We've mentioned it before, but it definitely bears repeating. It's always good to print the speed a record is meant to be played at. If your band is slow and sludgey, droney and dirgey, then odds are it will sound good at both 45 -and- 33, and if you're like us, you'll probably think it sounds better slower, dirgier, heavier, so we're gonna review this split at 33, cuz it sounded better that way. If it was meant to be played at 45, well, everything we're about to say, only slightly higher pitched and a bit faster.
Lesbian are from Seattle and feature a bunch of dudes who have done time in other heavy bands, most notably Asva. They released an awesome album on Holy Mountain a year or two ago. And here, they offer up one track of classic sounding doom, at least at first, soaring minor key guitars, wrapped around crushing drums, harsh demonic vox, strangely haunting and pretty, but as the song develops it gets weirder and weirder, introducing some blasting double kick, some old school eighties style chug complete with guitar harmonies, and some streaks of blurred almost-black metal. Like Khanate meets Iron Maiden, but weirder, and even cooler than that already sounds.
The flipside is a new track from Ocean, from Maine, not to be confused with THE Ocean from Germany, the sound here is brooding post rocky metal, a simple strum, all murky and Godspeedy, slow building, before exploding into a churning low slung sludge, that at 33 is thick and viscous, but maybe slightly less so at 45. Heavy and murky and pummeling, before giving way to a pretty droned out abstract outro.
Packaged in sturdy full color sleeves, pressed on thick opaque yellow vinyl, and most likely limited.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Awesome collection of many of the jams Larry Levan would play (and many he mixed) at the legendary garage in the heyday of the New York disco scene. Everyone from Talking Heads to Gwen Gutrhie, Teen Gardner to Patrice Rushen. Carefree, groovin and so much fun!
Seems like rumors regarding the end of Leviathan were greatly exaggerated. Not only is Leviathan still a going concern, but then out of nowhere pops this brand new, bad ass split, with a Greek band called Achernotas, who we knew by name but had never heard until now.
Needless to say, most aQ metalheads won't need much more prodding than the words "new Leviathan record", then there's the fact that the cd AND vinyl version of this split are both insanely limited, which means once we sell out of these, odds are we won't be able to get more, which is a huge bummer, because not only are the Leviathan tracks awesome (obviously), but we're pretty psyched on Acherontas as well.
The Leviathan tracks sound like maybe they're a bit older, perhaps before the shift from electronic drums to acoustic drums, the sound is murky, but still gnarled and chaotic and dense, the arrangements furious and frenzied, the drumming insane, and that unmistakable demonic croak. Lots of glitch and buzz, tangled atonal melodies, a heaving wall of blackened chaos, but it is Leviathan, so there's plenty of dark brooding ambience, some classic metal sounding chug, some spaced out almost doomy sounding blackness, the sound here falls somewhere right between classic Leviathan and the more twisted sonic soundscapes of Lurker Of Chalice.
The Acherontas tracks start off with haunting reverb drenched piano, creating a creepy otherworldly vibe, before the band launches into some super grim sounding black pound, the drums simple but intense, the guitars super distorted, the riffs woozy and minor key, the sound slipping easily from loping Burzumic plod, to proggy almost folky swirl, with clean guitars and strangely complex drumming, smothered in ethereal effects, the vocals especially harsh, dripping with demonic intensity, then suddenly transforming into deep haunting croon, the guitars following suit, growing more and more melodic and lovely, still all wrapped in a haze of distorted buzz, eventually fading out in a blur of minor key miserablism. Really awesome stuff. Definitely need to hear more from these guys.
But for now, if you do want one of these, cd OR lp, act fast, these have been selling like crazy and we're down to about half of what we started with. The cds come in a nice digipak (although be warned, some of the edges are a little worn in shipping, nothing we can do about it, these are probably all we're gonna get), and the lp is a super striking pictured disc, that comes in a heavy sleeve with a printed 12" x 12" insert.
Managed to get just a few more of these in stock! Direct from Wrest of Leviathan. And we are told these will be the last copies ever so don't miss out AGAIN. Here's what we had to say about this split when we first got it in:
Finally a little more Leviathan to hold us over until his next forthcoming full length, Tentacles of Whorror! This time a round it's a split with European old schoolers Iuvenes who traffic in buzzy blurry black metal, Bathory style. Really simple blast beats over superdistrorted riffs and growled gutteral vocals with squiggly leads buried waaaay doooown in the mix. Droning and repetetive and very hypontic. But let's not kid ourselves, Leviathan is why we're here and Wrest does not diappoint. Grinding suffocating swarms of buzzing guitars, ultra creepy, deeply depressing ambience, completely and brilliantly fucked drumming, haunting Burzum-y keyboards, and that inhuman bowels-of-hell rasp that occasionally erupts into an utterly terrifying demonic shriek. But it's the songs, the songs are just so fucking good. So many black metal bands make all the right sounds, but can't actually write real songs. Wrest continues to explore and push the boundaries of black metal with Leviathan, exploring distinctly non-black metal sounds and ideas, but manages to stay grim and true the whole time. The songs here are punishing and crushingly dense, disturbing and evil as fuck, but days later, you'll find these riffs stuck in your head like a crown of thorns! Essential!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The mighty Wrest and his black metal behemoth Leviathan resurfaces once again, this time teamed up with fellow USBM outift Sapthuran. It's a good matchup in so much as Sapthuran sounds quite a bit like the current crop of West Coast black metal (Xasthur, Crebain, Draugar, etc.) which is definitely a good thing. Midtempo buzz and blur, with haunting clean guitar melodies in the background, that come to the forefront briefly on the second folky ambient track, only to be summarily obliterated by Sapthuran's closer, a dizzying blurry buzz of droning riffs buried vocal howl and splattery blast beats. Definitly need to hear more from these guys (we actually have Sapthuran's full length in stock, just ask).
