If you have been paying attention to the British tabloids and gossip blogs lately, then most likely you, like us, have heard about Ms. Winehouse's drunken antics (her ongoing feuds with white Brit soul-sister Lily Allen, her heckling Bono at a recent awards show, or her oddball sense of fashion), long before you would have actually heard her sing. But who doesn't love a Hot Mess these days, especially one who can surprisingly deliver the classic soul goods as forcefully as she. Seriously, every time we play this, customers do double takes when they see her skinny frame on the cd and hear this big ballsy voice, they just don't match up. At least not until you hear the lyrics, especially on the opening track, the very timely "Rehab", and you can see that her rough charm belies some hefty emotional damage. Backed by the Dap-Kings (well, the band sounds like them and she's touring with them, so we think it's them) and featuring a cameo by Ghostface Killah, Ms. Winehouse's second album is a lovelorn soul cocktail made from the tawdry shards of a broken gin bottle.
Who is that fresh and smiling face on the cover? Is that really Amy Winehouse? We didn't recognize her without her ratty beehive, missing teeth, coke boogers and prison tattoos. Oh right, this is her first record. It's finally available domestically and probably her label fearing she'll never get it together enough to make another record are eager to get more dough from their falling star. Although we have to admit, Miss Winehouse is a much better artist when she's battling her demons than when she doesn't have any, as Frank will attest. Back To Black was one of the best records this year, not just because of the tightness of the band or it's retro soul focus but also in the sincerity of her delivery, and the almost gut-wrenching honesty of her songwriting.
Frank has some good moments too. Her vocal delivery sounds amazingly older than a 17 year old, but the music relies on a dated blend of jazz and hip-hop tinged R&B that hasn't aged as well. The songwriting shows promise but it just doesn't quite add up as a complete work. No wonder Miss Winehouse distanced herself from this record. Too bad she couldn't convince the label to do the same. Not that it's really all that bad, just not nearly in the same league as her follow-up.
Another list, and another batch of obscure tapes from UK tape label The Tapeworm, this one from someone called Leslie Winer, a mysterious former model, a pal of William Burroughs and Jean-Michael Basquiat, a sometime guest vocalist on records by groups like Bomb The Bass, who ditched modeling, dropped off the map, but not before making a record called Witch, considered to be an essential early chunk of proto trip hop, and this batch of tracks, dating just a year or so after Witch, does indeed offer up a gorgeous murky bit of skittery, downtempo weirdness. Obvious references are Tricky, Massive Attack, even Portishead, the same sort of creepy crawly late night shimmer, dark and dubbed out, the rhythms skeletal, the vocals, hushed and whispered, a sort of slow motion toasting, dark croons over billowing clouds of thrum and whir, loping rubbery basslines, slowed down samples, bits of reggae guitar, druggy and dubby, woozy and warbly, everything wrapped in a gauzy haze of record crackle, tape hiss, blurred ambience.
Here and there the drums are cranked up into something more block rocking, but even then Winer transforms it into something more murky and surreal, the bass gets super distorted and fuzzed out (some dubstep foreshadowing for sure), everything wrapped around effected acoustic guitars, more sampled vox, strange little flurries of percussive filigree, all smeared into a mesmerizing bit of shuffling tripped out, psychedelic downtempo moody muddy groove.
LIMITED TO ONLY 250 COPIES!
A while back we reviewed a super limited tape of ultra obscure early nineties proto-trip-hop from a woman named Leslie Winer, who recorded much of her music under the mysterious symbol/moniker ©, and who was in fact a former model, a pal of William Burroughs and Jean-Michael Basquiat, not to mention a sometime guest vocalist on records by groups like Bomb The Bass. Apparently Winer ditched modeling, and soon dropped off the map, but not before making a record called Witch, considered to be an essential early chunk of skittery, hazy, woozy, trip hop style electronica, well before there really WAS trip hop. The record featured Jah Wobble among others, and was/is a gorgeous chunk of druggy, dubbed out minimal electronic murk that most obviously referenced Tricky, Massive Attack, even Portishead, but predated all of them (with much of Witch having been recorded in the eighties).
On this new cd collection, on the newly launched Wormhole imprint (and offshoot of the kick ass Tapeworm label that put out the Winer tape we first heard), that tape is expanded to include even more mysterious sounds from Winer's mostly unheard back catalogue, a sprawling selection of tracks recorded throughout the eighties and nineties, including several collaborations with Vincent Gallo which appear here for the first time. Long sprawling horn flecked dubscapes, rife with barebones rhythms, tripped out FX, warm muted chordal swirls, plenty of downtempo weirdness and creepy crawly late night shimmer. A dark skeletal avant dub, softly roiling morass of blurred sonics that underpin Winer's strange vocals, hushed and whispered, a sort of slow motion toasting, spoken one second, crooned seductively the next, occasionally multitracked into dreamy harmonies, but just as often slipping into something far more sinister. The tracks expanding into billowing clouds of thrum and whir, anchored by loping rubbery basslines, and wreathed in slowed down samples, fragments of reggae guitar, disembodied horns, all woozy and warbly, everything wrapped in a gauzy haze of record crackle, tape hiss, smeared psychedelic ambience.
Here and there the drums are cranked up into something more block rocking, but even then Winer transforms it into something more murky and surreal, the bass gets super distorted and fuzzed out (some dubstep foreshadowing for sure), everything wrapped around effected acoustic guitars, sampled, layered, recontextualized vox, Winer's vocals slipping easily into lower registers, and sounding a lot like Tricky, due in no small part to the rhythmic murk they're wrapped in, and throughout, strange little flurries of percussive filigree, all of these swirling abstract elements woven into a mesmerizing sprawl of shuffling tripped out, psychedelic downtempo moody muddy groove, that should definitely appeal to fans of witch house, as well as the warped fringes of modern downtempo electronica (Burial, Holy Other, Balam Acab, James Blake, How To Dress Well, etc.).
Super swank packaging to boot, an oversized A5 glossy cardstock insert, liner notes on one side, art on the other, as well as a fold out poster, everything printed in metallic silver ink, and all in a thick PVC sleeve.
Why it has taken so long for this to be reissued is baffling, but we're just so glad it's finally here. We have raved about Leslie Winer's musical work on two previous archival releases from Tapeworm and its offshoot label Wormhole, but those really only hinted at the genius of Witch, her only previously released record, from 1993 (though much of it was recorded in the late eighties). Records don't get more cult than this. Released on a white label, using the copyright symbol as her moniker, here designed as a circle of Ourobouros that was originally hand stamped onto blank white sleeves. Even the album and song titles with their alphanumerical wordplay ("N1ear", "1nce Upon A Time") would fit right at home with the obscurant syntax of witch house, even though this was recorded nearly 20 years before. Witch has been labeled as "proto-trip-hop", which it sort of is, as this record predates what Massive Attack, Portishead and Tricky were doing just a year or two later, and even Winer herself has been called by NME "The Grandmother of Trip Hop", a label she has rejected and rightly so. "Grandmother" doesn't have the same aura of respect as what the music press names male musical innovators such as "Godfather" or "King", and Winer, a poet and formal model with a chic androgynous style who was close friends with both William S. Burroughs and Jean-Michel Basquiat is hardly a little old lady.
Witch is both a product of its time and far ahead of it. On the surface, it's not that far removed from Sinead O'Connor, especially her song "I Am Stretched On Your Grave" with its James Brown drum sample and spoken intonations, but Witch is much darker, cooler and more subdued. It has a very London feel to it, a feeling of frustrated action against cultural stagnation and trying to create something new out of nearly nothing. Winer doesn't necessarily sing as much as observe and respond with cool detachment, a sort of soundtrack of her experiences relayed poetically to an unknown listener as beats, dub rhythms (from Jah Wobble no less), and musical samples and snippets of dialogue coalesce around her. It's a heady mixture, definitely dreamy and druggy, but she refreshingly doesn't try to endear the listener to her own personal entanglements and positions on gender, beauty and social norms. It's more like she's having a searching complicated conversation with herself.
Musically, what Witch really predates is the contemporary woozy and warped electronica of Peaking Lights and Maria Minerva, especially in the layering of breezy dub rhythms in hazy reverb and abstract murk. It's a beautifully extraordinary work that continually rewards the more we listen. Big thanks to Superior Viaduct for making this more widely available. Incredible and soooo recommended!
This is Aaron Calvert (of the L.A. band Evergreen) and Mikel Garmendia of Cars Get Crushed. Which is why I was surprised by this cd. I was expecting that post punk late 90's sort of thang. Instead I found some good ol' Americana with a healthy dose of No Depression with interesting production, at times reminiscent of Tom Waits or Vic Chestnutt. EP length at 35 minutes.
There is nothing groundbreaking here but it's done really well. Totally captivating and charming. The vocals are slurred and lazy and drunk sounding, maybe even a bit too much... Really pretty nice.
Wonderful! This group of community singers number just three and their names are David Grubbs (Gastr Del Sol, Bastro, Squirrelbait), Hannah Marcus and author Rick Moody. If you dig the down-homey country folk feel of Freakwater or Virginia Dare. Ms Hannah's voice is in full, sweetly lilting bloom and the fellows chime in every so often in warm welcoming fashion. Most of the songs are of the slower ballad kind such as the achingly lovely "Blue Daisy", but the trio also prove that they're not against kickin' up the dust a bit on more rollicking numbers such as "Fishnet Stockings". An ideal album for a picnic down by the creekside, or simply hangin' out on the porchswing one lazy Sunday evening.
