A fantastic split lp released for Record Store Day, on one side Mr. Glenn Jones, formerly of modern krautrockers Cul De Sac, now an undisputed master of the Appalachian guitar, on the other side, a bluegrass hoedown teamup, bluesman Charlie Parr and country string band the Black Twig Pickers.
Fans of Jack Rose (who Jones dedicated this record to), James Blackshaw, Marisa Nadler, Ilyas Ahmed, Tom Carter and the like who haven't heard Glenn Jones, now's the time to remedy that for sure. Lush tangles of intricate steel string picking, gorgeous melodies, plenty of buzz and slippery slide, rich overtones, from moody dark drift to effusive folk flecked twang, every track here is a gem, Jones a modern master of the Appalachian guitar.
The flipside finds Parr shacking up with The Black Twig Pickers for a serious hootenanny, a back porch, sun-going-down, campfire country folk bluegrass jam session, fiddles, banjos, steel string guitars, all whipping up a wild rollicking country workout, from dark haunting twang to old timey blues, from rollicking hoedown to mournful lament...
LIMITED Record Store Day release, so these may not be around for long. Housed in a super heavy full color jacket, includes a download coupon, and multiple inserts, including some recipes from Charlie Parr.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We've long been fans of progressive post metal combo Rosetta, every record is a super ambitious sprawling multi-part epic, that manages to do MORE than just cram a million parts into a twenty minute song. They are as adept at meaningful song construction as they are at shredding, and they manage to make their metal art crazy catchy to boot. Which is true here too, their half of this split cdep is a single ten minute track, but it's fantastic, opening with a long stretch of chiming guitars and muscly drumming, definitely post rock, then the bellowed vox come in, and the song begins to metallize, but they haven't really gotten into it yet, cuz a minute or so later, the song proper kicks in, and the already epic jam gets that much more epic and heavy and loud, the band unwinding a thick tangled chunk of psyche metal crush, slipping from mathy post rock to churning downtuned sludge and back again, before shedding the heavy and unfurling a moody, shuffling, shimmering post rock interlude, with chiming guitars and some killer intricate drumming, a slow build smolder as the band builds their way back up, eventually erupting into a wild proggy mathy freakout, some killer guitar playing intricate and a little bit shreddy over what is almost a continuous drum solo, the sound getting more and more blissy and blown out, until the final minute or two, a seriously dense and heavy as fuck stop/start chug fest, with more insane drumming. Holy shit do these guys slay. When we haven't listened to them for a while we tend to forget how incredible their records are. But we just listened to this one song about 4 times in a row.
Never heard Junius before, but these Boston heavies definitely have their own take on the whole post metal thing, their take being a way more melodic one, with the vocalist front and center, his voice soaring and clear, which gives the music, no matter how heavy the sounds in the background, a much more commercial feel, definitely reminding us of Cave In during their Radiohead period, which is not a bad thing at all, in fact, after hundreds of records of screeching and howling and yowling and grunting, it's kind of excellent to hear seriously heavy music paired with real vocals. And while much of the music here is heavy, the band do stretch out into a sort of progged out shoegazey metallic pop, the sound epic and emotional, perhaps a bit to wimpy for a certain segment of metalheads, but we're digging it a lot, and this one song definitely has us wanting to hear more.
Killer packaging too, a nice digipak, but with one of those 3" cds within a 5" cd, so the outer ring is clear plastic, with the printing on the top, done so that when you look at the underside of the disc, there's readable text underneath the disc art. So cool. Also includes a download coupon for extra exclusive songs!
Haven't seen the movie yet, but we think Juno's soundtrack cd is like a really good mixtape from your closest pal! A variety of old and new faves that pushes all the right nostalgia buttons. It includes Mott The Hoople's "All The Young Dudes", Belle & Sebastian's "Expectations" and "Piazza, New York Catcher", The Kinks' "A Well Respected Man", Buddy Holly's Dearest", Velvet Underground's "Sticking With You", Moldy Peaches' "Anyone Else But You", Cat Power covering the 1959 tune "Sea Of Love" (previously covered by The Honeydrippers), Sonic Youth doing The Carpenters' "Superstar", and a bunch by former Moldy Peach Kimya Dawson... who must be pretty stoked that the star of the film suggested that her character would be a fan, thus leading to Dawson's inclusion on this soundtrack and a big boost to her career.
Seems like local label Black Horizons must have put this split together just for us. Two of our noisy outsider black metal faves together on one tape, up first, microtonal black metal one man band Jute Gyte, whose sound is a strange sonic brew, the microtonality, sounding just out of tune at first blush, but lending the sound a super twisted, off kilter, psychedelic vibe, the first track here is a dizzying, clean guitar sprawl, all woozy overtones and eye watering melodies, but then when the metal kicks in, it's crushing, and tripped out and impossibly heavy, almost industrial sounding, the churning black buzz riffage, peppered with weird atonal psychedelic squiggles, and fracture melodic shards, and the vocals, a sick, hellish gargle, mathy and progged out, with some super dense tranced out breakdowns, where it sounds like the riffs are melting or slowing down, before erupting into another blast of twisted buzz, that somehow gets impossibly more and more chaotic and sonically off kilter as it goes. The second JG track begins as a loping, lumbering dirge, with weirdly placed pauses, the sound lurching, weirdly detuned and fucked up sounding, warped and woozy, and after a long stretch of cool, softnoise ambience, explodes into a metallic noise rock blowout, all grinding and pounding and howling, before fracturing and devolving into that original atonal avant detuned creep. So weird, but SO cool.
