of Venice", which in a way is kind of a drag as I think we would have been way more intrigued by artists forced to actually come up with intense serious songs based on concepts not their own, instead of just coming up with noisy funny craziness. But maybe that's for a different compilation. Also features Nels Cline, Bluebird, Twink, Weasel Walter, Bliss Blood, Beehive And The Barracudas and more!
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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Yes, one dollar and ninety-eight cents, this is a budget priced Digital Hardcore sampler indeedio. It's all previously released stuff, some harder to find tho (like the Christophe de Babalon track from an early, out-of-print DHR 12") but regardless, this is a good DHR sampler that's fast, cheap, and out of control. [/cat/compilationsplit85.html]
A budget-priced cd sampler celebrating the success of the Young God label run by Michael Gira of the Swans. Several tracks each from Ulan Bator, Windsor For The Derby, David Coulter, Flux Information Sciences, Calla, and Michael's own Angels of Light. Nothing here is exclusive to this comp, but some of it is from not-yet-released records. Well worth checking out.
We've been totally digging the always amazing Ethiopiques series, documenting the rich history of Ethiopian music, and it just keeps getting better and better with each volume. You think that would be plenty to keep the folks at Buda Musique busy, but apparently not, as they've gone ahead and launched a new series entitled Zanzibara, chronicling the Swahili popular music of the East African Coast. Future volumes will be more archival, but this first installment celebrates Ikhwani Safaa, Zanzibar's (and most likely Africa's too) oldest music club, which turned 100 in 2005. These recordings, captured in Zanzibar in 2004 and Dubai in 2005, feature some of the region's most revered singers and players, all gathered to play classic songs and celebrate the last 100 years. The music here is dramatically different than anything in the Ethiopiques series, much more moody and hypnotic, less festive and jubilant, but no less captivating. The interesting thing is that the music here sounds unlike any of the African music we are familiar with and instead sounds much more Indian or Arabic. The vocals especially, sound distinctly Indian, as well as the swooning soaring strings. Lush, moody, swirling, slightly saturnine, and absolutely wonderful.
Second installment in this new series from the folks who brought us the absolutely essential and nearly perfect Ethiopiques series. This new series chronicles the Swahili popular music of the East African Coast. The first installment (now back in stock, see elsewhere on this list) celebrated Ikhwani Safaa, Zanzibar's (and most likely Africa's too) oldest music club, which turned 100 in 2005. This second volume is more archival and is drawn from recordings made from 1965-1975. Mombasa Taarab is a dizzying mix of African music with Arabian, Asian and European influences. Which is why this music sounds as Indian or Asian as it does African, in fact much of the time more so. There is a definite Bollywood influence, in fact Bollywood films had become very popular in Mobasa and many singers would take certain elements from those films, voice, melody, instrumentation, and then translate them into Swahili taarab songform. Fans of the Ethiopiques series should definitely be all over this series. As well as fans of Indian film music. We've been listening to this like crazy (and the first volume which we just got back in). We can hardly wait to hear the next one!
Massive booklet, with extensive liner notes, and in-depth notes on each artist.
Okay, it might seem too easy to say with this new volume of the Zanzibara series that if you dug the first and second you're gonna love the third, but it's true. Zanzibara 3 is another terrific compilation from the Buda Musique label (the folks behind the awesome Ethiopiques series). If you're new to the series, we'll let ya know that the spotlight shines a loving glow on the coastal music of Eastern Africa. As the title tells, this time it's from Tanzania in the '60s -- seventeen tracks from Jamhuri Jazz Band, Nuta Jazz Band, Atomic Jazz Band, Morogoro Jazz Band, and Dar Es Salaam Jazz Band! Although the names of the five groups featured here all have the words "Jazz Band" in them, holding them to that genre's commonly thought of parameters is far too limiting. Performed on guitars, horns, percussion, bass, and some amazing voices, these songs also possess a bright brassy shine akin to Caribbean Calypso music and gentle lilting rhythms like those of many Latin American artists of the same period. Wonderful!
Already up to number 5 in the Zanzibara series, obviously modeled after the amazing (and seemingly discontinued) Ethiopiques series, but focusing more on the the Eastern coast of Africa: Mombassa, Tanga, Zanzibar, the Comoros, etc. While in some ways the sounds are similar to the music in Ethiopia, like any region, the sounds of Tanazania, the focus of this volume, have their own distinct vibe and feel. Right off the bat, the sound is way more vocal based, jazzy too, with lots of horns, and very bright shiny melodies, in fact much of this reminds us of mariachi music, the same sort of shuffly rhythms, horn fanfares and vocal harmonies. The high life feel is all over these tracks, festive, celebratory, to these ears, it sounds like party music, dance music, music of love and happiness and sunshine, although like much music, even the happiest sounding on the surface, often carried with it deeper darker emotions. This music was the soundtrack of daily life in Tanzania, playing constantly on the radio, influenced by the West for sure, but so much it's own special and unique sound. Fans of the first few volumes will definitely dig, as might fans of the Ethiopiques releases, but really, anyone into high life and sunshiney African grooves, will no doubt find this collection fantastic.
Includes a big booklet, with incredibly in depth liner notes and tons of amazing vintage photos!
The seminal New York label at the forefront of the collision between disco and punk turns 30 this year, and the Strut label has compiled a great compilation to celebrate. Strut has already dipped into the vast Ze records catalog for their Disco Not Disco series of compilations and with the Ze reissues of the Mutant Disco and N.Y. No Wave comps, Strut can be forgiven for not making a "Best of" collection. Instead Strut focusses on some of the labels not so well known gems. Tracks by label underdogs Michael Dracula, Casino Music, Garcons and Sympho State are mixed with obscurities by label mainstays, Christina, Lizzie Mercier Descloux, Kid Creole, Suicide, and James Chance and The Contortions (not doing "Contort Yourself" for a change!) among others. A fine compilation for freaky left-field disco connoisseurs! Happy Birthday Ze!!!
Tripped out loungy-electronica compilation great for yoga or eating at trendy restaurants.
Awesome DVD collection of the "best and strangest" Ninja Tune videos. Features clips from Funki Porcini, Jaga Jazzist, Mr. Scruff, Coldcut, Amon Tobin, the Herbaliser, DJ Vadim, Wagon Christ, Kid Koala, Cinematic Orchestra, Bonobo, Animals On Wheels, Neotropic and more. Also includes a video mash up and an hour long audio mix.
Allan's been wanting to review this for while, it's not new or anything (it came out in 2003 and the music on it is much older than that) but he got a copy a few months ago and just fell in love with it... Rather surprising to him, really, since this is a compilation of soft rock tunes! "20 Junkshop Soft Rock Singles from 1970-1974" to be precise. In the same series with the ever-popular Velvet Tinmine glam rock comp, this disc takes a look at a different aspect of the UK '70s pop scene. The realm of the sensitive singer-songwriter. If you're not British (and of a certain age?) chances are you've probably never heard any of these singles before. Some were one hit wonders, some from folks with lengthy careers... but none of 'em probably got much play, if any at all, this side of the pond. Though, they maybe could've. I mean, the twenty tracks collected here kinda *sound* like '70s hits by the likes of Elton John, CSNY, or Billy Joel in his piano man days, without actually being songs that you've heard 1000 times already.
You've heard of Tim Rose and Leo Sayer, perhaps. And Neil MacArthur turns out to be an commercially ill-advised alias for Colin Blunstone from the Zombies. But Laurie Styvers? Ewan Stephens? Ray Fenwick? The Startedt Brothers? Curtiss Maldoon? Clifford T. Ward? Not ringing a lot of bells. Maybe if we read more Mojo mag. But all of 'em, one-offs or not, are making me nostaglic for an UK radio childhood I never had. Loads of lush mini-epics arranged for strings and piano and voices both gentle and strong... melancholic and nostalgic themselves. From the haunting, majestic "El Doomo" by obscure Roger Daltrey produced classic rockers Ellis to the very Don Maclean -esque "Chinese Restaurant" by the Startedt Brothers to the Bob Dylan stylings of Ewan Stephens, everything on here is pretty darn enjoyable if you're in the mood -- and mood is what this certainly sets. Thoroughly annnotated, and nicely presented with a '70s graphic flair inspired by a UK pop magzine of the era called Zigzag -- hence the title as well!