Battlecruiser is a new label from AQ pal Campbell Kneale who runs the impeccable NZ label Celebrate Psi Phenomenon. Battlecruiser is basically an outlet for a bunch of New Zealand noise guys to fufill their secret desire to be metal gods! Who can argue with that? Cool band names, distorted guitars, demonic vocals and all that good stuff! Metalheads might have to stretch their definition of 'metal' to really get into this stuff, but the rest of us, metal and unmetal alike will find lots of beautiful crushing far out noisy weirdness on these evil 'lil 3" cd-r's!
The majestically monickered Wings Of Vengeance offers up gentle chiming harmonics that are slowly overtaken by creaking, moaning waves of slow motion riffs that eventually erupt into hyperspeed death metal, with thick slabs of bass guitar, grunted vocals and spastic drum machines. Less metal per se, more sort of stuttery, throbbing grind sludge. Like the Flipper catalog played by Corrupted. Or something. 9 tracks in 9 minutes! And we also ought to note: this band is named after a Hammers of Misfortune song, oddly enough!
If you were like us and exclaimed, "Wow, a new Wingtip Sloat album?!" And then after listening to it thought that the Wingtip Sloat of new sounded remarkably like the Wingtip Sloat of old... well, silly gooses all of us! This is not a new album, but a generous collection of thirty rarities and compilation tracks from their heyday. Wingtip Sloat's music fits the textbook definition of the truly alternative indie rock dislocations that ruled the college radio waves for a spell back in the early '90s. Mildly eccentric and destined for obscurity if not for the fine folks at VHF (who are the folks who released this), the cd includes a bunch of great covers of tunes by fellow obtuse indie rockers Tall Dwarfs, Sun City Girls, The Clean, Swell Maps and World Of Pooh.
Doom legend Scott "Wino" Weinrich, front man for Saint Vitus and The Obsessed, and member of Shrinebuilder, offers up a new solo album, the vinyl of which we have via Volcom. But don't expect heavy stoner doom here. It's passionate, and earnest, yeah, but not heavy - this is an all-acoustic album, just voice and guitar pretty much. So, it's kinda the coffee house version of Wino, we'd have to say. He's gone all singer songwriter on us. And that's not bad, after all he's got a cool voice and is a talented guitar player, as capable with the delicate country folk flecked acoustic stuff as he is with the shredding psychedelic electric leads that sometimes intrude over the acoustic strum. It might not be fair to say that this is his Book Of Shadows (this IS better than that Zakk Wylde acoustic album) but it's definitely a far cry from Born Too Late or The Church Within, as well, doomhounds should note. Maybe Jar Of Flies would be a better comparison? Oh, and if you ever wanted to hear unplugged versions of Motorhead's "Iron Horse" and "Born To Lose", the album ends with such a medley. There's also a Savoy Brown cover too. ----* ----* In Stock, Not Yet Reviewed : ----* If you want to order one of these, just search for the item, then click on the buy button and it will be added to your cart! ACID MOTHER'S TEMPLE / STEARICA "Sterica Invade Acid Mothers Temple" (Homeopathic) cd 17.98 ACRYLICS "Lives And Treasure" (Hot Sand / Friendly Fire) cd 13.98 ANAL CUNT "Fuckin A" (Patac) cd 11.98 ANBB (ALVA NOTO & BLIXA BARGELD) "Mimikry" (Raster-Noton) cd 17.98 ANIKA "s/t" (Stones Throw / Invada) cd 21.00 BANJO OR FREAKOUT "s/t" (RBR) cd/lp 15.98/16.98 BEACH FOSSILS "What A Pleasure" (Captured Tracks) cd/lp 10.98/13.98 BEE MASK "Canzoni Dal Laboratorio Del Silenzio Cosmico" (Spectrum Spools / Editions Mego) lp 21.00 BICK, ANDREAS "Fire And Frost Pattern" (Gruenrekorder) cd 16.98 BIRDS OF AVALON "s/t" (Bladen Country) cd 14.98 BLOOD OF HEROES, THE "s/t" (Ohm Resistance) cd 17.98 BLUE SABBATH BLACK CHEER "Skeletal Coupla Remains" (Gnarled Forest) lp 16.98 BLUE SABBATH BLACK CHEER / WICKED KING WICKER "split" (Gnarled Forest) lp 14.98 BRIGHT EYES "People's Key (First Edition)" (Saddle Creek) cd 14.98 BURZUM "Fallen" (Byelobog) cd 14.98 CASSLE "s/t" (Shadow Kingdom) cd 13.98 COHEN, TIM "Bad Blood" (Captured Tracks) 2x7" 10.98 COVER STORY VOL. 2 "Cover Story Volume Two: Odd, Obscure, and Outrageous Album Art" (Waxpoetics) book 24.95 DANAVA / EARTHLESS / LECHEROUS GAZE "s/t" (Kemado) lp 19.98 DARK DAY "Strange Clockwork" (self-released) cd 12.98 DECEMBERISTS, THE "The King Is Dead" (Capitol) cd 17.98 ELECTRIC VOYAGE "Flight of No Return" (Kemado) 7" 5.98 ESG "Dance To The Best Of ESG" (Soul Jazz) 3lp 59.00 EXPO 70 "Center of the Earth" (Sonic Meditations) 2lp 33.00 FABRIC "A Sort Of Radiance" (Spectrum Spools / Editions Mego) lp 21.00 FATHER BEFOULED "Morbid Destitution of Covenant" (Relapse) cd 14.98 FEAR "The Record" (Slash / Rhino) lp 14.98 FINCHES "On Golden Hill" (Ulrike) cd 10.98 FLOATING BRIDGE "s/t" (Aurora) cd 17.98 FRIMPONG, K. & HIS CUBANO FIESTAS "s/t" (Continental Records) lp 17.98 GANG OF FOUR "Entertainment" (Rhino / Warner Bros.) lp 24.00 GRAYCEON "All We Destroy" (Profound Lore) cd 13.98 GREEN DOOR KIDS, THE "Muzikal Yooth" (Optimo Music) lp 16.98 GROSSKOPF, HAROLD + VARIOUS ARTISTS "Synthesist / Re-Synthesist" (Rvng Intl) lp+cd 22.00 HAINO, KEIJI, JIM O'ROURKE, & OREN AMBARCHI "In A Flash Everything Comes Together As One There Is No Need For A Subject" (A Black Truffle / Medama) 2lp 29.00 HAMMER, JOSEPH "I Love You, Please Love Me" (Pan) lp 36.00 HELEN LUNDY TRIO, THE "s/t" (HLT Records) cd 11.98 HUMAN INSTINCT "Kiwi Psych Heads : Singles 1966-1971" (Groovie) lp 32.00 HYPE WILLIAMS "One Nation" (Hippos In Tanks) 12" 25.00 INDEX "Black Album / Red Album / Yesterday & Today" (Lion Productions) 2cd 27.00 JOHANNSSON, JOHANN "Virdulegu Forsetar" (Touch) 2lp 22.00 JOKERS "s/t" (Fading Sunshine) cd 14.98 JUV "s/t" (Miasmah) cd/2lp 16.98/23.00 KALEIDOSCOPE "s/t" (Shadoks) cd 17.98 KVELERTAK "s/t" (Indie Recordings) cd 14.98 LARD FREE "Gilbert Artman's Lard Free" (Wah-Wah) lp 30.00 LI, LYKKE "Wounded Rhymes" (Atlantic) cd 13.98 LIFELOVER "Sjukdom" (Prophecy Productions) cd 16.98 MAJUTSU NO NIWA "Ecstatic Crystalization" (Musik Atlach) cd 16.98 MANDELBROT & SKYY "OD-Axis" (Digitalis) lp 14.98 MARATHON MAN / THE PARALLAX VIEW (MICAHEL SMALL) "OST" (Film Score Monthly) cd 17.98 METABOLISMUS "Mauser Ok" (Amish Records) 7" 10.98 NATURAL SNOW BUILDINGS "Waves Of The Random Sea" (Blackest Rainbow) cd 19.98 NATURAL YOGURT BAND, THE "Tuck In With..." (Now Again) cd 18.98 NEUMEIER, MANI & KAWABATA MAKOTO "Samurai Blues" (Bureau B) cd 17.98 NIGGAS WITH GUITARS "Ethnic Frenzy" (Digitalis) lp 16.98 OSWALD, JOHN + 1,001 VINTAGE POP STARS "Perplexure" (Fony) lp 14.98 OUTER LIMITS RECORDINGS "$20 Bill" (True Panther) 7" 6.98 PSYCHIC REALITY "Vibrant New Age" (Not Not Fun) lp 14.98 PUCE MOMENT "Avoiding Certain Topics / Essence Of Mann e.p. / Puce Moment" (self-released) 3 x cassette 9.98 PULSE EMITTER "Spiritual Vistas" (Cylindrical Habitat Modules / Expansive) lp 14.98 PURO INSTINCT "Headbangers In Ecstasy" (Mexican Summer) cd/lp 13.98/16.98 PURO INSTINCT "Stilyagi / Put Medved To Bedved" (Mexican Summer) 7" 5.98 QUICKSAND DREAM "Aelin - A Story About Destiny" (Planet Metal) cd 10.98 RIVAL SCHOOLS "Pedals" (Photo Finish) cd 12.98 RONETTES, THE "Be My Baby : The Very Best Of The Ronettes" (Legacy) cd 10.98 ROSE, EDEN "On The Way To Eden" (Lion) cd 16.98 RURAL ALBERTA ADVANTAGE, THE "Departing" (Saddle Creek) cd 14.98 SAXANA - THE GIRL ON A BROOMSTICK (MICHAJLOV, ANGELO) "OST" (B-Music / Finders Keepers) cd 16.98 SCALE THE SUMMIT "The Collective" (Prosthetic) cd 14.98 SHIFLET, MIKE & DANIEL MENCHE "Stalemate" (Sonoris) cd 13.98 SHIVER, THE "Walpurgis" (Garden of Delights) lp 34.00 SIMONE, NINA "At Newport" (Doxy) lp+cd 26.00 SIMONE, NINA "The Legendary First Recording In New York City, 1957" (Doxy) lp+cd 26.00 SLITS, THE "In The Beginning" (Vinyl Lovers) lp 27.00 SLOATH "s/t" (Riot Season) lp 17.98 SPACEMEN 3 "Take Me To The Other Side" (Fire) 12" 13.98 STEEL MILL "Jewels Of The Forest" (Rise Above Relics) cd 16.98 TEAMS VS. STAR SLINGER "s/t" (Mexican Summer) 12" 19.98 THX 1138 (LALO SCHIFRIN) "OST" (Film Score Monthly) cd 17.98 TORO Y MOI "Underneath The Pine" (Carpark) cd 14.98 V/A "Brazil Bossa Beat! Bosa Nova & The Story Of Elenco Records, Brazil" (Soul Jazz Records) cd/2lp 23.00/24.00 V/A "Cartagena! Curro Fuentes & The Big Band Combia And Descarga Sound Of Columbia 1962-72" (Soundway) cd 16.98 V/A "Casual Victim Pile II" (12XU) lp 14.98 V/A "Funky Chicken" (Trojan) cd 15.98 V/A "Groove Club Vol. 3: Cambodian Rock Intensified!" (Lion / Get On Down) 2lp 22.00 V/A "Guitar Mood 2" (INST) lp 10.98 V/A "Nippon Girls: Japanese Pop, Beat, & Bossa Nova 1966-1970" (Big Beat