The other side is a single, 27+ minute epic from USBM noiseniks Venowl, who drape pizzicato plucks and scraped strings, over a bed of dense, downtuned rumble, and sporadic caveman drumming, some inhuman shrieking vokills too give this a sort of Khanate vibe, but even more sick and sinister, abstract and lo-fi. It's like black doom musique concrete. The rumbles and whirs to coalesce into a sort-of-riff at times, a churning, crumbling, brittle beast of a riff, which seems to be haphazardly looped, giving everything a super off kilter feel, structureless almost, the sound not metal so much as a sort of avant experimental minimal 20th century doom, riffs become grinding scrapes, drums come in blurts and blats, and those vocals, like insane backwards demonic pig squeal shrieks, that raise the hair on the back of your neck, as does the music really, abject avant blackened horror doom of the highest order, recommended for fans of things grim, and twisted, hateful, harsh and harrowing.
Like all Black Horizons release, the packaging is over the top, the J-card this time, all silver and gold metallic ink on a fold out black matte cardstock, gorgeous design too, the tapes themselves as well, and as always, EXTREMELY LIMITED.
A lovely split release between Low and Karla Schickele of Ida (and formerly of Babe the Blue Ox and Beekeeper). As expected, this is a slow, quiet dreamy gathering of like-minded souls. Tara Jane O'Neil adds drums and organ on the k. tracks. Mr. Warn Defever recorded the Low tracks and remixed one by k.
A mix cd along the lines of K7's "DJ Kicks" series by dj K.O. of ICU (now IQU) and with ultra-minimal cover art (plain jewel case.) Contains tracks by: Ryuichi Sakamoto, Plone, Andre Estermann, AEMIC, Michael Fakesch, Illianthal, Red Snapper, Boom Boom Satellites, One True Parker, Hexer, Jon Forte vs. London Electricity, BOB Sound System, Palm Skin Productions, E.V.A., and Aphex Twin.
Killer split/collaboration between German retro heavy rockers Kadavar and French psychedelic spacerock heavies Aqua Nebula Oscillator, three new tracks from each band, and then two side long epics, where both bands team up and play together. Kadavar kick down a sort of proto metal style heavy blues rock, with bellbottom riffs, fat fuzzed out bass, and a wailing vocalist, total seventies hard rocking riff-o-mania, with some serious psych overtones, and one track that has some killer start/stop dynamics, and one that's a slithery southern stoner jam, all swaggery and snarly, with a second half that cranks the tempo into a frenzied bas heavy freakout. Aqua Nebula Oscillator counter with a sound that's much more noisy and abstract, space rocking and heavy, spaced out and hypnotic, they do indulge in some retro riffing action, the bass driven breakdown on the very seventies titled "Purple Sage", replete with wild tangles of psych guitar shreddery, or the weird percussion and deep dramatic vox on "Jungle Man", which totally sounds like it could be a cover of some old sixties groover, by the Animals maybe? There's even some fake animal sounds, tiger roars and everything! And then finally there's their organ driven blooz ballad, that sounds like a heavy psych version of the Moody Blues, all drowsy and moody and dreamily dramatic, a little Pink Floyd in the mix too.
Those tracks are all well and good, but it's the collaborations that are the real reason to pick this up. The first, epically titled "From The Flying Dutchman", weaves a spaced out sprawl of wild drum splatter, and heavily effected guitar swirl, a dreamy droned out psychscape, that gradually builds to dizzying squall, all flanged and phasered, but still loose and free, never quite locking into a song proper, at least until about 5 minutes in, when the song finally coalesces into a serious guitar heavy chunk of kraut-psych heaviness, the drums (dual drumming), dense and driving, the drums too doused in flanger, the song sprawling out endlessly, constantly morphing from riff heavy crunch, to ethereal psychedelic shimmer, to brooding murky drift, to chiming almost jangly shimmer, and finally, to bass driven dirgey, that finishes things off in a cloud of murky FX and slow decaying chords. Awesome. As is the title track, a similarly structured epic, but one that launches immediately into a drum heavy stretch of fuzz guitar psych, occasionally settling down into something droney and tranced out, but for the most part never letting up, the guitars swirling and howling, grinding and crunching, multiple leads spiraling into wild tangles, the bass throbbing, the drums pounding, total heavy psych bliss out for sure.
Super swank, embossed, heavy stock gatefold jacket, includes a download code as well.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This cd contains the Rye debut 7", the Karp/Rye split 12" and an entire live radio performance by Karp.
We've long been fans art metallers Kayo Dot (who were born from another band we loved, metallic chamber prog weirdos Maudlin Of The Well) and they just keep getting better and better, weirder and weirder. And who better to get matched up with for a split lp, that outsider art sludge combo Bloody Panda? Who, much like Bathtub Shitter, we liked before we even heard em cuz how can you not with a name like that?! And thankfully their sound more than lived up to the high expectations we had because of the name.
Anyway, these two groups are pretty well matched, different enough to keep things interesting, but similar enough to ensure that most folks who dig one, will most likely dig the other.
Kayo Dot start things off with the side-log "Don't Touch Dead Animals", which begins with some creepy female spoken word before lurching into some woozy dark jazz, blissy and warbly underpinned by thick (yet subtle) metal guitars. The sound is slithery and late night, like a metal tinged Bohren or DJ Shadow. Eventually, this dark lounge groove builds into some serious metallic crunch, with wailing horns and anguished female vocals, and truly killer drumming. A glorious trainwreck, blown out free jazz groove all tangled up in some dirgey heaviness. Pretty great.
