Several years ago, we made the first archival release from housewife turned experimental electronic musician Ursula Bogner our Record Of The Week, even knowing full well, that there probably is no Ursula Bogner. On the surface it definitely seemed like the find of a lifetime. The story involved someone's casual interaction with a man on a plane, discovering that this man was the son of a virtually unheard experimental electronic musician, a mom and pharmacist, who had built a recording studio in their home, and who had recorded for twenty years, those recordings proving to be impossibly prescient, the sort of sounds that would stand up to similar recordings at the time by Delia Derbyshire and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. That initial release was filled with all manner of documentation, photos, notes, like we said, it seemed like the real deal. But it also seemed like an ingeniously perpetrated hoax. The man in question who supposedly ran into Bogner's son on a plane, was none other than Jan Jelinek, whose music is not all that dissimilar to Bogner's. Perhaps we're just the suspicious types, but there seems to be little or no information about Bogner, other than that provided by the label, which could just speak to her absolute obscurity, but could also speak to the fact that it's all a put on. To be honest, we want to believe it. How cool is that story? But that said, as we mentioned in the review of that first release, if it IS a hoax, we like it even more. So meticulously planned, photos, hand written notes, then the music� Similar to those funereal violin cds we carried a while back (that guy not only recorded all the cds, he also wrote a whole book about the history of funereal violin!), it would require a whole other level of creativity, but enough about all that, it is ultimately about the music, as much as we love the story, true or not, and like the first record, this is another fantastic collection of 'early' primitive recordings, these newly unearthed tapes featuring a focus on the voice, which was not present before, and our first actual exposure to the voice of Bogner, who supposedly passed away in 1994. Opening with piano and vox, the sound fluctuates as the tape speed falters, the sound is murky and definitely sounds old, plenty of spaced out effects, female voices processed into mysterious melodies, percolating rhythms, primitive and very low fidelity. Some of the tracks feature kitschy sounding organs and snippets of looped pop music, but they are transformed into cool sixties style tape music, occasionally lush and lovely, other timeshaunting and austere, there's one track in particular which finds Bogner reciting numbers over a backdrop of hiss and static and blurred melody, that most definitely is a nod, intentional or not, to the perennial aQ fave The Conet Project.
As with the other record, there are expertly penned liner notes, translations of original texts that Bogner wrote to accompany the pieces (especially the boxed cd version which features a massive 100+ page book of liner notes and artwork), all very cryptic and Eno-esque, tons of photos, of installations, of the reel of tape these tracks were discovered on as well as Bogner herself (again, especially in the book that accompanies the cd!). Very recommended of course, for fans of vintage sixties experimental music, of Jan Jelinek, and of impeccably crafted musical hoaxes.
First release from Bones Of Seabirds, aka Ryan McGill, and it's a deft blend of blown out free noise ambience a la Sunroof! and Birchville Cat Motel, dreamy soundscape drift and churning low end doomdrone.
The minimal liner notes inside credit Mcgill with strings and synths, and both, while in full effect, are blended and blurred into a sound less distinct, more ethereal and abstract. The opener is all gritty gristly high end, sheets of feedback, coruscating layers of buzz and glitch, all pulsing and throbbing, melodies buried within, strange harmonies, culminating in a wall of downtuned near static guitar buzz, a blackened blizzard of sound. The second track is a roiling lowendscape of rumbles and blurred drones, off in the distance bits of high end glimmer, shards of crackling grind and chordal whir, dense and ominous but still strangely pretty. The third track, is a haunting landscape of reverb drenched harmonics, long stretched out tones, mysterious melodies, softly heaving textures, bits of electronic tracery, whirring and shimmering, all wrapped in a skein of murk and blur.
And so it goes for the rest of the disc, the tracks dipping into those three sounds, blending and blurring and creating whole new sonic worlds from its constituent parts. Needless to say, most folks who like this kind of thing have already added this to their cart and moved on, but for the rest of you, fans of SUNNO))), Birchville, Vulture Club, Acre, and Tunnels among others, who are into all things that drone and rumble and whir and roil and swirl and shimmer and throb and grind and pulse and drift, will most likely want to pick one of these up PRONTO.
LIMITED TO 138 COPIES! Each one in a gorgeously handmade package, black ink printed on thick cardstock, housed in a hand cut full color vellum overlay, inside a printed vellum insert, with liner notes, each one hand numbered.
A new double disc of crushing slow motion space doom from UK doomlords BONG, and be warned, this thing is limited to maybe 100 copies, we tried to order half of those and ended up with more like a dozen. So normally we would highlight this, make a huge deal about it, and sell a ton, cuz this is exactly the format required to fully enjoy the epic glacial cosmic drift of Bong, 2 discs, 3 songs, an epic multi part blackened expanse of slowly unfurling low end doomdronesludge, spaced out and druggy, single riffs spread out to forever, meditative, mesmerizing, a sound somewhere between Electric Wizard, Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg and Bohren. Two originals on disc one, and the whole of disc two is filled up with an epic, ultra minimal cover of Pink Floyd's "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun", a surprisingly restrained, deep, dark, smoldering space rock slow jam, total late night chill out come down dream doom for sure.
So we won't make a big deal out of it, but grab one of these while you can, they're probably already out of print which means we most likely won't be able to get more...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
A split waiting to happen if there ever was one, both by name, and by sound, blissed out ambient soundscapers Gnod, best know for their split with White Hills, and beloved drugged out space rockers form the UK Bong.
The real bummer is that we tried to get a ton of these and only managed to wrangle TEN. Otherwise this would have been up with the highlights and the review would be about 10 times as long. But since odds are we'll probably get more orders for this than copies we actually have, we'll keep it brief.