International) cd 19.98 V/A "Rhythm" (Gruenrekorder) cd 16.98 V/A "Riddimentary : Diplo Selects Greensleeves" (Greensleeves) cd 12.98 VACANT LOTS "Confusion b/w Cadillac" (Mexican Summer) 7" 5.98 VAMPILLIA "Alchemic Heart" (Important) cd 14.98 VENA "Nomadic" (Paradigms) cd ep 11.98 VESTER, HEIKE / OCEAN SOUNDS "Marine Mammals And Fish Of Lofoten And Vesteralen" (Gruenrekorder) cd 16.98 WILLIAMS, LUCINDA "Blessed" (Lost Highway) cd 15.98 _______________________________________________________________________ Please place your order via our website. [1] We will contact you to verify your order and let you know when it will be shipped. Please note that occasionally it may take a day or two for us to reply. We are not a faceless bunch of computers replying to your order -- we are human beings! [2] If we are out of some of your items and we think we will get them within the same week, we can wait to ship. Or... If it's going to be more than a few days to complete your order, we will ship what we have and then will contact you as the remainders arrive. [ note ] Due to the everchanging nature of the independent record business, we are not responsible for listed price changes (due to supplier price changes) and often cannot update our site fast enough to reflect these changes, but we will always try to let you know of any differences.
It's about time that stoner rock guitar god Scott Weinrich, better known by his nickname Wino, former vocalist for Saint Vitus, just up and called his band "Wino". After all, The Obsessed, Shine, Spirit Caravan, Hidden Hand, they were all Wino projects with drawing card, Wino. So, at last, here's the man's "solo" album. Unlike at this year's Southern Lord SXSW showcase, where he did indeed play an entirely solo (and acoustic!) set, Wino is in fact a band on Punctuated Equilibrium, a power trio that also features the talents of Jean Paul Gaster (of Clutch) on drums and Jon Blank on bass.
And guess what? Wino sounds pretty much like Wino's other bands! Which is exactly what we hoped for. A mix of '70s style heavy rock, aggro punkishness, and technically badass instrumental interplay, with of course political-mystical-conspiracy lyrics delivered in Wino's trademark gravelly croon. Wino's other trademark, his distinctive fat guitar tone, is also present and accounted for.
Loping, bellbottomed opener "Release Me" sounds a bit like Captain Beyond, born too late. Then things get a bit frashter for the next tune, the title track. And the album rolls on, an eclectic, electric trip through, well, what Wino is all about. Making music that's part Mountain, part Mahavishnu... doomy, psychedelic, often esoteric and instrumental (among the latter, there's a song called "The Women In The Orange Pants" that almost could be Stinking Lizaveta...and considering the title, it's probably just as well there's no lyrics).
Speaking of track titles, who else but Wino would call a song "Gods, Frauds, Neo-Cons and Demagogues"?
Available once again, this legendary doom/death classic, done up deluxe by Southern Lord. Available on vinyl for the first time in about 20 years, and again on cd...
We're always excited to sing the praises of this record, it's been one of our favorites for years, always on the iPod, and never far from the stereos of those of us into the DOOOOM. The last reissue came out way back in 1999, but wasn't always that easy to get, and so were were psyched about this new one, and Southern Lord's version makes perfect sense, especially with the ongoing interest in all things doomy and sludgy AND the fact that probably EVERY SINGLE band on SL owes a HUGE debt to these doom / sludge forefathers. We bet there's even some folks out there who don't realize there was any doom pre- Corrupted / Boris / Earth / SUNNO))). Well let's go all the way back to the very early nineties, head out to Long Island and re-discover the pummelling majesty of the mighty Winter. There's not a doom band worth its stripes who wouldn't cite Winter as an influence, and one listen proves why. Crusty, downtuned sludge metal, but unlike the current crop of ultra doomsters, Winter's roots were in much more traditional thrash and doom metal as well as crusty punk. Often described as a slowed down Celtic Frost, due in no small part to the vocal delivery, Winter managed to mix elements of Black Sabbath (obviously, what doom band doesn't), Hellhammer, diSEMBOWELMENT and UK political crust band Doom into a slithery, creeping, suffocatingly dense blast of chugging guitar, pounding drums and creepy growled vocals. On closer listening their are also strange bits of organ and found sounds and bizarre vocal snippets scattered throughout and buried here and there. There are even guitar solos!! But no normal solos, no these are all spikey and twisted and serpentine, chaotic squalls of prickly squealing freakout that fit perfectly into Winter's desolate doomscapes. The other thing worth mentioning is the lyrics, which at the time got them a lot of attention / flak, quite cryptic for sure, but they seem to focus on saving the environment, anti-pollution, anti-technology, ecological awareness (Exit-13 anyone?) displaying their crusty roots there for sure! Fans of the new crop of doom and ultra doom would do well to take a peek at a band who truly was ahead of their time, a band who helped lay the groundwork for the sonic pummelling provided to you on a daily basis by bands like Skepticism, Esoteric, Rigor Sardonicous, Moss, Bunkur, and even Electric Wizard and Sleep, who might not even exist were it not for Winter.
The vinyl is housed in a super heavy, deluxe, Stoughton style gatefold jacket, and both versions, vinyl and cd, include a big booklet full of lyrics, artwork and old flyers (the lp's booklet in the form of an oversized newsprint insert!)..
The only bummer about the Southern Lord reissue, is that for some reason, this version leaves off the bonus tracks that were included with the previous cd reissue, the equally kick ass Eternal Frost ep, but maybe/hopefully Southern Lord plan on reissuing that one later, on its own. Here's hoping!
We've always wanted to list this, it's been one of our favorite records for years, always on the iPod, and never far from the stereos of those of us into the DOOOOM. This reissue first came out way back in 1999, but it hasn't been easy to get lately, so when we found a distro that had a bunch we jumped on 'em. And it's especially timely now considering the renewed interest in all things doomy and sludgy. We bet there's even some folks out there who don't realize there was any doom pre- Corrupted / Boris / Earth / SUNNO))). Well let's go all the way back to the very early nineties, head out to Long Island and re-discover the pummelling majesty of the mighty Winter. There's not a doom band worth its stripes who wouldn't cite Winter as an influence, and one listen proves why. Crusty, downtuned sludge metal, but unlike the current crop of ultra doomsters, Winter's roots were in much more traditional thrash and doom metal as well as crusty punk. Often described as a slowed down Celtic Frost, due in no small part to the vocal delivery, Winter managed to mix elements of Black Sabbath (obviously, what doom band doesn't), Hellhammer, diSEMBOWELMENT and UK political crust band Doom into a slithery, creeping, suffocatingly dense blast of chugging guitar, pounding drums and creepy growled vocals. On closser listening their are also strange bits of organ and found sounds and bizarre vocal snippets scattered throughout and buried here and there. There are even guitar solos!! But no normal solos, no these are all spikey and twisted and serpentine, chaotic squalls of prickly squealing freakout that fit perfectly into Winter's desolate doomscapes. And speaking of guitar, this reissue also contains Winter's Eternal Frost ep, which features the bizarre (and prescient, considering the current state of ambient drone doom metal) bonus track "Manifestations 1", an extended psychedelic soundscape constructed wholly from guitar and manipulated effects. So cool. The other thing worth mentioning is the lyrics, which at the time got them a lot of attention / flak, quite cryptic for sure, but they seem to focus on saving the environment, anti-pollution, anti-technology, ecological awareness (Exit-13 anyone?) displaying their crusty roots there for sure! Fans of the new crop of doom and ultra doom would do well to take a peek at a band who truly was ahead of their time, a band who helped lay the groundwork for the sonic pummelling provided to you on a daily basis by bands like Skepticism, Esoteric, Rigor Sardonicous, Moss, Bunkur, and even Electric Wizard and Sleep, who might not even exist were it not for Winter.
