First off, how amazing is the name Stellar Auditorium for a label. Heck, for anything. We only recently discovered this label, who have released a handful of cd-r's so far, all of them amazing, and all of them gorgeously packaged, so much so we almost wonder why they only make cd-r's, as the packaging is so deluxe and fantastic, full color digpaks, multiple inserts, the whole nine yards, but thankfully, even the cd-r's are pretty swank, black on one side, and professionally printed on the other.
Anyway, none of that would make a difference if the music wasn't worthwhile, but as we mentioned above, it most certainly is. Elsewhere on this list you'll find one of the new Procer Veneficus releases, also on Stellar Auditorium (love even typing it!) and then this, the first full length from Swedish black metal horde Underjordiska.
Thanks to our pal Ben at Amoeba for turning us to these guys, took us a while, hadn't been able to track down actual copies of the record, until in a strange bit of serendipity, the label just contacted us out of the blue, so now we finally have this to list, and holy shit is it amazing. Minutes in and we can already tell the aQ black metal hordes will lose their shit for this stuff. Don't know anything about these guys, they're not even on Encyclopedia Metallum, all we know is they're from Sweden, and they totally destroy.
After a gorgeously creepy intro, all ominous drones and high end short wave interference sonic squiggles, the first song kicks in, an incredibly lush, thick wall of warm buzz, shoegazey for sure, but more sort of washed out sounding, sepia toned, bleary and blurry, the drums lost in a distorted haze, and the vocals, harsh and hateful, but not so abrasive and jagged, still weirdly warm and thick, like little bursts of pink noise, barely shaped into words, the riffing is warped and warbly, slipping into strange atonal shapes, but always snapping back into frenzied blasts of soaring riffage, and soaring is pretty right on the mark, this stuff is totally epic and majestic, like a lo-fi grim and raw black metal Godspeed. That same sort of sweeping expansive vibe, but all wound up into these streaks of buzzing blackness.
The tracks are repetitive and hypnotic, the band locking onto a riff and creating these lush tranced out buzzscapes, but those riffs are super fluid, it almost sounds like someone changing the tape speed, as the riffs sort of slip and slither, bend and change shape, the songs follow, like listening through some sort of funhouse mirror, sometimes the buzz is so thick and blurred, that the song seems to disappear in a cloud of effects and cymbal swells and processed vox, like noise, but soft noise, soft black noise, spread out over riffs and beats, only their shadows visible through the wall of sound.
The final track is easily the most epic, and not just because of its length (18+ minutes), it almost sounds like some sort of anthem, totally majestic, and melodic, but like the rest of the record, underneath layer after layer of buzz and whir and haze, slowly transforming into something more noisy and off kilter, more warped, the vocals ghostlike and abstract, the drums gone, swallowed by the buzz, the riffing modulating and flitting from note to note, almost like someone flipping a switch, jarring and off kilter and really really weird, but somehow all that buzz smooths it into something strangely dreamlike (and a tad bit nightmarish), before everything drops out, and the record drifts off in a hazy, ethereal fog. So awesome. Can't believe we had never heard these guys before.
Anyone into the black, the buzz, the blur, the blissed out and the blast, this is IT.
Third release we've carried from the Stellar Auditorium, and we said it before, but it bears repeating, how awesome a label name is that. Totally evokes some sort of black metal lazer light show, the kind we used to sneak into when we were kids, but way more grim and buzzy and space-y.
Anyway, a few lists back we reviewed the latest from psychedelic black metal one man band Procer Veneficus, and a mysterious Swedish outfit called Underjordiska, whose full length Dystert Vilse we could barely keep in stock. Their sound a warped blend of epic sweeping shoegazey buzz and warbly and raw soft black noise, that definitely hit the spot for all of us outsider black metal obsessives.
So we managed to get a second release from those guys, this one a split with the more ambient but equally dark and mysterious Spectral Lore, who just so happens to be the guy who runs Stellar Auditorium, and whose haunting drift definitely compliments Underjordiska's blown out buzz. Although here even moreso, as Underjordiska try something a little more abstract and ambient.
Once again, incredible packaging, full color, very striking, but still weirdly, the disc itself remains a cd-r, this one limited to 300 copies, each one hand numbered. Two tracks, one from each band, both 30 minutes plus!
Underjordiska is up first, their track begins with the sound of waves crashing, gulls, all beneath a delicate drift of clean guitar, the sounds of the surf soon fade out, while in their place a strange assemblage of buzz and hiss, and spacey effects all swirl and swoop, the sound growing more metallic, more alien, more chaotic, before slipping back into a swirling morass of churning black low end, and softly muted buzz, a droning crawl, laced with bits of crunch and rumble, becoming gradually more and more minimal, until the sound is all hushed and delicate and almost static, barring some delicate melodic fragments drifting through the darkness. The band build on that minimal foundation, finally adding guitars, and creating a sort of stop motion doom-ic black buzz, layers of droning buzzing guitars seeming to hover and slowly drift into one another playing out some grim melody, but very very very slowly, before the guitars slip away, and the track ends with an almost choral sounding outro.
Spectral Lore start out with some downtuned guitars, a noisy bit of distorted riffage, making us think for a moment that we may have gotten the two tracks mixed up, but soon those guitars are smoothed out into a deep subterranean crawl, distant shimmering strings, deep low end drift, with the guitars resurfacing here and there, offering up a squall of crumbling crunch or jagged chug, before slipping back under, the distant drones sounding like some sort of Italian horror soundtrack, getting weirdly Goblin-y at one point, before dissipating in a flurry of delay and reverb, leaving just overtones, overlapping and layered, whirring and effulgent, giving way to a weirdly jazzy mini-jam outro, set in a slowly fading sea of hiss, that becomes the sound of water once again, revisiting the first few moments of the Underjordiska track.
Both groups offer up truly strange sonic journeys, mysterious, haunting, otherworldly, meditative and tranquil, but unstable, unpredictable, crafting long stretches of dark ambience, muted shoegazey guitars, deep cavernous drones, crumbling blackened riffage, hushed shimmer, all twisted and transformed, and woven into these mesmerizing alien landscapes...
This killer two band tag team of weirdo whatthefuck outsider Finnish black metal, previously only available on (out of print) vinyl, NOW ON CD!! Here's what we had to say about this split when we first reviewed the 12":
The return of our favorite Finnish black metal weirdos Ride For Revenge, who really are barely even black metal, and actually hardly metal, but they are definitely weird, and this latest epic jam definitely does nothing to convince us otherwise. Beginning the ridiculous (and best ever!) title: "Ridiculed By Ladies Of The Moon", the song begins with a long stretch of warbly synth drone, laced with feedback, slowly undulating, while in the background sounds clank and clatter, sounding either like someone building a robot or someone making dinner, this goes on for a while until BLAM, the drums kick in, the synthy/electronic buzz is joined by HEAVY buzzy bass, and the track is transformed into a stumbling bass heavy dirge, the drums super distorted, which is especially noticeable on the bizarre fills, then the vocals, and awesome alien croak, sick and sinister and totally fucking nuts, the song pounds away, the sound gradually becoming a sort of dirgey space goth doom, dramatic and demented, and then there's the last stretch a wild final few minutes, the drums gone haywire, totally chaotic, the buzz intensified, wreathed in squiggles of white noise, and the sonorous clang of metal on metal, either some distant bells, or more likely, the pots and pans from the above mentioned kitchen being hurled about, a twisted and baffling finish to another incredible warped chunk of sonic weirdness from these guys.
Which is a lot to live up to for Undor, who decide to not try to outweird RfR, but instead, offer up a sort of sonic analogue, a stretched out midtempo jam, that sounds like just drums and guitar, the guitar riffing away, but occasionally spiraling into some weird bit of atonal squiggle, or slippery abstract melody, or a brief bit of shred, but always returning to the stumbling, lumbering, lurching main rhythm/riff. The vibe is a bit mournful, at times it sounds a bit like Hypothermia crossed with Varghkoghargasmal, the vocals pushing it over the top, a wild hysterical shriek, that in some weird way balances the slightly more measured tone of the rest of the track. But only slightly.
We have been massively obsessed with the mysterious doom duo Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg. Two musical cavemen, one wielding some sort of primitive keyboard, the other a bass tuned so low it sounds like the tectonic plates slipping. Together they weave a sprawling and expansive world of minimal sludge, an epic slow motion doom crawl, equal parts Skepticism, Thergothon, SUNNO))) and Earth. Glacial riffs that slither and lurch, moving so slow they seem to almost be standing still. The keyboards adding the occasional melodic flourish to the duo's black hole dirges.
