You might recall Bloodshot Records' rollicking frolicking children's music compilation The Bottle Let Me Down from a few years back. 'Twas fun for the whole family! Well, they've jumped back into the playpen for another go 'round. This time, the indisputable lord and lady of the label Jon Langford and Kelly Hogan have teamed up for this delightful collection of off-kilter kiddies' tunes. With songs like "A Newt Called Tiny", "Flies On My Taters", Ragtime Duck" and "Lightnin' The Turtle", who can resist? Hmmmm, wonder if they're available for babysitting.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The opening minute or so of "Heal", the first track on Deserve, at first blush seems like it could give very much the wrong impression of these Canadian noise poppers, although the more we listen to Deserve, the more it seems like maybe it was in fact ultimately the all together RIGHT impression. The record opens with a squall of swirling feedback, what sounds like multiple guitars unfurling layer upon layer of feedback, and even when the song kicks in proper, it's mostly a crumblingly distorted single chord, over pounding caveman drumming, until all of a sudden, that noisiness coalesces into some impossibly perfect pop, a twisted chunk of nineties style indie rock jangle, wistful and super melodic and crazy catchy, albeit, plenty noisy and fuzzy, distorted and blown out, and from there on out, the song swings deliriously from lilting, loping, Sebadoh-style lo-fi pop, to a full bore, buzzing psychedelic sort-of-chorus/refrain, howled vocals over one of those chord changes that gives you chills, the sort of thing most bands struggle to come up with, but throughout the course of Deserve, these guys seem to toss off those moments like there was some limitless supply, and who knows? Maybe for these guys there is. Deserve gives us no reason to think otherwise. But before we can get to more of those moments, the band finish off "Heal" with a full two minutes worth of abstract psychedelic feedback noise drenched drift, almost as if in the studio, they just leaned their guitars against the amps, and stepped out for a smoke. But it's that willful, listener baiting noisiness, and the fact that of "Heal"s six and a half minutes, less than three is proper 'song', that helps balance the group's popsmithery, with a sort of sneering punk rock energy, that as you might imagine, finds its way into even the poppiest moments here. And there's something about two minutes of droned out noise, that when the second track "Set Me Back" finally explodes, there's a sense of sonic relief, that only adds to what is yet another glorious slab of blown out fuzz pop, big guitars, deep crooned vocals buried in the mix, melodies to die for, and another one of those choruses, that sounds like it was plucked right out of some classic Dinosaur Jr jam, but Weed's sound is more muddy and murky, and all the better for it, swirling and psychedelic, every song here, sounds like one of those songs or one of those bands that should have been huge, but instead, stayed your little secret, the best band nobody else knew about, understood, or in most cases had ever even heard, or heard of. And that totally taps into something most music nerds hold near and dear, and positions Weed, no matter how popular they get, as the sort of band, that could easily become YOUR band.
And while there's nothing nearly as chaotic and freaked out as the opener, there is most definitely no shortage of fuzz pop bliss. "Gun Shy" is rollicking and punky, but again, crazy catchy, mixing droned out guitar, furious buzz, tangled melodies, and some super heavy, almost emo sounding noiserock blowouts. "Silent Partner" almost sounds like a slightly punkier, more youthful Swervedriver, and that shoegaze vibe surface throughout, giving all of Deserve a fantastically dreamy, druggy vibe, a sound that shifts easily from hazy, fuzzy drift, to grinding punkish pound and back again, often settling somewhere right in between, and again, amidst all this noisiness and sonic chaos, all this crunch and fuzz, blast and pound, is some of the craftiest popsmithery we've heard in ages, the sort of thing, that recast, and super polished, could have the potential to be the next big thing, thankfully, these guys seem to have no interest in that at all. The poppiness of these jams more like some sonic artifact, the seemingly random result of nothing but loud guitars, sweaty, bloody basement shows, lots of booze, youthful exuberance, and just fucking rocking, it's the perfect mix of that classic nineties indie rock sound that we can't ever seem to get enough of STILL, home brewed fuzz pop, and wild, chaotic noise rock crunch, all woven into something more fresh and and raw and punk and poppy, and it's just about the best thing we've heard in forever.
Stoners and loners Weed are back with another full-length of dopey noise-pop sad jams, and once again, we're fully on board. You remember that episode of "The Simpsons" where Homer goes to Lollapalooza in an effort to be cool, and is met with a crowd of swaying Gen-X'ers mumbling to Sonic Youth? Yeah, this record kinda sounds like that, in the best way possible. Right off the bat, we get a quick modulating buzz before it kicks right in, and wouldn't you know it? The first line is a monotone "I don't wanna feel like this anymore". Running Back is that perfect nineties blend of mopey, noisey nihilism and sugary, perfect pop. "Thousand Pounds," for example, captures this blend perfectly; pounding rhythm, almost shoegaze-esque fuzzed-out guitars, and buried but melodic-as-hell vocals that brings to mind the last Nothing record, super bombastic and poppy, but also melancholic and despondent. "Meet Me With Ease" is the other side of the Weed coin, the faster, more punked up, more "rock" jam that will have every stoned twenty-something swaying with it.
There's a kind of no-nonsense, punkish approach on Running Back that distinguishes it from the wave of new shoegaze (is that called Nu-Gaze?) bands - everything's a little faster, a little more to-the-point, and it works so well on this record. If you still have a soft spot in your heart for the grungy, noisey, poppy sound of bands like Dinosaur Jr and Sebadoh (and why wouldn't you?), you'll be pumped on this record.