Gnod offer up a warbly looped pianoscape, peppered with distant percussive rattles, draped over slow deep ambient swells, all building to a dense blackened rumble. Nice. Bong counter with more of that thing they do, rad tripped out FX drenched space rock, replete with sitar like buzz, kosmiche krautrock drumming, incendiary guitar buzz and deep chanted vocals, the sort of song that could, and probably should go on forever, but here fills up the side with gloriously dense hypnotic psychedelic heaviness.
The 7" comes with a cd-r, with over 50 minutes of extra stuff, one massive 30+ minute Bong jam, and three shorter Gnod tracks. Again we have less than ten, we really did try, all but the very quickest on the trigger, prepare to be disappointed.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We've been dying for more Bong. Ever since we got our ears around their long awaited debut lp a little while back, two side long tracks of crushing Sabbathy slow motion dooooooooom, we've been jonesing for another fix. Which has finally arrived, in the form of this split 12". Bong on one side, and fellow (new to us) doomlords Quttinirpaaq on the other.
Bong sound even heavier and more sluggishly propulsive than on their debut. Like space rock slowed waaaaaay down, Bong unleash a dark, dense roiling dirge drone doom, that slowly and gradually, and yes, druggily develops into something super rocking and ultra heavy. Crushing low end, lugubrious stoner doom riffs, pounding drums, and this time around some buzzing sitar (or at least it sounds like a sitar), adding a woozy Eastern vibe to the otherwise sludge-y proceedings. This is a total druggy lumbering stoned slow motion doom groove drug jam, channeling Monster Magnet, Black Sabbath, SUNNO))) and especially some Electric Wizard. The second half gets pretty rocking, seriously upping the churning downtuned chug, and upping the tempo from plod to rocking plod! It's heavy for sure, but still lo-fi and murky and muddy and mysterious - and that sitar, playing the same melody over and over and over the whole track gives it a super hypnotic and trancelike vibe. So good.
The flipside belongs to the impossible to pronounce Quttinirpaaq who counter with their own chunk of ultra low doom exploration. Beginning all blissed out and space-y and krauty and new age-y, with swirling effects and soft synths all shimmering and glistening over deep sweels of muted feedback, the band easily slip into some serious dronedoomdirge, kicking out a thick wall of downtuned buzz that will have SUNNO))) fans frothing for sure, and then the drums kick in, and the band lock into an impossible slow, ultra doom jam, the drums not so much a rhythm as occasional accents to the crushing crunch of guitars, beneath the surface, headphones reveal all sorts of weirdness going on, strange sonic events, mysterious voices, all churning and roiling underneath the layers of buzz and that impossible slow drum plod, think Khanate, Habsyll, Bunkur, Moss, that sort of thing, but more spaced out and abstract. Killer stuff for sure, and a perfect match for the mighty Bong!
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!! Plain black sleeves with paste on red and black front cover.
A film version of Strange Lines And Distances has made the rounds at some of the established film festivals around the globe for the past few years; and now Experimedia offers the video documentation of the piece along with an edit of the soundtrack specifically rendered for vinyl. Bonnetta's work is conceptually driven (and is exceptionally well executed), based upon the first wireless transmission that Marconi broadcast from one side of the English Channel to the other. Out of this single transmission, we not only have a lineage that begets radio then television then cellphones then iPhones then 'the cloud' and onto whatever the next means of immediate communication may be on the horizon; but we also have all of the miscommunications, hidden messages, lost transmissions, EVPs, numbers stations, alien voices, and any other tech-gnostic renderings of the machine as a telepathic device communing with the divine. Bonnetta's piece is a suitably eerie score of shortwave radio drones and oceanic field recordings, compositionally reflecting Marconi's notion that the radio transmission does not actually disappear but just becomes incrementally fainter. As such, Bonnetta's audio sensibilities owes a considerable amount to the long-shot works of Alan Lamb, Jim Haynes, Thomas Koner, and BJ Nilsen. The video work operates on a simple, yet effective conceit with two channels of video representing both sides of the Channel. The video was all shot on 16mm film and maintains a muted color palette of wintery grays and cold blues as Bonnetta tracks through both landscapes which hold numerous environmental similarities, tied through Marconi's idea that his first wireless transmission is still bouncing back and forth between these two sites albeit infinitesimally faint. It's a really beautiful piece of work; and not surprisingly won a handful of awards. The lp contains extended compositions of the soundtrack, a very lengthy piece of critical analysis of the work, a dvd with the film itself, and digital downloads of both the video and the audio. Whew!
We bet the guys in bonus regret their choice of band names. You know: Is this that Bonus disc? Did you get the Bonus cd? What Bonus cd? The NEW Bonus cd. WHAT BONUS CD? Hee hee. You could get a serious noise rock Who's On First going. Anyway, this is actually pretty darn fantastic, and as with all Jyrk cd-r's it seems, SUPER LIMITED, already out of print, and we have the last 30. So again, act fast if you want one of these.
Slow buliding otherworldly shimmer, the sort of gorgeously delicate drone you want to go on forever and ever. Not rumbly or subsonic, or keening high end, this is warm and rich and dense and wraps your head in a big pillow of soft shimmering sound. So lovely. Comes in a sharp looking had painted sleeve. And again, when these are gone, they are gone for good!