So why would the two mysterious members of Trollmann, Belegur and Thundarr, masters of "Cosmic keys to gates unknown" and "Rumblings Of Doom, Prophecies Of Times To Come" respectively, start a new band, with the tongue twistingly Lovecraftian monicker Ungl'Unl'rrlh'Chchch, and with the exact same members?
Well how about if the glacial doomic trudge of Trollmann was just NOT slow enough, NOT low enough, what if the two members wanted to jettison melody completely, and perform strange magickal rituals with low end sound, conjuring up vibrations of doom, from deep within the center of the earth. A huge booming, cavernous, resonant rumble rife with overtones and subtle sonic shadings. A doom metal Phill Niblock if you will. Simple tones, distorted and murky, stretched into huge expanses of drone, allowed to slowly shift, various low end frequencies beating against each other. So glorious!
Well, that explains the epic opening track, but then what about track two? A dreamy expanse of pointillist piano, wrapped in reverb, a flurry of twentieth century piano abstraction dropped into a shimmering swirl of empty space. Track three makes a bit more sense combining the two, little bits of piano melody subsumed by a massive wash of low end rumble, a wave of monstrous drones, dense and multilayered, strange monk like chants buried in the roiling murk, before a haunting high end melody surfaces becoming more and more intense, building and building into a sort of Birchville style ur-drone.
The ten minute 4th track is another low end ritual, this time a simple rhythmic throb anchors a shimmering thrum, beneath which strange vocals hum and murmur, a deep dark and very ancient sounding sonic ritual for sure.
Finally, the record closes with the title track, a brief blast of doomdronedirge wrapped in white hot sheets of coruscating feedback, a snarling squall of hiss and fuzz, sizzling and buzzing, a blinding ball of sonic fire with a massive black hole center.
All bow before the mighty and mystical low end lords of Ungl'Unl'rrlh'Chchch!!
A while back we got a strange 'release' from this 'band' which consisted of a tape loop, in a tiny glass bottle, the music on the loop a snippet of old Norwegian oceanographic recordings, the bottle held shut with a small cork, and branded with Unholy Triforce's triangle logo. We never even got a chance to properly list and review it, as we mentioned it online and we sold out of all of the copies in a matter of hours (follow us on Twitter, people!). In keeping with Auris Aopthecary's M.O., that bottled tape loop was as much a musical are object as it was a proper release, and in that case specifically, probably more so. Which brings us to this, the latest high concept audio missive from this mysterious band, this one called Crucifiction, featuring a very brief audio accompaniment, which you can sample below, recorded onto a clear cassette tape, with the Unholy Triforce logo, housed in a clear tape case, each one hand etched with an upside down cross, and each one held shut with four NAILS, driven not just through the case, but through the tape itself. We're not sure how easy it would be to remove the nails to listen to the tape, but needless to say, that little detail might just be what makes this more art than music. Either way, it looks amazing, and we can't imagine a tape nerd who wouldn't treasure one of these, and give it a spot of honor on their tape shelf, it's intense and ominous and dangerous looking (and sounding actually), and thus, will require some extra packaging if you order if with other stuff, to keep that other stuff from also getting crucified.
LIMITED TO 87 COPIES!!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Goddamn this record is beautiful. We mean seriously beautiful. So beautiful it sort of has us at a loss for words. Not at all what we were expecting as our last exposure to Unicorn was a split with Bastard Noise. But this is definitely one of the most beautiful, and satisfying ambient / drone records in recent memory. Delicate and barely there at times, thick and dense at others, but always imbued with this haunting sense of dread, and loss and loneliness. Hard to put a finger on, but the overall impression is one of longing, a melancholy sense of something missing. Very evocative. From glistening crystalline shimmers atop barely audible melodic drones, with distant freaked out guitars all hazy and indistinct, to a thick fuzzy whir over brief snippets of overheard conversations, to simple melodies constructed from distorted overblown tones, backward rhythmic swells, and high pitched cricket like skree, to gentle, sepia toned ambience beneath chiming melodies and more distant sonic wails. So completely haunting and mesmerizing. And that's just the music. The disc includes a series of short films that the music was composed to accompany, and when coupled with the images, it's totally breathtaking. Strangely decaying home movies, found footage, quite stark and simple, but visually emblematic of lost innocence, or a bitter longing for stolen youth, or just a series of slightly sad memories, set to a music that lays out the sorrow in a way that words never could.
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A gorgeous reissue of this long out of print cd-r, the debut release from myesterious folk ensemble United Bible Studies, reissued again on cd-r, this time limited to only 100 copies (we got 30) and packaged in a gorgeous, hand screened textured paper sleeve. UBS explore a gorgeous mix of modern post-Fahey Appalachia (a la Jack Rose, James Blackshaw) and pagan seventies Brit folk (Incredible String Band, Shirley Collins, etc.) as well as incorporating a dash of the apocalyptic folk of groups like Current 93 and Sol Invictus. A dizzying expanse of pastoral serenity, blissy folk dirges, dreamy drone and dark lilting ballads, simple reverby piano, lots of string buzz, wheezing harmonium, warm whirls of gorgeous strum and shuffle. You can almost imagine some shadowy troupe, huddled in the corner of an old tavern, fire crackling in the hearth, rain pouring down outside, serenading a room full of weary travellers, heads hung low, letting their minds drift and their souls be warmed by the dark beauty of the music. ALREADY OUT OF PRINT AT THE LABEL, ONCE THESE ARE GONE THEY ARE GONE FOR GOOD.
This is a drone rock super group of sorts, featuring members of Pelt and Rake, joining forces to trance out in a ritualistic 2+ hour performance (40+ minutes presented here). The sound is definitely Pelt, but a little more rough and ragged, less dreamy. The
We discovered the D-Trash label (and consequently Unitus) via the amazing DHR 'Don't Fuck With Us' compilation from a few lists ago. Unitus is definitely very beat heavy ala DHR, but lays the beats down in a thick, dark miasma of digital crunch and ambient drones and rumbles. Making for an almost dreamy, definitely droney, hypnotic drum and bass workout with stretches of ambient whir, reminding us quite a bit of the seminal Third Eye Foundation 12" 'Semtex' from a few years back. Nice thick analog sounding dirgescapes, with simple, skittery beats woven throughout . Really fucking great! Myabe electronic music isn't dead after all. You just have to know where to look.
add to cart [/images/addtocart.gif]/af4105.html Finally back in stock. We listed this way back in 1999, and due to this disc's ineffable nature, we were unable to find more. UNTIL NOW!
A monumental extension of John Cage's "4'33" into the realms of marketing. Absolutely inaudible field recording of empty space, walls of noise digitally obliterated into the void of utter silence, and intricate sampling masterfully worked into nothing at all. Austere and basically impossible to see packaging. An audio and visual allegory of pure nothing. Silence made even more silent. Emptiness completely and utterly emptied. Absolutely nothing. No sound. No art. No disc. Recommended!
The name Ryan Unks might not be immediately familiar to you, but anyone into dark and heavy drones out sounds, who are long time readers of the aQ list are no doubt familiar with Unks's work, even if they don't realize it. Long ago Unks was a member of political grindlords Creation Is Crucifixion, but more recently, he was the man behind the black sonic malevolence that was the Human Quena Orchestra, but for this, his most recent solo record, Unks offers up something completely different, a gorgeous collection of home brewed new age drift, crystalline electronics, and mesmerizingly hypnotic loops, droned out and cyclical. A series of chiming melodies, of pulsating and percolating textures, spare and skeletal in places, lush and densely layered in others, with a few of the tracks rife with warm whirs and muted sine wave tones, smeared into soft swells of blissed out soft-noise dream-psych ambience. The sort of thing that fans of Root Strata and Type and Spectrum Spools might dig!!
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!! Gorgeously packaged in an oversized plastic clamshell case, with a printed transparent cover and printed six panel insert, all overlapping and layered and quite striking!
Fuck, we love this band. We've only heard one tape from these Canadian electronic black ambient weirdos, but we immediately fell under their spell, and have been dying for new music ever since.
This is the latest tape of their damaged outsider alchemical sonic rituals, and if the first one was mysterious and strange, this one, is fucking baffling. All over the map, and completely wacked.
