We've got some serious catching up to do. We can barely keep up with the flood of new releases, especially when there are loads of amazing microlabels putting out disc after disc after bloody brilliant disc. So it is with Antony Milton's PseudoArcana label, and this gorgeous disc from Ben Reynolds. Five tracks, 30 minutes, of ultra dense, super lush droned out bliss. Reynolds weaves massive washes of near static sound, like Sunroof! or Vibracathedral Orchestra but smoothed out and stretched out into even more blissful realms, slow flowing rivers of warm warble and thick chordal thrum. Part way through there is a brief and delicate folk interlude of fingerpicked steel string guitar and tinkling chimes, very Fahey-esque, but it quickly segues into perhaps the heaviest track on the disc, the nine minute "Howlers", another extended Ur-drone, but this time augmented by the previous track's chimes, and strange alien chirps that sound a bit like bird calls (Howlers?). Truly gorgeous stuff.
The last time we reviewed a Ben Reynolds disc was way back in 2005, and even then we were sort of lamenting our inability to keep up with the constant deluge of amazing cd-r's and the proliferation of cd-r microlabels. We're still trying, but it's fighting a losing battle.
And with Reynolds, we've fallen even further behind, this being only the second release we've managed to review out of the probably twenty or so we've missed, but what the hell, let's make the most of it. Thankfully this is a real cd-r not a cd-r, which is a god thing as this is way too good to only be heard by a handful of folks.
Reynolds weaves a magical lower case world of buzzing synths, strange percolating rhythms, disembodied psychedelic guitars, simple folky strum, and dense sheets of processed drone and whir. Occupying a sonic space somewhere between the freaky forest folkies and the spaced out drone-y drifters, Reynolds wanders freely back and forth often pausing with one foot in each, wrapping sweet little bundles of buzzing steel strings in tripped out sci-fi buzz and bleep, while conversely taking washed out smears of outerspace ambience and spreading them out beneath melancholy acoustic guitar melodies. Fans of all thing Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, PseudoArcana, Digitalis, Last Visible Dog and the like will absolutely want to get a hold of this....
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
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The metaphysical world created by Reynols spins on a different axis than the world that the rest of us know. Guided by self-negating guru Miguel Tomasin (who has Down's Syndrome) and actualized by Anla Courtis and Robeto Conzalo, Reynols has previously slowed their world down to a nervous crawl to investigate the Kirlian glow of tape hiss, on their ultra-minimalist masterpiece "Blank Tapes" (which found a perfect home on Bernhard Gunter's Trente Oiseaux label). "-------" finds the Reynolsian globe spinning backward in time with this blast of atavistic noise rock, reminiscent of the earliest work of the Swans, Virgin Prunes, or Skullflower. Reynols' desire to invoke the tumultousness of rock is not anger, fear, or a sadistic need to control, rather it is the ecstacy of pounding: the ability of rock to channel the most primal connections between the body and sound. Musically, "-------" moves though Miguel's skittering mondo beats and the slashing guitar noise of Anla and Robeto, who develop primitive two or three note melodies out of the screeching cacaphony.
Miguel's whimsical, incessant, and non-linear banter runs throughout these noise rock slabs of sound, making all together a strangely magical experience.
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Reynols is an Argentinian trio that certainly doesn't do much to fit within the user-friendly conventions of stablized musical aesthetics. The focal point in Reynols is Miguel Tomasin, the lead singer / oracle of the group who suffers from Down's Syndrone; yet despite his affliction, Tomasin brings a festive quirkiness and deeply poetic insight to the process of creating music for Reynols. After conjuring a myriad of unusual ideas and mystical pronouncements, Tomasin works with the classically trained engineers Alan Courtis and Roberto Conlazo to realize his transcendental neologisms within a sonic context. Miguel wants to release an album of blank tapes, and Reynols manufactures such an album that despite the absurd source material is a breathtaking piece of dronology... or Miguel wants to compose a symphony for 10,000 chickens, and behold Reynols goes to a farm, records a bunch of chickens and produces an eerie David Lynchian drone.
For "Barbatrulos," Miguel and company have situated themselves as a minimalist heroin rock band, but their sound is far abstracted from the canons of romantic abjection like the Velvet Underground or Spaceman 3. Rather, their fuzzed-out dinscrape dirges are infused with something inexplicably affirmative. I makes no bones about the fact that I don't understand them, but Reynols is one of the few bands that makes me very happy.
Allan asked our friendly Forced Exposure rep (known to some as Hrvatski, Keith to others) what seemed to be a reasonable question: "So is that Reynols cd any good?" Keith's deadpan response, "It's blank tapes." Allan, phrasing the question a little differently, "Well, what does it sound like?" Again the response over the phone, "It's really just blank tapes." A silence persisted from Allan who was baffled and trying to formulate the next question. Keith then responded, "Look we got a lot of these things, so take as many as you want!" making his pronouncement of the ridiculousness of this record as well as his desire to get rid of them.
But let's face it: Reynols isn't one guy. It's a band with three people, recording the sound of blank tapes. They are from Argentina. They previously made a recording of 10,000 chickens. And you know what, you can actually hear these blank tapes, with more going on then the average Trente Oiseaux record (i.e. Bernhard Gunter, Steve Roden, and Francisco Lopez). Furthermore, it's really great.
Fire! Fire! Fire!! Sorry, couldn't help it. This new disc, a mini-album of exactly 20 minutes in length, is what happens when the surreal Argentine experimental rock band Reynols starts playing with matches. It's just recordings of the sound of fire, processed into what in Reynols' universe might be another element entirely. Crackling, popping, flickering, droning, sizzling, insectoid mutter. They've done this sort of thing with blank tapes, grass growing, and 10,000 chickens -- so this fire concept is almost mundane in comparison. What's gotten into 'em? You know a band is weird when a recording of *just fire* seems too "normal" for them!! Anyway, it's nicely done, though the packaging is minimal to say the least: aside from the fire photo on the cd itself, there's no booklet or cover or anything, just a cd in a slimline jewelcase.
Taking the CD-R production into their own hands, the Argentinian outrock ensemble Reynols has started releasing CD-Rs of their music in an attempt to pull themselves out of the downward spiral that is Argentina's faltering economy. Fortunately, their country's economic plight hasn't deterred Reynols' spirit, which is still centered upon the self-described prophecies of frontman Miguel Tomasin who happens to have Down's Syndrome. While the "Jaz Ronco Japi Javas" series finds Reynols materializing in their rock guise, the music is far less claustrophobic and bleak than the classic noise rock primitivism of "Barbatrulos" or "-------," rather it takes on a celebratory free noise / drone skree typically found on Vibracathedral Orchestra recordings. On a couple of the tracks in the series, Reynols presents themselves as a jazz ensemble with piano, stand-up bass, and sax, but of course with their own charmingly alien signature. As in all of the rock Reynols albums, Miguel does feature prominently and even shows a greater range of instrumentation in playing organs, guitar, flute, marimba, and "Andino Sax," alongside his staple instrument, the drums. And of course, Miguel sings with his pronounced vocal warble and slurred syllables. Roberto "Moncho" Conlazo and Alan "Anla" Coutis continue in their supporting role, producing some nice drone tracks and monochromatic noise guitar work.