But as always, Leviathan is the main event, the reason we all showed up, and once again Wrest does not disappoint. In fact if anything (and if it's even possible at this point) the Leviathan material on this split is even more fucked up and out there than ever. That Leviathan sound is present and in full effect, a blurry swirling buzz of crazy riffs, impossible drumming, those insane vocals, and completely bizarre song structures, almost proggy at points, never hesitating to stop and start, stutter through some improbably complex series of time signatures or bliss out into some strange ambient soundscape. And as if Wrest's compositional style and playing weren't unique enough, every track is rife with all manner of weird parts, bizarre sounds and fucked up sonic detritus. From strange tripped out drone-ambience, angular almost Greg Ginnish guitar freakouts, impossibly tortured and affected vocals that go from gutteral rumble to hellish howl, to creepy otherworldly keyboard like backgrounds, to sludgy almost doomlike breakdowns to full on krautrock / mathrock workouts, albeit slathered in plenty of buzz and fuzz. The final track finishes things off in a completely unexpected way, with a warm and fuzzy slow motion smear of gauzy muted My Bloody Valentine / M83 guitars and simple blown out drumming. As always, amazing!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
None of us were surprised by how good this movie was. After all, we pretty much all love Bottle Rocket, The Royal Tennenbaums, and of course Rushmore. And really none of us should have been surprised by how great this soundtrack is either, since Wes Anderson movies are as much about the music as the movie itself. But somehow the soundtrack was a surprise. For the content as much as the way it was incorporated into the movie. The focus of the soundtrack has to be the gorgeous acoustic numbers by cast member Seu Jorge. There are 5 of them, and they just happen to all be Bowie covers, and are all sung in Portugeuse! I'm not a huge Bowie fan, but the minute we walked out of the theater, I was hoping that the soundtrack would have those tracks, and it did! Warm and languid, melancholy and dreamy, Jorge's tracks are absolutely beautiful, giving those classic rock and roll numbers a totally different nuance. And once you see the movie, those tracks will make even more (non)sense! But that's not all. Classic tracks by the Zombies, Joan Baez, Scott Walker, and the Stooges! The Stooges' "Search And Destroy" has always been one of those songs that makes you want to rumble -- that RIFF! -- and it's put to excellent use in the film! Plus a killer score by Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh. But a discussion of The Life Aquatic would not be complete without a quick digression into "The Cheadle". Not sure how many of you saw Ocean's Eleven, but Don Cheadle played a demolitions expert, with the WORST British accent ever. FOR NO REASON! Responding to every query with "Right guvnuh!" or "Cherrio!" Arghh. So infuriating. WHY WHY WHY? So consequently, pointless and poorly-performed accents are now referred to as "The Cheadle" (others refer to it as "The Kidman"). So in Life Aquatic, Owen Wilson is the one responsible for "The Cheadle", a Southern accent that at best is superfluous, and in execution is thick and impenetrable sometimes, totally non-existent at others. But fear not, that hardly detracts from how great this film is. Owen Wilson is still cute. Bill Murray still rules. The movie is still amazing and funny. And the music is still perfect!
As decreed by the dual monarchs of the Kingsdom of Elgaland / Vargaland (those being CM von Hausswolff and Leif Elggren), Swedish composer Rune Lindblad should be held in the same canonical reverie as Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Cage, and Pierre Schaeffer. For Lindblad engaged the spirit of ardent innovation, brash risktaking, and an unwavering social agenda that could easily be found in
The lp is much more loose in its interpretation of Lindblad with Brommage Dub pulling off a good Monolake / Chain Reaction piece of minimalist techno, and Jean-Louis HuhtaJ offering some leftfield electronica a la Two Lone Swordsmen or Plaid. Nice work, but doesn't really hold much insight into Lindblad's work beyond distant samples. Nevertheless, this is an excellent overview of Lindblad's work and his influence over contemporary Swedish experimental electronics.
Latest Late Night Tales from Swedish Dancefloor impresario.
Two enigmatic projects share this 20-minute cassette, which provides little more than the names of the two bands and their respective track titles. There is an enticing inscription inside the j-card which reads "dusseldorf lunar sand continuum." Yup, sci-fi soundtracks and kraut-inspired electronics are in the cosmological order for both Lithium Dreams and Starla Dust. The former transmits a linear stream of tremolo augmented soft noise with ambient swoops and half-melodic blurs. Eventually, small tone pulsations and percolating lazer-ping synths open up Lithium Dreams to sounding like those early Oneohtrix Point Never cassettes or some of John Elliot's non-Emeralds output, as if it were the soundtrack to some long lost scientific / industrial film about satellites. Starla Dust keeps to the oblique sci-fi sound with low-end oscillations dappled with metallic half-formed drones, malleable ambient wash, and squiggling electronics. The vibe here is not all that far from Coil's Music To Listen To In The Dark in all of the deep space hypnosis and synth miasma. Another fine cassette from Monorail Trespassing!
Christoph Heemann (of HNAS , Mirror, and many other storied tape music/drone outfits), finds himself in yet another collaboration, this time with none other than aQ faves, Chicago's blackened doom drone duo Locrian, and the results are fruitful to say the least. Albeit a bleak and black fruit, that the shiny and happy amongst you might be hesitant to taste. But then, there's much to enjoy, even for the less adventurous, in the moody drifting darkness conjured up here.
We see Locrian dialing back the harshness in favor of a more hushed and dreary post apocalyptic soundscapery. Opener "Hecatomb" starts with a creepily stark, almost Nitschian drone, complete with what sound like a cacophony of burbling horns, with disassociated fragments of 12 string guitar floating atop a heady haze of drifting textures. Part way through a lush drift of beautiful piano harmonies intermingle with a pulsating tom tom, while scraping doom-laden electronics lie buried beneath the surface, creating a haunting whirlpool of mesmeric aphotic bliss. The proceedings take a much grimmer turn with "Loathe The Light". As the title suggests, this is a dark one. Wonderfully depressive skeletal guitars outline the overall feeling of doomed helplessness. Scraping cymbals swell and clang and hiss, tortured blacked screams reverberate inside some long forgotten cavern. The mood is tense and forlorn and beautiful. "Edgeless City" has more of a lost in the cold depths of space vibe. Writhing guitar textures seep out across a barren moonscape, buzzing and dubbed out, it builds subtly into a spacious brooding stasis. A throbbing grumbling underpins the whole thing, a moody desolate soundtrack for impending end times. The last cut "The Drowned Forest" is a deep and murky miasma of death time vocal crooning and cold twisting drone harmonics, completely enveloping and angelic, like a much bleaker depressive Tim Hecker, the track as a whole developing into a churning lush hypnotizing swirl of glacial black drone. A stunning collaboration brought to us by the always ruling Handmade Birds imprint. RECOMMENDED!
Fyi, there's a cd version too, we have a handful, waiting to get more though...
Another fantastic split, on a list jam packed with killer splits, this one featuring recent aQ Record Of The Week honorees Locrian, whose The Crystal World double disc was a big hit around here, and Century Plants, a duo we dig who are WAY under represented on the aQ site, with only a single cd-r having ever been reviewed.
