I don't know about you, but for the record nerds we know, every vacation is merely an excuse to check out record stores and discover weird bands and see cool shows. Sure we'll deny it, but we won't ever be allowed to forget the time Andee spent at least half of his first trip to Japan, dragging his fiancee Heather around to little hole in the wall record stores, or when Allan made record shopping a priority in Turkey...
Well, when Andee was in NYC recently, there was, surprisingly enough, a bit of record shopping, and there were two fantastic musical discoveries, the first, was a band called Holy Fuck, whose record we will get soon and feature on the list, the other, was a band called Health, whose full length we also have, but we figured this split 7" would be a good introduction.
Not exactly sure how to describe Health, they're sort of one of those awesome WTF noise rock combos, who weave wildly from sound to sound, while somehow retaining a distinct musical personality. Health, to us at least, sound like part hooky pop, new wave weirdness, Sonic Youth style indie rock soundscaping, and chaotic free noise. Not always in equal measures. The first track here is all chaotic tribal drumming and freaked out noise, angular guitars, and breathy SY style vocals, imagine some hybrid of Sonic Youth, 23 Skidoo and This Heat. Hypnotic and off kilter and so good. The other Health track is some weird eighties electro jam, with weird affected vocals, vintage synths, warm reverbed percussion and even handclaps. But somehow the two tracks sound perfect together...
The flipside is the awesomely named Crystal Castles, who are not only named after one of the coolest video games ever, they also sort of sound like a punk rock version of the Crystal Castles music. The core of their sound is full on 8 bit Nintendo core, all bleeps and bloops and buzzes, but over the top is sprawled some fierce Riot Grrl growl, plenty of distortion and crunch, with howled banshee female vocals, swathed in that weird Cher vocal effect. Weird. And then strangely, the other track removes everything BUT the video game jamz, leaving a tune that sounds like it could be music straight from some secret level in Mario Bros....
Nice thick sleeve, with creepy cover art, and pressed on super thick white vinyl.
So, what does raw cult black metal and electro-techno dance music have in common? Vocalist Attila Cshihar for one. Yes, the coiled, blackened tongue of Hungary's Attila Cshihar has spat from the depths of many a cultish metal recording, and even weirder places as well. Fans know him best as the voice of Mayhem (post-Dead, pre-Maniac) on their classic De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas album. He was drafted into that Norwegian act on the basis of his experience in his band Tormentor. More recently, he's guested with the likes of Anaal Nathrakh and SUNNO))), whilst playing in his own, Rome-based band Aborym. This 'Beast Of' samples from Attila's work with all those bands and more, collecting alternate versions of previously released or as yet unreleased tracks from his archives, covering his career from 1988-2002. Some other bands you might know whose work with Attila are represented here include Emperor (a Mayhem cover) and Limbonic Art (a pretty cool "jam"). The bands we haven't heard before are some of the most interesting, like Korog and Professor Fate. Meanwhile Attila's own Plasma Pool will be a little too techno for some, but there's plenty more metal stuff on here to make up for that. The lesson you'll get from this is that Attila has a lot of charisma for a singer with such a limited "range", and is drawn to extremes -- or perhaps extremes are drawn to him. And we're talking extremes within a genre that already calls itself "extreme metal". He's got a cool voice, yes, but also is a personality, a brand if you will. The Attila Csihar stamp of approval (i.e. his presence on a record) means it's gonna be even more fucked than you already thought it was, whether it be cult old-school darkness or modern electronica-inflected stuff. Thus, this is a damn cool comp! And computer users will be happy to find a bonus 24-minute SUNNO))) mp3 on the here as well.
Third in this series, where two Season of Mist bands (in this case Cultus Sanguine from Italy and French black metallers Seth) contribute a couple new sonsgs, cover a song by the other band, and both do a cover version of some other band's song. In this case, a Depeche Mode track!
First proper cd release from either of these bands. Culver you may know by name, and years of limited cd-r and hard to find vinyl releases, but maybe you don't realize that Culver is in fact Lee Stokoe, who also plays in long time faves Marzuraan, as well as being a member of the most recent version of the mighty Skullflower! Holy shit, that is one serioius noise rock underground cred resume if we've ever seen one.
We listed a Culver cd-r years ago, on the now defunct Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label (we actually have 3 or 4 left, if you're interested, just ask!), but haven't really managed to get anything else in since, at least until now. For his half of the split, Stokoe offers up a 31 minute, crushing, ultra heavy, super dense DRONE, corrosive and crunchy, crumbling and bristling with energy, thick slabs of teutonic low end suspended in a field of sonic tar, it almost sounds like black metal riffs blurred into thick streaks of sound, a near static crush, that seems to heave as if at any minute the whole thing could just crumble to pieces. About halfway through the sharp edges beging to wear away, the sound growing smoother, cleaner, yet somehow ever more harrowing and ominous. The track finishing off with a long stretch of near black shimmer, all smeared and woven into ropy tendrils of rumble and hum.
Seppuku counter with something much heavier, and way more metallic, their first joint, begins with a squall of electronics, some looped industrial thrum, soon gives way to a thick cloud of swirling glitch and buzz and hum, eventually dissipating leaving some seriously glacial ultradoom, left to lumber and lurch and pound its way through nearly ten minutes of amp shredding ear drum destroying glacial crawl, monstrous vocals, caveman drums, and all sorts of strange effects and electronics swirling and whirling... So slooooow and so so heavy.
The second Seppuku jam is much more of a power electronics sort of thing, tons of crumbling distortion, heavily processed vocals, all of staitc guitar buzz, loads of feedback, the sound growing ever blacker and more frantic, a grim industrial noisescape that seems to occasionally explode into flurries of murky blown out grind, before splintering back into caustic free noise. Phew.
Some serious heaviness, and some equally serious noise. In some very saucy packaging. Very little in the way of liner notes, but page after page after page, of scantily clad and mostly bare breasted euro babes!
An international punk rock mini-fest, this split release features four tunes each from Japanese trio Eastern Youth and Omaha, NE emo-punk boys Cursive. Consider this your preparation for their imminent U.S. tour together. Eastern Youth fares best when vocalist Hisashi Yoshino totally cuts loose - which in my opinion, he doesn't do hardly enough on these songs - 'cause when he's singing in a calmer fashion the songs tend to drag and stumble (although at times it sort of reminded me of Shudder To Think). I've noticed a prevalent and very distinct sound in the Japanese punk rock recordings I've heard to date (particularly noticeable in the guitar tone). The individual instruments/musicians sound isolated from one another. Clean and somewhat sterile, like the music production on Japanese tv variety shows. Made me think - sizeable budgets but lacking in a unified rockin' energy. Their live rage just fails to come across consistently in the recorded realm. As for Cursive, they've seldom let their fans down, and they're not gonna start now. Tim Kasher's raw, angstful voice is primed and ready as they kick out four new songs of angular punk rock aggression made even more moody by the relatively recent, highly complementary addition of cello to their standard guitar/bass/drums lineup.
We thought the last few weeks of 2014 would be spent just compiling our year end best of lists and revisiting our favorite records of the year. Little did we know one of the best records of the year would be released in those final days of the year which grabbed us on first listen and has had us hooked ever since.
It had been 14 years since his last album was released and while we knew he had started to play live again we didn't know when a new record would emerge. The timing for the release of Black Messiah couldn't have been more perfect and much needed. In the aftermath of the grand jury decision in Ferguson, and the choking death of Eric Garner, the nation and our collective psyche were in desperate need of some healing and deeply conscious music that could lift our spirits while being steadfast to its awareness of the reality of the times.
