Yay! Three classic albums by one of our favorite '70s prog rock bands just got reissued, with bonus tracks and remastering and vast new liner notes and all that good stuff, with more reissues to come. So we thought we'd list the two that we'd reviewed previously, and then maybe next time we can write up the other one we've got as well. Back when we first reviewed these, we did it 'cause we knew that lots of AQ customers had been digging our Italian prog recommendations (like Osanna) and buying tons of Magma reissues and of course always loving the good ol' Krautrock, and we figured that such customers are just the types who'd probably like VDGG too.
As you may know, several folks here are pretty big into the '70s prog thing (despite having been but little kids back then) and one band we really all agree on is the mighty Van Der Graaf Generator from the UK. They're definitely a bit out of the ordinary. He To He... was the group's third album, from 1970. It's a great example of their bombastic, dark power and unique instrumental formula. Saxophone (with "devices"), Hammond organ, and tympani are the sort of thing that dominates VDGG's sound, along with the crucial component of Peter Hammill's dramatic, declamatory vocals of course. He's had his own successful solo career running in parallel with Van Der Graaf from the band's very earliest days, and clearly he's a cult figure, a frontman that some will love and some will hate. His wide-ranging voice courses like blood through the flesh of this album's five epic conceptual tracks (the shortest song here is over 6 minutes, the longest more than 12), tracks that must have elicited many a "heavy, man" comment at the time. The heaviest might be opener "Killer", the sad saga of, yes, the lonely killer whale. Other songs, like "House With No Door", are more gentle and melodic, yet still quite gloomy and bleak. Please don't mistake our use of the term "heavy" here -- although Hammill's voice will sometimes rise into a metallic shriek, the Generator have more in common with jazz than heavy metal, being way more Soft Machine than Machine Head (Deep Purple).
The bonus tracks are but two in number but one of 'em is over fifteen minutes long, the previously unreleased "Squid 1 / Squid 2 / Octopus", an early VDGG concert staple recorded live in the studio.
"Pawn Hearts" was Van Der Graaf's fourth album, originally released in 1971. Like its immediate predecessor "He To He Who..." it's certainly one of their classics, equally as epic, emotive, and extravagant. These guys were outrageous musicians, ambitious lyricists, and definite prog rock nutters who made music so outre and intense at the time that it should appeal to weirdos today just as much as it did back in the early 1970s.
The side-long, ten-part "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" is one of those prog rock suites that belongs in the pantheon alongside "Karn Evil #9" and "Supper's Ready" and "Gates Of Delerium" for sure. Next to King Crimson (whose Robert Fripp contributes some guitar work on both of these albums), VDGG is the darkest, weirdest, most "outside" commercially-popular '70s prog rock band we can think of from the UK. A worthy contemporary to the likes of Magma, Amon Duul II and Goblin from the Continent.
All right, more VDGG to come on future lists...and then maybe we'll move on to Yes, Caravan and ELP!
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They're back... and pretty darn good, Vandergraffy all the way. One disc of new songs, one disc of improvs. Peter Hammill and Co. still have it.
Ok, here's another one for ya from the nice new reissue series of albums by these '70s prog faves of ours, Van Der Graaf Generator. We're trying to list 'em all (eventually) just 'cause we think if you like prog or really any sort of unusual, emotional rock music you should at least give VDGG a try. If you make it to the end of the 12+ minute "Childlike Faith In Childhood's End" on this album, for instance, chances are you will be a convert! We'll admit they might be a bit of an acquired taste, 'cause VDGG are darker and weirder than the general run of classic British prog a la Yes and Genesis and even (closest comparison) King Crimson. And even if you're down with the "usual" blend of epic length songs, pastoral pop, symphonic keyboards, virtuosic playing, and complex compositions, with VDGG you've also gotta handle a good deal of saxophone and the exceedingly dramatic vocal stylings of singer Peter Hammill. So you've been warned. But if you shop at AQ you probably like a challenge!
The prog rock juggernaut known as Still Life was VDGG's sixth album, dating from 1976 (during the band's second-wind peak era in the mid-'70s) and is full of all the poetry and pain you should expect from a classic VDGG album, all the grand melody and raw fist-clenched vocal monologues, the extremes of gentleness and angsty intensity... yes indeed a fine place to plunge into the VDGG oeuvre if you haven't already.
It's hard to explain, but as much as we love the flash and fantasy of other prog bands, like ELP for instance, VDGG are just the more psychological, serious artists.
This reissue comes remastered, with copious liner notes and printed lyrics and a previously released bonus track -- "Gog" (10:26) recorded live in Wales in '75.
