A super limited missive from Xela, aka John Twells, head honcho of the super kick ass Type label. But his work as Xela is much darker than his label might lead you to believe. His is a world of doom. Not old school heavy metal doom. But truly ominous darkened worlds of doom. His is not a doom of huge riffs and pounding drums, but instead, rumbling sinister drones, and haunting ambience. Crumbling black landscapes of mysterious buzz and whispered menace. The A side of this tape is like a field recording of a rickety old dock, jutting out into the choppy waters of the River Styx, old rust chains rattle, rusty lanterns clang against one another, the rotted wood groans and creaks, the wind howls, the choppy water laps at the pilings, black birds circle overhead, an old boat tied up to the dock rocking wildly in the water, straining against the frayed rope, while in the distance, an ominous buzz permeates the air like the stink of decaying flesh, and somewhere, below the surface of the water, or hidden behind the black clouds overhead, some unspeakable beast growls, his ominous rumble like thunder filling the sky.
The B side takes up where the first side left off, that same dock, being lashed by a fierce storm, but instead of rain and lightning, it's decaying black buzz, and howled vocals, a stumbling, lurching doomy drone, recorded on an old tape, the sound dropping out, the speed shifting, slowing down and speeding up, as much a part of the sound as the obfuscated riffs, and the creeping mournful melodies. Fucking awesome.
Red cassettes with metallic gold sticker, in a cryptic printed black and white sleeve, photocopied insert. LIMITED TO 111 COPIES. Already out of print. We got the last batch so act fast.
We always say "we only have a very few of these, so we won't go into too much detail" and then we pretty much always do. But not this time. Nope. Cuz we only have 8 copies of this. We got a bunch, but most sold before we could get them reviewed and listed.
So for a lucky few of you, here's a brand new, awesome split tape, LIMITED TO 99 COPIES and already out of print.
One side: Type records head honcho John Twells' ambient doom outfit, creating another haunting, crumbling, creepy world of doom-ed sound, epic and heavy, intense and soaring, layers upon layers of coruscating guitars, woven into moody moving droning beauty. The other side: new discovery Ajilvsga, another ambient doom outfit, a duo, one half of which is Digitalis overlord Brad Rose, their side is a thick viscous grinding sludge of blown out guitars, crumbling distortion, heaving slow motion glacial heaviness, that manages to imbue its buzzing creep with haunting melodies and strange blackened beauty.
Gorgeous full color covers printed on textured paper, each one hand numbered, gone before you know it... ----* ----* Compilations : ----*
Couldn't really think of a much better match up. Xela, aka John Twells, who runs the Type label, and North Sea aka Brad Rose, who runs the Digitalis label, both explore similar sounds and sound making in their respective groups, as well as the various releases on their respective labels. This might be the first time these two have shared a record, but hopefully not the last. Perhaps the Volume 1 in the title does in fact hint at future volumes...
Xela gives us two track of his particular 'electronic music', and it sounds, thankfully, much like his more organic music, a bit more abstract perhaps, a lot less doomy, but just as mysterious and evocative, long sweeping soundscapes made up of sculpted hiss, and buried high pulses, ultra minimal but thick and layered, peppered with buried streaks of feedback, fragmented melodies, what sounds like manipulated samples from other songs, all manner of glitch and buzz, deftly woven into two movements, the first, noisy and staticky, powerful and intense, but still strangely pretty, the second, much more abstract, beginning as a whisper, a barely there drift of found sounds, before drifting forward, and accumulating various sounds as it goes, building to a strange and haunting piece of active ambience, very cinematic, haunting and again, in it's own difficult way, quite lovely.
The North Sea continues on in the same direction as the last few releases, ditching much of the folk and flutter, for churning low end crunch. At this point it does seem that perhaps the title Electronic Music was not necessarily meant literally, cuz at least to our ears this sounds like big heaving slabs of downtuned guitar, glacial doomdronedirge, roiling swirls of rumble and buzz, eventually breaking down to something much more ambient, an ominous blackened drift, rife with bits of electronic glitch and swirling space-y FX, before finally transforming into something much more blown out and blissful, a sort of static soft noise jam equal parts Tim Hecker and Aidan Baker, smeared and blurred into one smoldering expanse of soft focus heaviness. Quite gorgeous.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. Housed in plain white sleeves, hand stamped, the text mostly in Cyrillic.
Ultra limited one sided vinyl only release from AQ faves Xela. Already out of print, we have the last copies anywhere.
A single long form composition, more classical and minimal sounding than the most recent Xela full length, beginning with gentle simple piano, tinkling chimes, distant whirs, folky steel string twang, subtle percussion, a subtle mixture of cello, piano, vocals, acoustic and electric guitars and effects, all woven into a lovely stretch of active ambience. Soon though this tranquil drift is enveloped in a thick sonic haze of blurred buzz, and the instruments all seem to be deeply effected by the change, the guitars begin to stutter and glitch, the piano detunes and becomes more atonal, throwing out dense little flurries of notes, steel strings scrape and creak and groan, becoming more and more intense, building to a lengthy drone, everything whipped into a frenzy, swirling whirring, intense and dense but still strangely melodic and quite lovely.
