Two conceptually minded pieces of electro-acoustic minimalism found here on the first vinyl release from Winds Measure Recordings, known for some seriously exquisite letter pressed artwork and an aesthetic of austere sound experimentation. That austerity bridges the work of British composer Will Montgomery and the Australian sound artist Robert Curgenven, as does a shared use of controlled feedback (or at least the use of pure tones which flutter eerily in that fine style). Montgomery's piece is sourced entirely from the Heygate Estates, which was a huge public housing project located in London and sported a rather grim facade of neo-brutalist architecture which fell into disrepair by the turn of the millennium. Demolition of the site began in 2011, but has been stalled because of numerous environmental hazards which emerged through the process, notably the high concentration of asbestos. Montgomery wandered the Heygate Estates with a VLF recorder, contact microphones, and a wiretapping mic, collecting the corroded, ephemeral sounds of that space, layering the disembodied hiss, crackling static, and eerie hum into a beguiling collage akin to the work of Tarab, Loren Chasse, and Murmer. Curgenven's piece hails from a very cool sound art project that the Australian began during a European residency, in which he had Dubplates & Mastering (THEE place to get anything weird cut onto wax!) cut a handful of dubplates of a subtle feedback piece, but at an incredibly low level. In playing the dubplate back, one has to really crank the volume thus creating the opportunity for feedback to occur in playback between the stylus and the speaker. The surface noise that one would expect from such a strategy is present, but it's not overwhelming given how good D+M are at cutting their wax. In this composition sourced from that sound making system, Curvengen transmits sinewy feedback tones and deep electrical thrum amidst a dispersion of the cyclical hushed crackle from the vinyl's surface noise. Winds Measures normally releases cds and occasionally some tapes; but the label was very wise to release Curgenven's brilliantly realized concept on vinyl, finding an excellent complement in Will Montgomery. Limited to just 250 copies! Download card? No.
Brand new split from local heavies Monuments Collapse, whose debut lp was a big hit around here, fusing Neurosis / Isis style post metal heaviness, with brooding psychedelic slowcore a la True Widow. Their half of this new split finds them in equally fine form, opening with a gorgeous bit of psych folk ambience, before launching into some epic, majestic, crushing heaviness, all throat shredding howl, and blown out, lumbering doomic crush, but like that debut, MC's sound manages to remain rife with melody, the vibe melancholic, the sound laced with droned out, downtuned thrum, not to mention some extended space jam mesmer, chugging, churning, soaring metallic majesty. They close their side of the split with the 10+ minute "Pathos", that begins all meandering post rock drift, chiming melodies, subtle percussion, a stripped down rhythm, and thick, rumbling bass, totally tranced out and moody, the sound building slowly to some serious epic metallic mathiness, the sound blossoming into full on Godspeed style metallic epicry, that stretches out for the remainder of the track/side. So great. It's only a matter of time before the rest of the world catches on.
The flipside comes from Breag Naofa, a progged out doom sludge combo from the Pacific Northwest, who were a big surprise for sure, their sound equalling Monuments Collapse in terms of metallic heft and sonic majesty, the opening few minutes, super melodic and mathy, unwinding an epic instrumental jam, that sounds a bit like a way more metal Mogwai, until the vocals come swooping in, a monstrous bellow, the music following suit, thick downtuned riffage, massive drum pound, the song churning and roiling malevolently (but still melodically), before slipping into a washed out post rocky sprawl, all muted steel string strum, chiming chords, and sinewy, spidery bassline, eventually working its way back up to an epic and emotional coda, plaintive and melancholic, sounding a bit like Neurosis crossed with Alcest...
The second track is more of the same. Opening with a rumbling raga like buzz, punctuated by monster drum pound, thick sprawling guitar buzz, and some strange percussion, before exploding into a tarpit trudge, thick chugging guitars and keening high end leads, definitely reminiscent of Neurosis (circa Enemy Of The Sun), brooding and massive, like the first track, it winds down into some spaced out psychedelic drift, and once again works its way back to one final blast of pound and pummel, all dense guitar chug and churning double kick drumming, locked into a seriously crusty doom-ic groove, before gradually fading to nothing. Killer stuff from both bands for sure, and man do we want to hear more from Breag Naofa...
Where would we be without the Moog synthesizer? Well, we'd be missing a whole lot of our favorite artists that's for sure. In fact Stereolab would just disappear in the blink of an eye. Thankfully, the Moog is still everywhere, and for years has shaped the sounds and songs of tons of our favorite bands. None of us have seen the movie yet (by filmmaker/musician Hans Fjellestad), but the soundtrack is a doozy! Featuring tracks from Stereolab (obviously), Jean-Jaques Perrey, Luke Vibert, Meat Beat Manifesto, Tortoise, Money Mark, The Album Leaf, Bernie Worrell and Bootsy Collins and loads more. But it's the bonus disc that hits the spot and offers up some of our favoritest classic Moog moments: Emerson, Lake And Palmer, Gary Numan, Devo, New Order, They Might Be Giants and of course Yes!
It doesn't get more kvlt than this. Two of the grimmest black metal bands California has to offer. One from SF, one from LA, each rumored to include members of some other more well known black metal bands, the sound of both bands, raw and primitive, stripped down, furious and buzzy, simple and pounding.
The true measure of a black metal band these days is their MySpace presence. The truly grim and kvlt, still somehow manage to whip up a Myspace page, even though that's probably the last kvlt activity imaginable. We like to imagine bands in the forest, or in a cave recording, or covered in blood and corpsepaint wandering through the snowy mountains, not hunched over a laptop writing html. But still a quick look at both bands' MySpace pages reveal that Moon Dark are truly the most hateful and grim band in the land, read as they defend their shitty logo, and their stupid band name, while still managing to accuse all other bands of being false metal and lame poseurs and call for the death of all Christians. While we discover that Harassor are pretty badass looking, fronted by a HUGE bearded bald dude, with corpsepaint and a big upside down cross on his forehead that stretches all the way up to his bare pate. Excellent.
Sonically, both bands tread similar ground. Pounding buzz drenched stripped down black metal. Think Akitsa, Ildjarn, Bone Awl and the like. Moon Dark is the more lo-fi of the two, a furious super distorted rehearsal space sound, the vocals a hysterical shriek over chugging midtempo riffage and barely audible drums (assuming there are drums at all). Occasionally, the riff slips into a bizarre almost circusy sing-song melody which is fucked up but actually awesome, before slipping back into grim buzz mode.
The Harassor side is not so lo-fi but still plenty grim and buzzy, total d-beat style heaviness, Akitsa, Malveillance, pounding drums, SUPER buzzed out guitars, killer gurgly demonic vox, and even some strange scrappy guitar parts which are super cool. Creepy and almost Misfits-y at times, but buzzy and black enough to hold their own with Moon Dark.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. Each numbered in human blood. Black and white printed sleeves, and pressed on white vinyl!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The Bros. do "Fishes With Faces", VNC do "Harm Guitar".