Real nice, these new Van Der Graaf Generator reissues are. We're glad they they've now got US distribution, though we'd have happily paid $30 for the import versions (Andee and Allan both did for some of 'em, actually, oops). All the prog fans here are stoked, 'specially since VDGG are one of our top prog faves. We've already listed the reissues of Pawn Hearts and H To He Who Am The Only One, and we'll try to get to them all, one by one... so here's VDGG's second album, from 1969 (following their debut Aerosol Grey Machine, not a part of this reissue series though there is a cd we do stock), maybe the first that really displayed their signature sound in a fully formed fashion. That sound: bombastic, epic, emotional, complex, slightly jazzy, eccentric. And probably an acquired taste. Partly because VDGG's instrumentation isn't the standard guitar/bass/drums -- they've got saxophone and keyboards, mainly, alongside the drums. Plus their most distinctive sonic feature, Peter Hammill's exceedingly dramatic, dominating vocals! Love 'em or hate 'em vocals, we'd venture to guess. His voice is perfect, though, for the sweeping grandeur of VDGG's music, which can be quite gentle (as on this album's most pop hit, speaking loosely, "Refugees"), and at other times so much darker, heavier, and more hectic (as on "White Hammer" wherein Hammill sings about the Inquisition). All this power and passion is reflected in Hammill's intelligent, questioning, quasi-mystical lyrics, and is furthermore augmented by the suggestion of church and worship brought in by the use of the electric organ.
Yes indeed, VDGG is very weird and very much it's own thing... there's definite connections to the likes of King Crimson and Genesis, and '60s psychedelia, but ultimately nothing else sounds quite like these guys. The Least We Can Do, which features a surreal depiction of an actual Van Der Graaf generator on its cover, is a fine starting point and/or an essential part of their discography for fans building a VDGG collection. This reissue, in addition to being digitally remastered and boasting extensive liner notes in the cd booklet, also features two bonus tracks, the single version of "Refugees" and its non-album B-side, "Boat Of Millions Of Years". Recently we came across an old print advertisement for this single, the tag line of which was: "Some of today's violence is innocence defending itself... some of today's music is Van Der Graaf Generator."
Ok, so it's taken us a little while to list this, since it got reissued on cd domestically last year (originally this came out as a cassette release in 1982). But, doesn't matter, it's called Time Vaults after all, it's super old already, being an odds and sods collection of unreleased (at the time) material recorded in the early '70s by British progressive rock weirdos Van Der Graaf Generator, one of our fave prog acts ever, when the band was officially on hiatus (between their Pawn Hearts and Godbluff albums). So, these tracks are of varying production quality, some sound like they could have been on either of those two actual albums, while others have more bootleggy sonics. Likewise, while a few are fully realized songs (e.g. dramatic, melodic opener "The Liquidator", and the quite jagged and intense "Rift Valley"), many others are more improv/experimental/instrumental type things, like the bizarre collage style title track (shades of Faust), but still interesting though, and not just to VDGG buffs, though of course that's who we'd mostly expect to pick this up. If you like VDGG, and aren't uptight about "perfect sound quality" then it's quite recommended. With wonderfully distorted rehearsal space jams like "Drift (I Hope It Won't)" complete with background chatter and feedback, this is vintage VDGG with their hair down, their trademark sound (bombastic vocals, with sax-and-keys instead of guitar) gone all lo-fi, like a lot of bands in the current underground. It's almost like a shitgaze VDGG, a VDGG that you could put on a mix tape with Sic Alps or Ducktails or something like that! Heck, they should/could have reissued it on cassette, again...
1978 release, VDGG tearing it up on what was originally a double live LP (now a single cd).
From 1976.
First things first, recommended. Yes, you heard us right!
Ok, like everyone else, after catching an appalling earful of the... errr, flaccid lead-off single trumpeting the return of THE Van Halen WITH David Lee Roth, we were totally gun shy and almost ready to toss the new album in the dumper unseen and unheard, especially after so much drama and so many false starts and empty promises (read: bottles) over the last twenty seven years (!), BUT to honor old allegiances to the genius pre-1985 Van Halen (i.e. before Roth left), we just had to give the new disc a fair spin. So, we did, albeit somewhat gingerly. Needless to say, we skipped right past the lame opening track (the abovementioned "Tattoo"), and kicked things off with "She's The Woman" (a reworked version of a 1976 demo), and... HOLY SHIT... it... really... sounds... and... grooves... like... THEM (circa VHII, Fair Warning, Women And Children First, 1984). Once we recovered from the shock, the goosebumps and glee took over! That song slays like '79 all over again! Really should have been the first single...
Yeah, we know at this point you're probably thinking "what are they thinking?!" Still a bit skeptical, right? Sure, the relationships seem to be business-calculated. Sure a bunch of the songs are based on old demos, and many songs are fundamentally riffin' on archetypes of their various early styles, for instance, the terrific "Stay Frosty" = "Ice Cream Man", but over the majority of this record this all actually works in the favor of the band, and these tunes ultimately reveal themselves to be more than mere sonic nostalgia (and actually the band's practice of reworking old material is nothing new, it was their modus operandi after the first couple years of existence).
