Those Canadian cool kids Wolf Parade delivered their own lil' cdep last year just prior to their well received Sub Pop released album Apologies To The Queen Mary... and we just got a few in stock! We've searched high'n'low and found precious little information about this release, but we can tell you that it features four songs that would go on to appear on the album (the title track, "We Built Another World", "Grounds For Divorce" and "It's A Curse"), and two others ("The National People's Scare" and "Killing Armies"). Now, it might just be our imagination, but these recordings do seem a bit less polished and a bit rougher around the edges than the album versions, but it sure suits this band's rambunctious nature. Singers Dan Boeckner and Spencer Krug's vocals are at their most hand-wringingly insistent. Meanwhile Hadji Bakara chimes in on keyboards and drummer Arlen Thompson thumps out a rump-bumpin' beat. Not sure if we'll be getting more of these, so just in case we'd gently recommend that you "don't snooze and lose".
After the dour affair that was 2008's At Mount Zoomer, Wolf Parade seem to have gotten a shot of adrenaline for their peculiarly titled latest full length. Much more immediately engaging, the first song grabs you by the scruff of the neck and fires up the pop engines! It bristles with an almost punky rawness. The loopy whoopy warbled vocals are still present, and continue to be an acquired taste around the aQ camp. Some find it to be grating, others find it to be impassioned. What do you think? S'pose it sorta depends on your feelings about the throaty pipes of veterans David Byrne and Adrian Belew, as well as Interpol's Paul Banks to which WP's Dan Boeckner and Spencer Krug bear more than a passing resemblance. As for the head-scratcher album title, we're really puzzled as to what these songs have to do with the world's fair which took place in Vancouver a quarter decade ago, but there's definitely an '80s feel goin' on. Lots of gooey new wave synthiness and rubbery energy drive Expo 86, plus simple 1-2-3-4 beats that are super easy to dance or nod your head to. A no-brainer for popping in the car stereo for a sunny summer day!
Olympia, Washington's black metal titans Wolves In The Throne Room follow up their acclaimed Two Hunters album with this lengthy two song vinyl only ep, the first to feature their new lineup, and the band's most focused and hypnotic creation to date. The formula has not changed, it's just sounding, well, better than ever before. More insular. While Wolves in the Throne Room has always possessed a talent for wrapping majestic melodies within relentless black metal riffing, Malevolent Grain most successfully blurs the distinction between blissed out beauty and brutality. The band is shrouded in an ever present haze of melancholy and despair that is just so much more genuine and effective than guys prancing around in corpse paint like some sort of old school black metal tribute act. They speak as a unique voice in an international scene where so many bands are preoccupied with their bullshit fairy tale take on satanism. All the while, they are heavy as fuck. A Wolves In The Throne Room song plays out as an expansive journey of multiple chapters before fading away into eternity. There is tons of ambience and atmosphere along the way, complete with gorgeous, clearly sung female vocals (courtesy once again of Jamie Meyers, formerly of Hammers of Misfortune), somber melodies, and warm waves of creeping distortion, but ultimately this is total BLACK METAL. Yes, all caps. "METAL" being the key word, the band never falls short on the blazing riffs, unstoppable drumming, and rasping vocals that they built their name on.
In keeping with Southern Lord's reputation for visual, as well as musical, awesomeness, Malevolent Grain comes housed in an appropriately hallucinatory jacket featuring blurry images of lush forest untouched by humanity and the band's new candelabra-esque logo embossed in stunning gold foil. Those who act quickly may be of the lucky few (er, lucky thousand, apparently) to receive the ep on cool "Dark Forest Green" vinyl. Oh, and a quick note, this record is to be played at 45 rpm. Considering how much we were digging it at the wrong speed for over six minutes, you know this comes to you highly recommended.
Southern Lord snagged 'em. Good call, since Olympia, WA's Wolves In The Throne Room are one of the absolute best things that US Black Metal has got going right now. Sure there's lots of awesome, oxymoronically one-man "hordes" (Leviathan, Xasthur, Draugar) but no offense meant, this is an actual band, one that you can go see live, y'know? And they slay. Firmly (and intentionally and worshipfully) in the tradition of the now legendary San Francisco epic black metal act Weakling, WITTR build the same sort of trance-inducing, technically tight, extended compositions (here, up to over 18 minutes in length) of unending grimness and sheer majestic, melancholic beauty.
Post-rock dynamics, classical-sounding female vocals, newagey synth drone, acoustic intros, and other more-prog-than-metal elements are utilized with ease, while the music, in all its ambient-stormclouds-pregnant-with-ominous-doom glory, is such that would waft and wail through the tall trees of the dark forest of black metal myth exclusively... a forest that these dwellers of the Pacific Northwest can easily conjure, living amidst dark primeval woods for real.
AQ customers of the black metal persuasion won't need much persuading, WITTR's previous record Diadem Of 12 Stars is one of our biggest black metal sellers already and this new album has been eagerly anticipated. And it's good. As if there was much doubt of that.
Packaged in a handsome and very sinister looking miniature lp-style gatefold sleeve, this cd is another stellar offering showing that these Wolves are in the Throne Room not as interlopers, but by divine (or, rather, diabolical) right of rule. Along with Bay Area bands like Ludicra, Leviathan, Asunder, and Hammers Of Misfortune, WITTR are leading the pack in putting the West Coast on the map as the home of avant-metal artistry, Nordically blackened or otherwise opposed to the norm.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We've been wanting to list something from this band forever, ever since a mysterious cd-r wrapped in fur (!) arrived at our doorstep. Already thinking it might be good just 'cause of their cool name, we threw it on and were floored by the Wolves' take on grim and majestic black metal. Punk rockers embracing their darksides and spewing forth a relentless torrent of buzzing blasting blackened thrash. Wow. We pestered the band to get copies of that first demo but for some reason could never get more than a few at a time. Well, the Wolves finally showed up in the shop this last week, bearing gifts! Copies of their brand new cd-r, LOTS of copies, so we got a bunch and can finally give everyone a chance to check out Wolves In The Throne Room!
This second cd-r featues a new lineup, longer songs (three songs, 13 minute, 12 minute and 24 minutes) and a sound much closer to what the band had been shooting for all along, according to Wolves drummer Aaron. That sound is a galloping grim black metal not that unlike Leviathan, Burzum, Mayhem, Darkthrone and the like. In fact it sounds quite a bit like a more lo-fi version of SF black metal legends Weakling. Haunting minor key melodies, relentlessly blasting double kick drumming and repetitive riffs that become hypnotic almost-drones. The Wolves add plenty of their own flavor with plenty of weird folk interludes, creepy swirling melodies, stretches of plodding doom, mathy rhythms and moaning ambience. These guys have been playing around here this last couple weeks, and admitedly it was pretty weird seeing a bunch of raggedy indie punk rockers, curly hair, fur vests, tight pants, t-shirts and tennis shoes, blasting out such a torrent of howling blackened fury. But what these guys lack in spiked armbands, windmilling long hair, and corpsepaint, they make up for in sheer, gloriously grim black metal pummel! These are limited of course. In cool black cardboard sleeves and silkscreened in silver metallic ink. Nice.
We also have a handful of their first demo, if you want one mention it in the comments section of your order and if we have any left we'll grab you one. By the way, the band will be recording a proper cd, to be released in early 2006 on Vendlus Records!
Metatron, one of the masterminds behind UK black metal weirdos Meads Of Asphodel, strikes out on his own (sort of), to craft this twisted slab of Celtic pagan black metal, rooted in the history of the British Celtic Arthurian age, which apparently has historically been misrepresented by erroneous histories and manufactured mythologies. Probably better to let the band themselves describe the lyrical content:
"The album reflects a period around 500AD, that existed after the Romans were recalled to defend their homeland from the Barbarian migrations, the same land hungry hordes that were to engulf the warriors and tribes of Britain. This was� the era of the Germanic and British wars, and the Arthurian defence of our sacred soil that was to end in defeat at Camlan. The main essence of the lyrical concept is the great victory over the Germanic invaders, at The Battle of Baddon Hill around 500 AD, (also known as Mons Badonicus) Baddon Hill was the great Victory that this album surmounts [sic]."
Metatron has recruited a whole gaggle of musical kindred spirits, British and otherwise, including members of Hawkwind, Graveland (!!), Yggdrasil and others, to craft this pagan epic, which definitely has all the stuff you love about pagan black metal (you do love pagan BM don't you?), sure there's plenty of blast and buzz, chug and crunch, but there's even MORE flutes and fiddles, clean chanted vox, gypsy folk sounding melodies, swirling synths, long stretches of fluttery folkiness, swirling almost psychedelic post rock sounding crescendos, there's a bunch of sax too (?!), acoustic guitars, with most of the songs tending toward a seriously seventies British folk sound (albeit often with growled vokills), but all of that pagan / renn faire style swoosh and shimmer, strum and soar, is definitely somewhat balanced by occasional bursts of fantastically dramatic triumphant metal majesty and churning, chugging murky blackened buzz, which are also coincidentally infused with plenty of pomp and majesty, and still more folky flutter.