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Finally, the first proper non-cd-r full length from these minimal dronesters and as you might expect it's more of the same, which is all we could possibly hope for. The same of course being thick coils of gloriously fuzzy drone, unfurling over the course of nine, twelve and fifteen minutes. Bonus are masters of the drone, but in their hands, the drone isn't something you just let drift, not some random sound object you create and then watch float weightlessly from your speakers. No, the drones of Bonus are living things, they have weight to them, they crackle with energy, squirming and twisting, thick frayed ropes of buzzing sound, like the sonic version of a downed electrical wire, or a hose with the water turned all the way up whipping wildly to and fro, spitting sparks, dangerous and unpredictable. The opening track is gorgeous, it's like Phill Niblock composing for heavy metal guitar, or like a SUNNO))) performance abandoned midway through, leaving just the guitars and amps to finish the show, letting gravity and temperature and air pressure determine the direction of the proceedings as much as the instruments or the volume or anything else. A strangely organic expression of distorted sound and sonic entropy. Awesome. The scond track is like a minimal stripped down version of the first, simple buzzing tones, muted and fuzzy, slowly shifting and beating against each other, a swirling static universe of colliding overtones. Like looking inside a drone, to see what makes it tick, millions of tiny Track 2's, shimmering and subtly reveberating, like microscopic little drone molecules. Track three goes even deeper, so all of those microscopic reverberations are viewed from the inside, a pulsing, throbbing, quivering forest of rapidly vibrating tendrils, trussed together into thick quivering bundles of drone, a swarming buzz, somewhere between the all out roaring buzz of the first track, and the minimal shimmer of the second. Absolutely fucking fabulous.
Totally gorgeous cover art too, Some super abstract Lichtenstein style carton art, printed in marron and black on a cool folding card stock sleeve.
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It's hard to review a record by the mysterious Bonus without mentioning their dubious choice of band name. Did you get that Bonus disc? Um, what bonus disc? You know, the whole Who's On First thing. This has only been eclipsed by a band we heard about recently called Merch. Nuff said.
Anyway, such levity is totally out of place in a review of -this- Bonus disc, a massive roiling, churning miasma of thick malevolent, corrosive fuzzed out drones. Huge and dense and multilayered, pulsing and swelling like something alive. Like the endless lull of the surf, if the waves were made up of huge bass speakers, buzzy synths and undulating electronic osscilations. Like the clang and clatter of industrial machinery, the buzz of airplanes flying overhead, the rumbling of construction work down the block, all timestretched into a soothing, swaying, soporific drone. Think Troum covering Wolf Eyes, or Andrew Chalk plays the Throbbing Gristle songbook. Really great!
Packaged in a handmade, hand embossed, spray painted plastic sleeve. Each disc individually stamped and numbered.
LIMITED TO 150 COPIES. WE ONLY HAVE 30!
The follow-up to The Books' 2002 debut Thought For Food provides another dose of eclectic, playful, folky sound collages. Each track of the baker's dozen offered up on The Lemon Of Pink is a delightfully rumpled, snipped and reassembled sonic patchwork quilt of acoustic guitar, violin, banjo and lovingly embroidered samples. This time there's a distinct Asian feel to many of the tracks -- Japanese dialogue, koto-esque string plucks -- as well as more of a hushed spoken-sung vocal presence throughout than on their previous album (often very akin to Devendra Banhart). A highly enjoyable, loping, off-kilter journey.
Wow, Barbed Wire Maggots? Your filthiest black metal band would be proud of an album title like that. And this is from a record originally released back in 1983, the fourth long-player from what has become an outside/noise/skronk/free "jazz" institution, the one and only Borbetomagus! If you know Borbetomagus, you know what to expect: the frightening caterwaul of two saxophones and an electric guitar. Two long tracks (formerly vinyl sides) worth. Screeching and scratching and searing and sizzling. So it ain't black metal but it ain't easy listening either. No sirree. Imagine every "nasty" noise ever made by the horns of Coltrane or Ayler, times two, aided and abetted by a likeminded guitarist. Upset elephants and vaccum cleaners and rusty hinges and faulty connections have nothing on this. Unlike some of their later, even denser recordings, it's not always full-on cacophony but even the quieter, "jazzier" parts have a mood of menace, of impending mayhem. And if you've never heard Borbetomagus, but are curious, this cd reissue will provide a crash course in their brand of extreme improv. Not for everyone...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Couldn't have an all-saxophones list (like we're doing this week) without Borbetomagus on it!! So we've found a couple copies of this out of print fave to review. Here's how we've described this New York noisejazz outfit before:
Take any crazy, noisy free jazz you've heard (minus the drums, but with extra feedback), multiply it by a thousand, and voila. We dare you to turn it up. Saxophonists Jim Sauter and Don Dietrich lock horns (literally) while Donald Miller's guitar grinds away in the lower registers, the trio together manufacturing a dense wash of drone-skree that will pleasantly numb your brain, if you're partial to this kind of noise/jazz/noise. Beautiful.
That's what we said about another album of theirs, but it applies to Buncha Hair That Long too, for sure. One of the first Borbetomagus discs to which we were first exposed, this 1992 release contains five long tracks of their dense n' intense squall, utterly enveloping and mesmerizing stuff. Two of the tracks were recorded at an art museum in Chattanooga, two of 'em in Cleveland, and the last one at CBGB's in NYC - and that one's a cover of Beatle George Harrison's "Blue Jay Way", believe it or not (and it's easy to not)! Includes liner notes by Peter Margasak of Butt Rag (remember that 'zine? One of our favorites ever!).
Important note: this cd is out of print as far as we know, it's a warehouse find we dug up at one of our local distributors the other day. And we only found two, that's right, TWO copies. So, act fast if you want one - and list an alternate just in case!
There's two types of people in this world. People who like Borbetomagus, and those who don't. Probably there's many more of the latter. But for the former, each and every Borbetomagus album is pretty much a must have. Kinda the same way with the likes of Merzbow and Jandek, many of whose fans are doubtless shared.
So, for whom it may concern: here's a new album from the notorious New York wall of noise sax/sax/guitar improv trio! Well, not exactly new, this is actually a reissue (first time on cd) of a cassette originally released back in 1986, now including an entire bonus 22 minute second set, live in Allentown, Pennsylvania (home to renowned fantasy artist Boris Vallejo we just happened to randomly learn today as well).