Possibly the most highly represented ethnic group in this collection -- at least in the African portion -- the music of the Shona account for three separate albums in the Explorer Series. I suppose that may not be so surprising as the mbira -- or as it's more commonly called the "thumb piano" -- has enjoyed a certain preferential treatment in the U.S. when it comes to exposure, due to its dulcet tones. And if there ever was a group who could lay claim to being masters of the mbira, I suppose it would be the Shona. And the backlash that follows is a lament that mbira music is the type of music you can give your grandma as a present without offending her. A built in nu-age predisposition. But, so fucking what. Yeah, sure, a lot of opportunistic world beat and nu-age artists have exploited the instrument's disposition, but that doesn't make it any less worthy an instrument for our ears. And hearing it played in a cultural context sans nefarious commercial interests ought to wipe out any negative associations. Shona Mbira Music was originally released in 1977.
Another excellent reissue from the Nonesuch Explorer series, this one originally released in 1971. The mbira, in common vernacular often called a "thumb piano", is any number of instruments consisting of a board in which metal prongs of different lengths have been attached, the plucking of which produces a beautiful muted bell-like tone. The core of the songs here are repeated melodic patterns plucked on the mbira. The mbira player is accompanied by a percussive rattle (hosho), while the two players together form vocal melodies derived from the pattern meted out by the mbira. The songs are wonderfully cyclical, with ever subtle inflections added to the melody by gradual turns. Lulling, elliptical and simply wonderful.
Possibly the most highly represented ethnic group in this collection -- at least in the African portion -- the music of the Shona account for three separate albums in the Explorer Series. I suppose that may not be so surprising as the mbira -- or as it's more commonly called the "thumb piano" -- has enjoyed a certain preferential treatment in the U.S. when it comes to exposure, due to its dulcet tones. And if there ever was a group who could lay claim to being masters of the mbira, I suppose it would be the Shona. And the backlash that follows is a lament that mbira music is the type of music you can give your grandma as a present without offending her. A built in nu-age predisposition. But, so fucking what. Yeah, sure, a lot of opportunistic world beat and nu-age artists have exploited the instrument's disposition, but that doesn't make it any less worthy an instrument for our ears. And hearing it played in a cultural context sans nefarious commercial interests ought to wipe out any negative associations. The Soul of Mbira was originally released in 1973.
There was a time when the idea of a record like this would blow our minds. "There was crazy psychedelic garage rock in South Africa in the fifties and sixties?" But by now, we're sort of spoiled, by the hundreds of world music reissue labels, not to mention the thousands of lost gems and rare records of all stripes from all over the world. So yeah, the fact that this record exists is not hugely surprising, but we are pretty thrilled that it's so good. That all these bands in white South Africa, still under Apartheid, emulating groups like The Beatles and Bill Hailey And The Comets, could come up with stuff this buzzy and psychedelic and super rocking. The root of the music on display here is definitely the early rock and roll we're so familiar with, but the bands here are fierce, the guitars buzz, the drums pound, even the simplest songs are transformed into barnstormers, almost uniformly these groups are characterized by super blown out, ultra distorted guitars, fuzzed out organs, and super intense yowled vocals.
Freedom's Children's cover of the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction" is the perfect example. Covered probably thousands of times, it's barely recognizable here, until the vocals kick in, starting with a super distorted stop start intro, then some fuzzy psych leads over a dense groove, the verses are clipped and strangely arranged, with almost a new melody, played by a jagged guitar, the chorus too is drenched in distorted guitar, so goddamn good we almost forget that we're sick of that song. And the originals hold up just as well, the A-Cads, The Upsetters, John E. Sharpe & The Squires, The Bats, Finders Keepers, killer grooves, wild and rocking, loose and groovy and freaked out and frenzied, catchy as all hell and completely as good as if not better than the bands they were trying to sound like. Very few bands we'd ever heard of, but all of them kicking or asses. Maybe one of our favorite international garage rock reissues yet. Includes extensive liner notes, on the songs, the bands, and the political and social climate in South Africa at the time, and what part rebellious revolutionary music played.
George and Yvonne Chen's first issue with a cd! Features interviews with Built to Spill, DEVO, Joan of Arc and Snuff, as well as reviews, comics, video game emulation and Asian cult restaurants. The CD's got exclusive unreleased tracks by Boyracer, Bunnygrunt, Cars Get Crushed, Cole, Danger G20, The Great Brain, June of 44, Kublai Khan, Lullaby for the Working Class, Lustre King, Raymond Brake, Retriever, Strictly Ballroom, Sweep the Leg Johnny, Transitional, Tullycraft and Vehicle Flips.
The latest cd release from this stalwart Bay Area indie label and webzine features much more blistering and caustic music than their last compilation did back in 1998. The focus in the first half is squarely on noisy dissonance. Lots of experimental blasts and occasional propulsive no wave-iness from the likes of Channel 3 And 4, Beak Full Of Rubies, Coughs, Child Abuse, John Weise, Silver Daggers and Lakes. Then at the eighth track the sonic storm suddenly eases to a considerably more subdued drizzle with TG's gently plucked "La Nuit Version" and Hut's droney pulse and percussion track "Camp Along Young Oxen". Antifamily brings the energy level back up with their angular "Rome Is Not A City", and from there the comp is mixed (albeit like-minded) bag that includes more familiar faces Deerhoof, KIT, Stefan Udell, Yellow Swans and Axolotl. 23 track total.
This is the first mix cd from Stefan Betke, the driving force behind Pole and a key figurehead in the neo-dub renaissance alongside Kit Clayton and Vladslav Delay. The album begins just as you'd expect with slick transitions between Process, Farben (aka Jan Jenilek), the afforementioned Delay, and Clayton, with Betke jacking up the bass to huge thundercracks and sprinkling in
The "Oacis" 4cd box should be confused with the "Oacis" book that Raster-Noton released earlier this year, though both featured the usual suspects in Byetone, Komet, Coh, and Alva Noto. Remixing source material from someone named Lumen (no, not the post-rock
Thus, the "Oacis" box is quite solid on the musical front; however, the packaging holds some unfortunate design oversights. First off, the box is housed in the same industrial strength zip-lock bag as the book, which fit the 8.5" x 6" book rather snugly, but overwhelms the 5.5" x 5.5" box. Secondly, the designers had obviously taken great cares in die-cutting all of the innersleeves, but included a lone piece of card stock which inhibits a direct line of sight through the package. Very disappointing design execution from a label that has prided itself on its perfect packaging (like the "20' to 2000" series). Oh well.
This collection of live recordings at the Ideenshop in Berlin from last year is an intriguing compilation of techno minimalism that as a whole seems to hold much more of an affinity to the angular electronic funk of Cabaret Voltaire than the elegant sheen of Pan Sonic or Goem. Kotai / Baader has produced a complex sequence of minor chord tones hovers above a nearly bassless drum machine for a monochromatic techno groove that sounds as eerie and minimal as the earliest acid house from the mid-80s. Patrick and Casio Kid collaborate for a deep immersive Francisco Lopez drone. Monolake offers a smattering of Schnitzler cosmic electronics that is driven by a Chain Reaction house shuffle. Don't Dolby, Automato, Felix Kubin, and 100Records also make appearances. In the end this is much more interesting than the average electronica compilation featuring Kid 606.
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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Okay, I totally lamed out and forgot to go see this movie, argh! Judging from the soundtrack, the film (a feature documentary about scratching) must be amazing, although I'm not sure if any of the tracks here were actually in it -- this album is billed as
I find some of the purely turntablist albums a bit much to take in one sitting, and so might you, but this album is so well put together, perfectly sequenced, and refreshingly varied in terms of DJ scratching styles, that I really enjoyed the listen. If you've never bought a turntablist record before, this is a great place to start. And people who've already got turntablist wax in their collections should give it a go too. Recommended.
RealAudio clip: HERBIE HANCOCK, WITH MIXMASTER MIKE, GRANDMASTER DXT, ROB SWIFT, QBERT, BABU, FAUST & SHORTEE "Rockit 2.002" [/audio/scratchherbiehancock.rm]
We'd been hearing about this lp for a while, a very unlikely gathering of four black metal or tangentially black metal outfits, including two of our favorites, alchemical post rockers Aluk Todolo, and spaced out psychedelic black metal outronauts Nightbringer, along with Nihil Nocturne and Saturnalia Temple. And while all four bands explore dramatically different sonic territories, the disparate sounds and philosophies seem to merge into one mysterious and abstract whole.