But try to block out all the hype, preconceptions, and "Tattoo". Forget the embarrassing, drunken EVH YouTube clips. Don't scoff and dismiss before you've given it a listen... or two or three. If you like/love vintage Van Halen, you will be surprised and happy and super stoked to hear that everyone has risen to the challenge. The playing is technically and musically brilliant, and as entertaining and fun as old VH. They're still the mad geniuses expertly disguising themselves as airheads. Meticulously composed, deceptively complex, yet totally on the verge of careening out of control. Eddie in particular sounds absolutely revivified. There's some spine tingling EVH guitar playing going on here. The bongo-Bonzo intricate drumming is unmistakably Alex Van Halen, with his signature snare and cymbal sounds. David Lee Roth's vocal range ain't what it used to be, but it's still plenty there, with authentic deliveries of his usual characterizations, delivered Tarzan-like (we'll forgive/turn a blind eye to his shout-out to Facebook). And what about Wolfgang Van Halen's bass playing? Totally fat. Very solid, and full of Michael Anthony-esque beefy vrroooms and BASS counterpoints. Wolfgang's sound is a little tighter than MA's, and he is really fantastically locked in here. The whole band is really quite on fire and up-to-snuff with their best vintage material throughout A Different Kind Of Truth. Most importantly - because VH were known to record their albums very quickly and quite live - the band sounds rejuvenated without sounding reliant on modern technology (unlike most other reunited rock bands and their love affair with the rhythm grid). The faithful vintage vibe is at many times remarkably fast, heavy and crammed full of mesmerizing riffery from all involved (check out "China Town", "Bullethead", "Outta Space", "Honeybabysweetiedoll", "As Is", and "Big River"). A welcome return to form, as VH was largely devoid of any sense of wild danger or threat of pyrotechnic-wizard combustion during the non-DLR years. Well, it's clear that something has sparked, and the friction makes for some magical chemistry and hard rock firepower channelled through all four players. Really, the only obvious element (and it is a considerable one) that could make this an old VH fan's complete dream come true would be the return of Michael Anthony, but we doubt that'll ever happen since it seems obvious that Wolfie's been groomed to be the VH bassist since he was a tot. He rips on this record though, and his backing vocals are quite satisfactorily in the ballpark of the MA model. And the band IS called Van Halen.
So, there you have it. A major portion of A Different Kind Of Truth fucking smokes! We can only guess that the "Tattoo" single debacle was an ill-timed April fool's joke and/or a poor decision by them. But these guys ain't no dummies, so maybe it was all part of a reverse-psychology master plan - that is, to first deliver what everyone naturally expected from the even-up-til-recently-EVH-trainwreck, and then hot on its heels deliver what everyone hoped for, yet doubted they could ever actually have (i.e. pretty much the rest of the album). Heavy rock comeback of the year! (At least until the Black Sabbath record? Assuming they have Bill Ward. Cuz while we may have been convinced to abide a Michael Anthony-less VH, a Bill Ward-less Sabbath reunion is utterly unacceptable)!
Recording as Locust back in the late '90s, Mark Van Hoen produced a signature post-IDM electronica that was sublime in mood but was fraught with overly complicated rhythms and portentous song cycles that weighed far too heavily on what might have developed into something on par with Biosphere or Bowery Electric. As a result, much of his output is immediately attractive but has failed to rise above the overwrought production he endlessly piled on to his sounds.
Fortunately, recently Van Hoen came upon an experimental tape piece he made at the precocious age of 13, when he was remastering some of his earlier tracks from the '90s. That archival track centered on a mashed-up banal pop song with garbled vocals and backwards recordings of church organs, creating something quite spooky and arresting. Van Hoen took the simplicity of that process to heart (but not the track itself, drat!), recording much of The Revenant Diary on a 4-track, which is pretty much unheard of in this day and age of Ableton. The results find Van Hoen at his absolute best, shorn of those implausible complexities which troubled his earlier recordings, rendering an album that should warrant plenty of comparisons to Demdike Stare as a very well executed piece of hauntological electronica.
The warbly, decaying drones from those 4-track levitate in an uneasy fashion at the beginning of the album, suffocating what was once a vigorous drill-n-bass workout into fizzling skitter amidst the shadow, grain, and hiss of "Garabndl X", leading into the hypnotic "Don't Look Back", whose looping female vocals intoning the track's title, orbit a strutting, dubbed-out, mid-tempo rhythm that wouldn't seem out of place on Tricky's Maxinquaye. "No Distance" glides two streams of reverberant ambience along a computer-mad sequencing as a meeting between Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Volume II and Oneohtrix Point Never's Returnal. While all of this may be simple from Van Hoen's perspective, The Revenant Diary is a richly textured album that dynamically jumps from vertiginous ambient passages into throbbing, post-dubstep explorations of rhythm. Let's hope that Van Hoen keeps it this 'simple' for the next record!