Taking the CD-R production into their own hands, the Argentinian outrock ensemble Reynols has started releasing CD-Rs of their music in an attempt to pull themselves out of the downward spiral that is Argentina's faltering economy. Fortunately, their country's economic plight hasn't deterred Reynols' spirit, which is still centered upon the self-described prophecies of frontman Miguel Tomasin who happens to have Down's Syndrome. While the "Jaz Ronco Japi Javas" series finds Reynols materializing in their rock guise, the music is far less claustrophobic and bleak than the classic noise rock primitivism of "Barbatrulos" or "-------," rather it takes on a celebratory free noise / drone skree typically found on Vibracathedral Orchestra recordings. On a couple of the tracks in the series, Reynols presents themselves as a jazz ensemble with piano, stand-up bass, and sax, but of course with their own charmingly alien signature. As in all of the rock Reynols albums, Miguel does feature prominently and even shows a greater range of instrumentation in playing organs, guitar, flute, marimba, and "Andino Sax," alongside his staple instrument, the drums. And of course, Miguel sings with his pronounced vocal warble and slurred syllables. Roberto "Moncho" Conlazo and Alan "Anla" Coutis continue in their supporting role, producing some nice drone tracks and monochromatic noise guitar work.
Taking the CD-R production into their own hands, the Argentinian outrock ensemble Reynols has started releasing CD-Rs of their music in an attempt to pull themselves out of the downward spiral that is Argentina's faltering economy. Fortunately, their country's economic plight hasn't deterred Reynols' spirit, which is still centered upon the self-described prophecies of frontman Miguel Tomasin who happens to have Down's Syndrome. While the "Jaz Ronco Japi Javas" series finds Reynols materializing in their rock guise, the music is far less claustrophobic and bleak than the classic noise rock primitivism of "Barbatrulos" or "-------," rather it takes on a celebratory free noise / drone skree typically found on Vibracathedral Orchestra recordings. On a couple of the tracks in the series, Reynols presents themselves as a jazz ensemble with piano, stand-up bass, and sax, but of course with their own charmingly alien signature. As in all of the rock Reynols albums, Miguel does feature prominently and even shows a greater range of instrumentation in playing organs, guitar, flute, marimba, and "Andino Sax," alongside his staple instrument, the drums. And of course, Miguel sings with his pronounced vocal warble and slurred syllables. Roberto "Moncho" Conlazo and Alan "Anla" Coutis continue in their supporting role, producing some nice drone tracks and monochromatic noise guitar work.
For some reason, this 'real' cd Reynols disc is cheaper than the cd-r albums of theirs we listed not long ago. Maybe 'cause it's domestic, not an Argentine import? No matter what, you're always getting a deal, 'cause we're convinced that this Reynols stuff is in fact priceless. Now, there's essentially two types of Reynols records: the 'rock' albums (like "------" and the Reynols/No Reynols double cd) and the conceptual ones (like "Blank Tapes" and the "10,000 Chickens" 7"). This new disc falls into the 'rock' camp, such as it is: damaged, monomaniacal drumming, psychedelic, noisy guitar jamming, and of course Reynols' frontman Miguel Tomasin's otherworldy, shamanistic vocals. Good stuff, in other words.
As the first track of this 50-minute journey begins, you're lost somewhere, in a tunnel or cavern. There's an ambient rumbling sound, and some haunting, echoed cries from Miguel. Then, with track two the distorted rock n' roll drone kicks in, all heavy-like, building in noisy intensity until track 3 interrupts the storm with a calmer, mantric mood, only to be interrupted itself with more fierce feedback guitar at the four and a half minute mark. Other songs feature Hare Krishna -worthy warbling chant, acoustic strum, and rattling hand percussion, as well as more of their primitive psych rock dementia. From simple, vocal-led tracks of trancey emptiness to guitar-based fuzzed-out chaos, the results are only enhanced by the raw, reverby production. Reynols is always strange, and strangely compelling, appealing to us in sort of the same way that much of the music of Keiji Haino does. Listening to Reynols isn't just about enjoying some weird songs, it's about taking a trip into their world and trying to see and hear things the way Miguel and his compatriots do. These are field recordings from inside their minds.
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With over 50 records under their belt (300 if you count all the ones that "don't exist"), Reynols has more to do with executing a concept than maintaining an aesthetic continuity, with previous wonders of aural conceptualism like "Blank Tapes" (a minimalist hour of blank tapes released on Trente Oiseaux). Fronted by Miguel Tomasin, the lead singer who claims he doesn't sing, and flanked by the sonic arsenal of Alan Courtis and Roberto Conlazo, Reynols presents an art-damaged rock album in "Polos Mosco." The songs from the album are structurally simple but dominated by an excess of vibrato reverb which warbles harmoniously with the garage-rock-meets-Sonic-Youth guitar attack as well as Tomasin's incantations. While AQ's Spanish is downright non-existent, it's probably safe to say that Tomasin is about as comprehensible as Jandek. With all of the oddball mythologies, Reynols may in fact turn out to be the Sun City Girls of the new millenium. Plus Allan and Andee think he sounds like Space Ghost's Brak!!
"Pupola Ridos 192000" is the CD-R that the Argentinian avant-rockers Reynols sold on their 2001 tour throughout the US and is now available to a broader audience through Reynols' own production house Valubamafiforo. Reynols has toured the US several times, and each time the frontman of the group Miguel Tomasin has declined to venture up to the US because of his belief that the United States does not exist. Nevertheless, Miguel does claim to channel his spirit to these non-existant territories to help fellow Reynols members Roberto "Moncho" Conlazo, Alan "Anla" Coutis, and "Pacu Conlazo" get through their performances.
Regardless, this disc does prominently feature Miguel singing his atonal warbling, spluttering along behind the drum kit while the rest of the band produces creepy dronework similar to their Pauline Oliveros collaboration and their more abrasively bleak noise-rock as heard on "Barbatrulos" or "-------."