Meads fans will freak for sure, but anyone into pagan blackness, or metallic folk, or just strange high concept folk infused heaviness, would do well to dig into The Wolves Of Avalon's sonic history of olde Britain.
Previously known as Pussygutt, this male/female duo from Idaho continue to craft grimly powerful blackened folk flecked dronescapes that defy easy categorization. The name Pussygutt probably put off plenty of people, and while Wolvserpent perhaps better captures the group's ominous tone and black metal leanings, it still leaves much about the music, and its makers, quite mysterious.
Two sidelong sprawls, the first a haunting bit of dirgey folk, laid over lush shimmery drones, a gorgeous funeral lament, that only hints at the abject brutality these two are capable of, instead, simply invoking a darkly melancholic mood, eventually guitars drift in, plucking out simple sad melodies, while the strings continue to swirl and soar, gorgeously tense and intense, cinematic and soundtracky. It's not until nearly the nine minute mark that the drums come in, as do the electric guitars, laying down a sort of skeletal doom framework, a different kind of downtuned slowbuild creep, pounding drums, muted riffage, the strings and Sunroof!-like drones growing in intensity, a super intense bit of droney tribal drift, but with an odd start stop arrangement, peppering the lush droning plod with little bits of more traditionally metallic riffage. Eventually some shrieked vocals swoop in, and the song stretches out into a strangley psychedelic epic, a bastardized mix of Godspeed like post rock, avant ur-drone drift, funeral doom, and glacial black metal buzz, all muted and blurred as if mixed by Tim Hecker.
The flipside takes up right where the first side left off, long layered high end tones, a lush undulating upper register dronescape, haunting and hypnotically shimmery, before finally lurching into some seriously metallic crunch, a lumbering doomy dirge, buzzing riffs, caveman drums, all wrapped in swirling swaths of reverbed vocals and superdistorted streaks of ambient melody, erupting into occasional blasts of uptempo chuggery, but always slipping back into that stuttery creep, and constantly wreathed in a lush otherworldly sonic haze.
Like Pussygutt before, Wolvserpent continue to hone their unclassifiable sound, a melding together of dark hushed folk, minimal drone music, and blackened dooooooom. Their name change probably won't really make 'em much more commercially appealing, but who needs that, when you're ruling the darkened otherworld of psychedelic avant heaviness???
We made Wolvserpent's Blood Seed lp our Record Of The Week on list #358 back in November of last year, Wolvserpent being the group previously known as Pussygutt, a male/female duo from Idaho capable of crafting grimly powerful blackened folk flecked dronescapes that defy easy categorization. And as we mentioned then, the name Pussygutt probably put off plenty of people, thus the shift to Wolvserpent, and while that name definitely better captures the group's ominous tone and black metal leanings, it still leaves much about the music, and its makers, quite mysterious.
Yet for as much as we dug Pussygutt, and love their new Wolvserpent incarnation, we somehow managed to miss completely, the Wolvserpent lp that preceded Blood Seed, a record called Gathering Strengths. Thankfully, the mighty Crucial Blast have stepped in, and combined both Blood Seed AND Gathering Strengths into a handsome double disc compendium, the first disc of which, is the first time on cd for the aforementioned Blood Seed, two epic sprawls, the first a haunting bit of dirgey folk, laid over lush shimmery drones, a gorgeous funeral lament, that only hints at the abject brutality these two are capable of, instead, simply invoking a darkly melancholic mood, eventually guitars drift in, plucking out simple sad melodies, while the strings continue to swirl and soar, gorgeously tense and intense, cinematic and soundtracky. It's not until nearly the nine minute mark that the drums come in, as do the electric guitars, laying down a sort of skeletal doom framework, a different kind of downtuned slowbuild creep, pounding drums, muted riffage, the strings and Sunroof!-like drones growing in intensity, a super intense bit of droney tribal drift, but with an odd start stop arrangement, peppering the lush droning plod with little bits of more traditionally metallic riffage. Eventually some shrieked vocals swoop in, and the song stretches out into a strangley psychedelic epic, a bastardized mix of Godspeed like post rock, avant ur-drone drift, funeral doom, and glacial black metal buzz, all muted and blurred as if mixed by Tim Hecker.
The second 'movement' takes up right where the first left off, long layered high end tones, a lush undulating upper register dronescape, haunting and hypnotically shimmery, before finally lurching into some seriously metallic crunch, a lumbering doomy dirge, buzzing riffs, caveman drums, all wrapped in swirling swaths of reverbed vocals and superdistorted streaks of ambient melody, erupting into occasional blasts of uptempo chuggery, but always slipping back into that stuttery creep, and constantly wreathed in a lush otherworldly sonic haze.
Which brings us to Gathering Strengths, originally released on lp by Olde English Spelling Bee back in 2009, like Blood Seed, a single track split into two epic parts, the first, subtitled "Silence Within", begin with the chirping of crickets, which is soon joined by some haunting distant low end thrum, a dreamlike swell, which is soon joined by a more intense layer of buzzing tones, overlapping woodwinds, rife with mysterious overtones, a creepy harmony, the buzz and shimmer drifting in and out, the minimal drift gradually coalescing into an intense bit of dronemusic, like a blackened Phil Niblock, while off in the distance, barely there percussion surfaces, fragmented slo-mo rhythms, while more and more layers are piled on top, super intense and trancelike, until the woodwinds drift off, leaving a feedback laced stretch of blackdronedrift, softly clattery and corrosive, A wolf Eyes-ian industrial sprawl, that transforms into some hauntingly lovely gypsy like folk, driven by a mournful fiddle melody, the sound swells and smolders, all lilting melodies, and cinematic atmosphere, the vibe like a doom folk Astor Piazolla, that is until a MASSIVE avalanche of washed out downtuned doomcrush rolls in, that gorgeous fiddle now all tangled up in a heaving SUNNO)))-like churn, which manages to be both brutal and blackened, dreamy and so totally lovely. Impossibly pretty heaviness, this whole double disc worth it for that 5 or 6 minute stretch alone.
But there's still the second part, that one subtitled "Spirit Walker", this one starts off in seriously gorgeous drone-folk mode, the band laying down a lush, mesmerizing, hauntingly tense layered drone backdrop, over which the violin keens and cries, accompanied by simple shamanistic drumming, the result a darkly mesmerizing glimpse into some lost forest glade, where some shadowy priest like visages are gathered around dancing black flames, conjuring up spirits from another realm, but like the first track, this one too gradually grows heavier, with the addition of a slow thick dirge-y doomy riff, not super distorted or grumbly, but more softly buzzy, the chords ringing out and fading until they seem to bleed into the sounds around them, only to have the next chord take over, what we said about the last few minutes of the first track, well, we could say it about this whole track, worth the price of admission all on its own, a hazy tranced out chunk of heavy, heady, forest folk drone drift bliss.
Both records are incredible, and work amazingly well together, and like Pussygutt before, Wolvserpent continue to hone their unclassifiable sound, a melding together of dark hushed folk, minimal drone music, and blackened dooooooom. Their name change probably won't really make 'em much more commercially appealing, but who needs that, when you're ruling the darkened otherworld of psychedelic avant heaviness???
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This is a seriously intense slab of creepy crawly, droning, haunting, throbbing, pulsing weirdness. Womb was touted to us as an experimental jazz record, but whatever jazz-isms might be found, if they're there at all, are buried in a viscous murky ambient tarpit of rumbling whir and spare percussive clatter. Sort of like a NNCK drone record or Thomas Koner Remixing Sunburned Hand Of The Man. Gorgeously minimal and deeply drone-y and only mildly jazzy. A definite must own for all you free folkers and dronologists out there.
Dark, ritualistic, blackened ambience, and experimental psychedelic black metal from members of Dead Reptile Shrine, Ride For Revenge, Will Over Matter, Blutleuchte and Cloama, all of whom we've raved about separately on the aQ list before, and who have all come together to create this hour long songsuite, that fuses twisted electronics, shimmering kosmische drift, minimal percussive post industrial murk, and tranced out hypno-psych mesmer. Separated into four movements, and given titles like "Satan Universe Moloch", "Bug Humanity", "She male Vegetarian" and "Neptunean Crystal Rain", at first blush, the sound seems to fall closest to the weirdo minimal electronics of Will Over Matter, the opener laying down a gristly sprawl of glitched out electronic buzz, but bolstered by some dreamy, almost krautrock sounding guitar, a twisted kosmische / avant electronic hybrid, those guitars soon dropping out, leaving a wild tangle of damaged FX and mutated synths, a darkly chaotic blacknoise, that eventually resolves into some dark, almost John Carpenter sounding cinematic dronemusic. Those hazy soundtracky atmospherics bleed into the second track, this time accompanied by some twisted vocalizations, wreathed in static and distortion, and drifting beneath thick undulating sheets of synth, everything peppered with bursts of glitch and crackle, moody and ominous, haunting but weirdly tranquil. Soon industrial rhythms surface and enter the fray, they remain muted and in the background, while once again, the electronics take over, this time drifting atop mutated vocals, pitch shifted and heavily effected, not to mention fluctuating fields of woozy melodies and strange, damaged samples.