A new group on Low's label! Slow to mid-tempo janglin' folkish pop very much along the lines of mid-'90s college radio standby Lois. The male and female vocalists sing with a seeming bittersweet hesitance, each straining a bit pitch-wise in their efforts to
Originally released as a super limited edition cassette, Blood In The Coffin is now available as both a cd and an lp, and is most likely the first glimpse most folks will get of Winter Drones, aka Leon Dufficy, whose day job is playing guitar in Hush Arbors, a group better known for psychedelic hippy folk space jams, and while some of that sound is definitely still present in Dufficy's solo project Winter Drones, the sound is stretched WAY out, blurred and smeared into gorgeous expanses of buzzy shoegazey bliss, murky moody psych pop, swirling ambient ur-drones, and all the various combinations and permutations inbetween. From hazy ethereal crystalline drift, to pounding rhythmic tribalism, WD shift effortlessly from loose, free sonic exploration, into blissy, noise drenched shoegaze perfect pop. "Winnie Coopers Bones" sounds almost like the Swirlies, with its muddied vox, smoldering guitars, tangled Sonic Youth like melodies, and the sweet soaring harmonies. But just as soon as you're riding that sweet pop wave, the gears shift again, and you're set adrift in a sparkling landscape of gauzy new age shimmer, or buzzing, warped and warbly Hecker/Jeck like ambience.
The 10+ minute "Stiff Wizard" begins as a brooding, rumbling bit of SUNNO)))-like creep, all distorted and menacing, growing more and more ominous and distorted, the sounds crumbling, and wreathed in tense high end drones, before finally the drums kick in, and the song begins to lift off, bliss out, and blossom into some sort of psychnoise space rock shoegaze blowout, somehow impossibly getting prettier and prettier and poppier and poppier without shedding any of its buzz and crunch.
Two shorter tracks finish things off, one another dreamy bit of lysergic drift, the other, a gorgeous lilting bit of buzz drenched indie pop psychedelia that wouldn't be out of place on Elephant 6. AWESOME!
This came highly recommended from one of our distributors, but we were wary at first, as we've generally had bad luck with the whole spoken word / band combo. There are of course exceptions, and this is definitely one, Winter Family whipping up a gorgeous expanse of brooding, smoldering, slow building post rock ambience, heavy on the harmonium and organ, seeing as one half of the WF duo is keyboardist Xavier Klaine, who has partnered with 'vocalist' Ruth Rosenthal, for this haunting series of songscapes, that as the label suggest, do in fact harken back to groups like Godspeed You Black Emperor and A Silver Mount Zion. Mournful and melancholy, haunting and ethereal, just check out the opening track, the oddly named "Searching Donkeys", with its thick layered minor key organ, the sound rich and lustrous, Rosenthal's vocals settled down in the mix, her mysterious intonations peppered with brief bits of proper singing, lush little bits of harmonized vocalizing, the sound almost chorale, perfectly matching the ever intensifying music, the vibe strangely liturgical.
The title track unwinds a thick, slowly pulsing sprawl of crumbling buzz, warped and a little bit seasick, throbbing ominously, Rosenthal's mush mouthed lyrics delivered in a creepy deadpan, the track peppered with bits of abstract ambience, field recordings of crowds and tolling church bells, distorted voices, broadcast through what sounds like a bullhorn, always returning to that thick ominous buzz, creepy and so sonically unnerving.
The record is super varied, a few moments definitely veer dangerously close to 'spoken word' for us, but Rosenthal pulls it off, her delivery intense and moving, and quite lyrical, even slipping into actual singing now and again, the music in those moments is darkly delicate, with elegiac pianos, chirping birds, hazy and ethereal, the sound occasionally jazzy, other times more post rocky, but our favorite moments are definitely the more drone based tracks, Klaine layering sound upon sound, weaving lush, slow building, ultra tense soundscapes, cinematic and mysterious, Rosenthal's voice, drifting atop, within and beneath Klaine's lush otherworldly drones, the two conjuring up something so much more than its constituent parts, mysterious and eerie and lovely.
We have to admit that when we saw Winter Flowers' ruffled gown and dandy fop garbed band photo, well, our skeptic and irony meters went through the roof. But after giving the album a trepidatious first listen, we happily discovered that much like similar current songbirds LA's Lavender Diamond, their hearts seem to be genuinely earnest and in the right place. Winter Flowers weave a beautiful, dewy tapestry of stunningly authentic old tyme folk. Actually our immediate aural reaction was that the fictional but truly great folk duo Mitch & Mickey from the movie A Mighty Wind had stepped off the screen and into our welcoming ears. Their heartwarming, honey-gold vocal harmonies also brings to mind 'real world' counterparts such as Peter, Paul & Mary, The Kingston Trio and Simon & Garfunkel. Sweetening up the proceedings even further are guest vocalists Lavender Diamond's Becky Stark, Mia Doi Todd and Miranda Lee Richards! So lovely!
This definitely has to be the first record ever inspired by a t-shirt. We shit you not. And just to get in the spirit, I'm actually wearing said shirt as I type. But it must be noted it is a really cool shirt! A friend of aQ who used to make t-shirts, whipped up this badass Winter Is Coming shirt a while back, a stark design of leafless branches against a grey sky. Only a handful made it off the press and onto people's back, one of which ended up on a fella by the name of Tom who then started Winter Is Coming, the group, not to be confused with the shirt. And you know what? It's just as cool as the shirt if not cooler. The cd sleeve is an homage to the shirt's design, winter branches against a grey sky, the words Winter Is Coming in olde English letters, but from that point on the shirt comes off and we're into some sort of mysteriously wintery drone sludge ambient shit that is fierce and frightening, and is exactly the sort of thing we can never seem to get enough of. It's like the musical version of a cold grim winter, the sound of icy winds and dying leaves, five massive tracks of slow moving whir and rumble. Sometimes delicate and crystalline, sometimes thick and viscous and almost black in its heaviness. The instrumentation is as unlikely as the band's inspiration, homemade washtub doodle bass with nylon weed whacker strings, dulcimer, dinner bell, creaking chair, jew's harp as well as guitar, synth and vocals. Winter Is Coming is not just a shirt, it's a metaphor for death, as the man behind WiC works in the emergency room and this recording is the musical expression of his experiences with death. The coming winter, the inevitable end. Life like seasons. Heavy stuff. As is the music. A huge glacial crawl, rife with strange sonic irregularities, like a mudslide picking up corpses and random detritus as it lays waste to everything in its path. The bringer of death, but strangely serene and beautiful. Definitely for fans of the sludge and the drone, Boris, Corrupted, Moss, Marzuraan, SUNNO))) as well as the heavier side of the drone, Nadja, Abruptum and the like. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Winter Is Coming indeed...
For more on the inspiration behind the coming winter check this out: http://conceptualart.dreamhosters.com/npr/archives/102
A brief blast of swirling organs, shards of crumbling noise, chanting children, streaks of feedback, swirling melancholy melodies, all tangled up into something at once caustic and chaotic, but also weirdly moody and moving, which is how we're introduced to Winter Line, aka Steven Vallot, who on this new tape (his debut?) displays a pretty serious knack for crafting beauty from blackness, his tracks like some sort of alternate universe, experimental noise DJ Shadow if that makes any sense. His sound palette is quite varied, but much of it tends towards the difficult. Be it blasts of high end buzz, or grinding metallic crunch, but those elements are balanced by Vallot's deft hand at weaving that noisiness into soundscapes of surprising musicality, a glowing dark energy seems to suffuse all the tracks here. It's often loud, ominous, clattery and crunchy, distorted and downright noisy, but it glimmers and shimmers, soars and swirls. At one point, a crunchy bit of rhythmic clatter is laid our beneath a sky full of high-end glimmer and tinkling chimes, wreathed in clouds of crunchy staticky hiss, and children's voices reciting some sort of ominous incantation, it could be a mess, but instead it all falls together perfectly.