Musically this is the most forward and left-field leaning of D'Angelo's releases. Psychedelic soul drenched in warmth, reverb, and unpredictable twists, turns, and instrumentation. This is one of those records that unites music lovers of all variations. Whether your a soul fanatic or a psych rock lover this is a record that breaks down barriers and digs into the skin with deep impact. There is so much to take in from the dense recording, so repeated listens become ever so rewarding.
There's no doubt with Black Messiah, D'Angelo has created a musical masterpiece that will stand next to legendary works by folks like Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Prince, and Sly & The Family Stone.
SPECIAL SALE PRICE! Even though this split release is from a few years back, it really couldn't be more timely. Two groups, two songs from each, both dedicated to the loss of their countrymen. Up first is Dark Ages, the medieval dark ambient project of Roman Saenko (Hate Forest, Drudkh, Blood Of Kingu, etc.), who hails from the Ukraine, which is, as we write, in political and social turmoil, so these two haunting elegies are even more moving. Unlike past Dark Ages recordings, that conjured up visions of ruined villages, and crumbled cathedrals, the first track here is achingly melancholic, brooding and moody, and truly haunting, soft swirls of string like synths, drift beneath delicate piano, the sound laced with delicate percussion, the sound cinematic and darkly sweeping, the sort of heartbreaking instrumental you would expect in the denouement of some bittersweet drama. The second track though slips back into the Dark Ages of old, unfurling a gristled expanse of crackle and deep chordal thrum, strange industrial percussion, and tranced out synth drones, but over the top, more aching melodies, strings this time, like some gypsy folk troubadours, playing for their fallen, the static almost like the sound of rain. So so lovely.
Dark ages share the split with a duo from Ireland, with the mouthful moniker From The Bogs Of Aughiska, and whose sound, while ambient, is a much different beast, murky and muffled, thick, rib cage rattling tones, smeared into tectonic rumbles, rife with buried shadows of melodies, a rich, churning thrum, peppered sporadically with scraping, groaning tones, and what sounds like mutated slowbuzz guitars, transformed into grinding hums, the whole thing is closer to SUNNO))) or Phurpa or Mohammad. The second From The Bogs track cranks everything up, building a wall of sound, that seems to be constructed from white noise, but that white noise has been blackened and curdled, a suffocating grey wash of sound, laced with subtle slivers of melancholy melody, softly swirling and darkly psychedelic, there's a brief bit of sampled voices, and then the sound seems to blackly blossom into more sinister noisiness, still murky, but with some grim black heft, that at the very last minute, seems to peel back, and reveal a little bit of choral dreaminess beneath the roiling black surface.
Hopefully you already know Darsombra, seeing as we made their last Public Guilt release, Eternal Jewel, a Record Of The Week not too many moons ago. Atmospheric dark doom-drone experimentation not unlike a more sinister Expo '70 or a proggier Nadja. If you don't know 'em, get this and you'll get to know at least one of their songs really really well, in a way.
Track one here, "Nymphaea", is a head-nodding exercise in bass heavy, slow-building psychedelic instrumental throb. It starts out with plenty of distortion, and only gets heavier and more blown-out as it plods forth, adding a snakily melodic guitar line to further entrance the listener. It originally appeared as Darsombra's contribution to the "untitled" 3cd comp PG help put out last year, and now it has spawned this collection of remixes, a dozen of them, tracks 2-13!
It's pretty fascinating to hear this single song morph from track to track, 'cause they're all very different, the each remixer definitely making it their own, from blissed out vocal pop (Max Bondi & Bleeding Heart Narrative's "Hyena Amp mix") to big-beat crash-boom electro (Pulsoc's "True Love Never Dies remix") to creepy drone-noise ambience (Guilty Connector's "Dotonburi Neonnights") and that's just the first three mixes on here! Elsewhere, Ala Muerte adds eerie female voice doing Latin chant, Destructo Swarmbots strip the track down to a minimal low-end hum, The Heirs Of Rockefeller crank up the fuzz, focussing on the song's incessant hypnotic plod... all these and the rest of the remixers generally fucking with this track in many compelling and often unexpected ways. Darsombra have every reason to proudly approve what's been done with, or done to, their "Nymphaea" here. Remixers not already mentioned above also include Perfekt Teeth, Magicicada, Strotter Inst., Decimation Blvd. & Darla Hood, Blood Fountains, and le knell.
LIMITED EDITION! 250 COPIES ONLY! We only got 20! On a black cd-r in a slim, screen printed sleeve with vellum obi.
Ace Of Spades is a cd-r series of live recordings showcasing the intimate acoustic music of a variety of local indie artists. The series so far boasts consistently strong performances from all participants (well played and well recorded at Mama Buzz Cafe in Oakland).
Volume 8 was recorded on April 17th, and features a hearty gathering of Paul Panamarenko Band, Bart Davenport, the Moore Brothers (their four sweet songs on their very own make this well worth gettin'... you might also wanna check out their wonderful studio album Now Is The Time For Love!), Laura Weinbach, Matthew Herz, Vernal Falls and Helen Chaya.
What hath the mighty Weakling wrought? Surely that legendary SF black metal band spawned a legion of followers and worshippers, but few underground bands have had such a noticeable impact, spawning bands blatantly and openly paying homage to the masters.
First there was Jabladav, who began basically as a tribute, even releasing a couple records called Dead As Duck and Drunk As Duck, both references to Weakling's only album, Dead As Dreams which came out on tUMULt way back in 2000. Now there's the BAND Dead As Dreams, a USBM band who apparently loved Weakling enough to name their band after the group's seminal record. And as if that weren't enough, Dead As Dreams are paired up on this split with a band called Aurvandil, who have a song called "As Dead As Dreams". But you know, bands could do a lot worse for inspiration than Weakling, and if you ask us, and since you're reading this review you sort of are, a band could hardly do better.
So Dead As Dreams, offer up a single looooong song, carving out their own sound, which is definitely heavily influenced by Weakling, but manages to be pretty unique and most assuredly their own. The fast bits are the most Weakling inspired, with similarly hysterical shrieks, drone infused blackened riffing, relentless drumming, but then the band whip out these really awesome depressive slow parts, all mournful and a bit abstract, plodding and melancholic, with some long slow decays and awesome wailing keening high tones, that almost sound like guitar and voice harmonizing, however they do it, it's really dramatic and makes the song!
Aurvandil are from France but sound like they're from Norway, very Buzumic, gloriously buzzy, midtempo, drum machine, but not distractedly so, some awesome riffs for sure, the sound not as murky or muted as Dead As Dreams, more chaotic, but still melodic, definitely need to hear more from both these bands, but especially Dead As Dreams, we find ourselves returning to that track again and again, THAT one part burned into our brains.
Released on the always kick ass Tour De Garde label!!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
For most of you, all you'll need to hear is "BRAND NEW DEAD C RECORD". And maybe also "VINYL ONLY." And let's not forget the ubiquitous "EXTREMELY LIMITED." At this point, about 33 words into what will undoubtedly be a 400 word review, most of you already have this in your cart and have moved on. But just in case...
