If nothing else, Keith Fullerton Whitman is a connoisseur of adventurous electronic music from the cryptic and the academic to the low-brow and the demonic. It should come as no surprise that his compositional work has long been revered around these parts, as it hinges upon the expansions, investigations, and meditations of the huge history of electronic music that Whitman has at his disposal. Way back when, Whitman revved up the BPMs on his headfucking drill-n-bass cover of Pink Floyd's "Cirrus Minor" recording as Hrvatski; and we were hooked. Since then, citations of Terry Riley's tape delay machinations or Alvin Lucier's electro-acoustic strategies might emerge within Whitman's repertoire, but as with that hyper-kinetic version or Pink Floyd, he always takes those references somewhere totally different and unexpected.
This album features one such citation, as Whitman pays homage to the awe-inspiring minimalism of Eliane Radigue on one of these two tracks released by another stalwart of adventurous electronic music, Editions Mego. Both are variations on his mutable "Generator" series, which is based on a generative system of digital and analogue modular synths. The general principles of the system seem to deal with the errata and unpredictability from the overlapping routing systems Whitman has set up through his electronics. On "Issue Generator, For Eliane Radigue," Whitman opens with a harmonic drone worthy of Radigue's long-form compositions for her beloved Arp synth; but gradually, the drone fractures into spiralling sequences and incrementally shifting patterns. A few of those patterns resurface on "High Zero Generator" - or at least elements which cycle through similar routing systems - but these are bookended by claustrophobic crunches of electricity into stress-fracturing noises, blorps, and tactile gurgles. The sound has the feel of a high-modernist piece of classic computer music, although Whitman renders this piece (and the first) in real-time. Nicely done!
Solo guitar work from Keith Fullerton Whitman, using the laptop glitch parameters of his laptop as more of an effects box than the instrument itself. Artful and restrained solitary notes that sound much more like Loren Mazzacane Connors and very very far from his Hrvatski persona of fractured drum 'n' bass electronica.
A few years back, Keith Fullerton Whitman wowed the students of the Harvard University Studio for Electro-Acoustic Composition with a few workshops that demonstrated his wizardry with the Max/MSP computing language. In exchange, he got access to the University's collection of antique synthesizers including the Buchla Music Box and Serge Modular Prototype with their massive banks of patch bays, knobs, and toggle switches. The images of these devices which grace the album artwork in taxonomic presentation immediate provide a cold, tonal air of paranoiac, bunker aesthetic that out of the early history of institutionally funded electronic music (i.e. Xenakis, Ussachevsky, Eliane Radigue, Arne Nordheim, etc.). Multiples far exceeds whatever expectations one might have when gazing upon the covers, as Whitman once again argues his case as one of the most gifted electronic musicians of the contemporary era. Each of the tracks honestly profess their source material as 'stereo music for acoustic, electric, and electronic instruments' including those aforementioned electronic devices from Harvard as well far more commonplace instruments such as a hi-hat cymbal, a drum kit, and acoustic and electric guitars. The album opens with glacial timbres that emerge from that hi-hat which Whitman transforms into a Mirror-like dronescape of murk, fog, and mystery. Next, the Serge Modular Synth buzzes with complex saw-blade waveforms of agitated electricity, phase pattern sweepings, and post-Dockstader pointilist spectroscopy. Harkening back to his early work with tape delay and guitar repetition, Whitman's work with a Yamaha Disklavier Prototype is sublime in its hypnotic prowess echoed with a lingering sense of melancholia. Whitman then shifts to a wonderful recreation of the vintage organ 'n' drum sound from Swedish icons Hansson and Karlsson, with baroque shifts in melody upon a simple drum propulsion. Altogether, Multiples showcases the many personalities of Mr. Whitman for a marvellous album!
- MPEG stream: 4).
- MPEG stream: 5).
- MPEG stream: 6).
This burly bearded electronic wizard releases yet another jawdropping dose of "real time music for hybrid digital-analogue modular synthesizer" that Whitman posits as the companion piece to the recently released Editions Mego album Generator. His set-up presumably is similar to what was found in the Generator album in attempting to coax and wrangle strains of errata from his highly complex networks of re-engineered synth circuits through overlapping digital algorithms and systems. Whitman also pegs this as the 'free jazz' counterpoint to the 'minimalist' strains of Generator. That seems just about right. There are plenty of dance / anti-dance notions within the electronic patterns and subsequent deconstructions that come out of Whitman's polydactyl blorping, with grooves evolving out of sequential firings of scattershot electronic bleeps only to trip over themselves and stumble into a tangle of fizzing tone, radiant atom smashing, discombobulated delirium, and plate reverb bath simulation. The sporadic sequential bursts from a machine sourced drum kick and some electronic source that could be thought of mimetically as a flapping bassline (yup, think a cyborg version of Jaco Pastorius) and the free jazz references start to seem not too far of a stretch. It's a manic, frenzied, and totally uncompromising album from a very skilled electronic artist going fucking nuts. Oh, we played this at the wrong speed too the first time, and it sounds pretty wicked at 33rpm. Two albums for the price of one, eh? ----* ----* Selected New Arrivals : ----*
Of the aesthetic subset of guitarists-who-plug-into-their-laptops-to-drone, Keith Fullerton Whitman has certainly established himself at the top of the mountain above Rafael Toral and Oren Ambarchi, with only a handful of recordings including last year's "21:30 For Acoustic Guitar" cd-ep and this "Playthroughs" album. Like many of his fellow six-string code slingers, Whitman cites '60s Minimalism as the formal precedent and influence upon his guitarscapes (in particular Steve Reich's "Piano Phases" and Terry Riley's Time Lag Accumulator found on "You're No Good" and "Poppy Nogood"); yet Whitman elevates the references to Riley and Reich beyond the flourishes of intellectual ornamentation, through a superior compositional prowess with a restricted monochromatic palette and a sparing but effective use of digital glitch effects. Instead of dissolving the guitar into a mass of digitally corroded noise, Whitman carefully extracts specific tones and timbres from the guitar and stretches them out into Charlemagne Palestine like organ chords (how Keith turns a guitar into a church organ is beyond me, but it's spectacular!) or into beautifully aerosolized mists of suspended particles. Weightless, hypnotic, and ultimately majestic, "Playthroughs" is such a strong album that it is a little hard to believe that such droning ambience could come from the same individual who's responsible for the fractured drill 'n' bass of Hrvatski.
Keith Fullerton Whitman has been globetrotting over the past couple years, presenting his Max/MSP patch wizardry at pretty much every major electronic music festival, venue, and institution that the world has to offer. The self-evidently titled Recorded In Lisbon found Whitman returning to an old infatuation with '60s minimalist / process oriented strategies like the sort found in Alvin Lucier's strongest work, as Whitman situated a feedback system of speakers, fm receivers, and speakers at Galeria Ze Dos Bois. In turn he augmented this system with recordings of "static sine-tone harmonics, squared-off electric guitar haze, clangorous room-tone eruptions, and high-end synth freakouts," to quote Hrvatski himself. From the onset of this album, Whitman introduces pristine tones with all of the timbral clarity of bells and church organs, which he slowly circulated into a sonic architecture of revolving chirps and stately loops. There's plenty of similarities between these sounds and the weightless particles which comprised his acclaimed Playthroughs album from a few years back; but a heavier set of low end pulses stochastically as a bass counterpoint but not really as a rhythmic structure. Eventually, sweeping siren tones broach the celestial minimalism amidst a cloud of pixelated glitches. The single track gradually extends to an amazing crescendo of jagged saw-tooth pink noise slowly cycling through a plainsong melody for the 21st Century. As the melody falls apart in a ring-modulated freefall of tape deceleration, Whitman concludes the album with a skitter of percussive blows and granular synthesis. Immaculate.
Keith Fullerton Whitman made his way down to Australia in early 2006, showcasing his DSP-folklore collision of pastorally painted ambience, jump-cut drill 'n' bass rhythms, electronic esoterica, and a knack for Swedish prog riffs just for kicks. As a treat for his Antipodean audience, Whitman composed a piece which reworked an older track which clocked in at 10:32, doubling it to 21:04 and also re-composing the source material to be what Whitman qualifies as "bi-directional, meaning that it plays the same forwards as backwards," in other words, a palindrome (and what a fun word that is!). This plaintive reworking of drone-poetry for drifting bass rattle, rounded percolations of modular tone, and whisps of timbral trickery would have been a tour-only cd had it not been for Lawrence English convincing Whitman to release it through his Room 40 imprint. An elegant and thoughtful abstraction of digital post-ambience that more than lives up to the high standards of Whitman's previous albums!