Obscure, awesome 1971 krautrock proto-metal reissued! And they're called Weed. Need we say more? As always, we will say more, 'cause we've got to mention that the heavy electric organ bombast on this album is cranked out by none other than Ken Hensley of Uriah Heep fame, over in Germany on vacation or something. He appears here under the fairly transparent pseudonym of "Ken Lesley"! Having mentioned that, we realize we should probably review some actual Uriah Heep albums on our site one of these days, but this did just get reissued so we're writing about it now. (Sooner or later we will write up some Heep, but suffice to say that their first five albums RULE, circa '70-'73, though they go downhill pretty steeply after that. If you dig Deep Purple and haven't checked out the early Heep, you should.)
Anyway, back to Weed. Thanks to Hensley/Lesley, they DO sound a bit like Uriah Heep, especially on the killer opener "Sweet Morning Light". Despite (sarcastic?) lyrics about "sun shining bright, on everything in sight" and other seemingly positive things, the singer's depressed delivery and the downer dirginess of the heavy, groovy music creates a much darker, doomier mood! It's kinda brilliant, that contrast. Elsewhere, this album features the more mellow, melancholic acoustic balladry of "Loney Ship", one blues rocker, "Slowin' Down", and several other sorts of organ-ornate melodic kraut prog jams. It ends with another heavy highlight, the song "Weed" itself, the album's longest track at 7:14. And it's an instrumental. With a crunching, exceedingly Sabbathy main riff, or is it Led Zep? Kicks ass anyways. For the first and last tracks alone, this disc is something anyone interested in proto-doom should hear.
Also, Weed should get some sort of award as one of the earliest overt "stoner rock" bands ever, just based on their name, right? Them and Leafhound.
Weed Diamond is an upstart, lo-fi outfit from Denver, which has grown out of the cracked bedroom project of songwriter Tim Perry into a full band that's just as wonderfully sloppy in the delivery of some pretty awesome melodic jangle. The Sweater Kids recordings originally appeared as a cassette in 2009, but the origins of the Carry On ep is not all that clear. It could be that Perry had some new material with his full band in tow when Bridgetown asked to reissue that cassette as a cd-r. In any case, the differences between Weed Diamond, the one-dude-holed-up-in-apartment, and Weed Diamond, the four-piece ensemble, are pretty minor, as everything has been recorded on a shitty 4-track with any given channel totally overblown and given ample doses of the cheapest reverb one can find. Weed Diamond revel in their untidy trimmings and primitive hiss; but on pretty much every track, there's an effortless, utterly catchy vocal melody that rises out of the noise-pop chaos. If this brings to mind The Oh Sees or Wavves, you're definitely on the right track with the mischievousness of those two projects occasionally begetting the wistful, downer paisley pop underbelly of Deerhunter or Beach Fossils. Really fantastic stuff that speaks well for the future of Weed Diamond!
This is a downtuned stoner sludge face off between two German outfits, who tackle their Sabbath obsessions in slightly different ways. Weed In The Head start things off with delciate clean guitar figures, which are interrupted by ULTRA distorted blasts of metal riffing, the kind of distortion that is so fuzzed out the sounds are almost crumbling into pieces. Doesn't take long before the clean guitar disappears under an avalanche of groovy sludge, pounding Cromagnon drums and wailing sort of Ozzyish vocals. A weird blend of Sabbathy groove and Kyuss-y desert rock, heavy but most definitely stoney and groovy. Things occasionally slow down into almost Eyehategod terrirtory and eventually bliss out into a druggy trippy Monster Magnet style space jam. Cool!
Gorilla Monsoon (named for the wrestler we presume) counter with their own stoner psych sludge groove, starting out with a gorgeous bit of hazy ambience, all guitar distortion and feedback, before the main riff powers through, kicking up all that ambience into a swirling sonic dust storm. Dark and murky, but a bit more rocking than WITH, and much harsher vocals, that swoop wildly from a King Fowley type growl to a near Khanate like hellish shriek. There are some sludgy Eyehategod moments, lots of loping midtempo fuzz and groove, but like Weed In The Head, Gorilla Monsoon are ultimately channelling the spirit of the mighty Sabbath (heck, the singer's nom du rock is even Jack Sabbath) and there ain't nothing wrong with that.
Packaged in a nice fullcover foldover sleeve and pressed on nice thick vinyl
Even being the sort of person who knows almost nothing about drugs, I do know the usual preferred delivery method for pot is inhalation, not ingestion (to the lungs, not the stomach). Not that you can't cook it up in a brownie, but the guys in Weedeater sound like they just shovel handfuls of weed straight into their gaping jaws, like some sort of drug crazed harvesting machine, or like a stoner rock engineer dumping coal into the engine of a locomotive, which makes sense, as it's obvious these guys need enough weed to power the relentless, downtuned, full bore stoner metal crush found on God Luck And Good Speed.
A relative stoner rock institution, Dixie Dave and company have been spewing their filthy, crusty, blown out, drug rock for going on 10+ years now, and before that Dixie fronted the equally heavy and even crustier Buzzov-en, so this man knows his way around a stoney riff and a druggy groove, and this shit sounds just as good now as it did a decade ago, and I don't even smoke pot. So I can only imagine how amazing this must sound high�
But even NOT high, Weedeater destroy! Like some impossible crossbreeding experiment gone hellishly wrong, one part Eyehategod, one part Sleep, one part Corrosion Of Conformity, one part Bongzilla, guitars tuned so low the strings drag along the ground, amps stacked so high, they need a ladder to crank those knobs to 11. The vocals a harsh demonic mewl, almost more black metal than stoner metal, the drums simple but massive.