Not sure what else to say about these two guys that we haven't already. Together in the group Zombi, and on their own, they are the modern masters of the not so modern art of John Carpenter / Goblin style psychedelic space synth futuristic-retro faux soundtrackery, and here both get to share a record and do what they do best. Moore offers up 4 tracks of THAT sound, one we can't seem to get enough of, and apparently neither can most of you: swirling sci-fi synths, pulsing rhythms, tense and cinematic, the occasional stretch of swooshy new age shimmer, but heavy on the eighties soundtrack vibe, and rife with some darkly dirgey drama, a mini-song cycle that definitely works as a whole.
Which perfectly counters Majeure, who takes up the whole B side with a three part 20+ minute epic, ditching much of the synth-disco-kraut sound that so defined previous outings, or at least the disco part of the equation, instead building a hushed and ominous dronescape, super minimal, very soundtracky, the second movement finds the sound blossoming into something more Tangerine Dreamy, cosmic and psychedelic, before eventually, for the last few minutes, returning to a sort progged out kraut-disco coda to finish things off!
Killer psychedelic sand-hand cover art. Include a download coupon as well!
All we can say is we hope none of you were duped into buying the super limited lp version of this here record, at the very unfriendly cost of $100!!! What the fuck?!? Okay, sure it had an original piece of artwork, but that's a bit ridiculous, ESPECIALLY considering they are all coming out on cd. Anyway, this is the first in My Cat Is An Alien's series of limited lp / now cd collaborations with other band they dig and respect. Volume one sees the Italian psychspacefolk duo teaming up with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore. Moore's track is, to be quite honest, super annoying. It may have morphed into something appropriately dreamy or soothing, but we didn't make it that far, the first half is an endlessly ear piercing plinking on the high keys of a piano. Brutal. The MCIAA track is much more appealing, a shimmery, blooping bleeping journey through outer space, instruments are rendered indistinct in crafting a soundscape of swooshes and whirs, dark and moody and expansive. Quite beautiful. Worth it for the MCIAA track alone. Perhaps the Moore track does merit further investigation, but it will have to be for one with ears made of stronger stuff.
While his outings this year have shown the gentler side of Thurston Moore's music making, those who love his noisy leanings need not fear. On this split with Talk Normal, the Sonic Youth guitarist shows he still loves to go as raw and in the red as possible. With three short blasts of guitar driven noise that hark back to his no-wave roots. So it makes sense that on the flipside are Talk Normal, who are very much influenced by that same early '80s damaged New York scene that Moore was a part of. Their song is a slow paced drugged out and dusty slab of fucked up glory. Nice to know Moore and his offspring still know how to keep things weird.
We rarely get hate mail, but when we do, it's usually pretty good. And our positive review of Morbid Angel's most recent record, Illud Divinum Insanus, elicited some of the best hate mail ever. We were accused, among other things, of being poseurs, of being the whole problem with San Francisco, and why no one wants to live here, and of liking that Morbid Angel record ironically (all somehow connected). We'd like to believe none of that is true, especially the part about our ironic love of that Morbid Angel album. As long time readers of the aQ list must certainly know by now, we tend to love lots of ridiculous, crazy, stupid, demented shit, and if anything qualified as all of those, it was Illud Divinum Insanus. Have a look at that review if you missed it the first time, and you can see what all the hubbub was about. Sure that record had some classic death metal, but it also had some weird nineties style industrialisms, and some (sort of) rapping. Even the folks here that hated that record, were perversely obsessed with it. And the folks who loved it were also perversely obsessed with it, and even THOSE folks found at least one of the tracks nearly impossible to like. So really, it came as no surprise that the whole record was due for a double disc remix, with all the tracks redone, remixed, reimagined and reworked by all manner of industrial / techno musicians / producers. And again, the haters were appalled, but strangely intrigued, and the rest of us, well, we were pushing it for Record Of The Week, cuz really, this is some Judgement Night style shit, a maybe bad idea pushed about as far as it could go, and in the process, becoming something strangely cool, and surprisingly listenable (for some of us, at least).
So yeah, the vestiges of the originals are nearly wiped completely away on most of these tracks, and what's left is usually just a riff, or only the vocals, the originals totally transformed into pounding gabber, or martial industrial, or creepy electronica, or glitched out weirdness, the sound definitely heavily nineties, hard to avoid when the core of the sound is electronica/industrial crossed with metal guitars, the Ministry vibe looms large, but somehow, these songs work better as nineties industrial metal jams than death metal, especially the more problematic tracks like "Too Extreme". No matter what, or how much, we write, most haters will not be swayed, which is totally fine, but for folks into the WAY weirder/demented side of metal, or who dig nineties industrial metal, or even folks just into the whole traffic accident can't look away vibe of this ridiculous release, this is pretty fucking cool/weird. And if it wasn't actually a Morbid Angel record, and was instead just some super fucked up comp of metal industrial, we imagine lots of folks might be a little obsessed. Cuz lots of this is really fucking cool.
Igorrr (1/2 of aQ faves Whourkr) turn their track into a dizzying chopped up, head spinning collage of stuttering guitars and processed riffs, the sound blenderized and junglized and blasted into a squall of fractured melodies and skittery beats, a track then sounds like it could have come off the Igorrr record proper. The Laibach remix is incredible, adding harpsichord, flutes, swooping backwards guitars, and the vox from the original into a dizzying psychedelic Teutonic pound that KILLS. cEvin Key of Skinny Puppy takes his track and adds a tolling bell, chanted vox, squiggly sci-fi effects, and transforms it into a weirdly cinematic string laden dirge. Tek-One adds thick rib cage rattling bass warble for a bad ass death metaldubstep mash-up, DJ Ruffneck goes full on gabber, pounding and relentless, laced with shards of guitar solos from the original, Black Lung takes the original and blurs it into a murky smear, and spreads that out beneath a heavy house music churn, while Mondkopf buries the original in squelches and low end buzz, turning it into a lurching low end creep, Scott Brown turns his track into full on HI-NRG rave, which is hilarious, but kind of awesome, Fixhead offers up another crazy head spinning heavy dubstep workout, we could go on and on, but they're all pretty great, and weird, and while some are dumb and fun, others are dark and fucked up and fierce, others still tripped out and confusional. Folks who hated the original, and who were offended by our UN-ironic love of that record (we're not poseurs dude - we're TOO EXTREME!!) will most definitely want to steer WELL clear of this monstrosity, but for everyone else, we have to say, we've been listening to this like crazy, nonstop, and that shows no sign of changing any time soon, which always the real measure of a record. In fact, folks who hated Illud Divinum Insanus for being a mockery of a Morbid Angel album, might be able to like this, since it's not even pretending to be death metal.
Includes a download coupon for even MORE remixes, not included on the discs proper.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
If they gave out Nobel prizes for doom metal, whoever it was that managed to get UK doomsludge combo Moss together with French Sanrio doomsters Monarch, would be a shoe in. And it's not just the killer combo, or the alliterative band names, it's the song choice. As if Moss doing Discharge weren't enough for you, Monarch tackle Turbonegro's all time classic "I Got Erection"!
Moss transform Discharge's punky stomp into a barely moving morass of sludgy pound. Sounding very much like Eyehategod, with simple pummeling drums, howled vocals, and of course guitars tuned as low as they can go before the strings drop off like wet noodles. On top of all the murk, drift weird high end streaks of surprisingly melodic feedback, giving the whole track a haunting and ominous vibe.