In their "Met Life" series, Locust Records has commissioned experimental artists to produce a field recording of a dynamic aural evironment and then respond to that recording using any methods of their choosing. So, the Argentinian out-rock ensemble Reynols presents the sounds of city workers in Buenos Aires jackhammering a ditch in a busy city street. While Reynols could be implying that this field recording is an obtuse channelling from Minecxio -- that's the mythical alternate dimension that Reynols have cited as the source of their 'musical' ideas, which have included in the past a symphony for 10,000 chickens and an album comprised entirely of blank tape (which is anything but silent). However, Reynols' field recording of jackhammers seems pretty straight. Their "response" to this field recording is another matter altogether. With gritty guitar noise freakouts lurking in the distance, Reynols sets up a psych-fug throb of primal percussion, close-fisted organ arpeggiations, and bellowing trumpets, turning the pneumatic monotony of the jackhammer into an atypical, instrumental waltz of cosmic melodies and drunken rhythms.
MPEG Download: "Rampotanza Ronil Grodorempelente" [/audio/reynolsrampota.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Rampotanza Ronil Grodorempelente" [/audio/reynolsrampota.m3u]
The weirder-than-thou Argentinian trio Reynols have made a lot of records. That much we can all agree on. Some are conceptual (Blank Tapes, ten thousand chickens, even a 'dematerialized' cd) some are more rock -- messed-up, primitive, psychedelic rock. And this is one of those. It's also two other things: one of the best Reynols we've heard (which, from us, is high praise 'cause we love Reynols) and unfortunately quite limited in availability. We've got six (6) of these, dunno if we'll ever be able to get more, fyi. Fans should consider rushing down here pronto, in other words. From track one, side one (ok, it's a cd so there's only one side, but with Reyols you never know, there could be an imaginary 2nd side) it's a blissful marriage of Miguel's gentle soul singing and a throbbing bed of percussion, heavy amp-drone and stabbing, soothing guitar-skronk. Detours (like the very 2nd track) are made into celebratory, shambling grooves, like Reynols are busking for 'change' in the way I'm writing this review. But most of Sosina Arada Mica could be a Reynolisan religious ceremony, totally spacey and effects-laden. The drone-quotient is high, and so are you.
This new cd-r release from the always-colorful (and bizarre) Argentinian band Reynols sports a full color cover, perhaps a first for the no-frills Last Visible Dog cd-r label. Recorded live at the Fusa Auditorium in Buenos Aires, September 20th 2001, this is half performed by Reynols (Miguel Tomasin, Moncho Conlazo, Anla Courtis, and Pacu Conlazo) and half by their near-doppelgangers No-Reynols (Juan Manuel Acevedo, No-Moncho Conlazo, No-Anla Courtis, and No-Pacu Conlazo). But whether being led by the whim of Miguel Tomasin or Juan Manuel Acevedo, these groups both fully inhabit a noisy, droney, damaged, beyond-psychedelic, not-really-rock primal stomp territory explored by few others. The disc starts off quite mysteriously and quietly, sounding like a echoey exotica-plus-feedback session, punctuated by distant applause and what might be the strains of some commercial Latin pop.
Are they on stage, in the jungle, or in a void? It's hard to tell. Soon, a stiff, insistent percussion frenzy builds, accompanied by indistinct drone guitar and nonsense vocal interjections. This rapidly grows into a full fledged shamanic incantation of whirling dervish, junk-rock intensity. Howling, grinding, blowing "music" that makes the perfect warm yet alienated background to the throaty, wailing crooning of Miguel (or is it Juan Manuel?). It's so wacked and yet lovely. This umpteenth Reynols document shows that they're indeed an Acid Mothers Temple for those truly moved by authentic weirdness and emotional expression that trumps psychedelic pastiche.
In keeping true to the uncanny laws of nature in the Reynolsian universe, No-Reynols came into creation because the world had slipped out of balance due to the invincible musical force that is Reynols. This is not to say that No-Reynols is the evil
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Within the Reynolsian post-rational pantheon, Pauline Oliveros holds the unique position of being the band's astral godmother. Oliveros has been in close contact with the Argentinian avant rockers since 1994 and only recently has their collaboration been documented, first as a super limited tape release, and now as this cd which is somewhat of a reworked version of that cassette release. Following the brilliant single-source-material manipulations found on "Blank Tapes" and "10,000 Chicken Symphony," Reynols reinterprets and recomposes recordings from Oliveros for just intonation accordion and voice. Reynols -- unlike most remix artists -- takes great care to add something that is distinctively of themselves without diluting the beautiful complexities of Oliveros' signature style. "Pauline Oliveros In The Arms Of Reynols" is a massive recording of the glacial swells of Oliveros' accordion which are matched with Reynols magically dark production -- adding distant (and somewhat threatening) bird choruses and glistening guitar distortion washes to the mix. This extended dronological investigation is broken near the end of the record by Reynols' Miguel Tomasin expounding his ideas about life and this recording. Even if our Spanish were better, his playful neologisms still would probably be beyond us, as our metal grasp of his idiosyncratic mythologies is somewhat limited. Nevertheless, this is an amazing document.
Latest missive from these mysterious dronesters. This being probably their most spare, minimal work to date. Shimmering tones and barely-there ambience. Think an even more STRIPPED DOWN Stars Of The Lid. It's that subtle and ethereal. Notes hover almost motionless like wisps of smoke frozen in midair. Super minimal, totally mesmerising, lowercase drone. You can almost feel the air suck out of your ears when the record stops. Totally obscure reference: Remember in the movie Phantasm, there was a gateway to another world, and the gateway was two vibrating metal posts (like a tuning fork) that disrupted the time space continuum creating a portal to that other world. This record kind of sounds like that gateway! Good stuff.
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The second full album of improvised dronology very similar to AMM or the more acoustic oriented Zoviet France played with circuits, wires, analogue feedback, things bowed, 'McNaughton' (what/whoever that is...), delay units, smoke, and 'that fucking flute'.
The wonderfully drugged out, quasi Middle Eastern sounding instrumental psych jams of Rhyton have come floating, floating back to us again, in the form of Kykeon, the Brooklyn-based trio's fourth fab release. We've been big fans of 'em so far - in fact, we made their now-out-of-print debut a Record Of The Week back in 2011. And this new one's quite lovely and hypnotic, too!
Featuring the multi-instrumental talents of present and former members of No Neck Blues Band, Egypt Is The Magick #, Psychic Ills, Stygian Stride, and others, Rhyton continue to ply their unique style of psych-sploration on the six new cuts here, employing such instruments as electric saz and bouzouki, as well as an arsenal of electronic devices & effects. As usual, amidst the faux-ethnic exotica, they make good use of spacey noise and distortion, and provide plenty of percolating Can-like rhythms, and outright you-could-dance-to-it grooviness at times.