Pressed on thick vinyl, packaged in plain white sleeves, each one stamped and hand numbered, limited to 300 copies, and again, already out of print, these are the last copies ever...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Greek avant garde composer's 1977/78 46-minutework for 8-channel electronic tape. Challenging, to say the least. You dig Merzbow? Well test your mettle against this - piercing tones from a true master.
Iannis Xenakis took up residence in the GRM studios in 1957 during the time when it was run by Pierre Schaefer. Over the next five years, Xenakis composed a handful of works, most of which have made their way onto this Editions Mego produced anthology, including "Concrete PH" (1958), "Orient-Occident" (1960), "Diamorphosis" (1957-1958), and "Bohor" (1962). Commissioned as the sound design for the 1958 Phillips Pavilion constructed by the acclaimed architect Le Corbussier, "Concrete PH" was sourced entirely from the sound of burning charcoal, with the crackling sounds being sped up and overdubbed via tape to enhance its brittle tactility in a dense cloud of tumbling sound. This simple piece of audio construction doesn't even reach 3 minutes in length, but is one of those early pieces of electronic music that has inspired countless adventurous musicians over the intervening six decades. Take your pick: Faust, Einsturzende Neubauten, Small Cruel Party, Scott Walker, etc. "Orient-Occident" is a recomposed extract from the soundtrack that Xenakis provided to UNESCO commissioned film by Enrico Fulchignoni. Here, Xenakis builds his piece through the sounds of bowed gongs, with aggregated crescendos of dense metallic reverberation which he intuitively balances with ambient rumblings and radiophonic sine-wave flutterings. Again, this is a very instructive piece of electronic music, not only an obvious precursor to Nurse With Wound's Homotopy To Marie but also to Stockhausen's Mikrophonie which was begun a few years later in 1964. "Diamorphosis" is probably the closest that Xenakis ever came to producing a true musique concrete piece with its jagged start-stop assemblage and almost formalist, spider-web like passages whose loose interpretation of serialism serves him very well. "Bohor" was the last piece that Xenakis composed at GRM, and he dedicated the piece to Pierre Schaefer, who did not appreciate the piece whatsoever. Do keep in mind that Schaefer also didn't care of Eliane Radigue's work with feedback and minimalism, so the attack-softened clamorings from various tuned pieces of metal into a static amalgam is actually not that far from the maximalist / minimalist approach of Organum and the denser moments of early Andrew Chalk. Again some three decades before either were beginning their careers! Much of this work has been long out of print, even on CD, so kudos to Editions Mego for reintroducing these seminal recordings.
Asphodel, always adventurous, branches out further with two new releases, one "world music" (Min Xiao-Fen, below) and this 20th century classical item, a Xenakis piece performed by Xenakis-experts the ST-X Ensemble, with none other than Aphodel mascot DJ Spooky running the A-DAT machine. The music? Orchestra plus tapes = music that even the Wall St. Journal considers "terrifying masses of sound."
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Greek avant garde composer's 1977/78 46-minute work for 8-channel electronic tape. Challenging, to say the least. You dig Merzbow? Well try your mettle on this -- piercing tones from a true master.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Repressed, now at a more attractive price! Greek avant garde composer's 1977/78 46-minutework for 8-channel electronic tape. Challenging, to say the least. You dig Merzbow? Well try your mettle on this -- piercing tones from a true master. [/cat/20thcenturycomposers15.html]
These three pieces date back to the early orchestral work of Xenakis in the mid '50s and early '60s when the Greek composer / mathematician was shifting away from Serialism towards what he called "Formalised Music." "Metastatis" divided the orchestra into
This disc premieres two compositions of electro-acoustic work from legendary composer Iannis Xenakis, both utilizing his UPIC system, a method of composition also documented on the recent "CCMIX: New Electroacoustic Music from Paris" double cd compilation.
From the liner notes for this orchestral and choral piece: "Xenakis' 'Oresteia' -- written in 1966 and complete in 1987 with the addition of the scene entitled 'Kassandra' -- is neither Aeschylus' tragedy in its entirety, nor a work written independently of the classical text. In Xenakis' version the history of the kings is recounted by the people: the tragic chorus becomes the central character in the 'Oresteia.' It interprets its own role, but also, collectively, that of the legendary heroes and gods, sung to Aeschylus' lines which were a powerful inspiration to the music." ----* ----* Last Visible Dog : ----* LVD is a great little label specializing in (mostly) limited edition cd-r releases, originally based in Nebraska, recently moved to Rhode Island. We've just brought in a bunch of their titles, interesting psychedelic and experimental stuff from the USA, New Zealand, and Japan (including a Makoto "Acid Mothers Temple" Kawabata project that's pretty cool). We'll be listing more titles in the future. Read on...