Recorded mostly by Steve Albini, except for one track by CoC's Mike Dean, and that track is the weirdest of the bunch, just bass, banjo and baritone crooning, a creepy stoner country ballad, which somehow sounds right at home amidst the crushing low slung heaviness surrounding it on all sides.
Plus song titles like "Wizard Fight", "Weedmonkey" and they even cover Skynyrd's "Gimme Back My Bullets"!
Packaged in a cool mini gatefold lp-style sleeve, the art embossed and printed in gold metallic ink, with a little hymnal inside with all the lyrics, just like a mini stoner bible.
Like some warped children's fairytale designed for seriously stoned adults, all sitting around on dirty couches, bongs in hand, following along in their little storybooks, a strange voice begins to deliver the tale of Jason... The Dragon (oof, a bad pun for sure, and perhaps a vague reference to that other stoner dragon Puff?), but before the voice finishes with his tale, a thick ominous buzz begins to surface, and suddenly everything seems just a little bit more (in)tense, as if the sun was suddenly blotted out by huge black winged shadows, and before you know it, the sky begins to fall, and the ground opens up, unleashing a torrent of impossibly thick, buzzing bass, and pounding skull splitting drum damage, and a harsh demonic rasp, all woven into some seriously blown out sludgey groove, and so begins the latest chunk of drugged out tarpit heaviness from stoner sludge doomlords Weedeater, and if you weren't sold already, give it one more track, cuz "Mancoon" is a seriously ripping slab of ultra heavy downtuned in-the-red sludgeblues groove, with a guitar sound so blown out it sounds like your speakers melting, and that's what these guys do pretty much better than anyone, melding swinging grooves to abject sludge drenched heaviness, stumbling from Eyehategod style feedback soaked death march doom buzz trudge, to almost Southern rock sounding stoner rock, but everything oozing with grit and filth, and wrapped in the sonic version of a halo of flies, every track a lumbering and crushing, slo-mo stoner doom juggernaut, oh that is except for the weird acoustic tracks, like "Palm And Opium" a strange twang flecked lo-fi hoedown, all acoustic guitar, and woozy slide, augmented by thick distorted buzz, and some seriously creepy Buttholes style processed vox, or the record closer "Whiskey Creek", with it's chirping crickets, Deliverance style banjo, the sound or rain falling, some rumbling bass, creepy and strangely beautiful, and then after a few moments of silence, some strange old timey saloon sounding barrelhouse piano, definitely a bizarre way to finish of a bizarre record, but these guys have always been a bit cracked, and fans of slow and low ultra heaviness, and swinging Sabbathy stoner crush, like Sleep, pre-Weedeater outfit Buzzov*en, Eyehategod, Electric Wizard, Dozer, Dopethrone, Bongripper, Acrimony, and the like, it seriously doesn't get much better than this.
Our friend Adam at Crucial Blast does it again (after his release of Finnish thrashers Katastrofialue from last week's list) with this new slab of blues-scum-metal from North Carolina's Weedeater. Featuring Dave from the mighty Buzzoven, Weedeater basically
The smoking hot Mexican Summer label unleashes another new great band to the world, this one actually resides right here in San Francisco. Weekend blast out two songs on this 10" overflowing with a refreshing lo-fi rocking and shoegazey vibe. Kind of like a Woodsist band doing covers of Nowhere era Ride, or a less monochromatic Crystal Stilts letting loose on Unrest covers, or The Chills crossed with early My Bloody Valentine. They also remind us a bit of a more ramshackle and raw version of Desolation Wilderness who have also recently been creating great songs from a similar sonic perspective but with a bit more polish and fleshed out production. Weekend keeps things fuzzy and blown own and a bit raw which for sure works in their favor and also aligns them well with the likes of Wavves, Pearl Harbor, Grass Widow, etc.
Both songs on here are fucking great! But we wouldn't feel right if we didn't mention that it is only two songs (one of which will be on their forthcoming full length) which makes the $20 pricetag seem a bit, well, outrageous. Of course this is extremely limited and will be gone before the blink of an eye, and we really do love all the music Mexican Summer has been putting out but we do think the cost might be getting a little out of hand. That being said when it comes to the music in these grooves, we're totally sold!
Brand new blast of shoegazey fuzz pop jangle from this SF outfit, the A side just a slightly abbreviated 'radio' edit of the track "End Times" from their Sports full length, and while we're happy to hear that song again and again and again, for fans it's the B-side that's the big attraction here, which finds Sports' opening jam, the 6+ minute "Coma Summer", a blast of summery jangley shoegaze pop bliss, here transformed into something much murkier and gloomier, the sounds washed out and echo drenched, lots of softly swirling effects, the drums almost krautrock sounding in their motorik simplicity, while the vocals seem to have been transformed into streaks of high end sound, blurred into the whirling washed out background, the sound distorted and lo-fi, sounding more like something you might find on an Ariel Pink / John Maus record, that same sort of alien FM radio broadcast, via fucked up 4 track, and while it definitely sounds NOTHING like anything else on Sports, as a brief blast of warped lysergic weirdo krautpop, it's pretty goddamn great.
Comes with a download coupon as well.