Unlike the black and buzz of The Crystal World, Locrian explores a sound world more hushed and minimal, more cinematic and soundtracky, two long tracks, that flow into one another, the first beginning with streaks of shimmering buzz, over deep ominous drifts, tinkling melodies way off in the distance, soon overcome by thick swaths of swirling thrum and whir, gorgeous shards of keening high end, bits of electronics and feedback, the sounds thickening as the track progresses, sounding more like a lost John Carpenter soundtrack that some avant/post black metal thing, haunting and atmospheric and mysterious. Which leads directly into the second track, pulsing, throbbing, muted melodies, a brooding tense slow build, strangely pretty, but still dark and ominous, plenty of murky buzz and roiling blackness beneath the surface, the track never exploding into something strictly heavy, instead, drifting darkly and dreamily as a suite of mysterious cinematic dronemusic.
Century Plants dial it down even further, an ultraminimal strum and drift, whispering riffage over a cavernous low end hum, tendrils of minor key melody intertwine with smears of moaning low end, soft swoops of backwards guitars, and super subtle effects, the sound gradually becoming more insistent, the guitars subtly buzzier and blacker. The second track begins similarly, a soft hushed shimmer, but quickly blossoms into something much more sinister, a thick slab of churning black SUNNO)))-ed buzz, a glacial low end drift, that heaves and roils, but is deftly smoothed into something more tranquil and otherworldly, than heavy and harrowing.
Fantastic stuff from both bands. Definitely needing to hear more Century Plants, and of course can never get enough of Locrian.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES, housed in a beautiful silkscreened blue metallic ink on matte black sleeve, with heavy printed insert.
Killer tag team from two of Chicago's finest, Locrian and Harpoon. We've long been fans of Locrian's grim dark drift, infusing their ritualistic black ambience with plenty of black metal, but here, they go full on black, spitting out a slab of dirgey, muted, murky, howled hate. After a rumbling intro, the track explodes into a swirling cloud of frenzied riffing, loping demonic pound, and shrieked anguished vokills, with the drummer from Velnias driving them in their dirgey blackened plod, grim and atmospheric and surprisingly metal. We dig. Ambient drone fanciers might be a bit... overpowered, but everyone else will definitely dig.
The flipside comes from Harpoon, who we've yet to list, which is a bummer as it features ex members of LONG time aQ faves (and tUMULt recording artists!) 7000 Dying Rats. But Harpoon is not comedy grind, no this is some serious metallic brutality, slipping from frenzied blackened thrash, to pounding downtuned doom, throat shredding vox, crushing riffage, all wound around some complex arrangements and of course some seriously brutal drum damage.
A pretty heavy seven inches for sure. And in some seriously sweet packaging. Letter pressed black on black gatefold sleeve on super thick nice cardstock, green and black swirled vinyl, a full color two sided printed insert, and a download card.
Finally on cd! Originally released as a double 12": one record containing less than a minute's worth of the trademark sonic pummelling by San Diego's The Locust plus an ultra stunning etched b-side, and the other record filled with the same song getting all remixed and electronically fucked up by a variety of their friends, from Christoph De Babalon (a 109-second carnivorous nightmare) to Kid 606 (much more Kid than Locust) to Bastard Noise (a truncated 47-second splatter) to I Am Spoonbender (abducting us on an epic 6-minute Locust adventure), and others. The only disappointment with this cd version would have to be the packaging. Let's face it, visually the military green camo cd is no match for the twin toxic lime, etched vinyl attack, but if you need some good morning music...so much better than an alarm clock.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We stocked up on this one, but it'll probably still go real fast 'cause, well, the word for fans of either band is "rabid". You know what I'm talking about if you're one of 'em. And it's on colored vinyl, a nice marbled orange color. The music? Extreme hardcore. 5 songs from San Diego screamo kids The Locust and 2 from Japanese spazzers Melt Banana. With disturbing cover art from Born Against's Sam McPheeters.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This awesomely confusional weirdo black metal split now available on cd (cd-r actually), in a dvd case with printed insert and black and white cover art, the digital version of the tape we listed a while back (we still have a couple of those left if anybody wants one before they're gone)...
Second missive from black metal weirdo Lonesummer, whose What We Were cd-r from last list was a huge hit around here. A twisted blend of strange samples, totally blown out black metal buzz, and weird sun dappled melodic pop, all wound into a massively confusional, incredibly fucked up bit of blackened avant noise pop, or something, tough to know exactly how to describe this. We have to imagine that most black metallers would find Lonesummer just way too damaged and freaky, but for us, it's exactly the sort of weirdness we've been dying for.
The opening track sums it up pretty nicely, beginning with some sample conversations, street noise, a hushed minimal drone, which explodes into a crumbling in-the-red almost white noise blow out, the sound so saturated, it's impossible to pick out instruments, the sound just a thick cloud of swirling buzz and skree, as the track progresses, riffs seem to materialize out of the ether, but instead of taking the form of a proper BM jam, it seems more than anything to add a sense of rhythm, creating a fucked up, looped bit of buzz drenched mesmer, before, the buzz fades out, leaving some sampled African music, which eventually fades out. Phew. The next song is just s far out, beginning with some new age swoosh, some sampled wind (or is it tape hiss?), a delicate chiming melody, before a tiny bit of drum skitter leads into another explosion of impossibly distorted, but weirdly pretty and shoegaze-y blacknoise. 4 tracks total from Lonesummer, and goddamn we already want more!!!
Lonesummer are paired up here with Marsh, a one man band from Minneapolis, whose take on black metal is much more primitive and raw, a bit punky, with a definite D-beat vibe, so folks into Akitsa, Malveillance, Bone Awl, this is definitely your cup of tea, but Marsh manage to infuse their own vibe, the repetitive almost looped sounding arrangements, the cool hazy washed out production, loads of effects and like Lonesummer, a weirdly off kilter pop element too. Need to hear more from these guys as well.
We only got about 10 of these, and sadly that's all we'll ever be able to get, a new blast of twisted what-the-fuck black medal weirdness from aQ faves Lonesummer, teamed up with new-to-us Planning For Burial.
Lonesummer are in fine form, introducing their tracks with a weird sampled TV jingles before unfurling sheets of white hot, ultra brittle blasting black metal buzz, super lo-fi, and chaotic, but shot through with strange melodies, and mysterious textures, shifting from frantic frenzied blowouts, to mournful depressive doomic crawls, the vocals a buried inhuman shriek, the guitars so caustic, the sound totally high end, as if they were being played through speakers consisting of nothing but tweeters, finishing off, with a gorgeous bit of melancholy clean jangle guitar pop, the vocals sweetly sorrowful, like a more twisted lo-fi Richard Youngs, that poppiness, no doubt present in the other songs as well, just buried under avalanches of crumbling corrosive crunch. Awesome.