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Attention all you avantgarde electronic music fans! Important reissue alert! Iannis Xenakis' "Persepolis" was originally commisioned in 1971 as large-scale sound installation for the Shiraz-Persepolis Festival of the Arts in Iran. "Persepolis" -- Xenakis' longest electro-acoustic composition -- originally involved 8 channels of dense electro-acoustic material broadcast through the vast complex of the ruined Palaces of Persepolis along with a massive display of arclights, fireworks, and bonfires. Even without the visual explosiveness of the original performance (which we are amusingly told is somehow made up for by the presence of 16 page booklet in this release), "Persepolis" is a challenging and evocative piece of electro-acoustic music. Xenakis arranges slow tectonic rumbles and rough granular trebliness with extended passages of what could have been the bowed metal of Organum if Jackman et. al. were tumbling down a flight of stairs. In the liner notes, Xenakis explains that these complex noises correspond to the history of Iran as transcribed through a system of hermetic hieroglyphics. This history, as turbulent micromirror of the world's history, is elliptically described in a series of violent clashes and explosions. For this metaphor, Xenakis the Greek found himself in a bit of predicament as Alexander the Greek was responsible for the obliteration of the Palace of Persepolis where this performance was taking place. Regardless, "Persepolis" engages the visceral and the physical in a way that no other academic / musique concrete / electro-acoustic / minimalist piece has ever done before. It's frightening how powerful this piece of music is, even to one familiar with more recent massive electronic displays by MB, Merzbow, and Organum.
One of legendary 20th century new music composer Iannis Xenakis' most heralded works, "Persepolis" is here remixed by some of today's most adventurous musicians. Though the liner notes clumsily attempt some high brow hoo-ha internationalist theory about why the chosen remixers are appropriate for this project -- "Creative modernism is left with choosing between authoritarianism and religion. Hence, the inclusion of a second disc of remixes..." (hence? huh?) -- the obvious reason why these remixers appear is because, like Xenakis, they manipulate noise, musique concrete, and take experimental music to conceptual and sonic extremes. It makes aural sense; don't give me political wish-wash. Anyway, here's what we've written about Persepolis, which is on the first disc here:
Attention all you avantgarde electronic music fans! Important reissue alert! Iannis Xenakis' "Persepolis" was originally commissioned in 1971 as large-scale sound installation for the Shiraz-Persepolis Festival of the Arts in Iran. "Persepolis" -- Xenakis' longest electro-acoustic composition -- originally involved 8 channels of dense electro-acoustic material broadcast through the vast complex of the ruined Palaces of Persepolis along with a massive display of arclights, fireworks, and bonfires. Xenakis arranges slow tectonic rumbles and rough granular trebliness with extended passages of what could have been the bowed metal of Organum if Jackman et. al. were tumbling down a flight of stairs... "Persepolis" engages the visceral and the physical in a way that no other academic / musique concrete / electro-acoustic / minimalist piece has ever done before. It's frightening how powerful this piece of music is, even to one familiar with more recent massive electronic displays by MB, Merzbow, and Organum.
The remixers include: Ryoji Ikeda, Zbigniew Karkowski, Otomo Yoshihide, Francisco Lopez, Antimatter, Merzbow, Laminar, Ulf Lanheinrich, and more. A veritable noise fest. Construction site rumblings. Very difficult listening. If nothing else, this is a perfect introductory sampler of not only Xenakis but also some of AQ's favorite experimentalists. Nice price -- two discs for the price of one.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Situated somewhere near Cold Cave, Zola Jesus, and Blank Dogs, Xeno & Oaklander offer another fantastic distillation of dark-eyed synth-pop from a previous decade. A duo comprised of Liz Wendelbo and Sean McBride, Xeno & Oaklander eschew digital technologies in favor of analogue synthesizers, sequencers, and drum machines, applying these instruments to the ghostly rhythmic electronics of minimal wave bands such as Absolute Body Control or Snowy Red. Less obtuse references would be early Human League, Xymox, and Depeche Mode; but no matter where you want to pin the influences, X&O are looking back to the European stylings of romantic electronica that dates somewhere between 1982 and 1986. Like Cold Cave, Xeno & Oaklander have made an appearance at the No Fun Festival in 2009, probably being one of the acts that some of the stalwart noiseniks must have hated because of their comparatively pretty songs.
There is something golden and polished to the mechanoid sequences and electrical rhythms on Sentinelle, which stands as the 'proper' debut album for Xeno & Oaklander after a cd-r micro-edition and some choice tracks on Wierd's [sic] first two collections of analogue electronic music. Throughout the album, sad electronic melodies are tightly bound around repetitive phrases and spry post-disco drum programming, with the vocals alternating between both McBride and Wendelbo (the latter singing in English and French). The album has the feel that it could be a stand in as a soundtrack to the silent film Metropolis, with its accompanying aesthetics of art-deco modernism tinged with noir shadows and gleaming bursts of reflected light. Despite the obvious allusions to the past, Xeno & Oaklander seem to have wedged themselves between all of their influences and mustered something that they can claim as their own. Very well done!