Bloody Panda counter with what starts out as just a simple caveman plod, with distant moaning metallic guitars, a weird sort of doomy ambience, but it pretty quickly amps up into a massive churning slab of doomy sludge. Guitars are huge and downtuned, poured over everything like viscous goop, the vocals are bizarre, some chanted and crooned, others garbled and alien sounding. There are brief bits of post rocky bliss, and some weird ambient spaciness, but for the most part, this is the sound of a huge Bloody Panda, trudging through tarpits and molten rock, leaving a swath or ruin behind it, crushing everything in its path.
Pressed on super swank grey and brown splattered vinyl, and housed in an eye popping full color gatefold sleeve.
We've had plenty of compilations that featured excerpts of Balinese Kecak performances, but never a recording of the complete Ramayana Monkey Chant, and it's pretty phenomenal! Recorded in 1987 by David Lewiston, who recorded most of the music featured on Nonesuch releases of Indonesian music, this release is not new but it's definitely a classic and totally worth checking out. An old fave indeed, Allan here first heard this 'round about the same time he first got into the Boredoms, and they're somehow linked in his mind, makes sense, 'cause we'd imagine Kecak like this could in fact have been an inspiration for some of the Boredoms' wilder stuff!
Those new to the sights and sounds of "Balinese Monkey Chants" might think that these performances and pieces are long passed on oral traditions and rituals from centuries ago, but in truth they are a modern cultural invention. They were created with the help of a Russian-born German artist named Walter Spies living in Bali between the World Wars, who was a strong advocate for the advancement of Balinese arts in order to appeal to the tourists who visited the island. Spies saw potential in the traditional Balinese trance rituals such as Sanghyang, a spirit communication usually during troubled times. One of the main features of these rituals was the Cak (pronounced chak) chorus, a group of males who chant in highly syncopated and precise rhythms. Spies thought that the Cak chorus would appeal to tourists if it could be made into an entertainment involving a story. So working with a Sanghyang group in the early nineteen thirties, they fashioned a drama from the great Hindu epic, the Ramayana, a story well known to the Balinese people and to many of the foreigners who frequented the island. Using dancers and performers to act out the main parts of dramatic adventures of Prince Rama and his wife Sita, her abduction by the evil Rawana and her rescue with the help of Hanuman and the King of The Monkeys, the role of the Cak Chorus became greatly transformed by not only expanding their variety of sounds by exploring the Balinese language abundant use of onomatopoeia to mimic gamelan rhythms, but also by integrating themselves into the action through choreographed waves of dramatically intense synchronized movements. Sitting in a large group of 5-6 semi-circles, the male chorus use their arms in unison to great effect, sometimes waving up or to the sides or forward while at other moments of the drama, the chorus representing the advancing armies of Rawana, half of the group will stand and lurch forward to display aggression while the other half lies back in surrender (James Cameron borrowed heavily from this for the Na'vi rituals in Avatar). While it is amazing to watch, it's also quite incredible to listen to as the waves of chanting hover between chaos and control in precise furies of sound. You'll hear what we mean about maybe influencing the Boredoms... If you don't have any Kecak in your collection, you don't know what you're missing!
Latest in this long running series of split 12"s, each volume's number in the series denoted by the number of holes punched in the plain white cover, this volume thus being number 19! And this time number 19 is the magic number as both bands sharing the split are LONG time aQ faves, Kemialliset Ystavat from Finland, and Sunroof!, the more droned out and blissy project of Skullflower's Matthew Bower. Both groups sound amazing as usual, but display different sounds than we're used to here.
Let's start with Kemialliset, whose usual sound is a gloriously ramshackle abstract foresty folk, and it still is, sort of, but it sounds like someone in the group got a computer (or at least finally figure out how to use one), as this is easily the most polished sounding KY record yet, and the most rife with strange electronics and effects, but by no means does that mean it's less out there, in fact it's probably the weirdest and most twisted KY record yet.
Woozy twisted lullabies, warped music box melodies, haunting vocal harmonies, it's still foresty and folky, but way more fractured, with strange edits and tons of swirling effects and electronics, way more experimental and abstract, pretty and lilting for sure, but totally twisted. The final track is fantastic, a playful groove, only mildly effected, hypnotic and beautiful, but still a bit off kilter.
The flipside finds Sunroof!, one of our favorite purveyors of glistening high end ur-drone, and technically these tracks still qualify but they're a bit more abrasive and harsh, the opener is brittle and caustic, a field of shrieking feedback, and hiss drenched high end, sputtering horns(?) and all manner of NOISE. The second track is all warped radio transmissions, still droney and minimal, buried beneath a sea of pulsating buzz. And the final track explodes with sheets of corrosive buzz, all high end, grinding and fuzz drenched, a mighty ur-drone bordering on Merzbow territory, but always with a haunting melodic undercurrent that transforms what could be near white noise into something thick and layered and organic and in some strange abrasive way, quite beautiful.
On Kid 606's website, he's peddling a t-shirt emblazoned with the slogan: "I did a remix for Kid 606 and all I got was this lousy t-shirt." At least the Kid is recognizing his ubiquity within the electronica scene with a good sense of humor. "PS You Love Me" is the requisite remix album of his Mille Plateaux "PS I Love You," featuring the production techniques and electronic twiddle of
Volume six in the notorious Tigerbeat singles series, Kid 606 teams up with Electric Company as Kevin Blechdom does "Long Thong Silver", a ridiculous cover of Sisqo's "Thong Song" that's just wrong-wr-wrong-wrong-wrong. I guess it was funny the first time,
Number eight in the Tigerbeat6 '$' series of limited split singles. Kid606 takes on two lesser known artists from across the globe, ASCDI (not to be confused with ASCII) and Printed Circuit (aka Claire Broadley, with releases on Irritant and Elefant as well as a remix disc on Catmobile).