At first you're greeted by the warmth of an ethereal new age synth that wouldn't sound out of place on a Vangelis record, and then the peace is broken by a repetitive staggered static echo, followed by driving throbbing bass and then pounding toms. Finally the plucked echo of guitar strings emerges and crescendos into an all encompassing wash. And then the vocals come in, almost like a distant echo. It's literally like hearing all the pieces of a band fall into place over the span of a couple of minutes. It's a great start to a record, and the perfect introduction to Weekend's brand of shoegaze drenched post-punk. Jinx is Weekend's second album, and since they're from our neck of the woods it's hard not to feel a little hometown pride as we submerge ourselves into their reverb soaked dreamscape. For those who are new to the world of Weekend, the quickest way to describe them would be: a shoegaze band you can actually dance to! A bit like if My Bloody Valentine had formed a few years earlier and hopped onto the Factory Records roster. There are serious hooky Joy Division/New Order bass lines aplenty, filling the songs with a sense of urgency that make it almost impossible to sit still, complimented nicely by some upbeat high energy drum work. But on the other end of the spectrum there are the guitars and the vocals - all ghostly echoes and sorrowful blanketing melodies. As soon as that first chorus kicks in with the repeated refrain of "I feel sick, sick, sick in my heart" it becomes clear that you may have just entered into the saddest dance party ever. The vocals are arguably the most classically 'shoegaze' thing about the record in fact. They drift in and out of the songs like some half forgotten memory. Only on "Celebration, FL" do they and the rest of the band ever approach something that could be considered joyful, and even then there's a lingering bittersweet wistfulness throughout. It ends up making for a really great mix, taking the best bits of both genres and using them to their fullest effect. While some shoegaze bands have a tendency to drag, Weekend's rollicking uptempo rhythm section never allow this to happen. And while post punk can often be overly tuneless or sparse, the wall of sound guitars and haunting vocals apply some much needed texture and melody to the proceedings. Clearly it's a good time to be 'gazing in the Bay Area with the likes of Deafheaven and Whirr currently making big crashing waves in the genre as well, and we certainly wouldn't hesitate to add Weekend to the leading lights of that ever growing list.
If you ever wondered what happened to Alison Statton from Young Marble Giants, then you might want to check this out. Early eighties jazz-lounge pop with saxophone in the vein of early Everything But The Girl, Antena, Carmen, and The Marine Girls.
Not as compelling as Colossal Youth, but really not that bad either.
Brand new ep from these SF shoegaze / jangle poppers, and it's a doozy, taking up right where their aQ beloved Sports album left off, launching right into it with the hazy, dirgey, dreamy "Sweet Sixteen", with its slow pounding beat, low slung bassline, reverbed ethereal vocals, and thick grinding swaths of guitar, which are soon joined by lush chiming melodies, the sound epic and expansive, moody and brooding, we've found ourselves playing it over and over and over. Which means it took us a while to get to "Hazel", which is a bit more propulsive, and very eighties sounding, almost like their take on this whole retro new wave thing, but holy shit is it the sort of song that would be a massive hit in a perfect world, a killer hook surrounded buy weirdly effected guitars, crunchy riffs, all wed to a killer groove, thick fuzzy bass, the sound occasionally exploding into sweetly psychedelic squalls. The rest of this 5 song ep follows suit, dipping into druggy dark shoegaze crunch on "Your Own Nothing", the sound thick and dark and fuzzy, but still rife with melodies and another wicked hook, or bouncy retro fuzz pop on "The One You Want" that sounds like it should be on the soundtrack to a modern John Hughes style teenage classic, and finally, the oddly titled "Golfers", with its thick, downtuned dirgey riff, echoey vox, tribal drumming, and melancholy guitar melody, a dreamy chunk of minimal gloom pop, that might be this ep's real gem.
Finally! The full length debut from these SF jangle noisepoppers, and it's as good as their two song Mexican Summer 10" had us hoping it would be.
Fuzzy, jangly, shoegazey, reverby, a little new wavey, a little droney, super catchy and buzzy and dreamy, pretty much everything we want a new pop record to be.
The first song "Coma Summer" is a dizzying collision of sounds and styles, that displays everything we love about these guys. Jangly Unrest style guitars chime beneath distant crooned oooooh's, eventually buzzy crunchy guitar rock wraps itself around the original guitar, the bassline buzzy and Joy Division-y, the sound repetitive and trancey, then still MORE guitars come in, some seriously MBV worthy buzzsaw blur, over which vocals keen in the distance, then the vocals proper come in, all deep and dramatic and new wavey, accompanied by woozy washed out warped sounding melodies that seem to melt before our ears, and so it goes, shifting from loping brooding jangle to soaring bleary psychedelic bliss to fuzzy minimal new wave pound, and it's not just that it sounds amazing, but that the amazing sounds have been crafted into a killer song, hooky and hazy and damn near perfect.
The second song is more of the same, we heard "Youth Haunts" on that Mexican Summer 10" which we then described as something akin to "a Woodsist band doing covers of Nowhere era Ride, or a less monochromatic Crystal Stilts letting loose on Unrest covers, or The Chills crossed with early My Bloody Valentine" and that pretty much still totally applies, and not just to this track, but to the whole record. Lush yet lo-fi, broody and propulsive, but also noisy and blown out, sunshiney and poppy here and there, but just often, dark and melancholy, easily one of our new favorite records, from one of our new favorite local outfits.