Super limited lp only split, featuring noise rock deities the Dead C and Australian surreal space rockers Hi God People. The Dead C offer up two tracks, recorded live in 2002 at All Tomorrows Parties and on first listen is the Dead C at their most blissful and laid back. The first track opens with a sort of minimal Velvet Underground style groove, simple drums, muted melodies, but the whole thing is swathed in squealing, shrieking, creaking, stuttering shards of feedback. Eventually that feedback takes over, creating a new rhythm of its own, the drums spazz and sputter out, and suddenly we're in classic dark and dangerous Dead C territory again. Fuzzed out, blown out, overdriven, psychedelic NOISE rock, somehow free and abstract, but totally propulsive and groovy, with strangely super melodic vocals buried WAY down in the mix. The second track is another blissy drone out, that by the end of the side breaks down into some seriously noisy freakout action, sounding almost like some bootleg Stooges jam, pulled apart, jacked up and blown wide open! Fuzzy and murky but still strangely (noise) rocking!
The three tracks on the flipside from Australia's Hi God People, are still noise rock, but much less abrasive and more melodic. The opener is super abstract, with bits of sample conversation, warbly organs, shimmering feedback, a lazy glimmering drift. The second track kicks in with some almost Sonic Youth like grooves, simple drumming and tangled up atonal guitars, and some awesome, out of the blue snarling tigers (!). They finish things off with a super moody laid back blown out psych jam, with weird Patty Waters like vocals. Cool.
Packaged in a hand silkscreened sleeve, with a two sided printed insert, all adorned with some super cool, very Devendra Banhart looking geometric artwork. And need we say, EXTREMELY LIMITED!!!
A while back we listed/reviewed a split 7" featuring local heavies Kowloon Walled City and Southern sludgelords Thou, part of a super limited, subscription only series, which we were only able to get cuz we got some direct from the bands. We had sort of give up tracking down any of the other installments in the series (twelve singles all told, featuring Coffinworm, Fistula, Fight Amp, Pyramido, Fungal Abyss, Great Falls, Ultraphallus, The Fucking Wrath, and a bunch more we had never heard of), but then in walk aQ pals Rabbits, who just so happened to have a stash of their single in the series, and we grabbed as many as they could spare.
They share the split with Dead Elephant, an Italian noise rock outfit whose sound is massive, a churning, downtuned mathy freakout, wild drumming, dizzying riffage, progged out heaviness, laced with feral vokills and some super rad guitar harmonies, the sound lush and layered, heavily textured, dense and brutal, but with a super stripped down minimal stretch in the middle, that sounds like Shellac at 16rpm, all distant guitar melodies, dirgey bass chug, and skeletal drumming, a slow build into a roiling, hypno-rock psychedelic noise rock coda. Phew.
Rabbits counter with something much more concise, sounding like a more metal Black Flag, throat shredding vox over slithery super distorted riffage, and wild chaotic drumming, a little bit sludgey, angular and atonal guitars draped over super distorted guitar buzz, devolving into a blown out almost industrial sounding outro.
Killer tracks from both bands. And like the KWC / Thou single, the cover art is super gorgeous, the packaging ultra deluxe, letter pressed and fantastically designed, and like that other one, SUPER LIMITED, very likely these are the only copies we'll see!
With a lineup like that you'd probably be expecting some sort of ear splitting noise free-for-all. A blasting batch of brutality designed to melt your speakers into little black puddles, to send your neighbors diving for the phone to call the cops, the sort of N O I S E that is gloriously and literally unlistenable. Well, in this case, you'd be wrong. Very wrong.
In fact all four sides of this quadruple live set, are downright listenable, if not actually lovely here and there. An epic 4 sided dark ambient dronefest, that while hitting the spot for the usual suspects, will definitely also appeal to the drone minded among you as well as the Earth / SUNNO))) dronedoomdirge obsessed.
John Wiese of Bastard Noise and about a million other projects starts things off not with a bang, but a rumbling whir, a slowly unfurling blanket of crumbling fuzz and hiss, muted minimal ambience rife with pulsing low end and thick rivers of black shimmer. This is dark ambience more than noise, strange disembodied melodies, drifting all ghost like, haunting and surprisingly pretty, but without ever losing its overall bleak and ominous vibe. Definitely the best thing we've heard from Wiese.
So at this point we sort of expected Dead Machines to kick it up a notch, and they do, sort of. Beginning with a grinding symphony of buzzing analog synths and fuzzed out feedback, but that quickly gives way to a very Wolf Eyesian industrial ambient wasteland, clang and rumble, creaking and crumbling clatter, barely there dreamlike whir, distant high end melodies, downright blisssful before a coda of thick buzz and roaring damaged noise (but even then, it sounds really fuzzy and washed out)
It's up to Romero then, to get things good and noisy, but surprise surprise, Romero follows suit, offering up maybe the most tranquil and drone-y set of the bunch, thick undulating low end throb, overtones shifting and beating against each other, sounding like a doom metal Phill Niblock. Gorgeous and dreamy but still dark and menacing.
The final track, taking up all of side 4, features this fearsome foursome, Romero, Wiese and the two Dead Machines, teaming up for an epic and one would assume chaotic and noisy collaboration, but once again, we're thrown a serious curveball. Instead of all four piling up on top of each other and making a huge loud mess, they deftly intertwine their sounds into a subtle dark drift. Only once exploding into a full on noise drenched onslaught, spending most of the time rumbling and whirring and weaving a dense and dreamy world of dark drones, and mysterious sonic shapes. Really fucking awesome.
Double lp, pressed on THICK black vinyl, packaged in super elaborate, three color silkscreened fold over sleeves and LIMITED TO 515 COPIES...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We're always �going on and on about the weirdest, most fucked up black metal bands ever, even elsewhere on this list, we review the new one from Tasmanian one man band Striborg, and declare it maybe the weirdest yet. But there's weird, and then there's Dead Reptile Shrine, who beyond being weird, are barely even black metal, the metallic elements far outweighed by the fractured folk and total whatthefuck elements, and the blackness, well that infuses pretty much every sound they produce, just not in the way most folks are used to or most metalheads want. Instead, DRS do their own thing, and their own thing is some fucked up mix of dark dronemusic, detuned free folk, stumbling chaotic black metal, some orchestral bits, tortured vocals, all wound into a confusional world of black rituals and mysterious sonic otherworlds. While we anxiously await the forth coming double cd on tUMULt, we have THREE new tapes to tide us over, two reissue of long out of print rarities, and another brand new album, to be released soon on cd and vinyl as well, but for now on the oh so cult cassette format. Each of these is limited to 400 copies, we got a bunch, 30 or so, but odds are those will go fast and we probably won't be able to get more.
Burning Black Intensity is the new album, and offers up a taste of what will be found on the soon to come sprawling tUMULt 2cd full length, and if BBI is any indication, then two whole cds of this stuff is going to DESTROY. This record begins with some creepy, orchestral Peter And The Wolf type sounds, strings and percussion, sampled we assume, while DRS croon over the top, offering up wavery clean vocals, strange incantations, and various other vocalizations, the result is truly twisted. This goes on for several tracks before the band launch into some black metal, but DRS black metal is a whole other thing, the drums buried in the mix, barely audible, the guitars strangled, and gnarled, buzzing, blurred and murky, dueling vocals, one a high howled screech, the other a rumbling demonic gurgle, both drenched in reverb, both howling maniacally, and relentlessly, while the guitars churn and the drums stumble, the whole thing lurching drunkenly, super raw and primitive and lo-fi and fractured and FUCKED for sure. The next track demonstrates that no matter how weird it gets, everything they do is deliberate, the guitars are thick and fuzzy, the drums simple but propulsive, the riff a near static black groove, the bass, pulsing and undulating, more typical black metal vocals screeching over the top, while way in the distance a voice shrieks hysterically, the two vocals all tangled up, the guitar spewing forth a super mesmerizing singular riff, totally hypnotic and trancelike, the vocals growing more and more unhinged. The next track is a murky muddy Wold style soundscape, melodies and guitars smeared and blurred into bleary eyed streaks of sound, the vocals an ominous rumble, the drums a chaotic blast beat, while the guitars swoon woozily, the whole track dizzy and druggy and weirdly dreamlike, the vocal eventually growing more and more warped, almost cartoonish, sing songy and almost operatic, wrapped in fluttery flutes and more distorted soft buzz.