From there on out, Vallot anchors thick clouds of black buzz, to churning machinelike rhythms, and drapes delicate melodies over the top. In some ways, it sounds a bit like recent Record Of The Weeker Dan Friel mixed with Philip Jeck or Tim Hecker, both also past ROTW-er themselves, the tracks here are expansive and lush, and quite lovely, not despite the noisiness, but really because of it, and because of Vallot's deft hand at balancing those two extremes and meeting somewhere in the middle. At times, we get glimpses of Carpenter or Goblin, that sort of brooding synth soundtrackiness, and at others, it's just a gorgeous prismatic soft noise bliss out that's hard to really put into words, but it's rare sort of 'noise' we love, a noise that manages to move beyond sheer noisiness and attain its own sort of rhythmic and melodic beauty. Wow. So gorgeous. Fans of soft noise technicians and abstract soundscapers will be in heaven! Includes a download code too!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Hey kids, want something to look at and read while you listen to your records by Black Dice, Melvins, Lightning Bolt, Godspeed You Black Emperor, The Locust, Rocket From The Crypt, KK Null, Drive Like Jehu, The Rapture, Erase Errata, Jesus Lizard, Fugazi, Nation Of Ulysses, Acid Mother's Temple, Phantom Surfers, Man Is The Bastard, Slant 6, Karp, Zeni Geva, Unwound, Boredoms, Three Mile Pilot, Orthrelm, Animal Collective, Men's Recovery Project, Crash Worship, Avey Tare & Panda Bear, Damo Suzuki, Get Hustle, Black Heart Procession, Rovo, Pixeltan, Antioch Arrow, Lowercase, Fucking Champs, Punishment, Cows, Shudder To Think, Hot Snakes, Clikitat Ikatowi, Truman's Water, The Contortions, Heroin, Young Ginns, Oxes, Tight Bros From Way Back When, Thrones, Jawbox, OOIOO, Arab On Radar, US Maple, Melt Banana, Shellac, !!!, Universal Order Of Armageddon, The VSS, Don Caballero, Quintron, Rachel's, Magma and... Iggy Pop? Well, you might want to check out this cool soft cover book (12"w x 8"h, 150 pages). It's jam-packed with color and black & white photography by Jeff Winterberg. The bulk of them are live rock and candid shots taken between 1991 and 2003, and the subjects run the music gamut. On an initial quick flip-through we spotted all of those mentioned above. Whew! Jeff Winterberg went to a lot of shows! And guess what? The price is listed at $25.00, but we've got 'em for 17.98. Neat!
When we first got this disc in, we had no idea what it was. We never would have guessed it was the Winterblut as the new Winterblut was supposed to have original cover art by Wrest from Leviathan. But this disc was in a plain all-black slipcover. So we slid out the jewel case, and what do you know? The jewel case was opaque and black as well, with absolutely no text on it anywhere. At this point we still had no idea what the heck it was, until we pulled out the booklet, and lo and behold, there it was, Wrest's artwork, some seriously demented painted shapes grappling, a nude woman, a demon, way too many clawed hands...
It's been four long year since we last heard from Winterblut, and at the time, the album Grund Gelenkkunst had just been released and found Winterblut totally transformed from a grim buzzing Nordic style black metal beast, into a twisted, convoluted SST meets Voivod sort of black prog combo, having more in common with Ved Buens Ende than Darkthrone, with a punk rock production, gnarled Greg Ginn riffage, super strange arrangements and some very un-black metal elements. Which of course meant we dug it like crazy. And played it to death, always expecting to hear more from Winterblut sooner or later.
So it ended up being later, but finally here it is, Das Aas aller Dinge, and while a lot has changed in the last 4 years, much of the prog has been purged, and not all the riffing is angular and obtuse, Winterblut hasn't merely reverted to classic Norwegian style black buzz, although much of Das Aas aller Dinge is more blasting and buzzing than anything on Grund Gelenkkunst, instead it's apparent from the very first riff, that L. Hiver, the man who is Winterblut, still has a distinctly skewed take on black metal, with the tempo firmly set at mid, and plenty of Voivodisms still in place, right down to the vocals, in fact one can almost imagine this is what Dimension Hatross would have sounded like had it been a black metal record, lurching and mathy, woozy and sort of seasick, everything shrouded in reverb and black black distortion a killer groove, complex drumming, the guitars skeletal and spidery as much as buzzy and black. Even the second track sounds like a blackened Voivod, and part way through when it kicks it up into full on blast, the melody and riffing is still haunting and minor key, with a subtle sci-fi edge. The next few tracks are definitely heavier on the buzzing and the blackness, and more old school classic Norwegian style, but still the riffs are completely atypical, gnarled and just a little bit off. In a good way.
It's on "Das Aas (Erloschen)" where the band get all weird again, a super slithery, slippery stop start groove with a main riff that warbles drunkenly up and down the fretboard, with big wide open spaces between chords, the drums a simple framework for the guitars to tangle themselves up in. A track or two later, there's the 15 minute epic "Das Aas (Sehnsuchtig)" a loping waltzy Burzumic dirge, that partway through transforms into a furious blast, and then unwinds into a killer serpentine progscape with impossibly off-kilter drumming, and strange tempos, everything still bathed in black, the vocals a raspy growl, but all strung along a lurching mathrock rhythm, the riffs following suit, a whirling relentless black space prog jam. The record finishes off with "Das Aas (Egnid Rella)" another track that meshes classic black with the twisted riffage and octopoidal rhythms that made us dig Winterblut so much in the first place.
Obviously amazing, and essential, but even considering everything we just wrote, if you're anything like us, it could have been summed up perfectly in 4 simple words: "black metal Dimension Hatross."
As mentioned above, packaged in a black opaque jewel case, in an all black slipcover, the booklet inside and the disc face features killer artwork from Wrest, the booklet also includes some seriously creepy band photos, as well liner notes and lyrics.
Black metal bands are notorious for their scarily complex and utterly unreadable logos. With this release, Germany's Winterblut take that unreadability to new heights -- by deliberately *blurring* their logo (and all other writing) on the front and back of this cd. If you squint at it from a distance, maybe you can make it out -- but then you have the ornate logo itself to contend with. And don't try to look on the cd spine for help (our technique, 'cause usually the band's name is printed in a normal font there) because the spine is totally blank. Cunning bastards. Anyway, the blurred logo is not the strangest thing about this album... We already liked Winterblut's previous stuff, total Darkthrone styled Nordic black metal, grim and true. We ended up liking this new album a lot too, but not for the reasons we expected. This more-or-less one-man band (a person named L. Hiver responsible for wretchedly bizarre vocals, guitar, and bass, assisted by various drummers) sounds less like Darkthrone than it does Voivod! More accurately, "Grund" sounds like an SST band circa '87, full of Greg Ginn guitar skronk, all gnarly and proggy and punkly produced. In the realm of black metal, we can only cite Enslaved and Ved Buens Ende as precedents. With Gore-like midtempo plod, math-rock twists, and some quietly atmospheric grooves, you'll forget this is supposed to be a black metal record -- then, whoomp! Hiver unleashes the evil. His vocals are as ever wonderfully wretched as before, but the music is a total surprise.
MPEG Download: "track 1" [/audio/winterblut1.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "track 1" [/audio/winterblut1.m3u]
For some reason, it seems to take German one man band Winterblut, about 4 years to write and record a new record, at least that's the pattern we've observed over the course of all four full lengths, and the interesting thing too, is that within that huge span of time between each record, the sound of Winterblut changes dramatically, 1999's Der 6. Danach was a fierce chunk of blazing, blasting grim Nordic style blackness, while 2003's Grund: Gelenkkunst found the band utterly transformed into a twisted, convoluted SST meets Voivod sort of black prog, and then 2007's Das Aas Aller Dinge found Winterblut returning to more traditional black metal territory, but dragging some of those post rockisms and progginess with him. So here we are ANOTHER four years later, with Von Den Pflichten Schones Zu Vernichten, and again, things have definitely changed, although right off the bat, this still definitely sounds like Winterblut (Allan named that tune within about 30 seconds of hearing this for the first time without being told wht it was!!), but the sound is much more raw, and primitive, and indeed grim, the opening, a lumbering atonal midtempo trudge, the guitars jagged and abrasive, the vocals a rasped croak, the riffs woozy and trancelike, eventually the song explodes in a frenzy of blasting blackness, only to slip back into warped dirgery, and that seems to be the new Winterblut sound, veering occasionally into bursts of black intensity, but spending most of its time at a wounded crawl, the Voivodness definitely rearing its head in those parts, sounding like Dimension Hatross at 16rpm, a sort of post prog Burzumic churn, a bit doomy, quite depressive, the riffs grim and frosty, the sound sharp and brittle, super atmospheric, the atonality and gnarled chordal shifts, giving the whole record a seriously creepy fucked up vibe, which sounds incredible and seriously twisted, and is making Von Den Pflichten Schones Zu Vernichten one of our new favorite black metal records, another killer chapter, in Winterblut's very slowly expanding catalogue of black buzz miserablism. So I guess we've got 4 more to revel in WB's immersive blackness, before it's time to check in again...
Part of a new(ish) metal movement in the UK, Winterfylleth, along with Fen and Wodensthrone (who share a member or two) are spearheading a wave of Neo-Pagan black metallism, that entails, lyrically, plenty of nature and Anglo-Saxon history, while sonically channeling a sound similar to heathen BM combos Drudkh, but sprinkled liberally with the Viking vibes of Enslaved. In fact, besides the fact that Winterfylleth are from the UK, they do often sound criminally like a Viking horde from Norway, plenty of chanting vocals, deep crooning, sea sick tempos swaying to and fro, long stretches of washed out acoustic folk, but WF also manage to supercharge that sound plenty of the time, slipping easily into furious black blasts as easily as they slip right back into some Nordic style chant.