Yes! Rarely has a collection of four songs captivated us as much as this welcome reissue and first-time vinyl release of Weekend's '81 demos. When it was released on cd for the first time back in 1995 on Vinyl Japan, we couldn't stop listening and now hearing the tracks on vinyl nearly 20 year later, we are smitten all over again. Weekend was Alison Statton's band formed shortly after the demise of beloved British post-punk minimalists Young Marble Giants (whose Colossal Youth was a former ROTW, and one of our favorite albums ever!). Weekend ended up having more of a breezy jazzier vibe than YMG, closer to Marine Girls, Antena, Durutti Column and The Field Mice, putting out a sole full length, La Variete in 1982. While we loved that record (though not everyone here did, as the inclusion of saxophone in anything but a strict jazz context can be a real deal-breaker for some), the real discovery was the demos that featured 4 songs from La Variete, but much more stripped down (read: no sax!) and bittersweet, sounding probably close to what YMG would have sounded like had they continued. With Statton on voice and bass, and supported by chiming guitar, drum machine, violin and percussion, these songs are exquisitely executed and allowed ample room to breathe. The stunner being the 9 minute "Red Planes", which is given a beautifully slow instrumental build before the vocals come in and break our hearts. "Drumbeat" and "Nostalgia" are barely more upbeat, but carry the same sense of cool detachment that made Colossal Youth so damn charming. The final track "Summerdays" is an instrumental in the sunny pastoral vein of Durutti Column or the recently reissued Maurice Deebank. For fans of all of the above bands as well as Low, Galaxie 500, Heavenly, and Beach House. It may seem short, but trust us, you'll be playing this over and over and over again!
This is record number three for Greg Weeks, and the one that's really finally gotten our attention. His previous disc on Ba Da Bing! was a stripped down, boy-and-his-guitar folky singer-songwriter kinda record, and while he is still essentially playing folk
It's been a long couple years since we've had a Greg Weeks record proper. But those years weren't spent idle, not at all, instead he spent that time recording and performing with his group Espers, a much folkier and much more ethereal affair than his solo stuff. The Espers record was absolutely breathtaking, sweet and druggy and folky, with angelic female vocals alongside cellos, dulcimers and flutes. Thankfully Weeks' new record takes some of that more ethereal wispiness and weaves it into the darker, tenser psych-doom-folk he records under his own name. Fuzzy keyboards and warbling synths lay down ominous drones as a prickly sonic bed for delicately fingerpicked minor key guitars, moaning cellos, swooning mournful melodies, distant spacey blips, suffling understated drumming, heartfelt, multitracked vocals, all very hazy and druggy and otherworldly. Not quite as 'weird' as his previous full length Awake Like Sleep, Blood Is Trouble sounds, as much as I hate to say it, more mature. Which is not a bad thing at all. The songs are more fully realized, and don't rely as heavily on weird instrumentation. Beautiful and heartfelt, in different hands this could have been a classic singer songwriter sort of record, but Weeks manages to transform it into a hazy psychedelic gem, equal parts Incredible String Band, Low and Nick Drake. Or something like that. You get the drift. This is just an amazing and beautiful record. Psych folk fans will love it for sure, but it's just accessible enough to maybe 'turn on' the rest of you!
New ep from AQ fave Greg Weeks, on the tiny Spanish label Acuarela. "Slightly West" takes up right where Weeks' totally amazing "Awake Like Sleep" record left off. More lonely low key psychedelic folk (ala P.G. Six, Charalambides, Tower Recordings, etc.), wrapped in a wash of thick warm analogue-sounding synths, making for a sort of dark and melancholy, alien folk music.
Dreamy and gauzy, ethereal and wispy, warm and summery, but not in a Beach Boys-surfing-USA-fun-in-the-sun sort of way, more like a last-day-of-summer-before-the-girl-you've-spent-the-past-two-weeks-falling-in-love-with-leaves-forever-late-nights-wrapped-in-blankets-in-front-of-a-roarin-fire-crashing-surf-moon-reflected-on-the-water-broken-hearted sort of way. Gently plucked guitars and mournful sad-boy vocals (with occasional angelic female background vocals) weave gorgeously simple tales of love and loss, while tinkling pianos glisten on the surface and gossamer keyboards, sustaining on 2 or 3 notes, turn simple pop songs into dreamy late night psychedelic soundscapes (the same way keyboards transformed Yo La Tengo's "Painful"). Also features some really disturbing/amazing/sexy/demented cover art by Tracy Nakayama, featuring naked young people and a woman strangling an ostrich with a belt!
MPEG Download: "One Summer Night" [/audio/gweeksonesummer.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "One Summer Night" [/audio/gweeksonesummer.m3u]
The first thing we thought when we threw this one, was that these guys remind us quite a bit of the Rock-A-Teens, which is never a bad thing. They have the same sort of Southern gothic swagger, thick reverbed guitars, yowled throaty vocals, a little Southern rock, a little rockabilly, but jammed into more of a noise rock sound. The record opens with a serious blast of jagged distorted garage stomp, with plenty of stops and start, some noodly leads, but all wrapped around a hook that won't quit, and some killer guitar harmonies. But right after that the band slows it down to near-ballad territory, all lilting strums and chiming bells, until the track fractures into a weird rollicking buzz drenched sort-of-jig, that explodes into a rollicking rocker, with deep crooned vocals and sharp crunchy guitar chug and a total pogo rhythm and more leads squiggling all over the place.
The vocalist has some Nick Cave going on for sure, which perfectly suits the bands sharp noisy downer rock, like a super charged Dirty Three, or even a less Irish Pogues, or maybe a less fucked up Lubricated Goat, and of course the aforementioned Rock-A-Teens. We also hear some Paw, but odds are that one's too obscure and unlikely for most folks, which is probably for the best. But stir in some serious Southern rock tendencies, a little punk rock, polish it up a bit and you have the Weeks. Supposedly the average age of the Weeks is 18, which is pretty nuts considering that these guys sound like way more like old bearded dudes from the South sporting big old skull rings, and wearing pointy toed boots and rumpled old seersucker suits...