It's not until track three ("She Male Vegetarian") that there's any actual black metal, and even then, there's a buzzing blackened main riff, but instead of exploding into a furious blast, that riff lumbers ominously through fields of chaotic murky drumming, the result much more trancelike and weirdly hypnotic, and quickly that riff splinters into a weird stretch of chiming distorted harmonics, and tangled sonic skree, before slipping back into the black churn, now joined by more guitars, the sound more lush and expansive, but still woozy and stumbling, you can definitely hear the Dead Reptile Shrine here, but before you know it, the sound shifts, transformed into a lovely bit of soft synth ambience, before once again, exploding into a field of blackened power electronics, smeared into something droned out and murkily mesmerizing, finishing off with what sounds like a bit of sampled Finnish folk. Finally, the close is announced by the sound of thunder, which is quickly subsumed by some bleak, blurry, tinny black metal riffage, smeared into staticky swaths of blacknoise, laced with moaning, anguished vokills, the sound growing gradually less and less noisy and buzzy, another barrage of alien electronics soon taking over, the record finishing off with a weird bit of black ambient electronic ritualism, that grows more hushed and haunting, before fading out completely.
Twisted and lovely, bleak and black, mysterious and bizarre, minimal and murky, fans of any / all of the members' other projects will no doubt dig. But best be quick, this is LIMITED TO 200 COPIES!!!! These are the ONLY copies we will ever be able to get, and once they're gone, they are gone for good!!!
We didn't really know too much about Women (insert joke here!), we missed their self-titled debut completely, but this new one is really fantastic, a hazy, reverby dark pop record, but unlike the legion of lo-fi homebrewed retro rockers, this is a gorgeously lush, expansive and seriously experimental record. The blurred, snowswept front cover is what caught our eye, and the music inside is the perfect soundtrack, channeling the sort of gauzy washed out blurriness we love so much (a la Jeck, Hecker, etc.), but winds it all up with a more classic sounding dour pop.
The record opener is the perfect example, a lush, layered swirl of sound, a muted high end skree, wrapped around a minimal almost Joy Division-y bassline, the vocals laid back and wreathed in delay, those weird textural high end parts adding a strange bit of melody, the song drones and drifts, the sounds growing more and more effulgent, the buzzes thicker, the hazy atmospheres pulsing and undulating, it's hard to describe, almost like an Interpol demo, covered by some eighties industrial band, played back at the wrong speed during a performance by Philip Jeck. That sounds pretty goddamn great, and it is.
The whole record is not nearly as murky and abstract, the band mix in some more traditional pop, angular guitar jangle, propulsive drumming, squiggly atonal melodies, low slung bass, a sort of broody new wave one second, jangly Byrds-y strum the next, but always just a little twisted and obscured, whether it's bits of distortion, or thick swaths of crumbling distorted ambience, the sound as varied as it is, manages to flow so organically, the whole thing so hypnotic and inviting.
The title track is total slocore dream pop, Galaxie 500 by way of Beach House, while "Bells" is not actually bells, but instead, a lush, thick, softly distorted gorgeously layered dronescape. "China Steps" is a loping bit of drone drenched post punk, but infused with plenty of warm whirring luster, the song flitting from looped dirgey mesmer to clanging crashing crunch, "Untogether" is a woozy bit of hazy soft psychpop drift, but laced with streaks of buzzing hiss, the whole rest of the record unfurls as a collection of lazy sun dappled dreampop, like Pavement meets Interpol meets Best Coast, but the residual buzz and blur of that opening track, clinging subtly to the otherwise hooky jangle.
Definitely a new favorite.
Emotional Rescue returns with another obscure Woo reissue originally only released as a cassette in 1990. For some avid Woo fans, this one has been heralded as an all out favorite, and indeed it is a incredibly strong addition to their already reissued catalog which we can't seem to get enough of. Marked notably by a more ethereal atmosphere made with digital synthesizers along with the acoustic guitar and oboe that has trademarked their sound previously. The arrangements still acoustically rhythmic but with less of a restless rush, and there is a greater presence of vocals, but not overtly so. In fact the first vocal track "Make Me Tea" is one of our favorite tracks with a lilting female backup vocal and gentle lullaby delivery. Their Durutti Column meets Cluster meets Penguin Cafe Orchestra vibe remains in tact, but with greater nuance on the details. That may be because of its new remastering, but this is really aurally quite deep and beautifully delicate, becoming at times more about the spaces between sounds than the sounds themselves.
Their is a vinyl version of which we have a couple of copies (just ask!) but will wait until we can get more before we highlight here. One thing to note however is that only 18 of the original 22 cassette tracks are on the vinyl version, and annoyingly "Make Me Tea" was left off the vinyl version and released as a separate 7" that we haven't been able to get. All the tracks are included on the cd however. Regardless, this is an amazing release, and a great place to start with this remarkable duo as any!
We have been wondering for a while now how long it would take for someone to reissue anything from this blithely influential but stubbornly obscurist brotherly duo, Woo, whose homespun DIY take on left-field new age-y electronic pastoral music has gone from largely ignored to rapturously revered over the span of 30 years since their debut. You can hear strains of their influence now in the music of Sun Araw, Ducktails, Nite Jewel, Animal Collective, Balam Acab, Washed Out and Caribou. But Woo's sound is not that easy to pin down, and It's Cozy Inside, the group's second album from 1989 (seven years on from their 1982 debut, Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Going Wrong), is as ethereal and intangibly beguiling now as it ever was.
Woo can best be described as a mix of Cluster and Durutti Column, two outfits separated by time and geography that delved deeply into the gentler realm of pastoral music while at the same time pushing the sounds to the edge of experimental composition through texture and effects. Add to this the bedroom recording techniques of Cleaners From Venus, the classical exotica of Penguin Cafe Orchestra, the ethereal imaginary soundtracks of Bill Nelson, the wide-eyed romanticism of Virgina Astley's From Gardens Where We Feel Secure, and even the most genteel side of Throbbing Gristle or Chris and Cosey (of course at their most lethargic, far divorced from any heavy industrial sensibility) and we're getting closer to an apt description of the singular sound universe of Woo.
Yet this album is much much weirder then any comparisons we can attribute to it. Newly remastered, it still sounds like it was made for falling asleep to, its subtle textural effects of woozy synthesizers, clarinet and heavily affected acoustic guitar, don't necessarily create fully formed songs, but short serpentine instrumental vignettes that stream from one piece to the next, creating a strange filmic dream world that is difficult to get your head around. Its mutant take on new age and classical forms are hardly meditative kosmiche as much as they are a kind of worried ambient minimalism, the sound gathering in watery pools of texture and mood, breaking off and reforming in surprising ways. Eschewing a big impactful sound, Woo make a genial refusal of high-end sonic dynamics instead finding a softly-treaded yet eccentric path through a dazzling aural river that ebbs and flows in a way that most bands of the time would hardly dare to go. Woo's subtle brilliance may take awhile to unfold, but its rewards are plenty. With many bands mining vintage new age music, it's amazing that Woo's unique sound has rarely, if ever, been truly duplicated. Beautiful, mesmerizing and of course, highly recommended!
Can we ever get enough Woo? No! We've made both reissues of their first and second albums Records of The Week, and now Drag City gives us an incredible collection of previously unreleased tracks culled from hours of recordings that span a range from 1976 to 1990, and it's like unearthing a lost record that has been tinkered with deliberate slowness over a dozen years. The alchemy of the twin brother's signature sound: acoustic guitar, clarinet, toy instruments, percussion and vocals woven around synthesizers and programmed rhythms, creates a strangely melodic amalgam of future and past sounds, like Django Reinhardt, Geoff Muldaur (who wrote "Brazil"!) and Penguin Cafe Orchestra filtered through electric currents and becoming something more dreamier, but still slightly alien and weirdly hypnotic, and oh so beautiful. Seriously can't get enough of this! Highest Recommendation!
We made the 2012 Drag City reissue of Woo's 1989 album It's Cozy Inside, Record of the Week, but upon hearing this recent reissue of the group's 1982 debut, Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Going Wrong, we knew with even MORE certainty that we had to make it a Record of the Week as well. We have been playing this constantly in the store for weeks, and with each listen becoming more enamored with its blithe mosaic of introspective soundscapes and quiet pop-jazz sensibilities. Reissued by Emotional Rescue a few months ago, we wanted to list this sooner, but the vinyl version had already sold out (it's being repressed, we're told), but we have the cd version while supplies last, so we recommend you act fast.