Needless to say, this is brilliantly twisted stuff, totally wacked, outsider blackness, as true as any of the more classically TROO black metal, but unlike those, DRS are true only to themselves, any resemblance between their music and other black metal is not only coincidental it's a fluke, as most of this sounds like nothing you've ever heard.
Long in the works split between these two Bay Area outfits, both practitioners of their own particular strains of post black metal, that post in full effect here, especially on Deafheaven's side of the split, on which this duo tackle Mogwai's "Punk Rock / Cody", the opening tracks from Mogwai's Come On Die Young record, and for the first few minutes, they do it pretty straight, a lilting cyclical guitar melody, a strange sample, barely there percussion, and then it gets even MORE post, with melancholic piano, haunting and lovely, but fear not, it doesn't take long for the song explode into blissed out heaviness, the guitars epic and soaring, the drums a dense powerful pound, the vocals, a blackened shriek, the first hint of blackness, but coupled with the soaring melodies, it has an entirely different effect, majestic and melodic, the song building and building, until the final few minutes where the vocals drop out, and another guitar swoops in and plays the melody, before fading out to a softly psychedelic drift, those harsh vokills continuing on in the background, over the spare skeletal guitars, before a final blast, and we do mean blast, as in full on blast beat, and frenzied riffing, the song transformed into a gorgeously blown out super melodic blast of blackened bliss pop heaviness. It won't do anything to assuage the true grim hordes who are constantly crying 'false metal' but fuck it, for the rest of us, this RULES.
Bosse-De-Nage counter with their own sprawling epic, starting off with martial snare, a low slung bassline, clean guitar shimmer, their Slintiness in full effect, the sound made even more lush and lovely by the addition of strings, which also gives the sound an almost folky vibe, spoken word vocals surface, the guitars begin to buzz a bit more, the sound suddenly splintery into a dizzying squall of mathy chaos, a wild drum driven churn, that gives way to a epic sprawl of blasting blackness, the drums WAY up in the mix, continuing to pepper the sound with mathy complexity, the guitars surprisingly melodic, the sound super blown out and in-the-red, a gnarled melodic black metal math rock hybrid, that might be the best thing we've heard from BDN yet, the second half of the song is laced with soaring swells of prismatic psychedelic guitars, a soaring post rock coda, that gives way to a final stretch of furious mathy blackness.
SUPER LIMITED!!!
We've been digging so much Chinese indie rock around aQ lately, including a recent Record Of The Week from synth/drum duo White+, the dissonant shoegaze Sonic Youth meets MBV of Boyz & Girl, and Dear Eloise, whose full length we reviewed recently, and who traffic in a sort of fuzzed out noisy jangly shoegaze, not that far removed from early Dun Dum Girls, that sound in full effect here on this new split, their track crumbling and noisy, washed out and dreamy, ethereal female vox over crunchy psychedelic guitar, laced with bits of twang and a woozy wandering bassline, lo-fi and fuzzy, a Velvets style minimal rock doused in distortion. The flipside features another Chinese group, Underground Lovers, who we had never heard before, and who deliver a sort of eighties style retro new wave jangle pop, the sort of thing you might hear from some Brooklyn band on Sacred Bones or Captured Tracks, boy girl vox and lilting lovely guitar jangle.
Housed in super striking silkscreened sleeves, and pressed on clear vinyl!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Dear Nora is the moniker under which Ms Katy Davison performs her sweet lullaby tunes, and she's got the absolute perfect voice for it. Here it's just her and her 8-track in her kitchen doing a cover of Bob Dylan's "Girl From The North Country" (although when it started we could've sworn it was "Scarborough Fair"). On the flipside of this baby blue record are pop sweetheart twosome Mates Of State doing their version of Jackson Browne's "These Days". With Jason handling the lead vocals, it's given an almost John Denver-y feel. So there you have it - a lil' SF split 7" to give you the warmest of fuzzies.
We've become a little obsessed recently with Ukrainian one man band Moloch. A quick look at Encyclopaedia Metallum reveals about 30 or 40 releases, 5 or 6 of them BOX SETS! Unfortunately most of them limited to 50, or 40, some even less than 10. So we've been on the hunt for at least one record we could get enough of to review on the list. We have our sites set on a cd full length, which we should be able to have in stock soon, but while we've been searching this little black gem showed up, and thus, will most likely serve as your introduction to the mighty Moloch.
Of his 30 or 40 releases, only a handful are black metal, the rest are split between dark ambient, and noise. So the black metal records end up being infused with both ambient drones and black noise.
But before we get to Moloch, we have Deathrow to contend with, a one man band from Italy, that one man also being a member of Frostmoon Eclipse, Ad Hominem, Kult, Nocternity and a whole bunch of others. For this split, Deathrow offer up some gorgeously lush black ambience, thick roiling clouds of buzzing synth, shimmering organs, pulsing low end rumbles, all woven into slow moving creepscapes, almost like Goblin at 16rpm.
Moloch too chooses a path of blacker ambience, and offers up some grim necro rituals recalling the strange abstract blackened mood music of Abruptum, but far from being harsh, this is a dark and haunting journey through some fog shrouded underworld, all deep sonorous tones, mysterious creaks and thumps, dense swells of distorted low end, streaks of minor key melody, everything blurred and indistinct, distant anguished howls, tinkling marimba like chimes, warm washes of crumbling chordal whir, animal grunts and growls, reverb drenched detuned piano, all super cinematic and soundtracky, conjuring images of boarded up old houses, of black swamps, strange shapes drawn by moonlight filtering through the trees, of abandoned streets, dank cellars, of caves lit by flickering firelight, of nighttime, of darkness, of loss, misery, pain, loneliness, and hell.
WAY recommended. And if all goes well we'll be able to track down that Moloch full length, and you can discover his even blacker side for yourself.
The long awaited split from two of our all time favorite black metal outfits, Deathspell Omega and S.V.E.S.T.! Weirdly enough, each band's half of the vinyl split was also released on a separate cd, so if you're a digital kind of person, you're gonna have to buy both cds, and believe us it's well worth it, just read on. But if vinyl is your thing, then you're in luck, cuz both halves, all the material from both cds, is contained on this here lp.
Up first, Deathspell Omega:
Finally, after waiting and waiting, a brand new Deathspell Omega record. Or track. OK, record. Same difference really. One single sprawling massive 22 minute epic with more parts and compositional complexities than most bands can cram into a record three times as long. And it's the perfect blend of DSO's two disparate sides, their grim and gnarled, frosty, thrashing buzzy black side, and their more obtuse, mathy melodic post rock side. In the past, it seemed like the band would lean heavily in one direction or the other depending on the record, Kenose with it's total slavish and apparently unintentional Slint worship, and then FAS, which seemed to ditch those post rock proclivities in favor of something much more old school.