The track "Topkapi" in particular sounds like a super stoned, almost dubby version of something by vintage Turkish psych/folk faves Mogollar or 3 Hur-el, for sure. The album gets nice and heavy too, with the likes of "California Black Box Vapors", doing the blown out stoner guitar jammage thing, yeah. All throughout, the band's meandering Middle Eastern psych vibe is in full, enjoyable effect. So grab your hookahs and crank this up!
We at aQ are big fans of Brooklyn-based psych-splorers Rhyton (made their Thrill Jockey debut a Record Of The Week in fact) and Rhyton it seems are fans of us too it seems, since they were nice enough to dub us an exclusive limited supply of a new cassette of theirs, originally something they made only for merch sales on a recent European tour. aQ is the only store carrying this release, and we only have 20 copies, that's it forever!
Unity Bailout is 30 minutes, four tracks, of live and rehearsal recordings, the sort of spacey, druggy, drifting jams we expect from these guys (members of No Neck Blues Band and Psychic Ills, by the way). The tape starts off with the 12 minute "Mold Channel", a sprightly, trippy-hippie improv session of head-nodding abstract humid burble all right. Then the darker, dronier "At Endless Buggy Pt. Alpha" begins, featuring more militant marching drum beats and skree-ier guitarwork. Flip the tape and that piece continues into "Pt. Beta", adding some more mumbled, distorted vox, the guitar (and electric saz?) lines getting more sinuous and scrambled, noise and volume building, that buggy of theirs heading down a bumpy road indeed, losing a wheel or two along the way! Such a style of caveman krauty damaged jam is in full effect on the tape's final track too, the almost ten-minute long "In Silent One", even louder and heavier and kinda Haino-esque, with fuzzy feedback guitar carving whale-calls through the murk, propelled by steady drum splatter. It gets pretty freaky, satisfyingly so, 'specially if you like the idea of Burnt Hills or Doktor Kettu jamming on some almost unrecognizable Dick Dale surf licks or something like that. The pulsating moldy walls of Rhyton's presumably subterranean practice space sure absorbed a lot of intense stoner vibes during the recording of this tape. Thanks, Rhyton, for letting us in.
The tape's covers are hand stamped metallic ink on black paper.
Terra Incognita is the second retrospective of the work of Boyd Rice / Non, with the first being the emphatically abrasive Easy Listening For Iron Youth released back in the early '90s. For all of his Social Darwinist propaganda, deleterious noise, and semantic provocation, Rice has enjoyed a curious affinity for mood music throughout his 30 year career. For the most part, Muzak and mood music hold benevolent (if insipid) intentions; but this is not so for Rice, as his motivations are a forced communication, in which he directs, wills, or suggests a meaning upon the listener. Within the ambient work that dots his entire catalogue, Rice lulls the audience into relaxing their defenses, at which time he can then slip in any number of subliminally dark or subtly perverse themes. At times, these take the form of complex phase patterns as heard on the infamous Black Album pieced together from physically factured pieces of vinyl sounding like the noxious older brother of Philip Jeck; at other times, Rice presents a grandiously bleak form of isolationism. It's still surprising to hear how listenable these recordings can be.
You may not necessarily know who Emil Richards is, but you've most definitely heard him play. The list of his musical accomplishments, is nearly Zelig like, seeming to appear everywhere and on pretty much every great recording, and having played with a who's who of performers, jazz, rock, underground, mainstream, even a small sampling of his music resume will have you wondering why he isn't a household name. He played with Charles Mingus, Lord Buckley, Lenny Bruce, Frank Sinatra, Nelson Riddle, Doris Day, Judy Garland, he performed frequently with Harry Partch, he plays the bongos that open Lalo Schifrin's theme to Mission Impossible, he's the guy snapping his fingers on the theme music from the Addams Family, he played tuned bowls and gongs on Jerry Goldsmith's iconic soundtrack to 1968's Planet Of The Apes. He later played with Frank Zappa, George Harrison (he even traveled to India with Harrison) as well as Blondie, and hundreds of other pop artists, and played on soundtracks like Taxi Driver, The Exorcist, Shaft, Chinatown, Dirty Harry, and again, HUNDREDS more.
But for weird music obsessives, he's no doubt best known for his record New Sound Element: Stones, originally released in 1967, which was a collection of 12 songs, each named for a month, and its specific birthstone, and which is infamous for the fact that it was in fact the first commercial recording to feature the Moog Synthesizer. But beyond that, it's a crazy record, some sort of twisted electronic jazz sci-fi exotica, the main instruments being ring modulated mallet instruments (marimba, xylophone, etc.) and synth, trippy and woozy, playful and silly, but at times, seriously twisted and darkly psychedelic. We're reminded of course of Perrey And Kingsley, after all for many of us, that was our first real exposure to early Moog pop, but Richards' compositions are a lot less goofy, less melodic too, more rhythmic, with the best tracks layering wild jazz drumming, over heavily effected marimba or xylophone, the sound locked into propulsive grooves, while the tones and overtones are constantly altered to created woozy warbly melodies, that's not to say this stuff isn't on the playful side, it most definitely is, the darker passages more than balanced by goofy, super melodic workouts, but the sound seems to always slip back into something a wee bit darker, whether it's the droney, swirly shuffle of "Emerald (May)", or the driving drum heavy psychedelic trip out of "Bloodstone (March)", the wild Moog swaddled xylophone shredding of "Moonstone (June)", or the fuzzy twisted jazzfunk of "Ruby (July)".
Imagine a drum/percussion driven sixties jazz record, re-engineered by some Moog mad scientist, and you'll get an idea of what Richards concocted on Stones, which has been floating around as a bootleg for years, but this is the first official reissue. And Stones is only the beginning. While it's most definitely the reason to pick this up, Omni has also tacked on a bunch of bonus tracks, first, a handful of songs from New Time Element, also originally released in 1967, which features a selection of pop and jazz standards, presented with odd time signatures and unique percussion, the original liner notes even give the listener breakdowns of the various rhythms of each song. It's not super far out, but a fun listen, and a nice chunk of sixties jazz. The final batch of extra tracks come from Richards' 1968 release Journey To Bliss, which is probably closest to Stones in sound, dialing back the electronic element, and heavy on the rhythms, lots of marimba, xylophone and percussion, some drum solos, a bit of fuzzy jazz funk, a heady psychedelic jazz excursion for sure, fans of the recent Spiritual Jazz collections will definitely dig, the album culminating in the final 18 minute six part epic "Journey To Bliss", which features a yogi like recitation, directions for meditation and inner peace, over Eastern raga style buzz, playful percussion, and more of Richards' wild psychedelic jazz.
Like all Omni reissues, gorgeous presented, with loads of pictures and extensive liner notes!