Saturnalia Temple start things off in a decidedly UN black metal fashion, thick lugubrious riffs, spacey and druggy and woozy and sprawling, laced with soft psychedelic leads, Very early Earth sounding, until the riffs begin to gather momentum and take shape, and then suddenly it sounds like Kyuss at 16 rpm, some sort of sun baked desert rock, slooowed waaaaaay doooooown, lysergic and hazy, a sort of blackened and metalized slow blues, that just crawls and creeps until the drums finally kick in, and then it's some stoner doom, but with the groove dialed way down, a trancelike churn, peppered with bits of minor key melody and deep chanted monklike vocals.
Nightbringer step up, and explode in frenzy of whirling spaced out blackness, soaring frantic riffs, blasting black beats, the sound more astral and celestial than grim and frosty, the track constantly shifting, from lightning speed blast to warped midtempo moodiness, wild leads tangled up everywhere, haunting chanted vox, totally majestic and epic, even at its doomiest, the sound transcends, the guitars stratospheric, the arrangements lush and sprawling, a total heart of the black sun blast of galactic black bliss.
Nihil Nocturne offer up yet another black facet, theirs a midtempo blackness, digey and Burzumy, with just a little groove, giving their track a very Khold like vibe, a sort of modern Moonfog band feel, but with a surprising twist, the track shifting abruptly, into something much more abstract and un-metal, with glimmering clean guitars, electronic rhythms, the stereo super panned, the sounds swooping from ear to ear, speaker to speaker, major key melodies, until a super creepy processed voice begins to intone ominously, and the track begins again, a black metal Godspeed slow build epic, finally finishing off with a frenzied chaotic climax.
And finally the mighty Aluk Todolo, who do their own thing, and manage to evoke as much mood and mystery as any of the other bands, even working with a WAY more stripped down and minimal sound, that sort of post noise dark rock kraut drone they seem to have conjured in some strange ritual, and the sounds is indeed ritualistic, but also utterly hypnotic, and mesmerizing, all motorik rhythms, simple serpentine basslines, clouds of keening feedback, and abstract guitar crunch, swirls of effects, drifting fragmented melodies, but the drums driving everything, holding it all together, loose and tight at the same time, locked in, but drifting occasionally. Can, Faust, This Heat, German Oak, not black metal, not even remotely, maybe it's the vibe, or the mood, or the band pedigree, but it hardly matters, this is blackened and heavy totally enthralling dark and mysterious minimal hypno rock and it RULES.
Gorgeous packaging, super striking artwork and a massive 12 page 12" x 12" booklet, and yeah, SUPER LIMITED.
BACK IN PRINT, this former Record (or Records, or Book, or whatever it is) of the Week!!!
Holy cow!!! A freaking flexidisc BOOK. And if that wasn't already cool enough, just check out the lineup: Thee Oh Sees, Bare Wires, The Fresh & Onlys, Blasted Canyons, Ty Segall And Mikal Cronin. Almost entirely unreleased and exclusive tracks. And did we mention the flexidisc book?
Yeah, a big book, it sort of feels like one of those baby books kids can take in the bath, thick heavy pages, still softcover, but hefty, and the design is incredible, full color, super retro, all the band pages some old product reimagined using the name of the band, presented on thick glossy pages, over which lays the band's flexidisc, printed in cool metallic inks, and see through, so you can see the picture in the book through the record. And just an aside for folks who don't actually know what a flexidisc is, it's a sheet of plastic, into which record grooves are cut, and back in the day, that's how magazines gave away songs, by including flexidiscs (Mad Magazine used to include flexidiscs all the time!), but anyway, five flexidiscs, all housed in this cool spiral wire bound book! And if this wasn't already worth it as just a cool musical object, this musical object just so happens to have ten tracks from five of our favorite bands!
Thee Oh Sees get all abstract and post punky on "Burning Spear", channeling Wire through their reverby garage crunch, before slipping into the shimmy shake of "What You Need (The Porch Boogie Thing)" complete with falsetto vox. The Fresh & Onlys offer up two short sharp tracks of vintage retro jangle pop, all reverby and echoey and hooky as hell, laced with girl group backup vox and warm whirring organ. Bare Wires kick out the jams on two total retro classics, sounding more and more like they were actually transported here from the sixties, total Who worshipping jangley mod-pop radness. Ty Segall and Mikal Cronin try their hand at some Bowie covers, transforming "Fame" into an echo drenched dirge, and "Suffragette City" into a supercharged garagepunk blowout. Recent Record Of The Week-ers Blasted Canyons contribute two songs from their Record Of The Week (this was actually meant to come out first), but if you needed a teaser/taster, these two songs should convince you, fuzzy blown out, synth heavy garage pop space punk bliss, dueling boy/girl vocals, thick buzzing synths, wild crashing drums, big riffs, sixties girl group shimmy via modern garage rock crunch, and of course hooks galore. The mysterious bonus track which was available with the first pressing, and was cut right into the back of the book, is sadly no longer included, but it IS included in the digital download!
INSTRUCTIONS FOR PLAYING YOUR GROUP FLEX: Do not tear out the flexidiscs, just fold the book back, with the record you want to play on top, then set the whole book on your turntable, when it's time to play the next record, simply turn the page, and put the book right back on the turntable. And repeat.
And look out for Group Flex volume 2, which we hear is upcoming!!
Okay, it's time to come clean. After fighting it for years. And beginning every techno review with a disclaimer like "we don't really like techno all that much", it's time to just admit it, we love techno. We do. well, we must, this is the SECOND comp called I Love Techno that we've raved about on the list. And we've been listening to it nonstop since it first came in. Sure we love Pop Ambient, and heroin house, and all the more minimal weirdo shades of techno, but the stuff on this comp falls closer to the French stuff we also love, Daft Punk, Justice, with wild buzzing synths, pounding big beats, crazy melodies, and this comp is overflowing with total dancefloor destroyers. The first I Love Techno comp, was a bit more on the minimal side of things, playing into a sound we already loved, but this 2008 collection is not minimal at all. It's maximal. Big time. Snarling, swirling, buzzing, pounding, wild, sweaty, strobe lit, electro flecked, synth heavy techno, and if we actually were inclined to dance, this comp would keep us moving FOREVER.
Opening with a brief burst of old school electro, the sound quickly shifts to a killer mashup, pounding beats and buzzy spacey synths, and cold clinical spoken female vocals, IN GERMAN. Cold wave via Daft Punk. Or something. And after that's it's on, and it don't stop. Synthesizers buzz and howl, squeal and shriek, beats shuffle, skitter, pulse, throb and pound, this shit is wild and weird and freaked out and actually sort of heavy in its own way.
Two tracks right in the middle, one by Bingo Players, the other by Les Petits Pilous, are completely nuts, jagged chunks of synth buzz, shooting out staccato style, locked in with pounding beats, like the frenzied climax of the ultimate techno jam, stretched out into whole songs. The record closes with the ultimate techno one-two punch. Boys Noize, who assembled this comp, offer up "My Head", which begins a hiccupping chopped up stutter, laced with squiggly synths, and it just gets more sharp and caustic and jagged and blown out and groovy and funky and far out as fuck. Which segues perfectly into Errorsmith's "In A Sweat", which starts out all fuzzy and hiss drenched, muted beats all strangled and stunted, before the beat drops, a super distorted fuzzy groove, that just gets weirder and weirder, the various synths slip from super low end buzz, to super sharp high end skree, constantly shifting tone and timbre, while the beat manages to stutter and skip all over the place, the whole thing culminating in a high end hiss storm.
So yeah, I suppose we do love techno. That is, as long as techno always sounds this funky and freaked out and fucked up and kick ass. Way recommended. Even for technophobes, as this has definitely won over a few of those around here.
It's no secret that many of us here at AQ are huge fans of Daft Punk. In fact Matt, Irwin and Antaeus all went to their concert in Berkeley this summer and still light up when talking about what an amazing night it was. The fact is Daft Punk have perfected their unique strain of dance music, executed in a way that almost anyone can get into, without losing any of the electricity and spirit that makes their sound so special. So it's always been obvious to us how fun it would be to be able to go through their gigantic record collection. This compilation features tracks that they have sampled on their three albums, so it's no surprise that it's filled with all sorts of rare funk, soul and disco gems.
While this works a just a killer comp, it's especially fun if you're a Daft Punk fan as we've gotten so much pleasure hearing such unmistakably Daft Punk moments in their original incarnations. We also think it's so cool that they made sure to give full props to their source material and the wealth of vintage dance music that they have borrowed so heavily from. Dance gems from folks we know and love like Karen Young, Cerrone and Sister Sledge to more obscure burners from the likes of Little Anthony & The Imperials, Edwin Birdsong and Breakwater this is a collection that's been making us dance and smile so wide.