Album number three for the Brooklyn retro-garde duo Xeno & Oaklander (aka Liz Wendelbo and Sean McBride), who are the flagship outfit for Wierd Records in their recapitulation of a particular strain of cold synthwave circa 1981. Wendelbo and McBride have collected a mighty impressive collection of synths, sequencers, and drum machines of that era, and they've stuck to their 'no computers' ethos in creating their retro sound. Given the limitations in instrumentation and aesthetics, the Xeno & Oaklander albums do trend toward similarity, veering towards a brighter, new wave / Italo-disco vibe here on Sets & Lights and slightly away from the industrial-tinged notions found on their 2009 breakout album Sentinelle. Wendelbo and McBride alternate on vocals, with Wendelbo taking up her breathy waif-like elegance and McBride adopting British affectations in his delivery. The title track and "Years Before" glide upon percolating, almost Moroder-esque sequencing with disco-inspired basslines and suitably propulsive rhythm tracks bracing everything inside the synth-pop shell that Xeno & Oaklander have so carefully refined. The icy sensuality of the instrumental track "Italy" slows the pace down to something more akin to Johnny Jewel's heartbeat instead of their typically urgent tempos; and it actually suits Xeno & Oaklander quite well, allowing all of the synth blorp to glow just a little bit more. A fine record, even as it doesn't quite venture into new territories.
Xeno & Oaklander were born in the wrong decade and on the wrong continent, but that hasn't stopped them from constructing brilliantly haunted minimal-wave tracks which lead directly back to Belgium (or France, or Germany, or England, or anywhere else in Europe for that matter) circa 1982 through all sorts of analog synths, drum machines, and sequencers. Vinyl of course is the right medium for a band that seeks the vintage pleasures of forgotten futures; but Vigils was originally just a cd-r self-released back in 2006. It quickly became a staple at the Wierd Records parties in New York, and some of the tracks here had appeared in slightly different forms on the two Wierd Records compilations from about that same time. Since then, Xeno & Oaklander have seen their stock rise thanks to a number of retrogarde forces at work, including the reissue campaigns from Minimal Wave and Dark Entries, as well as the huge success of fellow dark-synth technicians Cold Cave. While their 2009 album Sentinelle was received with considerable critical acclaim, Vigils is a much better album altogether. Arpeggiating synth lines and skeletal drum machines form the basic structures of all of the Xeno & Oaklander songs, whose uptempo rhythms belie the aching melancholy formed out of the intertwining melodies and detached vocals from both Liz Wendelbo and Sean McBride. In all of these echo-plexed pulse-tone synths, stark atmospheres, and romantic pop detachment, Xeno & Oaklander unabashedly channel the spirits of Chris & Cosey, Ruth, and Depeche Mode, with the European desire furthered by lyrics in French and German as well as English.
It's a shame that this is merely a cd-r, as Black Book is the best Xeno Volcano album that has come through these doors, although his website indicates that a proper pressing might be in the works. While his origins lie in the San Francisco Bay Area, Xeno Volcano currently lives in Zurich, Switzerland where he has worked with Black Sun Productions (who in turn offer their sexual magick for Coil's stage show) and makes soundtracks for automobile accident prevention videos. Needless to say, Xeno Volcano's tastes find comfort in the transgressive behavior of post-industrial culture. Black Book is buried in dark overtones, as eerie drones flicker across the barren expanses of Xeno Volcano's electronic landscape, sounding not all that far off from Lustmord's classic dark ambient recording The Place Where The Black Stars Hang.
Here's a solo work by one half of the Swiss duo responsible for the Die Organik disc that we listed recently - brought to us by the man himself on his way back home to Switzerland. It reveals a subtly different, broader side of Xeno Volcano. As opposed to his rather stern and clipped collaborative work with Elektra Sturmschnell, in which he provides the backdrop to her spoken word, here he allows things to stretch out, shift and linger a bit more. Track length varies from a scant few seconds to over fourteen minutes. The sounds are also less coldly foreboding and more organic with a bit more warmth and light. Drones drift in like looming clouds, skittery clicks and sputtery hiss collects and dissolves, aloof voices (including that of Sturmschnell) and assorted field recordings surface briefly. In all, it is quite a darkly atmospheric 80 minutes, but it's not without a hint of levity (namely in track titles such as "Whoopee Ball Traffic Mall" and "The Bilge Elvis"). Definitely for fans of dark post-industrial experimental soundscapes (Current 93, Christoph Heemann and select Nurse With Wound).
Xeno Volcano and Elektra Sturmschnell are a Swiss dark ambient duo deadset on landing a record on World Serpent (the distribution center for Current 93, Sol Invictus, Coil, Moon Lay Hidden Beneath The Clouds, Chris & Cosey, and other post-industrial art projects). In all likelihood, they have a pretty good shot at it, with a cold, detached aesthetic that merges barren electronics with equally emotionless spoken word poetics. "Die Organik" does come across like the more electronic Current 93 pieces (especially "In A Foreign Land, In A Foreign Town") but with a dominatrix reciting her Nietzchian poetry in German rather than David Tibet and his pantheistic mythologies.