Planning For Burial are not nearly so abrasive, in fact, they're barely black metal at all, instead, they craft a sort of buzz drenched dreamlike slowcore, the opening track is all creepy crawly, measured emotive vox, wheezing organs, all beneath a churning layer of crumbling distortion, the result is actually quite lovely. Then the drums come in, programmed and electronic, and it gets more dramatic and majestic, and sounds almost like some twisted, 4 track, buzz doused take on Antony And The Johnsons, which is absolutely a good thing. The second track takes a woozy, depressive Cure like drift, all tinkling minor key melodies, and shuffling rhythms, and wraps it in thick buzzing bass, and swirling ethereal synths, the beats big and electronic here too, sounding not at all unlike some of the more minimal and moody Witch House jams we've heard. Finally, PFB finish off with a gorgeous softly psychedelic guitar dronescape, all washed out, blurred and bleary, the vocals buried, the guitars lustrous and thick, total hazy shoegazey dream pop drift. So killer.
LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES and already out of print. We have the last 10 copies, so act fast...
I'll be honest. No one here likes this as much as me (Andee). BUT FOR GOD'S SAKE, TRUST ME THIS TIME! I WILL NOT LEAD YOU ASTRAY! Most fans of crank call comedy should already have the first few volumes of the brilliant (-ly insipid) Longmont Potion Castle. How can you not love a guy who gets off on torturing the clerks at radio shack and is obsessed with Tandy products?! A guy who spits out the most retarded and baffling products/names/etc: gugliata, voltor, leprechanjulius!! And on a previous cd, he continually harassed a foul mouthed cantakerous old man, but by the end of the disc, they were buddies, with the old man asking how the tape was going and LPC promising to send him a copy. FUCKING HEARTWARMING! How often do you get that on a crank call record?!!? Stupid and silly and once in a while totally inspired. This was constantly in the stereo on all of our road trips and so much Longmmont verbiage became vernacular for me and all of my San Diego friends. So buy this or I'll start talkin' whip, and may even bring a tennis racket toyaleyup!!!
Perhaps it took Scott Arford winning honorable mention at the 2005 Ars Electronica to get this split release with Francisco Lopez to come out. These two pieces were originally recorded back in 2002 and had been slated for release by a couple of different labels, until Low Impedence had the sense to finally just do it. Curiously enough, this is one of several releases to come pouring out of Arford's 7hz studios after a couple of years of silence. Electricity appears to the source material and subject matter for the two composers on Solid State Flesh & Solid State Sex. The latter is the work of Mr. Arford who has always had a penchant for hard, blistered noises and cacophonic feedback squallor; and those sounds are heavily featured here punctuating the deadened buzz of smoldering electricity. It's hard to think of this as being sexy music or even sexual music given the electrocutionist throb of Arford's sounds, thus lending to plenty of transgressive readings if you're so inclined. On the slightly more voluptuous Solid State Flesh, Lopez expands the monotone of 60 cycle hums and the hissing buzz of electrical static through his signature compositional strategy of slow-burning tumult which abruptly halt and annouce a prolonged passage of inactivity. Unlike some of his Belle Confusion pieces, Solid State Flesh adds a considerable menace to his self-professed absolute concrete, but nevertheless is very well done and an excellent companion to Arford's work.
This six-song split cd includes Mary Lou Lord performing, as she often does, a song by Nick Saloman of the Bevis Frond. Also, the other half of this cd features Sean Na Na doing Andee's new favorite Pacific Northwest indie-rock hit: "Princess and the Pony". A nice surprise.
Three veteran SF DJs B-Love, Doc Fu and Romanowski deliver one solid mix a piece. Doesn't Doc Fu's description pique yer interest and yer appetite!? "A Lumpia, Menudo, Irish stew megamix throwndown" Yo, check it!
Low fans are a mighty loyal lot, and this box set probably needs no introduction nor explanation for them. For those less devout, this is the slowcore royal family's highly anticipated ten year retrospective collection. Perhaps a bit daunting for a Low neophyte (psst, maybe start with Secret Name first)! However instead of releasing a 'greatest hits' or 'singles' type of thing, they've opted to reward their legions (who undoubtably own all their albums already and don't need to be told what the 'best' were!) with tons of obscure musical gems and visual delights. The fifty two rarities, demos and b-sides fill up three whole discs, and an additional dvd is packed with two documentaries and videos galore. One particular track on the third disc reminded us that Low have made some bizzare (but strangely appealing) cover choices over the years, like Journey's "Open Arms" (okay... granted they did it as a wedding gift for their friends, but still!). On the other hand, Disc 2 has their positively dreamy rendition of the George Harrison penned Beatles' song "Long Long Long". Gorgeous. And an absolute necessity for any Low fan.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Expensive split single from the UK. One of Low's best-loved but never-released songs, "David & Jude" is brief and starkly beautiful. The addition of Calvin Johnson on melodica is very nice. Leeds quintet Vibracathedral Orchestra offer up a cyclical groove of primitive percussion in a macabre carnival atmosphere. Worthy of your time.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Starting with an introductory minute of electronic drone distortion, the half of this split cd by Belgian black metallers Lugubrum, entitled "Al Ghemist" is, simply, awesome. Unlike most black metal bands, Lugubrum aren't concerned with playing fast. But they do care about atmosphere. Slow, doomy, heavy, dirgey, dark, bleak atmosphere. The production is kinda lo-fi, but densely textured.
The opening noise piece leads into "Hunted Ordure", one of the best doom songs we've EVER heard. Buy it for this track alone and you'll be happy. Happily doomed. But the other Lugubrum tracks are good too. They do some faster stuff, but it still sounds like music from the bowels of the earth. The croaking vocals, fuzzed-out guitars, the weird non-standard rhythms, it's so nice. As they say, "Your discomfort and damaged speakers nourish Lugubrum eternally!!!"
Finsternis (a Lugubrum side-project) aren't quite as odd an outfit. They play good old-fashioned necro black metal, excuse me, "alcoholic bonesaw metal" exclusively. You've heard the likes of them before. But their half of this split does provide some hateful blasting rock n' roll for those that dig this sort of primitive, grimy black metal.
Oh, thanks to AQ customer Roberto for pointing out to us that the old man on Lugubrum's "Al Ghemist" cover art appears to be holding a carrot. For some reason that didn't convince Roberto that this was amazing, but it only added to our love for Lugubrum.
This is one of two new entries in the ongoing series of Suicide related 10" singles, celebrating Alan Vega's 70th birthday (despite the fact that he was born in 1948, a mere 60 years ago). Both sides feature versions of the horrific electro-thud masterpiece "Frankie Teardrop" from the classic eponymous record released back in 1977. The A-side is a new cover from like-minded misanthrope Lydia Lunch, screeching out the vocals on top of a monophunk electronic arpeggiation. It's certainly the best we've heard from Lydia Lunch in many, many, many years. The B-side is a demo version of "Frankie Teardrop," which finds Martin Rev's musical accompaniment for ominous, analog synths pretty much worked out, even in demo form, but Alan Vega's story about Frankie Teardrop himself hadn't quite evolved into a tragedy about an everyman whose life just sucks. Instead, Frankie is cast as a Vietnam vet / detective given a particularly unfortunate assignment. It's not as clinically articulated as on the proper album, but has more of a Philip K. Dick vibe going on. Limited to 1500 copies.