The third installment of Shotgun Wedding, Violent Turd's strictly limited soundclash series. A speedy mash-up of a million hiphop songs along a brutal beat assault. Each of the three tracks has its own flavor with Cex's a bit gentler. It has moments of softness, subtlety and electronic contemplation spanning the length of the piece. And then bam! 606's "Gizm Collission" is a smashup of recycled techno trash and pieces of familiar hip-hop that hits you in the brain. I can almost hear a whistle. Whoah.
The first in a series of proposed split 7" singles on the über-hip Tigerbeat6 label. Oakland based Kid 606 on the A, Japanese artist Com.a takes the B. High price to pay for a 7", but you're gonna have to pay a shitload more on eBay when these babies are gone...
Number seven in the unstoppable Tigerbeat6 '$' series of split singles. This time the Kid steps in the ring to take on Madrid's unstoppable DJ/Rupture, who if you recall, put out one of the best hardcore fuckstep/hiphop/ragga/noise mix discs last year. Watch for his upcoming "Minesweeper Mix CD" coming very soon... Limited, so act fast!
Volume four in the super limited $ series of split singles. Oaktown's Kid 606 once again plunders Ice Cube while Japan's Joseph Nothing runs around in ritalin fueled hip hop circles. Backwards.
Volume 5 in Tigerbeat6's "$" series. Kid 606 throws down another hip-hop slammer. Posterboys make a bunch of noise. Limited.
Third in the $ series of split 7"s on Tigerbeat6. One track each by Oakland's Kid 606 and Brooklyn's Timeblind. Limited to 750 copies, so act fast!
Huh? Aside from the fact that both artists have numbers in their names, this seems like quite the strange bedfellows sort of team up. The electronic mish mash mayhem of Kid 606 on one side of the 12" colored (pink or blue) vinyl, the bludgeoning stoner rock instrumentals of the Boston duo known as 5ive (or, to use their new, full name, 5ive's Continuum Research Project). Weird, eh? And that's just the idea. Of course, if you've heard the 2XH vs. HHR Vol. 1 compilation, which featured a bunch of grind/doom bands as well as drone and electronic acts (including the ubiquitous Kid 606) you know that the Hydra Head/Tortuga guys have an affinity for the Kid's brand of electronic fuckery in addition to sheer metallic heaviness. Hey, just like us! So, maybe it all makes sense. The two tracks from 5ive are in their usual awesomely sludgey bass and drums style, excellent. Then on the flip, there's three from Kid 606, the first of which features processed, distorted solo guitar and loops, almost as if he's making an effort to fit in with 5ive. Very cool actually. His next track is some Casio-beat goofiness, but that's then followed by a third track again with guitar, but spacier and more psychedelic. All in all, the Kid's tracks here are a lot more subdued and 'musical' than we expected.
Took a while for these to materialize from the man and his peeps, but better late than never we s'pose! Bay Area lone mouthpiece Kid Beyond takes his moniker seriously taking the art of beatboxing beyond the hip hop common place. And though he definitely isn't a youngster (when we saw him perfom live a while ago he resembled a life size Barney Rubble!), he keeps energies and spirits youthfully high and welcoming as he loops and layers his oral utterances and sputterances into a catchy grooviness. Who'd think a beatboxer would cover Portishead? Seems like an unlikely choice, but KB does it style and it totally works!
This lovely (and bargain-priced) record is the result of a beautiful band-meets-band story. You know, two bands with beards meet and make friends for life. Actually, does Kinski have beards? We're just guessin'. (Note: there's ladies in both bands, we're not accusing them of having beards or anything.) Seattle cosmonauts Kinski and guitarist/guru Kawabata Makoto of the popular Japanese underground musical commune Acid Mothers Temple go way back, to when Kinski opened for Mainliner's 1999 US tour. Sooner or later they had to collaborate, and we're not complaining. Even if you find AMT a mite too prolific, at least this release is 50% Kinski, who haven't yet reached the product overload stage that AMT share with Merzbow and precious few others. Thus no need to feel guilty about adding this to your shelf of AMT releases.
So, we get four tracks to absorb here. First up, is Kinski's "Fell Asleep On Your Lawn". Its ten minutes start off all quiet n' pretty before going into spacelaunch mode. They fire their rockets, come back to earth, and then blast off again. Maybe they don't fly as high as the best of their recent Airs Above Your Station album, but it's still a good track. Then, track two sees Kinski visiting Japan, playing a pre-dinner jam at AMT "dancin' king" Higashi Hiroshi's flat, with Higashi and Kawabata sitting in on guitar. It's really beautiful, almost ambient, hushed space drone stuff that's so sleepy that I woulda thought it was an after-dinner jam instead. Lovely. The third track comes from the same 'session' but has extra added AMT overdubs, so you hear from the whole AMT crew plus the Kinski quartet. It has a similar mood to track two but is denser. Lastly, track four is just AMT, offering their companion to Kinski's opening cut, though it's twice as long, called "Virginal Plane 5:23". It's a swirling stoned jam not unlike their Electric Heavyland album. All in all, real nice disc from these international cosmic comrades, packaged in some cool Boredoms-meet-Man Or Astroman? lookin' cover art. Vinyl limited, cd not.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Where to even start... HAWKWIND. The mighty lords of drugged out space rock, without whom, most of the bands we love might not even exist. These four Hawkwind records: Doremi Fasol Latido, Hall Of The Mountain Grill, In Search Of Space, and Space Ritual, are pretty much all anyone needs to know about space rock. Or whatever it is that Hawkwind do, long sprawling jams, extended psychedelic workouts, heavy and trippy, totally drugged out and divine, while at the same time, surprisingly catchy. But yeah, aQ folks probably already know how much we love Hawkwind.