By the time It's Cozy Inside was released, the eccentric brothers Mark and Clive Ives' highly individualized method of making music using acoustic guitar, bass and clavinet processed through synthesizers to create strange hybrids of jazz and pastoral electronica was largely dialed in. But on their debut, with its compelling title and cover depicting a young child surrounded by the authority figures of religion, politics and academia all pointing in opposing directions and acting as a personal manifesto for forging ahead on one's own unique path, the sound is at once more open ended, searching and strange than the later record. Intermixing buoyant melodic passages with serpentine experimental sonic arrangements and rhythms, Woo sounds like a band made up of way more than just the two brothers. The opener, "Swingtime" is the perfect start. An intricate and bright melody punctuated by drum machine, labyrinthine bass and acoustic guitar, sounding like the crystalline guitar lines of Durutti Column, before suddenly dropping into the hot gurgling percussive ambiance of "Pokhara" with its Middle Eastern guitar sounds, made from sped up dubbed out rhythms. Each track melds into the next like an alien and otherworldly soundtrack, or more aptly, like aliens hearing the early jazz melodies of Django Reinhardt for the first time and trying to emulate that sound using modern technology. The sound is gentle, but never quite relaxing. Nothing stays at rest, but at the same time, nothing is rushed either. Moody and pensive, the layered acoustic guitar work is incredible, as it anchors the tenuous atmospheric backing of electronics and muddled loping rhythms. "Razorblades" channels the Brian Enoish side of David Bowie's Low into a dense and worried jazz deconstruction. The one vocal track, "The Attic" is a dreamy pop masterpiece seemingly transported from Factory Record's Benolux imprint or Les Disques du Crepuscule, two Belgian based labels that focused on the dreamier side of European new wave avant-garde pop in the eighties. Anyone who's a fan of those labels, and bands like Antena, early Thomas Dolby, John Foxx, Bill Nelson and later Tuxedo Moon as well as solo releases by Steve Brown, Benjamn Lew and Peter Principle, will find a kindred spirit in Woo's epic gentleness. We were playing this one day when ex-Yellow Swan Pete Swanson paid us a visit and he asked us what was playing. He had been told by many friends that he should definitely look into Woo, but listening to the track playing, he couldn't really understand why. But Woo is not a band you can just check out a track and get it right off. It's disarmingly soft in a way that may come off as wimpy at first, but it eventually gets under your skin in ways that are subtle and mysterious and then you can't stop listening.
A beautifully elastic and hard to pin down musical force. Limited!
Subdued, drowsy and so pretty! This is the music that bridges awake and asleep. The languid instrumentation flows along gracefully as the sparse percussion taps out a gentle rhythm, but Woodbine's all about the vocals - layers of whispers, murmurs and sighs. Actually you might recognize vocalist Susan Dillane from her recent appearance on the Dirty Vegas album, however, this is nothing like that group at all! In fact it often brought to mind the considerably more innocent pop of Adventures In Stereo's dreamalicious Monomania album. That said, Woodbine does occasionally veer into late night woozy, chemically altered trip hop territory. Surprisingly they've been around since '95 but this is their full length debut!
As far as we're concerned, Austin's American Analog Set were one of the most underrated indie-rock-pop-emo bands of the late '90s and early '00s. They made some of the most hushed and moody bedroom indie rock we had ever heard, crating the perfect music for lazily relaxing with that special someone, but equally ideal for those lonely nights with only your memories to keep you warm. AAS had the earnest sincerity of Death Cab For Cutie, but also displayed a maturity in sound and scope that appealed to fans of folks like Low and Red House Painters. At the helm of American Analog Set was Andrew Kenney, who possesses one of our favorite voices...just so damn pretty! Soft and comforting and emotive without resorting to whining or typical indie boy tortured mewling. While we were sad to see American Analog Set call it quits a few years back (they should/could have been bigger than The Shins and DCFC!) we were super excited to see that Kenney has a brand new project Wooden Birds, and the Birds' sound pretty much encapsulates everything we loved so much about his old band. Slow and steady, warm melodies tucked tightly into each song, and Kenney's voice sounding as seductive and entrancing as ever. Nothing that Kenny does ever feels forced or heavy handed, he's able to deliver sentimental songs that slowly melt their way into your ears and wrap around your body like that amazing soft blanket you've had since you were little and wouldn't trade for the world. So nice!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Not really sure what needs to be said about psych rockers Wooden Shjips, that we probably haven't covered in our multiple and voluminous reviews of past Shjips records. We've long championed the drowsy, druggy kraut-psych of these local boys (although they're not all local anymore), and have heaped praise upon praise on each and every records, and we should warn you right up front, that this one's not gonna be any different. Cuz it's another great Shjips record, brimming fuzzy guitars, motorik rhythms, simple loping basslines, and echo drenched Velvets/Doors style lugubrious and laid back vox, the songs not so much songs, as jams, no super obvious verse or choruses, instead, much like WS offshoot Moon Duo, these guys pick a riff and lock in, most of the songs, consisting of not more than two parts, but two parts is plenty, for these guys to conjure up a moody sprawl of sonic mesmer, that sounds bit like Hawkwind dosed on horse tranquilizers, the same sort of endless heart-of-the-sun jamming, but dialed down, and stretched way out, not explosive or bombastic, as much as tranced out and hypnotic, and the solos, not so freaked out, more textural and melodic, whether it's guitar or organ, the solos wind their way around the riffs, and become an organic part of the Shjips' hypnorock jammage. On first listen, we were convinced that the band had jettisoned much of the krautrock influence of the earlier records, our theory being that mainman Ripley Johnson took it with him when he formed his new group Moon Duo, which IS heavy on the krautrock, but the more we listen, the more that krautrock influence asserts itself, due in no small part to the endless repetition and the stripped down minimal rhythms, with many of the tracks here sounding like a supercharged, cranked up Can, albeit filtered through some fuzzy sixties garage rock. However you slice it, it's seriously good stuff, head nodding, mesmeric, tranced out, stoned and dreamily druggy, heady, and in its own laid back psychedelic way, also sort of heavy, but like 'heeeavy, maaaaan'. There are a surprising number of uptempo jams, but even those retain the laid back vibe that infuses most of the more druggy droney numbers, it's hard to say if this is the best Shjips record, or our new favorite, but probably safer to say that it's just another great record, from a great band we still dig a while lot. And certainly closer "Everybody Knows" might be the catchiest, poppiest Shjips track yet!
The cd comes in a 4 panel mini lp style gatefold sleeve, wrapped in a custom die cut O-card, pretty swank. And while they last, we have the super ultra deluxe limited lp version, green vinyl, housed in a heavy gatefold jacket with glossy UV printing (on the inside too), and also wrapped in a die cut slipcase - and it comes with a bonus 7" with two songs, "Colors" and an acoustic version of album track "These Shadows"!!! (Oh, and we've got a few of the limited cassette version too, nothing deluxe about it, but it's a cassette.)
Not really sure what needs to be said about psych rockers Wooden Shjips, that we probably haven't covered in our multiple and voluminous reviews of past Shjips records. We've long championed the drowsy, druggy kraut-psych of these local boys (although they're not all local anymore), and have heaped praise upon praise on each and every records, and we should warn you right up front, that this one's not gonna be any different. Cuz it's another great Shjips record, brimming fuzzy guitars, motorik rhythms, simple loping basslines, and echo drenched Velvets/Doors style lugubrious and laid back vox, the songs not so much songs, as jams, no super obvious verse or choruses, instead, much like WS offshoot Moon Duo, these guys pick a riff and lock in, most of the songs, consisting of not more than two parts, but two parts is plenty, for these guys to conjure up a moody sprawl of sonic mesmer, that sounds bit like Hawkwind dosed on horse tranquilizers, the same sort of endless heart-of-the-sun jamming, but dialed down, and stretched way out, not explosive or bombastic, as much as tranced out and hypnotic, and the solos, not so freaked out, more textural and melodic, whether it's guitar or organ, the solos wind their way around the riffs, and become an organic part of the Shjips' hypnorock jammage. On first listen, we were convinced that the band had jettisoned much of the krautrock influence of the earlier records, our theory being that mainman Ripley Johnson took it with him when he formed his new group Moon Duo, which IS heavy on the krautrock, but the more we listen, the more that krautrock influence asserts itself, due in no small part to the endless repetition and the stripped down minimal rhythms, with many of the tracks here sounding like a supercharged, cranked up Can, albeit filtered through some fuzzy sixties garage rock. However you slice it, it's seriously good stuff, head nodding, mesmeric, tranced out, stoned and dreamily druggy, heady, and in its own laid back psychedelic way, also sort of heavy, but like 'heeeavy, maaaaan'. There are a surprising number of uptempo jams, but even those retain the laid back vibe that infuses most of the more druggy droney numbers, it's hard to say if this is the best Shjips record, or our new favorite, but probably safer to say that it's just another great record, from a great band we still dig a while lot. And certainly closer "Everybody Knows" might be the catchiest, poppiest Shjips track yet!
.