Where Moss, turned their song inside out and basically made it their own, Monarch, after a misleading ultra slow count in, do "Erection" pretty straight (ahem), the riff immediately recognizable, same with the "woooooah ooooh" background vocals, so it's up to vocalist Emilie, to make "Erection" her own, and she does, delivering the goofiest, most brilliant lines ever, in a raspy feminine snarl "When I dig a hole... Erection!" It's definitely Monarch at their speediest, and certainly most melodic, and we have to say it sort of suits them. Maybe even better than when black metallers Satyricon covered the same track on a Turbonegro tribute disc some years back, and that was pretty killer too.
And of course, SUPER LIMITED!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
ULTRADOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM. Or MEGADOOOOOOM. Whatever you want to call it, this is DOOM. Capital D. Lot's of o's. Lots of incredibly slow motion downtuned guitar sludge, pounding caveman drums, and a rumbling bowel churning low-end. This is the first recording we've been able to get enough of to list after a ton of super limited releases and demos. And if this doesn't hit the doom spot something good, then nothing will. Bunkur, Skepticism, Catacombs, Rigor Sardonicous, Esoteric, Planet Aids, Thergothon. And now Moss. The first track is a 15 minute slab of classic funereal doom. Soooooo sloooooow. Sooooooo heavy, crushing, pounding, chugging drone drenched sludge. Recorded live in 2004. The second track is taken from their long out of print split with Nadja, but here, the track is "fucked up and buried", and the result is a massive and abstract ambient soundscape, downtuned guitars are pushed way back into the distance, while in the foreground all sorts of rumble and crackle and what sounds like the burbling of a bong. A druggy, space-y ambient excursion through the massive decaying skeleton of what was once a doom metal beast.
Moss is joined by the brilliantly monickered Wolfmangler. Wolfmangler just happens to be the work of one Smolken who you might know as the man behind Dead Raven Choir! Weird but true. For all his Jewelled Antler folkiness, Smolken made no secret of his black metal obsession. As Wolfmangler, Smolken takes that love of metal and doom and tempers it with his love of folk and country, and the results are truly weird and wonderful. Best exemplified on the track "Survive" a doom-ed version of a Hank Williams Jr. song. Fuzzed out drone guitar, random percussion, weird rubbery bass lines, and growled raspy vocals. Like a black metal Souled American? Johnny Cash covering Skepticism. Something like that. The rest of the WM tracks are weird, slow motion, fuzz drone dirges, with strange barely there melodies, occasional guitar twang, and lots of ominous ambience!
Amazingly packaged in a vellum sleeve, printed in black on the outside, so the inside has a weird x-ray negative effect. Includes an insert for each band printed on thick vellum. SO NICE!
Limited to 500 copies. We got 50 of those and will not be able to get more! So act fast!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Rachel Evans has definitely been on a roll recently, with a very steady and very consistent stream of cassette only releases and with a proper slab of vinyl seeming to come out about once a year for her impeccable Motion Sickness Of Time Travel project. While we try our best to get a good amount of stock for each and every one of her records, it's not always possible. Some escape our grasp, some we only can get a two or three copies which quickly disappear as soon as they hit the floor. But, sometimes we can actually get a bunch. This cassette is definitely of the latter, with is thankfully the case with this new one on Constellation Tatsu, limited this time to a more sensible 250 copies, meaning it'll be around for a little longer than usual. Here, Evans presents a split release with her long-time friend Lynn Fister, the Southern transplant now living in the Bay Area who records under the moniker Aloonaluna. Like Evans, Fister pedals in a bleary dream-pop / komische deconstruction with ethereal, and at times witchy vocals that wordlessly orbit the amorphous synth sequencing and fizzing electronics. The Motion Sickness track is a rare instrumental for Evans, with her streaming waves of sparking synthing tones and slippery undulations of drone-pop narcotic. So nice!
Another installment in Konkurrent's In The Fishtank series. So far there's been collaborations from Tortoise with The Ex, Low with Dirty Three, Willard Grant Conspiracy with Telefunk as well as Sonic Youth, I.C.P. and The Ex. Individual efforts have included June Of 44. This time it was a Norwegian experimental get-together with Motorpsycho and the horn section from Jaga Jazzist. The results are an impressive slow groovin' jazzy postrock affair.
Classic collection of legendary disco jams featuring producer Tom Moulton's golden touch with tracks by folks like Grace Jones, Isaac Hayes, Eddie Kendricks, BT Express, etc. Disco gold!
New release from one of our favorites of this new breed of sludgy metallic post rock, the strangely named Mouth Of The Architect. Their sound, unlike many of their sonic brethren leans much more toward the melodic as is evidenced here on the opening of "Sleepwalk Powder" a lilting, melancholy guitar line, hovering above warm swells of high end feedback, mournful and so so pretty. But don't be fooled, or lulled into thinking this is some sort of post rock dreampop record, oh no, moments later, the drums enter the fray, all tribal and chaotic, until finally the guitars drop. And drop HARD. Suddenly we're in churning, roiling sludge doom country, big riffs roll and rumble, vocals are howled and the whole band lurches like some rampaging behemoth. But beneath it all, remains the melody, the sweetness, the light. It's like Godspeed or Explosions In The Sky, being overtaken by Conifer or Minsk, a huge ugly growling monstrous sound barely concealing glistening harmonies and majestic melodies. A pretty killer combination. The second MOTA track follows a similar path, drawing out its post rock dreaminess nearly to the 10 minute mark before kicking out the jams, this time it's a lurching stumbling groove, minor key and massive.
Kenoma are up next, we'd heard of them but never actually heard them, but they do occupy a similar sonic space as their pals MOTA (and plus they indeed are, in the liner notes, there is an extremely heartfelt note about, the two bands being friends since childhood, and both having had a rough time lately, and how this release was very cathartic, bringing the two bands, these two sets of friends closer than ever before, pretty dang sweet actually). But again don't be distracted by the sweetness, where there is light there is most definitely also dark. Kenoma are more postrock than metal never really unfurling any sort of massive sludginess, rather stretching out in a heavy hypnotic groove, dense tangled guitar lines, killer propulsive drumming, minor key melodies and a big wall of thick rich headspinning sound. Reminiscent of the recently reviewed Shora record but with a bit of that post sludge vibe we can't get enough of. This almost sounds like a super charged Godspeed or a metal Tortoise. Epic and meandering, droney and hypnotic and so killer. Definitely a new band to keep our eyes on. And a perfect match for their pals in Mouth Of The Architect. Definitely recommended. Killer octopoidal artwork too!
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":
The first of the three, subtitled "Motorheads", features two aQ favorites (as do they all), Mudhoney and Mugstar. Mudhoney tackle "Urban Guerilla" and totally make it their own, so much so, that minus a little chunk of extended droney space rocking in the middle, those not well versed in Hawkwind would certainly be forgiven for thinking it was a Mudhoney original. Mugstar on the other hand are a DEAD ringer for Hawkwind, their sound murky and muddy, squalls of psych guitar, clouds of swirling spaced out FX, droned out jams, all tangled up and slowly unwinding into a long sprawling space rock jamscape. Hawkwind would be proud.
The packaging is brilliant, perfectly tripped out psychedelic acid flashback, with 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!!