Yay, this killer comp repressed on vinyl after several years MIA...
From the same great tastemakers who put together the Dirty Space Disco collection that has become an all-time AQ favorite, comes this collection of sultry and sensual French psychedelia. These are the sounds and artists that have influenced folks like Sebastian Tellier, Air, Islaja, Blonde Redhead, Bjork, Broadcast, Komeda, etc.
And while we of course love the peppy sounds of classic French ye-ye pop, it's the more seductive, warped and tripped out sounds from France in the '70s that really gets us going! When we realized that one of our favorite songs of all time, "Il Pleut" by Brigitte Fontaine (complete with arrangements by Jean-Claude Vannier!) was included, we knew there was some mighty fine curatorial work going on here.
But it's not just that one track, not even close, this comp has turned us on to amazing sounds from new-to-us folks like Christophe, Nino Ferrer, Jeanne Marie Sens as well as long beloved AQ faves like Dashiell Hedayat, Ilous & Decuyper, and Francois de Roubaix. While many of their US and UK counterparts were injecting large amounts of blues and hard rock into their psychedelia, the French kept it sensual, steamy and tripped out, realizing an alternate yet completely enticing musical universe. Full on sexy psychedelic seduction! Weirdness too, like the awesome track whose grooves are backed with the sounds of revving race cars.
When it comes to stunning consistency of excellence it doesn't get much better then the Ethiopiques series. Twenty plus releases and they have yet to release a dud. Last time out they focused their attention not on the vintage era of the grooves of Ethiopian pop but instead it was a brand new recording of tender and solemn solo piano by Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou, a record which we totally fell in love with. With volume 22 the series flashes back to the past for another big dip into the vaults of Alemayehu Eshete, one of the biggest stars from the golden-age of Ethiopian music who alongside Mahmoud Ahmed, Tlahoun Gessesse and Mulatu Astatke helped define that sound. In fact Eshete was previously the star of the ninth volume of the Ethiopiques series as well. But judging from this release, the man left a very sizable legacy, as this disc is filled with absolute treasures without a throwaway track in sight.
With instrumentation that's so tight, and breaks that would make any lover of psych/kraut/rare groove's jaw drop, this is a collection that we've already been spinning over and over ever since it came in to AQ. Eshete's voice and presence feels so sure and confident, with a unique vocal style that's been compared to an Ethiopian James Brown crossed with Elvis Presley. There are moments in these songs that catch such deep grooves and moments that sound like they could be pulled straight from a Can song. You just can't beat the warmth of these stripped down analog recordings. You want to be in a room filled with smoke and candles when you listen to this. Eshete made such amazing songs that just drip with sweat, while oozing elegance too. Highly recommended!
This is one of those records that is either one of THEE most amazing and bizarre collections of random and far out archival sounds and recordings, or it's one of the most meticulously assembled sonic hoaxes EVER. And as it usually is with records like this, it almost doesn't matter. If it IS real, well then WOW. How some of these recordings exist, and have never been heard, hard to fathom. If it's all fake, then WOW again. Gorgeously presented, the liner notes detailed and super informative, complete with archival photos, and all presented in a jacket that looks like one of those classic collections of library music. BUT. This was compiled by weirdo outsider musician Felix Kubin (whose career retrospective compilation cd we raved about recently), which makes us think this is just the kind of thing he would think up, and actually create. Plus, some of these recordings are so impossibly bizarre, and some of the sounds are so weird, and often don't sound at all like what they purport to be.
So let's dig in. A recording of a demonstration record, demonstrating a mechanical automatic speech apparatus, lots of talking in German, then the actual demos, a weird mechanical series of tones, meant to be vowel sounds, the first step in a machine that will emulate human voice. Next is a lost recording of a Finnish telephone exchange from 1938, that sounds more like some strangely musical bit of dronemusic, all reverby and woozy and washed out, haunting and soundscapey. Up next is some music from a Norwegian Whaling Festival, in 1948, a surprisingly high fidelity blast of what could be Avarus, a cacophony of crowd sounds, voices, clanging metal, all nearly drowning out the skronk of various horns. Then there's a recording from a fraudulent attempt to raise money for a new '16 track tape' (twice as good as the 8 track that was so popular at the time, 1967), a recording of what we presume to be the factory where they make the tapes, all industrial whirs, voices, clanks and rumbles, the tape having remained unheard due to the fact that it was an obsolete format.
Up next, a supposedly early piece by David Tudor, possibly his first, a stretch of near silence punctuated by bits of crunch and glitch, weird warped tape sounds, it could be Tudor, hard to say. Then comes a hydrophone recording of a project to record plankton, capturing the plant's electronic impulses and converting them into sound, this recording however is from the cockpit of a submarine, so everything is murky and muddy, voices and underwater warble, quite an awesome recording, genuine or not. The side ends with what might be the most bizarre track of them all, a recording of a man performing with barnyard animals in the UK, a part of variety shows that were apparently quite popular at the time, the man beats a drum, his rumbling voice soon joined in by mooing cows, oinking pigs, meowing cats and clattery horse hooves percussion.
The second side doesn't get any less far out, beginning with what is meant to be a recording of a Pygmy hunting ritual, recorded in 1934 in Africa, and again, it sounds almost like some modern lysergic forest folk weirdness, super distorted, lots of percussion, wailed voices, super dense and chaotic, definitely raw and primitive sounding, but definitely suspect. Then comes another demonstration recording, this one from Oskar Sala, who created the soundscapes for Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, here he demonstrates the Volkstrautonium for the infamous Joseph Goebbels of the Third Reich. Then there's an early early 'remix', created in 1965 from wax cylinder recordings of Persian foot soldiers in 1921. Next up, a found reel to reel tape, that came with a player, and was discovered to contain what is purportedly a recording of a Situationist project to construct a non authoritarian kindergarten "aimed to engender a spirit of subversion in children", and is essentially a recording of a man and a child, interrupted by various strange sounds. Then comes an unknown tape recording "presented here as a curiosity", a twisted blast of mysterious voices and garbled analog electronics, a technical experiment perhaps, we'll never know. And finally, an untitled player piano composition by Hans Henny Jahnn, a "playwright, novelist, organ builder, music publisher and polymath", and his masterpiece was apparently about a man who tried to notate the grain of birchwood into musical notation, and it seems Jahnn tried to do the same in real life, using birchwood grain as a blueprint for musical notation. Wow.
Incredible. And incredibly strange. A fantastic, and fantastical listen for sure. Everything here so bizarre and baffling, and in most cases almost TOO bizarre and baffling. But like we said, it hardly matters, regardless of their provenance, this is an amazing document of some truly wondrous sounds, recordings that if not genuine, are at least genuinely freaky and fascinating. And, unfortunately, we have but a handful.
Attention Buddha Machine obsessives, here's another sonic artifact / fetishistic release from Buddha Machine masterminds FM3 to collect and obsess over, and yeah, it is still Buddha Machine related. In fact it's another collection of Buddha Machine derived soundscapes, with FM3 removing the loops from the machine, and passing them around to various contemporary Chinese musicians to remix, rework, reinterpret and re-envision, there are a few names we recognize, like Li Jianhong, but so many that we don't, all offering their own interpretations, and the sonic breadth is fairly stunning.
From haunting folky drifts, to groovy Chinese pop, to gorgeous rhythmic percussive workouts, to crackly Philip Jeck like dronescapes, from haunting field recording flecked, reinterpreted traditional Chinese music, to hushed swirling ambience, from actual recordings of a Buddha Machine being played in a remote village, replete with the sounds of insects and wildlife, to minimal abstract dronemusic, from electronic flecked folk pop, to looped rhythmic post industrial electronic skitter, from mysterious spoken word to strange soundtracky sci-fi ambience, and from traditional sounding fluttery flute to super commercial electro pop, and that's just a sampling. It's a pretty amazing listen, varied to be sure, but it all works pretty well together as a whole, and in many cases, especially for the Buddha Machine obsessed, it becomes a game of spot the Buddha Machine loop, not always an easy feat in many cases.
And then there's the packaging. Totally over the top, and in many ways, subtly beholden to the machine that inspired it. First, everything is houses in a printed metallic oversized gold bag, normally used to hold oolong tea, sealed of course, it has to be torn to get inside, but fear not, there's another bag inside, however, that one is sealed too, so to reuse it, you'll have to tear open that one too. Along with the spare bag, there's the disc itself, which is mounted to a heavy textured board, printed front and back with Chinese characters, with a hole punched out of one corner, in which is mounted a metal coin, bearing an imprint of the Buddha Machine, and the coins were apparently cast in metal from the same factory that makes designer buckles, rings and necklaces, the label pointing out that "Your coin could have been a Gucci!", there's a little sticker, featuring more Chinese characters, and then there are a handful of members only "VIP" cards, which look like blank credit cards, and which are apparently ubiquitous in status-conscious modern China, each on a different color, the colors of the original Buddha Machines of course.