Opening with some fucked up creepy circusy synths, a buzzy tangle of haunting minor key video game forest drone. Then all of a sudden, they launch into a reverb drenched stumble, the drums blown out and spluttering, the guitar sawing away and emitting a cloud of noxious buzzing riffage, dual vocals, one a black metal rasp, the other a moaning whale call off in the distance. Freaky and super awesome. Those muted percussive thumps get more and more chaotic as the musical tension grows and grows, a lurching dirgey lo-fi doom damage workout. And it keeps getting better. And weirder. The next track is all folky, a strummed acoustic guitar, moaned vocals, all sorts of strange drifting FX, followed up by another acoustic crawl, creeping and slithery, the vocals growled beneath minor key piano plinking. Sheets of electric guitar buzz, insectoid electronic grizzle, huge echoey rumbling baritone moans, more mournful acoustic guitar...
Dense and washed out and fuzzy and murky and muddy and fucking genius. Fans of Dead Reptile Shrine, Circle Of Ouroborus, and other outsider metal outfits should be on all fours, cowering at the feet of Uno Actu, and offering up blood sacrifices as homage. We sure as hell are.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Each tape hand numbered.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
N.U. Unruh -- the anarchic percussionist for Einsturzende Neubauten -- has released his first solo album after over twenty years in the seminal industrial outfit. Setting aside all of the jackhammers, concrete mixers, and giant springs in favor of a multi tracked sampler, Unruh layers looping samples culled from the noises made by means of communication: shortwave radio, fax machines, audio translations of the Cobol computer language, and a variety of digitally encoded sounds. In spite of the cacophonous din of these sound sources, Unruh attempts to create something whimsical, at times melodic, but nonetheless challenging - almost something like Mouse On Mars trying to remix John Duncan.
Over the past months, we've uncovered a handful of orginal issues of Unsound, San Francisco's seminal industrial / experimental / out-there / transgressive / what-the-fuck? zine from the '80s. This one though was the very final issue of Unsound, and they went out with a fucking bang with this one: the magazine itself is an oversized newsprint edition folded into a printed cardstock sleeve, which also includes two additional booklets of pertinent information at the time of all of the known mail order outlets, like-minded publications, and sympathetic art organizations. But the coup de grace is clearly the compilation tape with rare and exclusive tracks from Controlled Bleeding, Hunting Lodge, Die Todliche Doris, The Haters, P16.D4, Negativland, S.B.O.T.H.I., Psyclones, Smersh, Master/Save Relationship, Audio Leter, Torn Memory, Monochrome Bleu, Theme Park, Robert Bolman, Problemist, Blackhouse, Das Synthetische Mischgewebe, No Music, Glorious Din, The Eberly Brothers, Kristine Ambrosia, Poison Gas Research / PGR, and Mother Country. The articles also feature interviews with the Hafler Trio (then doing what they could to keep up the ruse of Edward Moolenbeek's participation in the group along with the fictional sound research of Robert Sprigeon), Nick Zedd & Richard Kern, Organum, Blackhouse, PGR, the SELEKTION collective including P16.D4 and S.B.O.T.H.I., and Karen Finley. LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES!! Each one numbered, looooooooooong out of print.
Another batch of sonic mysteries from UK tape label The Tapeworm, and if you didn't think the Tapeworm was eclectic already, these two will undoubtedly convince you. Johnny Remember Me is not a band, or really a record, instead, it's actually a book on tape, written by UK author Cathi Unsworth, who has a pretty serious resume (Sounds, Bizarre, Mojo, Uncut, not to mention a handful of novels), and besides writing about music, also writes about crime, but through a pop culture, new music filter, a hip hybrid of bands and artists and gangsters and criminals, which is what you get here. Unsworth is teamed up with musician Pete Woodhead, from the group O Yuki Conjugate, who did the music for awesome Rom-Zom-Com Shaun Of The Dead, for a pretty straight reading of Unsworth's novel Johnny Remember Me.
It's a pretty cool story, rife with pop culture references, loads of music, and yeah, some criminal activities, with Unsworth and Woodhead each tackling half the story, both with appropriately thick UK accents, which gives Unsworth's tale the perfect British crime novel vibe.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES. With killer cover art by Savage pencil.
We first heard of Japanese psych band Up-Tight back in 2004 when their Five Psychedelic Pieces cd came out Stateside, 'round about the same time we also discovered their quite similar countrymen LSD-march, and hailed 'em both as two of the best young bands in the "Tokyo flashback" tradition. But that wasn't actually Up-Tight's first album, the sensibly titled First Album, which has now been reissued (in typical deluxe and limited fashion) by the aRCHIVE label on this Early Years disc.
Originally released on cd-r back in 1999 (btw, remember when that seemed like such a futuristic date??), this too could have been called Five Psychedelic Pieces, as this 5-tracker sees Up-Tight fully launched into the slowburn shoegaze-'til-amplifier-fire trajectory you already know and love 'em for... some songs drift lazily by, with quietly melancholic atmospheres and morose echoed vox. Usually that's just a part of it though, before pedals are stomped, drums begin to pound, and storms of electric guitar overload are unleashed. Heck, you know what we're talking about if you're curious about this, you've heard Up-Tight before, or LSD-march, or their sunglasses-at-night grandaddies Les Rallizes Denudes.
In addition to the approx. 48 minutes of First Album, aRCHIVE has added on two previously unreleased bonus tracks, one studio, one live, dug up from even further back in the band's early daze, circa 1994... another 18 minutes or so of primal psychedelic pulsation and delicate dronefulness.
Everything's been "slightly remastered", it's packaged in folding glossy cardstock sleeve, and is indeed LIMITED to 600 copies and unlikely to be around for too long!!
We've long loved Japanese psych crew Up-Tight, and this new disc on aQ beloved Brazilian label Essence is another good one, another slab of dark heavy psych from these masters. From the first few seconds, we're hurled into the void: thick, distorted bass, simple, pounding drumming, and wild, shredding, blown out, in-the-red guitar-shred freakout, no preamble, no slow build, just straight into some heart-of-the-the-sun heaviness. The leads do fade out, letting the song breathe a bit, the vibe dialed down a notch, for the echo drenched vocals to drift in, and suddenly, it's like a super distorted, even more blown out Les Rallizes Denudes, and before you know it, that guitar swoops in, and whips the song into a noise drenched Japanoise-psych squall. But as fans know, it's not all freakout, these guys are capable of brooding beauty, which is what the second track offers, a woozy crooning drift, a dark psych ballad, all wreathed in reverb, it's not until the last minute that things get at all heavy, wild vocalizations, swirls of guitar noise, a quick blast, and then right back into the dark chanted creep that began the track. Two of the remaining three tracks are more pretty than heavy, the first, a dreamy bit of sun dappled jangle, that almost sounds more like American slowcore than Japanese psych, the second, a brief bit of dark strum, murky, and haunting, hushed and mysterious. And then right in between, the nearly 16 minute "So Alone", which is ALL noisy and distorted, a churning death march pound, swirls of jagged feedback, arcs of guitarnoise, the guitars grinding and howling, fields of skree and shriek, hurts of face melting buzz and shred, all the while the bass and drums, locked into a churning, doomic pound, the vocals too wild and feral, doused in FX and battling the wild guitarnoise. Awesome!
Along with a new record from one of our favorite purveyors of kosmische kraut-psych and spaced out synthscapery, Expo '70 (found elsewhere on this week's list) there's another new release, from Japanese psych crew Up-Tight, also on aQ beloved Brazilian label Essence, and like that Expo '70, this is in fact a PRE-ORDER for the super deluxe, super fancy, handmade BOX SET version, which comes not only with a bonus disc, but also housed in a crazy handmade box. It's limited to 91 copies and that's IT. We might be able to get 15, but even then, we're only getting as many as we get pre-orders for, so if you want one, order it now, we'll get them in sometime in the next few weeks, and they can either ship with your current order, or on their own. You will be charged for the box NOW, but then the shipping will be sorted out when we actually send the box (and it'll ship by weight, not as 1 item).
We've long loved Up-Tight, and this new one is another good one, if you're already a fan, maybe a super fan, odds are you're gonna want one of these, the box is super striking, all bird beaks and eyes, in an oversized, handmade boxset, that unfolds revealing still more artwork, along with a hand drawn third eye canvas collage. And along with the new record proper, it also includes an exclusive bonus album, a cd-r called Sweet Sister Session (Uncut) - For Lucrezia, a whole set recorded in 2004 during the sessions for their Alchemy release Lucrezia, and is ONLY available in this box. So needless to say, Up-Tight nerds grab one before they are gone.