So it was pretty much a toss up where the band would take their sound, and weirdly enough, this is almost exactly what we were hoping for. A perfect hybrid of the two, with no clear delineation, each side, those battling influences, blurring and bleeding into one another, confusionally bafflingly brilliant, bursts of furious grinding black buzz lead directly into warped stretches of spidery clean guitars and lurching impossible rhythms, soft hushed whispered interludes obliterated by thick roiling black riffery, only to slowly melt before our eyes, twisting and almost detuning, the guitar parts very Polvo-esque, strange tunings, almost skeletal sounding, until the band offer up some impossibly dense complicated BM fury, stop start arrangements, INCREDIBLE drumming, the guitars totally unhinged, but still weirdly catchy. Songs this long are always difficult to pull off, for the best of bands, either parts get recycled, the band repeats itself, or it gets tiresome and then it's a matter of waiting for the song to end. But nothing like that here. So many parts, all thematically and musically linked, but all totally unique, the guitars especially, seem to come to life, like some black weed, while the drums inhumanly stay locked in perfectly. The track shifts from intense frenzy, to woozy groove, to lumbering doom, to jagged mathy stutter, and back again, there even seems to be some horns happening, reminding us of later period Gore.
Even as a musician, it baffles the mind, how anyone is capable of conceiving music this dense and complex and subtly melodic, let along performing it. This just might seal the deal, as if it wasn't sealed already, Deathspell Omega just might be the most progressive, most avant, and fuck it most mind blowing black metal band on the planet right now. Period.
And then S.V.E.S.T.:
The return of an old favorite, French duo S.V.E.S.T., who strangely enough haven't released a proper record since 2003 (2005's Coagula compiled older demos), but within 30 seconds, we were totally reminded exactly why we loved these guys so much. And they're a perfect foil for Deathspell, their sound equally fractured and convoluted and fucked up, but where DSO go for something darker and moodier and more melodic, S.V.E.S.T. go in the other direction completely, spitting out frenzied swaths of blurred buzz and wild squalls of intense tangled blackness. These three tracks, are so awesome, we almost, and we're well aware of the sacrilege involved here, but we just might like them as much as, if not even more than the Deathspell half of the split.
Their sound is hard to describe. The first track opens with a dizzying swirl of squiggly guitars, woozy riffs, wild splattery drumming, that seems already like it's bordering on total meltdown, yet that's just the intro, and the band launch into a frenzied assault even more fucked up and dense, but pepper it with cool little melodies and parts that almost sound Viking, albeit buried beneath a roiling black blowout. The guitar does these cool little descending trills, the song lurches and stutters, the drums are relentless, mind blowingly fast and heavy and intricate, until partway through, the sound shifts, and there's a bit of doomy crawl, before leaping right back into the fray. Throughout, there are bursts of total drumming chaos, extra guitars howling and adding yet more layers of buzz. It's so thick and heavy and dense, it takes close listening to pick out all the amazing stuff going on beneath the buzzy black surface.
The second track continues on in much the same vein, with the guitars even more twisted and gnarled, the drums still relentlessly mathy and intricate, slipping from total chaotic black noise, to stumbling groove, to cool pounding dirge, the drums leaping out from the mix, the guitars thick and raw, but soaring majestically at the same time. The sound manages to be epic and classic and technical while also murky and lo-fi, the sounds all blurring together, a heaving mass of constantly shifting blown out blackness, still rife with all manner of tangled little melodies, and sweeping epic ambience.
The closer is short and sweet, the weirdest and creepiest of the bunch, beginning with a staccato machine gun burst of drums and riffage, before slipping into a swirling high end guitardrone, all woozy and overlapping, disembodied riffs and smeared melodies, dizzying and mesmerizing, growing more and more intense, the drums barely there, just those high end guitars glowing hotter and hotter, until finally, the drums kick in, and the track resolves in a totally twisted soaring post rock black metal what the fuck epic outro, that fades out WAY too soon. Holy shit. These guys need to deliver a full length ASAP. and we definitely don't want to wait another 6 years.
LIMITED OF COURSE. And it would be hard not to think, even only nine days into the new year, that this wasn't gonna be the best black metal record of '09. We'll see...
More metal reading material here. Retro thrashers Municipal Waste yukk it up on the cover. Inside, also: Christian Mistress, Cattle Decapitation, Cathedral, Esoteric, Orange Goblin, Pallbearer, Paradise Lost, Alcest, Asphyx, and more! Including the usual "South Pole Dispatch" from Mountain Goat John Darnielle, loads of reviews, and a "Hall Of Fame" induction of Overkill's The Years Of Decay. Oh, and for Valentine's Day, a special feature on "Extreme Metal Couples"... as always, informative and/or amusing reading.
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Okay Finnish music obsessives! We only got a handful of these, so don't be too bummed if we run out lickety split.
Super aggro Finnish tag team action. One side features Finnish Favorites Deep Turtle, spewing out a grinding tech punk blowout. Ultra weird and convoluted, impossibly complicated stop/start arrangements, like Melt-Banana mixed with the Ruins. Wacked and weird and wonderful. Super manic percussion, with strange little interludes, snippets of intercepted radio broadcasts splattered all over truly head spinning technical metallic madness. Oh except for the second track, a weird little shuffling Finnish calypso breakdown peppered with brief blasts of Iron Maiden-ish melodic shred. Woah.
The other side features Valse Triste who counter with multiple blasts of fuzzy, grungy crusty brutality, a fucked up take on Discharge / G.B.H. with some strangely glammy guitar and hoarse shouted vocals. Cool.
Packaged in a goofy AC/DC parody sleeve, the backside folds out and inside is a huge lyric sheet, and two full color postcards.
After leaving their longtime home at Kill Rock Stars, and ending up on Polyvinyl, this new split finds Deerhoof trying out some new ideas as they team up with the rapper Busdriver, for what could be a whole new project they are calling Hoofdriver. Interesting concept: inviting guest vocalist to add lyrics to some of their instrumental songs, which is what they do here with Reagan Farquhar aka Busdriver. The flipside is a new jam from a new band featuring members of the Mai Shi, called Physical Forms, and whose track is a very '90s indie rock/post punk throwback, while the Deerhoof (Hoofdriver) side doesn't sound much like anything we've heard from them before. Busdriver definitely brought in his own aesthetic and vision, which in its own weird way was a pretty good match for the twisted minimal art rock of Deerhoof... Curious to see where this project and future collaborations go!
A little somethin' to accompany your new Deerhoof Green Cosmos cdep! This split record delivers two suitably unpredictable tunes from that Bay Area band as well as a single more conventional guitar-driven song from Minneapolis based trio Sicbay. Deerhoof's music has always been heavy on the sharp angles and tightly knotted rhythms, and these songs are no exception if a bit moodier than we've come to expect from them. Pretty darn great!
The latest in Deerhoof's new 7" series where they invite up and coming artists to use one of their instrumental tracks as a backing track for their own vocals and lyrics, while the B side allows Deerhoof to remix one of their guests' tracks. This time out it's a group called Woom who get to create their own special something inside the magical landscape of Deerhoof's imagination. Woom, who are on the great Ba Da Bing label, have a very stripped down, and quirky approach to pop, sitting somewhere between Young Marble Giants and Tune-Yards. We think its really cool of Deerhoof to lend their name and presence to help lesser known bands get a wider audience, but in all reality this is much more a Woom 7" than it is a Deerhoof one.
All previous 7"s in this Deerhoof series have already gone out of print, so best to act fast if you want this one. Pressed on clear vinyl and includes a digital download.
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Chinese punk split!