LIMITED TO 2000 COPIES.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
You gotta love Joe Meek! If you don't yet, what's your problem?! If you're unfamiliar, check out the genuinely inspired and advanced I Hear A New World (recorded in 1960, but 'lost' for years!) immediately! This mad genius/mad man artist/producer's fascinating and bizarre life story is too long and detailed to go into here, especially when we've got a brand new twelve disc box set of music he produced! Each cd features a Meek-produced solo artist or band's four-song EP, and is presented in a cardboard sleeve printed with its original cover art. Artists include Mike Berry, Houston Wells, The Flee-rekkers, The Packabeats, Heinz, Don Charles, John Leyton, The Blue Men ("I Hear A New World", perhaps his masterpiece), and The Tornados, but the real star is Meek. Seriously folks, he was a one-of-a-kind recording innovator!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Dronevolk is a new documentary focused on the burgeoning underground dronefolk scene in Belgium, made up of a handful of bands, aQ customers will no doubt be well familiar with: Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat, Bear Bones Lay Low, Silvester Anfang and Ignatz. By now, most faithful readers of the aQ list own at least one record by some or all of those groups, but this disc takes advantage of the format, not only offering up more of the music we love so much, but glimpses into the creative process, allowing the viewer to see how and where the music was recorded, to see the groups perform live, on big stages, in little clubs, in bedrooms and practice spaces, and allows the groups themselves to discuss their music and influences.
Kiss The Anus start things off, recording track by track, tambourine, guitar, vocals, harmonium, watching the song slowly take form. From a bedroom and a computer, the disembodied parts coalesce becoming something more magical and mysterious, eventually taking form as a song, being performed by a full band on stage. Plenty of interview footage, live performance, home movies, backstage, on tour, and like us, you probably wondered where the heck he came up with that name, well now's your chance to find out.
Up next is Bear Bones Lay Low, a super young guy, moved from Venezuela to Belgium, he now also plays in Silvester Anfang, but for Bear Bones it's serious floorcore, hunched over a bank of effects and keyboard, swaying back and forth, hair in face, black pants and a green Izod (!), the sound a thick coruscating drone, haunting vocals drifting in and out, cool to see those sounds coming from such an unassuming figure, the transformative power of music. Other footage of him kneeling with a guitar, unfurling wavery fractured folk, shots of practice space sessions, recording and rehearsing, some super intense live performance, or at as intense as one mop topped dude kneeling on the floor can be, but the music is dark and drone-y and intense!
Then along comes Silvester Anfang revealed to be much more of a proper rock band, and a bunch of goofy dudes judging from their interview, especially considering their provocative cover art and mysteriously heavy sounds. Much of the interview concerns metal, specifically how there is NO metal in Silvester Anfang, and how just because they LIKE metal, does not mean that they play metal. Also discussion of the artwork, and how it gives people the wrong impression, and how FUN is a big part of what they do, no matter how dark and intense the music is. Lots of pre-show ritual, setting up, tuning up, eventually giving way to full on dronejam, with nearly the whole band hunched over on the floor, strange, but sort of ritualistic and cool looking. Also some improv street corner jams, with kids and homeless folks, all super percussive and chaotic and exuberant
Last up is Ignatz, another pretty unassuming dude, his segment opening with a gorgeous live performance, on a stage in the woods, afternoon sunlight filtering through the trees, the vocals a ghostly mumble, the guitar ragged and abstract. Exactly how you might imagine it would be. Some very low key interview footage, and a glimpse of the home, the studio, where this mysterious music takes shape, which then helps you realize that these places are not so different than where we live, and play, and that much of the mystery comes from the person, and their connection to whatever spirit compels them to make these sounds.
Beautifully packaged in a slimline dvd case, full color covers, the opening and closing credits feature some amazing black and white animation, and for those of you who still aren't sure you need one of these, it also includes bonus unreleased MP3's from all four groups!
All region. NTSC.
Pretty killer 4 way match up on this super limited 7": Kurt Vile, Jack Rose, Meg Baird and US Girls. But what do all 4 of these acts have in common? They all call Philadelphia home. Released to commemorate a show the folks at Kraak set up earlier this year in Philly, each of these 4 bands offers up a brief little blast of the glorious sounds they make. Blast might be too strong a word to describe the tracks here, as evidenced by garage noise popper Kurt Vile who starts things off on a surprisingly sweet and folky note with his "I Wanted Everything", all minor key guitar and sweetly crooned vox, plenty of reverb, a dark woozy almost traditional sounding ballad, which leads perfectly into Rose's "Mr. Rose Visits Washington D.C.", yet another gorgeous tangle of buzzing steel string modern Appalachia, replete with the usual bleary blur of frenetic melody and warm languid raga like buzz.
On the flipside, Meg Baird (of Espers) offers up a sweetly melancholy folky drift, a cover of a track by obscure sixties Christian folkies Felt, delicate crystalline guitar, her voice ethereal and angelic, the whole thing very dreamy and timeless, but definitely looking back to the classic era of seventies British female folk. And finally US Girls finish things off with the only real 'blast' here, a glorious noisy lo-fi looped chunk of warm swirling garage pop, repetitive and buzzy and totally mesmerizing but WAY too short. Left us dying for more for sure...
Comes in a simple printed black and white cover, adorned with a crazy high school binder drawing of wolves and buildings and melty hands and floating heads and fat people and ghosts and teeth and all kinds of super detailed weirdness. And this is most likely crazy limited, these things most always are.
We often lament the fact that many of our favorite bands predate the list. Bands we love and obsessed on, but whose records, and often entire careers, came well before we began our bi-weekly chronicling of musics weird and heavy, dense and brutal, lovely and catchy. Slint's Spiderland has a one line review ferchrissakes!!!
And then there's Man Is The Bastard. The supreme rulers of West Coast Power Violence. A throbbing, churning, dual bass-ed behemoth. A crushing low end onslaught, double basses, crushing drums, howled vocals, swirls of caveman electronics, amazing graphic design (that ubiquitous MITB skull!), political lyrics, challenging subject matter, intense artwork, they were the ultimate D.I.Y. punk rock dirge metal outfit. If you don't own any MITB records, stop right now, and make it happen, any one into heavy, thoughtful brutality, or into experimental and extreme outsider punk rock, needs to own every bit of Bastard they can get their hands on. It's hard to imagine a punk rock band who hasn't been influenced by MITB. In fact the crustcore back pack crowd that you most often equate with legendary epic metal lords Neurosis, you'll find are almost ALL sporting the MITB skull somewhere on their persons, back patch, button, tattoo, it's probably more ubiquitous in this generation than the Black Flag bars or the Einsturzende Neubauten figure. And for good reason. MITB were not only heavy, they were fucking weird, not metal, not punk rock, not noise, but all of those things. And not only did MITB leave an amazing musical legacy, the various members all continued on, taking various bits and pieces, vestiges of what once was Man Is The Bastard, and incorporating them into a whole new world of noise and sound.
Thus we have No Skull Left Unturned. A triple cd collection of mostly new recordings from all the various Man Is The Bastard offshoots (only the Sleestak tracks are previously released). An eclectic bunch for sure. From drone to noise, to ambient to post rock and every possible hybrid in between. Some groups we already know and love, some we're only just discovering, others we're re-discovering and digging all over again. Even if you're new to the world of Man Is The Bastard, this is a killer comp, that will definitely appeal to folks into noise, drone, punk rock, metal, but for MITB fans, this is the motherlode! About the coolest thing short of a reunion or a brand new MITB record.
Before we talk about the bands, let's discuss the packaging. HOLY SHIT. We've seen amazing packaging, but this is so deluxe, and so gorgeously and meticulously hand assembled, true to the D.I.Y spirit for sure, but so over the top. It would be worth it for the packaging alone. Let's start from the outside and work our way inwards.