The record itself, The Night Is Yours, is another slab of dark heavy psych from these masters, and from the first few seconds, we're hurled into the void: thick, distorted bass, simple, pounding drumming, and wild, shredding, blown out, in-the-red guitar-shred freakout, no preamble, no slow build, just straight into some heart-of-the-the-sun heaviness. The leads do fade out, letting the song breathe a bit, the vibe dialed down a notch, for the echo drenched vocals to drift in, and suddenly, it's like a super distorted, even more blown out Les Rallizes Denudes, and before you know it, that guitar swoops in, and whips the song into a noise drenched Japanoise-psych squall. But as fans know, it's not all freakout, these guys are capable of brooding beauty, which is what the second track offers, a woozy crooning drift, a dark psych ballad, all wreathed in reverb, it's not until the last minute that things get at all heavy, wild vocalizations, swirls of guitar noise, a quick blast, and then right back into the dark chanted creep that began the track. Two of the remaining three tracks are more pretty than heavy, the first, a dreamy bit of sun dappled jangle, that almost sounds more like American slowcore than Japanese psych, the second, a brief bit of dark strum, murky, and haunting, hushed and mysterious. And then right in between, the nearly 16 minute "So Alone", which is ALL noisy and distorted, a churning death march pound, swirls of jagged feedback, arcs of guitarnoise, the guitars grinding and howling, fields of skree and shriek, hurts of face melting buzz and shred, all the while the bass and drums, locked into a churning, doomic pound, the vocals too wild and feral, doused in FX and battling the wild guitarnoise. So good!
And as we mentioned above, we'll only be able to get about 15 copies of this box, and that's IT. So if you want one, order it now. We'll charge you and let you know when it arrives. If you're after the normal version, let us know that too, and we can put you down for one of those, but this listing is specifically for folks who want to nab one of the boxes before they're gone for good.
Like Autechre and Squarepusher, Norway's mysterious Upland (a person? a duo? a group?) offers up the sort of instrumental electronica that in some ways could be seen as the avant-garde player piano music of the 21st century. Upland's densely clicking, stuttering, sputtering geiger-counter frenzies are manipulated into impossibly broken yet pleasing rhythms. These glitchy textures are backed by by ominous synth drone-tones and thick buzzes. Rather noir-ish and quite listenable.
Norway's always-interesting, and stylish, Jester label has provided this with a 16 page cd booklet with no text, just beautiful artwork: scratched up prints of a repeating moon-shape that's a good visual analog for this sort of abstract digital music. It's becoming more and more ridiculous that Jester's releases seemingly only gets distribution in the States via metal outlets, as they've quickly become one of our very favorite labels for electronic, experimental, and even pop (When) music. Most of Jester's releases have only tangental connections to the realm of metal, if any at all. Upland is a case in point. As we said, very much a la Autechre, not Abigor or Abruptum.
Adventurous British "stereo guitar" improviser Gary Smith has recorded with some interesting folks before (Hugh Hopper, Joe Gallivan, Nanjo Asahito, Shoji Hano, Aufgehoben No Process, Lou Ciccotelli, and Rhys Chatham among others) and here he teams up with stellar out-alto saxophonist Masayoshi Urabe to head in a new late-night improv direction. These two long tracks are more about the delicate, sometimes painful, yet beautiful style of Urabe (as evidenced on his recent solo set "Urklang" -- see that review for more words on him) than the noisy fusion jazz-rock of Smith's last few projects. Here Smith and Urabe interact like coughing, sputtering, swooping bats in a dripping cave...I mean, that's kind of what it sounds like if you use your imagination. Silence, sudden violence, shrill harmonica (Urabe), jazzy string-skree (Smith) -- it's all pretty dark and intense though not particularily loud n' heavy, which just makes you listen all that harder to this hard-to-listen-to (in a good way) music.
Latest collection of haunting experimental dronemusic from these aQ faves. Ural Umbo is the duo of Reto Mader (RM74) and Steven Hess (Haptic, Locrian) and here they unfurl another sprawling soundscape of sonic ritual and mysterious atmospheric ambience.
Right from the get go, this is some scary stuff, deep thick swells of distorted chordal thrum, metallic bells struck, the sound allowed to gradually seep into the the surrounding buzz, the tension constantly building, the sonic energy gaining momentum as the track progresses, more and more layers, the sound thickening and expanding, getting louder and heavier and more intense, gradually making the shift from hushed low end drift to near caustic blackened noisescape, building to a furious black crescendo, before quickly fading back into a shadowy shimmer. And that's just the first track.
Needless to say dronelords and heavy minimalists are gonna want to dig way deeper into Illusion Of Hope. Each of the tracks here playing out like some sort of blurred message for the other side, delivered via arcane ritual, the messages scrawled in black blood, occasionally splintering into lurching distorted rhythms, blown out and blackened, other times, expanding into glimmering driftscapes, laced with gurgling demonic voices and tinkling chimes, and still other times transforming gradually into strange buzz drenched percussive ceremonies, the sort of thing that would definitely appeal to fans of SUNNO))) and Aun and other slow and low audio minimalists/alchemists. The B side offers more of the same, a series of greydusted drones and grinding blackbuzz liturgies, ancient sonic rites rendered in crushing percussive pummel and wheezing organ drones, moaning horns and skittery rhythmic fragments, delicate crystalline drifts and dense effects doused dirges.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. Super striking cover art, pressed on clear vinyl, and also includes a cd version of the record.
Here's the the vinyl debut from this eerie experimental drone duo, their second album after a cd on Utech. Last list, you may recall, we had a record by Cleared, featuring Stephen Hess of Haptic, On, and Locrian. He's 1/2 of Ural Umbo as well. The other half is Reto Mader, best known to AQ customers for his excellent Utech release as RM74. Together, these two utilize a variety of instruments and electronics (bass, organ, synth, kalimba, tapes, bowed cymbals, percussion, chimes, etc.) to conjure up (or rather, carefully construct) a powerful selection of detailed, dense "nebulous post doom" soundscapes, both amorphous and atmospheric, thick and physical. Yet their heavy drones, however ominous, are soft around the edges, and seem to be lit by a glow from within. 'Tis often more dreamlike than nightmarish, although with an active imagination the listener could find themselves growing frightened, as one wonders not so much about the music itself, than about the darkened spaces beyond it.
Aptly titled Fog Tapes, and not just because it was recorded to analog tape, this record conjures layers of blurry, obscured images in the mind's eye. Nothing fully ever comes into focus, these half-developed images superimposed and fading from one curious scene to the next. At times it sounds like the vibrations that might still lingering in the air in the aftermath of an occult ritual, by an assembly of robed monks conducting arcane, abstract rites. Or maybe it's the sounds of the rites themselves, isolated, slowed down, ghostly, heard through a gauzy veil, dimmed and distant. Ural Umbo's gentle echoes, crackling distortion, swelling drones, mysterious clattering, indistinct voices, and other manifestations, can be quietly creepy, or massively grinding, but at the same time seem mystically serene if you give yourself over to it - possibly psychologically disturbing otherwise. At its heaviest, on tracks like "The Mediums Feed", this should appeal to fans of SUNNO))) and Aun, but also bears comparison to some stuff by Steven R. Smith, and many of the haunting soundscapey things specialized in by labels like Miasmah, and Utech - in fact, this puts us in mind of the "black metal Taj Mahal Travellers" comment we made regarding Utech's Tetragrammaton release.
A quite excellent 8 tracks, 44 minutes! Swiss import, limited edition. Nice silver-printed sleeve, with fold-out poster enclosed.
The latest from this mysterious dronemusic duo comes courtesy of Oakland label Merz Tapes, and finds Steven Hess (Locrian, Haptic) and Reto Mader (RM74) once again, crafting haunting, cinematic black ambience that sounds like the score for some bleak futuristic dystopian sci-fi noir, or some Satanic strain of twentieth century classical music. Dense roiling rumbles, a tense ominous swirl-scape, peppered with the clang and clatter of abstract percussion, the swells gradually growing more and more intense, until deep resonant pulses surface throughout, a strange heartbeat like throb buried beneath this softly caustic sonic tide, woozy and washed out. A hazy Jeck like arrangement of ebb and flow. Heaving undulations that blur texture and timbre, and create a sound that's extremely physical, emanating a strange sort of dark energy. Soon those black swells are joined by soaring string like sweeps, minor key and melancholy, bringing to mind a more dense and driving Disintegration Loops, haunting cyclical melodies that seem the hover just beneath the roiling swells, the whole thing meant to be a sonic addendum to the awesome Fog Tapes lp on Hinterzimmer.
