No, this is not some outsider electronic record based on Arthur C. Clarke's dark tale of alien invasion (although that would be rad, wouldn't it?). No, this is actually an extremely rare psych-folk record from Down Under originally released in 1971. How rare? Well, a recent eBay seller was asking $700 dollars for this. Whoa! A bit country-tinged with some really great songwriting, this remind us of a more electric Gordon Lightfoot (whom we love!). We believe this is Phil Sawyer's only release, and even this album is not very well known outside high-caliber record collector circles, which is a shame because it's really good. Looking for some psych-dappled singer-songwriter fare in the vein of Graham Nash, Gary Higgins or the abovementioned Mr. Lightfoot? Look no further. Awesome!
... but lazy are not the Scattered Pages! The new full length from these three troubadours from Houston, TX comes swiftly on the heels of their fine cdep This Is Where The Story Ends, and even in that short time the band has evolved and fleshed out their sound tenfold. Their not so secret weapon is the combined songwriting force of Kurt Coburn and Brandon Hancock, both have proven themselves to be quite the richly imaginative storytelling lyricists and crafty songsmiths. Many of the songs here reminded us quite a bit of The Hidden Cameras or Belle And Sebastian, but more rootsy folk inclined. An engaging listen.
Bay Area label Three Ring Records expand their roster by a third with four impressive new releases by Rykarda Parasol, Frankel, Tom Thumb & The Latter Day Saints and these three Texans who call themselves Scattered Pages. Three Ring has already got fine releases by the indie rock/pop likes of Elephone, Soltero, Ebb & Flow and D.W. Holiday and Scrabbel, but with this recent outpouring they bolster their country and folk branches.
Scattered Pages' male vocals exude the sort of mellowness that you'd imagine was the result of the golden warmth of whisky. These are earthy country tunes that sway in the breeze while the burnished amber light of dusk fades. Nice. Despite the band's name, the band itself seems to be in anything but disarray. And despite the album's title, it seems that their story's only just beginning... and in a very promising, self-assured fashion.
Y'know how there's been a lot of folks doin' the "American Primitive" solo acoustic guitar thing lately, all of them inspired to one degree or another by the late great John Fahey and the other denizens of Fahey's Takoma Records label? Folks like Jack Rose, Glenn Jones, Ben "Six Organs Of Admittance" Chasny, Patrick "Langtry" McKinney, Sir Richard Bishop... the list goes on and on and we're happy to add another name: Charlie Schmidt. But Charlie Schmidt has greater claim than most to the "fake Fahey" tag: not only was he was a friend of Fahey's (or maybe even, we should say, a protege), but some of his own recorded compositions meant for a collaborative album with Fahey wound up being mistaken for actual Fahey performances and were included as previously unreleased tracks on the Best Of John Fahey Vol. 2 album released after Fahey's death! Whoops. When the producers of such an anthology can be unintentionally fooled like that, you've gotta belive that this Schmidt fella sounds a heckuva lot like genuine Fahey. And that's no bad thing, is it? Not at all. So for fans of Fahey and Fahey-like steel string guitar explorations, Schmidt's debut cd Xanthe Terra is quite recommended. Not surprisingly, this disc is dedicated to John Fahey, but it's also dedicated to the scientists and engineers of the Mars Exploration Rover Project, as Mars exploration is a big interest of, and influence on, Mr. Schmidt. Xanthe Terra is the name of an area on Mars, in fact. And this record is Schmidt's idea of a soundtrack to accompany a mind's-eye hike on the surface of Mars! Includes one Fahey cover tune ("Dance Of The Inhabitants Of The Palace Of King Philip XIV Of Spain") and a dozen Faheyesque originals, technically graceful and sweetly melancholic. A relaxingly familiar sound with intricacies that ultimately belong to Charlie Schmidt, as watched over by the benevolent ghost of JF.
Wow! He sounds like Johnny Cash! OK, sometimes we compare things in reviews or note similarities but it's not often that we come across a record that sounds almost identical to another artist we love. Such is the case with this archival release of Kentucky country crooner Johnny Seay who recorded in the late '50s-early '60s and sounds EXACTLY like Johnny Cash. We swear every single time we play this someone asks which Johnny Cash record this is and often one of us working will wonder the same thing. Luckily Seay sounded like all the best parts of Cash. The deep rich baritone sung atop a perfect rockin roots country backdrop. Story has it, that when Mercury records head honcho Shelby Singleton got his ears on the Irish Cash soundalike he made some convenient changes to the pronunciation of Seay's last name. While it had always been pronounced Shay, Singelton started saying it like Sea, further confusing the worlds of Cash and Seay. Johnny C and Johnny Sea. And confusing it is as we can't emphasize enough how uncanny the resemblance is. Some of us even find ourselves leaning towards Johnny Seay, as this was playing the other day and Christine came up front and of course asked if this was a Johnny Cash record she never heard and when told the story she concluded that she might even like this Johnny more. For curious minds and Cash fans alike this is an essential listen!
For the latest PlusTapes release, the mysteriously monikered Shadow Drifter (aka James Probiega, aka Little Howlin' Wolf) offers three versions of this long form slomo folk-blues epic , "Ol White" recorded at various times between 1968 and 2002. The longest version clocks in at 17 minutes while the shortest hovers around 12. Recorded with just guitar and harmonica and the Drifter's deep slow free associating drawl, he draws upon Greek myths, life on the fringes and other odd bits of tall tale and surreal wordplay. Also included are two versions of "Wooly of The Wild" recorded at different times and one other beautifully haunting track titled "Rose of Silence". Weirdo Americana indeed!
LIMITED AS ALWAYS TO 100 COPIES!!
Tragic Johnny Cash protege...