Unlike so many bands who want out of their major label contracts and so break up after one album, Ween just reinvent themselves. This record features instrumentation by several overlooked-by-all-but-the-most-devoted-liner-note-readers old time session musicians who played on Ween's favorite country records of yesteryear. Jen-you-wine hillbilly music? The lyrics are still ridiculous.
Before Ween were the soundtrack to every frathouse in the land, Windy and Andee worshipped at the altar of God Ween Satan. Less poppy, and WAY less polished, God Ween Satan is their first record and is full of catchy sloppy punky silliness and stupidly
Awwwww Weeeeeeeeen!
Love to hate 'em?
Hate to love 'em?
So dorky.
So damaged.
So fucked up.
So fun.
For the erratic Ween no musical style is out of the question nor out of their league. On La Cucaracha they unflinchingly navigate through country, reggae, blues rock, and AOR balladry. Once they catch wind of smartypants/dumbass songs like "Object", "Lullaby" and "My Own Bare Hands", Tenacious D fans might take a shine to this specific Ween album too! As usual not for everyone, but those who dig it will dig in good!
(Yes the vinyl version is insanely expensive.)
Gene and Dean Ween are back, which is sure to be a cause for jubilation among many. However, we're not diehard Ween fans, and while there's titles in the Ween catalog we definitely enjoy, Quebec's not high up on that list. The best thing about it is the Motorhead pastiche that leads off the album. After that, they do what they do, but it's just not as funny as old Ween, although still quite as proficient musically. Total studio musician/songwriting hack chopsism. There's no easily-discerned theme, and we quickly lost interest after that Motorhead bit, as we said. *However*, had a hardcore Ween fan reviewed this for us, there's always the chance that they'd say we were missing something, so don't let us stop you from Ween-ing out with this one.
With tons of cash for studio musicians and recording time you'd think a couple of creative stoners like Gene and Dean Ween could come up with gem after gem of sugary sweet and entertaining pop, but for some reason this ain't happening. The production is great, the musicians are great, but the joke is tired. Never the less, if you want a grandly produced effort of mock early eighties radio rock (a la Bread or America), this is your bag.
We've been trying to track these down for ages, a mysterious set of dubstep 12"s, some of the coolest, darkest, grimiest dubstep we've heard, all housed in plain white sleeves, no info except for a stamp of either a larva, a pupa or an adult Weevil, that symbol designating which of the three Weevil Series 12"s it is. We decided it was probably better to sell these as a set, as they were difficult to track down, and had to be shipped overseas, and odds are if you want one, you're probably gonna want the set.
Originally a customer sent us a link to some samples online and all it took was about 30 seconds and we were hooked. Dark and creepy, ominous and menacing, the sound rough and textured and raw and not at all slick or glossy, the beats, slipping from dubstep stutter to almost jungle skitter, the background a swirl of spaced out effects, deep bass swells, mysterious voices, and when the beat drops, it drops hard, the bass buzzing, thick and corrosive.
The first volume, Larva, is seriously grimy, muted buried rhythms and roiling black clouds, the beat gradually growing more intense, the drop huge, the beat nearly knocking us over, the dubstep definitely a little jungly. The second track offers up some super effected distorted dancehall style toasting over an echo drenched beat, and warped bass warble, and the drop here too is fierce, the bass a fat fuzzed out wobble, the beat jagged and stuttery, a super raga style dubbed out groove that kills. The final track gets a bit more darksteppy, the tempo cranked up, definitely more jungle than dubstep, the beat wreathed in clouds of squelch and synthy squiggle, and peppered with bits of African Head Charge like ambience. So good.
And the second volume, Pupa, is just as good, starting out with a clipped lurching groove, and some vocals that are chopped up and transformed into a weird sort of bassy hiccup, almost like a croaking frog, the beat stripped down and minimal, all skitter, wreathed in clouds of swirling psychedelic hiss and whir, and haunting black ambience, a strangely off kilter hip hop-ish chunk of dark dark dubstep. The second track mixes it up again, setting the beat against a backdrop of woozy synth swirl, wrapped around a skipping chunk of warbly bass buzz, wrapped in swirls of glitch and static, the sound more laid back and droney, hypnotic and washed out, which leads into the final track, a big block rockin beat, laid over fuzzed out bass, and all sorts of dubby effects and extra percussion, again, with some swirly synths laid down in the background.
Finally, the set finishes off with part three, Adult, which shifts gears again, the first track a murky bit of super minimal droned out mesmer, the beat, muted and buried beneath a field of static, and blurred low end fuzz, laced with random bits of clatter, like some super abstract Chain Reaction Heroin House take on lo-fi dubstep, crusty, and sinister, and abstract and haunting and AWESOME.
The second track continues in the same direction, similarly minimal and stripped down, not nearly as murky, but with a seriously clinical, motorik clipped beat, surrounded by Geiger counter like chitter, all over little flurries of high hat, and subtle bits of dubbed out FX, super hypnotic and WAY too short.
Finally, the closing track picks up the pace, that creepy processed raga like toasting returns, over metallic clouds of billowy bass, the beats laid back and stripped way down, the thick buzzing bass pulse driving the groove, everything surrounded by what sounds like field recordings of a forest or jungle, a darkly psychedelic bit of dubbed out bass heavy murk. So good. We haven't stopped listening to these since we first got them in. Dubstep jam of the year? Last year? This year? Any year? Hell yeah!!