Into the dark and experimental? Take note! Here's an early work by the Swiss duo responsible for the Die Organik disc that we listed recently - brought to us by Xeno Volcano himself on his way back to Switzerland. Thirty two (!) solemn sonic glimpses of German spoken word amid a spartan landscape of electronic hiss, and soft melodies that drift and whir. Most are under three minutes long. Sturmschnell recites her short prose that shifts between sharp, icy orders to sedated ramblings. Tense, ominous and unsettling latenight listening.
Another high-concept item here, with a quite self-explanatory title. Yep indeedy, it's music made from the sampled sounds of copiers. Kinda not that much different from the dot matrix printer symphonies of The User reviewed here not long ago (though the copiers can't perform live via network and ascii "instructions" like the printers can). The fellow behind Xerophonics, one Dr. Stefan Helmrich PhD., made field recordings of copier machines in action, then sampled and re-assembled 'em via computer into these 13 tracks of manipulated, looping, layered machine rhythms. Clacking parts and melodic electronic blips too. Sometimes it's like a room full of shuddering copiers approximating current cutting-edge electronic dance music -- a copier rave if you will. You can imagine that they provide their own light show as their copying plates flash. There's plenty of weird noises and "notes" that are exceedingly hard to believe came from a copier, but they must have somehow. I mean, some of this gets really scary -- maybe it should have been the soundtrack to that new Terminator movie, "Rise of the Machines" I think it's called. Terminator office machinery!
Pretty cool. Deep thinkers might find more going on here, as part of the motivation for this project involves artistic commentary based on the additional meaning inherent in the sampling of sounds of COPIERS. Geddit, copiers. After all, it's on Negativland's Seeland label. Furthermore, Helmrich's "xerophonic" manipulations are based on aural analogs to the work of xerographic artists: mirroring, resizing, motion-distorting, multiple copy degeneration. Hmm. Regardless, definitely one for fans of the aforementioned The User!
Xex was the experimental synthpop creation of three high-school misfits living in central New Jersey during the mid-'70s, having survived their teen years of suburban boredom with plenty of drugs and eye-opening excursions to New York. Liberated by the spirit of punk, this outfit - pseudonymously known as Waw Pierogi, Thumbalina Gugielmo, and Alex Zander (later joined by Jon-Boy Diode and David Anderson) - took up the task of infusing a smarty-pants cynicism to hyper-primitive arrangements on a small assortment of synths and drum machines. No guitars whatsoever, the sound of Xex is one of skewed melodicism and incessant repetition. This combined with a typically monotone vocal sensibility put Xex in the same synthpunk orbit as The Units and Crash Course In Science. It's a very American sound, to look back upon all of these records. In Europe, the new wave and synthpop was far more self-possessed, even amongst the DIY circles, but for a certain subset in the States, the nerds had become emboldened in punk to use science and math as a spasmodic, future-shock means for nihilist poetics and cathartic release - hence, Devo, Dark Day, Nervous Gender, the aforementioned Crash Course In Science, and Xex. With the exception of Primitive Calculators and Severed Heads in Australia, there's hardly a parallel anywhere else in the world to this synthpunk sound; and Xex were certainly exceptional at it.
Group Xex was the only record they released, although the band recorded a second album but never released it (unfortunately the tapes of that second album had deteriorated beyond repair). Self-released in 1980, the album was sold pretty much exclusively in Manhattan and North Jersey, with an edition of a 1000 copies disappearing quickly. The album did get a cd reish in 1995 after Tom Smith championed the record after discovering it in the vaults at WFMU. It's a very quizzical album of purposefully simple electronic tunes played upon whipcrack drum machines and minimally percolating synths matched by the alternatinge female and male vocals, which are always thin, reedy, and metallic. Thumbalina's girly vocals bounce through the motorik synthpop ditty "Fashion Hurts" whose singsonginess is immediately countered by the unwavering robotic monotone that Pierogi presents on the cybernetic "You Think", and the grim, paranoiac poetry on "SNGA" (which stands for Soviet Nerve Gas Attack).
Another great find from the always impressive Dark Entries label! Definitely for fans of Devo and the Units. Limited to 500 copies with a great looking new wave booklet with lyrics, a band history, and some amusing tidbits thrown in for good measure.
Realistically, if you all are anything like us, a one line review is all it will take for you to know in your heart of hearts, that not only do you HAVE to own this, but that it will rapidly and immediately become your favorite record. OF ALL TIME!!
So here we go: Xexyz are a black metal band who use a Nintendo Entertainment System as their "keyboard" and who essentially have composed black metal songs around the 8-bit themes to Nintendo classics like Metroid and Rygar's Quest. Yes!! We were right, weren't we?