Hot on the heels of two super limited cd-r's comes the newest batch of ultra personal lo-fi missives from Jason Honea aka The Shitty Listener. Honea (The Child Readers, Franciscan Hobbies, the Chord Fort, the Knit Separates, Teenage Panzercorps, etc.). A super intimate world of tiny folk songs, lo-fi lushness, strange fragments of sound, and whatever other strange sonics figure into Honea's Shitty Listening.
Strange distorted conversations, chopped up, a looped snippet of some Hall & Oates song, a dizzying found sound collage that quickly gives way to a simple warbly guitar strum, melancholy and struggling to stay in key, a lilting and dreamlike sliver of forest folk, complete with drifting falsetto vocals and a strange bit of tapping percussion way down in the mix. Most of the songs on Hunt To Die are of a similar make up, drifting crooning sweetness. although the lo fi production takes over here and there allowing the sound to become super distorted and bleed over everything else. Some droney buzz, some other snippets of found sound. And more fragile folky dreaminess. Like wandering through the lush foggy musical garden in Honea's mind. Everything gauzy and indistinct, mysterious and wondrous, and oh so pretty.
Feature some guest action from Honea's former partners in Jewelled Antler Loren Chasse and Glenn Donaldson.
Full color cover and a hand painted blue tape with fabric and artwork glued to the front. And as with most things like this probably really really limited...
If Googoosh and Shirley Collins were somehow melded together into one incredible singer, you would have Shusha. Shusha was a Persian singer from the early seventies most famous for her debut album, Persian Love Songs and Mystical Chants from 1971. But her love of music extended beyond her native Iran towards the British folk of Shirley Collins and Sandy Denny and the American protest music of Dylan and Joan Baez. That is what inspired her on these two 1974 recordings, Shusha and This Is The Day. Reissued together for a very affordable price, these two albums of chamber folk-rock divide time between English-sung originals, covers and reworkings of traditional British songs and poems. No native songs here, the only inkling that we're given that Shusha is not English born is her woozy phrasing on some of the American covers such as Dylan's "Knocking on Heaven's Door" and the Elvis Presley social ballad, "In The Ghetto". But her singing really becomes transcendent on the British traditional material, where her range is allowed to soar around the song structures rather than being confined by them. This is an incredible discovery of two rare recordings by this amazing singer. Fans of Bridget St. John, Vashti Bunyan, and Joan Baez take note!
You might find the title and cover art of this new Shut-Ins' album to be a bit deceiving... We sure did! They give nary a hint of the ol' style hoedown -- with a little luau ("Hawaiian Cowboy" and "Hapa Haole Hula Girl") and sock hop ("Just Because") thrown in for good measure -- contained within. Although the instrumentation (deep warm standup bass, frantic banjo pluckin', sparkling mandolin, slip-slidin' pedal steel) and overall tone is certainly traditional country, the Shut-Ins keep the barndoor wide open and inviting, ably hoppin' about from style to style as they so please, and they do so at such a fevered pace. They even cover Blondie's "Dreaming" in earnest twangin' fashion! Such fun! Just don't forget your gingham tablecloth, saddleshoes and grass skirt. Eighteen songs in all.
Belgian funeral folk avant ambient doom troop Silvester Anfang sure have a way with images. Their first full length featured the band in white hoods, shirtless, with sticks and clubs and axes and goats on chains, now this one, the band's first proper cd release, sports a foxy raven haired lass licking a skull, and elsewhere in the booklet and on the sleeve, posing with said licked skull, as well as plenty of goats still, upside down ladies in bikinis in the shape of an upside down crucifix, as well as a full color fold out poster of the babe-licking-skull album cover....
And while that all may seem a bit over the top, somehow, it suits Silvester Anfang's dark and demented music. They're like a grim, blackened, metallic version of all those freaky forest neo folkies. Imagine Avarus or Feathers or Kemialliset, just hanging out beneath the trees, weaving their stumbling free folk magic, when all of a sudden, they're pulled into some pit in the middle of the forest, only to emerge days later, with a blank dead eyed stare, emotionless, eyes black as obsidian, their hair tangled and matted, their skin covered in mysterious tattoos, and the sounds they make, like some some primitive musical ritual...
That's sort of what Silvester Anfang sound like. The parts are all familiar, the shuffling rhythms, the junkyard percussion, the haunting vocals, the detuned guitars, but somehow twisted, dark, and so black, and like they also somehow dragged some big ass amps as well as at least one full drum kit out into the woods, and the results are seriously scary (and amazing).
The first track unfurls a web of jagged distorted guitar melodies over a simple motorik pound, surrounded by all sorts of chants and distant drones, above a constantly shifting landscape of grinding whirs and swirling clouds of tinkling melodies, occasionally overtaken by thick washes of super distorted guitar buzz, everything culminating in an orgiastic musical free for all, with wild feral female vocals, dense tribal drumming, epic cinematic swells... an immense sonic squall the lights the black forest with some burnished red glow...
The second track, the nearly half hour long "Konfituur Voor De Satanjeugd" is much more subtle and stretched out, some sort of German Oak krautrock style slow burner, all shuffling drums and whirling ambience, spidery guitars and glistening barely there melodies, until about the 20 minute mark, when a riff finally coalesces, a killer riff, a sort of Viking dirge, a bit metallic, grinding away over thick sheets of blown out guitar drone, a dense wash of amp buzz and guitar growl, the riff looped and cyclical, while in the background lurk streaks of high end guitar and warm whirring synths, gorgeous and not a little bit frightening.
Magickal and mystickal, dark and diabolical, just the sort of musick that might very well have you too licking skulls after repeated listens, and there's certainly not a better recommendation than that...