This massive remix disc from AQ dronedrift fave Machinefabriek, is composed entirely of remixes of the out of print Stofstuk cd, the shortest Machinefabriek release but quite possibly our favorite. Originally released as a�little rectangular business card shaped 3" cd and clocking in at an impressive 5:31,�Stofstuk was recorded with only a singing bowl, a contact mic, a vinyl record and a laptop, and originally created as a private pressing, and is easily one of the most gorgeous slabs of shimmery minimalism we've ever heard. It was also crazy limited and went out of print in no time. Thankfully, since all of these remixes are based on that same track, it's included here for those of you who missed out. So before we get to the remixes, best to probably quickly describe the source. For�five glorious minutes, deeeeeeeep notes are loosed, lush and resonant, allowed to billow out like sonic ripples, every once in a while, some massive bass kicks in and washes over the listener like a huge slow motion wave, it's strangely transcendent, rich with intense emotion and sonic impact. Around these cavernous swells, various drawn out notes drift and shift, soft focus layers laid upon one another, gauzy and ephemeral, all hovering blissfully over a gorgeously muted field of barely there record crackle. Wow. Like a warm and dreamy Jeckian take on Raster-Noton, or some cosmic minimal meditation music. So totally beautiful. It almost seems a shame to remix something so nearly perfect to begin with, but thankfully, the majority of these mixes manage to subtly tweak the original, retaining much of the magic, while managing to imbue the revamped version with a bit of their own subtle style.�
If you loved the original version as much as us, this double disc is pretty much a no brainer. We complained in the first one about the 5 minute playing time, and how we just set the cd player on repeat and listened to it over and over and over, and that's almost what this is, but with each repeated play subtly and slightly altered (and a few dramatically different), but it's pretty tough to argue with 2+ hours of variations on Stofstuk. Plus check out the list of remixers: Alva Noto, Mitchell Akiyama, Xela, Svarte Greiner, Lesser, Freiband, Kim Cascone, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Luigi Archetti, Julien Neto, Pita, Adam Paccione, Henrik Rylander, Gert-jan Prins and loads more. As we mentioned, most of the versions are subtle variations, you might not even be able to tell the difference if you weren't paying close attention, but a few folks mix it up, Freiband adds a thick layer of caustic buzz and grind to the then barely audible original, Aaron Martin adds some glitch and microphone noise, Xela brings out the original's muted melodies and adds voices, Lesser adds a bit of grind and crunch, Henrik Rylander buries the original beneath layers of warm whirring fuzz, Julien Neto gives his version a soft focus, easy listening sheen and�Gert-Jan Prins transforms the tones of the original into gritty buzzing grinding low end and piercing sine wave tones, but these are the exceptions, and even though the above descriptions make it seem like those tracks must stick out like crazy, in the context of a massive double disc set, they sound just perfect, nestled as they are amongst song after song of whispery droney drift. So gorgeous.�
Packaged in a soft cottony pouches, housed in a folded cardstock jacket and a thick vinyl outer sleeve.�
Split singles are the perfect way to shove two bands together and see what happens. A successful split can go in either directions, two bands who have fuck all do to with each other, and do their own thing, or two bands who are together for a reason, best case scenario, because their sounds are in some way complimentary.
So consider this a best case scenario, two AQ faves, both masters of abstract drone and beautiful ambience, each given a side to do what they do, and it sounds like the two 'groups' worked off each others sounds. That's how great these two tracks sound together.
Machinefabriek goes way minimal, a super abstract, nearly static tone poem, each note stretched out into long barely pulsing streaks, rich luxuriant tones allowed to ring out and slowly subside, crystalline and gorgeously minimal, the lows deep and fluid, the highs soft and shimmery, a subtle sound that dissipates softly, as if it was designed to be a constant fade out from the very first note.
Black To Comm unfurl clouds of reverberating tones, thick billows of metallic shimmer, deftly (and VERY subtly) crafted into muted melodies, sounding like a louder, more dense reinterpretation of the Machinefabriek track. Chimes and bells, smeared into blurs of warm melodic drone, distant percussive twinkles, all wrapped up in BTC's gorgeous dreamlike sprawl.
Pressed on beautiful swirled grey vinyl, and packed with an original full color, hand painted collaged insert/cover, every one is different.
LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES!!!! We got 20. Once these are gone we will NOT be able to get more...
This long in the works vinyl project finally sees the light of day, and the results are more fantastic and striking, both sonically and visually, than we could ever have imagined. We'd been hearing about this series, a boxed set of vinyl records, each with one side of music, one side of field recordings, a sort of physical extension and manifestation of a long running podcast, both the podcast, and these lps, an experiment in the art of listening.
Each lp is limited to 300 copies, comes housed in an oversized box, with a gorgeous actually photographic print affixed to the cover, inside a metallic inked, letter pressed insert. You have to see them to believe them, well worth the price, as they are visually stunning, and the music is breathtaking.
The first volume is from a long time aQ fave, Rutger Zuydervelt, aka Machinefabriek, who handles the music on the A side, while someone called Matt Davies handles the field recording side. Zuydervelt is definitely up to the task, as he comes up with the dreamiest most beautiful Machinefabriek piece we've heard, a distant glistening shimmer, over a warm whir of slow surfacing melodies, muted buzz, and breathless soft focus drift. A looped landscape of pastoral shimmer. Part way through the track builds in intensity to a sort of soft cacophony, but quickly drifts back into bleary eyed dreaminess. The track goes on for what feels like forever, ending with a stretch of serene low end murmur, laced with muted sonar pulses and a deep ominous blurred melody that sprawls right beneath the surface. So lovely.
Davies' side is pretty much a straight field recording, sounding like some sort of wilderness, but not too far removed from civilization, the sound of wind and water, the twitter and tweet of birds, car horns (?) far off in the distance, traffic, wind and rustling branches, eventually some more close up sounds, something rubbing against the microphone, the crack of breaking branches, then a warm hiss that sounds distinctly like rainfall, the recording is sort of lo-fi and gives the ambience a washed out vibe, almost as if it was made, not recorded. Once the rain comes in, the other sounds fade to a distant hum, and the sound is not unlike falling asleep on your back porch on a warm, wet summer afternoon.