Not really sure what needs to be said about psych rockers Wooden Shjips, that we probably haven't covered in our multiple and voluminous reviews of past Shjips records. We've long championed the drowsy, druggy kraut-psych of these local boys (although they're not all local anymore), and have heaped praise upon praise on each and every records, and we should warn you right up front, that this one's not gonna be any different. Cuz it's another great Shjips record, brimming fuzzy guitars, motorik rhythms, simple loping basslines, and echo drenched Velvets/Doors style lugubrious and laid back vox, the songs not so much songs, as jams, no super obvious verse or choruses, instead, much like WS offshoot Moon Duo, these guys pick a riff and lock in, most of the songs, consisting of not more than two parts, but two parts is plenty, for these guys to conjure up a moody sprawl of sonic mesmer, that sounds bit like Hawkwind dosed on horse tranquilizers, the same sort of endless heart-of-the-sun jamming, but dialed down, and stretched way out, not explosive or bombastic, as much as tranced out and hypnotic, and the solos, not so freaked out, more textural and melodic, whether it's guitar or organ, the solos wind their way around the riffs, and become an organic part of the Shjips' hypnorock jammage. On first listen, we were convinced that the band had jettisoned much of the krautrock influence of the earlier records, our theory being that mainman Ripley Johnson took it with him when he formed his new group Moon Duo, which IS heavy on the krautrock, but the more we listen, the more that krautrock influence asserts itself, due in no small part to the endless repetition and the stripped down minimal rhythms, with many of the tracks here sounding like a supercharged, cranked up Can, albeit filtered through some fuzzy sixties garage rock. However you slice it, it's seriously good stuff, head nodding, mesmeric, tranced out, stoned and dreamily druggy, heady, and in its own laid back psychedelic way, also sort of heavy, but like 'heeeavy, maaaaan'. There are a surprising number of uptempo jams, but even those retain the laid back vibe that infuses most of the more druggy droney numbers, it's hard to say if this is the best Shjips record, or our new favorite, but probably safer to say that it's just another great record, from a great band we still dig a while lot. And certainly closer "Everybody Knows" might be the catchiest, poppiest Shjips track yet!
The cd comes in a 4 panel mini lp style gatefold sleeve, wrapped in a custom die cut O-card, pretty swank. And while they last, we have the super ultra deluxe limited lp version, green vinyl, housed in a heavy gatefold jacket with glossy UV printing (on the inside too), and also wrapped in a die cut slipcase - and it comes with a bonus 7" with two songs, "Colors" and an acoustic version of album track "These Shadows"!!! (Oh, and we've got a few of the limited cassette version too, nothing deluxe about it, but it's a cassette.)
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The first sighting on anything Wooden Shjips related is usually all it takes to induce mass hysteria around these parts. Apparently, you, our loyal customers, feel the same, because man, we have sold a fuckload of Shjips records. We just can't get enough, and these guys deliver without fail every time. And now, right after their amazing Dos record, comes yet another offering, a two song 12" single featuring a Serge Gainsbourg composition, originally written for and performed by Brigitte Bardot, and a new version of "I Hear The Vibrations", which first appeared on the group's insanely limited Vampire Blues tour 7".
It's doubtful that anyone expected Wooden Shjips to go all French pop on us here. They don't. Instead, "Contact" sounds like the Wooden Shjips we all know and love, with warm bass grooves holding the foundation over a cool, midtempo drum beat with a nice tambourine accent. Bursts of filtered fuzz and wah guitar bubble and whoosh about as the organ pulses rhythmically, and the vocals, sung in French, add the perfect amount of mystery to this hazy rocker.
As awesome as "Contact" is, it's the flipside that really has everyone here going crazy. Why? Because "I Hear The Vibrations" is simply one of the coolest Wooden Ships songs to date, that's why. The song somehow manages to be both mellow and cosmically heavy, not in a typical "heavy" way, just... huge. It's a lumbering behemoth of hazed out stoner majesty that would go on forever if we had our way. To anyone - "anyone" being pretty much the majority of the human race - who hasn't heard this one yet, you'll just have to trust us. It's fucking essential. The few of you who actually got a hold of the 7" will also find a reason to snap up this son-a-bitch, because the version presented here (the "E-Z Version" according to the credits) is definitely the way to go. To quote the Mexican Summer website, it is " slower, grander, heavier, and dreamier, and takes full advantage of the 12" format for better fidelity and a truly blissful listening experience." Yep, pretty much. It's everything that was great about the song to begin with, but MORE of it in every conceivable way. Sooooooooooo so awesome.
But, like most things of this nature, and like everything on Mexican Summer, this is super limited, with only a scant 550 copies to be distributed throughout the globe (though we're told there will be second, equally limited pressing done soon). It also comes with a download card, but really, the best way to listen to this is stoned in your room with the lights on low and the stereo cranked all the way, not on your iPod on a crowded bus. The record itself, pressed on asskicking white vinyl, comes housed in a cool disco sleeve that was printed on a variety of colors. We just hope everybody likes green.
Once again, we can't recommend this band highly enough. When you listen, you'll realize that Wooden Shjips have done all the thinking for you and given you exactly what you wanted. Did we mention this was limited? Ready. Set. GO!!!!
Everybody went completely nuts for the Wooden Shjips 10" we reviewed a while back (ourselves included) so we were super psyched to get our hands on this brand new two track 7" single. Packaged very much like the 10", clear vinyl, no artwork, barely any info, no sleeve, just a clear plastic sleeve, these two tracks are also quite sonically similar to the 10" and has us jonesing for a full length.
Side one is a buzzy lo-fi garage groove, beneath bizarre super distorted insectoid guitar leads, buzzing WAY up in the mix and sounding almost like some primitive malfunctioning synth. But the whole time, beneath the alien buzz, the groove just hums along, like some extra baked Velvet Underground outtake.
Side two is way more laid back, some blown out sun baked riffage, a super lazy groove, like Loop played at 16rpm, decorated with warm hornlike melodies that eventually stretch out into some serious outerspace psych rock explorations. The vocals we loved so much on the 10: resurface here too, laconic, drawled sung/spoken and super affected, very Lou Reed sounding albeit buried way down in the mix and absolutely drenched in thick reverb and fuzzy delay.
Awesome! ----* ----* Selected New Arrivals : ----*
Wooden Shjips are the kind of band that inspire rabid devotion, and not without good reason. They are, in their own distinct way, a perfect band, stripping psychedelia of all its unnecessary flourishes and focusing, REALLY focusing on the fundamental elements that make your favorite songs your favorite songs. No verses, no choruses, no frills, and no bullshit. Just an endless, hypnotic groove that allows the listener to tune out everything else and let the music take them where they need to be. This simplicity is also the band's greatest source of power. While other groups will work desperately to cultivate an image as a "psychedelic" band, Wooden Shjips bypass all that and instead let their music speak for itself. The results are always mesmerizing, not to mention somewhat strange and mysterious, the only logical outcome from four guys who must know exactly what they are doing and understand the importance of working together as a unit instead of showing off their individual musical chops, save the abundance of perfectly timed, ripping fuzz guitar solos. The songs on the band's self-titled debut and their collection of early singles are at once classic and modern, seeming as if they had existed forever and simply needed to be unlocked and revealed by the right musicians. In that respect, we should consider ourselves very lucky that Wooden Shjips exist NOW.
When news of a new Shjips record hit the streets, we aQuarians were foaming at the mouth wondering what might lie ahead. Then one day, without warning, Dos was here, the four disembodied heads on the cover staring forward like totem poles floating in silver space. While the first album featured a hazy image of the band sitting on a stairwell, their faces are the focal point here, almost as if Wooden Shjips are gradually revealing more to the mystery that is their existence. But what does it sound like? Well, hopefully our review can convince you of this album's absolute majesty... but since words could never properly explain how much this has struck some of us, you should probably check out the sound samples, and above all, trust us.
The album opens perfectly with "Motorbike", possibly the most joyous Wooden Shjips song to date. Swirling guitar chords and oscillating swooshes give one the feeling of traveling at high speeds through some glorious psychedelic vortex, throttling you about in the best way imaginable. It's the sort of song that makes you feel great to be alive, with catchy keyboard melodies recalling a more frantic version of the Modern Lovers' "Roadrunner" as the UNSTOPPABLE rhythm section lays down a steady rhythmic framework that doesn't let up for the next 38 minutes. Next up is "For So Long", maybe our favorite song on the record. Driven by a bass line that is both spooky and relentlessly catchy, sparse, percussive guitar and organ creep about, as singer Ripley's deep croon wavers in the atmosphere. The somewhat ambivalent vibe of this song makes it the ideal soundtrack to pretty much any moment in your day, whether strolling down the street without a care in the world OR walking home late at night in some paranoid daze. "Down By The Sea" utilizes an appropriate underwater effect on the organ as the bass and drums give you the impression of, well, walking down by the sea. About three minutes in, a classic Wooden Shjips guitar solo enters and eventually morphs into squalls of heavenly white noise. This wonderful psych excursion is followed by the more down tempo "Aquarian Time", featuring a cool tremeloed organ (or maybe it's a piano?) and a devastating fuzz guitar groove that locks in with the bass before another rad guitar solo takes you way up into the clouds. The closing number, "Fallin'", kicks off with a simple two note groove, accented by a reedy organ accompanying the bass and a glistening, cleanly strummed guitar while a simple snare hit keeps the percussive flow going, the work of a man who must surely be in a trance - seriously, how the hell does this guy play so steady for so long?!?! It puts you deep under the band's spell, and then, at the 4 minute mark, you are introduced to the CATCHIEST BASS LINE OF THE YEAR!!! It will stick in your head for ages. After 11 minutes, the song ends with an organ chord and amp hum, reminding you that, yes, Wooden Shjips are human beings and not just a psychedelic rock machine. It's like the band is stopping to breathe for a moment before the next adventure, which hopefully will come very soon. You are left wondering what just happened, and if you're like us, you'll immediately put Dos on for another spin (or, if you're like a certain AQ staffer, 9 or 10 more spins!).