An oversized grey envelope, sealed with a metallic silver wax seal, bearing the imprint of the MITB skull, affixed to one side of the envelope is a library card pocket, inside, a card with the names of each band typewritten. Flip it over, the MITB skull is printed in black metallic ink, and a clear transparency is affixed over the top. Inside, there are FOUR zines, each with a hand printed silkscreened hard cardstock cover, printed in oranges and blacks. Inside the first, Sounds, are the three cds, a track listing, liner notes, photos and track info for each band on the comp, in the back are two pages of stickers, one with stickers for the comp and all the various bands, one a whole page of MITB skull stickers, along side the cds, are an embroidered patch and a pin, both bearing the same skull image. The set is numbered on the inside of the cover. Limited of course. The second zine, also housed in a silkscreened card stock cover, Discography, is just that, a complete discography of Man Is The Bastard and MITB related bands, including tons of reviews from various zines and magazines, as well as a full color poster featuring the covers of every single MITB and related release. Zine number three, Interviews, is ultra thick, packed with tons of interviews with all the various members of MITB, discussing everything from music to politics, touring, art, reviews, Japanese fans, drugs and loads more. Also included in this zine is a hand screened MITB bookmark, no doubt to use as you work your way through all of this text. And finally, zine 4, Images, is even thicker than the Interviews zine, with tons of images, photos, posters, interviews as well as most, if not all the liner notes and inserts from all the various MITB releases. All 4 zines tied together with a piece of twine and sealed in that envelope.
Phew! And we haven't even gotten to the music yet. Which is just as intense and impressive as the packaging:
Let's start with Amps for Christ who are probably the most well known of the bunch, at least around here. Henry Barnes was the noisemaker for Man Is The Bastard, with his homemade amps (Amps For Christ!), lo-fi duct-tape electronics, screwdrivers and bastardized circuit boards, he added a weird caveman lo-tech sheen to MITB's churning bass heavy power violence, but post-Bastard, Barnes took his Amps and created a strange world of jangle gypsy folk, lilting strum and soaring joyful bagpipe like buzz. A glorious field of fuzzy sonic flowers and sparkling sunshine, all woven into bouncy jigs, doleful drones, simple strum and dreamy childlike melodies, but peppered with strange spoken word, machinelike robotic, murky loping krautrock, and raga like buzz. The tracks here run the gamut, featuring the usual Amps guests contributing dreamlike female vocals, keening violas, and extra strum and pluck, all woven into a constantly confusional world of bent circuits, blown out guitar buzz, summery afternoon folk flutter, and ominous dirgey strums.
Then there's Unicorn, who have been a big favorite around these parts, with their washed out minimal ambience, dark drones and atmospheric drift. The Unicorn tracks here are much more varied, the first a strange electro soundscape of crunchy beats and distorted vocals, feedback squiggles and damaged synths, the second more of the Unicorn we're used to, barely there drift and shimmer, a faraway pulse, then the third a murky midnight forest jam, recorded from beneath the earth, everything muffled and muddy, smeared rhythms, and mysterious insect sounds, like No Neck doing Chain Reaction.
Probably the most prolific and most direct of the MITB offshoots is Bastard Noise, whose output has been nearly impossible to keep up with, and who embraced the noise side of Man Is The Bastard (hence the new monicker) ditching most of the bass and rhythm in favor of a much more static and generally harsh sound. That said, their blend of caveman electronics and black ambience is quite compelling, from huge ambient sprawls of softly shifting black whir, to freaked out walls of pure fierce sound, a thick swirl of soft white noise and manufactured alien soundscapes, harsh and brutal, noisy and intense, but also weirdly inviting and impossibly listenable.
Bastard Noise teamed up with Japanese junk-noise unit K2, for long stretches of chaotic, kitchen sink, electronic noise freakouts: malfunctioning electronics, damaged amplifiers, squalls of loops and stuttering glitch and buzz and grinding crunch.
Antennacle are a new name to us, not sure which Bastard is involved, but they contribution to this collection is one epic 20+ minute soundscape, ominous expanses of insectlike buzz, spare percussive rattle, low end hum, blessed out shimmer, brief stretches of glimmering outer space FX, chunks of feedback, occasionally assembled into strange alien rhythms, a constantly shifting soundworld dipping into territories as far reaching as Dead C murk, Keening Sunroof!-like ur-drone, No Neck style folky clatter and Wolf Eyes-ian electronic landscapes.
Hierophant is another new name to us in the field of post Bastard offshoots, this one another American / Japanese team up, all electronics and field recordings, woven into a jagged field of low end thrum and hissing high end buzz, abstract percussion, and clouds of Merzbowian rrroooar, swirls of spaced out FX, a discordant din, the sound of a noise rock band crashing headfirst into a junkyard gamelan. Long stretches of what sound like field recordings of some alien swamp, all indescribably chirps and croaks, suspended in a muddy viscous black bog, over which thick sheets of coruscating high end feedback drift like storm clouds.
But probably the most exciting stuff here are three previously released tracks from Man Is The Bastard noiserock side project Sleestak. It exciting to hear what a more mellow MITB might have sounded like, an ominous low slung brutality, bass heavy dirges, moody malevolence, more a sort of beautiful brutal post rock. A loping bass line wanders through a field of hiss and hum and buzz, spacious and spare, almost like a meaner more malevolent Low or Bohren. Slowcore peppered with bursts of twisted noise freakouts, and distant bits of shortwave squiggle, a very Slint-like vibe, with the guitar locking into super hypnotic loops, over lurching downtuned bass, drifting detuned melodic fragments, if someone didn't know better, they could definitely mistake this stuff for some super obscure Touch And Go or AmRep noiserock band. Killer stuff. Previously released, but we'd never heard these tracks before, and will absolutely be hunting down everything we can find. In fact, this whole comp will have most of you digging for discs by all these bands. And our waning love of Bastard Noise has most definitely blossomed again after digging into these tracks. Absolutely and totally recommended. And of course the best part of a comp like this is that it got us all excited about Man Is The Bastard again, and that shit sounds as good as ever.
Man Is The Bastard! Crossed Out! Infest! Spazz! No Comment! Capitalist Casualties! All hail WEST COAST POWERVIOLENCE!! And the glorious sounds borne from their legacy...
If you love old school punk, indie pop, garage rawk, fun, AND you need help keeping track of your days/months/years (at least from May 2012 through to December 2014), then this is for you. Huh?! Please stick with us, it'll all make sense soon....
The inimitable Nardwuar The Human Serviette returns to the recorded realm, once more with his buddy Andrew W.K. in tow, along with a crowd of other musical pals. A lifelong championer of music's unsung heroes (mostly those with Canadian roots), a feverish pursuer of interviews with entertainment figures large and small, and a tireless digger-upper of the most obscure trivia morsels about said interview subjects, Nardwuar's latest musical offering is just as obsessive. It's a compilation which featured his own band The Evaporators (whose line-up currently stars bassist Stephen Hamm formerly of the infamous mid-'80s Vancouver punk band Slow and the New Pornographers' John Collins on lead guitar), Mr. W.K., Franz Ferdinand, Kate Nash, Sage Francis, The Cribs, Fuad & The Feztones (aka the latest Montreal outfit by Bobby Beaton and John Davis of the mighty Gruesomes with The Stills' Dave Hamelin and Liam O'Neil), and more. The baker's dozen selection is a split between originals by The Evaporators; the assorted UK, US and Canadian guests covering Canadian indie tunes originally by Pointed Sticks, Cub (Cup's first band!), The Dishrags, and rockabilly truck driver (!) Doug Rutledge; and yes, a brief interview clip (because it just wouldn't be a Nardwuar release without one, would it?). The Evaps sound beefier and better than ever. Although their songwriting still has a true unpolished garage rawk heart, the higher-fi production on this record suit them well. They sound huge compared to past releases, which is particularly appropriate on a couple of their songs here - namely, the title track (which, by the way, is not a cover of the Bing Crosby song of the same name) and the fists-in-the-air-smile-on-your-face anthemics of "I Hate Being Late When I'm Early". By now you might've caught wind of the latter, a wild'n'woolly duet with Andrew W.K. (especially if you attended SXSW last month where they played four shows, one with W.K. guesting on organ). It's a full-blown bombastic power pop song with totally silly lyrics (would you expect anything else from W.K. and Nardwuar?) and Sweet-esque vocals in the chorus that you can't help but sing along to. All in all, Busy Doing Nothing is a frantically paced gleeful collection of tunes sure to get you primed and ready for summertime.