Rescued from the vaults of obscurity, this chunk of early '70s Midwestern religious hyper-paranoia is sure to appeal to those of you who like your sermons firebreathingly irrational and on the slightly scary side - if it weren't so damn funny. Nowhere near as transcendental as Elizabeth Clare Prophet and with none - absolutely none - of the out there hippie charm of Brother John Rygden, Dr. Jack Van Impe, who is still at it all these years later, albeit in a way more toned down manner, focuses his sights on that classic cause for all of the world's problems - Rock n' Roll! We are encouraged to go home and smash our Herman's Hermits records as rock is blamed for the explosion of illegitimate babies being born, the dumbing down of our youth, and the overall moral decay in the world. Oh, and rock was created in Russia as a communist plot to take over, if you can believe it. Operating out of Detroit, Van Impe singles out much of his rage on legendary shit-stirrer, leader of the White Panthers and one time manager of the MC5, John Sinclair. Yep, dope, guns and fucking in the streets, all the good stuff, comes into heavy criticism here as Van Impe spews out bile in his admittedly impressive preacher voice. A strange slice of forgotten history that has previously been sampled by DJ Shadow, Marked For Death is interesting for its reactionary agenda - which isn't too far from some of the moralistic, self-aggrandizing sleaze coming today, religious, political, or otherwise.
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Those Vinyl On Demand boxsets are a very tempting proposition. Some are no brainers - SPK, The Hafler Trio, and John Duncan all offered up utter classics of unreleased or impossible to find recordings spanning multiple pieces of wax and housed inside handsome packaging. But others are a bit too obscure to fork over well over a hundred bucks for an unknown quantity. Van Kaye & Ignit were one of those terminally obscure minimal wave projects whose collected works had been anthologized through a massive 5lp boxset on Vinyl On Demand. It came and went as too much of an expense for us to invest in. Thankfully Dark Entries has extracted a good chunk of that material in the form of this 2lp set, plus the tracks from the duos first seven inch not found on that VoD set. Van Kaye & Ignit (nee Ed Van Kasteren and Ignatine Bekken) began their fruitful collaborations in the late '70s with the former hailing from more of a punk background and the latter from the realm of performance art, with both sharing an infatuation with DIY electronics. A Slight Delay was a cassette release the band self-published on their own Ding Dong Records, which later would go on to release works by the Legendary Pink Dots, Bene Gesserit, and that amazing Andre De Saint-Obin album. The idiosyncratic melding of experimental modelling, pop-song naivete, and inventive use of electronics found in all of those other bands is something that Van Kaye & Ignit share. Given a spacious Martin Hannett production, the turbine electronic stabs and spry drum programming of "Beach" could have been a Hacienda hit for Factory Records, but as it stands, it's just one of many deft synth-wave / mutant-disco / synth-punk tunes on A Slight Delay. While that track's an instrumental along with about half of those found on this 2lp set, Van Kaye and Ignit do share the vocal duties when called for, with Ignit being the stronger of the two with her Nina Hagen theatricality and Van Kayen adopting the untrained approach of Genesis P-Orridge. Along with the Belgian comrades of Bene Gesserit, Pseudo Code, and the rest of the Insane Music network, Van Kaye & Ignit have a sympathetic sound to those antipodean malcontents Severed Heads. Another great find from Dark Entries; and we gotta wonder if there's going to be a cottage industry of somebody going through the Vinyl On Demand catalogue to reissue those reissues in more economical chunks.
Latest release in the ever expanding, and extremely eclectic catalog of mysterious (possibly Touch Records related) UK tape label The Tapeworm. Past Tapeworm releases from Philip Jeck, Stephen O'Malley and Simon Fisher Turner have been big hits around here, as was a strange reading of works by Jean Baudrillard. This one might be the weirdest of the bunch though. For several reasons.
Purportedly a lost live set from a band called the Van Patterson Quartet, nothing at all can be found online about the VPQ, -except- all sorts of folks trying to find out who the heck these guys were. One record collector claims to have stumbled across an unlabeled 12", which in fact turned out to be these recordings, but the dearth of information leads us to believe that maybe this is not actually a real artifact of sixties psych, but instead an elaborate, and incredibly kick ass hoax. There's the sound too, which on the surface definitely sounds vintage, the recording super fuzzy and fucked up, lots of tape warble, and lo-fi primitive recording artifacts, but at the same time, the sound is weirdly modern, the effects blown out and trippy, sure there's tons of Hammond organ, which again lends this some serious vintage vibes, but plenty of the tracks get super heavy and super damaged, because of the degraded recordings, much of this sounds like a sixties psych rock Faxed Head, drop outs and hiss as much a part of the jams as the jams themselves. The guitars and organ are HEAVY, the drums mathy and jazzy and powerful, everything hazy and druggy, but the tracks are laced with seriously tweaked effects, and hell, if this IS really a band from the sixties, then this is THE HOLY GRAIL, and the fact that it has never been heard before boggles the mind, and makes it criminal that it's being released on a tape label in a run of only 250 copies. If this WERE real, it would be the reissue of the year, the DECADE. It's that fuzzy and fucked up, dark and droney and hypnotic, which definitely leads us to believe it's some young rockers who built themselves a band / time machine, and are channeling some vintage sounds, and just added all the crowd noise and record crackle and tape hiss and bleedthrough to confuse and obfuscate. It hardly matters really, this is some seriously heavy, droney, twisted, hypnotic, druggy, tripped out shit, fans of modern retro psych like the Wooden Shjips and the Heads and the Telescopes will go nuts for this, as will sixties psych-heads who might want to see if they can figure out if this stuff is new or old. But like we said, hardly matters, cuz what it is, is fucking AWESOME.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES.