So if we were to pick six bands to cover classic Hawkwind tunes, we might not have picked these six, but then again, we very well might have: Mudhoney, Mugstar, Acid Mothers Tempo And The Cosmic Inferno, White Hills, Kinski, Bardo Pond. Holy hell! If this were just a comp with those bands, we'd be all over it, but the fact that they're covering Hawkwind seems like it was made just for the aQ faithful, and who knows, maybe it was. Spread out over three 7"s, we almost didn't list these separately, but as a set, 'cause to our minds, who the heck would only want one or two of these? But you never know, so for those of you who didn't already freak out and toss all three into your cart, here's a brief bit about each specific 7":
On volume three, "Lords Of Light", Kinski definitely get their Hawkwind on, covering "Master Of The Universe", and like Mugstar on the first volume, not so much making it their own, as transforming themselves into a vessel through which the spirit of Hawkwind can flow, and flow it does. That main riff is such a killer, all the band have to do is ride it out, adding plenty of freaked out effects and psychedelic leads, the vocals buried in the mix, not getting in the way of the endless spacepsych jamming.
And finally, the series is closed out by another group of modern psychedelic masters, Bardo Pond, who add female vocals to their take on "Lord Of Light", the vocals drifting ethereally, over a roiling black cloud of FX drenched guitars and some seriously pounding drums, even a bit of flute (we think), and maybe more than any of the others managing to meld the sound of the original with their own, plenty of wah wah guitar, loads of effects, most of the track spent drifting through space, cloaked in blown out super distorted psych guitar and shimmering outer space ambience. Surprisingly heavy and totally blissed out.
The packaging is brilliant, perfectly tripped out psychedelic acid flashback, naked lady, geometric design, cribbed from the original Hawkwind artwork (or at the very least, an incredible simulation), the sleeves are printed complete with shelf wear and corner creases (so don't complain, they're meant to look like they've been on your shelf for decades), each one SUPER LIMITED, and already sold out at the label, we have a bunch, but these will be the only copies we'll ever have!!
There's over 70 minutes of high-flying, low-droning instrumental space rock on this here split cd! AQ-faves Kinski start things off with "Keep Clear Of Me, I Am Maneuvering With Difficulty", a twenty-minute long improv which gives them plenty of time to build from quiet, outer-space atmospherics to the sort of loud, fuzzed-out mantric heaviness that we love 'em for. Their driving rock mayhem attains levels of distortion that the Acid Mothers Temple would envy, before Kinski bring things down into a nice cosmic drone zone to end the piece. Easily as good as anything on their excellent new Sub Pop album "Airs Above Your Station" reviewed here last list. Next comes a band with whom we were not familiar, Paik (named after artist Nam June?). Their two tracks clock in at about twenty minutes total too. Ponderous yet shimmery, you probably won't realize you're not still listening to Kinski -- no complaints there. Real nice & pretty. And then Surface of Eceon (another AQ-fave, related to Landing) take a half-hour to soothingly drone their way through this disc's finale. Blissful. These three were definitely a good choice of bands to share a split, style AND quality-wise. Kinski definitely get up to the most rock action, but the other two bands space out beautifully. Recommended to all you psychedelic post-rock drone-heads.
The third and final volume of this sprawling 6lp (two lps in each volume) drone haze ambient masterpiece from the man behind the Caretaker, and V/VM! All three 2lps have been compiled onto a triple cd, this week's Record Of The Week, but for vinyl folks, who have the first two, grab part three while you can...
For a couple of years now, Leyland James Kirby has been releasing a highly acclaimed catalog of maudlin ambient recordings culled from melodic phrases looped and blurred from old 78s. The bulk of these recordings (typically released under the Caretaker moniker) didn't seem to leave England or at least they didn't arrive in California. Now that the distribution has improved, we've finally been able to hear what the fuss has been all about. This album belongs to a trilogy called Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was that Kirby has made now that he finds himself living under the grey skies of Berlin having relocated from grey skied Manchester; lo and behold, he's still making cold, rainy grey music for cold, rainy days. And yeah, he's pretty damn good at it.
As a piece of vinyl, When We Parted My Heart Wanted To Die eschews titles and doesn't even give us any information what so ever on the artwork, a paint-smeared canvas. It works as an endless loop of flipping the two records, forgetting which track you've drifted in and out of, and wondering where to start next. These pieces of blurred ambience, obfuscated field recordings, and sad piano melodies hint at the furniture music of Erik Satie, the mood engineering of Angelo Badalamenti, and the emotional resonance of William Basinski. Limited to 450 copies, these will not last.
Volume two of this sprawling 6lp (two lps in each volume) drone haze ambient masterpiece from the man behind the Caretaker, and V/VM!
For a couple of years now, Leyland James Kirby has been releasing a highly acclaimed catalog of maudlin ambient recordings culled from melodic phrases looped and blurred from old 78s. The bulk of these recordings (typically released under the Caretaker moniker) didn't seem to leave England or at least they didn't arrive in California. Now that the distribution has improved, we've finally been able to hear what the fuss has been all about. This double lp is the second in a trilogy called Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was, and finds Kirby now living under the grey skies of Berlin having relocated from grey skied Manchester; lo and behold, he's still making cold, rainy grey music for cold, rainy days. And yeah, he's pretty damn good at it.
Like the first volume, When We Parted My Heart Wanted To Die, Memories Live Longer Than Dreams also eschews titles and doesn't even give us any information what so ever on the artwork, a paint-smeared canvas. It works as an endless loop of flipping the two records, forgetting which track you've drifted in and out of, and wondering where to start next. These pieces of blurred ambience, obfuscated field recordings, and sad piano melodies hint at the furniture music of Erik Satie, the mood engineering of Angelo Badalamenti, and the emotional resonance of William Basinski. Limited to 450 copies, these will not last. However, we have been told that a 3cd set will be emerging at sometime in the future containing the whole vinyl trilogy.