Soon the swells recede, leaving just a whirring organ thrum, suspended in a field of tinkling chimes and glimmering metallic shimmer, peppered with bits of glitch and hum, malfunctioning electronics, lending an air of some strange ghost in the machine. Until the drums proper come lumbering in, the sound again transforming, this time into some sort of slo-mo abstract minimal doom, the drums a mutant dirge, while all around, the organ warbles, the tinkling chimes, bursts of cymbal crash, streaks off feedback, clanging metal, detuned string plucks, all seem to morph into some sort of alien machine music, the various clangs and clatters gradually coalescing into a heavily reverbed, deliberately plonked piano melody, pounded out on some old broken piano, adding to the feel of decay, the sound lurching and woozy, everything wreathed in soft billows of chordal thrum, and all gradually sinking into a blackened crumbling sonic morass. Intense, but also intensely beautiful.
The flipside is a bit more buzzy and blackened. A thick sprawl of undulating thrum churns over keening melodies drifting in the murk, fragmented voices swirl and shimmer, a sort of chopped and screwed shoegaze doom crawl, the builds and builds to something much noisier, a gristly squall of soaring tones and tangled flurries of riff like distorto-crumble, all over a haze of synth like whorls, the rhythms driving and propulsive, yet somehow simultaneously bleary and blurry and washed out, after a frenzied coda, the sound settles into a placed, near tranquil outro, a gloriously mesmerizing Caretaker-ish stretch of soft focus, cinematic haze.
Beautifully packaged in a swank multiple paneled J-card, and yeah, most likely VERY VERY LIMITED.
Ural Umbo is the duo of Reto Mader (aka RM74, responsible for a more recent cd on Utech we really dug, highlighted last list) and Steven Hess of Haptic! Scary cinematic dark drone stuff with sudden percussion and electronic glitchery. Rattle and hum! Limited to 500 copies, typical handsome Utech packaging, including a b&w nude cover pic on translucent vellum.
The liner notes claim that "no ambient or field recordings were used during the production of this work," making this album, which really does sound like a collection of field recordings, all the more perplexing. So, instead of wandering outside and capturing the sounds of cars whizzing by on a distant highway, Paul Winstanley (the man behind Urban Space Music) painstakingly constructed an artificial sound ecology to appear as if it were the real deal. Ostensibly using white noise generators and a small army of EQ filters, Winstanley's sounds have all of the trappings of a gritty urban din that really does sound like opening a window in any given metropolis around the world and hearing the collective exhaust of hundreds of thousands of automobiles rumbling around the city grid. As a listening experience, it's not too far off from Organum's Vacant Lights (sans the chain dragging and clanking), and it actually works quite well as Winstanley suggests these sounds as an aural complement to any given urban soundscape, in melding with the street noise so commonplace on Valencia Street here in San Francisco. A strange record, but a compelling one. Limited to just 30 copies.
We've been huge fans of Urdog since we first heard them a couple years back. Their shambolic, rambling folky krautrockishness pretty much pushed every weird music button we posess! We raved about both of their full lengths on Secret Eye (one of which is out of print for now) and everyone was so into them we finally managed to track down their first cd-r, which flew out of here and has been out of print ever since. Well, when Andee and Allan were in NYC for CMJ, they ran into one of the Urdogs and he happened to mention that he had a stash of the very last 30 copies of the Urdog demo, we grabbed all of 'em and got 'em here for you, the VERY last copies ever. Here's our review from when we first had this in last September:
Everybody dug the Urdog record we listed a few lists back so when the band got in touch and let us know they had an earlier cd-r, we figured we oughta get that too. And we're glad we did 'cause it's just as good. Another rambling ramshackle collection of propulsive, fuzzed out psychedelic drone / krautrock. Super saturated keyboards, rumbling riffery and tribal drumming. A mix of Jewelled Antler foresty folk, Tarantula Hawk proggy pummel, and lots of druggy psychedelic filigree. Packged in a beautifully silkscreened sleeve with an extensive set of liner notes folded up and pacakged in a little hand stamped envelope. So nice.
"Feedback-laden West Country psychedelic free-noise garage metal" eh? Released by the record label division of druid rock dude Julian Cope's indispensable Head Heritage website? Gotta check that out!! And so we did, and so here it is... Urthona's I Refute It Thus.
The cover of this disc bears a picture of a giant granite outcropping on a remote moor in England, beneath white clouds and a curiously pink sky. These massive, lichen-encrusted rocks have loomed over this particular Dartmoor hilltop for untold ages. If you look closely at this photograph, you'll see the figure of a long-haired man standing amidst the stones, facing the dawning sun, holding an upside down electric guitar, headstock jammed into the earth. Now imagine that his guitar is actually powered up, feeding back, plugged in somehow to the cyclopean stones, themselves both a source of earth-energy and also an obvious visual parallel to a wall of Marshall amplifiers... well, that's just about what the music on this cd sounds like!! Rock, from the rocks. (Except, Urthona use Fender amps not Marshalls... the liner notes also tell us Urthona play Les Paul guitars, and "make frequent use of the Durham Electronics Crazy Horse fuzz pedal", aha.)
There's three long instrumental tracks on this mystic silver disc... beginning with the woozy, vertigo-inducing electric strum and howl of the ten minute "Urthona Cannot Be Destroyed", which sorta sounds like the Dr. Who theme being played on primitive feedback guitar by krautrock hippies Amon Duul... nice. Track two, "The Bright Burst Of Morning" (19:34) is dronier, calmer, yet expectant with doomic potential. And finally, the third track, "Sun And Moon So Heavy" (21:44) does indeed do justice to its title. Waves of deep, grinding, spaced out guitar, so heavy indeed. Blissful at low volumes, vibrationally destructive at louder ones... seriously you need to be carefully turning this disc up! It's certainly heavy, but in an in-the-red atmospheric way that can reward a quiet listen...
The primal sheets of shrieking skree and dense distortion unfurled by Urthona's guitars (multitracked, as it's a one-man-band; Neil Mortimer take a bow) are also intertwined with pretty, folkish melodies, with also brief bouts of hand percussion or field recordings of gurgling waters mixed in... We're put in mind of the gritter moments of Steven R. Smith's Ulaan Khol I. Or perhaps a heavy Keiji Haino session, if he were channelling some cosmic acid-folk concept in his mind's ear. The other Neil (Young) and SUNNO))) could be further comparisons.
This cd comes in a unique eco-friendly tri-fold cardboard sleeve, with card inserts bearing details of art by William Blake and quotations from Walt Whitman and Albert Einstein, amongst other thought-provoking text found here. The photograph of the "Hound Tor" on the front is by J. Cope himself... The packaging, designed by like minded pagan droner and fellow Cope associate, Holy McGrail, is fantastic, except that we have preferred if the cd itself had been given its own paper sleeve. The pocket it sits in, along with the two inserts, isn't snug enough to hold it completely securely, and some minor cosmetic scuffing might occur to the disc's playing surface as a result.
Bah, but that's a minor complaint, and interferes not a whit with our enjoyment of Urthona's glorious shoegazing freeform rural-psych-noise-guitar-drone!! We love this, and a lot of you are sure to, too.
Some seasons have passed, earth energy forces have again gathered, and now we are happy to herald the return of Urthona - aka Neil Mortimer, guitar-wielding Briton from the West Country, a man who channels the pagan spirits of his native land in the way the ancients intended - with massive psychedelic electric guitar/amplifier feedback! Just ask Urthona's sometime accomplice, the archdruid dude himself, Julian Cope, he'll tell you. Or ask us. We've raved about Urthona's "heavy rural sound" over the course of several releases. For this one, Urthona conjures up a storm, seriously, that's the idea - this is a concept album about a historic storm that swept across the southern British Isles in November of 1703, or so we're told (we didn't consult an almanac). Must have been a doozy to deserve this disc, which consists of a single epic track (38 minutes and 3 seconds, no more no less). Don't get the wrong idea - this "storm" is portrayed with a lot of nuance, moments of respite, suspenseful dynamics; it's not a full-on blow-out for the duration. All-instrumental, as always, this begins with the (ominous) calm before the storm, a mix of windy, watery field recording ambience and quietly keening guitar feedbackdrone, slowly building, surging, unfurling, as the storm approaches. Mortimer's carefully collected and edited environmental field recordings lend verisimilitude, concept-wise, but it's how they blend with the howl of his guitar that gives this its amazing power, you hear the wind and rain but also what the imagination can only conceive of as celestial sounds, like sad angels singing wordlessly (don't laugh). 'Tis glorious stuff. Imagine, if you can, a Caspar Brotzmann / Chris Watson collaboration.