The overall sound on Dos is more upfront and less murky than on past releases. This slightly higher fidelity suits Wooden Shjips splendidly, as these five songs are generally tighter and more snappingly rhythmic than anything they have produced before. Each instrument is represented perfectly in the mix, with nothing taking precedence. The nonstop propulsion of this group is undoubtedly the result of four people operating on another level of psychedelic comprehension, a level many other bands simply don't understand. At the same time, their music is highly enjoyable and not difficult to "get". We certainly get it...
To call Dos "essential" wouldn't be enough. We can tell you that this album exceeded any expectations we may have had. We can tell you how if anyone interrupts you while listening to this, you will be pretty pissed and will most likely ignore them and crank up the volume even more. We can tell you that it will remain one of our favorite records for 2009. But you probably just need to close your eyes and experience it for yourself.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
San Francisco psych-lords Wooden Shjips have definitely got the Christmas spirit this year! They've recorded a gift-wrapped "cassingle" featuring their interpretations of two seasonal hits, "O Tannenbaum" and "Auld Lang Syne", 8+ minutes each, suitably psyched-up Wooden Shjips style!! How cool is that. Even cooler, ALL proceeds from our sale of each of these - the whole five bucks - go directly to the SF Food Bank as a donation, as per WS's request. And doesn't "cassingle" seem Christmas-y? 'Cause it sounds like "jingle", as in bells, y'know.
Of course, this tape is a limited edition release. Only 100 copies made, not all of which are for sale (the WS giving away the rest to friends and family as Xmas gifts, naturally). They let us have 35 copies, and needless to say, better act fast if you want to stuff somebody's stocking with one of these, 'cause they'll be gone faster than you can say "Kris Kringle". Or "cassingle". First come, first served, ONE per customer, regardless if you've been naughty or nice.
Collectors should be excited about this "warehouse find"! Our pal JW who runs the Holy Mountain label just discovered a stash of these long out of print Wooden Shjips Sub Pop singles, and sold 'em to us... the tracks latter appeared on WS's Volume 2 collection, but we figure there's folks who are obsessive WS collectors - or who just like 7"s - who would want these. We just a have a handful, and when they're gone, they're quite gone. And they're cheap, too!
Here's some of what we said about this single when we originally listed it in 2007:
We shouldn't have to say very much at all about this brand new 7" from beloved local dronerockers Wooden Shjips, considering how many of their recent full length we sold, same with the self released 7" and 10". It seems like we could just whisper the words "Wooden Shjips" into the internet and all of these records would suddenly just disappear, only to re-appear moments later on turntables around the world. Which, when you think about it, is basically what is about to happen right now.
"Woooooooodennnnnnnnssssshhhhhhhhjjjiiiiiipsssssssssss..."
The A side is classic Wooden Shjips, taking all of their influences and whipping them into a droney druggy blur. Whooshing distorted riffing, heavy on the phaser (so heavy at times, it sounds like maybe it's not just the guitar, like they ran the whole record through a phaser), some warped Stereolab style organs, simple krautrocky drumming, and those hypnotic Jim Morrison / Nick Drake deep crooning vocals. Think a super psychedelic Sabbath, or a heady mix of Flying Saucer Attack, Spacemen 3 and Loop. Cyclical and hypnotic, with a strange almost new wavey chord change / breakdown smack dab in the middle. It's a song that would shoot off way beyond the clouds if the rhythm section didn't keep things perfectly grounded like it does.
The flipside is way more poppy and less droney, a slow psychpop drift, with serpentine guitars, and a gradually increasing tempo, the guitar getting all tangled up with the whirring organ, the whole thing fuzzy and softly propulsive, but with a surprisingly garage-y vibe, reminding us of a more drugged out Sonics, or a more spaced out Fuzztones, especially in the main melody and the higher than usual vocals. It's by far one of the band's most beautiful songs, proving once again that a Wooden Shjips B side is nothing to be taken lightly. Both new tracks are pretty kick ass and fans will most definitely not be disappointed.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Originally released in 2008 as a super limited, gift wrapped cassette tape, given mostly to family and friends (although a handful were available at aQ), this fantastically wintry and washed out chunk of druggy sonic holiday cheer is now available as a super limited 12" (1000 copies, half on green vinyl, half on red)...
San Francisco psych-lords Wooden Shjips have definitely got the Christmas spirit! They've recorded their interpretations of two seasonal hits, "O Tannenbaum" and "Auld Lang Syne", each an 8+ minutes sprawl of druggy psychedelic krautdrone hypnorock bliss.
"O Tannenbaum" begins with jingling bells, an instantly recognizable bassline, and then they're off, a gorgeously hazy, propuslive spacekraut groove. The drums simple and stripped down and motorik, the the guitars gauzy and jangly, everything wreathed in the warm clouds of evershifting organ whir, the track slipping from hypnorock groove, to swirling spaciness and back again. The whole thing is laid back and dreamy, it's not until the last couple minutes that things get revved up, the guitars getting more distorted, the riffage more fuzzed out and gnarled, but before the band can totally let loose, the song dissapears in a squall of feedback, leaving just a field of tinkling bells.
The flipside finds the band welcoming in the new year with the holiday perrenial, "Auld Lang Syne" which begins with a trumpet playing that oh so distinctive melody, the horn seeming to melt and warp before our ears, until in swoops a seriously distorted kick ass main riff, and "Auld Lang Syne" becomes a fierce slab of organ driven spacepsych garagekraut, the guitars fuzzy and fierce, the drums locked tight, solid and motorik, the vocals surprisingly up in the mix, wreathed in tripped out FX, the bass fluid and thick, and the organ, the organ is EVERYWHERE, all over the place, swirling and whirling and swooping from speaker to speaker, fantastically dizzying and WAY psychedelic, almost all of the vestiges of the original washed away by the band's glorious echo drenched space-psych-fuzz crunch. Eventually the guitars join the organs, a wild tangled psychedelic squall, a totally blown out Hawkwind worthy outro, that ends way too soon.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES! 500 on green vinyl, 500 on red vinyl, the color you get will be RANDOM (so don't ask, and ONLY ONE PER CUSTOMER!!
Originally this two song 7" came bundled for free with the vinyl copies we had of the first pressing of Wooden Shjips' latest full length, West. But that lp+7" combo was crazy limited, and of course disappeared in a flash, but NOW, Thrill Jockey has made that 7" finally available on its own, and as you might imagine, it's still crazy limited, so if you missed out the first time around, grab one now while you can. The A side is a non-album track called "Photograph" which features some seriously heavy guitar crunch, and sounds like it could easily have been included on the record proper, while the flipside features a Peaking Lights remix of "Looking Out" from the album (re-titled "Lights Out"), which spaces out the original a bit, makes it a bit dubby, and cranks the druggy Spacemen 3 vibe way up, and in the process manages to make it even more dreamy and psychedelic. In a full color sleeve, the same packaging as the first press...
Ultra limited 12" single from these SF psychedelic space rockers, featuring three tracks, reworked, reimagined and remixed, by Spectrum from Spacemen 3, Kandodo (aka Simon from heavy psych rockers The Heads!) and strangest of all electronica artists Andrew Weatherall, and if past WS records are any indication, even though we got a whole mess of these, odds are they'll sell out in a flash, and it's very likely that we will NOT be able to get more. Just fair warning.
Andrew Weatherall does seem like an odd choice, but his version is pretty cool nonetheless, he strips it way down, leaving just the bass, and some reverby vocals to drift over a slo-mo house music shuffle, chopping up the vocals into a cool skittery melody, laced with some Synsonics styled eighties Miami Vice drumming, and space age synth pulses, the result is edgy and tense, and definitely ends up sounding like something all the folks into that current wave of retro-futuristic faux eighties Carpenter / Goblin style soundtrackery (a la Zombi, Umberto, Majeure, etc.) would most definitely dig.
Spectrum from the late great Spacemen 3, whose band pretty much set the template for the Shjips, offers up the heaviest remix of the bunch, beginning all woozy and washed out, lots of sweeping backwards effects, dense tangled guitars, building to a serious psychedelic space rock blowout that almost sounds like multiple copies of the original all playing simultaneously, all slightly off, with one spinning backwards, a little like what we would hope a Teenage Filmstars / Wooden Shjips remix might sound like, which means it RULES.
The whole of the B side is taken up by Kandodo's mix, which begins with the basic tracks recorded by the Shjips and then sent overseas to be transformed into a spacey slow motion drug rock dirge, a gorgeous stoned drag, lazy and laid back, spacious and spaced out, the guitars liquid and fluid, the sound swoonsome and super hypnotic, the sound is pretty much locked in, a sprawl of psychedelic hypnorock, laced with all manner of squiggly guitars, and murky blurred melody, the perfect, nodding off drifting off comedown space-drug-psych jam for sure!
LIMITED TO 2500 COPIES! Which does seem like a lot, but see above, you have been warned...
All you music nerd, yeah we're talking to you. You're just like us, you love reading reviews, even of records you already own. But even better is reading about records you've never heard of. And records you're not sure you'd even want to hear. That's where the Siltblog comes in. A sporadically updated site wherein Siltbreeze head honcho Tom Lax reviews all sorts of random and weird records that cross his path. We've definitely discovered some killer stuff, and it's always a totally entertaining read.