For a couple of years now, Leyland James Kirby has been releasing a highly acclaimed catalogue of maudlin ambient recordings culled from melodic phrases looped and blurred from old 78s. The bulk of these recordings (typically released under the Caretaker moniker) didn't seem to leave England or at least they didn't arrive in California. Now that the distribution has improved, we've finally been able to hear what the fuss has been all about. This album belongs to a trilogy called Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was that Kirby has made now that he finds himself living under the grey skies of Berlin having relocated from grey skied Manchester; lo and behold, he's still making cold, rainy grey music for cold, rainy days. And yeah, he's pretty damn good at it.
As a piece of vinyl, When We Parted My Heart Wanted To Die eschews titles and doesn't even give us any information what so ever on the artwork, a paint-smeared canvas. It works as an endless loop of flipping the two records, forgetting which track you've drifted in and out of, and wondering where to start next. These pieces of blurred ambience, obfuscated field recordings, and sad piano melodies hint at the furniture music of Erik Satie, the mood engineering of Angelo Badalamenti, and the emotional resonance of William Basinski. Limited to 450 copies, these will not last. However, we have been told that a 3cd set will be emerging at sometime in the future containing the whole vinyl trilogy.
A split LP between San Francisco's Knit Separates and Orange Cake Mix, both of whom exemplify the art of holing up in a bedroom and quickly banging out evocative, yet quirky 4-track psychedelic folk. The Knit Separates -- comprised of Jason Honea, Glenn
By now most folks probably don't need to know much more than the fact that this is a DJ mix from aQ beloved dubstep producer Kode9, and not only features some of his own jams, but tracks by folks like The Bug, Zomby, Ikonika, Digital Mystikz, Terror Danjah, Ramadanman and loads more. And the fact that it rules. But fair warning, this is not at all a straight dubstep mix, there are some serious dubbed out jams, some thick bass warble, and all that jazz, but there's mostly plenty of seriously non dubstep stuff, that's just as cool. The first half of the mix is definitely more danceable and less dubby, the first two tracks are dreamy and housey and melodic, even Kode9's "Blood Orange" ditches dubstep for something more fuzzy and skittery, his "You Don't Wash (Dub)" is also more groovy and late night disco-y than dubby. It's not until the Ikonika track that things get dubby, but even there, it's almost more electro and 8-bit crunchy, Sticky's "Look Pon Me" is a driving, almost grime style groove, with some awesome female toasting, dramatic strings, an irresistible house-pulse, and some cool twisted production, in fact so far, this sounds more like something you'd here on Kompakt, albeit with more bass, and more synth buzz, and less of that 4 by 4 throb.
The second half starts off with a similarly weirdo vibe, Zomby's jam is an awesomely retro slab of video game skitter, swirling electronics, skeletal basslines, tripped out effects, which leads right into a short blast of Kode9 spaced out weirdness, which leads into some serious dubsteppery, Digital Mystikz unleash some super stripped down dubbed out crunch, Terror Danjah, chops up some vocals and adds some fragmented metal guitar, Zomby sprinkles the proceedings with some sparkly electronic fairy dust, before things slip right back into some pulsing grooves, and the mix continues on its curious electronic journey, again only dipping toes into dubstep instead opting for a more free form assemblage of modern electronic music, from house to electro to 2 step to garage, finishing off with a killer dubbed out dancehall jam from The Bug, all low slung bass, streaks of record crackle, spare minimal rhythms, woozy effected ambience and some fierce toasting from Flo Dan. Awesome stuff for sure, although dubsteppers and Kode9 fans should approach with caution, even though you'll probably dig this anyway... and anyone into recent joints from Zomby, Ikonika, Martyn, Ital Tek and other leftfield dubbed out electronic alchemists, grab this NOW!
Killer 3 way vinyl split of extreme heaviness, starting off with SF's own Kowloon Walled City, who by now really have to be one of the best and one of the most criminally under-hyped heavy bands in the city, super brutal and intense, their sound dense and crushing and epic, equal parts modern metal and old school AmRep style noise rock, a hybrid few can pull off as well as these guys, yet outside of a select few, it seems these guys have yet to be discovered by the world at large, but with every record, it seems like they can't remain a secret much longer.
And here they bring the noise (rock) big time, their first track a lurching stop/start mini-epic, the guitars corrosive and downtuned and THICK, driven by some seriously kick ass thumping drum damage, the vocals a frenzied (but still melodic) yowl, the arrangement strange and super dynamic, the whole thing hooky as hell, one of those tracks that had it come out in 1997 as a single it would probably be one of your most treasured 7"s. Their second track is totally different, reigning in that wanton bash and crush for something a bit more low slung and brooding, a weird sort of Neurosis / Killing Joke hybrid, super melodic, dark and moody, but with no shortage of extreme sonic crush.
We had never heard (or heard of) Ladder Devils before, but they're a pretty good match for KWC, they too have a sort of noise rock thing going on, their take a bit more punky and grungy, still hyper rhythmic and heavy as fuck, but way more loose, some awesomely howled vocals, thick syrupy low end, chugging guitars, hooky riffs, both tracks rule, even recorded evoking wild and sweaty live cub destroying chaos. Definitely psyched to hear more.