Even at about ten or twelve minutes in, the storm hasn't fully struck, in fact, maybe there's a break in the clouds, some sun shining through, but you know that's not going to last... no, but it's another tantalizing and beautiful feedback-sculpted ten minutes or so more, before the drones of Mortimer's guitar and ambient weather recordings truly build into storm-of-the-century proportions, at the tempestuous climax of which Mortimer's abstract axe/amp wrangling (talk about guitar "squall") is further augmented with some "destroyed drumming" (or maybe this is when the drumming really kicks in, it could have been there all along, just buried under / indistinguishable from the distortion). Better batten down the hatches if you haven't already. And then, at the end, feel cathartic peace, the (sonic) storm having washed away all cares. Altogether a lovely experience for those who dig the elements: wind, water, electric guitar.
We're always impressed with the amount of thought and care that Urthona/Mortimer puts in to his music, conceptually and compositionally - and that's carried through with its packaging every time as well. So once again, a super nice physical artifact, the disc coming in a T-shaped four-panel folding sleeve bearing color photos of Mortimer in a red anorak, with his trusty Les Paul, clambering around on WWII era anti-tank defenses on a beach in Dorset. It includes two inserts, a small hand-printed one and a larger, folded one; the latter with b&w photos of stones accompanied by some intriguing quotes.
Time once again, we're honored to announce, that we all are enabled to plug directly into the Earth's own Ur-Drone, 'cause we've got the new album from England's Urthona, psychedelic drone warriors heavily inspired, or even empowered, by the mythic natural landscapes of their rural West Country home, a green and pleasant and pagan land...
Previous Urthona missives have all contained long, epic tracks, but this one takes things further, as it's but one single piece, clocking in at 47 minutes, 59 seconds, conceptually concerned with the "elemental cyclic seasons" and patterns of weather in the Southwest of England. "Super-Heavy Hamoazian Reverie" lives up to its title, and you don't even have to know what "Hamoazian" means (The Hamoaze is a stretch of river in Devon and Cornwall, it turns out). There's field recordings from the area's moors and ancient tors woven into/buried under the hazy, echoing guitar distortion, feedback and assorted electronics of the main Urthona dude/druid Neil Mortimer - whose usual amped up, windswept guitar and synthesizer is augmented by more modular synth from prior Urthona collaborator The Asterism, as well as for the first time on an Urthona recording, drums! Though we feel like we've heard some subtle hand percussion on other Urthonas, before. The drums here, though, are more to the fore, when unleashed - while much of this is droning, drifting drumlessness, when they do start pounding the skins, additional krautrocking power is manifested, and maybe it's no surprise that one of the guest drummers here is longtime Urthona associate Julian Cope, who knows a thing or two about ritualistic rock n' roll. The other two (!) drummers are Mr. E from Cope's band Braindonor, and one Albert Snazz. We're beginning to think of the Boredoms, say circa Super Roots 5. And as always, we'll mention Ulan Khol, Keiji Haino, and maybe Neil Young a la Arc.
Cope you may remember once appeared on a SUNNO))) album, spouting pagan poetry... and while this is all-instrumental (they confine the poetry to the text found on the cd's sleeve and its inserts), Urthona could definitely (again) be compared to a pastoral SUNNO))) of sorts. This album is a sometimes blissful, but often blistering, trip, certainly meant to be played LOUD for full submission/submergence. There's feedbacky frenzies and quieter, calmer stretches too... sometimes The Hamoaze is flowing strongly, water roiling, other times it meanders gently, into an estuary with "strange eddies and weird tides", where you could certainly still slip beneath its placid surface and drown, down among the "conger eels and U-boat nets"... we're quoting here from the text that accompanies the cd, which is packaged, as with previous Urthona releases, in a handsome, eco-friendly cardboard tri-fold sleeve, with lovely photos/art, including two card inserts bearing quotations from William Blake and Fredrick Douglass.
Chuffed to get another gorgeous transmission from the pagan UK dronester known as Urthona! Previously we've enjoyed the heavy organic sounds of his J. Cope approved "shoegazing freeform rural-psych-noise-guitar-drone" via Urthona's I Refute It Thus cd on Head Heritage and Amid Devonia's Alps cd-r on Further. Now he's back, teamed up with a likeminded mysterious entity known as The Asterism, for a cd (not cd-r) on Further called Murmurations. There's two tracks here, "River Severn Bore" clocking in at 24 minutes 20 seconds and the title track, a mere 19 minutes 50 seconds... about what we'd expect, epics! Both pieces are titled after natural phenomena that even though admitting of scientific explanation, still may appear mystically significant even to modern day observers.
"River Severn Bore" refers to an unusually high wave that in ancient days inspired legends, "Murmurations" are what vast swirling swooping flocks of starlings are called, as they dance in the air, seemingly synchronized in their movements. Both titles make for excellent inspirations for the sonics here, Urthona and The Asterism's amped up guitars building buzzing drones massive enough to match such awesome spectacles, with their own field recordings captured on hikes in the English countryside mixed in perfectly, the electronic fuzz eventually morphing into a wash of rain/water sounds at the end of "River Severn Bore" ferinstance. That's the denser/darker of the two pieces, throbbing thickly, grinding drones licked with feedback, SUNNO))) and Boris fans should bow down... "Murmurations" is heavy too, but as befits its subject, displays more agile, active movement, sounding somehow exotic and raga-like, with delicate high-end shimmer from guitars and amps echoing the cries of birds from the field recordings that are also present in the mix, as is, we think, some gentle percussion... it falls somewhere between James Blackshaw and Bong, perhaps. Quite lovely -and- fuzzy.
Packaging is again a trifold "eco-wallet" affair, recycled cardstock, vegetable based inks, these fellows nature worship taken pretty seriously, in more than just the music...
Always thought this band was called The Usaisamonster, one word like that, but on the cover of this there's spaces between the words, The Usa Is A Monster. In interest of being consistent in our catalog, though, we're gonna continue to run 'em together. And either way, it's a damn good, unfortunately true, bold-statement kind of name, perfectly matched to the radical political attitudes expressed in the songs of this weird Brooklyn art-spazz-core-folk duo. We've been fans of these guys since they first brought us a bunch of self-released cd-rs and LPs some years back, and really really loved their previous Load release, 2003's Tasheyana Compost. The brand new Wohaw, which unleashes more of their rather unique blend of prog, punk and folk, has a similar appeal. It's a bit like a weird combination of Lightning Bolt and Robbie Basho! Herky jerky heaviness (with the 'Bolt's brand of bug zapper distortion) meets what could be traditional folk songs. Children's folk songs even. And there's a definite Native American Indian obsession/appropriation still going on here as well. This is the kind of band that uses big amps and a gizillion effects pedals, but also likes to take off their shirts to play flutes and hand drums (as pictured on one side of the folding cd-insert). Partway through, this album maybe loses some steam for us, going a bit too far in the acoustic-folk direction (something their singing ability can't quite support, to be honest). Suddenly it's campfire sounds and poetry, with nothing electric to be heard. But when they're doing the unique Usaisamonster hybridization of folk and noisecore that we prefer, this is fantastic. Definitely check this out if Lightning Bolt, Deerhoof, Amps For Christ, and/or Thrones are bands you're into, as something about this reminds us of all of them.
Remember The User from their Symphony for Dot Matrix Printers releases? They're the Quebec-based duo that made some amazing, techno-ish music simply by programming the output of a bunch of old printers! Now they've got another idea...
Sonically, this is all about very nice, drifting, almost melodic, but very physical drones. Rising and falling, hovering, hypnotic. Conceptually, this is the sound of The User "playing" an abandoned grain elevator building in Montreal. That large resonating space (capacity five million bushels of wheat!) is an empty environment for them to set up electroacoustic feedback loops, resulting in these rumbling drones. There's some knocking about, like echoes of the activity that once took place in the building -- should we call this music "agricultural" as opposed to "industrial"? Mostly, though, these vibrating frequencies are absent any obvious source. This could be computer music, or one of Toshiya Tsunoda's field recordings of the air in a bottle... Very different from the dot matrix symphony concept for sure, and very beautiful.