Tom wrote about this SF outfit a while back and a few people asked us about it so we got in touch with the band and got a bunch for the store. The Wooden Shjips (huh? we don't get it) aren't as far out as a lot of stuff that gets grilled on the Siltblog, but after a few listens it's easy to see why it's so special. It starts out with a fuzzy garage-y stomp, and it sounds downright indie rock. But then, nothing happens, the groove just sort of locks in and plows forward relentlessly. We began to feel like we were listening to some sort of garage rock Steve Reich. Guitars just sort of buzzing along, blooping new wave bass right underneath, simple solid drumming. But then in swoops some super feedback guitar that sounds like a demented horn section, and before you can examine it more closely it disappears, and we're back to the groove. That happens a few more times before the vocals kick in, sort of sing songy, but SO drenched in delay that the words get all jumbled up and are sort of jettisoned into outer space. There is also a subtle wash of fuzzy keyboards giving the whole thing a sort of Loop vibe. the second track is quite similar except the vocals are a bit more distinct, sort of laid back and mumbly. After a few listens, it became clear that there is some sort of minimal thing going on, but it's more like some lost Velvet Underground track arranged for Reich and Riley. Droney and drifty and druggy and totally mesmerizing.
The final track bucks the trend and instead veers off into some tripped out ambience, with drifting motes of guitar fuckery, random sounds and noises, and some cool creepy backwards vocals. Sort of like an indie hipster freenoise "Revolution #9." Cool.
A single song teaser to these local boys' long awaited full length, coming soon on Holy Mountain. And if you've been digging their past releases (a 7" and a 10") then this brand new single will definitely hit the spot. More of what we love, a relentless, neverending blown out fuzzy groove, all warm whirring organ, fuzz guitar, and throbbing bass, the drums a super solid motorik framework, the vocals sort of sung / spoken, reverb and delay EVERYWHERE, the strangest addition is the haunting horns on the A side, that drift and moan ghost like over the fuzz jam below. One song spread out over two sides, by side 2, the band have locked it in and sound like they are never gonna stop. A looped cyclical minimal fuzzrock jam that sounds almost like some crazy crossbreeding of the Doors and Spacemen 3, which should appeal to Circle, Salvatore and Magyar Posse fans as much as all the druggy psychrock dronesters out there.
Red vinyl, in plain plastic sleeves (like past releases) and all proceeds go to Food Not Bombs...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
People have been chomping at the bit for more Wooden Shjips, and finally, here it is, a tour only 7" that sold out in a flash, and has been repressed in a super limited number so folks who may not have been able to make it out to see 'em play, can finally get their hands on these two new tracks.
The sound of Wooden Shjips has changed very little from last year's full length, but then you know what they say, why fix what ain't broke, and there's nothing broke about WS's glorious druggy din. A washed out retro fuzz drenched blues jam, equal parts Doors and Spacemen 3, the bass a deep relentless pulse, the drums simple and motorik, the guitars unfurling thick clouds of blurred buzz and blissed out riffage, occasionally coalescing into psychedelic leads, but just as quickly dissipating back into the druggy murk, the vocals a lazy drawl, drifting through shimmering clouds of distortion and blurred effects, and of course, the organ, wheezing and whirring, adding a thick warm blanket of chordal buzz over everything. The sound on these two tracks is really much more Spacemen 3 or Loop than Doors, dark and deep and druggy, swirling and lo-fi and fuzz drenched and totally hypnotic. And just maybe enough to tide us over until the next full length...
LIMIT ONE PER CUSTOMER!!!
For those of you who missed out on the limited edition double cd version of the Wooden Shjips debut release on Holy Mountain, here's a proper reissue of that bonus disc, now in a digipack instead of a paper sleeve, and with the addition of the Shjips' now out of print Summer Of Love 7" (never available on cd before!).
This disc has the three tracks from the Shjips debut Shrinking Moon For You 10" and both cuts from their Dance, California / Clouds Over Earthquake 7". We'll try to summarize what we said about these songs before. The music from the 10" starts off with the title cut, a fuzzy garagey stomp, a groove that locks in and plows forward relentlessly. We began to feel like we were listening to some sort of garage rock Steve Reich. Guitars just sort of buzzing along, blooping new wave bass right underneath, simple solid drumming. But then in swoops some super feedback guitar that sounds like a demented horn section, and before you can examine it more closely it disappears, and we're back to the groove. That happens a few more times before the vocals kick in, sort of sing songy, but SO drenched in delay that the words get all jumbled up and are sort of jettisoned into outer space. There is also a subtle wash of fuzzy keyboards giving the whole thing a sort of Loop vibe. the second track is quite similar except the vocals are a bit more distinct, sort of laidback and mumbly. After a few listens, it became clear that there is some sort of minimal thing going on, but it's more like some lost Velvet Underground track arranged for Reich and Riley. Droney and drifty and druggy and totally mesmerizing. The third track bucks the trend and instead veers off into some tripped out ambience, with drifting motes of guitar fuckery, random sounds and noises, and some cool creepy backwards vocals. Sort of like an indie hipster freenoise "Revolution #9." Cool.
The two tracks from the 7" are also quite sonically similar to the 10" cuts. First up, surprise surprise a buzzy lo-fi garage groove, beneath bizarre super distorted insectoid guitar leads, buzzing WAY up in the mix and sounding almost like some primitive malfunctioning synth. But the whole time, beneath the alien buzz, the groove just hums along, like some extra baked Velvet Underground outtake. "Clouds Over Earthquake" is way more laid back, some blown out sun baked riffage, a super lazy groove, like Loop played at 16rpm, decorated with warm hornlike melodies that eventually stretch out into some serious outerspace psych rock explorations. The vocals we loved so much on the 10" resurface here too, laconic, drawled sung/spoken and super affected, very Lou Reed sounding albeit buried way down in the mix and absolutely drenched in thick reverb and fuzzy delay. Awesome!
So those tracks are all here (not in that order though) along with a radio edit of "Dance, California" for completists.
But unlike the bonus disc that came with the first pressing of the Shjips' debut, this disc tacks also on the Summer Of Love 7", an 11+ minute slab of everything we love about these guys: a relentless, neverending blown out fuzzy groove, all warm whirring organ, fuzz guitar, and throbbing bass, the drums a super solid motorik framework, the vocals sort of sung / spoken, reverb and delay EVERYWHERE, the strangest addition are the haunting horns that drift and moan ghost like over the fuzz jam below. By the second half of the track, the band have locked it in and sound like they are never gonna stop. A looped cyclical minimal fuzzrock jam that sounds almost like some crazy crossbreeding of the Doors and Spacemen 3, which should appeal to Circle, Salvatore and Magyar Posse fans as much as all the druggy psychrock dronesters out there.
Anyone who missed out on that bonus disc NEEDS this. For everyone who DID get it (and there are a whole lot of you), you just have to figure out if it's worth buying again to get that extra S.O.L. 7" material on cd.
Either way, killer stuff and absolutely essential!
Few bands around these parts are received with such a fanatical devotion as local heroes Wooden Shjips. Everything they touch turns to gold, and when the band puts out a single, you'd better hop on that shit PRONTO, or else you miss out... until the band graciously collects everything in one essential package. Vol. 2 puts together their most recent, already out of print singles, and like everything on Vol. 1, these songs are just as good, sometimes even BETTER than what you get on their proper full lengths. More than likely most of you probably haven't been able to obtain these songs, so what you get here is as follows: the Sub Pop 7", side 1 of the "Vampire Blues" European tour 7", a live track from yet another Euro tour 7" with the Heads, the Contact 12" on Mexican Summer, and a live track from a Yeti magazine sampler. Everyone of these songs is absolutely amazing and will no doubt bring on tears of joy.
The Sub Pop 7" kicks off with the awesome "Loose Lips", a song that would shoot off way beyond the clouds if the rhythm section didn't keep things perfectly grounded like it does. The song swirls about in classic Shjips fashion with a nice melodic organ lead driving things forward and awesome submerged vocals. Next up is "Start To Dreaming", proving once again that a Wooden Shjips B-side is nothing to be taken lightly. It's by far one of the band's most beautiful songs, starting life with a slow but steady bassline and a mournful guitar lead before the pace picks up and pretty much knocks you out with its unbelievable beauty. Goddamn.
The band's cover of Neil Young's "Vampire Blues" is next, an upbeat rocker reconfigured perfectly for the Shjips' psychedelic approach. "Death's Not Your Friend" is from the split 7" with the Heads, and the band proves they can deliver in a live setting. The song is super rhythmic and dense as hell, a total joy to listen to for both long car rides through god knows where OR solitary walks in the woods, take your pick.
"Contact" is a Shjips' styled cover of a Serge Gainsbourg song, and it moves along at a steady midtempo groove. The song is anchored by a hypnotic bassline, allowing the submerged wah guitar and French sung vocals to do their thing. Side 2 features "I Hear The Vibrations" in its superior form, the "E-Z Version". The song first appeared in a truncated version on the Vampire Blues single, which was wisely left off in favor of this take. Maybe you recall that we put it all out on the table in our original review and pretty much declared this to be the band's best song to date, a claim we still stand by. It's the kind of song that would go on forever if we had our way.