And finally Jersey metallic post rock sludgelords Fight Amp, who are only now making their first appearance on the aQ site, even though a few of us have been fans for a while. Fight Amp have a sound not all that far removed from folks like Baroness, Kylesa and the like, a sort of Southern sludge via slow brooding Neur-Isis style heaviness, and their two tracks here offer up a seriously heavy heaping helping of just that, churning and thick and epic, a little groovy, WAY downtuned, a little mathy and proggy too, giving it a sort of Voivod feel, albeit quite a bit more crusty and sludgey, but it's a pretty killer combo, and again, a pretty perfect match for both Ladder Devils and Kowloon Walled City...
Killer packaging too, a thick PVC style jacket, hand silkscreened, housing a printed folded sleeve, the back half of the sleeve cut away to reveal the clear vinyl and the printed images beneath it. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!
What more do you need to know, than this is two of our favorite heavy bands, doing killer (and WAY unlikely) covers, on by Low, and one by Soundgarden? OK, how about the fact that this was a super limited installment of a subscription only series, really the only way to get your hands on one of these was to subscribe, unless, the guys in KWC offered us a little handful of their copies, the LAST copies in fact, so you should know what that means by now, grab one before they disappear.
KWC tackles Low's "July", and besides cranking up the guitars, and adding some downtuned crunch, stay pretty true to the original, and wisely got a guest vocalist, Lisa Papineau, who we had never heard of before, but who has sung for Air, M83, Farflung and others, but who is the perfect fit, here vocals emotional and powerful, darkly tinged, one of those rare, practically perfect covers, where the cover manages to be as good as the original, different enough to be interesting, but faithful enough to make not singing along impossible.
Thou take on Soundgarden's "4th Of July", and like KWC, stay sort of faithful to the original, and like with the KWC track, via the vocals. In place of Thou's usual throat shredding shrieks, the band unveil some seriously powerful crooning, a kick ass voice that definitely has us wondering what these guys would be capable of if they chose to go in that direction. But fear not, not only is the main riff an oozing, downtuned creep, but after that first verse, the more recognizable Thou vocals come in, but instead of replacing the clean vox, they team up, for a really bizarre duet, and some twisted not-quite harmonies, the song itself, unfurling as a lumbering, surprisingly still super melodic, dirge doom monster.
Rare that we dig both sides of a split this much, but both these tracks totally KILL. And again, super limited, we have about 15 copies, these are the last ones we'll be able to get. Not sure you can even still sign up for the subscription series, so probably better to get one now, before you're kicking yourself later. Insanely gorgeous cover art / design as well!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Split cd of minimal, ambient electronics from Canadian drum 'n' bass experimentalist Kristian and Japanese artists Sian (a duo formed by the guys from noisemakers Aube and Monde Bruits). Haunting stuff, eerie sounds that sneak up on you.
An entirely new (and entirely grim) prospect to us here at aQ HQ, Mysterium Coniunctionis brings together two hitherto unheard of corpse-painted practitioners of the dark arts: Italy's Krowos and France's Malepeste, both of whom thrive in the murkiest depths of mid tempo depressive raw black metal. The three Krowos tracks ply almost exclusively in a shuffling Burzumic plod (with the occasional daliance into a Transilvanian Hunger-esque blast) - a dreadful and inevitable suicide trance - the vocals anguished and shrill, the guitar work simple, patient, repetitive and hypnotic. The sound is muddy and lightless (as it should be), a slow motion abyssian slog into nothingness. Malepeste's contribution are no more uplifting, peppering their marching funereal thud with some deep droning Attila Csihar-esque vocals. Musically, they mine a similar field as Krowos, their brand of black metal slow, simple and bleak, but accented by an off kilter looseness that adds a certain sickening delirium to the proceedings. Those interested in black metal's darkest, most hopeless canals need look no further than this staggering, bleeding husk of a split.
One of two new releases from modern retro power poppers Lame Drivers. Elsewhere on this list you'll find their Group Flex style flexibook ep, and then there's this, a killer split with Northwestern post punks Woolen Men. Lame Drivers deliver two short sharp blast of fuzzy, jangly pop. The first channels The Fall through some swaggery, angular crunch; the second sounds like it could be a new Matthew Melton (Bare Wires, Warm Soda) project, all hushed whispery vocals, fuzzed out guitars, hooks galore, swoonsome and melodic, also reminds us a bit of Purling Hiss. Killer stuff for sure.
Woolen men counter with a kick ass slab of fuzzy indie pop that sounds a bit like the Wipers via early Guided By Voices, which is a VERY good thing, and follow that up with a Terminals cover, the band making that classic NZ Flying Nun sound all their own, bass heavy, swirling synths, monotone vox, all wrapped around another killer hook. Both sides of this 7" are stellar, and should have everybody tracking down everything they can from both of these bands!
The legend on the back of this split seven inch reads "Ugly Providence Boogie Rock". Well it most definitely is ugly and from Providence, but boogie rock might be stretching it a bit...
We're still grooving to that last Landed 12" that found the ever shifting outfit unleashing some alien scuzz rock dancefloor technology, but this track here is a bit of the classic Landed sound, grungy and sludgey, blown out rhythms and buzzing guitars, super thick distorted bass, the whole thing a sort of plodding dirge, but peppered with wild squalls of angular mathiness and freaked out new wave damage. Pretty awesome stuff.
The flip side is by fellow Rhode Island noise makers Snake Apartment, who do their own sludgy dirgey kind of thing. Channeling the Brainbombs through thick sheets of East coast art rock, and dipped in the black tar of classic old school Amrep noiserock, lots of stretched out guitars, strangled vocals, throbbing bass, all tangled up into swaggery Stoogesy grooves, that is surprisingly catchy.