First Jack Palance, now Melvin Van Peebles...the what's Water label trying to do?? Flood the 'exotica' market with reissues of records that maybe should never have been made in the first place, upsetting the kitsch levels of the universe. But hey, you gotta like Melvin. Sweet Sweetback, y'know?
When we first heard about this band, it's because some magazine touted them as having "the best keyboards since Van Halen's "Jump"! We hardly needed more than that to get us curious. And when we first heard the single "Kelly" we pretty much concurred, a winsome eighties MTV rock ballad, with a soft swooshy chorus and THOSE keyboards everywhere. But when we finally got this EP, the big surprise was the opener "Mission", quite possibly our most played to death pop song these days. Some impossible mix of Tears For Fears or Fun Boy Three or ABC, and one of the more modern retro rockers like the Killers or Maximo Park or The Kaiser Chiefs, with spacey reverbed guitars, electronic drums, soulful crooning, crunchy guitars, that explode into an absolutely KILLER chorus thick with buzzing synths, swooshy space rock FX, a huge hooky riff and awesome falsetto vocals. Absolutely worth it just for that track, definite contender for pop song of the year, but "Kelly" is a definite guilty pleasure, and "Sex City" is a dead ringer for the Fixx, and the closer is some weird Ultravox / Echo And The Bunnymen hybrid. There's also a super awesomely cheesy video for "Kelly", but if you're anything like us, you'll just throw on "Mission" and set your cd player to repeat FOREVER!! So good!
The launch of yet another cd-r label, this one, cleverly titled Seedy R!, is a sub label of the already kick ass PseudoArcana label run by Antony Milton. This disc is supposedly the result of a van trip up the Eastern coast of Australia, in one tiny van, packed to the rafters with Milton as well as the dronepsychrock band 6Majik9, and of course musical instruments, fast food containers, dirty clothes, sleeping bags, lots of pot, and most importantly, a tape recorder!
The result is an abstract lo-fi tribal jam, a stripped down Wicker Man on wheels, a Sunburned No Neck road trip, the air thick with smoke, as well as dense swirls of keening snakecharmer like melody, detuned guitar scrabble, tin can percussion, fuzzy kazooscapes, long dreamy drones, but instead of any sort of effects, the entire recording session is swathed in that immediately recognizable 'driving-down-the-road-with-the-windows-wide-open' sound, a natural delaychorusreverbdistortion, that adds a fuzzy hiss and a whipping whir to these skeletal psych jams. Pretty dang cool.
Packaged in a brown paper sleeve, with a hand stamped 'R' on one side, and a map of said van journey on the other.
Another killer tape from one of our favorite cassette labels (along with two others on this week's list), The Tapeworm, this one right up our alley for sure, a collection of minimal electronic music, a sort of mutant dark abstract techno, all created from an arsenal of "crippled tape machines", used to transform recordings of tape hiss, broken radios, a defective TV set from the fifties, some sine wave generators, and no doubt lots of other other cool junk, into a pulsing, pulsating array of skeletal sonic skitter. An army of 24 damaged reel to reel tape players all creating a hauntingly spare sprawl of weirdly psychedelic house music, the sort of lo-fi, industrial tinged ultra minimal techno that will definitely hit the spot for fans of Silent Servant, Sandwell District, Shed, Terrence Dixon as well as Porter Ricks and other Chain Reaction outfits. Moody, murky, primitive and raw, but still darkly groovy, tranced out and hypnotic.
Yet another bit of gorgeous drifting pop ambience from the Echospace camp, this time from the unknown to us Brock Van Wey, which is strange in part because he's from right here in SF, and apparently he's been making this divine dreaminess for a while now.
Well, no use in lamenting what we may have missed, better to just leap straight in to these white clouds, and live in the moment. And Van Wey's moment is indeed divine, a series of sprawling gauzy ethereal moments in fact, all soft tones, and softly tumbling melodies. We hear Brian Eno all over this for sure, as well as Gas and Roedelius and Reich, needless to say if those names mean anything to you, odds are this could well become your new favorite late night chill out music.
A hushed ambient pop drift, equal parts new age shimmer, and muted electronic thrum, here and there the sound gets super fuzzy and washed out and suddenly we're reminded of the Field, or perhaps a beatless M83, that same sort of sun dappled soft focus looped mesmer, often the sound seems to be constructed from voices, layered and effected, a hauntingly organic and lovely assemblage of tones and textures, alternately rendered in minimal drift, and maximal shimmer. So gorgeous. Gorgeous enough that Echospace mainman Stephen Hitchell was so smitten that he added a whole extra disc of his own reinterpretation / remix of the album, and if Hitchell's version, while dramatically different, is just as good. The fuzzed out bliss is muted and blurred and backgrounded, allowing rhythms and minimal textures to drive these versions, the sound very much Chain Reaction, a glitchy skeletal dub, wreathed in soft smears of the original's dreamy buzz, a super modern dubbed out click and glitch and thump and pulse, that drifts from warm gristled buzz, to lounge-y almost exotica, to full on dark space dub, and finally to warm, hissy, glitchy, skittery, washed out dreamdrone ambience. Both discs on their own would be essential listening, but together, this couldn't be more recommended.