Anyway, Xexyz are a grim buzzing lo-fi horde of black warriors who just so happen to be video game nerds and who have decided that there is nothing more grim or more cult than the instantly recognizable buzz and beep of their favorite Nintendo themes. And you know what, it's sort of true. And it definitely works. Some folks here thought this sounded like the Muppets and Stereolab playing black metal, but it's so much more grim than that. A haunting 8-bit refrain bleeps maniacally under moaning black guitar buzz, while hateful hellish vocals rasp and growl over the top. The theme from Metroid rings out, one of the coolest, and weirdest video game themes ever (second only to Rastan maybe), the weird electronic pulse underpins a thick slab of distorted guitar, when the song finally kicks in, it almost sounds like a lo-fi version of THAT Burzum track, the black fuzz with the haunting keyboard figure in the background. But you know... with Metroid instead. And "Nightmare On Elm Street", is so awesome, the Nintendo theme is super fuzzy and haunting, and perfectly lends itself to some Burzumic buzz, creepy crawly and pretty damn black.
So totally amazing and weird and thus of course absolutely fucking recommended...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Achtung Krautrock heads! Previously unreleased live recordings by this way-out-there, pioneering German band. Xhol Caravan, who started life playing R&B as Soul Caravan in the late sixties and then mutated into Xhol Caravan (and finally, just Xhol) as their
The latest offering from the Pre-Cert Entertainment label (Anworth Kirk, N. Racker, David Orphan, Slant Azymuth) comes from the man himself, Andy Votel, Finders Keepers / B-Music head honcho and one of the folks behind Pre-Cert Entertainment as well (along with the Demdike Stare guys). As Xian Orphic, Votel has crafted what might be our favorite release on the label so far, a record that plays like some lost seventies soundtrack, and while inevitably there are nods to Goblin and Carpenter and Howarth, we're hearing more Fred Myrow, especially on the first track, which is a dead ringer for Myrow's insanely awesome soundtrack for Phantasm, all thick squelchy synths, an impossibly catchy icy minor key melodic main theme, all wreathed in swirls of abstract ambience, there's a little bit of a cinematic kosmische going on, droney tranced out mesmer, lush and melodic, yet somehow ominous and strangely propulsive. It would be worth it for that track alone. But the record slips easily into something even more haunting, a washed out sprawl of layered and looped shimmer, laced with field recordings and strange FX, this track too reminiscent of some seventies soundtrack mood music.
The flipside changes gears a bit, with some tripped out tropical sounding soundscapery, over skittery rhythms, and peppered with dense sonic swirls, and shot through with more ominous melodies. The vibe is a little bit Morricone actually, albeit reimagined as something more synthy and sinister. The second track dips into some Zombi / Majeure territory, which is inevitable making these sorts of retro soundtrack sounds, but Votel transforms the sound into something even MORE old school, channeling a sort of seventies new age krautrock bliss, all before slipping into the final track, swirly and super abstract, all deep celestial thrum, chordal shimmer and gristled gauzy ambience.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
Of all the Chinese releases we've reviewed lately, and it's been a LOT, this might be the most over the top, with some of the most fantastic packaging we've ever seen. Xiao He was a new name to us, but apparently he's of the most respected avant garde musicians in China, and the genesis of this record was via an especially wild performance, during which Xiao leapt from the stage and broke both his feet. While stuck at home recuperating, under doctor's orders, Xiao wrote these songs, apparently in the style of many of his records, a lush classic folk, fused to more modern indie balladry, his vocals a warm, emotive croon, simple strummed acoustic guitar, piano, minimal drumming, multi-tracked vocals, lilting and wistful, with some lovely harmonies, the vibe actually sounds almost like African music in places, and we're also reminded of folks like Sufjan Stevens, albeit a bit more mellow and minimal. Really nice stuff for sure, but it's the packaging that really pushes this over the edge. Presented in a massive, full color, hard cover art book, each page adorned with a gorgeous colored pencil drawing of a leaf, leafs that Xiao found on his walks in the countryside during his recovery, the colors warm and autumnal, each page folding out gatefold style revealing lyrics to each song, the whole thing housed in a slipcover, also adorned with a leaf drawing. But there's no cd, or lp, instead, the music is contained on a flash drive, built into the book! Complete with volume controls, on/off switch, buttons to skip tracks, the little player lighting up, glowing white, just plug in headphones (which are also included), find a nice place to sit, open the book, push play and let yourself get lost.
So cool! LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES!! We only got a handful!