Not many musicians and composers are able to create music as beautiful and elegant as Max Richter. Whether it be his stunning albums, soundtracks or arrangements for folks like Vashti Bunyan, Richter has proven to be one of the most restrained and versatile composers of the last decade. Infra was a work originally created as a score for a Ballet called The Waste Land. These fragile, subdued miniatures create such a dislocated and gray musical mood. Allowing your mind to wander or stay frozen in a numbing disbelief. Our only complaint regarding some of his previous work was the incorporation of unneeded and heavy handed spoken word/voices which tended to ruin the flow of the music, but luckily on Infra he smartly keeps that out of the mix and allows the haunting, cloudy sounds he's created to speak for themselves. While this may have been made for a ballet we are finding it the perfect soundtrack to those foggy/cold days we've been having in July (oh San Francisco summer) and those early mornings you find yourself awake but bleary headed and needing a musical companion to your clouded vision and foggy mind. So nice!
Finnish experimental black metal weirdos Ride For Revenge, might be one of our favorite groups going right now. We've raved wildly about every one of their records so far, and then there's RfR electronic offshoot Will Over Matter, who we dig just as much. And it's not surprising, Ride For Revenge don't traffic in grim black buzz, they're not sonically similar to classic Norwegian black metal, or Swedish, or French - if anything, they're much more in the tradition of all the WTF? music we love from Finland, from Circle to Keukhot, Dead Reptile Shrine to Circle Of Ouroborus, their music is murky and dirgey, mathy and rhythmic, repetitive and hypnotic, and if you thought their records proper were fucked up and far out, this new double cd of singles and comp tracks and live jams will blow your mind.
The first track alone is worth the price of admission, RfR getting all Will Over Matter, and unfurling a 21 minute electronic/black buzz hybrid, the first 6 minutes of which, is just weird squelches and bleeps and bloops, with some creepy voice intoning over the top. And when the riffing finally comes in, the song doesn't explode into metallic gallop, or burst into furious blasting, instead, that riff, just sort of buzzes in the background, while the bleeping and squelchy blooping continue, the whole thing a sort of damaged black buzz kosmische or something. And then at about 9 minutes in, another guitar (or is that a synth?) comes in, all thick and crumbling and corrosive, drums too, plodding and spare, and again, no blasting or galloping, now it's just a woozy, murky creep, still spaced out and cosmic, but now buzzy and blurry lumbering, and then vocals come in, raspy and sinister, over a bed of what is essentially blackened power electronics, the vocals mutating gradually, until they sound robotic and alien, a little like Cylons from the old Battlestar Galactica!!! What the fuck? And that's just part one. Part two of the 32+ opening jam, finds the band slipping back into a field of blooping FX and electronics, that again, are eventually subsumed by some damaged drumming, and crumbling distorted guitar buzz, noisy and chaotic and fucking demented. This time, the sound does get fast and buzzy, but it's a loping, stumbling blackened mess, that eventually resolves in a tangle of buzzing, glitched out electronics. Phew! Only two other tracks on the first disc, but they're lengthy WTF? workouts. One's an old track from 2009, that is freaked out NOISE, sounding very Japanese, or Japanoise. Total skree and screech, howl and throb, feedback, and gristly grinding crunch, howled vokills, some seriously brutal blacknoise. The other's a 20 minute epic, recorded in 2013, the same time as those first two tracks, this one ditching the electronics, and unfurling a murky rumbling ambience, which soon turns into some weirdly dubbed out black dirge murk, sounding a bit like Aluk Todolo, a sort of black-kraut hypno-rock, totally mesmerizing, and if those first two tracks didn't make it worth it for you, this one definitely will...
The second disc is much more 'metal', the first few tracks live, the band sounding a bit more conventional, but only a bit, the sound distorted and blown out and lo-fi, but still tranced out and minimal, very much in the vein of Aluk Todolo, some dirge-y occult rock, with some sick, howled vox, loping, lumbering, minimal black murk, that veers from churning almost-doom, to stumbling metallic frenzy and back again, with at least one guitar doing nothing but spraying thick crumbling black drones over the proceedings, either that or the riffs, just blur into blackened smears, either way, it's plenty tripped out and hypnotic. There's a few awesome demo tracks, super brittle and muddy, with weirdly clean guitar riffing, distant drumming, rumbling vokill rasps, all smeared into some minimal black metal murk. There are some other rarities, a fantastic 10 minute ambient creepfest, all grinding low end, mumbled vox, pipe fight percussion, spare and SUPER creepy, laced with some electronic flecked guitar buzz, and some seriously tripped out production, and a second track, that's cut from the same cloth, but then adds a shit ton of furious blackened guitar-noise to the proceedings, not to mention some super fucking creepy vocals, making it sound like some blackened bastard offspring of Whitehouse and Suicide! Then finally, more old demos, these the most metal of the bunch, epic riffing, simple drumming, the first of the three almost sounding like 'true' metal, old school lo-fi crusty filthy blackness, raw and fierce and pretty fucking rad.
Finland's weirdo minimalist black metallers Ride For Revenge might just be in the running for most aQ Records Of The Week, especially if you count RfR electronic offshoot Will Over Matter, and even moreso if you consider the fact that even if we didn't make one of their records a ROTW, we thought about it, and likely wanted to, and probably didn't for some non musical reason, like having to get them from Finland, or ordering a bunch and selling most of them before we even get a chance to review/list it, and really, in retrospect, not sure why we didn't just institute permanent/perpetual Record Of The Week status on these guys. What we're getting at, is even though this is NOT a Record Of The Week this time around, it basically IS. And will always be, cuz if any band demanded the slavish worship of the aQ crew it's these guys, who manage to take a genre we already love, and transform it into something that barely sounds like that genre at all, and yet somehow makes us love it even more.
This latest batch of jams is another black-dirge / noise-rock wallop, this trio delivering some ultra primitive heaviness, with some of the sickest, grittiest, gnarliest guitar buzz ever, not to mention thick, organ dissolving low end, and chaotic, shambolic, caveman drumming of the highest order, all wound up into extended dirges that play like krautrock melted down into a brew as black as pitch, then reconstituted with some sort of ancient black magic, the resulting lumbering sonic ritualism is as mesmerizing as it is terrifying, the sound in constant flux, whether it's stumbling black metal primitivism, doom-ed tarpit creep, psychedelic blacknoize, or wild, thrashing metal-punk, it all bleeds into one massive, epic, demonic sonic sprawl, in fact, so much so that song titles, and even song breaks seem superfluous, nobody's gonna grab this and think to themselves, let's throw on "The Fog Is Green And Pungent" (okay full disclosure, we actually did!), no this is a fully immersive experience, this is the sort of black bog filth you're meant to luxuriate in, to get lost in, to let wash over you, and pull you under, just surrender, let the churning molasses riffage and pounding dirge-drummage ooze into your every orifice, and transform you from the inside out, headphones on, you become a shambling, blackened acolyte to these mysterious priest of blacknoise/occult rock ritualism, and suddenly it's transcendent, the sound becomes shape, the shape becomes divine, the underworld rises up and swallows the surface dwellers whole, and the soundtrack to this apocalypse becomes, a gnarled, filth encrusted thing of grim black beauty, and we honor this epochal convergence, by sacrificing ourselves, and as our souls wither and die, we become one with these ancient spirits, approaching the black gates of the netherworld, we all join together, a hulking black shape, horned and fiery, and for eternity, we Ride For Revenge!!!!