We have become increasingly enamored with the recordings of Dutch renaissance and baroque lute player Jozef Van Wissem, whether it be through his solo output or through his many collaborations with guitarists Gary Lucas, Tetuzi Akiyama and most recently James Blackshaw (Brethren Of The Free Spirit). You wouldn't think that there would be such wide-ranging approaches to such an antique instrument, yet with each release, we're let into a new realm of sonic possibility. Sometimes it's classical deconstructions; using palindromes, mirroring, backwards compositions and cut-up techniques. Sometimes it's more Takoma-style fingerpicking and bottleneck playing. Or more avant, flinging sparse and reductive fragments of loosely connected tones into large voids of silence. Or augmented by subtle electronics and field recordings of airports and other public spaces. On his latest release A Priori, arguably his prettiest and most engaging to date, Van Wissem pushes forward the beauty of the melodic form but frames it in a stark restraint. Using a glacial pendulum-like progression and D minor tuning (the most melancholic of all tunings), Wissem establishes an up-down-up riff taking a pause between each turn before repeating, letting the tones ring out over the empty spaces. Occasionally he lets subtle nuances like an octave change or a bottleneck run appear, yet he takes great pains to avoid filling the space unnecessarily. With each song on A Priori, he explores this limitation to its outermost boundaries that connects each piece to the whole, forcing our headspace to slow down to this intensely meditative pace in order to experience its lovely tonal revelations. If Earth 2 was transcribed for renaissance lute, it might sound something like this. Liner notes by David Tibet of Current 93. Highly recommended!
A few of us were very lucky to catch Jozef Van Wissem's recent AQ instore where he played his new 13 Course Swan Neck Baroque Lute, a super long and intricately exquisite variation of the lute we've never seen before, that he wielded mightily, rocking out heavy metal guitar style, and also played whilst walking around the store like a medieval troubadour (check our blog for pictures!). While unfortunately it wasn't our best attended instore, Van Wissem played like it was, and we were graciously rewarded with an intimate and beautifully hypnotizing performance. NEXT time, don't miss him!
And that is what you will find with his latest (vinyl-only) release on Important, Ex Patris. On vinyl only (for now at least), Ex Patris (The Fathers) gives us four new tracks of gorgeous plucked string majesty. Building upon his repertoire of mirrored palindromic compositions, he focuses this release on layered and repeating melodies rather than sparse reductions of past releases. At times, we wonder if he might be using overdubs, something we haven't noticed before in his recordings or if it is just that his new lute offers more depth and range than the ones he used in the past. Hard to tell, but oh so easy to become seduced by its magnificent spell!
The cover of this latest Jozef Van Wissem release is one of our favorite photographs of him, showing the mighty lute player wearing a studded leather wrist cuff, head low with hair hanging down, wielding his instrument like a heavy metal guitar. And while he doesn't necessarily "shred" the same way a metal axeman would, there's definitely a connecting thread between Van Wissem's hermetically spiritual lute extrapolations and the doom-laden esotericism of today's drone metal practitioners.
Thematically based on the first chapter of Genesis, the seven pieces here are at first played forward then reversed in an attempt to create the feeling that the pieces have no beginning or end. Van Wissem often uses mirror imaging and palindromic takes on classical lute music to create these compositions, but more and more, he's using plenty of space and restraint placing a greater emphasis on the concentrated listening experience, instead of musically filling the space. Thus the pieces are becoming ever more glacial and dramatic, highlighting the dark beauty of creation but never denying the slow decay of death in all its infinite and ever spiraling momentum. Transcendent!
Renaissance music? Field recordings? Palindromes? A photo of sex toys on the back of the cd booklet? Creative Dutch composer and lute player Jozef van Wissem both mystifies and delights us with this original and unusual album of avant-garde lute music. He has a background in the Renaissance lute, which he applies here by taking historical lute pieces and rewriting them as mirror-image palindromes, that sound the same played either forwards or backwards (hence the mirror of the title). Further distancing the material from his early sources, van Wissem adds electronics and computer-processed (again, mirror-image flipped) field recordings of ambient airport sounds (in homage to Brian Eno, perhaps). One track also features a guest playing "palindrome percussion". The sex toys, we're still not sure about though. This combination of classical lute plucking and the ambient airfield recordings reveals a wealth of placid beauty... it's minimal and melancholic music that recalls the trance-inducing work of avant-acoustic guitarists like late period John Fahey and just-intonation guitarist Rod Poole. We're also reminded of the likes of Giuseppe Ielasi and Tetuzi Akiyama (the latter with whom van Wissem has recorded an improv duet, reviewed here a few months ago). So very pretty -and- intriguing, both sparse and detailed, van Wissem's conceptual compositions thwart traditional idioms without abandoning the tranquil beauty for which the Renaissance lute is known... Recommended. If you're gonna own just one avant-garde lute and electronics album, this is it!!