The cover photo is gorgeous, an ice field crisscrossed with tire tracks and other striations, all dark blues and washed out whites, the insert is silver ink on letter pressed textured black paper.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. We got a bunch, but they've been flying out of here, and once the batch we got is gone, it's unlikely we'll be able to get more�
Listen up! We heart Macromantics (aka Australian hip hop gal Romy Hoffman). She rocks! We've carried her releases (Four Facets / Conspiracy Remix 7" and Hyperbolic Logic cd) for a few years now, and we're really happy to hear that more folks stateside have been gettin' hip to her hop. Case in point, the Kill Rock Stars label have jumped aboard and released her first domestic cd. Yay! Yay! Admittedly what initially charmed us about Ms Romy was her distinct vocal delivery, but there's acres more to her than an Aussie accent. She crafts tight, infectious tracks with an overriding super posi vibe. Lotsa punchy energy! On Moments In Movements though we've noticed a step or two towards considerably darker, edgier territory than that which she's traversed on her previous releases. it's an effective direction to take, broadening her scope while sharpening her attack. Guests include Ground Components and Sage Francis.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Hip hop remix. Rhythm = "One Minute Man" (Missy Elliott).
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
I'll try to not be a cynical bastard and talk about the fact that the last two critically acclaimed Madlib records have been nothing but mixtapes. Partially because they just happen to seriously kick ass mixtapes. This time around, Madlib plunders the Trojan catalog and comes up with a dangerously wicked 65 minute mega mix. Byram was less than impressed, but I'm way more of a neophyte when it comes to reggae, and find myself listening to this all the time. Features David Isaacs, King Stitt, I-Roy, Lee Perry, Dillinger, King Tubby, Gregory Isaacs, Barrington Levy, the Aggrovators, the Ethiopians, Mikey Dread, the Upsetters, the Skatalites, Roland Alphonso, Prince Jazzbo and loads more. Mixing and scratching is kept to a minimum letting these classic tracks speak for themselves.
A new record from Sic Alps is always cause for celebration, especially if you dig washed out, reverb drenched, stumbling noise pop, which is precisely what you get on these three new tracks, the first, an abstract drift of angular clang, murky crooning, barely-there rhythm, dark and a little dirge-y, but with a gorgeous streak of melancholy melody. The second track is way less abstract, still tweaked and a bit off kilter, with some tangly Eastern sounding guitar melodies WAY up in the mix, but right below, a simple drum part, some sad boy singing, mumbly one second, and belting out a little falsetto the next, a pretty pop song subverted, and transformed into a gorgeous staggering lo-fi sprawl. The last of the three is maybe the prettiest, total classic fuzzy pop, lilting and catchy, but again wrapped in a warped woozy haze, that makes the song sound like it's subtly changing speed throughout. Tweaked and twisted, but still so goddamn catchy.
Magik Markers Counter with three tracks of their own, forgoing most of the pop for something much more tripped out and psychedelic, clouds of swirling psych guitar over almost krautlike drumming, the vocals formless and all tangled up with flurries of wah guitar, everything looped and stretched out and blurred into a full-on unhinged, reverb drenched, washed out, dreamy and druggy space rock trip out, some of our favorite MM stuff for sure.
Super swank, thick glossy jackets, and most likely limited...
The first two Magnetic Fields albums reissued by Merge Records on one disc! This is where you go when you need to hear the early genius of Stephin Merritt. Putting his lo-fi keyboards and drum machines to wonderful use. These two full lengths feature the vocals of Susan Anway. Merritt didn't take on vocal duties until subsequent releases. Her voice however is a fitting female counterpart to his deep croon - so droll, yet drenched with romantic longing. Alternately reminiscent of '60s Brill Building girl group pop and glistening, lush chamber pop. Classic heartbreak music. Highly recommended.
Geez, Jason Molina, what are you tryin' to do to us!? How the heck can we possibly sufficiently listen, watch, digest and report in on your new release that includes four cds and one dvd? If we did, well, it would probably take weeks and the release wouldn't be new anymore! We have heard some of it, and not surprisingly, the few songs we did hear were prime Molina fare -- well-worn, roaming loner melancholia -- but in the interest of timeliness, we'll let the sticker on the shrinkwrap of this special wooden boxed set say it all... "Secretly Canadian is proud to present The Sojourner Boxset. It is the accumulated work of thirteen musicians, five locations, four recording engineers, three filmmakers, two designers and one songwriter, including enough material for three full lengths, one EP and one DVD. Explore the celestial map of Jason Molina and the various constellations of his... Magnolia Electric Co."
The wonderful, willfully naive Japanese indie-pop psychedelic ensemble Maher Shalal Hash Baz takes the first half of this split cd with a live performance recorded in Scotland. Honking sax, wayward vocals, sad-sack percussion, helpless guitar, plinking piano, and even skipping rope make it into the mix. Somehow, it's gorgeous, in a melancholy off-kilter way that few bands could pull off. Following Maher Shalal Hash Baz's seventeen tracks there's ten more by San Francisco outfit The Curtains, who likewise manage to make a virtue out of simplicity and spontaneity, their technical abilities (or lack thereof) never hampering their expressiveness. A good pairing indeed. The Curtains are noisier and more 'plugged-in' than MSHB, with electronic keyboard sounds forming some of their most striking moments. With both bands, what's improvised and what's not is hard to suss out, but experiencing the results can be quite pleasant either way if you don't demand much precision from your 'pop'. To us, these 27 tracks are a pleasant jumble worth experiencing.
We find stuff all the time, tucked away in the close, in the backroom, copies of records that somehow slipped through the cracks, record we hoped to eventually get more of, but eventually forgot about, it's pretty exciting to (re)discover these mysterious releases, even more exciting when we can't for the life of us remember where they came from, who ordered them, or when we actually got them.
Which is the case with this killer split of ultra heavy funereal doom metal, which we've had for almost 5 years, but only just now realized we had never listed. Which is a shame, cuz both these bands are pretty incredible.
Maiden Voyage are from the UK, and traffic in some seriously extreme miserablist doom, not crushingly heavy, as much as depressive and dark, reminding us a bit of Esoteric, that same sort of weird production, spaced out and a little bit brittle, making the sound more druggy and psychedelic, the guitars are still thick and fuzzy, the riffs glacial, the rhythms a snail's pace pound, the vocals a belched demonic grumble, but the melodies are skeletal, and the songs seem to dissipate into near ambience, the riffs ringing out, leaving just ghostly traces of spidery psychedelic guitars, it's actually more like some sort of doom-d slowcore, than any sort of true doom, which is what makes it so cool. Haunting, and creepy and atmospheric and a little bit damaged.