This silo performance is apparently only the first in a series to be recorded at the site, under the auspices of an organization called Silophone. More info to be had at www.silophone.net...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Yes, just what it says. Twelve ordinary office dot-matrix printers printing ASCII files from twelve computers, networked to a server (the symphony's "conductor") indeed create a rhythmic "symphony" of familiar buzzing/clacking sounds. That conceptual gimmick alone might make this worthwhile, but better still, the vaguely techno/electronica styled music is pretty cool regardless of the unusual source. Pretty neat.
The User's Symphony #1 For Dot Matrix Printers was released as a little 3" cd on the Staalplaat label back in 1999, and this longer follow up is (again) just what you'd expect: a bunch of standard, now rather obsolete, dot matrix computer printers running through a server (the "conductor"), set up to "make music" by printing synchonized ASCII files prepared by The User (Montreal duo Emmanuel Madan and Thomas Macintosh). It's kind of like a player piano music idea applied to ordinary office equipment. The resulting sounds make for some very satisfying, rhythmic, clicking and clacking "electronica" / "minimal techno" music (a la Raster Noton stuff like Noto). Or is this meant as a satiric commentary on such music? Regardless it's good listening. It's especially neat when you have it playing and you forget what you're listening to, your brain placing it in the catagory of "ambient background noise" (the usual fate of printer sounds) even though you probably don't have any dot matrix printers around...and then you gradually notice these mundane noises coalescing into music and you realize it's The User.
It's been a while since I've listened to The User's first Dot Matrix Symphony, but this one seems a bit more musically sophisticated, although the conceptual gimmick (a cool one) remains, obviously, the same. For their next project, though, we're told The User will be documenting sounds from their Silophone, a sound installation in an abandoned grain silo that can be accessed to the public through the internet.
FINALLY, the long awaited follow up to Usputuspud's "Liturgical Alcoholik", the side project of the mighty Wildildlife's, and Aquarius' own, Matthew J. Rogers. It actually hasn't been that long, but the otherworldly allure of his first tape had more than a few of us wondering where he would go next. With his new tape, Disco, gone is the delicate, breathy, gauzy, and windy washes of harmonica, replaced by much more muscular and present tones, as well as an entirely new commitment to rhythm. Anyone who has enjoyed the last couple Astral Social Club releases will be pleasantly surprised by this tape, as it has a similar angle on club music, but stretches the palette elsewhere. Where ASC has employed a program of smooth digital disorientation, Usputuspud invigorates the 4/4 dance tradition with incredibly warm, tapey washes of distorted harmonica, accented by the skitter and sputter of rhythmic clusters careening through the mix.
The A-Side, "Cherished Wig," begins with a spare collection of dubby rhythmic ingredients, all persistently staking their claim to the track, before the 4/4 beat and harmonica washes flood the stage. As the track progresses the harmonica builds and bleeds through the entire spectrum of the track, resulting in a droney bedlam of bleary eyed tones, wandering the far reaches of the red. The b-side, "Fetish Ball", begins with an amazing and infectious loop of what sounds like a heavily distorted gamelan instrument. It's an entirely globular and bulging phrase, occasionally giving way to warm waves of distortion and losing its phase, but then coming back with buoyant and propulsive revolutions. In the loop's periphery Usputuspud accents the rhythms with surging bass tones, and watery percussive paddling sounds. As the song progresses, the variety and intensity of peripheral sounds grow, to include exalted vocal howling, and more established percussive counterpoint. The track ends with a fantastic and surprising coda that employs a more diverse array of tones, and a production approach that removes the distorted obfuscations from his sometimes belied interest in dance music. "Disco," is a nuanced affair, finding a soft spot between the ethereal drone of his previous work, and the uhhh... post-proto-motorik gabber he has infused it with! The results are mesmerizing, and recommended indeed. And to boot, it may be the most handsomely packaged tape we've received this year, with a beautiful layout, accented by vintage black-ink stamps, and some seriously decorative hole punching.
Our very own mailorder underlord Matt just got back from a month long US tour with his band Wildildlife, hope you got to catch them live. We grabbed a bunch of this tape that Matt was selling on tour, a recording of his solo project, the bizarrely titled Usputuspud. When he's not shirtless and flailing wildly on stage with a bloodied and battered guitar, he's apparently holed up in a dark corner of some basement with some tapes, a 4 track, a different guitar and a harmonica (!). That's right, harmonica. But fear not, these aren't a bunch of back porch blues jams, this is some seriously dark and droney ambience. Deep resonant swells, drift and shimmer, melodies are pulled apart, the constituent notes allowed to float freely along the mysterious black tide, dramatic, melodic and strangely cinematic, you can almost imagine some vocalist like Nick Cave, crooning over the top, some hellish end of the world balladeering. Mysterious and mystical, a muted mumbly soundscape of rumble and shimmer, a gauzy low end smear, through which all sorts of subtle sonic colorings are visible, everything druggy and subtly psychedelic, an ominous creeping crawl into some dark pit of sound, glowing red, lit from below by some mysterious fire below. Essential for fans of all things slow and low, but wouldn't be entirely out of place in your tape case, next to your Yellow Swans, Skaters and Quetzolcoatl cassettes...
Don't even try pronouncing this band's name. Just sit back, relax and let the murky tones send you into a cosmic nightmare, where fried-out Afro-beats meet mind melting droney destruction. Sound too awesome to be true? We thought so too. Solo project of Matthew Rogers, member of the heavy hitting Wildildlife (and former aQ employee!!), Live In The Shit is the latest live recording from Upsputspud, and it's a warm engulfing wave of fucked up bliss. Side A begins with a slow building wall of harsh, New Agey drones, kinda reminding us of taking a Cocteau Twins intro and sending it through all kinds of analog fuzziness and delay. A subtle rhythm creeps up from from the hazy horizon, a hypnotic pulse turning and melting into pools of cosmic dust. Usputuspud emits a sound solely its own, lo-fi astral loops soaked in layers of dirt and fuzz, like a more damaged and lo-fi Zomes (if you can even imagine). Side B starts things running, layers of epic harmonica growing louder and louder until some low end crumble begins to eat away at the tape itself. Drugged out psychedelic filth, soaked in radiation and neon face paint, left out in the desert to dry. Imagine a more mysterious and epic sounding Monopoly Star Child Searchers, then thrown in a dash of rhythmic weirdness, and you have Live In The Shit. Limited to 80 tapes in a cryptic xeroxed insert, these will go fast, so don't be left in the dust on this one!
Another blast of frosty grim blackness from the always reliable Paradigms label. In the past, they've brought us the drone dirge of Hjarnidaudi (an AQ Record Of The Week), the chamber gloom of Amber Asylum, the cult black metal of Throne Of Katarsis, the druggy prog of Blueprint Human Being, and now two new releases, a slow motion dirge metal epic from The Angelic Process (reviewed elsewhere on this list) and this, the debut (as far as we can tell) from Canadian black metal warriors Utlagr. This is epic, classic, Scandanavian style black metal, very much in the spirit of Immortal, Satyricon and Mayhem, and while Utlagr may not be Scandanavian, their roots most certainly are, as evidenced by this blackened tribute to their Pagan heritage, in honor of Rolfr Utlagr, founder of Normandy, their ancestral homeland. They may in fact be from Canada in the year 2006, but eyes closed they could be from Norway circa 1995! Whirling winter winds blow an ill wind from the North, while melancholy acoustic guitars, offer up lilting melancholia, before being obliterated by a burst of blasting Pagan brutality. Six tracks of buzzing majesty, blasting beats, gloriously epic melodies, all wrapped up in a thunderous swirl of dense and grim, furiously foresty classic cult black metal might!
Limited to 750 copies, packaged in a mini lp style sleeve wrapped in a hand stamped brown paper outer sleeve.
For every band that manages a record every few months, there are bands who we like just as much, but who we don't hear from nearly enough. Such is the case with Finnish combo Uton. In the space of time it takes for us to get a new record from these guys, a band like Circle spit out 2 or 3 (even more if you count side projects). But with Uton it's well worth the wait.
Alitaju is another epic expanse of mysterious murk and long form ambience. A dizzying mix of Finnish free folk, and haunting dark ambience. Uton's sound is always both massive and cavernous, as well as intimate and highly detailed. This record is no different. Uton drags us along on a strange and wondrous journey through long muddy swirls of muted melody and wide open stretches of indistinct blur and shadow, almost festive percussion jams draped over wheezing accordions and distorted feedback, all wrapped in foggy swirls of fuzz, chaotic free jazz freakouts with mad drumming, and wildly fluttering flutes, and all stops in between.