We always knew that famed indie filmmaker Jim Jarmusch had good taste in music, judging by the soundtracks to his movies, but we were only vaguely aware of his extracurricular musical activities. In fact it was with some surprise that we recently encountered him on record, as a guest guitarist in a cameo appearance on the latest 12" by avant-punks Fucked Up! Meanwhile, AQ fave experimental Renaissance lutist, Jozef Van Wissem (who, yes, is also the ONLY experimental lutist we know, though if there were others he'd probably still be our favorite, after his rocked out performance at a memorable aQ instore awhile back) has collaborated in the past with a variety of interesting personages - Gary Lucas, Smegma, James Blackshaw. And now, Jim Jarmusch! Who actually played on a track on Van Wissem's previous album, The Joy That Never Ends, one we stocked and listed on our website but somehow never managed to get around to reviewing, which we should have 'cause really everything we've heard by Van Wissem has been excellent and that one is no exception... Anyway, we'll try to make up for that lapse by reviewing this new one, his full-on duo disc with Jarmusch. And it's a beaut.
Slowly and steadily, Van Wissem plucks prettily at the strings of his instrument, while Jarmusch's electric guitar hovers gently in the background, an ambient wash. As the disc goes on, though, Jarmusch becomes more assertive, accompanying Van Wissem like a ghostly, twanging echo, until eventually the cyclical note patterns chiming from Van Wissem's lute are almost fully enveloped by Jarmusch's doleful dense guitar distortion, approaching Ulaan Khol or Urthona levels of softly droning bliss. His past association with Neil Young (Dead Man) definitely makes sense...
The disc as a whole, at all points in the Van Wissem/Jarmusch duet, is meandering, melancholic, mesmeric... The final track, "He Is Hanging By His Shiny Arms, His Heart An Open Wound With Love", is perhaps the loveliest, and happiest, all-acoustic, brought to a close with a brief spoken supplication from Jarmusch, reciting words by St. John of the Cross.
So, another Van Wissem winner - and we'd definitely be happy to hear more electric guitar emanations from Jarmusch, how 'bout a solo album?
By the way... is it possible that Jarmusch and Van Wissem got together because both men are members of a secret society called The Sons Of Lee Marvin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sons_of_Lee_Marvin)? Jarmusch is known to be a founding member, and Van Wissem looks like he might qualify...
More inspired jazz, Coltrane 1965 style, from Magma's Mr. Vander.
Impulse! style jazz from Magma's Vander. Includes a version of Coltrane's "Like Sonny".
Chicago reedsman Ken V. is about as far from Kenny G. as you can get.
The seemingly tireless John Vanderslice keeps 'em coming. Fans will surely be delighted by this, his fourth full length and follow-up to Life and Death Of An American Fourtracker. Continuing to do that which he does exceptionally well, Mr. Vanderslice has crafted a dozen more of his distinct, intelligent indie pop tunes. His music is at once expansive yet still very down to earth. From what we can tell, unlike his last couple of full lengths, Cellar Door doesn't seem to be bound by concept and quite possibly as a result it may be his most scaled down and direct work to date. And yet it's still filled with his distinct achingly pretty, soaring melodies and lush array of instrument arrangements. The second to last song "When It Hits My Blood" is a particular heartmelting highlight. Splendid!
Whether he's manning the helm of his Tiny Telephone recording studio or performing his own music, John Vanderslice is a renowned Bay Area crafty, creative and tireless fellow. This is his sixth full length. Very much akin to the recent recordings by Bright Eyes, Mountain Goats, and M. Ward, it might be his most focused and most straightforward pop album to date. Emerald City picks right up from where 2005's Pixel Revolt left off with its nine lush, very easy on the ears folk-edged pop songs whose melodic breeziness stands in stark contrast with his emotively delivered lyrics. They bring a sobering gravity to the proceedings addressing concerns of post 9/11 despair, ongoing political turmoil and personal heartache.
Always a pleasure to hear and to see is the fellow who goes by the name John Vanderslice. Hot on the heels of his second full length Time Travel is Lonely, he's brought forth another concept album. This time he sticks closer to home, telling an equally lonesome tale... of home recording (hence the four-track mentioned in the title). One wonders if this is, in part, autobiographical . An increasingly skilled arranger, he knows the value of a subtle, slightly off-kilter detail. Some well-placed gentle twang here, some sparse, faint piano there, and over it all, John's lilting, earnest voice. There's still a very prominent Jeff Mangum / Neutral Milk Hotel influence that flows through the proceedings, but he's tempered it with the input from a bunch of his Barsuk labelmates and fellow music pals, namely members of Spoon, Death Cab For Cutie, Mates Of State, Beulah and the Mountain Goats.