Fellow doom junkies, you'll agree: what could be better than a 3-way sludge split?? Especially when the three bands are all from Finland, 'cause you know we love Finland. Only one of the three bands here, the mighty Frogskin, had we previously heard, but it turns out, ALL of 'em are awesome, and very well-matched, stylistically. In fact, to tell the truth, at first it's hard to tell when one band leaves off and another begins. Demonic Death Judge (great name!), Semtex, and Frogskin each in turn dish out tremendously heavy, lumbering, loping riffage, with a liberal application of feedback, and rasping ugly vokills. Their sludge has a Sabbath-derived swing to it, for sure, and features plenty of psychedelic guitar shred soloing, especially from DDJ. So these three represent the warped Finnish branch of a doomed-out, drugged-up family that includes both Eyehategod and Electric Wizard in its lineage.
First up is DDJ, with three tracks, each over 7 minutes long, their dirty stoner grooves betraying a love of classic '70s psych and metal. They also aren't afraid of some shining melody in their songs, like on one of this album's highlights, "Beneath The Monument", which also makes good use of disturbing samples, layered and looped. Epic, glorious stuff, which is not what we'd usually say about sludge. Then comes the pot-lovin' Semtex, who boast the best and/or cutest logo. Their four tracks are more overtly drug-oriented, the band a bit like the Finnish answer to Bongzilla, delivering lotsa lazy, bluesy, doped out doominess. And then Frogskin wrap things up, their three contributions to this sludgey split taking it into an even filthier, nastier, crustier direction. It's been doomy all along, but now it's time to run and hide, kiddies.
Wow, what a wicked, wasted 3-way! Better than most single-band discs of this ilk we've ever heard. If it's any recommendation - and it is - we've been listening to this A LOT since we got it in. And are also hoping that a Vol. 2 is indeed on the way, as well as new full-lengths by all 3 of these great bands�
Latest chunk of grim blacknoise from Ohio duo Demonologists, comes in the form of this super limited split cd-r, with the mysterious Deathstench. We first heard from Demonologists on a cassette from Waves Of Decay, and we described that record as sounding like ten different black metal records all being played at once and then remixed by a Japanoise DJ. Which should tell you all you need to know, brutal, harsh, intense, black buzz brutality. On their half of this split, Demonologists start off each track with some black ambient drift or some creepy cinematic dronemusic, only to eventually explode into full on blacknoise, an avalanche of speaker shredding, ear piercing Merzbow/Masonna style fury, only in this case, buried in there somewhere are buzzing riffs and shrieked vokills, and if you can brave the first few minutes, the songs tend to open up, peeling back some of the noise, revealing all the murky weirdness inside and underneath, whether that's wild squalls of fractured effects, surprising shards of jagged melody, or just stretches of black metal buzz. Headphones seem the way to go, this is the sort of all out aural assault that in a room with regular speakers, just sounds like a vacuum cleaner symphony, but strap on those cans, and you're plunged into a blacknoise abyss, a skull caving collision between Incapacitants and Wrath Of The Weak, a whirling black buzz dervish of unparalleled proportions. Metalheads tread carefully, one must have iron ears as well as a black soul to truly survive this sonic onslaught!
Deathstench start their side off with a creepy sample and some sick, gurgling low end buzz, a churning black expanse of downtuned heaviness and murky oozing creep, the sound super distorted and on the verge of crumbling to pieces, textural and heavily layered, black and black but surprisingly listenable. Which is how these guys roll, balancing the relentless blown out pummel of Demonologists, Deathstench are a bit more subtle with their bleak, grim, abject soundscaping, creating looped landscapes of industrial whir, and buzzy black drones, of machine like rhythms buried in the sonic murk and mire, wreathed in haunting drifting melodies, and swirling black ambience, finally finishing things off with a 15+ minute horrorscape, beginning with some hushed ultra minimal shimmer, but quickly blossoming into something much more evocative and sinister, distant demonic vokills, disembodied voices, churning black low end, lots of spaced out drift, super cinematic and downright scary.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!! With full color glossy artwork!
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Fans of the amazing Cambodian Rocks compilations we've reviewed in the past are definitely gonna want this one too, a collection compiled by the members of the modern LA-based Cambodian pop band Dengue Fever (longtime AQ faves) of their favorite classic Cambodian rock and roll jams from the sixties and seventies, a golden renaissance age for art and music in Cambodia, directly preceding the reign of the Khmer Rouge, who took over the country in 1975 and attempted to wipe out any and all traces of modern society, and as the liner notes point out, much of the music survived, but most of the musicians did not.
As with the Cambodian Rocks comps, the songs here are groovy and funky and fun, with shuffling rhythms, wild psychedelic guitar solos, warm wheezing organs, fuzzy surf guitars, and of course incredible vocals, the perfect mix of Western style rock and pop and Eastern style traditional folk music. Even though on the surface, the songs all seem sunshiney and playful, but there's definitely an element of pathos and drama, many of the songs are subtly maudlin and melancholy, there's even a song called "I Will Starve Myself To Death", but listening to it, with its jangle guitar and shuffly rhythm, you would never guess the grim title and perhaps lyrical content. There's also a killer cover of Sonny Bono's "Bang Bang", popularized by Cher, Nancy Sinatra and Terry Reid, and here it's gorgeously haunting, a waltzy bit of melodrama, with that immediately recognizable chorus, even in a different language. So good. We just can't get enough of this stuff, anyone who dug those Cambodian Rocks comps, or who loves the Sublime Frequencies collections, will no doubt go crazy for this too. There is definitely some overlap with this collection and the partially out of print Cambodian Rocks series, but there are definitely some tracks here we've never heard before (like "Bang Bang", or as it's titled here, "Snaeha"), and besides, the proceeds from the sale of this record will be donated to Cambodian Living Arts: www.cambodianlivingarts.org! So what are you waiting for??
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Another kick ass Record Store Day release! We ordered an extra handful of these so you out of towners could still get your hands on one of these, a new track from long time aQ faves, Southeast Asian poppers Dengue Fever, with another gorgeous smokey groove, all reverby surf guitars, slithery sexy bass, simple jazzy drums, some gorgeously jazzy almost Maricachi sounding horns, and of course the divine vocals of Chhom Nimol, who seals the deal, her delivery so sultry and effortless. If you haven't heard Dengue Fever, you are in for a treat!
The flipside features Chicha Libre, another band of modern musicians channeling classic sounds of the past, this time the sound of Peruvian Chicha, and just like Dengue Fever, they are a dead ringer for the real thing, heck, they ARE the real thing, twangy guitars, warm warbly organs, gorgeous vocal harmonies, totally groovy and danceable, the sound warm and vintage, we would never guess that this was a new recording. Wow. These two groups just toured the US together, this 7" commemorates that trek, and was released just for Record Store Day, we have about 10 of these, it was LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES, pretty sure we won't be able to get more.
If album covers have as much of an impact on sales as they're supposed to have, then it's hard to understand why this reissue isn't already at the top of the charts. Two happy, heavily bearded fellows proudly displaying the triple necked guitar-thing that they built themselves, emblazoned with their band name (the liner notes explain that they were trying to outdo fellow Turkish psych purveyors 3 Hur-El, who had a doubleneck). The previous reissue that we had by these guys had a similar cover concept, so it probably worked for them pretty well back then. That album was called Disko Folk (which is the subtitle here too by the way) and to them that meant traditional Turkish folk music done with modern electric instruments, the duo being wedding dance music specialists who catered to the immigrant market in West Germany. They released this lp (or maybe it was originally a cassette?) in 1985, so while some years removed from the heyday of Turkish psych it's still a kind of trippy example of Anadolu Pop on account of the blend of folk music and '80s technology - there's some thumping electronic drum beats alongside the more conventional trap kit percussion, and the track "Dom Dom Kursunu", for one, is interspersed with occasional blats of synthesizer zap.