The usual Borbeto-trio of Sauter/Dietrich/Miller is augmented here by the bass of Adam Nodelman and the electronics of Scott Legrath, as if they needed more noise-making help! Apparently this was upon the occasion of a "3rd annual Halloween extravaganza" 10/29/86 and in the pictures everyone's wearing weird masks and stuff.
The boasted-of "killer" sound is indeed pretty much so, every bit of sax blurt and guitar skree is ear-piercingly present and accounted for. Scary. As is the way with Borbetomagus, their squealing squall of sonic intensity shall soon send the appropriate sort of listener into rapturous trance. Stress on "appropriate" (see paragraph one).
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
On June 16th of last year, the noise-jazz gods Borbetomagus (sax, sax, guitar) taught Tokyo a lesson in skree, and here's the import cd to prove it. Another reason to buy this is if you have to have any album featuring a 43'45" track entitled "Pachinko Cadaver"...
It's been a while, but Borbetomagus is back! This upstate New York sax/sax/guitar trio has been making ears bleed with their extreme free improv skronk for years, but haven't put out a record for a little while, so we all were eager to subject (what are now) our ear-nubs to this. Recorded live at The 13th Note in Glasgow and at The Spitz in London back in 1999, the three tracks on "Songs Our Mother Taught Us" are prime Borbeto. What do we mean? How 'bout the never-ending ecstatic death-cry of a million screaming meemies as they plunge into the abysssss...? Take any crazy, noisy free jazz you've heard (minus the drums, but with extra feedback), multiply it by a thousand, and voila. We dare you to turn it up. Saxophonists Jim Sauter and Don Dietrich lock horns (literally) while Donald Miller's guitar grinds away in the lower registers, the trio together manufacturing a dense wash of drone-skree that will pleasantly numb your brain, if you're partial to this kind of noise/jazz/noise. Beautiful.
MPEG Download: "Aftershock" [/audio/borbetomagusaftershock.mp3]
Look out, here's the latest onslaught from the long running free improv unit Borbetomagus! It should tell you something that we found it difficult to review this 'cause we basically can't play it in the store without running the risk of driving out any customers present. That's not to say, though, that we don't have customers who would enjoy experiencing this mayhem in the comfort of their own homes.
The Borbetomagus trio (Donald Miller, electric guitar; Don Dietrich & Jim Sauter, saxophones) have been at it since the mid-to-late '70s, with their first album being released in 1980. This one, their 21st album if we're counting correctly, documents the final show of their 30th anniversary European tour, in Montreuil, France - hence the title - and proves that in 30 years, they haven't at all mellowed out! Play this loud at your own risk, a blanketing wall of sound consisting of distortion, noise, feedback, all in constant flux like writhing snakes of skree. One track, slightly over 46 minutes. A pleasant experience, once you've eased into it, like taking a hot bath.
By the way, we noticed that the database iTunes uses to identify cds seems to think that this one is called "Meditation For Heath And Healing" by some other, presumably new agey, artist. NOT.
Also, when we were (briefly) playing this in the store today, one AQ staffer came in and remarked, with irony: "What is this jubilant sound?" - meant in jest, but there IS a jubilant aspect to the noise of Borbetomagus. 30 more years!!!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Holy crap!!! Now that's a noise fest...
This is the seventh installment in the ongoing Frkwys series of recorded collaborations, a series that focuses on teaming up contemporary artists with artists that perhaps influenced them, or as we described it in another review the old guard and the new wave. Past installments have included Julianna Barwick and Ikue Mori, Excepter and Carter Tutti (ex Throbbing Gristle) and Foetus, and more recently Blues Control and Laraaji. This one actually came out earlier this year, BEFORE the Blues Control and Laraaji, but is most definitely another winner in the series. We were kinda cautious at first, though, as we were worried about the risk of too many cooks, all comfortable in very different kitchens, cuz really, what could you get when you cross James Ferraro (ex Skaters), David Borden (Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Co.), Daniel Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never), Laurel Halo and Samuel Godin? Seems like it would probably be a crazy chaotic mess, but instead, they came up with something stunning, a gorgeous bit of soft focus new agey synth drift, long form dronemusic that manages to be both ethereal and dense, lushly layered and surprisingly ephemeral, kosmische for sure, but rooted is musics more terrestrial. The two part "People Of The Wind" is definitely the anchor of the record, the 12 minute opener a gorgeous hazy expanse of fluttering sun dappled drift, smoldering and softly shimmery, managing the impossible task of being serene and tranquil and hypnotic, but still in its own way, heavy, with a slightly dark edge. We would have been perfectly happy had they stretched that track out to be the whole album.
They do revisit the track via part two, a much more brief exploration, with a slightly darker cast, melodically at least, it's also much less buzzy and dense, and more infused with gentle melodies, the vibe much more pastoral and dreamlike. The other tracks drift in similar directions, with a slightly altered palette, still evoking the same sort of sonic wonder, a hushed sonic haze, but with "Internet Gospel Pt. 1" flecked with fluttery almost Native American sounding melodies, and muted dubbed out super minimal percussion, while "Internet Gospel Pt. 2", stretches part one out into a swirly sprawl of sci-fi glimmer, with swooping bleeps and bloops, draped over a woozy carnivalesque organ, and a warm shower of swirling effects, the whole track a slow build, eventually attaining a nearly Sunroof! like raga style buzz/blur. "Twilight Pacific" is more cinematic, a lush story in sound, darkly futuristic, rife with thick warm swells, and softly soaring string like shimmer, as well as muted softened steaks of upper register skree, the sound like laying on your back on a hill and watching the night sky, and finally, the record finishes with "Just A Little Pollution", which starts off hushed and serene, but soon blossoms into an effects wreathed pulsating and propulsive synthscape, with vocals for the first time, super effected and draped in synth buzz and melodic swirl, the whole thing sounding like the soundtrack credit sequence from some eighties VHS tape, definitely hinting at the musics of some of the individual players.