The thing about Finnish black metal weirdos Ride For Revenge, is that really, they are hardly even black metal. Hell, hardly metal at all. Instead, they always seemed to traffic in a mysterious low slung, sludgy abstract blackened rhythmic minimalism that reminded us of Circle and Aluk Todolo way more than Darkthrone or Beherit. And then there's RfR offshoot Will Over Matter, who take that same sort of abstract rhythmic weirdness and harness it to primitive electronics, and have created a sort of tripped out blackened power electronics. So of course we were super excited for a new Ride For Revenge, and were expecting another disc of twisted rhythmic churn, or something similar, but what we were not expecting was THIS. After a truly strange intro, which is essentially just a Speak & Spell toy emitting all those 8bit bleeps and bloops and wreathed in echo and delay, which had us imagining maybe RfR had moved toward Will Over Matter sonically, but then when the first song proper kicked in, we were blown away. Metal. And we mean METAL. Dirgey and sludgey and super distorted. Right out of the gate, the band erupt into some seriously corrosive blasts of full on blast beat-ed GRIND, in between which, the band churn and lumber, the guitars filthy and crumbling with blackened distortion, the vocals a glass gargling gurgle, the drums a simple dirgey pound, so we were prepared for the ban's return to full on primitive blackness, but then out of nowhere, in swoop all manner of weird warbly synths, and tolling bells, the whole song transformed into some sort of woozy avant buzz drenched doomic dirge, it's pretty ruling.
But then by track two, it's right back to the primitive bash and pound, the distortion even more blown out and in the red, the band sounding a bit like a blackened Brainbombs, which is not at all a bad thing, the songs peppered with ridiculous twisted drug addled guitar leads, super effected crooned gothic vox, some totally fucked up and freaked out Butthole Surfers style vocal garble, cool thick layered harmonies, that add a sort of warped majesty to some of the tracks, and at least one blast of weird bellowed, strident sermonizing beneath a cloud of in-the-red white noise skree.
There are a couple tracks that strip away some of the crumble and buzz, and harken back to the more purely rhythmic RfR of old, but those moments are brief, the band quickly slipping back into their woozy sea sick doom-sludge churn, but even then, pretty much every stretch of seemingly pure raw blackened doomic primitivism, is in fact seriously fucked up, whether that fucked upness is in your face, or buried way below the surface, it's there, and it keeps Under The Eye firmly rooted in whatever fucked Finnish tradition RfR oozes from...
Recent recording of Terry Riley's seminal work "In C." Because of its ambiguous instrumentation and relative ease of performance, "In C" has been performed and recorded in a multitude of varying arrangements in its 37 years of existence. In this version, "In C" is attacked with sitar, tabla, percusssion, voices (mostly extended technique, ie: growls) and orchestra. The performance was
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Two sidelong pieces recorded in 1969 and performed by Groupe d'Etude et Rèalisation Musicale of France, or simply the GERM Ensemble. Riley's "Keyboard Study 2" is a twenty-four minute minimalist exercise for two pianists (executed here by Gèrard Frèmy
Last Visible Dog likes to come up with some "who's that?" artists to release on their label, that's for sure. Of course, if you're super-familiar with the catalogs of such equally underground and avant garde labels as Fringes, Public Eyesore and Fusetron perhaps you have heard of Italian guitarist/experimentalist Renato Rinaldi. We confess we hadn't. But spending the 40 minutes that the single track found on this Hoarse Frenzy disc lasts with the music of Rinaldi is a fine way to make his acquaintance! Spacious and pretty "outdoor" acoustic guitar improv is mixed with intriguing field recording textures, gentle singing, and the sounds of harmonium, unplugged electric guitar, piano, dulcimer, organ, and even harmonics played by a guesting string trio. It all comes together in a nicely flowing, rough-hewn suite as imagined and constructed by Rinaldi. Sounds like something you'd hear from the Jewelled Antler or Hapna labels. Quite lovely and droney and mysterious!
A few lists back we reviewed a tape by the oddly monikered Funeral Fornication, who trafficked in some pretty epic black metal buzz. But apparently, Jaron Evil, the man behind Funeral Fornication, suffered some sort of brain injury, that rendered him unable to play guitar, so while he recovered, he endeavored to create this, a sprawling, and equally, yet differently epic collection of Tolkien themed black ambience and neo-folk, and while at first we were expecting something super cheesy, it's actually pretty cool and weird. Field recorded forest sounds, gristly, lo-fi synth swirl, lush swells of droned out black ambience, dramatic piano stabs, faux strings, swirling FX, some of the tracks pastoral and blessed out ("The Second Age"), others more sinister and cinematic ("The Secret Stairs"). There are still moments of black buzz, like the second half of "Nine Riders", which unfurls a furious blast beat, harsh vokills and insectoid riffing, spread out beneath a layer of cosmic synth swirl, making for a strange, and quite cool juxtaposition. But for the most part, the tape is made up mostly of synthy ambience, ominous drones, mysterious sound design, and epic faux soundtracks to some Lord Of Rings style otherworld. Fantastical and fantastic.
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Finland's Fonal label has brought us a lot of favorites, that's for sure -- Islaja, Kiila, Paavoharju, Shogun Kunitoki, and more. So of course we were quite curious about their latest release, from a band called Risto. Here's the informative blurb we were provided with that was supposed to describe what Risto's all about:
"Leevi & the Leavings in the city, Ville Leinonen in handcuffs, Kauko Royhka in self-pity, Kari Peitsamo as a smart person. Risto brings back that self-esteem, naivity and reality that died with Gosta Sundgvist. Have you already heard what they whisper around Tampere?"