Maiden Voyage are teamed up with another UK funeral doom combo, the awesomely monickered Amaranthine Trampler, whose sound is strikingly similar, which makes sense, as both bands are one man bands, and than one man is THE SAME GUY! Amaranthine Trampler offers up another weirdly lo-fi bit of lumbering bleak misery, the vocals a bit more chantlike, the vocals a little bit more caustic, but overall, still moody and miserable, a bit ambient and abstract, thick swaths of chugging, some almost groove, giving way to grim funereal crawls, and like Maiden Voyage, those spidery psychedelic melodies and the weirdly lo-fi vibe and doom-ed slowcore feel.
Needless to say, if you're a fan of haunting mysterious outsider doom, and depressive ambient grimness, twisted drugginess and damaged black psychedelia, all spread into thick swaths of downtuned creep and crawl, then best snag one of these before they're gone...
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES, each one hand numbered, but since this came out close to 5 years ago, odds are it's undoubtedly out of print by now. We only have 4 or 5 copies, so if you want one, you'll have to move a little faster than either of these guys...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Staalplaat continues their "Mort Aux Vaches" series of commissioned radio broadcasts with this split release between Main, White Winged Moth, and Flying Saucer Attack. These recordings find all three experimental guitarist artists at their quietest and on their best behavior. Flying Saucer Attack gets the most attention with 4 softly played acoustic guitar tracks that are buried underneathe a building wall of reverb -- sort of like the mellower pieces on FSA's recent album "Mirror". Main offers a 15 minute track for treated guitars that is quite active by the standards of Robert Hampson's increasingly inaudible outfit. Tiny samples of malfunctioning guitar cables and soft scrapes on the strings repeat throughout the composition along with a bell like tonal drone. White Winged Moth (aka New Zealander Dean Roberts) also presents a 15 minute piece, with his humid guitar drones. Altogether this is an excellent compilation of work.
Killer two way doom split, the A side, from witchy Idaho heavies Uzala and the B side from Texan sludgelords Mala Suerte. Uzala are another band you can add to the current crop of female fronted doom outfits, fans of Loon, and Royal Thunder and Jex Thoth and all the rest will most definitely dig these guys and gal, the riffs a little bit Sabbathy, the sound dirgey and sludgey, vocalist Darcy's got a wicked croon, the track heavy and a little bit psychedelic, definitely has us wanting to hear more.
The flipside finds Mala Suerte pushing their doom into a more psychedelic realm, opening with swirling psych leads over some laid back slo-mo doom. But it's the vocals where things get really weird, almost folky, delivered in a gruff, sing songy monotone, sort of OM style, but more like some twisted doom metal sea shanty. Weird, but for sure kinda cool.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Oud Vibrations is a killer compilation collecting two rare records from the late fifties, which found two different groups incorporating the oud into their more standard instrumentation, in a quest for new, strange and exotic sounds. Most folks have seen an oud, even if they weren't sure what it was called - the body is pear shaped, with a short neck, and a strange bent head stock, the liner notes describe it as looking like a 'sawn off psychedelic guitar', which is pretty spot on. The instrument was prominent in lots of Middle Eastern music, as well as some Greek, Armenian and African music, it has a very distinctive sound, one that like the sitar, many Western musicians found super appealing, as much for its sound, as its exotic and spiritual connotations.
Both the records included here are pretty great, but Ahmed Abdul Malik's East Meets West is the main reason to pick this up, the sound a fantastic spiritual/modal jazz, hypnotic and pulsing, the playing incredible, the arrangements lush, and the sound truly exotic and original, with a serious band backing him up, including Lee Morgan on trumpet, among others. There are a few more standard jazz numbers, but the majority of the record is heavily Eastern influenced, driven by dense percussion, and another equally exotic instrument, the Darabeka. Fans of the Spiritual Jazz series, as well as reissues from Lloyd McNeill, Lloyd Miller, P.E. Hewitt and the rest will find Malik's record absolutely essential.
Charles 'Chick' Ganimian's Come With Me To The Casbah, has a bit more of a novelty vibe to it, but still has much to offer, the opener "Oriental Jam" lives up to its title, groovy, and soulful, exotic and spiritual, but then the cover of "Over The Rainbow", played on the oud of course, is a little bit kitschy. As is much of the record, but delightfully so. "Daddy Lolo" was the big hit, and is a vocal driven groover, with the cringeworthy line "This is Oriental rock and roll" delivered in a weird, heavily accented croon. Novelty hit for sure. But then there's the title track, which is a killer East/West hybrid, groovy and soulful, and very exotic sounding, so much so that it was apparently used as background music for an episode of the sixties TV show The Man From UNCLE. There's also the closer "Nine Eight" which is another fantastic blast of Eastern jazz that is as wild and wonderful on Malik's East Meets West.
Both albums are pretty fantastic, each in its own way, there's extensive liner notes included as well, that give a brief overview of the history of the oud in jazz, as well as some info on both of the records.
No idea who Demian Johnston is, whether he's a person or they're a band (although weirdly enough, we think he was a member of post hardcore heavies Kiss It Goodbye!), but got two new releases from him/them on this week's list. Both collaborations. The other, a cd-r with the equally unknown to us Mink Stole (on Debacle, the same label that brought us the Slaves, Expo 70 and Megabats), and this, an elaborately packaged cassette boxset collab with aQ faves Mamiffer. Hard to tell actually, all the text is in Russian, there's a set of gorgeously printed artcards inside held together with gold string, each box is numbered with big stamped numbers on the back of the box, inside, these two outfits conjure up some seriously fantastic sounds, well worthy of the elaborate packaging.
Mamiffer, a trio this time around, Aaron Turner, Faith Coloccia and Alex Barnett of Oakeater, offer up a brand new track, post the recent full length, a sprawling doomdronescape of crumbling distorted organs and guitars, laced with voices and field recordings, a bit like SUNNO))) via William Basinski, the sounds starting out intense and heavy, but quickly becoming something much more drowsy and dramatic, a sort of hazy slowcore, underpinned by some distant decaying guitar buzz, soft and swirly, slightly ominous, but quite dreamy actually, the sound shifting continually from hushed and minimal to gauzy and dream poppy, to creepy and haunting, to layered and lush.
The Demian Johnston tracks are a bit more sinister, brooding and malevolent, still sort of ambient, but the sounds rumble and whir, grinding beneath the surface, a sort of blackened drift, soundtracky, mysterious, laced with al sorts of field recording like sounds, giving the tracks a vibe like walking through some dark decimated landscape, some crumbling post apocalyptic city, not to say it's not still lovely, it most definitely is, that loveliness is just infused with a sort of grim tension, and in fact the more we listen, the more it reminds us of a way more dismal and dark Tim Hecker, the same sort of gauzy ambience and buried melody, a sort of creepy cinematic ambience, especially on the second DJ track, where the drift of the opening track is wedded to some seriously distorted muted crunch, and lots of space, a fantastically haunted sounding sprawl of tense ambience, and harrowing droned out drift.