From the label that brought us Death Cab for Cutie comes a local project worthy of your attention: John Vanderslice's solo debut. As any fan of MK Ultra would know, John's brand of pop is complex, interesting, uncompromising, and most EPIC. Like Neutral Milk Hotel, whom Vanderslice obviously adores (enough to name this album after an NMH lyric), there's enough emotional intensity and Brit-pop-worthy melodicism here to satisfy the most demanding of sweet tooths. Recommended.
In every review of a John Vanderslice album you'll undoubtedly find some mention of how nice a guy he is, and that's certainly true... He's also got a great recording studio here in SF... And on average, he's also released one fine album a year for the last five years, and he continues his abundant creative output with Pixel Revolt. Although his two chosen subject matters might be rather disparate (albeit we're sure equally close to his heart) -- the current political climate and the end of a personal relationship -- this album is definitely his most cohesive sounding and contains some of his most accessible, engaging songs to date. His usual roaming sonic explorations seem to have been set aside in favor of keeping more close to 'home' (i.e, traditional song structures). Pretty melodies are in abundance. Over the years, he's drawn comparisons to Neutral Milk Hotel (whom he admittedly admires immensely), Death Cab For Cutie (former Barsuk labelmates), and Mountain Goats, but these days we actually thought that he's sounding like more recent Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst (hey, no complaints there!).
John Vanderslice reaches the seventh album marker with what is arguably his most immediately engaging work to date. He hasn't completely left behind the roaming patchwork-y feel of his previous albums, but each song seems a bit more focused and encapsulated. Softly rumpled like a comfy sweater, Vanderslice's hushed vocal delivery draws the listener in close, and as always, his achingly earnest introspective songs take a pluck at your heartstrings. Slowly playing out intertwined melodies in gentle fashion, the album's multi-layered instrumentation is lush but never seems heavy handed. Gauzily drifting in and out of focus, Romanian Names maintains an airiness throughout. As a point of reference, at times we found it to be quite akin to the latest solo album by Grandaddy's Jason Lytle or Calexico's more pop moments. Good stuff!
The nicest of nice fellows John Vanderslice (formerly of MK Ultra) is back with the follow-up to his debut "Mass Suicide Occult Figurines" continuing his exploration of the indie rock/pop realm. Once again giving a hearty tip of the hat to his faves Neutral Milk Hotel, but also revealing shades of Eno's "Here Come The Warm Jets" period. A bit more melancholic this time around. Lonely
Vanessa Van Basten is not in fact a person, but an oddly named Italian band, a duo in fact, who collaborate with an ever shifting extended musical collective to create, lush, sweeping, super melodic, epic and majestic slow building moody post rock. Somewhere between Mogwai and M83, Explosions In The Sky and Jesu, these guys craft sweeping landscapes of propulsive rhythms, of chiming guitars, spidery melancholy melodies, big booming drums, lush layered atmospheres, sometimes laced with female vox, piano, occasionally super heavy, churning riffs and grinding crunch, electronics, programmed beats, all woven into a surprisingly emotional and organic whole. There's even sax once in a while that transforms the sound completely, turning into some weird retro classic rock, before slipping right back into something more mathy and almost metallic, or something lush, epic and Godspeedy, or something blown out and superdistorted and shoegazey.
Think Isis, Godspeed, Pelican, Mogwai, M83, Explosions In The Sky, Jesu, Nadja, Snowblood, that sort of thing, super varied, but at its core, epic emotional melodic post rock. And be sure and stick around for the hidden track, a super processed, totally distorted, blown out, heavily effect, digitally fucked with dirge metal freakout that might be the best thing on the record!
Vanessa Van Basten are from Italy and are a they, not a she. We were never able to get copies of VVB's last record, so we wanted to make sure we didn't miss out this time around. Two long tracks, total post rock nirvana, equal parts, Mogwai, Pelican, with plenty of nineties style mathrock mixed in, a bit of Polvo, a little Pitchblende, the result is a super rocking, epic and majestic sound that may borrow much in terms of sound and influence, but is totally all their own.
Anyone who's been digging any of the various post rock, math rock and shoegaze stuff on the list lately will no doubt be digging VVB's particular strain of instrumental rock, with the occasional sample filling in for vocals, these guys definitely rock, there are moments where the sound drifts and shimmers, but when the band are on, they are ON, super heavy, aggressive riffing, kick ass drumming (replacing the drum machine that drove the last release), and some awesome songwriting, super dynamic with plenty of push and pull, back and forth, not the usual start slow, get loud, although the title track does lean in that direction, beginning as a brooding drift, before the drums kick in and the song slowly transforms from minor key shuffle to super crunchy almost metallic heaviness, before getting all glimmery and shimmery and finally slipping back into a softly tangled mathy fade out.
It's definitely short, 2 tracks, 23 minutes, but these guys pack a lot into those two tracks, and again, any one digging on Pelican or Isis or Anapparatus or Conifer or any of that stuff, this will definitely hit the spot.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!! Packaged with a thick cd booklet in an oversized black and red sleeve.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