The return of aQ beloved UK space rockers Mugstar, who have teamed up with another fave of ours, East Coast noise rockers Oneida, and neither side disappoints. Mugstar offer up another killer chunk of spaced out psychedelia that would have been right at home on Lime or Sun Broken, opening up with a fuzzy organ drone, which quickly gives way to a badass Hawkwindy groove, all motorik mesmer and fuzzed out space rock pound. The organ giving the proceedings a serious prog vibe, the track chugs away until about halfway through when it collapse into a super rad mathy tangle of drum / guitar freakout, all repetitive and almost looped sounding, with FX swirling all over the place, before finally resolving in a blissed out stretch of murky psychedelic shimmer, only to eventually emerge as a stripped down, more krautrocky groove, with soaring dramatic vocals way down in the mix, pounding away all druggy and dreamy and laid back.
Oneida counter with what could be their coolest / weirdest jam yet, what appears to be their twisted take on space rock, exploding immediately into a wildly chaotic freakout guitar/drum squall, the band taking their sweet time to lock into a proper groove, and in fact, they almost manage not to at all, super loose and free, the drums intricate and mathy and almost the star of the show, pounding away beneath some freaked out guitar skree, until about halfway in, when in swoops some chiming guitar, draped over thick bass buzz, even more progged out and wildly trippy, until finally, they reel it all in, and finish off with a very Wooden Shjips sounding outro, but even then, way more tripped out and space-y. Killer stuff from both bands, and some of THEE coolest packaging we've seen, eye popping pink sleeve, with lots of white and brown 'o's and 'm's!
Have you seen this film yet? It's so amazing! Worth the price of this disc alone is Rebekah del Rio's version of Roy Orbison's "Crying", sung in Spanish and totally spine-chillingly good. You also get several tracks of Angelo Badalamenti's score, creepy and atmospheric, plus Sonny Boy Williamson doing a Willie Dixon track, Linda Scott performing a Hammerstein / Kern tune (the '50s pop number the actresses audition for in the film), and 3 tracks written and performed by Lynch himself. Bravo.
Here's the first piece of vinyl from one of our favorite drone artists - Brendan Murray. Here, he's working with his Boston neighbors Perispirit, whose earlier recordings seem to lean much more toward the power-noise end of the soundscraping underworld, but actually ends up being a worthy compliment.
Brendan Murray offers an interesting twist upon his electrical orchestrations of uneasy minimalism for his contribution to this split. Here, Murray is working with the voice of Noell Dorsey as the only source material. Not all that sure of the background of Ms. Dorsey, aside from a few avant-improv performances in various spots in Boston; and Murray repurposes her voice within a churning insectoid drone which elegantly descends into a soft hum whose calm is disrupted through signal ruptures of Dorsey's cackling. These witchy vocalizations have all of the bloodcurdling empathy of Diamanda Galas, but Murray is more interested in dissembling that voice into a swarm of disquieting drone.
The Perispirit half of the record begins with a lurching splatter of air-compressed noise, broken up with tiny jittery silences and heavily gated signal processing, only to snap into a shadowy, lonesome ambient passage of lilting guitar tones, which gradually acquire a leaden sheen of heavy, downtuned distortion before cutting back to a rupture of those aerated noises from the first moments of the record. Another razor edit back to silence, and Perispirit makes another ramp of guitar-sourced dronescaping through atonal loops and layers of sound, whose density has the rapturous quality of those Chatham / Branca guitar armies, but coupled with some low-impact noisemongering below. Limited to 250 copies, pressed on off-white vinyl, and certainly recommended!
Long, long ago we stocked an LP of recordings from San Francisco's own Cliff House-based Musee Mechanique. Sadly this album went out of print a few years back, leaving many sad customers who'd found out about it too late. Well weep no longer, as AQ now has an all new disc (the first of several, we're told) of recordings made of the machines at the museum.
The Musee Mechanique, for those who've never been, is a hands-on museum of early penny arcade machines (some over a century old) kept in their original working order for the public's enjoyment by the determined work of curator Edward Galland Zelinsky. Every time we have visitors from out of town, we take' em here. Stereoscopic peep shows, moralising fortune tellers, old baseball game machines, nickelodeons, prisoner art made out of toothpicks, music boxes, player pianos, "test your strength" challenges, animated dioramas, and more are constantly kept in tune -- it's both historic and entertaining. (Including everyone's favorite -- Laughing Sal, a larger than life size doll who just laughs and laughs and laughs. Wonderful.) The 27 tracks found here are all new recordings of the various machines (mostly player pianos playing assorted rags), captured after museum hours, so it's free of unwanted tourist chatter (although they nicely left the sounds of the coins falling into the slot as lead ins to each track.)
The Musee Mecanique at San Francisco's historic Cliff House is one of our favorite things in the whole city. We *always* take visitors from out of town there, and they always love it. The Musee is a collection of antique coin-operated arcade machines, lovingly restored and cared for, including animated dioramas ("The Opium Den" is a favorite), crank-operated racing games, mechanical strength-testing devices, boxing and baseball games, fortune tellers, and many automated musical instruments (player pianos, music boxes, and the like), which fill the place with great old ragtime tunes. They've been recording the machines (complete with the sound of coins dropping in to start 'em) and have plans to release a whole series of cds documenting this delightful old-timey music. Volume One came out last year (and we sold quite a few), and now we've got Volume Two! Yay! These 27 tracks are similar to the stuff on the first volume, perhaps "more bouncy" though. And the famous Laughing Sal (the giant, manaically whooping automaton who dominates the entrance to the Musee) makes another appearance, closing out the disc with one of her always-disturbing outbursts of hilarity... A nice way to keep some of the spirit of the Musee Mecanique in your home, and to help support their preservation endeavors!
Everyone here at Aquarius was SO happy and relieved when the Musee Mechanique -- that wonderful place full of antique penny-aracade machines that's one of our favorite San Francisco cultural/fun spots -- found a new home at Fisherman's Wharf. Previously it had been a highlight to a trip out to the historic Cliff House next door to the ruined Sutro Baths up above Ocean Beach, but the Park Service decided the Cliff House needed a renovation and gave the Musee an eviction notice. Thankfully, rather than close up, they managed to make a move down to the Wharf, which while not as picturesque a location, still seems to have worked out well for 'em. You'll now find the Musee at pier 45, shed A, right alongside the Jeremiah O'Brien and that WWII submarine. Not only did the Musee find a new home, but now they've released a third volume of recordings documenting the player-piano-roll operated mechanical musical contraptions you'll find there. Vols. 1 and 2 were hits here at AQ and with good reason. Vol. 3 picks up where they left off, featuring more of the music made by their collection of lovingly preserved orchestras-in-a-box from decades and decades ago. For the first time ever, the machine pictured on the cover, the huge and impressive "Englehardth", finally appears in all its sonic glory on disc, as they finally got it fully restored into working order.
As with the other volumes, these are excellent recordings and each track starts with the coin drop, a nice touch. Musically, you can expect lotsa charming old timey tunes with titles like "Maurice's Irresistable Tango", "Grandpa's Spells", "There's A Shanti In Old Shantitown" and "My Song Of The Nile". Some you'll recognize, some won't be so familiar. All are quite quaint to modern ears, yet lively and spirited. There's 27 musical tracks here, from jaunty foot tappers to romantic melodies -- and then as always, the Musee's mascot, Laughing Sal, wraps things up with her disturbingly forced, truly hysterical laughter. Next best thing to actually visiting the Musee Mechanique, which we highly recommend.