Back in 2002, Keith Fullerton Whitman and Greg Davis stopped by Aquarius during their cross-country tour to do an instore performance. If memory serves us correctly, Keith had just had his laptop stolen and was working off of a brand-spankin' new PowerBook. Unfortunately, he hadn't worked out all of the bugs as his machine continuously crashed during the performance. Not that anybody in attendance would have noticed, as he never broke his stoic game face and Davis proved to be more than capable of being able to fill in the blank spaces with digital splutter and post-Mego pixelated abstraction. Alas, none of the material from the Aquarius instore made their way onto this condensation of a year's worth of live laptop improvisations. From that year's worth of performances in New York, Cologne, Utrecht, San Francisco, Marsailles, etc. Whitman and Davis jitter, jink, and jive with their fizzing digi-chunks of sound that pass through the duo's constant manipulation of Max/MSP patches from source material that includes twinkling bells, deep gongs, erratic hammond organs, motorcycle engine blasts, metallic scrapes, etc.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We first discovered French electro-grind-metal-psych-whatthefuck duo Whourkr a year or two back when we got their debut record, Naat, which totally blew us away, it sounded like a malfunctioning metal record and a freaked out techno record, all scrambled up together, tangled up and spit out, a skittering, skipping, looped, grinding chunk of electronic metal weirdness. The vocals would howl, but then get processed and looped and would become something else altogether, the drums and guitars were so gnarled and stretched and twisted up, that the band could explode into flurries of rapidfire mathematical grind, way faster and more complex and convoluted than any human could possible play. It was a total headfuck. Like the fastest freakiest grind, made even faster and freakier, but with a little techno thrown in for good measure. Remember the Drum>MachineGun compilation, of insane drum machine driven grind? Whourkr makes that stuff sound so so tame in comparison.
We tried and tried to track down copies for the store, but never had any luck, and then we heard that Crucial Blast would be releasing the NEW Whourkr, so we waited and waited, and now it's finally here, and it's totally different than the first one (or at least how we remember the first one), way poppier and more melodic, like the band are now actually composing songs instead of throwing all the sounds in a blender to see what comes out (not that we don't dig that too!), it's way poppier, catchier, but still totally and utterly freaked out and glitchy and fucked up beyond belief.
Chugging guitars and shrieked vox are chopped and spliced into a hyperspeed deathmetal Melt Banana, all the sounds constantly shifting, the tempo changing, the rhythms colliding and hiccuping, occasionally coalescing into full on grooves, other times splintering into bursts of electronic freakouts, and there are serious hooks happening too, it doesn't seem possible that music like this could be listenable, let alone catchy, but it is. Big time. We'll be the first to admit, that the other Whourkr record was difficult listening, brutal and to many ears annoying, and yeah, the same might be said for Concrete as well, but the band are so much better now, in terms of composition and songwriting, that once you're immersed in their fucked up and freaked out soundworld, it becomes surprisingly easy to acclimate to the rapidly and constantly shifting sounds and rhythms, in order to enjoy the songs themselves. Plus the vocals seem to play a much larger role, not just howls and shrieks, there are plenty of clean vox, soaring almost operatic, low AND high, wrapped around frenzied riffing, wound up into spiralling psychedelic freakouts, or like the instruments, chopped into crazed stutterscapes.
Take the track "Santo", with its deep crooned vox and acoustic guitars, sounding almost like Circle, the electronic effects very subtle at first, before the track lurches into full on doom, the voices and guitars just slightly glitched, eventually giving way to gorgeous delicate piano, only to be obliterated by the next track "Skovsnails", a little burst of drums, and a crazy clipped main riff, it almost sounds like some insane DJ remixing Orthrelm, the song stutters and lurches and hiccups, totally frenetic and relentless. The record dips its toes into all sorts of weird sounds, loping moody electronic downtempo, albeit a little fractured, head spinning hyper grind, shot through with unlikely pop hooks, glitched out death metal, soaring slow building post rocky drama, and more Melt Banana-esque grind pop, but nothing here sounds thrown together, or hodge podge, this is a baffling collection of sounds, but one that is meticulously composed, performed and recorded, and for those in the market for something truly demented, insane, extreme and heavy, not to mention out-there, and pretty much entirely unlike anything you've ever heard before, be next to impossibly to top Whourkr. Definite contender for metal record of the year, even though calling it a metal record is selling it WAY short. Regardless, absolutely recommended.
And, for a limited time (next couple of weeks, until February 2nd 2010), we'll be selling this for a special $2 discount off the regular price, which would normally be $13.98.
The ever-changing roster of the impressive ensemble known as The Why Because is graced with numerous music luminaries from around the Bay Area. The line-up for Music shapes, their third release, is a six member crew including folks from Anticon/Lex avant-hoppers Subtle and Themselves. The disc's five lengthy improvised tracks (recorded live back in 2004) explore the far reaches of jazz, postrock, psych/space rock and ambient experimentation. And they incorporate an even broader array of instruments with trumpet, saxophone and percussion taking prominence amid the Fender Rhodes, other keyboards, bass clarinet, guitar, bass and melodica. Music shapes commences with "Fenced Bird Takes Flight" a barren landscape of faintly blown horns and Spartan drumming. This gradually blossoms into a more fleshed out and sprawling journey with many mesmerizing and meditative stretches as well as more kinetic cyclical passages. Check out "Serpentine Tides" and "We Will Fight For The Things That We Love".
Note: This cd is dedicated to member Dax Pierson who was seriously injured in a tour van accident last year. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Dax Recovery Fund.
We had never heard of this NY band before but HOLY SHIT. A serious new contender for sure in the ever expanding world of crushing slow motion ultra doom-dirge-dronemusick. Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, SUNNO))), Skullflower, Khanate, Wolf Eyes, Bunkur, etc. Any of those names get your blood boiling, then WKW just might be your favorite new band.
Flydust is WKW's latest offering, two tracks, both taking up a whole side, each a harrowing black expanse of crumbling, buzzing, churning heaviness. A sprawling, bottomless sea of throbbing, pulsing downtuned lowend buzz, roiling distorted drones, all murky and muddy and smeared into constantly shifting layers and textures, abrasive and chaotic, but washed out into a single heaving organic black expanse. Over the top, a weirdly motorik drumbeat, locked into a neverending rhythm, looped and hypnotic, and over that, super creepy vocals, equal parts death metal gurgle, and tortured anguished howl. The sound is mostly monochromatic, but the sounds shift and the textures transform, moments of melody surface here and there amidst the long stretches of near static blur and buzz, the vocals almost like another instrument, another black layer, all tangled up into an abject, blackened and brutal otherworldly kraut-doom. Harrowing, mesmerizing, buzzing, grinding and blown out, fucked up and abrasive, but simultaneously hypnotic and in its own brutal and punishing way, strangely beautiful.
VINYL ONLY. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Each one has a hand drawn inner sleeve, customized (i.e. scribbled on) by the band, every one unique.
Latest grim black slab of droned out corrosive ultradoomscapery from this East Coast one man band, a nearly 40 minute, two sided, two tracked onslaught of crumbling distortion, pulsing roiling downtuned churn, slo-mo drone-psych riffage, blackened ambient crawl and howling glacial creep, falling somewhere between the all out blacknoise brutality of Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, and the blissed out ur-drone skree of Sunroof!.
The A side is a filthy, crusty monster, but the chug and crush and rumble is infused with thick layered swaths of high end fragmented melodies, siren like pulses, a swirling tangle over a roiling black undercurrent, the strangely melodic bent gives the otherwise harsh noise a strangely orchestral feel, epic and majestic and soaring and sweeping, but still brutal and suffocatingly punishing.
The flipside is much more minimal. Muted and muddy and murky, the guitars blurred into long grimy streaks of industrial whir, blown out and super distorted, but so washed out to be almost transformed completely into a subtly propulsive dronescape, buried in the mix are some actual riffs, even a bit of rhythmic heft, and vocals too, a monstrous barely audible demonic gargle, but all wrapped in a lo-fi haze of crackling, slowly decaying sonic filth. Totally epic and hellish doomdronedirge bliss.
Housed in a super sweet three color silkscreen cover, and LIMITED TO 200 COPIES, 75 which are red, those are the ones we have, and we don't have all that many...
Brand new slab of extreme ultra low end slow motion doom-ed brutality from this NY outfit, whose last few records have left us beaten and bloodied and jonesing for more.
These guys have been around for a while apparently, but we only discovered their beautifully caustic downtuned din last year, with two records, their s/t debut (re-listed elsewhere on this week's update) and their second record Flydust. Both pushed all the right buttons, SUNNO))), Skullflower, Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, Khanate, Bunkur, Moss, just unbelievable heavy and sludgy, blackened and glacial, dripping and oozing with atmosphere, textures and drones, not just run of the mill sludge, or boring, lean-the-guitar-against-the-amp guitardrones, no, this was a band, rocking out full force, albeit insanely slow, and crushingly intense. So here comes record number three, another super limited lp only release, two sidelong tracks, and hell, if it doesn't leave the other two in the dust.