Each 12" is limited to 300 copies, hand numbered, and hand stamped, all in plain white sleeves. And remember we're selling all three 12"s together as a single set.
No one with a pop bone in their bodies can argue that the first Weezer record (the Blue album) is anything but an all time classic pop record, a practically perfect slab of indie rock / power pop. Most of those same folks loved Pinkerton too, record number two, flawed, but in an awesomely idiosyncratic and crazy catchy way. Even the Green album, record #3, had some great songs, the Weezer sound was still intact, and sure there were some misfires, but those were made up for by some serious gems. Maladroit was an underdog record, revisiting it now, it's pretty dang good, but at the time, it was, to Weezer fans, all but the most obsessive, the beginning of the end.
Make Believe is where most of us gave up, the insipid hit single "Beverly Hills" the worst offender, but the record, as well as the one that followed, the Red album, were pretty much total writeoffs. Mainman Rivers Cuomo was more of a novelty song writer and occasional tabloid personality. Then something happened with Raditude. The last record, awesomely stupid cover art, and some lame collaborations, but there were some seriously almost classic Weezer jams hidden in there. And now we come to Hurley, their latest, and maybe best in a long while, weirdly enough, it's also their first NOT on a major label, but whatever, the important thing is, this record is pretty good.
That classic Weezer sound in full effect, the thick chugging guitars, the vocal harmonies, the soaring power pop choruses, the goofy pop culture referencing lyrics, but for the first time in a long time it actually works, and even the weird experimental bits, acoustic ballads, some synth drum machine drive groovers, they all sort of work. It's no masterpiece, that's for sure, if you want a Weezer masterpiece, go get the self titled debut, or if you want some Weezerish perfect pop, check out the Ovens, but if you've been dying for a great Weezer record, well then this might be the one. Or if not great, pretty dang good. And we're digging it more and more with every listen!
And did we mention the awesomely ridiculous cover art, a picture of Hurley from the TV show Lost! Recommended, mostly for longtime Weezer fans, but heck, it's definitely good enough that it might win over some new fans for sure...
Oh Weezer, we read and hear so much about Rivers Cuomo and his dysfunctional band, and all the lineup changes and how he's giving up music to go back to school and he's going to be celibate but then WAIT, a new record is in the works, but the band hates each other, but he is still the master of pop music, and they're on the cover of Rolling Stone and on and on and on. You think with that kind of drama and attention this 5 years in the works new Weezer record would be tense and intense and emotionally fragile and darkly aggressive and maybe the pop record to end all pop records. But it's not. Not even close. It's tepid, Weezer-by-the-numbers, the single "Beverly Hills" is the most anemic pop song we've heard in ages, with embarassingly trite lyrics and a hook that has been used in no less than 5 other Weezer songs. But wait, things definitely pick up after that, a return to Weezer of old? Not quite, but it's not all that bad, in fact some of the songs are pretty darn good. It's no blue album, it's no Pinkerton, it's no green album either. But that's a whole lot to hope for. And while he may be a pop genius, anyone so distracted by school and personal insecurity and band unrest would be hard pressed to squeeze out a masterpiece. But a masterpiece is what we expect, and we know he's capable of it. He's pulled it off at least three times! It just feels like the passion is gone, the fire, the emotion, like Weezer is no longer something he NEEDS to do, just something he has to do. It still sounds great, in fact better than ever, BIG Rick Rubin production, big guitars, lush harmonies, but the songs just don't live up to the sound. That said, we still LOVE Weezer, we've been dying for this record to come out, and we'll hang on to this, and listen to it over and over, hoping that the pop genius is of the slow growing variety, and eventually it will just hit us, and then we'll feel pretty dumb for writing this review. Here's hoping!
I have to be honest, I sort of outgrew Weezer (or maybe they outgrew me) after their second record, Pinkerton, which while not a bad record at all, in fact a fantastic record, definitely showed signs of, how can I say this, a sort of laziness, a "the sound is there but where are the songs?" sort of thing. I think one of the problems is that they set the bar so high with the first record, where EVERY song was, or could have been a huge hit. Pinkerton was about half and half, and after that they seemd to just be going through the motions. That said, there -were- some kick ass tunes on the 'green' record, and there are some awesome tracks on this here record too. Check out the sound clip for 'Keep Fishin', kind of Cheap Trick and the Sweet with a sort of MTV pop punk vibe. Fans already obviously have this, but newcomers to the land of Weezer would be better served picking up the first two Weezer records before venturing into records three and four.
The first peep from these guys after a five year absence! And sure as heck it's full of those familiar power guitar melodies and sunshine-y, super-boy vocal harmonies. So why don't I feel any better? What's wrong? What's missing? Well for one thing the
Just knowing that this band made Pinkerton makes the fact that this record sounds like a weird mash up of Sugar Ray and The Offspring that much more depressing. Though the YouTube based single/video "Frank and Beans" is pretty funny.