The vinyl version includes a full album download.
Electronic musical pioneer David Borden might not be as famous as a name as Robert Moog, or Don Buchla, but he was in all the same right places at the same right times, beta-testing Moog synthesizer prototypes, taking them apart, blowing them up and repairing them repeatedly in an effort to perfect patching techniques. He formed the first all synthesizer ensemble, Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Company, in 1969, and headed the one of the first record labels devoted to New music and Minimalist composition, Earthquack, that inspired later more prodigious labels such as Lovely Music.
Music for Amplified Keyboards is his 1981 unsung masterpiece made from solo recordings made in the late seventies after the ensemble had called it quits. Long unavailable and remastered from a once thought lost safety master recording, it is great to see this unheralded composer finally getting some recognition. The RVNG label had done a Freakways installment with Borden that included modern synth purveyors such as James Ferraro, Daniel Lopatin and Laurel Halo, but it's nice to hear his original compositions on their own. On par with the works of Michael Nyman, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich, the four long tracks on this release contain a minimalist repetition that is both fluid and continuous, but there is also a pastoral landscapular ennui that has touches of the romantic and human, chilly but not at all cold or distant. Incredibly performed and executed. Another fantastic archival release from Spectrum Spools!
This is volume 2 in the Boredoms remix series, and continues in much the same manner as volume one (which was an an U.N.K.L.E. mix), with a crazy, seamless 40 or so minute continuous mix of Boredoms mania. This mix is by Ken Ishii, and is quite nice, though it basically sounds like a Boredoms mixtape, which is not a bad thing. Can't wait to hear volume three though, mixed by DJ Krush!
At long last, a new release from the elusive and mysterious Borful Tang (for his head scratching back history, please refer to our reviews for his Root cd and On The Back Of A Dying Beast 2cd-r). A mischievous sound collagist, he's like some peculiar sonic macrame'd synthesis of Negativland, John Oswald's Plunderphonics, BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and the Sun City Girls / Sublime Frequencies camp... but he doesn't stop there! He then can match immersive wits with the best of the dronologists too. At times Herd And Unherded is languidly lulling, at others it's a barrel of percolating loopiness, while still at others sinisterly possessed. Mr. Tang is clearly something of an obsessive collector of sound sources. He's amassed a vaultful of tapes and vinyl - field recordings, video game soundtracks, religious AM radio broadcasts and other disembodied voices to name just a few. He consults with them, meticulously pares and processes 'em, and the pieces are then refashioned into something which is altogether new, yet haunted by the eclectic phantoms of the past. Add to this sonic palette an arsenal of a homemade electronic gadgets, and you have something festooned with mad scientist goggles and soldering goo. Go on, give your ears a wild feast to munch on. Recommended!
First things first, please don't let the dvd-style case fool you! Contained within are not one but two cd-rs by the cryptic entity known as Borful Tang. If you need this mysterious being's back story, please refer to our review of his last release titled Root from a couple years ago.
As a brief recap though, legend has it that Borful Tang is not an earthly being, and its human conduit is Bay Area man-of-many-hats Dominic Cramp. On The Back Of A Dying Beast zeroes in on a select few of the key passages of the previous release (sadly tho' they don't include his previous churning NoMeansNo-isms), and explores them thoroughly -- fleshing out what was only glimpsed fleetingly on Root.
Disc One floods the air with effects-heavy layers of BBC Radiophonic style analog synth wanderings, sporadic android chatter and sludgy lumps of drone. Disc Two on the other hand is far more spare, hushed and calm even.
We suspect that with the consumption of the right, ahem, 'enhancing' substances this could really take you places. Quite the transportive listen. Recommended.
Who or what is Borful Tang? Well, according to the website of the delightfully named Snurp (the folks who released this cd), the mysterious 'it' is a 'he', and outcast from a distant place and time. Legend has it that Borful Tang was a hill herder who moved hills with sound. Still with us? Okay then, if you'd like to discover his lengthy full story for yourself you can find it where we did, but in the meantime here we have his cd Root -- his wildly eclectic music apparently having been transmitted to us via the conduit known as Dominic Cramp -- quite a multi-faceted gent in his own right (also recording under the monikers of Qulfus, Amazing Colossal Man and Modular Set). Borful Tang's music is trippy, out there, and particularly in the early part of this album, very NoMeansNo-ish in its propulsive tech-y bass lines. Heck, the first track is titled "Borful Tang Loves NoMeansNo"! And we think NoMeansNo samples may be the secret. The latter tracks feature collaged computer voice conversations (sourced from what we guess were English speech lesson tapes) and burbly analog electronics. We'll bet quite a broad range of strange music lovers will dig this... if the names Plunderphonics, Negativland, NoMeansNo, BBC Radiophonic Workshop tickle your aural funnybone!
Borg is a suitably anonymous project based out of Brooklyn, which has released two albums to date on Phaserprone. This is the first album, which was originally released back in 2007 and was thought to be out of print until Phaserprone uncovered a small (and we mean small!) stash of these for Aquarius. Dark, very dark techno that sounds like Chain Reaction heroin house as played through the Wolf Eyes suitcases of analog electronics and industrial stomp rhythm machines. Spooky atmospheres and really creepy samples from horror movies seem to emerge behind every bassbin crushing beat and every stalking bassline. This one is even better than Borg's 2009 I:A album, due to the shroud of darkness that envelops Borg's electronics. Just buy it. You won't regret it.