Latest hellish musical missive from these Belgian funeral folk freeks, but where past releases have found the band wandering through twangy campfire lit forests, and offering up strummed pagan prayers to the gods, Levend Op De Brandstapel is Silvester Anfang at their most rocking, their most freaked out and psychedelic, blown out and tripped out heavy. But even then, the band still sound unhinged and abstract, stumbling and damaged. The guitars this time around are thick and distorted, the riffs are sharp edged and buzz drenched, but the band never actually ROCK, at least not in the traditional sense. The first half of this single 26 minute track, is an expanse of drone and clatter, big black riffs slowly unfurling and allowed to drift amidst a sea of whirs and shimmers, clangs and clatters, it's like the skeleton of some classic rock song, ensorcelled and brought back to life, lurching and lumbering through a landscape of distant drones and random percussion. The second half of the track, the noise quotient gets ratcheted up big time, and while the band still doesn't quite rock, it does get wilder and heavier, the sound transforming into a Sunroof! style high end ur-drone, but here, the drone is littered with howled voices, grinding shards of guitar, feedback everywhere, all tangled up into a corrosive noiserock loop that plays out right until the end. Woah.
Packaged in miniature dvd style case, with a tripped out, and very evil looking black and white cover insert. EXTREMELY LIMITED, we got about 25 copies and probably won't be able to get more�
Latest from Sin Ropas, a duo consisting of Tim Hurly of aQ faves Red Red Meat and Califone, and Danni Iosello, having called Germany home briefly, settled in North Carolia, where they holed up in a library to record Fire Prizes. Originally released on cd in Europe a few years back, now available as a super limited, deluxe and gorgeously designed lp.
Sonically, Sin Ropas sound like the logical progression from Hurley's other groups, which as far as we're concerned is a very good thing. Oh how we miss Red Red Meat, and how we still love Califone. So it should come as no surprise that we love Sin Ropas too. A dark dusky mournful twang, stretched out over an abstract rock and roll frame, recalling the above mentioned outfits, but also the folky slowcore of Rex, the intimate dark country of Sparklehorse and the indie twang of the Grifters. Everything is shaded and dusty, the guitars go from spidery and slippery, to distorted and downtuned, Hurley's voice a whiskey soaked rasp, backed up by Iosello's angelic vocals, slide guitars drift and shimmer, everything dramatic and minor key, haunting vocal harmonies, muted percussion and jagged riffs, the songs going from druggy sprawl to crunchy campfire stomp, but always wreathed in teary eyed melancholy and warm washed out dreaminess. Fans of any of the above mentioned bands should definitely check this out.
Like all the Shrug releases, vinyl only, and they spare no expense. And this one has to be the fanciest one yet. A full color picture disc, pressed on super thick vinyl, housed in a thick full color innersleeve, which in turn is housed in a gorgeous diecut jacket, rich textured paper, inked and letterpressed, with the silhouette of a leafless tree cut out, on the front and the back, so the inner sleeve is visible through the branches. SO NICE! And of course limited as all get out. ONLY 485 COPIES!! We have a handful...
The Empty Heart Of The Chameleon is the debut from Liam Singer. His soft, faint vocals have already drawn comparisons by a few AQ customers to Elliott Smith, but his solo piano and theremin that take turns accompanying his voice create altogether different lonely moods and solitary atmospheres. As well, on occasion, Singer's voice is contrasted with more classically trained sounding female vocals that climb to dramatic, operatic heights. Everything is ultra hushed and delicate, brittle around the edges, in danger of vanishing or being crushed under the emotions they bear. Much like autumn leaves that fall slowly one by one, this music is spartan and contemplative, allowing an achingly sensitive vocal phrase or simple note sequence to linger in the air. Starkly beautiful.
And lo, after several changes of the seasons, once again the musical mystic comes down from the mountain to play for the people his olden instrument of wood and wires. Meandering through meadows, pausing to serenade both man and beast, rock and flower with hushed blessings and blissful hummings. It's record number, what, 12 or 13 from Ben Chasny aka Six Organs Of Admittance. And the dust still chimes. This is the even brighter dawn after the luminous night.
Chasny is one of our very favorite practitioners of psych folk descended from the fringes of the Takoma tradition, American primitive meets Eastern acid, a la Basho and Bishop - Sir Richard being one of Chasny's compadres in Rangda, the fierce improv yang to this album's (mostly) gentle folky yin.
As befits its title, Asleep On The Floodplain is indeed a dreamy one, tickling with sweet tangles of strings (such as the acoustic guitar solo "Poppies"), shimmering with lovely drones (the harmonium laden "Brilliant Blue Sea Between Us"). With some tracks, like the album's intense side two epic "S/word And Leviathan" (over twelve minutes long) bringing all that together and more. It's esoteric, poetic in both inspiration and realization (there's post-graduate work to be done delving into the lyrical/conceptual side of these songs, instrumentals excluded, or not). Without such analysis, we know it's at least interesting, and more importantly emotive and evocative, whether Chasny is gently singing, or just caressing the strings. As always with Six Organs, we can surely say by now, recommended!!
Heck yeah, a 2nd pressing! Got a bunch, but sold a bunch too before this list so right now we only have a mere handful, so act quick if you missed it before 'cause we're pretty sure we won't be able to get it again. (Although, also fyi, Ben tells us that there probably will be a compact disc edition someday too.)
Mariakapel was a special tour only lp from Six Organs Of Admittance, aka Ben Chasny, originally released to coincide with a 2011 European tour. We got a couple dozen of the first pressing on Pavilion (ltd. to 500 copies) direct from Ben back then, but those went pretty quick as you may recall. And no surprise, cuz this is really really great. Compiled from two live performances in 2010 and 2011, the opening and closing tracks were recorded earlier in 2011 in Massachusetts, the opener is all wheezing harmonium, a gorgeous stretch of psychedelic mesmer, swirling and shimmery, laced with bits of acoustic guitar, very hypnotic and raga-like, gradually growing more lush and textured as the track progresses, extra layers, tangled melodies, all just beneath that glorious harmonium hum. The closer sort of bookends the record with a similarly droney sound, but this time with what sounds like organ, still very raga like, all long layered tones, and constantly shifting overtones. Gorgeous and intense.