We're listening to it at 33, which sounds perfect, but it sounds pretty bad ass at 45 too, and still slow and sludgey, EVEN at 45, but slower is better, and this is slow and thick and viscous and so so so heavy. All built on a super stripped down bass riff, the bass super distorted and crumbling, unfurling an impossibly slow doom-ic anti-groove, over and over and over, cyclical and hypnotic and trance like, ultra minimal, but in no way boring or simple, just mesmerizing, while all around that riff, the rest of the band fills up whatever empty space is left with, massive sheets of buzz and whir, distorted effects everywhere, layers upon layers, drones and textures, feedback and incidental melodies, all being dragged along in the wake of that main bass riff behemoth. Not sure how they do it, but the sound, beyond heavy, and drone-y, is super musical, and while not quite melodic, there is some melody buried under all that murk and grime, it's like super blown out space rock, slowed down to 3 or 4 rpm, still retaining some of it's blissed out spaciness, but setting it amidst a roiling sea of black sonic tar and creeping, lurching, lumbering heaviness.
The flipside, another side long black drone sludge doom epic, seems to have been birthed out of the same grim black sound hole that produced the first side, the same lugubrious creep, the same grim blackened atmosphere, but here that riff has been pulled apart, whatever black beasts lurk in the shadows has torn it to pieces, leaving just shards and fragments, a swirling churning chaos of dense processed low end, crumbling distortion, deep fractured drones, more atmospheric and ambient than the first side, but just as harsh and hellish and heavy. Imagine building a massive roaring fire, then taking a load of guitars and amps, all plugged in, cranked, and howling and moaning and feeding back, and tossing them into the fire, letting them twist and ooze and smoke, recording the sound of the guitars and amps dying, melting, slowly fusing into one charred blackened heap of blistered and blown out buzz. It's kind of like that.
Awesome packaging too, thick clear plastic sleeves, silkscreened in white, over a red slab of vinyl with no labels, and a printed single panel insert, with three tiny Dore woodcut cards bearing the band's initials. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!
We had never heard of this NY band before but HOLY SHIT. A serious new contender for sure in the ever expanding world of crushing slow motion ultra doom-dirge-dronemusick. Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, SUNNO))), Skullflower, Khanate, Wolf Eyes, Bunkur, etc. Any of those names get your blood boiling, then WKW just might be your favorite new band.
This WKW's self titled debut, and is in some ways even heavier and more blown out than Flydust (reviewed elsewhere on this list). The root sound is similar, a heaving morass of crumbling superdistorted guitars, but where as Flydust is murky and muddy and washed out, the sound here is prickly and cacophonous, abrasive and sort of sharp. The sound is also more propulsive, more distinct riffs, dripping with in-the-red distortion and twisted FX. The opening track is one single ascending riff, looped over and over and over and over, pounding its way through a dense cloud of impossibly thick buzz, the drums a buried plod, the vocals, barely audible through the churning mass of unfurling riffs and a constantly expanding wall of sound. The strange thing is, there is a definite groove lurking underneath, loping and lurching, but groovy nonetheless. Think Godflesh or Pitchshifter mixed with Ramleh and Wolf Eyes, but super charged and revved up, and dipped in a psychedelic concoction of tripped out prismatic psychrock filigree and blown out amp destroying drone drenched doom.
But the second track is a whole different beast altogether, a stretched out slowed down distorted riff, unfurled in slow motion, very reminiscent of Earth 2, but peppered with simple spare drumming, only barely, until about halfway through when the sound is swallowed up but a wall of distorted sound much more like the opening track, and suddenly the sound is transformed into a blown out acid-doused blast of crumbling blacknoise.
The last two tracks offer up more of the same, varying degrees of forward momentum, of spaced out ur-drone, of in-the-red effects, pounding abstract percussion, all draped over near static whitenoise buzz, weird krauty grooves, woozy metallic crawls, pulsing metallic ambience, and heavy heavy hypnotic dirgedoomdronemusick.
The lp is limited to 490 copies, pressed on purple vinyl, the cd is limited to 1000 copies.
It's been ages since we've reviewed anything from aQ beloved soundmaker Simon Wickham-Smith, but A Seventh Persimmon is the perfect way to get reacquainted. Three long tracks, totalling over 60 minutes, all three minimal and delicate, the first mostly piano, gently and barely effected, the notes allowed plenty of time to drift and hover and decay, very Eno-esque for sure, but filtered through that distinctly DIY, underground cd-r filter, adding grit and texture, some lo-fi whir and hiss, to an otherwise gorgeously ephemeral drift. The second track is even more minimal, a symphony of barely there buzz, processed and sculpted into strange abstract shapes, as if W-S composed the track using just the buzz of various household appliances, the fridge, the computer, the heater, all emanating that whispery hiss, but then, strange glitchy almost-vocals surface, burbling up from below, peppering the otherwise microscopic landscape of muted buzz.
The closing track is epic, a tumbling multicolored array of warm glowing tones, underwater textures, tangled dizzying melodies, like a symphony of calliopes playing on the ocean floor, or that first track looped and layered over and over and over, skittery, warped, warbly, woozy, streaks and blurs and smears, processed and looped, shimmering and swooping backwards and forwards, soft focus, a meticulously jumbled bit of underwater psychedelica, nods to Oval for sure, rendered in a slow sifting stasis, a waking dreamstate, where sounds and colors and shapes merge into sweet sweet music.
Yet another earful from Campbell Kneale's always impressive Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label. This double cd-r is a companion of sorts to an earlier Wickham-Smith release, Twofordancin', which was a strange ambien ethnic rhtymic workout als Muslimgauze. It seems that Twofordancin' was in fact two separate pieces put together, so what we've got here is the two original pieces pulled apart and presented independently. One disc sounds quite similar to the Twofordancin' combo, albeit a tad more stripped down. A simple shuffling rhythm, nestled in random ambien detritus with occasional backward swoops and studio twiddles. The other disc is much more abstract, offering up a series of glitches and creaks and stutters, as well as some distant chordal swells and even more distant tribal vocalizing. Pretty cool listen even if you don't have the Twofordancin' combo, in fact they might even work better on their own.
Three lengthy droning pieces from Richard Young's collaborative partner that were composed respectively for Korg synthesizer, Peruvian recorder, and didjeridu. The first two pieces are hypnotically beautiful and somehow incorporate the straining of effort which is a Wickham-Smith trademark. However, I hate to say it; but Wickham-Smith, a Scotsman whose previous work has always been interesting and often challenging, made a questionable decision to record with didjeridu - the now tepid sound of advertisers who insist on something 'exotic' to describe the Subaru Outback wagon.
What would a cd-r label be without a contribution from AQ fave Simon Wickham-Smith? And it seems like he can do no wrong. Two 35 minute tracks of shimmering, crystalline, high end tinkle, keening synth melodies, and warbly low-end pulses. Track one sounds like Sunroof! playing Ravi Shankar, or a raga version of Tubular Bells played by the Dead C. or something. A static, drone ritual with superdistorted vocals that wail otherworldly spirituals over the gorgeous din.
There's that kind of song / piece that I never get tired of, those epic, endless high end modern ragas, all wailing feedback ans upper register shimmer. That thing that Matthew Bower (Skullflower, Sunroof!), Campbell Kneale (Birchville Cat Motel), Neil Campbell (Vibracathedral Orchestra), and a few others seem to be able to unleash effortlessly. Well, if you hadn't already, add Wickham-Smith to this exclusive group of noisemakers and use the second track on Dyro to make your case. This has everything you could want. Gorgeous, droning, gauze-y, otherworldly, transcendental and just fucking perfect.