Being a duo, they resort to overdubs on record, bringing in additional, emotive vocals - and even sound FX of bleating sheep! That triple necked guitar gets a workout, and the results on this record are somehow both stately and sprightly. Live, they had to do it all themselves of course, and apparently put it across with a lot of crazy showmanship (for example, see this YouTube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yBQhBa5RZk, featuring fancy footwork, behind the back guitar playing, nose-to-keyboard soloing, and more), enough to get large groups of people on their feet and dancing.
From the master tapes, and the vinyl version is a 180 gram pressing.
The return of grindlords Agoraphobic Nosebleed, here teamed up with fellow grinders Despise You, who offer up their first new material in a decade, although their sound has definitely not changed. Despise You traffic in furious, punishing hardcore heaviness, blurred buzzing riffs, wild thrashing drumming, dense super intricate arrangements, slipping from chug and churn to frantic blast, punk pound to mathy lurch, the songs short and sharp, cramming 18 songs into about 16 minutes, even tackling Fear's "I Don't Care About You", the boy/girl vocals (mostly boy) yelped and howled, the sound rough and raw, filthy and crusty, total fast core power violence style, definitely harkening back to the old school Pessimiser / Theologian / Slap A Ham sound of the nineties. Which we STILL love like crazy...
Agoraphobic Nosebleed counter with their own take on that sound, starting their half out with some downtuned doomed out sludge, the vocals a heavily effected guttural bellow, the sound grooving and slithery, a chugging churning almost Black Flag-ish bit of gnarled hardcore, it's not until the second song that the band explode in a frenzy of hypergrind, complete with dive bombing Slayer style leads, the sound thick and corrosive, the riffing insane and intense, super intricate and mathy, cramming tons of parts into super short blast of sonic fury, finishing off with another chunk of tangled doom flecked midtempo hardcore pound, that grinds and howls and creeps until it fades into a spaced out sprawl of psychedelic feedback and swirling distant drones. Killer.
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THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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For the second installment of Ache Records' Di/vorce split 7" series, they've corralled AQ pals Matmos and the haphazard Die Monitr Batss from the Pacific Northwest. For their part of the bargain, Die Monitr Batss offer up some skronky, lo-fi, no-wave aspirations. Meanwhile on the flipside, Matmos tackle Gladys Knight & The Pips' "On And On" although it's pretty darn difficult to recognize it once it's been put through the duo's surgical choppity chop treatment. Indeed, their contribution is an assemblage of deep, gravelly fragments of funk. Limited pressing of 1000.
We've been sort of tickled lately for some reason by the idea of two bands sharing a split release, when both of the bands are essentially made up of the same members or mostly the same members. It definitely makes sense, recording, production and distribution wise, a split release is way easier when on some level it's not really a split release at all. It's even better when the bands sound exactly the same. Not sure what got us on that train of thought, must have been this here split between black thrashers Dimentianon and long time AQ faves, slow motion ultra funeral doom sludgelords Rigor Sardonicous. We've been itching for more of RS's bizarre lugubrious swampy slither, and of course their array of 'most evil cymbals' (more on that in a minute), so we were psyched to discover this brand new split, and in our current state of mind, even more psyched to discover that�Dimentianon was in fact fronted by the same mangled mind behind Rigor Sardonicous (although it seems that he's since left�Dimentianon to focus full time on Rigor Sardonicous)...
Anyway, we're sort of rambling, the point is, this is a double shot of brutal blackened heaviness, the�Dimentianon tracks are a super intense blackened death metal, lurching, furious, evil and heavy heavy heavy. Nothing super mind blowing, but definitely heavy and classic enough to keep our heds banging as we waited patiently for the epic slow motion trudge of the mighty�Rigor Sardonicous...
We've already waxed poetic at great length and gushed like crazy in other reviews, check em out elsewhere on the AQ site, it's easy to see that these guys are one of our favorites in the glacial world of funereal doom. These guys are sooooooooooo sloooooooooooow, and sooooooooo HEAVY, they literally almost sound like any one else's ultradoom record, slowed even further down. The guitars are viscous and black, not so much riffs and the sound of someone dumping buckets of black tar� into your speakers, the vocals, an outrageously low demonic gurgle, more along the lines of some of the bizarre gore grind we dig so much, but it sounds perfect, draped like rotting black innards over the already oozing riffage. Then there's the drums, an impossibly slow motion plod, but with the strange distinction of having the cymbals be way louder than the rest of the kit, or in some weird way, they sound like the only part of the kit that hasn't been slowed down to a snail's pace, so the various stretches of dooooooooom are demarcated by a crashing trashcan lid, or a chain link fence clang or once in a while what sound like a gong made out of hubcaps. So we posited that they must be the most evil cymbals ever, thus theire prominent placement and the fact that they're so much louder than any of the other music. Sounds weird, and maybe like it would sound bad, but it doesn't, it's genius, it just further enhances the fact that�Rigor Sardonicous inhabit some totally unique, and ultra fucked up soundworld. And if you're like us, you CAN NOT get enough. The other thing about the RS tracks on this split is one of them, the closer, "Blood Of The Seraphim" features�Rigor Sardonicous fully rocking out, as in playing really fast, double kick drumming, almost blasting, sounding a lot like diSEMBOWELMENT actually, before crashing back down to a 2mph trudge. But it's cool to hear what something as subtle as speeding up can do to a sound, to a band, and to a band's whole identity.�Another black hole slab of glorious slow motion heaviness for the doom obsessed among you. Go forth, and doom on...
From the same label that brought us recent bouts of brilliantly fucked black metal from Wolok and Lorn as well as classic releases from Blodulv and Glorior Belli comes this killer split, featuring two grim legends from the Swedish black metal underground.
The awesomely named Dimhymn do some impossible to describe black doom classic rock? Or something. Not sure what else to call it. Super blown out distorted black chug, haunting high end guitar licks, and incredibly catchy little bridges, a plodding dirge that sort of lopes along before the music suddenly screeches to a halt and is replaced by some classical piano, only to immediately be stomped on by a huge black cloud. A massive furious riffy freakout, guitars in the red and crumbling all over the place. The drums so hot that the cymbals' sizzle threaten to overwhelm everything. And before you know it the music blinks out again and in its place a haunting alien ambience that bloops and bleeps before once again the blackness descends. The song ends with mournful reverbed trumpet that sort of drifts off into the ether. WHAT THE FUCK? So awesome.
The second track is a huge chunk of black drone, pointillist piano dropped into a bleak soundscape of thick grinding fuzz and insect like melodies.
The final track starts off with melancholy guitar melodies before launching into a SUPER catchy groovy black thrash, with soaring melodies, and massive almost Nirvana like breakdowns, the sound still totally overblown and in the red. And again, the weird reverbed trumpet pops in without any warning, disappearing just as fast. The track ends with more of the classical piano from the first track. Wow. So amazing. We hear lots of weird black metal, but Dimhymn's half of the split has catapulted them damn near right to the front of the fucked black metal line!