But between those two drones, are a handful of recordings from 2010, recorded live in Tilburg, Holland, a fantastic collection of spare, sparse minimal Appalachia, in the background you can hear feet shuffling, people moving about, but nothing can distract from Chasny's darkly meditative guitarscapes, which include some of Chansy's most intense playing, super percussive and buzzy, downtuned and intense, sounds like he's getting a little Orcutt on some of these jams, but it definitely suites him, and even at his most aggressive, he manages to make the tracks lush and lovely and still impossibly melodic. Fantastic stuff as always.
LIMITED THIS TIME TO 250 COPIES, via Dutch label Whipping Post.
Several years ago, while listening to excellent Bay Area college radio station KFJC, a particular track of hypnotic, droning psych caught my ear -- buzzing, repetitive acoustic guitar and organ and a mysterious voice intoning "prayer for the su-unnnn..." over and over, all building into a loose, dirgey trance. Gorgeous. Further listening revealed the mysterious voice as belonging to Ben Chasny, aka Six Organs of Admittance. Soon thereafter, my ever thoughtful roommates returned from a John Fahey show, at which Six Organs had been the opener, bearing an LP on which I was excited to find the track I loved. A bit of time passed, and lamentably, so did John Fahey; Six Organs has gone on to make two great albums as well as lending a considerable hand to Comets On Fire on their awesome "Field Recordings from the Sun." This here is a long-awaited cd reissue of that first Six Organs LP, with the addition of 2 tracks from a limited 8" lathe-cut disc. While Chasny seems to be getting better and better, as evidenced by his best and most recent record "Dark Noontide," the darkly psychedelic 4-track ramblings on this disc find his signature sound fully in place-- an immediately recognizable way of attacking an acoustic guitar into a state of humming, reverbrating submission, that resonant baritone, and detours into percussive experimentation, all ritualistic and, I'll say it again, thoroughly hypnotic. So Nice.
MPEG Download: "Sum of All Heaven" [/audio/sixorganssumofallheaven.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Sum of All Heaven" [/audio/sixorganssumofallheaven.m3u]
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
We've long been champions of Mr. David Eugene Edwards, in both of his swampy apocalyptic folk ensembles, first the late great 16 Horsepower, and then later, his more personal, and seemingly more spiritual Woven Hand. As long time readers of the aQ list know, Edwards is like a modern day revivalist, conjuring up demons and darkness, death and pestilence, but simultaneously light and hope and sometimes even redemption. With a sound that shifts from stripped down and intimate, to dense and heavy and ominously rocking, the music of Edwards is easily some of the most powerful and passionate we've heard. Woven Hand played the aQuarius SXSW showcase, and our first impression was holy shit, these guys are HEAVY. And loud. And so intense. In fact, considering how many actual metal bands and super heavy rock bands played that showcase, it's pretty remarkable that WH might still have been the heaviest band in the lineup.
Secret South is one of our favorite 16HP records, originally released way back in 2000, and out of print for AGES, this was their first record after leaving their major label, and thus seems to be infused with an extraordinary amount of anger and darkness. This record is FIERCE, the classic 16HP lineup is on fire, the vocals incredible and impassioned, the guitars raw and rough, the drumming powerful, the bass thick and enveloping, strings moaning and singing, but the magic of 16HP is how all those elements are woven together, it's difficult to imagine a mere band could evoke this sort of ominous atmosphere, this sort of dread and darkness, this is so much more than music, it's energy in sound, it's sweat and blood rendered in notes and melodies. A swampy mysterious gothic folk, but infused with elements of classic bluegrass, dramatic cabaret, plenty of doom and gloom... You can check the aQ site for other reviews where we rave on and on and on about both 16HP and Woven Hand, needless to say, both bands are all time favorites around here, and Secret South ranks right up there as one of the best by either.
Both the cd version and the lp comes with a bonus dvd featuring the whole record in 5.1 surround sound DVD audio.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Even if we didn't make this Record of the Week, we'd probably still be selling quite a few of 'em, as we're sure we've got a lot of knowledgeable record-collector-type customers for whom adding this to cart will be but the work of a second, the second after their eyes bug out upon seeing the artist and title listed above. But since this reissue is not only of an incredible rarity but also of an incredible record, we wanted to make sure everybody heard about it, besides those for whom it's already a "holy grail". Yep, Joakim Skogberg's original 1972 Jola Rota LP definitely falls into the highly obscure "holy grail" category, a lost treasure for lovers of weird, wonderful acid-folk and underground psychedelia. The sort of thing that develops a legend that it can't possibly live up to... but then DOES, blowing minds when it's finally reissued. The sort of thing that's whispered about among connoisseurs of psych, written of in a few select fanzines and blogs, heard only by a lucky few who got an Nth generation cassette dub or cd-r burn from a friend, who got it from a friend, and so on. The sort of thing, that even a few years after a brief exposure to its wonders, will make you stop and think every once in a while, dang when is someone finally gonna reissue that amazing obscure album??? Some other recently excavated examples would include Moolah's Woe Ye Demons Possessed, Bobb Trimble's Harvest Of Dreams, and Gary Higgins's Red Hash... and before that, once upon a time Comus's First Utterance too would have fallen into that category. Bruce Haack's Electric Lucifer as well, though originals of that were and are much MUCH easier to come by. Whereas *this* album was originally pressed in an edition of around just one thousand copies -- of which only a few hundred were ever sold back in the day, with the remainder of the pressing being, gasp, melted down to be recycled into other LPs!