Purportedly Wickham-Smith's 'religious music' record, 'Extreme Bukake' (named for a style of problematic Japanese porn, the sleeve even has a barely disguised example) is an expansive, rich and captivating exploration into WS's past and present experiences with
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Sometime partner of Richard Youngs, Simon Wickham-Smith has created fo 'Giladji' an obliquely beautiful record for glass harmonica. High-end shimmering drones creep particularly close to the threshold beyond which adjectives like piercing and painful would be applied, but Wickham-Smith's restraint is the key to the success of this record. Giladji is one of those records that seems a perfect complement to the majority of releases from the Table of the Elements label.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Housed in a simple but very earthy-styley brown cardboard sleeve, Rapt is one of the latest solo offerings from Simon Wickham-Smith. He's an experimental musician perhaps best known for his collaborations with fellow UK eccentric Richard Youngs. Rapt would seem to be another example of Wickham-Smith's embrace of computer technology. But this isn't yr ordinary laptop electronica. No sir. A former Buddhist monk (or something like that), Wickham-Smith has devoted much of this disc to what sounds like an Eastern religious chant or prayer, chopped up and looped and layered into a cacophonous, yet mesmerizing 35 minute piece entitled "Heaven's Gate Sankirtan". At least two voices, male and female, become a multitude. Now with most 'experimental' music, this could be an end in itself, a sonic concept only, but in Wickham-Smith's case, his obvious religious interests/beliefs compel us to wonder what does he mean this to mean? What had his looping and editing added to the original source material? We can't answer that...but for all we know the original wasn't a prayer, but just someone yelling in a market, and now it's a mantra... Moving on to track two, we get more voices but they're buried in an entirely different sort of static-y drone. That's another really nice sixteen minutes. And this being a Wickham-Smith record, each subsequent track (there's four more) is quite different as well, exploring other mixtures of noise, drone, and speech.
Some of you must remember the Simon Wickham-Smith disc Twofordancin', a sort of out of left field blast of house-y trip hop electronica. Which threw us for a loop at first, but ended up getting crazy play in the store.
So when we heard about this new collection, a triple disc spanning 8 years, because of the title we were maybe expecting more of the same. And we got it. The opening track here, from way back in 1999, is a nearly half hour jam, all simple percussion, and house music whistle, looped and hypnotic, again it takes a second, but once you get into it, you're hooked. In the background is a thick distorted whir, there are occasional bits of strange effects and processed vocals, but for the most part it's a killer stripped down groove.
But surprisingly, that's it for the groove, the rest of disc one jumps to the 2000s, and we're back on more familiar ground. "Sealight", from 2000, is a barely moving shimmering whisper of a song, high end streaks smoothed into oceanic swells, everything glimmering and glistening, muted and minimal. Quite lovely. "The Horizontality Of Saskatchewan" (2202) is a strange gnarled guiatarscape, the riffs distorted and crumbling, sounding a bit like damaged bagpipes, or some lost Daniel Higgs jam, melodies lurching and threatening to fall apart, lots of whir and buzz, on closer listening maybe that's not a guitar but a pump organ, minimal percussion, very haunting and hypnotic. Track 4 is brand new, recorded this year, and is another super minimal dronescape, lots of glitch and click and whir, but all muted into a subtly pulsing melody, eventually building into a distorted blown out swirl of processed vocals, Eastern melodies, and thick grinding buzz.
The second disc begins with the warped warble of "Cool Memories" from 2004. a seasick backwards dreamworld of subtle buzz, mumbled voices, and a gorgeously woozy main melody. "Angels And Birds And The Coming Of Night" is the centerpiece of the second disc, recorded in 2004 as well, and clocking in at 45 minutes, an epic expanse of soft focus fuzz and billowing metallic drones, dense and lustrous, dark and dreamlike. The disc closes with 2005's "Cool Memories II", a sonic addendum to part one, the mumbled backwards swoon, now peppered with bits of glitch and smears of static.
The final disc in the set is a live set recorded earlier this year in Paris, a 48 minute stretch of high end minimalism, a flickering fluttering upper register electronic trill, oscillating endlessly, is spread out over almost the entire length of the entire performance, with subtle sonar like overtones and subtle low end throbs, until the flutter begins to fluctuate, and suddenly the track is a twisting and tangled squall of warped synth, blurred effects and processed vocals.
As always, packaged in that instantly recognizable Celebrate Psi Phenomenon wallpaper packaging. Inserts and liner notes for each disc, and as always, EXTREMELY LIMITED.
Now this was a bit of a surprise. Especially coming from Simon Wickham-Smith, although by now we should maybe expect the unexpected from W-S. One single seventy five minute track, an endlessly looped tripped out hip hop beat, with stuttery vocal samples in the background, chanting and tribal, but low enough in the mix that they just sounds like random warbling and rumbling. Had trouble getting our heads around this at first, but after a few minutes, it sort of grabs hold of you, with its strangely hypnotic repetition, and you sort of drift away on a slowly shifting current of tribal percussion and strange ambient sounds. Very reminiscent of Muslimgauze. As always, limited too!
Recorded 3 years ago and only now finally being released, this is Wickham-Smith and Young's umpteenth record together and bears quite a few similarities to their last, 'Metallic Sonatas'. The main similarity being the use of the laptop to effect their
Shimmering sheets of guitar feedback and other lovely sounds. A strong statement and a pretty recording.
John Wiese (half of Bastard Noise) has collected a number of super limited seven inches and unreleased radio broadcasts on this CD of experimental noise tracks. Four of the tracks have been programmed for 'easy listening' - which sound like incredibly tense versions of Crawl Unit or John Duncan. While neither Crawl Unit or John Duncan make for particularly easy listening, in comparison to the ungodly noise assaults on the other four tracks, these tracks certainly make for a far a less stressful listening experience. Extreme to say the least.
Live recording of the man who is one half of Bastard Noise. Seventeen minutes of downpitched low frequency rumblings akin to CCCC or mid-period Solmania. Less dynamic and abusive as most of his output, here he searches for more droning, meditative spaces amidst the cacophony.
- MPEG stream: 1
- MPEG stream: 5
- MPEG stream: 37
Still another lost warehouse stash discovered, found a handful of the third volume in the ongoing Magical Crystal Blah recycled music series by noise freak John Wiese (Bastard Noise, occasionally SUNNO)))), wherein Wiese remixes the REmixes from volume 2, done by KK Null, Panicsville, Zbignew Karkowski, Gerritt, Joe Colley, Damien Romero, Mike Shiflet and others, -those- remixes being versions of original music from Magical Crystal Blah volume ONE. Phew, this is the third time around for these sounds, and as far as we can tell, they do actually keep getting better, all crushed and compacted this time around into 37 tracks in just 17 minutes.
We're not huge fans of noise, and our love for Bastard Noise really blossomed when they began to infuse their Merzbowian din with more texture and melody and dynamics, and now, BN are a force to be reckoned with, and the sounds here demonstrate just why. We're way too far removed to have any idea what the originals sounded like, or the remixes, and frankly who cares, these miniature bursts of noise play out like a proper record, some moments are indeed caustic and brutal, but those moments are seamlessly woven into the whole aligned with long stretches of stereo panned shimmer, of mysterious industrial whir, of crunchy rhythmic lumber, of bleeps and bloops and rumbles and grinds, many of these songs are less than 10 seconds, so it really does seem to be conceived as a whole, and as a whole, it's pretty fantastic. Definitely recommended for folks into creative and far out noisemusic, but it's also the sort of noise that just might appeal to the normally noise averse. Just sayin'...
Only have 5 or 6 copies of this, and pretty sure once these are gone, they are GONE.
- MPEG stream: 1
- MPEG stream: 5
- MPEG stream: 37
These SF noiseniks kick up a serious skree, originally intended to be improvised soundtracks, for friends' films, these jams need no visual component to drag your brain from your head, via destroyed eardrums, and hurl it into the heart of the sun, jamming out while it sizzles and eventually melts into a puddle of grey goo.
Super abstract psychedelic space jams, removed from any of that pesky rocking, and instead allowed to just hover and swirl, and crash and howl, moan and creak, crumble and oooooooze. The guitars are tangled and atonal, the melodies angular and jagged, the drums don't so much propel as offer up spatters of rhythmic interference, swirling clouds of cymbal shimmer, flurries of rapid fire snare, all beneath a continuous avalanche of free-psych-noise. The vocals moan and mumble, organs spew in-the-red wheeze, lots of feedback everywhere, the sound sinister and alien, psych rock with all the rock removed, twisted and tripped out and definitely for those with a taste for sonic whatthefuck and difficult psychedelia.
Packaged in a bright pink fold over Xeroxed sleeve. And probably pretty dang limited (especially considering this was a bit of a warehouse find)...
Sometimes Belgium's Sub Rosa label comes up with really unusual, unpredictable releases. This one's a good example. Which by the way is NOT classical music, but IS pretty wild. It's full-on, loud, noisy, partly improvised rock music, but with an extra extreme, um, "outsider" element. Sort of in the "special" tradition of The Kids Of Widney High and the Children Of Ala Costa, but much much more rockin'! We didn't bother to read the notes yet to learn all the background details, but we do know that the basic deal here is that the band is comprised of four developmentally disabled (to use a PC term) and untrained musicians, Johan Geenens, Linh Pham, Kim Verbeke, and Rudy Callant, organized by a fifth member, the ensemble's drummer and "artistic mentor" Damien Magnette, who himself is not differently-abled and has more musical schooling. He helps direct the group's activity and keeps the resulting energetic freakouts somewhat reigned and structured in with his tight rhythmic propulsion. Meanwhile, the other four (plus a couple guests) do their thing, whatever it may be, with all kinds of instruments, obviously enjoying expressing themselves. Proving that while they may be "mentally challenged", they are in fact musically challengING. It's pretty far out and in a way, glorious. There's what can only be described as crazy wailing vocals, freer than free jazz horn blats, distorted electric guitar skree, off-kilter keyboards, sampling, and krauty tribal beats... Imagine the primitive psychedelic jams of Ya Ho Wha 13 mixed with the most abstract avant garde efforts of electro-acoustic improvisers Supersilent. Definitely something for fans of Reynols, too.