The first record we've reviewed from local label Father/Daughter (which also has another bass of operations in Miami) comes in the form of this split between Ohio/Boston based combo Mutual Benefit and Brooklyn combo Holy Spirits, who crossed paths on tour earlier this year and decided that sharing a record would be the logical next step.
Mutual Benefit offer up a sweetly melodic indie pop, and open up with a dreamy bit of thumb piano and handclap driven dreaminess, with lush vocals draped over a warm skeletal instrumental bed. The rest of MB's tracks are equally swoonsome, lush distorted guitar shimmer, wrapped around chiming melodies and softly reverbed vocals, simple acoustic guitar strum and squiggly sci-fi electronics, tinkling chimes, and music box like lullabies, whirring warbly organs and washed out sun dappled thrum a sort of hushed shimmery dream poppy indie folk, with some lilting sadboy vox and a warm layered production.
Holy Spirits are a good match, not nearly so twee, instead a bit darker and more contemplative, shuffling minimal percussion, lush steel string guitar, woozy weary vocals, a sort of Appalachian folk pop, with a lush orchestral vibe, and some cool strange percussion, not to mention some almost choral harmonies, and some thumb piano as well!
Our favorite HS track might have to be the lush and lovely "Handmade Sun", with its minimal melodic swells, spidery guitars, hushed almost whispered vox, and then a little bit of shoegazey bombast, only to slip right back into that whispery drift, laced with subtle electronics, slipping easily from delicate fluttery folk to a crashing almost chaotic climax, before a dreamy and delicate wind down. So nice.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES, pressed on swirled cream vinyl, and includes a digital download.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
A super limited vinyl reissue of a long out of print cd-r from MV (Matt Valentine) and EE (Erika Elder) recorded live at the Glad Tree festival a few years back and released in a tiny edition on Valentine's Child Of Microtones label. Valentine And Elder also play in Tower Recordings, and while some of TR's free form psychedelia is present, Moon Jook, is much more of an abstract exploration of classic Appalachia filtered through a drone-folk sensibility. Quite similar to Jack Rose, in the way traditional sounding Appalachian bluegrass is stretched into slowly shifting extended ragas. The instrumentation here is mostly guitar (12 string, adapted silvertone) but with Elder contributing ukelele and tambura. The result is quite lovely, a drone-y drowsy stee string raga, hypnotic and repetitive with plenty of buzzing and lots of harmonic overtones. Haunting and otherworldly, slowly developing from simple melodic fingerpicking to dense layered folk flecked drones. The second side is mostly taken up by the epic "Megh Blues", a nearly side long soundscape of ambient swirl, distant swooshes and barely audible buzz, the whole thing a spare backdrop for lonesome atonal minor key slide guitar, slowly emitting strange voice like melodies, almost like an alien voice, speaking through a bizarrely tuned Jandekian guitar. Quite strange and beautiful. The record ends with a brief snippet of sepia toned ambience, bathed in warmth and crackle, like much of the record, giving Moon Jook the sound and feel of some dusty old 78. Lovely.
Four songs from My Morning Jacket and an almost ten minute long track by Songs: Ohia. The former includes a kinda dorky, messing-with-the-speed-control track called "The Year In Review" as well as a couple of numbers that fans of Sparklehorse might take a shine to - most notably the beautiful weeper "Come Closer". And as for Songs: Ohia's lengthy "Translation", it's completely on par with their recent efforts... that is, a brittle, lonely dolefulness that mainman Jason Molina has refined over his prolific career.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
A while back we reviewed a cd called Siamese Temple Ball. A truly mysterious disc, with very little in the way of liner notes or any information really, but a record that we all became a little obsessed with and thus listened to it NONstop. We sold tons of copies too.
Then recently, we get a new batch of records from the always amazing Mississippi Records, and one of the records is entitled simply Mysterious Thai LP. So of course we're intrigued. We throw it on, and lo and behold, it's the very same record. Siamese Temple Ball, now on vinyl.
Not sure how this happened, if it was random, or if as we posited back in the day, that maybe Siamese Temple Ball was not actually music from Thailand, but an incredibly well played homage by some Sun City Girls-like worshippers of Eastern musical tradition. Hardly matters, the music is fantastic, wild, emotional, dense, joyous and yes, very very mysterious.
The cd version featured a sticker that proclaimed in faux pidgen English: "Flight comes to Thailand in the Year of the Rat. Siamese Temple Ball provide the lilting soundtrack for a chemical journey. Schoolgirls dance bashfully for the expectant throng. Life continues at a comparatively slow pace away from the rigours of fierce sun-light." Which was then followed by the (label's) description: "In the tradition of Sun City Girls, Ya Ho Wha 13, The Spacious Mind, Taj Mahal Travellers, Mu, Word of Life, Group 1850, and Ghost, Siamese Temple Ball give maximum pleasure for thirsty brains."
Quite a roster of comparisons, the most fitting of which is definitely the Sun City Girls. So while we assume that this record was recorded by a group of precocious, dilettante, ethnomusicologist hipsters, we like to suspend our disbelief and imagine this to be a genuine Folkways-style field recording, as the recording certainly has a genuine field recording presence - a single stereo microphone in a good location. The music itself is a catchy and mesmerizing steady pulse of various and sundry percussion instruments (metal, wood, skin), hollers, yelps, and rococo melodic lines spun out by tinny electric guitars, xylophones, flutes and Khan (mouth organ.) And besides all that, it's really pretty great!
The Mississippi lp version has all new artwork, even more mysterious than the cd, housed in a thick matte finish sleeve, with NO information at all, not even on the lp labels. We're not sure in what capacity, but it was apparently put out in conjunction with Exiled - also from Portland - another great record store. So recommended. And of course, probably WAY too limited...
Pleasurehorse is one Shawn Greenlee, rhythmic power electronics maestro with one previous disc on Vermiform as well as the excellent "Dropdead: Reconstructed" 12" on Load, currently on bass duties in the newly reformed Six Finger Satellite. Think Merzbow with beats. Mystery Brinkman aka Mr. Brinkman (duh) used to be in Providence duo Forcefield (remember their split 7" with
You think by now, that after a million or so releases, we'd be sick of Nadja, and could nor possibly need/want another record to add to our already overflowing Nadja collection, but somehow, we just never get sick of it, and love pretty much everything we hear, and still get excited when we hear about a new record, and every one seems to sound better than the last, what's not to love? Heavy, spacey, doomy, droney, shoegazey...
This latest sonic missive is another gem, a sidelong epic of hazy, druggy, rhythmic, almost krautrocky minimal post rock doom drift, but the thing is, it never gets loud, or heavy, whereas most Nadja jams eventually explode into a roiling crushing blissed out wall of heaviness, this one refrains, instead, loping, and drifting, and shimmering, and pulsing hypnotically, while all around the main riff and the simple motorik rhythm, backwards sounds swoop and swirl, guitar drones are layered and blurred, the bass sticks close to the drum machine, a solid anchor for the various other sounds to hover and float, the whole thing an endlessly mesmerizing chunk of softly shoegazey krautdrone slowcore. So good.