We reviewed the first 7" from Midwestern slowcore rockers Lark's Tongue last list, and at the time mentioned we also got a copy of their split with another Midwestern outfit, which is this right here, and like that 7" LT display a sort of laidback dark jangle minimalism that had us comparing them to another aQ fave, True Widow, but as we mentioned in that review, they're not nearly so dour and dark and a good bit more rocking, with a distinctly nineties vibe, the three tracks here letting the band stretch out, which definitely suits their sound, which is lush, and expansive, a little bit brooding, hauntingly psychedelic, this time with cool swoonsome background vocals, some seriously crunchy guitars, and world weary vocals, the songs laced with long stretches of droned out psych jam smolder, reminding us of Dead Meadow, sort of burnt out, sun dappled, hazy heaviness, which is even more evident on "Black Sue", which sounds like stoner rock slowed down to a moody crawl, again the song wreathed in smoldering guitars, and dreamy reverby effects. The final track slows things down even further, and the band builds up to an explosive, but still slo-mo finale, all dirgey drumming, and swirling clouds of guitarnoise, and dreamy laconic vocals that give the sound a Red Red Meat vibe too, which is most definitely not a bad thing.
We had never heard of Men Of Fortune before, but immediately out of the gate their sound is heavier, and dirgier, still psychedelic, a Midwestern noise rock, stop and start guitar churn, super dynamic, but soon, the sound blisses out, and in come super dramatic vocals, changing the tenor of the song big time, the vibe suddenly sort of gloomy and gothic, but when fused to the noise rock heft, makes for something pretty excellent. The other three songs also fuse noisy, stoner rock heaviness, and big riff crunch, even some weird electronics, to crooned dramatic gloominess, and sprawling gothic psychedelia.
Includes a download coupon!
We've been trying to get our hands on enough of these to list for ages, a killer 3 way split of obscure strangely melodic blackness, released on Hungarian label Turanian Honour, featuring long time aQ faves Marblebog, Bay Area depressive black metal duo Lascowiec and Verzivatar, another Hungarian horde we had never heard until now.
Lascowiec, whose killer demo compilation we raved about a while back (which we still have a small handful left), returns with four more tracks of washed out black beauty, darkly depressive and beautifully buzzy, the music of Lascowiec is a blurred and smeared minor key mystery, remove the distorted vokill croak, and you'd be left with a deep swirling shoegazey bit of soft focus buzz. The riffs are muted and muddy, lo-fi but still lush, locked into trancelike loops, woozy and warbly and hypnotic, about as pretty as black metal can sound without ceasing to be black or metal. Spidery tangled little melodies, wreathed in otherworldly effects, distorted but not harsh or jagged, more smoothed out and blissy, the vocals the grimmest element, but for the most part, it's the music that carries Lascowiec, gorgeously mournful, and hauntingly lovely buzzy blackness.
Marblebog offer up two songs, epic and majestic, melodic too, but with some super twisted way UP in the mix vocals, that transform an otherwise loping mysterious minor key dirge into something creeped out and harrowing. The main melody is gorgeous, almost power metal sounding, albeit slowed down and draped over a monotonous doomy drum plod, but those vocals, the perfect blend of harsh and hellish, brooding and pretty. Their second track is another strange blend, this time the guitars and drums are buried beneath thick swirling keyboards, and some fucked up demonic gurgled croaking vocals. Again, the effect is the same, a sort of woozy softly buzzing prettiness transformed into a fractured, Burzumic, off kilter depressive black dirge.
Finally Verzivatar deliver two tracks of fierce and frantic blasting blackness, but like the other two bands on the split, their sound is marked by an unlikely melodiousness, the riffs, frenetic and buzzy are also soaring and majestic, the vocals here too are weird, but less black metal, or really metal at all, more like a raspy punkish howl, or a strangled mewl. Gives Verzivatar a sort of crusty punkish vibe, reminding us a bit of French faerical black metal punks Nuit Noire. Definitely need to hear more from these guys.
All three bands offer up some seriously gorgeous melodic grimness, some surprisingly blissed out black metal buzz, unfortunately this is LIMITED TO 666 COPIES, and has been out for a while, so not sure we can get more. Each one is hand numbered, with a big full color booklet, liner notes, lyrics and the works.
Aaah, a Devendra Banhart sighting! While in Europe back in 2004, this neo-folk troubadour recorded with the band known as Queens Of Sheba. This lil' record features one of the resulting songs of that session -- "It's A Christmas Time Celebration". Yes, we are well aware that it is already the middle of January, but who are we to squelch a little belated holiday themed music? The flipside is the elegantly attired "Impossible Occurances" by LA's dream-folk combo Lavender Diamond. Artwork by Ron Rege. Limited pressing of 2500.
Here's a unique kind of movie soundtrack, and an excellent one at that! Leonard Cohen I'm Your Man features live recordings of Martha and Rufus Wainwright, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Teddy Thompson, Nick Cave, Antony (of And The Johnsons), Beth Orton, Pulp's Jarvis Cocker, The Handsome Family, Perla Batalla, Julie Christensen, U2 and the man himself, Leonard Cohen. The performances (except for the Cohen/U2 one) were part of Hal Willner's production "Came So Far For Beauty: An Evening Of Leonard Cohen Songs" which took place twice in Brighton, England (2004) and Sydney, Australia (2005). Cool!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Not so much a split or even a collaboration really, this is basically two tracks from spastic indie noise-rockers Les Savy Fav with a David Cross intro / outro on each track. The LSF songs are great, falling somewhere between Deerhoof, Grandaddy and Interpol, equal parts moody throbbing hypno rock, and skronky indie splatter. And the Cross stuff is pretty funny, mildly un-PC as you'd probably expect, but unfortunately quite brief.