A lot of it is surprisingly heavy, almost metal-brutal, but without grim intent, instead done with a spirited feeling of joyful abandon. There's also a few mellower moments too, of flute twitter and eerie wordless vocal choruses (as on track 6, which reminds us of Pocahaunted). And briefly, they come close to Maher Shalal Hash Baz style damaged "pop" territory (though we don't think MSHB has ever done any rapping, which MIGHT be what's happening on track 8). Yep, this sure beats a lot of the "normal" underground psych noise rock weirdo bands we sell here at their own game.
In various reviews here at AQ, we have described lots of music (mainly black metal) as "retarded", in a good way. Always in a good way. It probably would be uncool to say precisely that about this... but if we did, it again would be meant as a compliment, a very positive thing meaning that these are unique, primal, creative sounds not bound by boring conventions of genre or technique, played for the sheer, universal love of music-making. Not self-conciously trying to be hip or anything in particular beyond what it simply IS.
Formerly the guitarist for Northwestern garage rockers Federation X, and occasional collaborator with members of the Reeks And The Wrecks, Ben Wildenhaus has since transformed into a bit of an avant guitarist, now living on the east coast, and managing the Instrumental Quaalude blog, on which he weekly posts new recordings, always instrumental, always under 5 minutes.
Great Melodies From Around seems to be an extension of Instrumental Quaalude, as it is a cassette collection of similarly dark, gorgeously instrumental excursions, assembled from lush layered drones, Appalachian style steel string guitars, woozy twangy slide guitar, strange murky percussion, bits of vocals (NOT singing) employed as more texture, wheezing organ, sinewaves, minimal drumming, subtle electronics, bits of glitch and hiss, amp buzz, a little noise here and there, the occasional sample... The sound is smokey and dark and ominous, dreamy and hauntingly lovely, a distinctly Lynchian soundtrack vibe for sure, late night, lights low, everything dusty, and dark, and lonely, and lit by the streetlights outside, hazy, gauzy, fuzzy, and totally and fantastically lovely.
SUPER LIMITED of course. Full color photograph covers, blue cases, hand decorated tapes.
Warped druggy psychedelic metallic noise rock trio Wildildlife, who just so happen to features a former aQuarian amongst their ranks, always had a bit of pop in their sound, even at their most tripped out and damaged, when they were channeling Butthole Surfers and Gaye Bykers On Acid and God Bullies and Lubricated goat, their wild rhythmic blowouts were always laced with primo hooks and loads of melody, and it was that subtle poppy undercurrent, that kept them from being just another noisy rock band. But the thing was, before now, it seemed that it was mostly about the heaviness, and they were indeed heavy, sidling up alongside outfits like Harvey Milk, spitting out churning elephantine riffage and skull caving flurries of drum damage, if we had our way, we wouldn't have changed anything about Wildildlife. That is until we heard this.
It's like they're a whole different band. Not sure if it's a natural progression or if it's the influence of their new producer, Jennifer Herema of Royal Trux, but the new sound is downright GLAMMY, swaggery, and power poppy, the vocals, which used to be distorted and sped up and processed into strange chipmunk squeals, is now actual and proper singing, and as if to drive that whole glam thing home, there's sax now, and we generally HATE sax, but this is like Stooges / Hanoi Rocks sax, which means it rules, and it somehow just makes things sound even cooler.
The opening track might just be our new favorite jam, right out of the gate, it's total soaring fuzzy pop, chiming guitar melodies, warm synth swells, and then when the main riff kicks in, we're in classic Kiss territory, suddenly the picture on the back of the lp, that has the band all in white, the lens all vaselined, looking like seventies rockers Angel, makes WAY more sense. And actually, after more listens, it sounds less like Kiss, and more like Redd Kross cover Kiss, which is even better, slithery and swaggery an snotty and hooky but still heavy, but so glammy, right down to the little sexy exhalation of breath in the super short break. And somehow it seems appropriately self defeating that their catchiest and most accessible song is titled "Fuck That".
The follow up "I Want You Out" even furthers the whole Redd Kross / Kiss thing, but we're talking old Redd Kross, circa Teen Babes From Monsanto, when they were still heavy and a little dark, and way drugged out and psychedelic, "I Want You Out" is all big tribal drumming, downtuned riffs, even some handclaps, and more of those new vocals, and lots of bleating/skronking sax, that once the song gets going sounds like a glam metal version of Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk". Not sure what the hell happened, but we most definitely want some of what they're having.
And the rest of the record unfurls in a similar fashion, classic rock riffs, are all wound up in a glittery haze, hooks are doused in fuzz and buzz and sent spinning into the space rock ether, but the band continue to mix it up, to confuse and confound. "Sometimes" is a folk ballad, dubbed out and drenched in low end synth buzz, acoustic guitars wrapped in reverb, the result a sort of apocalyptic doom folk, glitter style, only to lurch right into "Give In To Live", another Kiss/Thin Lizzy style glamrock groover, but here underpinned by some serious double kick drumming. "Stormbringer" (possibly a Deep Purple cover?) is an epic slow build of distorted vocals, gurgling synths, big drums, but instead of launching into full on glammed out noise rock mode, they lay back, and groove out, a sort of old school Hawkwind style space rock brooder that KILLS, and should have gone on for another 6 minutes. "Shiv" is a low slung, super distorted fuzz heavy churning creep, laced with glammy filigree, and finally, "Permanent Vacation" is the ultimate send off, you can almost imagine these guys on a huge stage, lit from behind with blinding showers of pyro, the drummer standing on his seat, winding up the crowd to clap along, the vocals gnarled and twisted, the guitars chiming and soaring, but instead of launching into the song proper, these guys stretch it out, adding weird rhythmic shifts, bits of mathy weirdness, all the while building and building, totally epic and majestic, before all the sounds are stripped away, leaving a weird warped melody, and some twisted drum machine skitter.
Remember about 1000 words ago we said something about never wanting these guys to change? What the hell were we thinking, sure we might miss the sheer heaviness and drugged out crush of the old Wildildlife, but it seems like a more than fair trade for the new, glammed out, super catchy, weirdo noisepop Wildildlife. Fuck yeah.
While they last, we have the super limited version on AMAZING colored vinyl, they are mostly clear, with weird spurts of color in the middle, mine looks like a bloody egg or something, and all the lps include a download coupon for a digital copy of the record as well!
We dug the first ep from SF transplants Wildlife, who just so happened to feature our very own Matt in mailorder on guitar and vocals. A blown out tripped out heavy as fuck space rock psychedelic freakout of the highest order. Since then, not only have the band changed their name, to the much weirder and somehow more appropriate Wildildlife but also honed their sound into something somehow more blown out, more tripped out, heavier, weirder, but more importantly, WAY catchier. Hooks and melodies that most bands would kill for, but Wildildlife play it like it's no big thing, burying that stuff under avalanches of processed guitars, throbbing howling bass pedals, metallic Iron Maiden like riffing, insane chaotic drumming, and a fierce white hot wall of sound.
We were pretty much sold from the first track. Beginning with some simple Adam Ant drumming, tribal and pounding, before the glistening reverbed Big Country guitars come in, all swathed in delay and drifting over the tangled rhythmic chaos below. The guitars build into a serious chordal frenzy, and then a strange haunting, and very eighties sounding hook, and that's when the vocals come in. Distorted but melodic, a dangerously catchy hook, that somehow reminds us of Gaye Bykers On Acid. Druggy and tripped out, with a cool guitar/vocal "la� lalalalalaaaaaaa" refrain that sticks in your head FOREVER. Wildildlife are usually described as Butthole Surfers meets Black Sabbath, which while flattering, and maybe to a certain extent accurate, hardly do justice to Wildildlife's cracked pop flecked noise rock heaviness.
Yeah, they're heavy, but there's no massive doom riffing or downtuned metallic pummel, and they are definitely trippy, but not in the same way as the Buttholes.