Hmmm. Not being that hip nor Finnish nor both, that doesn't help a whole lot, does it? Well let's just give it a listen and see if we can figure out this Risto. Track one, "Rakkauden Rock" launches this album out of the gate with an uber-distorted rockin' basher, the band coming off as something like a Finnish language version of The Cramps!! Not what we expected exactly, but pretty cool. But then the raucous punkabilly of that song immediately gives way to the placid loveliness of "Auringon Prinsessa", all mellow and melodic. But with track three we're back to the energetic and uptempo... and track four, "Discopallo", is downright funky! But following that, the gentle "Pikkoravat" drifts back to mellow moodiness. What gives? We don't know. Crazy Finns is our default answer. The important thing is, we like it!! Risto veer from the noisy and punk to the sweet and lush, and it's all nice and catchy and weird and fun, songs influenced by no wave and doo wop and whatever else strikes their fancy, sounding like Aavikko's "monkey jazz" one moment, a lullaby the next. With all the lyrics in their native tongue, we can't tell you what the songs are actually about, but we're enjoying their spirited, schizophrenic music regardless. Another, atypical, fab Fonal release!
The gloomy post-punk monochromaticism of Ritual Howls has its antecedents - the ominous decadence of the Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and Sisters Of Mercy, meshed with the low-slung swagger of the Lynch / Badalamenti incidental musics from Lost Highway or Wild At Heart. Yes, those are very welcome things for the black-clad denizens of the world; and Ritual Howls makes good in their application of these references. Turkish Leather follows a handful of suitably sub-underground cassettes, including several on the cult industrial-noise publishing house Nostivelo. On those cassettes, Ritual Howls thrived in the catacomb murk of overblown production with a single microphone picking up a thunderously loud session a la Les Rallizes Denudes. Here on Turkish Leather, Ritual Howls did find themselves in a studio, which allows them plenty of room to breath in all of the asbestos, nuclear fallout, or swamp gas, depending on what post-apocalyptic scenario you'd want to locate Ritual Howls. Of course, their home town of Detroit all serves them well in that regard, though there's very much a southwestern tremolo-laden twanginess that echoes through these propellant goth-punk tunes. Had these lads been from Los Angeles gigging at the Scream in the '80s, they would have been right at home.
Rllrbll's (Rollerball without the vowels) tweaky garage improv-jazz fuckery appears to be recorded in a room with a single mic to give equal density to the clattery of guitar feedback, kitchen appliances, drum kits, sax, and anything else that might make sound. No Neck Blues Band, Rocket Science & The Nigger Loving Faggots, Iran, and Jackie-O-Motherfucker may be a few of the inscrutible references for Rllrbll.
Ralf Wehowsky (aka RLW) has been shapeshifting sound since the early '80s, when he was in a dada / art-punk outfit called P.D., which later morphed into P16.D4, who earned quite a reputation throughout the '80s thanks to their aggressive adaptation of musique concrete techniques filtered through a DIY industrial-noise-punk lens, which landed them some highly influential albums on RRR and Selektion. P.D. emerged more from a 'band' context with their pieces shaped from sessions of synth, bass, drums, and noise and then cut up with cacophonic abandon. As P.D., the project could be seen as coming out of the same scene as Einsturzende Neubauten, Der Plan, and Die Todliche Doris, but by the time they morphed into P16.D4, they were an entirely different beast.
These recordings from RLW represent something of a transition period between P.D. and P16.D4 with some of this material getting thoroughly altered on the first P16.D4 album, recorded in late 1980 and early 1981. The album is split into two sessions, both offering fucked-up space-jazz workout with sporadic barked Germanic vocals and swells of feedback countering the post-Krautrock vibes, skittering drums, and noir basslines. One can think of something sort of like the Plastic People Of The Universe or the oddball Factory band Crawling Chaos or maybe even a super-loose Captain Beefheart filtered through a Kraut-punk exploration and expressionism. It's pretty hard to pin any of this down. Wehowsky didn't do much to these tapes in terms of his signature jagged cut-n-splice techniques aside from some seasick inducing tape reverse tricks, but it is very interesting to hear where RLW and crew would begin their sessions. This would certainly appeal to those keen on the more experimental avenues of the Berlin punk scene. Limited to 100 copies.
The black and white photo on the cover, of a taxidermed but still quite alarming bat, wings spread, fangs bared, malevolent and mummified, looking like some decaying Victorian museum exhibit, perfectly heralds the organic, psychedelic, and somewhat disturbing dronology to be heard on the disc within. Sometimes creepy, but fascinating and atmospheric. And, in a way, beautiful, like the delicate membrane of the bat's wings.
Look, we don't rave about EVERYTHING on Utech. Just most things on Utech. In fact, we haven't even yet reviewed several the label's previous batch of releases (among them Architeuthis Rex, The Skull Defekts/The Sons Of God, and Ural Umbo), but had to rave about this one (and a couple other cool new titles as well, you'll find highlighted elsewhere on this list: Bassett/Graf and Arcn Templ). RM74 is the solo project of Swiss soundmeister Reto Mader, who also plays in Ural Umbo, Sum of R, and Pendulum Nisum (of which we've only heard the former). And while that Ural Umbo disc Utech recently released was interesting, this solo effort from Mader REALLY caught our ears. Not that it's easy to describe. Abstract and ominous soundscapery, "music" bathed in glowing shimmer and shuddering suspenseful drone. It's all instrumental electro-acoustic experimentation, Mader playing guitars, strings, percussion, piano, electronics, kalimba, organ, synthesizer, and effects... the disc divided up into 11 individual tracks that are different enough to really stand out as "pieces", each one its own mysterious transmission from Mader's outsider imagination, and the spirits that move him. For instance, the opener, appropriately titled "Early Morning Fog", begins with swelling, buzzing drone and hum, mesmerically undulating, eventually adorned with what sounds like the gentle plinking of a fragmented music-box melody... already we're entranced.
Most of the tracks operate upon a basis of electronics, effects, radio static, buzzes, and morse code clicks, the instrumentation not so easily recognizable, though for instance you can definitely hear steel strings of a guitar twanging reverberantly on track three, "Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea", amidst creaking sounds suggestive of a wooden ship at sea, perhaps...
As well as being a great release for Utech, Reflex we think would sound equally at home on the Miasmah label, although it would fall on the "grinding-est" side of their catalog. Other "Recommended If You Like" comparison candidates for this might be the Guillaume Gargaud discs we've reviewed recently, or Gregory Mullen, or the murky microscopic textures of certain Jewelled Antler recordings... Recommended at any rate, regardless of whether we can find adequate analogies for it!
The packaging, unlike most Utech releases, this isn't in a slim sleeve, but in a thicker, all-cardboard digipack style package, with a pocket (a little tight, we must say) inside for the cd, another for a folded insert which depicts that bat in fuller detail. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, also!