The sound is dense, the guitars crunchy and thick, the atmosphere alternatingly grim and foresty, black and brutal, the drums loud in the mix, the vocals a harsh raspy howl (when they're not a crooning or chanting that is), the tempos hover mostly around the mid, but do lurch into frenzied bursts of maniacal buzz, as well as sometimes slowing all the way down to a doomic lope. When the band lock into a stretch of classic black metal buzz, they definitely remind us of prime era Darkthrone, but even then, often unexpectedly the band will introduce clean singing, or some strange melody, or spew out some super tangled chunk of blackened psych, and that's when Winterfylleth really shine, when their various influences mix and blur, creating some new, less easily defined strain of black metal, yet one that still hews close enough to its various roots to appeal to the various black factions. Repeated listens definitely reveal more and more, the songs open up and become deeper, more layered, more complexy, melodies surface, what was once blasting and black, becomes strange shades of buzzing grey, the acoustic tracks sound gorgeous, timeless, like old school British folk, with the guitars wreathed in sun dappled reverb, and unfurling lilting minor key melodies, often immediately giving way to huge churning blackened almost-grooves, or exploding into full bore, blown out black metal grimnity.
Fans of Enslaved, Negura Bunget, Drudkh, and the like will definitely dig...
Record number two from these British neo-pagan black metallers, who along with Fen, Wodensthrone and a few others are fronting a new wave of British black metal, one that is lyrically concerned with nature and Anglo Saxon history, but that sonically is mostly concerned with crafting buzzing majestic blackened epics, which they do here big time.
Even more fully realized than their debut, The Mercian Sphere offers up sprawling epic after sprawling epic, right out of the gate, a brief bit of chanting leads into some furious heaviness, soaring melodies, buzzing guitars and some intense and complex drum pound, the arrangements are serpentine and intricate, the band swerving from lighting speed blast, to loping midtempo march and back again, melodies spiraling skyward, the vocals powerful and gruff, not screechy like most black metal, and as this is pagan BM after all, eventually, the clean vocals come in, which can be embarrassing in many cases, but here it's masterful, moving and emotional, not that far removed from Enslaved or the like, but maybe even better and more melodic here. In fact, the sound of Winterfylleth is a bit like some strange melding of Enslaved, Negura Bunget, Ulver and Drudkh, but with their own Decidedly British bent.
There are plenty of interludes, folky breakdowns, acoustic guitars, strings, haunting ambience, but unlike lots of bands, the atmosphere doesn't reside exclusively in the interludes, the songs themselves ooze atmosphere, the clean vocals, the chanting, over churning downtuned chug and crashing bombast, as moody and epic as anything. And beyond the blast and the buzz, Winterfylleth are capable of crafting some supremely sublime and melodic metal, "Defending The Realm" offers up what has to be the catchiest bit of black metal we've heard in ages, butted right up against some blazing flurries of insectoid buzz, "The Ruin" on the surface is all blackness and fury, but it's infused with all manner of melody and texture, pathos and anguish, the vocals especially tortured and intense, more like Neurosis or a band like that then typical black metal, the closing track perfectly encapsulating the power and energy of the band, beginning with a long stretch of warm folk strum, before a stretch of grim blasting blackness, only to slip smoothly into another impossibly catchy and melodic part, that is groovy and hooky, without losing any of its brutality or intensity, only to finally wind down with a mix of the two acoustic guitars, chugging riffage, and more of those gorgeous clean vocals.
Epic, majestic and fucking great.
We've had this record by British band Winters (not to be confused with seminal doom-dirge act Winter) for some time now, but as with so many deserving things, didn't find time to review it until now, and it's a shame 'cause it's a great album we probably should have highlighted back when. Well, great if you love Nirvana and things that sound like Nirvana. The worst criticism (unoriginality) that could be leveled against Winters is also their biggest draw - how much they sound like good ol' Nirvana!! That's right. Though this came out (in '07) via England's hairy, heavy Rise Above label (home to the doomy, stoner likes of Electric Wizard and Witchcraft, among others), Winters are a bit poppier than you might expect. With loads of fuzzy, crunchy guitar riffs, yeah - but definitely poppy in an old school GRUNGE way, complete with slightly whiney, sometimes sing-songy vocals very reminiscent of Kurt Cobain's. The Melvins and Black Sabbath and '60s garage psych are all obvious influences (the band also cites The Creation, The Kinks, Elliott Smith, and Witchfinder General, among other inspirations). Their song "Aftershown" is what "Iron Man" would have sounded like if it had been ripped off by Kurt for inclusion on Bleach! And there's plenty more of those sorts of Sabbath meets Shocking Blue riffs and hooks on here, both languid and lurching. Aside from Nirvana, we'd also figure that fans of old Soundgarden and Fudge Tunnel might dig this, among others... or for more recent reference, how 'bout imagining a hybrid of the first albums from Burning Brides and Witch?
Latest from these Midwestern noiseniks, this time with a full complement of assistant noisemakers, including Rich Hoak (Brutal Truth, Total Fucking Destruction) as well as folks from Fuck The Facts, The Endless Blockade and 7000 Dying Rats! Sounds like a seriously noisy nasty party indeed.
The last Winters In Osaka we reviewed was Orchids, and unlike a lot of noise music, it was way more rhythmic and textural, offering up a series of sort of fractured skitters and looped grooves, all liberally doused with plenty of noisiNESS.
But we knew these guys were capable of kicking up a serious din and they do just that on Molded To Crawl. Opening with a 17 minute epic, that begins with muted percussion, samples, buzzing electronics, which quickly builds to a full on face melting skree, but within that skree, synths squiggle, vocals howl, guitars feedback, sirens wail, the chaotic blowout does seem to occasionally almost slip into something drone-y or almost riff like, but for the most part, it's a thick dense wall of sound that is not for the faint of ear.
The other three tracks are shorter, and tend toward the darker and the dronier, again rooted around plodding percussion, and layered buzz, the sound veers from lurching machine like industrial lumber, to Godfleshy stomp, to haunting Eastern music box over roiling blacknoise, to thick whirring buzzscape, to wildly careening and crumbling wave of low end crush, to skittery crunch and glitch, to thick windblown wasteland sountrack, to chopped up plunderphonia, to haunting hushed drift.
Cool stuff, but definitely be warned, this is some seriously noisy shit!
We begin so many reviews of noise records, with disclaimers like "we don't typically like noise music" that we're beginning to think we actually DO like noise music. Although to be fair, the noise music that mostly appeals to us, is not the speaker shredding white noise, but rather the carefully crafted, dynamic soundscape sort of noise. With rhythms, however subtle, melody, mood and definitely dynamics. So it might be more fair to say we enjoy noiserock. Or noisy music. (all of this said, knowing full well, that many of us DO in fact like NOISE music, Masonna, Incapacitants, etc�)
Semantics aside, we do love our music noisy, and we love plenty of noise in whatever rock it is we're rocking, kraut, space, post, garage, a little noise goes a long way, especially when wielded deftly and applied sparingly.
We got this disc in the mail a few months ago. Self professed noise music, so it took us a while to hunker down and throw it on, and what do you know? It was awesome. A strange soundscape of fragmented rhythms and electronic whir, of crumbling drones and spaced out ambience. A more minimal take on a sort of krautrocky noise rock, not all that far removed from recent AQ records of the week by Geronimo and Aluk Todolo. In fact, anyone who bought either of those would do well to check out Orchids by Winters In Osaka.
Orchids would be worth it alone for the opening track, a ten plus minute jam that could go on forever as far as we're concerned. A spacious rhythmic noise jam, reminiscent of This Heat's Repeat. A strange electronic trill, the heart of the track, repeating throughout, sometimes panned to the right, sometimes to the left, right up front, then buried in the mix, while underneath, a rhythm skitters and shuffles, locking into a groove, and then fragmenting into strange stuttering hiccups, before settling back in again. Swirling all around are sheets of feedback, minor key synthesized basslines, crumbling static, other bits of percussive clatter, but the main rhythm keeps resurfacing, and that strangely soothing little electronic trill, the whole thing impossibly soothing and hypnotic.
And like we said above, that track would be enough, but the rest of the disc echoes that first track, as if the various songs were just movements of a bigger expansive piece, and it works. In fact the second track, is like a more percussive version of the first, the drums more pronounced, that trill still present, but the rhythm distorted and thick, with extra bits of disembodied guitar drifting in here and there. The third too is a part of that first suite, the drums growing even more distorted and insistent, the layers of noise growing more and more corrosive as well.
But from that point on the record, while still referencing the opening suite, seems much more varied, little bursts of staccato percussion, thick swaths of downtuned drone, melodies scrawled in squiggles of feedback, moody murky melodic thrums drifting nearly static and almost out of earshot, sprays of hiss, like one of those sprinklers, hooked up to an amplifier, fields of distorted chimes and resonant shimmer. But the magic being that the various songs keep revisiting themes from the song right before it, or hinting at some sonic element no yet introduced. Creating a sprawling rhythmic soundscape of buzz and hiss and skitter, of fuzz and skree and thud, that unfolds and unfurls and fills your ears with glorious glorious noise.