Take the second track, beginning with a wicked tangle of distorted guitar, when the drums kick in, and the band locks into an angular almost new wave melody, and those vocals return, sort of raspy and crooned, echoed by either a high wavery guitar or a falsetto vocal, and they repeat, mantra like, mesmerizing and hypnotic, relentless and seriously tripped out. The drums a constant rhythmic lock beneath the strange poppiness of the vocals and the guitar, before the whole thing splinters into a Hawkwind free rock noise jam, all super effected vocals, total drum mayhem, and thick washes of crumbling guitars and throbbing buzzing bass, eventually petering out into a gorgeous metallic slowcore dirge, everything still wrapped in thick layers of reverb and delay, a gorgeous mournful doomic sonic deathmarch. While some may hear the Buttholes, we're hearing stuff like the God Bullies, the Cows, Lubricated Goat for sure and still plenty of Gaye Bykers, although all even more souped up and super charged.
The two halves of the record are separated by the longest track, the 18+ minute "Magic Jordan", which begins as a washed out post rock dirge, all shimmery strummed guitars, echoey Jim Morrison vocals, and a simple stripped down rhythm, Eventually, the band erupts into a massive roiling bout of slow heaviness, that sounds like a way more psychedelic Harvey Milk, with killer angular riffs surfacing amidst the endless black sonic swirl, eventually giving way to 10 minutes of tripped out free folkiness, all warped backwards guitars, abstract percussion, fluttering melodies, haunting disembodied vocals, all sorts of random creaks and chimes and whir and hiss. Which is quickly followed by what is easily the catchiest track on the record. The relatively brief seven minute long "Feed", with its abstract delayed guitar harmonic feedback intro, giving way to probably the most Buttholes sounding bit on the record, a tense and intense bit of furious drumming, and throbbing bass beneath little flurries of metallic guitar leads, doused in FX and sent swirling over the abyss, while the vocals croon from WAY down in the mix, finishing off with a cool thick chunk of melancholy riffage, massive low end throbs playing out a gorgeous melody beneath the squiggly guitar chaos above.
The disc finishes off with a massive sonic one two punch, two fourteen minute tracks, the first, a super abstract slow motion noise doom lurch, with anguished vocals, sung from the bottom of a well, the guitars and drums offering up jagged little stabs, before locking into a relentless Swans like crush, nearly suffocating the vocals, until the band again lock into an impossible blissed out drone, where the guitar and bass mesh into a nearly M83 sounding wash of fuzzed out psychdrone, before reverting to full on glacial plod until the end.
While the final track, begins with a thick bit of bassy buzz, weaving a hard to define slow motion melody, the buzzing rich and thick and rife with overtones, metallic, electric and lush all at once, eventually joined by a downtuned guitar mirroring that same slow motion melody, eventually joined by dramatic almost gothic vocals, the drums dropping in like brass knuckled fists to the sternum, the band again almost slipping into some intense Swans like doom, before the riffing slips away leaving nearly six minutes of soaring guitar noise, and cymbal sizzle, eventually building to a super dramatic major key coda, all soaring chords and falsetto crooning, like some sort of alien metallic "Star Spangled Banner" (again reminding us a bit of Harvey Milk), before drifting off into a meandering morning after guitar bass post rock fade out.
Way recommended. Noisy and heavy and poppy and psychedelic and fucked up and catchy in a way few bands can pull of. And the one time we caught them live, we were hanging in a hammock, above the stage, IN A BUS, getting rammed repeatedly by the headstock of the guitar as the two axemen dueled wildly in the outrageous confines of the space below. Barring that sort of intimate and surprisingly painful interaction with Wildildlife, this record will definitely serve as an ideal introduction to their damaged and druggy fucked up metallic noise rock space pop, at least until you too can be battered and bruised by these guys in the flesh!
Recorded by Aaron from Mammatus, released on the always awesome Crucial Blast, and in some seriously amazing packaging, a super fancy mini gatefold sleeve, thick and full color, with an intense bejeweled turquoise skull on the cover, a fucked up masked dirt faced hatchet flag duel photo inside, as well as a full color booklet with liner notes and a bunch more freaky blurry creepy masked wild(ild)life photos...
As hopefully you fondly recall, just a few weeks back, we made a double cd entitled Might Of The Planet Eater, by this eccentric Finnish outsider blackened industrial / electronica act, our freakin' Record Of The Week. 'Twas a sprawling and utterly bizarre set, part Pan Sonic, part power electronics, part (ir-)rhythmic occult ritual, apparently what happens when a Finnish black metal weirdo does DIY industrial experimentation. Weird and primitive and (to us) utterly awesome.
While we absolutely LOVE Will Over Matter, we'll readily admit they're, uh, possibly a difficult listen (but then, compared to some other things we sell, maybe not really). And fortunately a lot of you folks seemed to dig it! So, of course, we thought you'd want us to list this one too, an earlier album from Will Over Matter, also on Bestial Burst.
This disc is actually the first WOM we ever heard, preceding Might Of The Planet Eater by a couple years. What happened, is not long ago one of us came across a Will Over Matter track on the internet somewhere, got kind of obsessed, and was happy (and amused) to find that we actually already had one of their albums in stock!! That was this one, 9 To The Moon, which we'd apparently ordered from Bestial Burst a couple years ago (2009) when it came out, but never reviewed. The next time we did a Bestial Burst order, we also got the newer double cd, and, our obsession growing, decided to make it Record Of The Week. So all of you who liked that one, you want this too!
Again, outsider electronic electro-dirge, chock a block with squeaky squelchy static-y sounds, stuttering irregular rhythms, noisy glitchy distortion damage. Bloop zwoop zip zap. Buzzing electricity. Sinister analog synth. Computers gone haywire. The occasional disembodied, drugged out voice buried in the mix (heard on the plodding "No Waste Of Sorrow" and elsewhere). Yes, the blown out, black and white, lunar landscape (?) cover art is so appropriate for these alien, bleak, brutal sci-fi sounds, that are both confusional and compelling.
To recap, WOM is a one-man band, a project of Harald Mentor from equally insane AQ faves Ride For Revenge, allegedly a "black metal" act. WOM is not black metal (though Beherit did dabble in this direction once upon a time) but anyone who really appreciates Ride For Revenge, as well as anything totally fucked up, ought to enjoy it. And the esoteric themes of these songs (they ARE songs) are as out there as any black metal weirdness ever. The song titles aren't even provided, but the internet knows what they are.
While it's not a double disc like the other one we listed, there's 9 tracks, all of 'em long... with grand finale "The Burning Logic" building and building for over 8 minutes of crinkum crankum, industrial electro-dirge hypnosis. The whole thing is possibly dangerous headphone listening all right!
We got this in on the day we sent out our last list, the latest from weirdo Finnish avant electronic surreal industrial outfit Will Over Matter, the solo project of the maniac behind damaged sort-of-black-metal avant rhythmic alchemists Ride For Revenge, and we were totally tempted to just list it then, with a review that simply said "This is so much better than anything on this week's list" and leave it at that. We wussed out at the last minute, thinking it a bit too flip, and like all records we love, we really wanted the chance to gush and get a bit more in depth, but it seriously only took a day or two of listening, before we were very nearly incapable of listening to anything else.
The music of Will Over Matter, whose Might Of The Planet Eater double cd we made our Record Of The Week a few months back, is simultaneously infuriating and addictive, baffling and beautiful, a dizzying collage of primitive electronics, of abstract spaced out synths, of bizarre spoken word vocals and sprawling pulsing glitchy malfunctioning buzzscapes, like an Emeralds record if it was crafted by some strange tribe of interstellar cave dwellers, or Daniel Higgs creating primitive spiritual rituals post frontal lobotomy. There's definitely an Amps For Christ vibe too, the same sort of controlled chaos, disparate sounds and tones woven into songs both textural and strangely melodic. The opening track here is the perfect example, a 12+ minute of warped lo-fi kosmische exploration, sounding a bit like it was culled from samples of the Starship Enterprise, recorded on a handheld microcassette recorder, and then played back on a busted up old Casio sampler, a sort of spaced out industrial power electronics, but with the power rendered not so much in volume and intensity, but in depth and mystery, a hazy sort of pulsating rhythmic ambience, one that takes on more and more hiss and buzz as it goes, and it's not until about 9 minutes in, when all of the noise abates, leaving a jagged throbbing synth pulse, beneath which a strange voice intones some mysterious manifesto, the sounds gradually blurring until finally blinking out.