The album closes with another live tune, "Outta My Head", from the Yeti sampler. The burly bass/guitar attack is impossible to ignore while the simple drumming incorporates a jangly tambourine into its nonstop pound. The organ spits out awesome hazy melodies as the guitar blissfully distorts all over the place, and it's a great way to end the album, making you want to see these guys level some small club.
So yeah, this is not at all a hard sell, we probably didn't even have to bother with a review, but we love this band so much that we just felt like throwing in our two cents. For everyone who missed out the first time along, this is a no brainer. And if you've been living under a rock, Vol. 2 also serves as a highly worthy introduction to one of our fine city's flagshjip bands.
It's hard to believe that it's been five whole years since Wooden Shjips effortlessly materialized into the psychedelic musical landscape. Between then and now they have become semi-hugely successful, almost right under our noses, and taken on the identity of sage-like masters of their psychedelic craft. Indeed, at the beginning, the Shjips appeared to be on the cusp of something new, not quite a "revival", but perhaps a much needed re-imagining of hazed psychedelic rock that sounded just as good in revved-up motorik excursions as it did in slow, confusional wanderings. Perhaps the one thing that bound it all together so perfectly was the band's patience and their ability to really bring out hypnotic grooves, starting with a perfect riff and just taking it all the way into the ever after. Each band member has a specific role within the group, and they know exactly what needs to be done for the song. Sure, a lot of bands will talk that game, but not many people are able to so expertly strip this music to its minimal core as the Shjips, and the formula has changed little over the years - a simple drum pound with no fills, a rumbling low end anchor of bass, wandering organ grooves, and a fuzzed out guitar that inevitably leaves the world behind to venture into clouds of acid-fried soloing. Sitting perfectly within the swirling instrumentation are the low crooned vocals that bring to mind everyone from Alan Vega to a sedate Lizard King to, hell, Elvis? The remarkable thing is how Wooden Shjips have managed to bring about so many comparisons while sounding only like Wooden Shjips.
Album #3 comes to us from the highly esteemed Thrill Jockey label, maybe the most ideal home imaginable for this band in 2011. Unlike the band's previous outings recorded in their practice space, West marks the first time Wooden Shjips have gone into an actual recording studio. How does it sound, you ask? Well, REALLY FUCKING GOOD to put it mildly. We loved the lower-fi murkiness of those other records but the clarity of the recording here brings out an expansiveness that wasn't previously there while also working itself into the record's themes of relocation and expansion to the American West. Ya know, like, San Francisco man. Freedom. Exploration. Rebirth. That kind of deal.
The record opens portentously with "Black Smoke Rise" and sets the tone for what is to come. It rides out with a cool midtempo biker riff while describing the crazy allure of the unknown. "Crossing" moves forward in a warm fuzz blanket with a tambourine clink keeping things nice and steady. Unlike what you might expect from the title, "Lazy Bones" is a hyped up jaunt with ominous little organ melodies adding to the confusion, before the slow burning "Home" brings things down a notch with an organ that has a bit of a Southern swamp vibe. "Flight" kicks in with a nice... uh, "boogie-rock" inspired riff that works really well against the devil may care rhythm and a super catchy organ line. This is probably the closest the band will ever get to making a song to strut down the street to, and it's a motherfucker. "Looking Out" is another uptempo romp with percolating organ chords and the tremeloed guitar shifting hazily in the speakers. Strange, sitar-like guitar notes that could have been beamed in from Sandy Bull, wherever he is, come and go and present a lovely array of musical notes that expertly do as they please. The closing number "Rising" brings things full circle by reversing "Black Smoke Rise" and stretching out the ambience with the rhythm provided by that awesome backwards swooping sound we all love.
Making this Record Of The Week is a no brainer. We've loved watching Wooden Shjips' journey unfold over the years, and they have yet to disappoint. They are a quintessential San Francisco band, and wherever they go, we're along for the ride.
While supplies last (which might not be long), the vinyl lp version of this comes with an exclusive limited edition bonus 7" single. Non-album track "Photograph" b/w a Peaking Lights remix of "Looking Out" from the album (re-titled "Lights Out"). In sleeve with full-color artwork. Definitely a collector's item, only available from a very few lucky stores (like us) and super limited. Sorry cd folks, no bonus with that format...
From right here in our sunny San Francisco neighborhood, comes an eagerly anticipated new release that clinches its Record Of The Week status not only by comprising a fantastic debut full-length album of hypnotically searing garagey psych jams, but also by including a BONUS disc (limited edition, first 2000 copies only) in a cardboard sleeve shrinkwrapped to the jewel case, featuring all the tracks from the now-out-of-print 10" and 7" vinyl records released last year that first made us -- and so many others, foremost among 'em Tom Lax of Siltbreeze/Siltblog fame, and Byron Coley at The Wire -- into drooling Wooden Shjips fanatics.
And yes, if you haven't run into them before, it's Wooden ShJips with a J, that's not a typo, just a way we guess of making their moniker more psychedelic (and easier to Google, too). They've garnered a lot of deserved attention from folks into minimalistic psych throb, that's for sure, and further whetted everyone's appetites for this album with the "Summer Of Love" 7" single that came out a couple weeks ago and has already sold out (2nd pressing in the works, be patient).
So, this new self-titled album follows on from that single with five more fuzzy, super groovy, guitar/organ/bass/drums slowburners, somewhere between Comets On Fire and Circle, with a definite Doors-y vibe as well, in part due to the keys which give this an almost loungey relaxed feel at times, and in part due to the occasional laidback Morrison-ish vocals of guitarist Erik Johnson. Erik also makes us think of Neil Young as well, as his more "out" guitar solos -- some if 'em SCORCHING -- could be off of Young's feedback-filled Arc. Or a Les Rallizes Denudes record! Track four, "Blue Sky Bends", having the best Rallizes-ish drone-factor of the disc. Overall, we'd say that these tracks, as a development from their earlier material, exhibits more and more of a throwback to the ballroom Frisco style of the sixties... now they just need to get a light show happening! But something tells us they'd be all about stark bright white strobes and dark black shadows only, maybe some b&w op art spirals, if their monochrome packaging aesthetic and the general heavy lidded mood of the music is anything to go by...
And then there's the limited bonus disc. Don't dawdle, you don't want to miss it (particularly if you didn't score the original vinyl releases). It's got the three tracks from their debut Shrinking Moon For You 10" (the one that they didn't even tell us about even though we see these guys on the street every day, we had to find out about it from Mr. Lax's blog!) and both cuts from their Dance, California / Clouds Over Earthquake 7". We'll try to summarize what we said about these songs before. The music from the 10" starts off with the title cut, a fuzzy garagey stomp, a groove that locks in and plows forward relentlessly. We began to feel like we were listening to some sort of garage rock Steve Reich. Guitars just sort of buzzing along, blooping new wave bass right underneath, simple solid drumming. But then in swoops some super feedback guitar that sounds like a demented horn section, and before you can examine it more closely it disappears, and we're back to the groove. That happens a few more times before the vocals kick in, sort of sing songy, but SO drenched in delay that the words get all jumbled up and are sort of jettisoned into outer space. There is also a subtle wash of fuzzy keyboards giving the whole thing a sort of Loop vibe. the second track is quite similar except the vocals are a bit more distinct, sort of laidback and mumbly. After a few listens, it became clear that there is some sort of minimal thing going on, but it's more like some lost Velvet Underground track arranged for Reich and Riley. Droney and drifty and druggy and totally mesmerizing. The third track bucks the trend and instead veers off into some tripped out ambience, with drifting motes of guitar fuckery, random sounds and noises, and some cool creepy backwards vocals. Sort of like an indie hipster freenoise "Revolution #9." Cool.
The two tracks from the 7" are also quite sonically similar to the 10" cuts. First up, surprise surprise a buzzy lo-fi garage groove, beneath bizarre super distorted insectoid guitar leads, buzzing WAY up in the mix and sounding almost like some primitive malfunctioning synth. But the whole time, beneath the alien buzz, the groove just hums along, like some extra baked Velvet Underground outtake. "Clouds Over Earthquake" is way more laid back, some blown out sun baked riffage, a super lazy groove, like Loop played at 16rpm, decorated with warm hornlike melodies that eventually stretch out into some serious outerspace psych rock explorations. The vocals we loved so much on the 10" resurface here too, laconic, drawled sung/spoken and super affected, very Lou Reed sounding albeit buried way down in the mix and absolutely drenched in thick reverb and fuzzy delay. Awesome!
So those tracks are all here (not in that order though) along with a radio edit of "Dance, California" for completists. These are the songs that had us jonesing for a full length, which you've just read about up above, and now all this music is together in one crucial package, while they last.
FYI, a vinyl version of the full-length is to follow in a month or two we're told... and maybe Holy Mountain can come up with some better cover art for it too? We were a bit underwhelmed by the blurry black & white photo of the band sitting around on the steps to someone's house, but then again their vinyl releases were in clear sleeves with no art to speak of, so I guess elaborate packaging ain't their thing. But motorik minimalist krautrocky pulsations, mellow Doorsy '60s groove, and out and out geetar psych-splosions are, so we can't complain!!