Yeah, this has been out for a while. A long while actually, but due to random distributor problems which resulted in us being unable to get more than a few of these at a time, we were never able to list it, UNTIL NOW. And we were dead set on listing this, because the three records that make up Box Set contain some of the most intense, brooding and rocking post punk EVER. The Wipers are one of those bands that never got all that popular, but were definitely a band's band, the kind of group that gets namechecked by everybody, and thus influenced everybody, but still remained way below the radar.
Formed in 1978, the Wipers spent their career toiling away in obscurity, seemingly adverse to recognition or popularity, even turning down the opening slot on several Nirvana tours, worried that it would seem too opurtunistic. And Cobain was probably the Wipers' biggest supporter, even covering a bunch of their songs. In fact, lots of people who hear the original versions of "D-7" or "Return Of The Rat" think it must be some punk band covering Nirvana, instead of the other way around. And the more Wipers you hear, the more you realize Cobain did more than just cover their songs, his songwriting style and melodic flair is definitely heavily indebted to the Wipers. Some of the more brooding less rocking Wipers songs sound just like Nirvana tracks that could have been. Minor key mope rock that sort of builds and builds, not necessarily getting louder and faster (although sometimes they did) but getting more and more intense, threatening to explode, the kind of genuine angst and fury that can NOT be faked and imbues music with that sort of emotional charge that turns good music into great music. Cobain had it. So did Greg Sage. And these records prove it. Dark and driving. murky and moody, rough and totally rocking. One of the best bands you may have never heard. And if you picked up that recent Nirvana box, there are a couple Wipers covers on there, and they drive the points home that, not only did Kurt Cobain owe a huge debt for the 'inspiration' but also that Sage was a songwriter on par with Cobain himself, who many consider to be one of the best songwriters of the late eighties / early nineties. Box Set contains the first three Wipers records, Is This Real?, Youth Of America, and Over The Edge, all remastered. A total of 51 songs, 23 of them never before released. Liner notes by Greg Sage himself!
Now available (again) on vinyl, one of the best records EVER, from one of the greatest, most intense, brooding and rocking post punk band of all time.
For those who are new to the Wipers, these guys were one of those bands that never got all that popular, but were definitely a band's band, the kind of group that gets namechecked by everybody, and thus influenced everybody, but still remained way below the radar.
Formed in 1978, the Wipers spent their career toiling away in obscurity, seemingly adverse to recognition or popularity, even turning down the opening slot on several Nirvana tours, worried that it would seem too opportunistic. And Cobain was probably the Wipers' biggest supporter, even covering a bunch of their songs. In fact, lots of people who hear the original versions of "D-7" or any of the Wipers' tunes Nirvana usually covered, think it must be some punk band covering Nirvana, instead of the other way around. And the more Wipers you hear, the more you realize Cobain did more than just cover their songs, his songwriting style and melodic flair is definitely heavily indebted to the Wipers. Some of the more brooding less rocking Wipers songs sound just like Nirvana tracks that could have been. Minor key mope rock that sort of builds and builds, not necessarily getting louder and faster (although sometimes they did) but getting more and more intense, threatening to explode, the kind of genuine angst and fury that can NOT be faked and imbues music with that sort of emotional charge that turns good music into great music. Cobain had it. So did Greg Sage. And Is This Real? proves it. Big time. One of those record where EVERY track feels like a hit. Like a classic. "D-7", the title track, "Tragedy"... all dark and driving, murky and moody, rough and totally rocking. But at the same time impossibly catchy and poppy. Big time pop. Hooks all over the place. But of course wrapped in all sorts of minor key murk, and fuzzy distorted heartbreak. One of the best bands, and best records, you may have never heard. Until now!
At this point, the saga of Greg Sage and the Wipers is so much a part of the American rock canon that it hardly needs restating: maverick, hermetic genius shuns the mainstream; makes a holy trinity of blown out garage punk; leaves an indelible influence on every young turk with a guitars and chip on his/her shoulder over the next two+ decades. Similarly, the story behind Youth Of America itself is equally well known. After being pressured by their label into a professional studio to re-record their debut, Is This Real, prior to its release, Sage and Co. opted to record Youth of America entirely on their own in Sage's home studio. The result is a sprawling work of guitar sturm und drang layered over wiry pre/post/peri-punkitude that references everything from Neu!-style space riffage, to vintage '80s new wave skitter, to the best possible blissed-out-fuzz-soaked psych. There are faint touches of Joy Division and The Buzzcocks lurking in the shadows of this record, what you'll be struck by more than Sage's influences is the degree to which this record (perhaps moreso than any other in the Wipers' catalog) has influenced others; it's hard to imagine bands like Husker Du, Dinosaur Jr, Sonic Youth, Nirvana, or Hot Snakes (to name but a few) existing without the groundwork laid down on the first three Wipers LPs.
It's a shame that the backstory behind The Wipers is perhaps more oft-heard than the band's records, but this wicked nice deluxe LP reissue provides a great chance to rectify that. You get heavy 180g vinyl and a version free of the terrible gradeschool-quality goth/ghoul painting that has inexplicably graced the covers of previous reissues. If your exposure to the Wipers is limited to watching The River's Edge or hearing them name-checked ad infinitum by Kurt Cobain, then pick this up immediately and discover exactly why Youth Of America is a seminal work by one of the most important and influential bands in the American punk canon.
Latest issue of this UK magazine covering the "new music" like nobody else, in depth and around the world. The cover star is Gaika (a London beat-maker bringing "sounds from the megacity"), also this issue includes improv guitarist Ian Brighton, a Primer on Anarcho-punk, Egyptian shaabi master Elsalm Chipsy (tested by the "Invisible Jukebox"), Swedish composer Klara Lewis, a "Global Ear" scene report from Wales, and plenty more!
While we're not sure we would really want to do it, had we been asked Continuum Press to write one of their 33 1/3 mini books about a favorite album, we just might have to choose Wire's third album 154. Partially, this choice would be something of a compromise as we doubt that a book on Nurse With Wound's Homotopie To Marie would make for a saleable product. 154 stands in our minds as the epitome of what post-punk should be: a bold fusion of post-situationist / punk antagonism and legitimately experimental methodologies with an undercurrent of smarty-pop to keep the kids bouncing up and down.
I (Jim) actually came to Wire somewhat late in my record nerd existance, and I actually grew to admire the band through a reverse history of sorts, as I didn't really start enjoying the first three Wire albums (Pink Flag, Chairs Missing, and 154) until other Graham Lewis and Bruce Gilbert projects entranced me with thier experiments in proto-electronica. This was especially true for the ghostly post-structuralism found on their Dome records. And those Lewis / Gilbert projects took their genetic code for shadow and gloom from elements of 154. An album that was made under personal duress, 154 drips of disintegration. In fact the band split apart for almost 7 years after the making of 154, pursuing a variety of projects -- traces of which are quite present in this album as Colin Newman's pop sarcasm continued through his solo records and the vast array of Lewis / Gilbert projects.
Recorded in 1979, 154 marks the band's third radical reinvention in three years. Wire's pacing has slowed to a lugubrious, Factory-esque crawl but lost none of their punk antagonism. The slower pacing better suited the baritone vocals of Graham Lewis, who had penned many of the lyrics that Colin Newman sang. In lesser hands, the patchwork of forboding atmospheric dirges and punchy power pop numbers would appear disjointed; but Wire's deft use of synthetic coloring, exquisite timing, and simply great songwriting smear the whole album into a wholly convincing masterpiece. "I Should Have Known Better" and "A Touching Display" represent a few of Graham Lewis' baritone marches through plodding drone and heavy basslines, which have more in common with the late '80s, proto-doom of Swans than of the snarl of the Buzzcocks. Newman's pop brilliance also shines on 154 through "The 15th," which sadly more people recognize from the tepid Fischerspooner cover than by this punk-pop gem. Of the first three Wire albums, 154 proudly stands as the most challenging and most rewarding. So good, we may have to buy it, yet again.
In 1978, being qualified as "the Pink Floyd of the New Wave" might have come across as something of an insult; and by today's artistic strategies of rampant revivalism such a pithy remark may ring true to many a listener. That statement was, in fact, the critique prescribed to Chairs Missing, Wire's second album, as the album decelerated the pogo punk minimalism found on their first album with an increasing use of experimental production. In hindsight, Chairs Missing is the perfect transition between the high-strung velocity of Pink Flag and the staggering gloominess of 154; yet most transition records have a clunkiness about them, like a lanky teenager not quite able to fit into his sunday best. But Chairs Missing is miles above the average transition album. To many a listener, Chairs Missing stands as the ultimate Wire album, with near perfect pop songs alternating between anthemic punk and eccentric production techniques (i.e. atonal synth drone, staccato guitar chops, overdubbed guitar distortion, etc.). Where Pink Flag kept many of the songs under a minute and half, Chairs Missing is downright baroque in its presentation of 3 minute tunes. The genius of Chairs Missing is how Colin Newman, Robert Gotobed, Bruce Gilbert, and Graham Lewis manage to steer through the diverse songwriting landscape, in how the album's opening track "Practice Makes Perfect" transitions from a delicate prance for jangled guitar into a precise expression of menace, in how "Outdoor Miner" creates the catchiest, Beatlesque chorus you'll never be able to sing back to yourself given the complexity of its rejoining, nonsensical syllables, in how jaggedly clean the guitars of Newman and Gilbert attack each other, in how Lewis' bass is fluid and effortless, in how this run-on sentence seems to have lost its way trying to fathom the complexity of Wire. If you believe that the length of Aquarius' reviews directly correlate to how good the record actually is, then we have failed as we would need to write a fucking a book about how stunning this album is. Yeah, Chairs Missing is incredible; and if you don't have it, you really should.