So, here it is, artist Joakim Skogsberg's lone album Jola Rota finally, officially reissued for the very first time! Our hearts went pitter pat when we found out. We first heard this when our friend Loren Chasse (of Of/Thuja/Jewelled Antler/etc. fame) floated us a cd-r burn he had gotten from a pal overseas a couple years ago, as per the scenario outlined above. He figured we'd like it, and of course he was right. What's not to like? Swedish-forest-folk hippie ritual mixed with droned-out psych guitar. Truly strange, and captivating, vocal mumble. And, get this, it was actually mostly recorded out in a forest, on portable reel-to-reel gear!! Once out of the woods, the raw recordings were overdubbed (Skogsberg being responsible for all sounds on this album) in studio, but remain quite raw, the mystery and majesty of northern landscapes, dark shadowy places, placid lakes, tall trees and moss-covered rocks utterly alive in the music of the nature-loving Skogsberg.
Side One starts off with "Jola Fran Ingbo", which introduces Joakim's unusual "Jola" singing style derived from Swedish trad folk, also heavily influenced by Buddhist chant, accompanied by staccato bowings of ominous violin. Immediately this is waaaay darker than most other Swedish folk/psych we've heard! Seriously droney and austere. That's followed by the more freaked out, rockier "Offer Rota", which finds Skogsberg singing whilst pounding away on percussion and unfurling a thick layer of distorted guitar murk, with what sounds like a Jew's Harp warbling in the background. The next piece, "Fridens Lijor", on the other hand, is an unaccompanied vocal piece, close-miced and intimate, all about Skogsberg's fragile Jola babble...
Beginning side two, "Besvarjelse Rota" builds up a dubby, bassy electronic rhythmic whomp-whomp throb beneath its damaged psych guitar wail, that (in our warped imagination) foreshadows modern minimal techno a la Chain Reaction, "heroin house" beats.... could almost be Pole jamming with Algarnas Tradgard or something! Later, the lengthy "Jola Fran Stensate" harkens back to the solemnity of the album's first track, and then "Jola Fran Leksand" winds up this unique, amazing trip with something of a pagan campfire dance piece, for folky fiddle and rattling hand percussion.
Overall, though, Jola Rota's mood is solitary and ceremonial. Skogsberg not a guru leading his followers, but rather one man, inspired, singing devotional songs to nature, in personal communion with the ancient deities of Sweden and the universe... it IS universal, probably why it sounds simultaneously like krautrock and Tibetan worship and Native American prayer-songs. The universality of the drone, and the human voice in spiritual reverence regardless of language. At its droniest, many moments here recall Parson Sound or the aforementioned Moolah. Totally, magically mesmeric. Wow... EVERYONE who's heard this since we got it in has been entranced.
And we're extra happy that not only has this been reissued, but that the reissue was done by our pal Johan's Tokyo-based Tiliqua Records (along with EM Records, one of our absolute favorite reissue labels from that part of the world, or anywhere else). Which means, it's done up deluxe, packaged in a swank miniature gatefold LP-style sleeve, and it's been remastered from the original tapes with the help of Skogsberg himself. There's also new liner notes and previously unpublished photos of the long haired and bearded (of course) Skogsberg included. Nice! Sadly, this too is limited to a one-time pressing of only 1,000 copies... and unlike the original vinyl edition, we doubt the label will be left with any unsold copies to recycle!
FYI there will also be a super, super limited (and expensive) vinyl version of this coming on on Tiliqua in May, not sure if we'll be able to get any of those at all or if they'll be a label-direct preorder thing only...
Third album from Denver cowpunks who don't sound punk but you know that in the privacy of their living rooms they treasure their Black Flag and X records. Jello Biafra (who issued this record on his own label), calls Slim Cessna's Auto Club "the country band that plays the bar at the end of the world", and that's pretty accurate. Like Mekons in their honkytonkin' days, or Nick Cave if he went country and started wearing all white silver sequined duds. A little hokey, but very catchy. Everytime we play it in the store, someone wants to buy it.
Latest batch of end of the world, country twang, revivalist apocalyptic swamp folk from these Colorado cowboy punks, the perfect follow up to last year's Buried Behind The Barn, and while in the early days these guys were most definitely taking the piss, it's been long enough that any irreverence has become less schtick, and more just a part of what these guys do, and what these guys do, is something similar to groups like Woven Hand and Sixteen Horsepower (the vocals sound a lot like David Eugene Edwards, which is weird cuz Mr. Cessna used to sound just like Rhett Miller from the Old '97s!), Uncle Tupelo, X, Munly (he is after all ALSO in the Auto Club) and yeah the Old 97's, but also the Decemberists, Arcade Fire and the like, shuffly, twangy, with a sound that slips from
Devil-Went-Down-To-Georgia style country rock, to more dark and minimal folky twang, there's even some gospel going on, especially on the tracks that sound like some deep South faith healer tent revival meeting, call and response vocals, handclaps, but all wrapped up with slide guitar, banjo, lush haunting harmonies, and some seriously kick ass catchiness.
The production is surprisingly lush this time around too, lots of organ, transforming Cessna's hillbilly stomp into something much more moody and brooding, and it suits them for sure, just give the record opener a listen, the awesomely titled "Three Bloodhounds Two Shepherds One Fila Brasileiro", gorgeously grim and ominous, minor key and moody, but it's also loose and fun, a tall tale told in sound by a master story teller, and of all the tracks here, this is the one that most sounds like Woven Hand, and definitely hints at what these guys could pull off if they weren't such inveterate jokers. "The Unballed Ballad Of The New Folksinger" (also an awesome title), starts out with an organ heavy almost ska sounding groove, driven by a bouncy rhythm, lots of buzz and twang, woozy spidery riffs, and some awesome intense vocals, the song getting more intense and dramatic as it goes, there's even a strange deep voiced breakdown before the song launches right back into it. "Thy Will Be Done" is another bluegrassy twang flecked stomp, with a super dynamic start stop ominous cautionary chorus. And so it goes, the only respite from this damned-soul sonic sermonizing, the woozy ballad "A Smashing Indictment Of Character", weeping slide guitars, over hushed hazy vocals, but even here, Cessna and his crew can't resist the temptation to pepper the track with more of that handclapping revivalism, and some low slung banjo driven verses to boot, and while the track revisits that opening dreamy drift, it's only briefly, there's more testifyin to be done after all. And so it goes, track after track: buzz, twang, shuffle, croon, howl, pound, stomp, hook, howl, repeat. AWESOME.