Even though the above paragraph would seem to point to the opposite, this stuff is actually insanely difficult to describe, because it is so unlike anything else we've heard, a compelling bit of modern electronic industrial minimalism, with touches of cold wave, of classic old school industrial, hints of course of the rhythmic weirdness of Ride For Revenge, but here stripped way down, and presented as something much more austere and cold, the voice a Teutonic bellow, that only occasionally erupts unto a more black metal growl, while the music does all the heavy lifting, creating undulating stretches of analog synth, blown out bursts of gristly glitchy crunch, rhythms cobbled together from bits of hiss and thrum, skies full of skittery bleep, of old modem high end flutter, of white noise and pink noise and brown noise all sculpted into sort-of-shapes and almost-melodies, creating again, something that to many ears might be perceived as damaged and difficult and borderline unlistenable, but to us, and presumably many of you, that's part of what makes this so amazing, the fact that it IS completely and utterly whatthefuck bizarre, while somehow managing to be totally mesmerizing, and impossibly listenable, a warped chunk of avant outsider electronic industrial weirdness that has quickly become some of our favorite music ever, and even now, we're still fighting the urge to erase this whole review and just write "this is so much better than anything/everything else EVER"...
The awesomely titled Might Of The Planet Eater is the latest from mysterious Finnish one man band Will Over Matter, which just so happens to be the work of a fella by the name of Harald Mentor, who you might know better as the maniac behind avant outsider not-quite-black-metal weirdos Ride For Revenge. So if the low end rhythmic weirdness that is Ride For Revenge is one step removed from black metal, imagine Will Over Matter as about 5 or 6 steps past that. Not black metal at all, but more like some sort of outsider electronica.
Our obsession with Ride For Revenge stems from the fact that over the course of their career, their sound has changed to the point where they are now totally subverting and transforming the idea of black metal into something much more primal and rhythmic, forgoing the buzz and blast and replacing those obvious BM tropes with looped mesmer and tribal pound, stripping the sound down to its essence, and then slowing it down as well, sounding more to us like Aluk Todolo than Beherit. Although the mention of Beherit, another Finnish black metal institution seems particularly apt here, in that Beherit are infamous for their non-black metal output, their experimental electronics, which is precisely what Will Over Matter is. If Ride For Revenge is Mentor's twisted take on black metal, well then Will Over Matter is his skewed attempt at power electronics, or industrial music, channeling the spirit of Throbbing Gristle, SPK, Whitehouse, and all the rest, but filtered through some sort of cracked and damaged blackened Finnish lens.
Will Over Matter combines the stripped down rhythmic minimalism of Ride For Revenge with experimental industrialism, melding lumbering beats to fields of spaced out static, wrapping sheets of Merzbowian noise around shuffling low end thrum and machinelike beats, adding distorted alien vox to squalls of glitched out electronics, or winding multiple streams of electronic information into strangely twisted sonic barrages.
The opening track here is a bizarre soundscape of chittery electronics, of twisted feedback and growled super distorted vocals, pelted by grinding crunch and skittering squelches, a strange array of bleeps and bloops, and buried within, a sort of almost rhythmic bit of ever shifting static, which leads directly into the next track, a droned out stretch of pulsing electronic shimmer, which manages to sound spaced out and sinister at the same time, the tone and timbre switching constantly creating, again, it's own sort of psychedelic rhythm. It's not until "Read The Signs", track number three, that the various elements coalesce into what is really the core of WoM's sound, another fluctuating field of static, of strange space-y electronics, bits of glitch and hiss, but wound around a lumbering, skeletal beat, some sort of alien krautrock, before switching gears, and becoming a weirdly propulsive throbbing electronica, but with elements of kraut/post/space rock, at it's most propulsive sounding a bit like Bastard Noise offshoot and former Record Of The Week-ers Geronimo, and at its least, like nothing you've ever heard before. The track offers up strange electronic squiggles, sinister high end buzz, all in the surface of trailing behind that motorik beat, which itself is in constant flux, cymbals popping out of the mix, processed and all dubby, while the various electronics get more and more tangled and frantic.
Then there's the sprawling 24 minute "Stone Cold Heart", a super spare and abstract stretch of blackened rhythms, and distant buzz and shimmer, that buzz, growing ever more insistent, the vocals here not so distorted, more ominous and intense, intoning some sort of ritual, over what almost sounds like a black metal Pole, minus the barrage of wildly buzzing synths, and primitive analog electronic tones.
One of our favorite tracks is the gorgeously droned out and hypnotic "Forever Nameless" that seems to inadvertently channel John Carpenter and Goblin, into something much more dark and sinister, a totally mesmerizing rhythm, wound up in a thick, corrosive buzzing low end melody, while way off in the distance, a Burzum like synth melody plays out, again reminding us of a less noisy Aluk Todolo, totally hypnotic, the vocals here are almost sung, wrapped in a weird warped distortion, the end result like some sort of doomy drone pop slowcore or something.
Throughout the remainder of these two discs, WoM stretch out strangely stiff rhythms, or pull apart robotic electro beats into weirdly metallic anti-grooves, which unwind lazily beneath hazy streaks of static, creating a series of tarpit crawls, often swallowed whole by heaving walls of electronic sound, that seem to emulate the sheer crumbling power of SUNNO))-like doomdronedirge, but are more often left to pulse, and pound, and throb, a strange alien death march, as the label describes these rituals, each ritual an "epic journey through inner knowledge, lunar madness and cosmic superpowers of satanic possession", the twisted bastard child of some dark forest, outer space ritualized mating of industrial music, black metal, power electronics and krautrock, brilliantly baffling and maddeningly mesmerizing, by now, it should be easy for you to tell if this is your cup of seriously spiked tea or not, and for most of you, we imagine it must be. Fans of Ride For Revenge, Aluk Todolo, Geronimo, Mammal, Bastard Noise, This Heat, spaced out ritualistic blackened electronics and fucked up Finnish weirdness, this one's for you...
Back in 2011, we made Might Of The Planet Eater, the debut from weirdo minimal blackened power electronic one man band Will Over Matter our Record Of The Week. We initially discovered WOM via the fact that the 'one man' behind that one man band, was none other than Harald Mentor, mastermind of aQ beloved Finnish rhythmic black metal minimalists Ride For Revenge, who for some crazy reason, we just realized, have never nabbed Record Of The Week honors, cuz in retrospect, any/all of their previous records were more than deserving.
As we mentioned in our reviews of the other Will Over Matter records, if you thought Ride For Revenge were weird, then prepare theyself to be blown away, baffled, confused, frustrated, thrilled, unnerved, disturbed, most likely all of the above. Will Over Matter takes the dense rhythmic churn, already sort of spaced out and abstract, and replaces the bass and drums and traditional instruments, with what sounds like a battery of cobbled together electronics, home made machines and invented instruments, it's tough not to envision Mentor as some sort of mad scientist, in his murky musical laboratory, surrounded by walls of primitive electronics, old computers, blinking lights, blown speakers, a room full of towering obelisks of obsolete technology, harnessed into something otherworldly, and improbably next level. The sounds these machines emit glitchy and gristly, jagged and hiss-drenched, in some ways the template for WOM is the same as it was for Ride For Revenge, the 'band' locked into simple, lurching, lumbering motorik grooves, the 'beat' wrapped in dense sonic swirls, thick fields of static, everything glitched out and in-the-red. A head spinning sprawl of blackened kraut-noise synth-drone power-electronic minimalism, that RULES. Which brings us to the latest missive from Mentor, which is another psychedelic minimal electro-noise WTF doozy, the vocals kept to a minimum this time, the three lengthy tracks, spaced out and droney, slow shifting layers, constantly morphing textures, pulsing and pulsating, the sounds raw and gristly, the tracks maniacally repetitive and cyclical, in a way that to our ears is total tranced out bliss, but to less adventurous ears, might be just the opposite. The lack of 'song' and 'structure', not that there was that much of either on past WoM release, but even less so here, is precisely what makes Phenomenal Highways a whole different beast, at times, it's like past WoM records stripped down to their very skeletal essence, the opening track some sort of primitive kosmische ritual, a single synth locked and looped into a seemingly endless cycle of simple pulses, weirdly warbly and super distorted, a heartbeat like pulse wreathed in filthy, crusty synth squelch, that squirms and oozes, occasionally shaped into actual melodies, but more often than not droning and buzzing hypnotically, the final few minutes, finds the sounds transformed into weird lazer blast like blurts before suddenly blinking out.