Nadja get teamed up here with someone called Armchair Migraine Journey, who counter Nadja's sidelong epic with one of their own, a field of glimmering, chiming, shimmering guitars, melodies and chords and notes swirl and shift and merge and tangle, all over a bed of low end hum, peppered with occasional echo drenched, deep and dramatic vocals, giving the sound a bit of a cold wave / gothic vibe, but only briefly, as the vocals drift off, and the tangle of guitars take over again. The side finishes off with a coda of minimal metallic buzz and haunting music box melodies. Pretty great stuff, and a good match for the Nadja track, which definitely ranks among their best.
And the packaging, WOW. A super fancy, super heavy black sleeve, printed in metallic silver, with a printed insert and pressed on thick thick vinyl. LIMITED TO 200 COPIES, each one hand numbered.
This record was pretty much custom made for most of you. A three way split of extreme heavy bliss out dream doom, featuring the WAY too prolific Nadja, who continue to get a pass, because we STILL can't get enough of -that- sound, the not nearly prolific enough Atavist, and a new name to add to the list of bands to obsess over, Satori, a duo featuring the head honcho of the always awesome Cold Spring label who made this disc happen.
Not sure if there was a reason for this three way split, a tour or something, or maybe it's just cuz the three bands fit pretty nicely together, whatever the reason for this happening, we're glad it did.
Starting with Nadja, who again offer up a gorgeously gauzy sprawl of Jesu meets M83, all super distorted crumbling melodies, lurching buried in the mix drum machine, weary ethereal vocals, melancholy minor key melodies, wrapped into an awesome chunk of doomed metallic slowcore, lots of dynamics and texture, a loooooong slow build a la Godspeed, with an epic and triumphant climax. So good. One of the best Nadja track yet maybe.
Atavist do their own sort of doom thing, this time a skeletal mathy post rock, clean guitars spread out over spare drumming, very Slint-ish, all spidery and delicate, until a minute or so in, when the hammer falls, shrieked blackened vox, super distorted crumbling guitars, pounding percussion, a strange flurry of off kilter jagged mathiness, before it's back to the moody Slinty sprawl. Eventually, the track becomes blown out and so in-the-red all the instruments seem to melt together, until the band unfurl a blackened post metal jam that might sound more at home on a Deathspell Omega record, culminating in a gorgeous almost symphonic sounding high end coda.
Finally, Satori, who have a lot to prove in such esteemed company, take an entirely different tack, with processed garbled vocals, over distant whirring drones, a creepy hellish machinelike soundscape of post industrial hiss and grind, deep rumbling swells, thick hissing walls of muted buzz, buried melodies, disembodied voices and buried melodies, all very grim and apocalyptic, think MZ412, Lustmord or Wolf Eyes, some seriously haunting and harrowing black ambience.
Packaged in a multi paneled black and white jacked and housed in a plastic sleeve. LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES.
Another killer match-up between two different UN-black warriors, and yep, that means Christian black metal, a genre we've become pretty dang obsessed with. This one slipped through the cracks, we've had it for a while, bit for some reason never got around listing it until now.
Flaskavsae is one of our favorite of the UN-black hordes (another Flaskavsae split is reviewed elsewhere on this list, teamed with our other favorite, Light Shall Prevail), and these three tracks definite demonstrate why once again. Three murky blasts furious black buzz, the guitars blurred into heaving droney slabs, the programmed drums relentless and machinelike, with awesome off kilter fills, and the vocals a buried monstrous growl, the melodies are epic, the sound sweeping and majestic, there must be keyboards cuz guitars just don't swell like that, or maybe they do, the EEE folks can do fucked up things with sound, the production always as much a part of the sound as the sound itself.
This is the first we've heard from Nahum though, but their sound is a perfect compliment to Flaskavsae's, a furious relentless droned out buzz, the drums chaotic and frenzied, the cymbals awesomely loud in the mix, but it's the vocals that turn this into something fucked up and amazing, a howled falsetto screech, doused in reverb and delay, which results in the vocals careening all over the place, overlapping and getting all tangled up, very dubbed out, which makes the whole track sound sort of psychedelic. Nahum also offer up some gorgeous washed out keyboard-heavy breakdowns, all woozy and dreamy, and some super squiggly leads, all draped over the super distorted murky UN-blackened chaos below. Awesome stuff.
Another unlikely match up, one that sounds a lot less unlikely once you hear it. Wet Hair, formerly known as Raccoo-oo-oon, and Aussie gloomy noise rockers Naked On The Vague, both mixing it up a little for this split (released on Wet Hair's Night People label), expanding their sounds, and dipping toes into new sonic territory.
Wet Hair start their side out with some Tangerine Dream style synths, which drift dronily throughout all the tracks, before giving way to a loping bit of psychedelic drift, equal parts minimal psych rock and keyboard heavy krautrock. Layered synths, softly reverbed distorted vocals, spacey FX, all over a simple post rock-ish real drumming, mesmerizing and hypnotic and reminding us a bit of a more blissed out synth heavy Wooden Shjips. The other tracks follow a similar pattern, but gradually grow more abstract and chaotic, tangles of keyboard melodies, spidery guitars, wheezing chordal drifts, tripped out deep dramatic vocals, swirls and whirls and sixties style sci-fi electronics, everything warped and warbly and fantastically spaced out and bizarre.
Naked On The Vague don't necessarily veer too far from their minimal gloom/drone noisepop, but the sound drifts a bit more toward the psychedelic drift of the Wet Hair tracks, a sort of Velvets vibe for sure, blurry muted guitars, simple programmed beats, bleating trumpet like melodies, swaths of hazy keyboards, boy girl vocal harmonies buried in the murk and the mire, a minimal psychedelic krautdrone drift, super reverbed, the electronics and various background sounds growing more and more frenzied, more atonal, before eventually mutating into a brooding electronic laced doomfolk flecked bit of slowly decaying psychedelic dronemusic.
Pressed on clear vinyl, housed with a nice thick printed insert, silkscreened, purple on yellow, all housed in a thick PVC sleeve, and of course, quite limited...
Stoner rock split cd from these two South American bands, both falling somewhere in the Kyuss/Sabbath realm.
The Snowbringer Cult was a double cd originally released way back in 2008 on the Students of Decay label, and was the first proper cd release from French bedroom drone-psych-folk epic from Natural Snow Buildings, the boy/girl duo of Mehdi Amaziane and Solange Gularte, that double cd included a NSB full length, as well as an album from each of their solo projects, those being Isengrind and Twinsistermoon. That double cd is finally available again, but has also been reissued on vinyl for the first time, with each of the three parts being released separately as its own record.
Natural Snow Buildings have been a band since WAY back in 1999, toiling quietly WAY underground, and over the course of the last decade plus, have only really released a handful of records, and in the first 6 or 7 years, they only managed 4 cd-r's and two tapes, the total number of copies of all 6 of those releases hovering at about 250. That's insane! At the time we couldn't help wonder how a band with such a small catalog, that has reached so few ears, could generate so much fanboy freakout?! But that's precisely what happened. And thankfully, and perhaps surprisingly, in the case of NSB, and the two solo offshoots, the hype does not seem unwarranted. The freaking out more than merited. The music of Amaziane and Gularte is definitely something special, much more than the usual generic fx laden droned out abstract cd-r floor-core that seems to be constantly flooding the scene, this duo write actual songs, and create gorgeous soundscapes, they mix raga-like psyche with fluttery folk, deep drones with pristine pop, weaving it all together into something spectacular.