It's hard not to love these guys, they're obviously such incredible musicians, and have a killer sense of humor, and to see them live, it's sort of what you wish all shows were like, wild and loose, and totally rocking, super fun, and funny, the kind of show you never want to end, and after a while you're almost convinced that this amazing music is in fact some sort of salvation, and remarkably, these guys manage to capture at least some of that fire and energy on record!
Pretty genuine sounding country twang from these Denver boys. Former punk rockers (we think, but aren't they all) kicking out gorgeous twangy classic sounding country rock complete with yodelling, spoken word breakdowns mid song, awesome pedal steel and
Could a band have a more perfect name? And an album a more perfect title? In this case, no. Slomo's The Creep is EXACTLY that. Creepy, creeping, slow motion music. One hour, one track, improvised and recorded live with minimal overdubs and "zero eye-contact" (it kinda sounds like it was recorded in total darkness, in fact). The ominous subterranean echoing seismic sounds of Slomo are the work of the UK's Chris McGrail and Howard Marsden. McGrail, as you might have guessed, is also the main guy behind heavy psych-dronesters Holy McGrail, whose Collecting Earthquakes was highlighted here last list. This heavy-lidded, cave-dwelling creature is a different, more somnolent beast, but if you liked that Holy McGrail disc we think you might like Slomo's The Creep too. It's something akin to a narcotized Earth or Black Boned Angel, but played with the spacious, quiet restraint of Bohren & Der Club Of Gore. The crunchy feedback on offer is both spooky and soothing. Appropriately, the cd booklet contains an old rhyme on the subject of this duo's namesake, a folkloric character known as Slomo for his generally slow and slothful ways. The final line says of Slomo: "Whose detractors do call static... but whose champions call Ecstasis?" Clearly McGrail and Marsden are of hold to the latter opinion, as do we.
This is a professional duplicated cd-r with quite lovely artwork, released in a limited edition of just 100 copies on Julian Cope's own cd-r label. We did get a bunch, but that's it, when they're gone we won't be able to get any more...so you'd better not be a Slomo yourself if you want one!
We'd been hearing a lot about this here fella (and how could you forget a name like Micah Blue Smaldone?) but until now we'd never actually heard him, and we're please to say, this stuff is pretty dang great. Yet another steel string wrangler tossing his hat into the already crowded neo-Appalachia ring, but if it's good there's always room for more.
Smaldone's M.O. is not an unfamiliar one, dreamy laid back steel string guitar, jaunty melodies, deft fingerpicking, dreamy melancholy arrangements, but Smaldone's tracks have a distinctly old timey twang to them. Not quite Vaudevillian, but that sort of dusty old crackly 78 sort of feel. Plus, unlike most of his sonic contemporaries, he sings. And quite nicely too. A crooning, sometimes cracking sort of classic country voice. Warm and familiar, but definitely distinctive. Add some record crackle and some tape hiss and it wouldn't be tough to convince us that this was a reissue of some long lost sixties Takoma lp! Fans of Jack Rose, John Fahey, Robbie Basho and the like will totally love Mr. Smaldone.
Super deluxe thick cover, some seriously heavy vinyl, and a cool, hand screened lyric book insert.
Bessie Smith has earned immortality as The Empress Of The Blues, having been one of the first major musical superstars of the 1920s. Though the fact has been somewhat obscured over time, female singers like Smith and Ma Rainey were the first blues artists to gain widespread exposure, something that would change when Blind Lemon Jefferson hit the scene, but no one would deny this woman's supreme mastery of her craft which she honed throughout her life, from street busking to vaudeville and later stylistic shifts during the swing era. All of this was cut tragically short when Smith was killed in a car accident in 1937, but her status is secure.
The material here was all recorded in 1927, featuring Smith and pianist James P. Johnson on a few tracks and a number of ensemble pieces elsewhere. Whatever the instrumental situation was, Smith's voice cuts through everything as the focal point. Her booming voice is impossible to ignore and reaches almost unbelievable heights. And man was she LOUD! Once again, Italy's Monk label steers us in the right direction. Bravo!
All right all of you Mississippi Records fans who have dug those amazing old school gospel compilations, do we have a book for you! One of the best tracks from The Life Is A Problem... compilation was from Elder Utah Smith, The Church Of God In Christ Pastor who played his electric guitar and wore two giant angel wings to preach the gospel and whip his revival audiences into an evangelical frenzy. For forty years from 1925 to 1965, Reverend Smith travelled across the country conducting his Holy Ghost revivals for his church, and this book collects amazing oral anecdotes, witness testimony and vintage photographs of this legendary gospel figure. Plus it comes with a cd of 18 tracks culled from extremely rare 78's, five tracks of which have never been issued before. So Awesome!!!
Like Fahey before him, local solo guitarist Sean Smith finds solace and inspiration through traditional holiday music. Recorded at Grace Cathedral, Smith mines classic carols and hymns as well as some meditative improvisations of his own. There's even a stunning take on Vince Guaraldi's "Christmas Time Is Here". Festive and celebratory with an unforced joy that reflects a quiet peacefulness, this is our favorite kind of holiday music.