Tough to follow up something like that, so fellow Swedes Hypothermia don't try to out-weird Dimhymn, but somehow manage to be just as bizarre but in an entirely different way. Epic fuzzed out glacial dirge, thick riffs spread out in a black smear, the drums a caveman plod, and some of the most fucked vocals ever. From weird, something-caught-in-the-throat sort of strangulated grunts and mewls, to guttural growls that occasionally break into falsetto-y squeaks as if the vocalist hit puberty right in the middle of recording. Sounds funny, but the overall effect is more creepy than anything. The finish the disc off with an epic 16 minute midtempo buzzscape. Looped riffs, totally repetitive and hypnotic, occasionally the drums break into a not-so-fast blast, but for the most part this is drone drenched monochromatic black dirge rock. Almost like a grim black metal Circle, or a blackened Spacemen 3, all stretched out fuzz guitar and endless trancelike riffing. So great.
A pretty much perfect split. Two more impossibly damaged and absolutely essential outsider black metal bands to add to the ever growing list!
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From the same great tastemakers who put together the Dirty Space Disco collection that has become an all-time AQ favorite, comes this collection of sultry and sensual French psychedelia. These are the sounds and artists that have influenced folks like Sebastian Tellier, Air, Islaja, Blonde Redhead, Bjork, Broadcast, Komeda, etc.
And while we of course love the peppy sounds of classic French ye-ye pop, it's the more seductive, warped and tripped out sounds from France in the '70s that really gets us going! When we realized that one of our favorite songs of all time, "Il Pleut" by Brigitte Fontaine (complete with arrangements by Jean-Claude Vannier!) was included, we knew there was some mighty fine curatorial work going on here.
But it's not just that one track, not even close, this comp has turned us on to amazing sounds from new-to-us folks like Christophe, Nino Ferrer, Jeanne Marie Sens as well as long beloved AQ faves like Dashiell Hedayat, Ilous & Decuyper, and Francois de Roubaix. While many of their US and UK counterparts were injecting large amounts of blues and hard rock into their psychedelia, the French kept it sensual, steamy and tripped out, realizing an alternate yet completely enticing musical universe. Full on sexy psychedelic seduction! Weirdness too, like the awesome track whose grooves are backed with the sounds of revving race cars.
Incredibly cheesy and fun comp out of Munich that gleefully covers all sorts of '80s and '90s hits using Commodore 64 Atari gamesounds as its only instrument. Now this is what I *wish* I could have listened to while playing Frogger back in the day. 8-bit hilarity, in the form of "Always on My Mind", "Blue Monday", "Enola Gay", "Venus", "Mission Impossible", "Smells Like Teen Spirit", "Chariots of Fire", "Sheena is a Punk Rocker", the theme to Beverly Hills Cop, etc. This is the first time on disc for this previously LP-only release, and the disc has several bonus tracks that aren't on the vinyl. Comes in a clear jewel case, no cover art; the disc itself bears the info and looks good. A novelty purchase, for sure, but lots of fun.
The Wild Bunch was Bristol, England's legendary sound system some of who's members went on to form the now both legendary and hugely successful Massive Attack. While Mushroom and Daddy G. both went on to become the core members of Massive attack, it was Milo and Nellee who started and were the bedrock of The Wild Bunch. The group moved quickly from packing house parties with their primitive DJ setup, to becoming one of the most popular sound systems in the country. The crew took cues from Jamaican sound systems and insured their competitive edge by hunting down and spinning the rarest of the rarest tracks for their exclusive use -- one of their earliest conquests was an ultra rare copy of "Wild Style Breaks", an instrumental collection from the hip hop movie Wild Style. Their efforts were greatly enhanced by Daddy G. who, while working in a record store, would hide the hottest new 12"s behind the counter and not sell them to anyone else he thought might be a DJ. This disc is, in a sense, an attempt to recreate a Wild Bunch set. The tracks -- Thelma Houston's "You Used To Hold Me So Tight", Spoonie Gee's "Love Rap", Knights of the Turntables' "Techno Scratch", Cameo's "It's Serious" for starters -- were all picked and mixed by Milo who, despite the fact that his name has faded into obscurity, is generally considered to have been not only the heart and soul of The Wild Bunch, but a catalyst for the eventual formation of Massive Attack. The nicest thing about the collection is that, as segues between many tracks, Milo has included live snippets of between song ambience (lots of whistles and air horns!) from actual Wild Bunch performances, so the set almost sounds like the real deal.
The incredible DJ Scud (aka Toby Reynolds, Bloodclaat Gangsta Youth, head honcho of Ambush Records) steps into the ring to take on the Rich Kid (aka Kate Mosh, M2, Bad Street Boy, best known as German dancefloor militiamensch PANACEA). Murder Sound sees these
Er...let's see, the press for this says: "A typically retarded new EP split between two of underground San Francisco's favorite treats". Favorite treats we suppose if you're into the most annoying Load-label stuff too, but we won't argue with retarded. But that doesn't mean we're saying you won't like this -- the market for primitive beats, synth abuse, and noisy silly punk-dance chaos is a burgeoning one after all. And there's some local celebs involved in these two acts as well: DJ Shitbird consists of members of Comets On Fire, the Lowdown, Crack W.A.R., Big Techno Werewolves, and Lil Pocketknife, while Revenge consists of the infamous John Dwyer (Coachwhips, Pink & Brown, Zeigenbock Koph, OCS...) and a dude from the Numbers. It seems that Narnack ain't signing up anything, even for a split, without scenester cred galore. Both bands are equally goofy, with Revenge being noisier and DJ Shitbird cuter (but more cringe-inducing), I suppose. Check out the sound clips to see if they get your booty moving or just make you gag...
Jeff "Monoman" Conolly has gotta be one of rock 'n' roll's awesomest unsung legends. First off, he fronted DMZ, Boston's garage punk answer to the likes of the Stooges and the New York Dolls, in the mid-'70s. Then, out of the ashes of DMZ, he formed Lyres, who traded in some (just some) of DMZ's scuzzed out heaviness for retro Vox organ driven power poppiness in the style of the best '60s Nuggets outfits. This disc brings both bands together. The DMZ half features 12 tracks recorded as demos at a Cambridge radio station in 1976. They rip it up here, doing a ton of rad covers, among 'em "Til The End Of The Day" by the Kinks, "Teenage Head" by the Flamin' Groovies, "Search and Destroy" by the Stooges, "Heart Of Stone" by the Stones, and "Someone's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonight" by Fleetwood Mac (also memorably covered by the Rezillos). Definitely the sound of a band reveling in their influences, gettin' ready to kick out their own jams, as well as some other covers, on their one and only studio album, which was released in '78 by Sire. (Note: there's no song overlap between this and that.)
Then, on the second half of the disc, there's 15 more tracks from Lyres, recorded live in '82, with a line up featuring 4/5s of DMZ, at an Italian restaurant that doubled as a punk rock venue by night, back in the day. There's lotsa killer covers here as well (The Wailers, The Sonics, The Young Rascals, Kenny and the Kasuals...) and they do a DMZ tune too - but the main attraction might be the raw, raucous versions of Lyres own songs, Conolly compositions that shoulda been big hits, like early single sides "Help You Ann" (Andee's favorite Lyres song EVER) and "I Really Want You Right Now". Considering that reissues of Lyres studio albums are not easy to come by these days (why oh why are they out of print?), the release of this live recording, which makes up for in sheer energy what it might lack in high fidelity, is quite a boon both to fans and folks who, upon hearing it, will immediately become fans!
Basically a double dose of straight up rock 'n' roll radness. Also available as two separate vinyl lps, DMZ on one, Lyres on the other.