What happens when the two join forces, becoming Natural Snow Buildings? It would be way too easy to say that the sum equaled the parts, that if you took the sound of Isengrind and Twinsistermoon and combined them, it would equal the whole of NSB. There is certainly -some- truth to that, but it's not math, it's magic. Alchemy, musical sorcery, these are sounds not numbers, and thus are governed by forces far more magical and mysterious than physics or science. The two together join spirits, their natures become entwined, they draw from one another, each offering the other part of their soul, rendered in music. The results are truly divine. An assemblage of sounds, deftly woven into expansive shapes and hushed mystery, landscapes of drone and shimmer, of cinematic wonder and dark introspection. Some tracks are super abstract, layered near static drifts, longform movements that sonically evoke other lands, other times, the past long forgotten, the future not yet experienced, other tracks are wheezing sun dappled Appalachia, but turned inside out, the chords and notes seemingly drawn inward, toward the speakers, the vocals breathless and mournful, all laid atop a thick swirl of distorted riffage, other tracks are fragmented folk, all murky blurred piano, backwards guitars, heartsick melodies, wrapped in a thick gauzy production, smeared into snapshots glimpsed through eyes brimming with tears. Other tracks are space rock writ small, minimal dirges, drone jams, chanted vocals, strange stuttery percussion, and glorious buzzing guitars, culminating in the final track, which begins much like the others, all hazy and dreamlike, vocals ethereal, guitars spare and skeletal, until unexpectedly the band lock into some serious droned out space rock. A serious dark and druggy looped riff, a la Spacemen 3, Hawkwind, Loop, anchored by a simple pounding thudrock rhythm, driving intensely through swirling clouds of FX and warm whirring ambience, a seriously dense, propulsive krautjam, that just so happens to hide a soft drifting pop shimmer underneath, and while the track rocks with a surprising intensity, it's precisely what's underneath that turns the jam into something resplendent.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Negative Reaction is the New York sludge combo. Ramesses is the band formed by the (drunk, stoned) guys that quit Electric Wizard.
Listen and learn, kiddies.
A pretty strange, but in many ways pretty perfect pairing, cult Aussie black metal / black noize horde Nekrasov, and industrial cinematic black doom project Aderlating, which just so happens to be an offshoot of the mighty Gnaw Their Tongues.
Both blackened, both noisy, here the two drift together and end up meeting somewhere right in the middle, floating in the hellish black abyss, heavier on the ambient than the black metal, more abstract and atmospheric than harsh and harrowing.
Nekrasov offers up a side long stunner, which begins as a roiling minimal dronescape of textured blackness, muted streaks of submerged melody, buried vocals, creeping slow motion pulses, constantly shifting layers, deep dense overtones, creaks and scrapes, utterly haunting and otherworldly, occasionally building to a SUNNO)))-like wall of sound, before slipping back into something more slithery and cinematic. By The end, the sound has reached a fever pitch, a swirling, caterwauling cacophony of inhuman vocalizations, tangled black tendrils of buzz and skree, all woven into an organic, heaving blackened ambient drone driven sonic beast, before finishing off with a stretch of hushed minimal shimmer.
Aderlating, aka Gnaw Their Tongues, otherwise known as Mories, counters with a set of three interlocking soundscapes, abject and industrial, set amidst a sea of softly swirling black tones, shapes and sounds seem to creak and groan, like some hellish machine, churning away just below the surface, spewing gouts of feedback, and sinking ever deeper into the vile black void that somehow keeps it afloat. Fragments of voice, melody, surface here and there, only to be swallowed up again. Occasionally the proceedings seems to almost coalesce into some sort of garish subterranean cabaret, but still cloaked in swirling swaths of hellish hiss and black buzz, and epic rumbling low end that threatens to devour all the other sounds. Fragmented barely there rhythms lead into an avalanche of crumbling distortion and in-the-red psychedelic blacknoize, which roils and churns and explodes in a frenzy of sonic chaos, before returning again, to its more tranquil state, which even itself is rife with industrial clatter and swaths of muted caustic noise, finishing off in a blaze of brilliant bristling blackness.
Gorgeous packaging, stunning cover art, black inner sleeve and pressed on sick green, white and black splattered vinyl.
LIMITED TO 300!!!
This is not actually brand new, it's from last year, but we've been doing our best to track down enough copies to list for ages now, and were finally able to get some direct from NEKRASOV HQ. And holy shit was it worth the wait. Nekrasov, the one man Aussie blacknoize wrecking crew who have long terrorized aQ with epic blasts of furious blackness, teamed up with Canadian black metal misanthropes Humiliation, for a seriously malformed chunk of audial evil. And while it's a split, it's also a partial collaboration, each band contributing three tracks, one of which has been augmented and fucked with by the other.
The proceedings begin with Nekrasov unfurling drifting clouds of muted murk, which give way to a barrage of blurred riffage, then blown out tumbling blast beats, all gnarled and blurred, weirdly pretty and washed out, Humiliation adding various sounds to the already dense racket. For the next two tracks, Nekrasov goes it alone, first the epic (and epically titled) "From Where I Sit The Sky Was Full Of Wrath And Ill Will", a sprawling 11 minutes of tangled spidery guitar melody, creeping droned out drift, hushed industrial ambience, ominous orchestral swells, harsh howled vokills, a brief blast of black metal crush, and then a tripped out squall of twisted effects drenched blackened noise. Finally, things finish off with a a super abstract final jam, all lumbering machine like lurch, rumbles and creaks, clatter and processed grinds and buzzes, eventually smoothing out into a deep subterranean sounding low end thrum.
The first Humiliation track begins as a haunting whirl of strange processed winds and voices, almost like some sort of EVP style field recording. Soon the voices become more pronounced, wreathed in effects, the ambience peppered with disembodied riffs, bits of chug, soaring bits of minor key melody, all suspended in a field of hiss and whir and buzz, eventually exploding into some seriously filthy and damaged black doom, harsh vokills, lo-fi drum damage, thick black chugs, a strange bit of Khanate-meets-Abruptum-meets-Burzum-meets-Wolf Eyes, a spaced out bit of grimness, eventually fading into a soft swirl of music box like melody and distant rumble, before exploding into the follow up, another chunk of lumbering hateful black stumble, which over the course of the next 8 minutes drifts from abject industrial pound, to tripped out Gnaw Their Tongues style almost orchestral minimal doom, to clattery creepy soundtracky ambience, to Swans like Teutonic pound, to almost dreamy otherworldly drift.
The final track, begins like another slab of industrial flecked doomic plod and crush, wreathed in a corrosive halo of crumbling distortion and malfunctioning effects, before the riffing drops out completely, leaving a roiling expanse of fractured feedback, strange samples, grinding scrape and howl, all wrapped in wildly explosive layers of blown out buzz.