The second track is even MORE minimal, a super spare soundscape that sounds like some mysteriously manipulated alien field recording, something you might here on Editions Mego, a field of crumpled low end crackle, muted and murky, peppered with little bits of percussion, the sound a weird bit of grinding muddy noise, it's not until 7 minutes in that the sound splinters, the background smoothing out into a whirring distorted drone, while Mentor delivers some demonic sermon over the top, his voice processed and doused in distortion, before the track explodes into a field of grinding electronics, tangled melodies, swirling tones, a robotic psych-noise freakout that manages to be more listenable than it has any right to be, a head spinning psychedelic churn that blossom into a final super blown out speaker shredding blowout, before oozing into the final track, a weird shuffling sprawl of rib cage rattling low end, dense subsonic tones delivered through what sounds like slow motion helicopter rotor wash, weirdly rhythmic and mesmeric, this minimal ooze and creep soon joined by strange curlicues of melody, the deep tone gathering all sorts of acoustic crunch as it goes, and once again, about seven minutes in, a super distorted blast of fractured blown out melody surfaces, giving the whole thing a seriously psychedelic vibe, those tones totally overtaking the rest of the sound, before fading out, and returning us to the slow-swell pulsations of the first half, only to fade out into a crackly sprawl of sculpted feedback, wreathed in hiss and hum, the sound smoldering and sinister, draped over a buried barely there rhythm, some echo drenched vocals in there too, everything sort of washed out and blurry, drifting beneath sheets of feedback and fields of staticky hum, all culminating in a final freaked out psych-noise squall, that does little to disguise the haunting melodic beauty that lurks within.
As always, amazing, bizarre and bafflingly brilliant, a dizzyingly abstract, twisted industrial psychedelic drone-noise masterpiece. That is of course also extremely limited...
It's been a while since we've heard from Australian label Hidden Shoal, and just as long since we've heard from SF sound sculptor and dreamdronedrift composer Wes Willenbring, but now that we're all reunited, we can go ahead and gush over yet another fantastic Hidden Shoal release, and another gorgeous disc of ethereal ambience from Mr. Willenbring.
Willenbring is an accomplished pianist and guitarist, and those instruments form the basis of these songs, in some places that's obvious, but in others, the piano and the guitar, or any semblance of either, are blurred, or smeared, or pixelated into hazy clouds of sound, of softly shifting streaks of crystalline shimmer, the guitar often transformed into a buried pulse, the piano into soft focus flurries of barely there melody, at its most diffused and abstract, this is total bleary eyed starlight pop ambience, the sort of hushed orchestral drift that would appeal to fans of other sonic abstractionists like Stars Of The Lid or Tim Hecker or Fennesz. But Willenbring doesn't rely entirely on effects or processing, much of the music here is darkly delicate chamber music, shimmering strings, over pointillist piano, buzzing steel strings unfurling melancholic melodies in slow motion, one note at a time, a sound that's lush and haunting, cinematic and subtly epic.
Totally sublime moody minimalism, a late night moonlit, slip-into-the-ether sort of dreamdrift dronemusic, equal parts gauzy abstraction and languid whispery post rock drift, that is as divine as it is dreamy.
Another dreamy slab of sonic loveliness from Australian label Hidden Shoal (along with the Sankt Otten reviewed elsewhere on this list). We're so psyched to finally have copies of this to list, but it wasn't as simple as just ordering 'em, it took a lot of doing to get these into AQ (or to get them to physically exist at all), what are we talking about? Just read on...
So this has actually happened to us a few times, which either speaks to our naivete, or as we prefer to think a dogged belief in the record album as object, to be held, listened to and loved, and an inability to understand any thoughts to the contrary. Australia's Hidden Shoal Records got in touch with us and was hoping we would check out some of their bands, we did, and got all excited about carrying them at AQ. Until, after we emailed and tried to order some, we were regretfully informed that Hidden Shoal was in fact a digital only label, no lps, no cds, no cassettes, just MP3's. Too bad we thought, as far as we were concerned, though of course we know there are those perfectly happy to download some MP3's. But over the course of many months, and lots of emails back and forth, the label admitted to being interested in actually pressing up cds. We of course encouraged them, because we wanted all our customers to be able to buy and hear this music, but also, because, there's something about the object, the cd or the lp or the 7", the liner notes, looking through the booklet while listening to the music, the feel, even the smell. And sure, it IS all about the music, but that other stuff is part of it too, no matter how much iTunes wants us to think otherwise. Obviously most of you don't need to be told that, otherwise you'd probably not be reading this.
Well, the upshot is, two of our favorite recordings on Hidden Shoal, are now finally available on cd, well, cd-r actually. But they are professionally pressed, with full color artwork, printed artwork on the disc, and heck, we'll take cd-r's over MP3s any day. And lots of you seem to prefer cd-r's anyway...
It's strange that we went through all that, and convinced a label in a far away land, to press cds, so we could finally get copies of a cd by a performer who lives RIGHT DOWN THE STREET from aQuarius, but that's precisely what happened. This disc, and the other Hidden Shoal release by German outfit Sankt Otten, reviewed elsewhere on the list, were hand delivered, by our neighbor, Mr. Willenbring himself. But so what if it wasn't the most direct route, all that work was well worth it.
Willenbring employs a piano and a guitar, but for the most part you'd never know it, as most of the tracks here are huge slow moving sheets of pure sound, blurred and abstract. Even the ones that do start with bits of piano, or offer up bits of strum and twang, gradually become more and more washed out, gorgeous wet windshield smears, sparkling with muted colors, glistening and glimmering, it's the music of light reflecting off wet pavement, the sound of trees heavy with snow and ice, of home movies of long car trips, of out of focus landscapes from the past. Melodies that creep and drift, gradually growing heavier and heavier, the clouds gathering, until it's a slow drive through thick fog, shapes and sounds barely visible. But it's those glimpses of piano, or fragments of guitar that ground the music on Somewhere Someone Else, keep it from being "dronemusic", imbue it with warmth, emotion, hidden melody, dark secrets, the songs may end up adrift on a glimmering black sea, but they began on the shore, within site of home and family, gradually moving farther and farther away, the familiar fading away, slipping slowly into the unknown.
Absolutely gorgeous. Dreamy dark meandering melancholia for fans of Stars Of The Lid, Eluvium, Dead Texan, Tim Hecker, Godspeed and other purveyors of darkly dramatic, abstract moody minimalism...
We first heard from Brennendes Gehirn, aka Matt Harries, via his Epidemics Of The Modern Age release, which delivered a crumbling, blown out, black noise sprawl of abstract atmospheres and post industrial murk, that definitely pushed all out MZ412 / Wolf Eyes / Blue Sabbath Black Cheer buttons, so we were super psyched to discover this new releases, a split / collaboration with some guy called Dorian Williamson, who happens to be a member of Adoran, whose lps we raved about recently. For this cd, both Harries and Williamson contribute a single track, and collaborate on a third.
Harries opens the disc with a a creepy bit of sonic ritualism, a reverbed female voice speaks over a bed of blurred electronics and deep rumbles. As the voice fades out, in swoop more swaths of low end, deep chordal swells, the only remnant of that voice, a clipped breath, which is looped rhythmically, and ends up adding a strange tense vibe, to the already tense dronescape. The track flecked with crunch and buzz, which slowly builds to a caustic chaotic squall, of swirling feedback and metallic skree, that sustained tension spreading out over most of the track's running time, sounding a bit like a supercharged, more psychedelic Organum, dense layered drone-noise that manages to be weirdly hypnotic, the blunted noisiness transformed into something much more tranced out and mesmeric. Williamson's contribution is much more minimal, a churning expanse of deep, crumbling, blackened sonic swells, foghorn like tones, and rumbling bowed string shimmer, all layered over a mysterious backdrop of miniature sonic events, that sans headphones, simply add texture, but deeper listening reveals a deep dark world of sound lurking below the surface. And while things get noisy here too, it's a muted, washed out noisiness, the net effect being less loud and chaotic, and more sort of blurred and oozing and abstract.
The two together surprise by conjuring up something much more than the sum of its parts, channeling the Eastern rhythmic mesmer of Muslimgauze, with a blunted beat, beneath swirls of gristly crunch, a strange reverbed vocal, the sounds building to something noisy, but again it's more a psychedelic noisiness, heady and hypnotic, that beat, anchoring the proceedings, while voices and melodies, dripping with FX and noise, swirl and blur and are eventually smeared into hazy sheets of blissed out softnoise dreaminess. Super cool. But sadly, LIMITED TO JUST 100 COPIES!!!!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We loved Willits' last full length so were were pretty excited for this one. Not nearly as abstract and 'academic', Pollen insted focuses much more on melody and song structure, approaching these pieces more like a songwriter than a composer. And while a few folks have been disappointed by the poppier results, we think fans of Oval, B. Fleischman, Ekhard Ehlers and the like will definitely find this hits the spot, a sun dappled, sweet and super warm, totally organic, chilled out glitchscape.
"Wilt's new album is also their first as a band, with the electronic experimentation being combined with acoustic walls of bass and noise. Wide, dusty and dark, "Dark Meadows" displays Wilt's new psychedelic and atmospheric approach to its deeply textured ambiances. "Dark Meadows" is one the most rewarding and sombre of works of Wilt, for it marries it organic darkness with an acute sense of melody and an ever-present cavernous bass. A massive, encompassing and profound work of art."