Note re: the player - FYI, once the battery charge runs out, to recharge the player requires an old school cellphone charger (as in, not the new fangled iPhone style chargers!). ----* ----* Selected New Arrivals : ----*
Xiao He, aka He Guoheng, is a legendary musician in the Chinese music scene. Not just a musician, he also works in movies, does scoring, performs plays, is an actor, he also runs his own record label that helps support innovative folk and ethnic musicians in China. Xiao He performs a style of music he calls 'free folk' which involves just him and an acoustic guitar, but unlike the usual strum and croon of most folkies, Guoheng's music is much more far out and abstract. Mostly improvised, the guitar playing is impressionistic and flits from blues to folk to totally freeform abstraction and pretty much every stop in between, his vocals are even more far out, a lush, hushed croon one second, a weird Muppet like mewl the next, sometimes his voice is a rumbling Tuvan style throat singing, and suddenly without warning, he'll swoop into a wild dramatic falsetto, and the will begin yodeling wildly, before slipping back into something more traditional. Wild and unpredictable, imagine Bill Orcutt if he was a vocalist and not a guitarist, mix in a little Dan Higgs, some serious cabaret, and somehow make it even more loose and abstract and free and unfettered by any sort of normal musical restrictions. It's super intense and strange, but also liberating and inspiring. Some folks will definitely find it quite difficult listening, but adventurous musical lovers will dig this outsider free folk weirdness, and will marvel that something so strange could be so popular in the mainstream.
We find ourselves confused certainly by the sound, but it's also strangely addictive, and utterly wild and weird and fascinating. Totally inspired, ultra personal sonic expression like nothing you've likely ever heard before.
The second disc here is even weirder and cooler, more avant experimentation, this time Guoheng's vocals a bit more restrained, but accompanied by what sounds like lo-fi synth squelch, and short wave transmissions, strange FX and whirring industrial soundscapes, burbling electronics, with some of the tracks sounding like Bruce Haack mashed up with the Taj Mahal Travellers, meditative, noisy, textural, freaky and far out!
The packaging is incredible - a full color box, featuring a strange looking Xiao He on the front, wearing a hard hat, with a cat on his shoulder, the other side of the box covered with liner notes / stickers, inside, the cds are housed in super fancy printed diecut sleeves, there's also a big sticker of the cover image, as well as a huge fold out full color, multi panel insert!
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Gosh, somebody must have convinced wall-of-sound Japanese "noise-pop" duo Xinlisupreme that their last album "Tomorrow Never Comes" wasn't noisy enough. 'Cause though we'd not have thought it possible, it seems they've upped the mayhem quotient here, on this 7-track followup! Heavily distorted, uh, distortion, with pretty little melodies and beats buried beneath. An extreme electronic blend of My Bloody Valentine, Digital Hardcore, DJ Scud, Merzbow, and stuff like by these feedback-lovin' popsters. We think this is quite nice, though for some that word might seem strange in context of Xinlisupreme's up-front loudness and chaos. Recommended.
Japanese duo Xinlisupreme have been touted by their label Fat Cat as a mix of My Bloody Valentine, Jesus & Mary Chain, and Merzbow! Fat Cat has done well to preload our expectations with three advanced references to avant-rock history, but it has to be
We reviewed the Unseen Forces label vinyl reissue of this a few months ago, but for those of you who prefer cds, we just got in a few copies of the previous Stormspell cd version that we mentioned in that review, which went a lot like this:
Not long ago we listed a cool picture disc vinyl compilation that the Unseen Forces label put out, called Grave Command, featuring the likes of Orchid, Danava, Occultation, Deceased, Ghoul, Ride For Revenge and others from the realms of heavy metallic weirdness. Standing out amongst all those mostly evil & occult modern day acts was a band called XINR, actually a Christian metal act from the '80s, from up in Portland. Their killer track "All Hallow's Eve" was taken from this lp, consisting of demos recorded circa 1984. Devout Christians but also devout metalheads, XINR (pronounced ex-sinner, get it?) were obviously heavily influenced by Judas Priest and Accept, and come of sounding a lot like Cirith Ungol, with over the top screechy vocals and heavy, catchy riffs. A bit doomy, and pretty darn (excuse me!) rockin'!! Satan doesn't have all the best tunes it turns out. Sadly, the band's career was tragically ended (before it had barely started) by a motorcycle accident that took the lives of their singer and guitarist. However, their headbanging legacy lives on! If you like rippin' old school metal and don't mind if it's Bible believing as long as it's badass, then this is fer you!
Not long ago we listed a cool picture disc vinyl compilation that the Unseen Forces label put out, called Grave Command, featuring the likes of Orchid, Danava, Occultation, Deceased, Ghoul, Ride For Revenge and others from the realms of heavy metallic weirdness. Standing out amongst all those mostly evil & occult modern day acts was a band called XINR, actually a Christian metal act from the '80s, from up in Portland. Their killer track "All Hallow's Eve" was taken from this lp, consisting of demos recorded circa 1984, that Unseen Forces has now released on vinyl for the first time (there IS also a cd version on Stormspell that we can get too by the way). Devout Christans but also devout metalheads, XINR (pronounced ex-sinner, get it?) were obviously heavily influenced by Judas Priest and Accept, and come of sounding a lot like Cirith Ungol, with over the top screechy vocals and heavy, catchy riffs. A bit doomy, and pretty darn (excuse me!) rockin'!! Satan doesn't have all the best tunes it turns out. Sadly, the band's career was tragically ended (before it had barely started) by a motorcycle accident that took the lives of their singer and guitarist. However, their headbanging legacy lives on! If you like rippin' old school metal and don't mind if it's Bible believing as long as it's badass, then this is fer you! Limited white vinyl, includes lyrics and liners.