Berkeley based guitarist, Sean Smith, doesn't shake off the Fahey discipleship of his debut too easily on this sophomore effort, no matter how hard he tries. Yet still he brings a darker and more spontaneous impulse to his playing, allowing roughly exposed and muted fret tones to surface, showing he is not all about polish and that 's a welcome departure. More improvised than composed, Smith's cerebral guitar weaving is less bucolic sunshine this time around, taking us on a night time sojourn through a folkish nether world of threaded string picking and somber harmonic tonalities.
Recently featured on the Imaginational Anthem Vol. 2 compilation and the upcoming Tompkins Square release, Berkeley Guitar, local acoustic guitarist Sean Smith has crafted two warm and understated records of instrumental 6 string balladry culled from a live recording at the Pacific Grove Art Center in 2004. Like listening to a dusty record on a foggy morning in a coastal Northern California Library, these deceptively simple and melancholic pieces remind us a bit of early Takoma -era John Fahey but more plainspoken with less of the esoterica that informed Fahey's output or the ornamental qualities that recent stars of the genre, James Blackshaw and Jack Rose have cultivated. Lovely.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Right off the bat, we have to warn you that this new cd-r release from AQ fave Steven R. Smith (Thuja, Mirza, Hala Strana, etc) is as always SUPER LIMITED. Only 100 copies made, and we only got a little less than half of those. So once these are gone they are gone.
Six new gorgeous instrumentals, all dark and dreamy, ranging from heavily reverbed Appalachia, to haunting and spare abstract ambience. Electric guitars waver and shimmer, in a vast cavern of sympathetic overtones. So beautiful. You can almost picture a lone mysterious hooded figure, perched on a small outcropping of rock, at the bottom of a huge cavern, playing strange mournful odes by the light of a lantern, serenading all the creatures in the dark, kept at bay by the light, and narcoticized by the tranquil and elegant sounds. So nice. Each disc comes in a beautifully textured paper sleeve with silver ink and each comes with a Steven R. Smith woodcut!
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The latest from this aQ beloved guitarist, whose musical resume features many all time favorites that no doubt most long time readers of the aQ list hold near and dear, which besides a clutch of amazing solo records, also includes records by Ulaan Kohl, Thuja, Hala Strana, and more. This new lp was released on Smith's own label, Worstward, and finds the guitarist stripping his sound way down, Old Skete being essentially a solo electric guitar record. Just an amp, a couple pedals and a guitar, all recorded live, no overdubs, no loops, no samples, and the results are as you might imagine quite sublime. The sound spare and intimate, but somehow simultaneously rich and layered and lush, a little bit Appalachia, a little bit avant blues, the playing textural and lyrical, Smith's guitar humming, and buzzing, occasionally almost roaring, but for the most part quite restrained, subtly twangy here and there, lots of overtones and interwoven melodies, some of the parts sound downright Slint-y, with much of the record sounding surprisingly propulsive and post rocky, especially for a somewhat meditative solo guitar record, while elsewhere the record is more haunting and hushed, tending toward the sort of dusty dusky desert twangscapes of Earth and Barn Owl, some with a distinctly Morricone vibe, and you can certainly here hints of Smith's past projects in the melodies and arrangements, but here pulled apart and laid bare, Smith letting chords ring out, tones fade into the ether, a gorgeous display of introspective guitarscaping that manages to be both warm and intimate, cinematic and darkly dreamy, and thus wholeheartedly recommended.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, each one hand numbered, housed in super heavy two color screen printed Stumptown cardstock jackets, with cool printed woodcut style inserts.
Arhoolie has finally got round to reissuing this fine bluegrass album (originally released in 1961), and with four additional tracks that weren't included on the original LP release. Though the group's name and the album's title imply a cajun infused bluegrass sound, in truth Jim Smoak's bluegrass is a lot closer to its Kentucky origins in sound than Louisiana (Smoak himself was born and raised in South Carolina.) What the tracks lack in the traditional gospel derived vocal harmonization is made up in spades with variations on traditional old-timey and good humored numbers like "Kissin' Cousins", "Old Dan Tucker" ("...was a fine old man, washed his face in a frying pan"), "Whoah, Mule, Woah" and more. I wouldn't typify this as solemn or high-lonesome, but rather high powered and light hearted bluegrass with a strong connection to the early string band and minstrelsy of J.E. Mainer's Mountaineers or Gid Tanner's Skillet Lickers. Jim Smoak was one hell of a banjo player who played not only in Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys in the early fifties, but was hired by Earl Scruggs to play for Hylo Brown, who Earl was managing at the time. And there's not a better pair of personal recommendations for a bluegrass banjo player to have on his resume than that. And Smoak's playing, though certainly informed by Scrugg's innovative style was by no means a mere copy. The old-timey / bluegrass blend that was a big part of the Louisiana Honeydrippers' sound was a perfect place for Jim Smoak's playing style which utilized a faux-clawhammer picking for rhythm backup when not soloing, with some of the strongest Scruggs' style picking you're likely ever to hear and emphasized with heavy downstroke thumb strumming. Some of the melodies Smoak brings out to the fore from his arpeggios seem almost certain to break the strings right off the banjo, and yet his solos sound smooth as silk, not clunky and overdone. At times it's like listening to a bluegrass banjo player on crystal meth.
Yet another fantastic release from country reissue label Omni, this one is immediately striking for the cover image, which is just a hangman's noose, on a field of red, beneath the record title Songs Of Tragedy. Doesn't get more country than that. But that's just what these two records are. Tales of sorrow and misery, the stories of murderers, drunks, prisoners, and as the liner notes helpfully point out "bereaved parents and pet owners".
Snow's fascination with tragedy could very well stem from his abusive childhood, which resulted in him running away from home at the age of 12 to get away from his violent grandmother, ending up a cabin boy on a fishing trawler, which is where he discovered country music, hearing Jimmie Rodgers on the ship radio.