But wait, there's still more fun packed into this release because Nardwuar The Serviette is a generous soul who always loves to dish out bonus gifts even if it isn't Christmas time or your birthday. Included with the vinyl is a 40-page calendar (yup, you heard right, forty, this ain't an ordinary twelve month deal!) filled with vintage black and white punk rock photos (from waaay back in the day circa '70s and early '80s!) by veteran punk rock photographer Bev Davies. There are shots of The Cramps, PiL, The Cure, New Order, The Minutemen, Joan Jett, Girlschool, The Adolescents, Pointed Sticks, Iggy Pop, The Slits, Gun Club, U2, extras on the movie set of "Ladies And Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains", and James Brown. Wha'?! Yeah, that last one might seem a bit incongruous, but then again, he might've been more punk than any of the others, eh?
A super rad colored vinyl co-release by Nardwuar and Mint Records with handlettering completely designed and drawn by Cup!
Yet another fantastic collection of fascinating sights and sounds from Sublime Frequencies, this time from Southeast Asia, Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, etc... filmed by Robert Millis, he of Climax Golden Twins, as well as a frequent Sublime Frequencies contributor / collaborator / curator and an avid collector of world music and lost 78s. And like past SF dvds, My Friend Rain is another fantastical journey through the streets of Southeast Asia, a travelogue of street musicians, town squares, temples, forests, people's homes, markets, food stalls, performances are interspersed with more seemingly mundane occurrences, which somehow still seem magical, a priest sweeping out a rainswept temple floor, food being assembled while a band plays wildly in the background, a glorious vocal and drum cacophony, crashing cymbals, and there's also some serious weirdness, a strange selection of statues, some all bloody with their guts pulled out, meat being chopped on a cart, boats being driven through barely enough water to keep them afloat... Like a series of abstract short films woven together into a fantastically impressionistic musical portrait of places and people. One of the coolest moments a guy who plays this incredible circular drum set, all these tiny drums hanging in a row, totally encircling the performer, and he plays them super fast, with his hands, and the sounds are so divine, somewhere between gamelan and steel drums. Would love to get a whole record of just that.
There's so much to see, definitely worth rewatching.
The dvd is also accompanied by a cd, a soundtrack, featuring all the music featured in the film, popular, traditional, culled from live performances, lp archives and old cassettes, including that amazing circular drum piece (the instrument is called a Hsiang Waing), as well as the blind musician who opens and closes the film, playing a strange guitar with a metal bowl affixed to the neck for percussion, there's also a gorgeous song performed with a small leaf held between the musicians fingers and played like a reed, and of course some Asian pop songs, fuzzy, poppy, funky, groovy, such good stuff. Like all Sublime Frequencies release, so very recommended.
Killer four way noise rock split which starts out with the churning epic psychedelic crush of Seawhores, whose Forest record was a big fave around here. And like that record, on these three tracks, Seawhores take their classic-rock-meets-noiserock AmRep worship and douses it in all sorts of warped FX and garbled vox, tangles of guitar shred, and soaring melody, the sound slipping from Butthole Surfers like druggy lurch, to synth driven future prog, from stop start math rock crunch to warbly hip hop flecked murk-pop (!!), from Dead Kennedys / Black Flag like punk rock pound to Bastro like angularity. Holy shit these guys are awesome. Not sure why they're not a bigger deal.
Up next is a sprawling 10+ minute track from a group called Power-Take-Off, the first we've heard from these guys, but it's definitely good stuff, sheets of corrosive feedback, loads of hiss and hum, all wrapped around stumbling drum pound, but that's just the intro, when the song kicks in, PTO lay own some seriously acid drenched stoner sludge heaviness, with howled bullhorn vocals, buzzing downtuned riffage, the group locked tight into a serious tranced out chunk of almost raga like noise rock mesmer, a single part hammered away at, over and over and over, with a brief break for what sounds like an auctioneer doing his thing, only to have PTO lurch right back in where they left off.
Skoal Kodiak are up next, we reviewed their recent Kryptonym Bodliak record on Load and described them as knuckle dragging dancefloor deviants, and while that definitely still applies, there's plenty of noisiness going on for sure, here it's a groovy motorik beat, a slithery bassline, all smothered in clouds of malfunctioning electronics and glitched out effects, the vocals a mush mouthed howl, a dizzying chunk of demented dancefloor damage for sure. The second SK track offers up more of the same, but this time getting WAY more dubbed out, way more spaced out, the rhythms propulsive, the groove surprisingly, well, groovy, the sounds panned hard, zooming from speaker to speaker, super fun and funky and the sort of thing that would probably go over surprisingly well in an actual club.
Finally, finishing things off, are the awesomely monikered Gay Witch Abortion, a group we'd been hearing about for ages, but hadn't really actually heard until now. And we have to say, not at all what we expected from this duo, but if anything, it's way weirder and cooler than anything we could have hoped for. A six part eight minute song suite, murky and fuzzy, glitchy and squelchy, heavily rhythmic, sounding a bit like a way more lo-fi Lightning Bolt, but with some spaced out synths and weirdo electronics, sorta trancey, sorta heavy, epic and majestic in places, sludgey and metallic in others, slipping into some weirdly cheesy organ driven calypso style cheesiness at one point, before finishing off with an impossibly poppy drum heavy jam that somehow fuses wild angular flares of guitar skronk, with chaotic drum damage, and some serious hookiness, actual proper singing and indie rock melodies all tangled up with some seriously dense and damaged noise rock pummel. Definitely left us wanting more!
Not sure what exactly the occasion is for this black metal meeting of the minds (the liner notes claim it's bands with long histories in the metal underground), but who can argue with such a stellar line up, and the uber metal cover, a blood splattered naked woman with a severed pig's head between her legs, not to mention the legend underneath the tray: "play loud or don't fucking bother". This Meads Of Asphodel curated black metal 5 way split finds the Meads themselves teamed up with Japanese weirdos Sigh, Norwegian grimlords Taake, UKBM horde Thus Defiled, and the new to us Evo Algy (although those names might sound similar to you, cuz Evol Algy is a duo comprised of Evo, the drummer for punk legends the Angelic Upstarts, and Algy Ward who was in Tank, the Saints AND The Damned!).
Evo Algy start things off with a Status Quo cover, all sitar buzz and fluttery flute, before launching into some punky NWOBHM style metal crunch, heavy and buzzy and swaggery and total old school hard rocking heaviness. Taake offer a brief blast of furious pounding blackened punkiness, which it turns out is actually a GG Allin cover, two minutes of super distorted punkmetal buzz and pound. Next up is Sigh, who do not disappoint and unfurl some twisted cosmic space prog blackness, all thick buzzy bass, ethereal operatic vox, swooshy FX, circusy melodies, synths galore, not to mention a constantly shifting dizzying arrangement, oh and sax too of course, all woven into a fantastically twisted chunk of carnivalesque black prog.
Meads of Asphodel are up next with their awesomely titled "There's A God In My Gruel", the trio's latest blast of Christ mocking weirdness, and like their last record, they continue to craft what essentially sounds like a Satanic version of Godspell, a demonic sort of musical, with growled sinister vox over cheesy keyboards, muted fuzzy guitars, sci-fi effects, epic and majestic and dramatic, and very very weird. Not getting truly metal until the last minute or so, and even then, it's super over the top, a Broadway musical gone haywire, the performers possessed and spewing fantastically vitriolic sonic filth.
Finally UKBM crew Thus Defiled lay down an epic sprawl of melodic blackness, that slips malevolently from midtempo classic metal gallop, to furious frenzied buzz and blast, replete with killer riffing and wild shredding solos.
Fans of any / all of these outfits will most likely want this, and we'd have to concur with the liner notes: PLAY LOUD OR DON'T FUCKING BOTHER!
Killer quadruple cassette tape box, featuring a handful of amazing sound and noise makers, some definite aQ faves, as well as a whole bunch of names ne to us, each band was instructed to compose a single sidelong piece, representing either light or darkness, and as the Earjerk website mentions, it's really no surprise that most bands chose darkness (either that or they have a weirdly skewed idea of what constitutes 'light').
Up first, long time aQ fave Sorc'Henn, who in the past has dabbled in buzzy black metal, shimmery deep ambience, here it something else entirely, a thick caustic fog of hiss and buzz and grit and grime, buried melodies swirl beneath a constantly shifting layered soft blackened noise. Grim and haunting for sure.
Teeth Collection are a name we know, but we'd never heard their (his?) music until now. A strangely haunting soundscape of reverbed clatter, truncated melodies, distant hiss, muted rumble, all slowly building to a cathartic swirl of blown out heaviness.
We had a Drunjus cassette ages ago, and had always wanted to hear more. Here, the sound is a crystalline web of haunting synths, of keening long tones, of muted melodies, bowed gongs (courtesy of one of the guys from Pelt), this is some mysterious otherworldly cinematic drift for sure. Like a way more minimal abstract Goblin almost. Then comes Crystal Dragon, awesome name, and even more awesome sound, a super raw and primitive chunk of outer space sci-fi weirdness, grinding synths, wound into whirring dronescapes, thick and undulating, warm and luxuriously textured.