Okay, one thing to bitch about the reissue of Chairs Missing is that the cover is curiously bleached out of its color; the reissue also doesn't come with the (really great!) bonus tracks found on the EMI cd version of the album. Come on Wire, you released this album on your own label. At least you could give us all the bells and whistles found on other versions of this album! This is our only complaint, and a minor quibble for sure.
Now over 30 years old, this British art-punk trio has released their 47th recording, whether that be a single, a concert document, a compilation, or a full-length album. Yup, this one is a full album, but something is missing on it. And we aren't simply referencing the absence of guitarist Bruce Gilbert from the band. Wire - now the trio of Colin Newman, Graham Lewis, and Robert Gotobed - have sought to sound a lot like Wire, but their mimesis of themselves is not for the classic sound of Pink Flag or 154 but rather the quasi-angular, plasticine collage-rock of the late '80s which did produce a handful of legitimately great singles: "A Head," "Kidney Bingos," and "Drill" being the most noteworthy. Lyrically, Wire are just as punk-smart as ever, twisting the banal vernacular of daily life into something slightly sinister and misanthropic; but where Graham Lewis had previously penned some fine basslines in the past to augment the drone-plus-chime of Colin Newman's guitar, many of the songs aspire to a punchy pogo-pop, but Lewis lets us down with some less than imaginative riffs. For a man whose work in Dome and in collaboration with John Duncan have produced some ecstatic experiments with sound, this is a bit of a head-scratcher. To be fair, Object 47 is an entirely different beast than the extremes found on many Wire related releases; but this could have been a whole lot better.
As much as we may extoll the virtues of Wire, Dome, He Said, and any / all other Wire side projects, those albums would have never seen the light of day had Wire not released the ultra classics Pink Flag, Chairs Missing, and 154. Infinitely smarter than the Sex Pistols and not as gloomy as Joy Division, Wire initially appeared as a bright 3-chord punk band on Pink Flag, but quickly authored the template of a post-punk ethos that moved beyond simple rock structures and orchestration on Chairs Missing and 154. As distinct as each of those album are, Wire connected the dots with a very strong signature that they didn't really exhaust until the early '90s. While the latest reincarnation of Wire has boasted a return to their early glory, we haven't been entirely convinced.
Fortunately for big Wire fans like us, there's On The Box: 1979, a DVD / CD set of a live set that the band performed for the German television show Rockpalast. Recorded in between Chairs Missing and 154, the band was at that point experimenting with more obtuse songs; but given the live context and their apparant dissatisfaction with the rather placid and polite audience, the songs that would later appear on 154 (i.e. "The 15th" and "Map Ref. 41 N 93 W") have a definite edge that's not found on the studio recordings. For a live recording, this is as good as you'll find: great performance, tight and aggressive, great song selection, and good sound quality.
The DVD also features an interview in which the four are particularly difficult and curt to an increasingly confused journalist, and the CD just houses all of the audio from the show.
Really, what more can we say about Wire's Pink Flag that hasn't already been said? The album is so good, so burned in the retina of our brains (even though we still cannot for the life of us unscramble Graham Lewis' lyrics), so nearly perfect that it's sort of hard to write about. In a perfect world, whatever nonsense we may have to say about the record would be moot, as you should already own this record (along with Chairs Missing and 154, Wire's second and third albums respectively). But for those of you who may be enraptured by the recent flurry of post-punk revivalists who continue to make quite a stir, let the reissue campaign of the first three records introduce you to the band that Interpol, Maximo Park, Franz Ferdinand, and Bloc Party only wish they could be.
Recorded in 1977, Pink Flag is an immaculately concise punk record, even as Wire recognized that punk was becoming a self-parody and willed themselves to develop through experimentation with structure, technology, and process. Pink Flag's 21 songs cover a mere 35 minutes, many of themclocking in around 90 seconds or "when they ran out of words" as bassist / vocalist Graham Lewis once quipped. Energetic and volatile, each of the songs on Pink Flag thrash through the repetoire of reductivist power-pop riffs as immediately catchy and aggressive as anything by the Damned, the Ramones, and the Sex Pistols. But even on their first album, Wire demonstrated an uncanny ability with chord changes and melodic shifts that by '70s standards were much artier than their punk bretheren. Of course, in the aftermath of math-rock's acrobatic twists and turns, Wire's Pink Flag hardly sounds unpredictable... but if it weren't for Wire would we really have Laddio Bollocko? Probably not. The album's opening track "Reuters" is an anxious introduction to Wire's provocation with lead vocalist Colin Newman over-annunciating a polemic against government's abuse of propaganda (sound familiar?) on top of an increasingly agitated metronomic blast of bass, twin guitar, and drums. Elsewhere near perfect pop songs develop out of the angular punk slashing, as heard on "Ex Liontamers" and "Mannequin." Wire ends the album with the monotone anthem "12 X U" which many have declared their "Anarchy In The UK." With a motorik rhythm punctured by concise punk riff, the track simultaneously decries homophobia and censorship with the song's entire lyrics "I saw you in the mag kissing the man / 1 2 X U!" So yeah, Wire are a seminal band for a reason, and it all started with this album. If you don't have it, please do yourself a favor and buy this album. You won't regret it!
Wire were never a band that tried to rock. If anything, the quartet of Colin Newman, Graham Lewis, Bruce Gilbert, and Robert Gotobed made their best music when they struggled to escape the trappings of punk rock they initially embraced on their debut 1977 album "Pink Flag." Their constant investigations into electronics, adventurous songwriting, and lyrical complexity resulted in several pinnacles in the history of punk with "Chairs Missing" and the willfully obtuse "154." The band then parted ways in the early '80s to pursue a huge number of side projects, only to reform as a mildly entertaining new-wave pop band in the mid-'80s that relied far too much upon cute lyrical surrealism and clever idiosyncracies. Wire would like for you to believe that the band split up, but there was the ill-fated Wir project with all members present except Gotobed. Regardless, "Read & Burn" is the result of Gotobed rejoining the band after a number of successful gigs in which the all four blasted out the classic tracks from those aformentioned early albums. It needs to be said that during the late '70s when Wire was making huge leaps towards experimental rock, the band was outwardly antagonistic towards live audience requests for their punk anthem "12xU." So their return to such numbers needs to be viewed with a certain degree of skepticism. Such is the case for the six songs on "Read & Burn," which finds Wire trying very hard to rock. This is pretty much straight forward monochord punk dating back to '70s, but with the production techniques of today with an emphasis on heavy low-end thuggishness and very cleanly defined distortion. The success of this album is wholly based upon how much the audience is willing to suspend their disbelief that "Read & Burn" doesn't sound like Graham Lewis and a generic Nu-Metal band trying to sound like old Wire. An entertaining experiment, but inherently flawed.
"Return to form" is the ubiquitous tag granted to aging rockers who enjoy a certain cultural cache from way back when even when the new material may pale in comparison. Yet, the problematic "return to form" claim doesn't really stick for Wire, even as they've never attempted to rewrite the punk and post-punk textbooks they penned with their first three records, Pink Flag, Chairs Missing, and 154. Since the band has split and reformed numerous times with a bunch of commendable side projects filling the gaps (i.e. Dome, He Said, Duet Emmo, etc.) and with numerous stylistic changes, each with their own merit, Wire doesn't really have a stylistic norm, to which "return to form" applies. So with the third (and probably best) chapter of the Read & Burn saga, Wire "return to form" only in the fact that they managed an edgy, post-punk set of recordings that continue to follow the adventurous trajectory set forth from Pink Flag. Clocking in at almost 10 minutes, the first track parallels the opening of 154, with Graham Lewis deepening his slightly sinister baritone voice to that of Nick Cave's. But when the slow acceleration of bass / guitars / drums hits cruising speed, Wire find themselves in familiar territory -- perfect pop-punk choruses with tonguing tying lyrical twists. The production on the entire 4 song ep enjoys a digital polish, and on the introduction, when Colin Newman takes over on vocals from Lewis on the pogo-punk chorus, his voice is smoothed from the spittle and snarl of Pink Flag into what is found here. For the other songs, Wire pull in the long-form art-rock reigns for three equally nice tunes with Newman alone at the vocal helm. Well done.
Because Wire were so influential to so much of the punk and post punk music that followed in the wake of their amazing 1977 debut album Pink Flag, there's no surprise that any millenial efforts by them will be regarded with doubt and worry. Well, although I've heard from the camps that love it and the ones that hate it, I have to say I find their new material decent, even excellent. And ferociously intense, with throbbing bass, thick layers of guitar, spit out lyrics (plus occasional singing). Send resides somewhere between Pink Flag's early punk ferocity and the cleaner production of their mid-career experiments like "Drill". Listen to the soundclips to see for yourself. This appears to share seven (!) tracks with Wire's 2002 pair of EPs, Read & Burn 01 and Read & Burn 02, so buyer beware if you already own those two. If you don't already have those two, then buy now! And if you've never heard Wire before, buy Pink Flag NOW, you'll be glad you did.
MPEG Download: "Spent" [/audio/wirespent.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Spent" [/audio/wirespent.m3u]