Borg is a suitably anonymous project based out of New York, fusing occasionally blackened ambience with analog driven electronica. The first excursions that Borg released on Phaserprone crept through the Chain Reaction murk of heroin house as filtered through Wolf Eyes. On that debut, it was easy to take the Star Trek Next Generation reference to the Borg, a cybernetic absorption of everything into a dark pulsing mass; but for their / his / hers / its second release on Phaserprone, Borg take up a sound similar to our recent dark-electro crush Cold Cave. Here on I:A, Borg shifts things away from a drug addled techno and toward a skeletal electronic funk. There is something of a retrogarde reinterpretation of the Sheffield sound of Cabaret Voltaire and Hula crunched through Aaron Dilloway's suitcases of crusty gear while casting a longing gaze to the Ed Banger crowd of electro breaks and squiggliness. Sublimated melodies tumble in analogue glory across midtempo breakbeats that put a strangle hold on accompanying tribal rhythms and bass riffs. Haunted vibes from funhouse organ grinds underpin a couple of the tracks that otherwise might percolate alongside those Museum of Future Sound Skwee compilations.
Released on the Baltimore based label Phaserprone, known for the heavily embossed letterpressed artwork complimenting the hand-crafted brutality through noise and rhythm. Borg's I:A sticks out from the rest of the Phaserprone catalogue, as this album is certainly not brutal or purposefully ugly, even if it is monochrome in grey. Phaserprone sneers that "you will hate this." We think to the contrary. There's probably plenty of people who will love these beats 'n' synths, and maybe get sucked into the netherworld that is Phaserprone. Recommended? Oh, yes; and it's limited to a whopping 200 copies.
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Fans of the band that began as Japan's answer to the Melvins, and then took a wayback machine ride into the '70s, Boris, can start rejoicing now. After a long while, we've finally got a whole bunch of Boris back in stock. AND, we've got a whole brand new recording as well! Whoo-hoo. Akuma No Uta is a 32 minute, six song mini-album that offers up a smorgasbord of styles from past Boris albums, drawing from the heavier-than-thou rumble of Absolutego, the exquisite beauty of Flood, and the sheer jams-out-kickin' of Heavy Rocks. Starting off with a two and half minute Earth-esque drone-metal intro (although for some reason unknown to us, the intro track on the vinyl version is seven minutes longer than that on the cd, so drone freaks may have to get the lp, or what the heck, get both!), the record then slams into the riffed-out, noisy stormer "Ibitsu". Distorted, manic, tear-shit-up stuff. After another song in the same Hendrix meets the Stooges style psych-punk rawk vein, Boris switch gears again, for the album's centerpiece, a twelve-minute opus entitled "Naki Kyoku" that begins all super languid, quiet and pretty before building into a soaring psychedelic jam. The jams continue on the next track, another stoner rockin' blow-out. Finally, title track "Akuma No Uta" winds things up with a return to the immense sludge grind of track one, melded into a headbanging groove, ending the disc on an adrenaline high. I'm sure there's mulleted, pot-smoking high-schoolers in Japan scribbling Boris logos on their binders...or so we'd like to think.
You'll note from the price that the yen isn't doing us Americans any favors right now. Ah well. Boris is worth a few extra bucks, as fans will no doubt agree. Worth their weight in yen for sure, and well, you know they're heavy. The vinyl version is even pricier, but it's perhaps got the cooler artwork (yes, they're different) with a cover that perfectly re-creates Nick Drake's Bryter Layter! Except with double neck electric guitar-bass instead of acoustic guitar... Real nice.
And be aware (beware?), for soon to come is another Boris, the bottom-heavy full-length known as Boris At Last aka Feedbacker. We should have that as soon as it's out, we'll keep you informed!
It seems like every Boris release is more anxiously anticipated than the last. But somehow this is the one everybody's been waiting for. A double cd reissue of the previously vinyl only Dronevil. And just to ensure that Boris obsessives who already have the lp don't get off easy, the cd version adds two lengthy tracks to each disc and eliminates the pressing defect that plagued the lp release.
Dronevil is like the Japanese doom sludge version of the Flaming Lips' Zaireeka! Two discs, one drone, one heavy, intended to be played simultaneously on two separate stereos, but both equally listenable on their own.
The 'drone' disc is gorgeous, the first track is a shimmering swirl of sizzling cymbals, thick clouds of reverberating metal, sounding almost like some lost Organum track. Warm metallic swells, that undulate and subtly swing, layer upon layer of gorgeous high end sound. The second is a lugubrious trawl through some dimly lit cavernous underworld, thick tones swirl and drift, super minimal, like the slowed down sound of tolling bells, a slow motion ringing that shimmers and hums, like some distant soundscape viewed through thick panes of fogged up glass. The final drone track is another high end excursion, this time it's a whirl of densely layered tones, like sheets of feedback, played back at different speeds, creating strange tonal clusters and causing the various sounds to beat against each other producing subtle rhythms and streaks of upper register melody. Like a much more minimal Sunroof! or a Phil Niblock piece using Total outtakes as source material.
The sludgier disc (or the 'Evil' disc of the Dronevil pair) starts off with the 21 minute "Red", which starts off with some rumbling low end swells, mirroring the shimmering cymbals of it's ambient corollary on disc 1, then some abstract clean guitar, lots of space, about halfway through in come the keening distorted guitar feedback, streaks of psychedelic skree above the spacious abstract soundscape, finally about 15 minutes in the drums kick in, a simple post rock skitter, the clean guitars coalesce into a sort of Morricone-ish spaghetti western twang, above which some spare soulful leads drift and delicately soar, a slow loping groove like some strange slowcore hybrid of Codeine and Low. Dreamy and so good. The second track is where it actually gets heavy, a super distorted slow motion riff builds and builds until Boris are lurching along like some monstrous space rock behemoth, a sludgy trudge, thick walls of distorted guitar, simple pounding drums, all beneath wild psychedelic leads. Very Hawkwindy for sure. A brief near silent interlude sets us up for the hammer to fall, and it does, huge crumbling riffs dripping with filthy distortion, a sludgy black hole riff, and the wild psychedelic leads just keep getting more tangled and freaked out. So totally intense and heavy and super spaced out. The final track is another massive space doom workout. Heavy and thick and dense, but still somehow spacious and epic. Guitars grind and crunch but they also drift and hover weightless, the drums pound one second, and skitter jazzily the next, everything a huge swirling mass of psychedelic spaciness wrapped in massively thick guitars, ending in a barely there acoustic steel string coda.