Reto Mader is back, with a new release on the consistently-excellent Utech label. The haunting solo work of this Swiss dronologist (also a member of Ural Umbo) already got a rave review from us a couple years ago, for his previous release as RM74 on Utech, Reflex, so we're pleased to now hear more from this project - lots more, since it's a double disc! Previously, we described RM74 as organic, and abstract soundscapery, "bathed in glowing shimmer and shuddering suspenseful drone". Such is still the case here, Mader's semi-ambient, instrumental electro-acoustic constructs being both beautiful, and on occasion creepy - most notably when disc's two's "We Run In Vicious Circles" suddenly brings the noise, with grit and distortion and an insistent synth figure, something BAD happening in the inner-mind projected imaginary movie for which this is the soundtrack - move over, Umberto! Mostly, though, it's quite quiet and benign, warmly embracing the listener, as these discs spin on, incorporating delicate drones, scattered percussive tinklings clinkings, chimings and clatterings, sweetly keening strings, and soft buried melodies into a slowly unfolding, wordless narrative. Mader employs piano, bass, synthesizer, field recordings, kalimba, theremin, and many more unidentified sound sources (scrapings, cracklings, shortwavey-staticky-ings). These two discs could take some time to fully explore, played over and over. Our suggestion: remove your watch, lower your shades, let RM74's Two Angles Of A Triangle take over your timekeeping and create cycles of light and dark for you. You might be awake, you might be dreaming, days and days may pass - you'll have an experience. And even if you don't take it that far, it's a lovely listen.
These discs come in a beautiful, black/white/grey illustrated tri-fold, six-panel digipack, art by Thomas Hooper.
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From the same label that brought us records by Velvet Cacoon, Clair Cassis, Nightbringer, Temple Of N.O.T., Lonesummer, Void Of Reveries and Necktarium (same TWO labels more accurately, as Starlight Temple Society sort of became Khrysanthoney), comes this strange bit of abstract blackness, the debut 2007 release from Brazilian one man band, Roba El-Khaliyeh, who weaves deep ritualistic drones, lumbering industrial black ambience, sweeping cinematic soundscapery and raw hateful black metal into a sprawling bit of otherworldly sonic mystery.
A haunting stretch of minimal rumble and shimmer, gives way to some super noisy pound and buzz, sick vokills over moaning atonal riffage, and reverb drenched Teutonic pound, swirling synths, and thick buzzing low end, rife with strange bits of percussion, and sampled voices.
The record slips into moody, melancholic piano driven sort-of-bombastic balladry (peep the bloodied keyboard on the cover), with big drums and some weirdly glammy vocals, sounding like a black metal Rufus Wainwright, sort of. The sound quickly returns to something more hushed and minimal, deep bell like tones, softly undulating stretches of layered low end, very darkly meditative, laced with some subtly corrosive streaks of twisted fragmented melody. The record culminates in the church organ led final track, a stately hymn surrounded by thick swirls of whipping wind, before the synths come in, all majestic swells, sounding not unlike last week's Record Of The Week, Fastest, like some sort of Zelda style dramatic soundtrack, before finally fading to black.
Strange stuff for sure, but we definitely dig it. The black metal element is brief, but still seems to inform the rest of the record's not nearly as black soundscaping.
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It says "Electronic Music From Razor Blades To Moog" on the disc and that pretty much sums it up. You'll glean a bit more of an idea of what this is all about from the in-the-studio photos of Robb, a nice looking old man with a big white mustache, though some liner notes would have been nice (c'mon, Locust!). What we do know is that lawyer-turned-maverick-composer, John Donald Robb, was on the cutting edge of electronic music starting way back in the 1940s! His work was perhaps especially beepy-bleepy beat-oriented (hence the title of this cd) and is certainly full of vintage electronica atmosphere. Rhythmania is compiled from the best of Robb's two Folkways LPs, and is a swell collection of his pioneering electronic experimentation, total mad-scientist laboratory stuff for fans of the likes of Tod Dockstader, the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Definitely a great personal soundtrack to the next '60s era sci-fi novel you sit down to read!
Two tapes, two hours, eleven tracks, a sprawling exploration of blackened sonic inner space from this masterful dronescaper, a collection of epic longform droned out drifts, gorgeous abstract fields of hushed grim ambience, the usual rumble and whir and buzz laced with what sound like horns: trumpets, trombone, who knows exactly what, but they lend a mournful, melancholy vibe to the already dark and dismally dreamlike proceedings. As does the tinkle of keyboards, barely there, the melodies ghostlike, field recordings drift in and out as well, the sound of children, or are those birds? Hard to say, as they are deftly woven into the undulating tapestry of mysterious minimal blackness. Those horns the only melody, dragging the rest of the black ambience along, a gorgeously depressive bit of funereal otherworldliness.
The sound shifts from aching abstract skeletal slowcore doomdrift, to brooding rumbling black ambience, to hushed barely there shimmer, the sounds swirling and shifting, sometimes muted and muddy, other times pulsing and throbbing, a very Tim Hecker vibe to much of this, everything faded and washed out, like some strange steampunky contraption that lets us view some alternative dystopian future, and this is the sound, the soundtrack to a land barren and bereft of life, of a planet purging and beginning again, the sound of living things withering and dying, of flesh melting from bones, of the sun dimming and the landscape turning gray with shadow and ash, a hazy, gauzy dreamlike drift into the unknowable, into the other, into nothingness. So dark and strange, murky and mysterious, weirdly and impossibly lovely...
Fantastic packaging, the two cassettes housed in a double wide tape case, with a silver on black silkscreened card stock insert, the whole thing sealed with a similarly silver and black silkscreened Japanese style obi.
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Latest chuck of spaced out doom drone from these long time aQ faves, Burners finds the group getting seriously melodic, sort of. Where on past records, RD trafficked more in abstract drones and ambient doom, and psychedelic soundscapery, the three extended tracks here are more slowcore than doomdrone, more space rock that soundscape, a new direction for sure, but without losing the various drone and doom elements that made past records so compelling.
The record opens with a loooooong stretch of moaning ambience, heaving slabs of muted crumbling distortion, before the drums kick in, a simple, skeletal, almost krautrock beat, and then the rest of the band launch into a droney, fuzzed out space rock dirge, tons of reverb and echo and delay, distant tinkling melodies buried in the mix, the vocals processed to the point that they become just another layer of swirling sound, a plodding, hypnorock workout that builds to a blown out, seriously in-the-red finish. The second track dials it back a bit, all tribal drumming and warm whirring organs, more reverbed vox, washed out and ethereal, murky and muddy, a gorgeously blurred bit of slowcore lumber.
The second side is all one track, which begins with keening soft melodies over buzzing layered low end, and epic slowburning dirge, almost like White Hills or the Heads, at 16 rpm, a blown out space rock, slowed waaaaay down and wrapped in layer after layer of haze and grit and buzz. Majestic, melodic, melancholic, the bass thick and billowing and blackened, the guitars howling above it all, total, with a blurred tribal outro, garbled vox, chiming guitars, tons of effects, all drifting beneath a ever shifting layers of sonic murk, total space kraut doom dirge bliss!