This 1973 krautrock rarity was reissued a few years ago as a deluxe box set complete with reproductions of the Tarot cards designed by German gypsy painter Walter Wegmuller. That uber-expensive deluxe version quickly went out of print, and now we have a
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
One of the most gleefully eccentric albums around right now is a re-issue from 1970! Fans of the bizarre genius of Bruce Haack and Raymond Scott gather 'round! Heck, you're undoubtedly already more than familiar with Mr. Fred Weinberg, but for those of us who missed it the first time around... Here's 18 tinkly twinky twisted compositions (including 7 bonus tracks) that would probably be deadringers for television theme songs and commercial jingles if they were being performed on a more - ahem! - traditional array of instruments, but such is not the case! The Weinberg Method involves the electronic manipulation and mutation of "natural" sounds (y'know, from the world around you: car horns honking, sirens squealing, toilets flushing, hearts beating, etc). These sounds are then inserted where those of the string, horn or percussion instruments would have been. Incredibly strange music indeed! We should also note that the liner notes suggest "this album be played at 33, 45 and 78 rpm." Kinda hard to do on a cd, but probably well worth the effort!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Equipped with naught but a sampler, Weinstein creates disjointed, alienated soundtracks that sound like Tipsy without the groove. His pieces swing between a nostalgia for the music of the past, and premonition of the music of the future.
Chicago university professor Deena Weinstein unleashes the revised edition of her 1991 scholarly study of heavy metal!! We loved her on NPR's Anthem talkshow, playing Emperor and other metal, and discussing the differences between speed metal, thrash metal, and black metal, in an intellectual, but genuinely enthusiastic manner, unlike some of the 'ironic' poseurs featured on the same show, who shall remain nameless.
Weinstein's book is a balanced and academic look at heavy metal music, its fans, and its role in society. This new edition adds a new 'Metal in the '90s' chapter, as well as an updated list of '100 Definitive Metal Albums' that now includes Arcturus and At The Gates, In Flames and Hammerfall, etc.
Essential for all serious fans of either cultural studies or heavy metal, preferably both!
Aka the Scene Creamers.
Now on Vinyl!
We listed the latest record by Texas folk pop ensemble the Weird Weeds a few lists back, and everybody dug it like crazy, so we got in touch with the band and got a handful of their first record, Hold Me. Which is just as good!
A dizzying blend of random ethereal popness and shimmery dreamlike folkiness with a healthy heaping of arty angularity. Slightly confusional and a little schizophrenic, but the Weird Weeds' off kilter playfulness is exactly what makes this combo so totally appealing. Fun and freaked out, but always soft and dreamy, even at their most convoluted.
One side of the band's sound is all fluttery flutes and swoonsome strings, little bits of strum and twang wrapped into perfect little nuggets of sunshine-y West Coast pop. A little country, a little hippy, all super sun dappled with plaintive vocals and simple minor key strumming.
The other side of their sound is a much more obtuse assemblage of stumbling drums, twinkling guitar harmonics, lots of tangled squiggly almost metallic guitar solos over wildly strummed acoustic guitars, a constant angular Deerhoof art-rockiness that perfectly plays to the interaction between super high sad boy vocals and dreamy angelic female vocals. While these guys are definitely far out, and these songs are not at all straight forward, the weirdness never overshadows their pop sense, which makes Hold Me a total delight for pop kidz and artrock nerds alike.
We're not exactly sure how we stumbled upon the Weird Weeds, a mysterious experimental pop outfit from Texas, but we're sure glad we did. This, their second full length, is totally captivating and weird as fuck. Even the opening one two punch is sort of confusingly brilliant, the sweet opening track, softly strummed guitar, simple chimes, and harmonized female vocals, followed by the bizarre rhythmic workout of the second track, a processed whump of a rhythm track, quickly surrounded by effervescent swirls of droning high end, and gorgeous intertwined vocals. It is definitely pop, but unlike any pop we've ever heard. Maybe the closest comparison would be Animal Collective, but Weird Weeds are a whole different animal, the core of their sound seems to be an upper register drift, be it some weird metallic shimmer, high end guitar jangle, or the dreamy female vocals combined with the mostly falsetto male vocals. And just as important to WW's sound is percussion. Every song leans heavily on whatever off kilter rhythm the band establishes, often lurching from near static shuffle to a loping pound, and just as quickly back again. The song structure is a bit off kilter as well, super complex and convoluted, sounding either like a pop band afflicted with the worse case of ADD ever, or like each song is a composite of 10 or 20 other little songs. The effect is intoxicating, and when the band unfurls a twangy little ditty, you find yourself braced for the inevitable shift to some other random melodic tangent, and when it sometimes doesn't come, you find yourself being almost disappointed. Hard to believe such a massive expansive sound could come from such a compact ensemble. And that the simplest ingredients, guitar, percussion and vocals, could be whipped into such a heady psychedelia! Droney, drifty, twangy, dreamy and strangely lovely.
We listed the latest record by Texas folk pop ensemble the Weird Weeds a few lists back, and everybody dug it like crazy, so we got in touch with the band and got a handful of their first record, Hold Me. Which is just as good!
A dizzying blend of random ethereal popness and shimmery dreamlike folkiness with a healthy heaping of arty angularity. Slightly confusional and a little schizophrenic, but the Weird Weeds' off kilter playfulness is exactly what makes this combo so totally appealing. Fun and freaked out, but always soft and dreamy, even at their most convoluted.
One side of the band's sound is all fluttery flutes and swoonsome strings, little bits of strum and twang wrapped into perfect little nuggets of sunshine-y West Coast pop. A little country, a little hippy, all super sun dappled with plaintive vocals and simple minor key strumming.
The other side of their sound is a much more obtuse assemblage of stumbling drums, twinkling guitar harmonics, lots of tangled squiggly almost metallic guitar solos over wildly strummed acoustic guitars, a constant angular Deerhoof art-rockiness that perfectly plays to the interaction between super high sad boy vocals and dreamy angelic female vocals. While these guys are definitely far out, and these songs are not at all straight forward, the weirdness never overshadows their pop sense, which makes Hold Me a total delight for pop kidz and artrock nerds alike.