The long tracks here tend to be slow moving glacial crawls, with all the instruments smeared into one blurry whole, a drifting stretch of warm muted soft sound, that just sort of envelops you with it's haunting mystery and dense creeping beauty, those tracks separated by the more rhythmic passages, almost like a rise in the road,where the fog clears and you can see for miles into the distance, before you dip back down under cover of the grey clouds and billowing fog. As always, gorgeous and mysterious.
Latest missive from these Finnish forest freaks, who continue to churn out, utterly mesmerizing otherworldly murk, every record as weird and wonderful as the last.
Background For Silence is two tracks, nearly fifty minutes, of Uton at their most subtle and understated, a muddy ambient swirl of sound, simple strummed guitars smeared into streaks of grey and brown, draped over a strange mechanical whirring, the sounds eventually blending into a warm droning shimmer, while over the top drift little crackles of feedback, crumbling clatter, various creaks and thumps, and barely audible voices. None of those extraneous sounds detract from the static mesmer though, with the drone eventually taking on more of an electronic vibe, with the guitar and whir being joined by layers of static and glitchy hiss, all blurred into a single slow shifting expanse of dark ambience.
The second track is even more minimal, with the same sound somehow muted into a mumbled low end drift, while a minimal melody is played out over the top by an oscillating tone that buzzes in and out like a tiny swarm of electronic insects. Before too long however, the track becomes more lively, as the sound expands to include bits of clatter, chimes and percussion, low end guitar thrum, wheezing keyboard, skronking horns, fluttering flutes, bits of FX and processed voices, the sound becoming distinctly more 'free folk' than strictly dreamy and droney.
Packaged in a full color sleeve, with printed inner insert, and sealed with a piece of twine.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!! We got a handful and they will probably go fast...
It seems like in every Uton review, we inevitably mention both that they are mysterious, and that we don't get nearly enough music from them. And once again, it's been a while since we've heard from these mysterious Finnish forest freaks, who definitely rank way up their in our Finnish music pantheon, and the fact that their record seem to be rare occasions only makes us treasure them more.
This latest was in fact recorded two years ago, on a 4 track using only headphones as speakers ("no other speakers were used during recordings and mixing of this record", the liner notes proudly explain). It's also suggested that we "listen near midnight in a dark room (or with minimal light)" which is always good advice when it comes to Uton, whose music is haunting and ritualistic, and most definitely evokes some sort of nocturnal gathering, especially here, where processed voices chant over fluttering flutes and minimal percussion. Swirling squelchy effects drift in fields of deep sonorous rumbles and whirs, manufactured field recordings surround layers of malfunctioning synths, and dreamy melodic cacophonies, and lush swirling swaths of deep low end, this new record darkly restrained, meditative and hypnotic, heavy on the vocal driven drones and subterranean shimmer, with some almost throat singing woven into the woozy whirling thrum, everything driven by murky pulses and buried rhythms, might be the darkest, dreamiest Uton yet, and as always, WAY recommended. LIMITED TO 275 COPIES!!
These last few weeks we've been trying to get a bunch of kick ass cd's and cd-r's reviewed for no other reason than they have been sitting here way too long, when they should be spinning in someone's stereo or jammed into someone's iPod.
It's been a while, almost a year actually, since we last reviewed something by Finnish freedrone combo Uton, not counting these two discs that have been sitting here forever! Not because they're not great, they are actually, just because we dropped the ball. Anyway, these were both super limited, so odds are once we sell out of the small clutch we have of each, we won't be able to get more, so if these tickle your fancy, and hard to imagine they wouldn't, you better be quick.
Ground's Dream Cosmic Love, released on Students of Decay way back in 2006, is most definitely out of print, limited to only 100 copies or so, which means these are definitely the last ever. A single 45 minute long track, about as murky and muddy and mysterious as these guys get, glistening melodies hover wraithlike, beneath a constant warm low end rumble, washed out and whirring endlessly, it's like the sound of surf, the rumble of rain on rooftops, the vibrations of a passing train, thunder, the vibrations of a busy overpass, all melted down into a swirling black morass, a black pool of sound that seems to ripple subtle with various effects and buried sonic events. A seriously dense sprawl, like being buried alive in a concrete bunker and listening to the world above ground, or floating weightless on the ocean's floor, listening to huge tankers rumble by, a dense and gorgeous slab of ultra minimal dronemusic, rife with subtleties that most definitely reward close listening.
Again, this one is WAY out of print, so go for it, but steel yourself for some disappointment.
Quite possibly the most haunting and lovely record yet from these mysterious Finnish free drone explorers. While on other records, Uton have dabbled in more cacophonous noise rock and clattery free folk, Highway Nation is purely a dreamy drone record, deep, dark and utterly sublime. Each track a mysterious sonic drift through a slow shifting soundscape of barely shifting shimmer, Like sitting on a mist enshrouded mountain top, watching a huge freighter drift by, way out at sea, the churning sound of the water, and the thrum of the freighter's engines reduced to a murky murmur. Elsewhere, bits of bowed metal spread out into glistening sheets of upper register whir, dense with subtle overtones and buried melodies. So serene and delicate, abstract and ethereal. The sort of perfect ambient dronemusic that should most definitely appeal to fans of Coleclough, Chalk, Wright (Peter AND Nigel), Mirror, Seht, and similar minded sound sculptors...
SUPER LIMITED. Already out of print at the label. We have 20 copies, once those are gone, they are gone forever...
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Attention FINNISH music FREEKS!!! Maybe most Finnish bands are crazy prolific, but one of our favorites keeps a much lower profile, the mighty Uton. It's been a little while since we heard from these guys, but as always, well worth the wait. Expansive and abstract, Uton create baffling alien universes of sound, minimal, but somehow dense and alive. Here's it's distant skree and mysterious scrapes, hissy clouds of static, reverb drenched melodies sent careening into the black void, rhythmic crunch and deep cavernous swells, subtle rumblings and washed out ambience. Gorgeous and haunting, creepy and amazing, of all the Finnish groups, we're still a little surprised that more folks aren't freaking out more about these guys.�
As if that weren't enough, the flipside is just the A side in reverse, a glorious gorgeous dizzying warbly backwards world of sound, and you know how much we love backwards sound!! Way recommended.�
Gorgeously packaged, gold metallic ink on platinum vellum paper. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES.
Part of the problem with having so many things to review and not nearly enough time, is that every once in a while certain things will slip through the cracks over and over again, until suddenly it's been a month, 6 months, even a year. With cd-r's it's an even bigger problem since they are often so limited that we might only have one chance to get all the copies we need, but even having procured those copies, that record might not get reviewed for ages.
These last few weeks we've been trying to get a bunch of kick ass cd's and cd-r's reviewed for no other reason than they have been sitting here way too long, when they should be spinning in someone's stereo or jammed into someone's iPod.
It's been a while, almost a year actually, since we last reviewed something by Finnish freedrone combo Uton, not counting these two discs that have been sitting here forever! Not because they're not great, they are actually, just because we dropped the ball. Anyway, these were both super limited, so odds are once we sell out of the small clutch we have of each, we won't be able to get more, so if these tickle your fancy, and hard to imagine they wouldn't, you better be quick.
Mystery Revolution is in fact a real cd, released on Digitalis last year, and comes in a gorgeous embossed black and metallic gold sleeve, very austere and mysterious, much like the sounds inside. Uton more often than not remind us of a slightly more twisted, definitely more druggy, and way less minimal Jewelled Antler. They weave dark brooding soundscapes, peppered with hum and whir, crackle and hum, the melodies are off kilter and atonal, piano drifts in and out, sounds are scraped and stretched, everything seems to be nestled in warm drifts and shimmery drones, woodwinds flit and flutter, field recordings (or faux field recordings) drift in and out, organs and harmoniums wheeze out warbly textures, childlike melodies are draped over strange rumbles and jagged shards of crunch and clatter, the sounds of music boxes tangle with whistling winds and warm swells, it's a fantastic and wondrous sonic journey as always.
And again, be warned, there is a good chance this is out of print, so if you want one, grab it fast!
From the wilds of Finland, via the wilds of New Zealand, comes this burbling cauldron of pagan-free-folk-noise from the mysterious outfit known as Uton. Jewelled Antler released a three inch cd a while back, but this full length really allows Uton to do what they do best, spread waaaaay out, and unfurl a thick spiky carpet of jangle and shimmer, amplifier grit and instrument buzz, clumsy primitive percussion, and creepy ambience. Finnophiles are probably already hip to these guys, but for all of you into No Neck, Thuja, Sunburned Hand and all things drone-y and Krautrocky, check this out!