Xiu Xiu, one of the Bay Area's most original bands, is like a synth pop group that doesn't let the shiny happy face of the genre take over. They know the genre is merely a vehicle for expressing the fully intense and anguished emotions they've got bursting out of them. So instead of punchy casios and happy go lucky tunes, the foremost element is this hushed, trembling voice straining towards the epic wail. Yes, it's dramatic but the sincerity of emotion prevents it from becoming melodramatic. Out of the shards of anguish come experimentally structured songs that dart amongst jittery drum machines, wintry minor key piano, fuzzed out noise, clanging percussion. Building new, fresh songs out of raw emotion that might by a lesser band be inarticulate and messy, Xiu Xiu transcend the genre and any of their many influences, which clearly include Joy Division (Ian Curtis is namechecked on a songtitle here) and Talk Talk. Includes a stark, desperately sad cover of Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car."
If you're new to Xiu Xiu, check out their first two releases before this one, not that they're better, but they are simply a teensy bit more upbeat amongst the beautiful despair, and that makes 'em that much more accessible. This one is a downer, albeit in a gorgeous, shimmering beautiful way, like Talk Talk's "Laughingstock."
A brief but sweet 5 song ep from this often misunderstood, experimental, heartbreakingly sad, depressing, eclectic indierock band. As we previously opined: The lead singer's voice is this super intense, desperate, achingly sad, warbly moan (a la The Cure / Talk Talk / Ultravox), and we're used to hearing that kind of voice accompanied with Brit-style synthpop stuff (i.e. "Melt With You"). Yet with Xiu Xiu the backup to that incredible voice is trumpets and saxophones and clattery percussion (bells, gongs, perhaps even pots 'n pans), with a solid yet obviously lo-fi Casio beat keeping time, and a far away echoey tone placed sporadically throughout. Totally accessable pop with an arty creative craziness to it. Xiu Xiu also plays with song structure and tense silences. What a breath of fresh air to find an "indie rock" band who pretty much throw all the predictable stuff out the window, leaving only originality. If you can get past the singer's voice (I can, easily, but Allan and Byram are making fun of it), then you oughta give this a try. Sadie and Windy give this the thumbs up.
Jamie Stewart. Some people love him, and some people hate him and some people REEEAAAALLYY love him. Anyone who can inspire that much passion one way or the other has some kind of gift that most do not. Or is it a curse? Anyway, Dear God, I Hate Myself (a Jamie Stewart album title that seems overdue) is most definitely a Xiu Xiu album that will make longtime fans love him that much more and dismissers keep on dismissing. Parts of it harken back to the cacaphony and sweet angst of Knife Play or Fabulous Muscles. Other tracks lean more towards straight (no pun intended) dance music ("This Too Shall Pass Away") and even a little country ("Cumberland Gap"). Through it all, though, is the excellent drum machine programming mixed with all kinds of live percussion and whisper/screamed vocals that give Xiu Xiu their unique sound. The cd version comes with a download code for two bonus tracks.
Fabulous Muscles is the third full length from this Bay Area group whose music has proven to draw rather extreme hot/cold, love/hate responses. Well, for those who may have found Xiu Xiu's past releases to be a bit too overwrought and overflowing with abrasive dissonance, you just might want to check out Fabulous Muscles. Fans of the group will be reassured to find that although they've slightly tempered the wild vocal histrionics and jutting homemade instrument angles, they've not lost any of their inventiveness, impact and edge. Very deeply moving and considerably more accessible and appealing than both Knife Play and A Promise. Recommended.
This band is great! Bravo to Xiu Xiu for being original in an indie rock world where originality just doesn't seem very important anymore -- groups like Adult and the Faint are copying '80s electro, every other band has got a member who made a (boring)
And then there's the local group Xiu Xiu who've put out a record on Kill Rock Stars' sister imprint 5RC. The two girls and two guys in Xiu Xiu are so familiar with indie rock's cliches that they anticipate them... and then mess with the formula, thereby coming up with a far artier and more interesting sound (kinda like how Bjork and Radiohead do). Example: the lead singer's voice is this super intense, desperate, achingly sad, warbly moan (a la The Cure / Talk Talk / Ultravox), and we're used to hearing that kind of voice accompanied with Brit-style synthpop stuff (i.e. "Melt With You"). Yet with Xiu Xiu the backup to that incredible voice is trumpets and saxophones and clattery percussion (bells, gongs, perhaps even pots 'n pans), with a solid yet obviously lo-fi Casio beat keeping time, and velvety basslines which are where the melody often resides. The band are also admirably unpredictable in leaving guitar pretty much in the background (if it's present at all) and instead letting this crazy synth action function *just like a guitar solo* -- distorted, climactic, wailing. So cool!
Xiu Xiu is arty and chaotic, but with new wave '80s poppiness. This is a very weird record that is also accessible and really good.