The rest of Snow's life is equally as fascinating, there's the fact that he was managed by Colonel Tom Parker, and was instrumental in getting a certain Elvis Aaron Presley signed. It's also reputed that the character Haven Hamilton in Robert Altman's Nashville was based on Snow. But for all the success, Snow's career was definitely full of hard luck, which is perhaps why these songs resonate so strongly, these heartbreaking tales of death and destruction, loss and loneliness, delivered in a darkly dramatic, stately baritone, over lush instrumentation, gorgeous harmony vocals, even subtle sonic colorations like vibes make their way into the mix. The song selection, drawn from the tragedy songbook of the '20s and '30s, is pretty impeccable as well.
"Walking The Last Mile", is a mournful lament about that walk to the gallows, "Old Rover" is the xylophone laced tribute to the loss of a man's best friend, "The Letter Edged In Black" is a gorgeous country dirge wrapped around a wheezing organ and some sweetly sawed fiddle, and of course, it's all about the postman delivering that titular letter. There's the strangely spoken word "The Runt", a tale of a tragic bullying, super melodramatic, we could go on. More tales of tragedy, a surprising number about pets, but plenty about the plight of the condemned man, whether condemned to death, or to a life of loneliness.
As with all Omni releases, this comes with a massive booklet, loaded with pictures and lp sleeve reproductions and well as extensive liner notes, detailing Snow's life and career, as well as the creation of the songs collected here.
Snowblink is the brainchild of onetime San Francisco transient Daniela Gesundheit, alongside a rich amalgam of collaborators throughout North America, and incorporating a bevy of unique influences. While of course owing some debt to those that came before, the sound of Snowblink is far removed from the canonized female folk royalty unwitting critics will try to compare it to.
Long Live is by far Gesundheit's most mature musical statement to date, boasting rich and complex arrangements, a sensitive and singular approach to lyrics, and as always, her effortlessly fluid and sonorous vocals. To boot, the record was brought to life by the expert engineering of Jay Pelluci and the mixing of Thom Monohan, of Deerhoof and Brightblack Morning Light fame, respectively. Perhaps its greatest feat in the midst of diverse instrumentation boasting bowed glockenspiels and thrummed thumb pianos, is its almost severe intimacy. Given Gesundheit's inevitably serene vocals, she is at her best when her lyrics serve as a kind of gentle lance to the tension around her tales of archetypal traumas. However, not all is Bergmanesque psycho-drama, as several songs also exhibit a more playful and whimsical approach to storytelling. From start to finish, Long Live is a sturdy new plateau, from a promising young voice.
Second release we've been able to get our hands on from Soil Sing Through Me, a sort of underground freak folk supergroup featuring members of Feathers and Sunburned Hand Of The Man, who for this disc have teamed up with DC outfit Kohoutek for an evening of communal music making, the results should be no surprise, a druggy blown out meandering laid back psychedelic folk free for all. Blasted, stoned, groovy and fucked up.
You can definitely hear more SHOTM than Feathers, or maybe it's Kohoutek who we had never heard anyway, but this is not so much folky as sort of spaced out and trippy. Simple propulsive tribal rhythm jams and simple stripped down rock beats are the framework for these inner space excursions, wah guitar and slivers of silvery feedback drift to and fro, melodies are spread out over the proceedings like a tattered old blanket, there seem to be vocals too, but they are minimal and are usually buried under a ton of FX and psychedelic shimmer, keyboards buzz and huge spacious expanses offer the players plenty of space to stir up subtle bits of percussive clatter, glistening flurries of blurry buzz, strange spidery little melodies all tangled up amidst the stumbling drums and rumbling bass. This definitely has a Dead C vibe, but then what improvised noise rock psych jam doesn't? No good ones, that's for sure.
The usual suspects will eat this up. Sunburned Hand obsessives for sure need this, as do all you free folk noise rock cd-r freaks...
LIMITED TO 200 COPIES, most likely already out of print. Packaged in the instantly recognizable skull and crossbones Wabana purple painted digipak.
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Yeah yeah yeah, everybody LOVES Wilco. Critics, Fans, everybody. So experimental. So creative. Such heartbreaking magical music. Hey, we love Wilco too. But there was a time, not all that long ago, when Jeff Tweedy, the man behind Wilco, was at least to most of us, the weaker half of the only alt country band that ever mattered. The band whose first album's title (No Depression) became the new name for alt country. Tweedy was merely the whiney vocal foil to Jay Farrar's world weary, whiskey soaked drawl. Sure Tweedy sang some great songs, but Farrar was the voice that MADE Uncle Tupelo, the band he shared with Tweedy. After Uncle Tupelo split, Tweedy went on to front Wilco, and Farrar went on to form his own group, Son Volt. The first Son Volt record was amazing, sort of an extension of Uncle Tupelo, Farrar's voice still so perfect and stirring, framed by kick ass country rock, sometimes soulful and stirring, acoustic and laid back, sometimes rambunctious and rocking. Tweedy's Wilco headed in decidedly more experimental directions, and it suited them, they got weirder and way more interesting, with the band and the songs and the sounds providing the focus, while Tweedy's vocals became just a part of the big picture. But as Son Volt progressed, something started to go wrong, the slow songs sounded too syrupy, the rocking songs began to sound cheesy, the attempts at sounding experimental sounded forced. But the thing was, every record contained at least two or three perfect jems. Gorgeous modern takes on classic bluegrass, full on Crazy Horse style rockers, all with Farrar's amazing vocals, emotive and laconic, soulful intense. Serious classics! So this comp is practically perfect. If it wasn't a compilation, it might just be the ultimate Son Volt record. In fact it sort of still is! Included are the four best tracks from Trace (the first Son Volt album), the best tracks from all the rest, as well as compilation tracks and a handful of unreleased tracks and demos. Loads of photos and liner notes. Both Cup and Andee have been playing this constantly in the store! So good!
Second album from this spawn-of-Uncle Tupelo band, quite similar to their excellent first record...