Now when you play the two discs together it all makes sense. The heavy disc is so spare and spacey, because the first disc introduces all of these extra layers of sound, and the first disc is so abstract and minimal, because it's main purpose is to fill out the doom drenched space rock on disc two. But it barely matters. Together, the two discs perfectly meld into a killer postspacerock doom sludge record, heavy and dense and layered. Apart, you've got two amazing records, one super abstract free drone record, and one post slow core psychedelic spacerock record. You can't really lose either way.
And as always the packaging is absolutely breathtaking: a Japanese style mini gatefold, printed inside and out, black and light blue ink on thick textured brown cardstock, along the bottom a black and grey printed vellum obi, each disc in its own pocket and beautifully packaged with three circular plastic printed transparencies, all of the images combining with the printed image on the disc. WOW.
Boris fans are definitely obsessive, most wanting to collect anything and everything the band puts out, whether it's the same record with different artwork, or a limited single, or the same record with 9 minutes of extra music or a different record with the same cover or whatever. The band don't really help matters much, wholeheartedly playing into this, releasing records in ridiculously limited versions and multiple versions, with different artwork or bonus tracks or both. But this new record Mabuta No Ura has definitely pushed all this multiple version collecting about as far as it can go. More on that at the end of the review -- and we definitely suggest you read that stuff before you buy! But hey, let's talk about the record. A soundtrack to a film entitled Mabuta No Ura, this is Boris at their most abstract, maybe even at their least heavy, but Boris has yet to disappoint, and they don't here. Although depending on your personal favorite style of Boris, whether it be the slow sludgy dirges, the minimal drones or the all out super distorted RAWK, you might have to readjust your thinking to get into Mabuta No Ura. There's only one actually 'heavy track', and some of you may already have it, or at least a version of it, as the track in question, "A Bao A Qu" was released as a super limited picture disc 7" not too long ago. "A Bao A Qu" finds Boris churning through a sludgy slab of crushing psych rock, the way only they seem to do it. The rest of Mabuta No Ura finds the band exploring much more contemplative moods, constructing simple, dreamy passages of finger picked guitar, and warm swells of moody ambience. Sometimes sounding a bit like Low, sometimes a little like Slint, the theme here overall does seem to be a brooding slow building post rock. There are variations of course, Eastern sounding melodies, hazy chanted vocals, shimmering washes of cymbal sizzle, tribal rhythms, hand claps, plaintive vocalising, stretches of Sunroof!-like free-noise ambience, blown out krautrock rhythms, but it all sort of hovers around that post rock sound we love so much, dark and moody and smoldering, occasionally bursting with dynamics, but more often than not chugging along all melancholy and contemplatively propulsive. Hard to imagine what sort of film Mabuta No Ura must be, but the songs and sounds here are quite evocative, and let our imaginations conjure up the appropriate images to go with these sumptuous sounds. Packaged in a gorgeous chipboard slipcover die cut sleeve, with a dozen cd sized photos, presumable from the film, with stories printed on the other sides, unfortunately all in Japanese.
So here's the complicated stuff. There are FOUR versions of this record. All of them slightly different. This is the Japanese cd version. comes in a chipboard diecut sleeve and is NOT limited. In the next week or so we will be getting the vinyl version, which comes with a dozen 12x12 photo prints and IS limited. Only 500 were made and we're getting about a fifth of those, but as with all things Boris they will not last long. So if you want one, best to preorder it now. There will be another cd version, released by the Brazilian label Essence, and there will be two versions of that. A super deluxe boxed version, and a regular digipak version. The deluxe version is super limited. Only 120 copies made. We're getting half. Those will all be spoken for by the time we get them, so if you want one of those, pre-order it now. The regular Brazilian version is the same as the deluxe version just with less packaging. And is not limited.
Confused yet? Well, stick with us just a little bit longer. The Brazilian version has more music than the Japanese version. BUT, the Japanese version has music NOT on the Brazilian version. Okay. So if you just want to make sure you have ALL the music, you need both the Japanese version AND the Brazilian version. And since the Japanese cd and the Brazilian regular cd are not limited, you can easily pick up both. The lp and the deluxe version are just for those of you who need the fancy versions or feel compelled to collect them all. Finally, the Brazilian cd version won't be out until end of August or thereabouts, so orders WILL NOT be held for those! If you want both, we'll send you the Japanese cd now (lp when we get them) and the Brazilian version when they show up in a month or so. Phew!