More necessary Nekrasov, and something serious to whet your appetite for more fucked up filth from the mysterious Humiliation...
So, apparently Australia is more than just adorable animals and funny accents. No, many bands from Australia are simply scary as shit! And what better way to throw yourself headfirst into the maelstrom than with this KILLER 3 way split, featuring some of the island continent's most depressive and unsettling blackened exports?
The Haunting Resonance is, as the liner notes briefly explain, a conceptual album "regarding the matter of ghosts, spirits, and phantoms" and what role, if any, they would play if the earth was wiped clean of all humanity. Pretty upbeat stuff, huh? And while it is impossible to discern just what is being sung, the music more than ably conveys this dark subject matter.
Nekrasov, whose awesome Tramp And Void ep is reviewed elsewhere on this list, inaugurates the affair with "That Which Hunts...", a burly juggernaut of a song combining Wolf Eyes-styled electronic terrorism with esoteric black metal. This song is like a continuously swirling black hole, constantly turning on and devouring itself. The song shifts, without a moments notice, from creepy, slow moving ambience to full on black metal fury, with gothy keyboards smeared across the landscape. The end result is like the soundtrack to dying alone in the wilderness, where instead of finding some source of divine strength, you simply realize that this is it. The last half of this psychedelically informed piece is a haunting, droney loop with all kinds of high end to make you nice and uncomfortable. Its repetition is its unsuspecting source of power, and before long, you are lulled into a trance where you are powerless to do anything but adjust your body to the ominous rhythms of your dying breaths.
The middle part of the trilogy is represented by Moon, who follow a similar approach to merging black metal atmospheres with more contemplative noise elements. "Forgotten Spirits" drones about as labored pulses carry the piece to a more metal (but still really weird and avant-garde) second half. While not quite as furious as Nekrasov, Moon's contribution is equally creepy and unsettling, with what may or may not be a human voice howling incessantly until the song just stops.
Bringing The Haunting Resonance to its grim conclusion is Nekros Manteia with the song "The Final Ghost". Slow, focused drums hold the foundation while delayed guitars float amongst rumbling drones. Stylistically, it makes sense when you realize the song features guitar work from Bonnie Mercer of Grey Daturas. Both bands follow a psychedelic approach that manages to sound both expansive and concentrated within its own realm of noise. Eventually, the band locks into a crusty, doom laden groove before switching to a sparse, post-rock dirge with weird, croaking vocals.
While not exactly the feel good hit of the summer, The Haunting Resonance is a worthwhile listen in its own right, and sure to appeal to those willing to explore the darker realms of noise and the more insular, lonely aspects of outsider black metal. Recommended. And apparently quite limited as well. We got a bunch of these, not sure we can get more when we run out...
Finally, the first proper NON cd-r release from the warped and wonderful Net Shaker, who in the span of one song, remind us again exactly why we love them so much, and demonstrate a knack for fucked up songcraft that enables them to conjure up these bleak minimal abstract dirges, that manage to be simultaneously difficult and damaged, haunting and hypnotic, and somehow, weirdly catchy to boot.
Fans of past NS releases will feel immediately at home, the song oozing from the speakers, a murky, moodily rhythmic creep, lugubrious and soporific, a slithery tarpit lumber, the music smeary and bleary, like listening through ears full of sand, but then the vocals, strangely clean and crooned, the result something like a pop song slowed down, and melted down into a black sonic blur. Minimal and muddy and abstractly doomy, the vocals gradually growing more garbled, drifting over rumbles and drones, a softly swirling sea of hum and thrum, all wedded to that omnipresent slo-mo shuffle. Awesome.
The B side is a new track from Swedish sisters the Ectoplasm Girls, whose track sounds like it could have come from their awesome (but sadly out of print) TxN lp on Ideal, and ends up being the perfect match from Net Shaker, super psychedelic and freaked out, but still minimal and abstract, an almost industrial churn beneath clouds of heavily delayed vocals, a dense dubbed out squall of tangled yelps and croons, all heavily effected, the whole thing laced with weird atonal synth melodies, and like the Net Shaker track, the whole thing anchored by a warped and woozy rhythmic stumble.
Another killer (and super limited, argh) release from Sound & Fury, a killer record store / label in Australia, who recently decided to close down the shop, but will continue to book tours, have shows and release records, lucky for us! This disc is a live to minidisc recording from a massive New Zealand freenoise show featuring a who's who of AQ faves and kick ass NZ underground legends: Birchville Cat Motel, 6Majik9, James Kirk from Sandoz Lab Technicians, and of course the Nether Dawn and 1/3 Octave band.
The Nether Dawn are Antony Milton (PseudoArcana, Mrtyu, etc.) and AQ pal Jon Dale, who teamed up for this 15+ minute set of soaring ur-drone and dense thick hum and shimmer. Big low pulses of sound tangled up with sparkling high end, glistening melodies and mumbled heavily affected vocals. A blast of cosmic space out along the same lines as Vibracathedral Orchestra, Sunroof! and the like but with a softer, more dreamlike focus. Nice.
1/3 Octave Band follow up with their own lengthy jam, a near 17 minute slab of chiming metal, clanging percussion, super reverbed pipefight, little swirls of high end feedback, reverberating chimes, and a soft shimmery skree, that about halfway sort of slow down and stretch out, into a languid, sunbaked guitar/electronics free jam drift. A shimmering cascading flow of warm reverberant chords, flickering feedback, and subtle but distinct minor key melancholia. So nice.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, WE GOT THE LAST 25 OR SO. Packaged in really nice brown paper, sealed with a black stamped wax seal, each copy hand numbered with a printed inner sleeve and a unique full color, actual photo.
- MPEG stream: One
- MPEG stream: Two
Super bizarre 7" match up, that will have weirdo music freeks flipping out. Two bands, with essentially nothing in common, each exploring extreme and opposite ends of the sonic spectrum, both completely ruling. And in one case, completely baffling.
The A side is a band from Virginia called Never Presence Forever. Never heard of em? We hadn't either, but all it took was this brief 7" sampling to have us wanting to hear way more. We were sort of expecting some furious black metal, or damaged noise, but instead, NPF offer up some gorgeous creeping dark ambience, low rumbling strings, deep metallic reverberations, all mournful and melancholy, cinematic and haunting.
The flipside is a whole other something. A band, or a guy, called Ungeromimizu, whose sound is a sort of lo-fi black metal Whitehouse, a square wave damaged synth blown out psychnoise screamo, that is so intense and noisy and freaked out, we weren't sure if we were loving it or hating it. But it only took a few second for us to go with love.
Imagine full on white noise chaos, all hiss and squeal and speaker shredding skree, like Faxed Head with no bass and all the treble your stereo can('t) handle, super processed vocals Masonna style, squiggly FX addled synths, total ear punishing insanity. The second track is toned down, but only a little, a weird warbly techno synth pulse beneath howling black metal vox, and all sorts of squiggly high end streaks and squeals.
Due to a pressing mistake, pressed not on black, or bloody red, or trippy swirled vinyl, but various shades of pink!
New Band is a group spearheaded by Dean Drummond, custodian of Harry Partch's collection of unique micro-tonal instruments. The group's mission includes both performing the works of Harry Partch (which can only be played on Partch's own instruments for the