LIMITED TO 110 COPIES!! As mentioned above, housed in a super swank box, with printed artcards, hand numbered, we have a little handful of these, and pretty sure once they are gone we will NOT be able to get more.
Two more blasts of musical mystery from the Utech camp. Last list it was blackdrone alchemists Locrian, blissed out black metallers Gog, and the freeform psychedelic drone and drift of Japanese outfit Tetragrammaton. This time it's the sculpted noise of Daniel Menche (reviewed elsewhere on this list), and this, a split between husband and wife, Aaron Turner, he of Isis, Hydra Head, and of course his solo project House Of Low Culture, and Faith Collocia, and her Mamiffer project.
Mamiffer is up first, and is a single 12+ minute track, constructed from piano, synthesizer, organ, tapes, field recordings, percussion, bass and effects, and it's a beauty. Stately piano drifts atop a bed of smoldering shimmer and minimal low end thrum, haunting and hazy and a little ominous, soundtracky and cinematic, the piano eventually fading out, leaving a gauzy bit of layered drift, laced with muffled explosive booms, the organ gradually swelling up from the murk and mire, building into a squall of soft psychedelic noise, before fading out once again, leaving that strange reverbed boom, to ring out into empty black space.
House Of Low Culture is mostly Turner, but here he's joined by his wife on guitar, and legendary percussionist Z'EV on, well, percussion. A hushed black ambient creep, drifting beneath dramatic multitracked vocals, everything wreathed in thick undulating black buzz, the sound switching from ambient soft noise to the vocal parts, that sound downright new wave/post punky, but those two elements bleed into each other, creating something more than its constituent parts, the track smoothes out, and becomes more and more ethereal, leaving just piano, to float in a field of hushed near silence, stately and mysterious and quite lovely, it's not until the last couple minutes that the tranquility fractures, and the fissure unleashes a cloud of noxious, crumbling distortion, and heaving blacknoise, which too fractures and peels back leaving a brief bit of clean guitar riffing and then nothing at all.
Like all Utech releases, gorgeously packaged, in a oversized full color sleeve, with super striking artwork.
Brand new split from these two experimental outfits, each taking a side, Mamiffer starting things off with a gorgeous bit of plaintive piano, drifting beneath fields of reverberant buzz, lush and layered, the sound soon expands and blossoms into a thick wall of sound, heaving and crumbling, a roiling sonic miasma that soon dissipates, leaving a landscape of looped backwards melodies, which swirl softly and sound almost new agey, driftfully dreamy. The second Mamiffer track opens up all textural and super minimal, but like the first one, it too bursts into something noisier, in this case MUCH noisier, as in full on white noise Merzbowian howling skree, it too eventually drifts off, leaving a weird stretch of grinding industrial rumble, beneath soaring echo drenched vox, which somehow manages the feat of being both noisy and lovely.
Weirdo post black metal avant soundscapers Pyramids, counter with their own bit of sonic abstraction, laying down a field of shimmering ambience, moaning horns buried in the mix, roiling looped programmed rhythms, it ends up sounding like some sort of noisy abstract electronic prog, with some seriously fucked up and freaky processed vox, all staticky and demonic. The drums are often blasting, but the production is such, that instead of sounding heavy, it sounds sort of hypnotic and trancey. The second half of Pyramids' side long track is a weird hazy psychedelic drift, backwards vox set atop a lush swirling backdrop of prismatic shimmer, creepy and cinematic, slowly building to a haunting ambient doom creep.
Housed in super nice heavy jackets, pressed on different colored vinyl, and includes a newsprint insert/poster with liner notes/lyrics.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES!!!
The fourth in Rocket Records' 'Collisions series', where the label pairs up like minded bands, and lets 'em rip. Past installments have included nothing but aQ faves: The Heads, White Hills, Oneida, Mugstar, Shit & Shine and Gnod. This volume introduces us to a couple lesser known outfits, up first Italian kraut-psych weirdos Mamuthones, who deliver a sort of motorik grooviness, at times touching on the psychedelic funkiness of Goat, at others, locking into sprawling Hawkwindy headnod heaviness, percussion peppers the proceedings, as does loads of effects, but also plenty of samples. The first track sounds like some strange eighties industrial jam given a psych makeover, while the second drifts into Moon Duo-ish hypno-rock, with distorted vox drifting atop a thick bass throb and choppy guitar crunch, all laced with some squalls of distorto noise guitar freakout. Elsewhere the band channel Devo into something much heavier and noisier, before finishing off with the funkiest jam of the bunch.
The flipside features UK post punk noiserockers Evil Blizzard, whose first track is all low slung and slithery, like a more harrowing Joy Division, reverbed vocals draped over sinewy basslines with some chunky guitars, that the label compares to both P.I.L. and Hawkwind, and we have to say that's pretty spot on. The other track is a remix of that same track by another aQ fave, Teeth Of The Sea, who give the original a sort of John Carpenter makeover, unfurling all creepy and cinematic, a lush, smoldering slow build, all atmosphere and tension, hushed and haunting, spacey and seriously tripped out, right down to the moody trumpets that surface partway through, giving it a sort of psychedelic Morricone vibe.
Packaged in an eye popping green and black die cut disco style sleeve, with a printed insert. And yeah, you guessed it, very VERY limited.
Ultra PC "kick in the balls" to indie kid complacency. Mumia, accused of killing a cop, speaks from his cell on death row. MITB add their two cents by bashing in your skull with a two-bass-and-drums hash-induced 4 song assault. PC, my ass. (Includes contributions from Allen Ginsberg, Jello Biafra, Assata Shakur, and Bob Dole. Really.)
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
From the label that brought us the amazing Merzbow 'Frog' lp comes this noisy 7" artifact. One side is Man Is The Bastard Noise, more commonly known as Bastard Noise and is the free/electronic/noise offshoot of sludge rockers Man Is The Bastard. BN is Wood from MITB and AQ buddy John Weise. Their side of this single is an almost tranquil blanket of high end whir, sounding like an orchestra of mosquitoes, helicopters, kitchen appliances and madly chirping birds. Almost dreamy in that peculiar noise kind of way. The B side comes courtesy of label honcho Gerritt Wittmer and is three tracks of affected sinister vocals, looped and chopped chunks of low end distortion, very eighties industrial sounding, and I mean that in a good way. Plus Misanthropic's usual impeccable packaging!