Then we have Burial Hex, aka Clay Ruby, who also does time in Jex Thoth and Wormsblood, but Burial Hex is his ritualistic black ambient project, and that's precisely what you get here, a super raw recording, distorted and effected, the tape seeming to crumble, plenty of low end warble, clang and clatter and crunch, doused in effects, like a madman locked in a dungeon, dragging chains, and assembling some unholy machine, super creepy and pretty hard to describe. Black Sparrow are another group we'd never heard of, but they fit pretty well amongst this esteemed brotherhood of sound, an ethereal ephemeral shimmer, made from crumbling effected guitars and processed synths (we think), woven into a soft almost serene bit of buzzy drift, peppered with bits of glitch and squelch, but smoothed out into a blurred bit of mesmer.
Then some Finnish weirdness from Taikuri Tali, definitely a band we're gonna have to hear more from, some random bits of conversation, before the trio launch into a gorgeously tweaked bit of mad scientists soundscaping, squeaks and rattles and scrapes and whirs that get more and more abstract as the track progresses, eventually transforming into some sort of alien shortwave broadcast.
Finally, Pan To Scratch, another new to us outfit, they finish things off with a super old school bit of layered dronemusic, letting the overtones crate strange and subtle rhythms, intertwined with what sounds like birdsong, tape manipulation, lots of tape hiss, and random bumps and thumps, weird and pretty wonderful.
Which is a pretty good way of describing this whole collection, weird and wonderful, as well as abstract and haunting and dark and buzzy and raw. The usual suspects should freak for this, SUPER LIMITED of course, handsomely packaged as well in one of those oversized molded plastic booklike folders, the kind of case instructional language tapes usually come in. Cool!
Another super limited Record Store Day release, this one seemed so 'made-for-aQ' we got as many as we could, which is a bunch, but we're guessing with a lineup like this, these will be gone in a flash. What's the lineup you ask? Well, we figured a list of the bands would be all it would take to get most of you flipping out. It definitely worked for us. UK space rockers and past aQ Record Of The Week honorees The Heads, UK psychedelic space rockers and also past aQ Record Of The Weekers Mugstar, local space rock faves Carlton Melton, and another band we have never heard called Koolaid, or maybe Koolaid (Alien Ballroom). Sold yet?
The Heads here appear as Rituals Performed The Heads And Big Naturals, not sure if they're taking the piss or if they joined up with some other outfit, but holy shit is their nearly side long track a mindblower. A dense blast of psychedelic noise gives way to a more dreamy drifty spacekraut, before transforming into a chugging churning pound, that quickly flips backwards, and suddenly the whole track is a fantastically hypnotic arrangement of backwards swoops and fffwwwt's, before exploding back into another blast of stomping heaviness, laced with all manner of warped turntable noise, only making everything that much more tripped out.
Mugstar finish off the side with a brief blast of almost poppy heaviness. Still Hawkwindy but more garage-y and Stooges-y, with some seriously unhinged vox and a cool start/stop effects heavy chorus.
The first half of the B side finds SF sonic explorers Carlton Melton unfurling another smoldering cloud of soft psychedelia, blissed out, free form and abstract, loose and meandery, thick clouds of soaring guitars al over a shuffling hynotic and motorik beat. And finally, Koolaid finish things off, with the weirdest of the bunch, groovy, and almost funky, thick steel string strum, all wreathed in psychedelic guitar noise, laced with some weird samples, drug related of course, and a riff that is a dead ringer for the Knight Rider theme, in fact, the band seem to borrow themes from other songs and transform them into something spacier, there were a few other bits that sounded familiar, all wound into a sound noisy and weirdly tripped out.
So cool. And SO LIMITED. 350 COPIES WORLDWIDE. We have a bunch, but these are the last copies we'll ever have. No art, just green labeled lps housed in lime green 12" style sleeves.
Yo, people!! One word: NECKS!!! Whoops, we could have easily overlooked this, a soundtrack to some foreign film we'd never heard of, but thankfully we did happen to notice the artists involved (which, to make sure YOU don't miss this, we've noted above). One of our all time faves, Australian drone-jazz trio The Necks, happens to appear here, track one "Transparent Roads" is theirs, the title track, and it's over 28 minutes long! So, right there, your money's worth, the rest of the disc could be considered a bonus. And a very worthy bonus, considering it includes diverse contributions from a bunch of interestin' artists in their own right, namely David Grubbs, Mira Calix, Mute Socialite, and O-Type. Quite a varied, even unlikely group, we're curious how they all happened to be invited to make music for this project, which was an Italian art film apparently about a bus trip through the Brazilian countryside, a "cinevoyage" visiting both the land and people. The film's director, Augusto Contento, certainly avoided using the obvious - Brazilian music - though a few of the tracks here do give a nod to such, Mute Socalite's song for instance titled "Samba Outlaw".
First, though, The Necks. Their track is, as any fan might guess, glorious. It's a quite Alice Coltrane-ish sounding Necks set, glittering cosmic jazz hypnosis. If you've heard The Necks, you won't be surprised - though the instrumental textures of "Transparent Roads" differ somewhat from their most recent album Silverwater. Skittering drums, repeating, brief piano melodies, and what sounds more like an electric guitar than their usual stand-up bass, all locked into impossibly precise yet organic sounding pulsations, surging, cyclic, building building building. With subtle complexities, incredible control, The Necks are truly masters of their art. Hard to imagine that they use the entirety of his piece on the soundtrack, that would be a bus trip through otherworldly realms, leaving Brazil, however beautiful and fascinating, far behind. Whew!!
A tough act to follow. After that, what? David Grubbs (Gastr Del Sol, Bastro) is up next, his ten and a half minute solo electric guitar track "To Know A Veil" acting as a palate cleanser, sparse with simple clangorous chords ringing out, abstract scrabbling filling the spaces, or not, drones forming in both memory and reality, it's pretty powerful, like a no wave SUNNO))) perhaps. So that plus The Necks, and good grief, this is worth buying twice, already.
Then Warp's Mira Calix contributes "I Carry You In My Heart", a moody pitter patter percussion piece, over twelve minutes long, quite nice (it kinda goes with another release on this particular week's list, the Fairlights Mallets And Bamboo mix of '80s Japanese avant-bliss). That's followed by the Bay Area's own avant-weirdos Mute Socialite, who really begin to echo or suggest some sort of Tropicalia vibe, however abstract. Their rather groovy "Samba Outlaw" (5:23) turns this disc into the sort of dance party to which you'd invite the Sun City Girls... Another good one. And then finally, there's former MX-80'ers O-Type (featuring guitarist Bruce Anderson) offering up an amazing 23 minute finale to the soundtrack, "Shadowgram" giving The Necks a run for their money in fact, in terms of making repetitive, mesmeric music that actually reminds us a lot of Circle (a tropical Circle?), with shuffling rhythms and nervous textures that makes you wonder just where this Brazilian bus ride is going to end up, or if you want to find out.
So, buy this for The Necks for sure, but stay for the rest and you will be extra pleased. Again, we've never seen the movie and are quite curious, just to see how it could live up to its own soundtrack, which rules!!! More Italians should make movies in Brazil and have soundtracks commissioned for release on German label Staubgold, based on how well this turned out...
Latest mixes from this venerable veteran Bay Area DJ! Always solid and always a great variety of old classics and fresh sounds and grooves!
Over the last several years, the access we've had to new sounds coming out of the Saharan desert have been so mind-blowing. Bands like Tinariwen, Tartit, Terakaft, Etran Finatawa, have all become some of our favorite bands, a sound so hypnotic, we're continually mesmerized by their warm grooves and trance inducing guitar playing and percussion. This collection showcases the best of these West African desert blues player, like all the aforementioned groups, as well as tracks by Amadou & Mariam, Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba, Samba Toure, Tamikrest, and more. It's also very fitting that there is an Ali Farka Toure track included as it was really his music and influence that spawned the sound that these bands are keeping alive and expanding in such incredible ways. What makes this a must have is the bonus disc which is the first album by Etran Finatawa, whose latest disc we raved about last list. What a smoking debut it was, it shows that even from their beginnings there was something so intense, soulful and beautiful about their music. A total must have for sure, and the compilation disc is the perfect gateway for anyone looking to get turned on to the good stuff coming from the West African desert.