We figured that since this list was so chock full of new Boris releases we oughta let folks know that we also got back in the Brazilian version of Boris' Mabuta No Ura soundtrack, so for those of you who somehow missed it last time around, check it out:
Finally! The Brazilian version of the Boris soundtrack Mabuta No Ura. And why is another version of a record you may already own so essential? Well, for the precise reason we all find Boris so enticing and simultaneously frustrating. This new version is SIMILAR, but NOT identical to the Japanese version. Obviously the packaging is completely different. But the music is too, which means all you Boris obsessives will need this as well as the Japanese version if you want all the Mabuta No Ura music there is. Some of the tracks here are -not- on the Japanese version, however, there are a few tracks on the Japanese version that are not found here. ARGHHHH. But thankfully Boris are so good, and Mabuta is so completely amazing, that it makes all this multiple version craziness go down just a little bit easier. But as we said before:
Boris fans are definitely obsessive, most wanting to collect anything and everything the band puts out, whether it's the same record with different artwork, or a limited single, or the same record with 9 minutes of extra music or a different record with the same cover or whatever. The band don't really help matters much, wholeheartedly playing into this, releasing records in ridiculously limited versions and multiple versions, with different artwork or bonus tracks or both. But this new record Mabuta No Ura has definitely pushed all this multiple version collecting about as far as it can go. But hey, let's talk about the record. A soundtrack to a film entitled Mabuta No Ura, this is Boris at their most abstract, maybe even at their least heavy, but Boris has yet to disappoint, and they don't here. Although depending on your personal favorite style of Boris, whether it be the slow sludgy dirges, the minimal drones or the all out super distorted RAWK, you might have to readjust your thinking to get into Mabuta No Ura. There's only one actually 'heavy track', and some of you may already have it, or at least a version of it, as the track in question, "A Bao A Qu" was released as a super limited picture disc 7" not too long ago. "A Bao A Qu" finds Boris churning through a sludgy slab of crushing psych rock, the way only they seem to do it. The rest of Mabuta No Ura finds the band exploring much more contemplative moods, constructing simple, dreamy passages of finger picked guitar, and warm swells of moody ambience. Sometimes sounding a bit like Low, sometimes a little like Slint, the theme here overall does seem to be a brooding slow building post rock. There are variations of course, Eastern sounding melodies, hazy chanted vocals, shimmering washes of cymbal sizzle, tribal rhythms, hand claps, plaintive vocalising, stretches of Sunroof!-like free-noise ambience, blown out krautrock rhythms, but it all sort of hovers around that post rock sound we love so much, dark and moody and smoldering, occasionally bursting with dynamics, but more often than not chugging along all melancholy and contemplatively propulsive. Hard to imagine what sort of film Mabuta No Ura must be, but the songs and sounds here are quite evocative, and let our imaginations conjure up the appropriate images to go with these sumptuous sounds.
The Brazilian version comes in a nice thick oversized mini lp gateflod sleeve, housed in a deluxe die cut slip case. Inside are mini reproductions of the inserts that came with the original lp. So nice.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Boris fans are definitely obsessive, most wanting to collect anything and everything the band puts out, whether it's the same record with different artwork, or a limited single, or the same record with 9 minutes of extra music or a different record with the same cover or whatever. The band don't really help matters much, wholeheartedly playing into this, releasing records in ridiculously limited versions and multiple versions, with different artwork or bonus tracks or both. But this new record Mabuta No Ura has definitely pushed all this multiple version collecting about as far as it can go. More on that at the end of the review -- and we definitely suggest you read that stuff before you buy! But hey, let's talk about the record. A soundtrack to a film entitled Mabuta No Ura, this is Boris at their most abstract, maybe even at their least heavy, but Boris has yet to disappoint, and they don't here. Although depending on your personal favorite style of Boris, whether it be the slow sludgy dirges, the minimal drones or the all out super distorted RAWK, you might have to readjust your thinking to get into Mabuta No Ura. There's only one actually 'heavy track', and some of you may already have it, or at least a version of it, as the track in question, "A Bao A Qu" was released as a super limited picture disc 7" not too long ago. "A Bao A Qu" finds Boris churning through a sludgy slab of crushing psych rock, the way only they seem to do it. The rest of Mabuta No Ura finds the band exploring much more contemplative moods, constructing simple, dreamy passages of finger picked guitar, and warm swells of moody ambience. Sometimes sounding a bit like Low, sometimes a little like Slint, the theme here overall does seem to be a brooding slow building post rock. There are variations of course, Eastern sounding melodies, hazy chanted vocals, shimmering washes of cymbal sizzle, tribal rhythms, hand claps, plaintive vocalising, stretches of Sunroof!-like free-noise ambience, blown out krautrock rhythms, but it all sort of hovers around that post rock sound we love so much, dark and moody and smoldering, occasionally bursting with dynamics, but more often than not chugging along all melancholy and contemplatively propulsive. Hard to imagine what sort of film Mabuta No Ura must be, but the songs and sounds here are quite evocative, and let our imaginations conjure up the appropriate images to go with these sumptuous sounds. Packaged in a gorgeous chipboard slipcover die cut sleeve, with a dozen cd sized photos, presumable from the film, with stories printed on the other sides, unfortunately all in Japanese.
So here's the complicated stuff. There are FOUR versions of this record. All of them slightly different. This is the Japanese cd version. comes in a chipboard diecut sleeve and is NOT limited. In the next week or so we will be getting the vinyl version, which comes with a dozen 12x12 photo prints and IS limited. Only 500 were made and we're getting about a fifth of those, but as with all things Boris they will not last long. So if you want one, best to preorder it now. There will be another cd version, released by the Brazilian label Essence, and there will be two versions of that. A super deluxe boxed version, and a regular digipak version. The deluxe version is super limited. Only 120 copies made. We're getting half. Those will all be spoken for by the time we get them, so if you want one of those, pre-order it now. The regular Brazilian version is the same as the deluxe version just with less packaging. And is not limited.
Confused yet? Well, stick with us just a little bit longer. The Brazilian version has more music than the Japanese version. BUT, the Japanese version has music NOT on the Brazilian version. Okay. So if you just want to make sure you have ALL the music, you need both the Japanese version AND the Brazilian version. And since the Japanese cd and the Brazilian regular cd are not limited, you can easily pick up both. The lp and the deluxe version are just for those of you who need the fancy versions or feel compelled to collect them all. Finally, the Brazilian cd version won't be out until end of August or thereabouts, so orders WILL NOT be held for those! If you want both, we'll send you the Japanese cd now (lp when we get them) and the Brazilian version when they show up in a month or so. Phew!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Finally! The Deluxe Brazilian box set version of the Boris soundtrack Mabuta No Ura. And why is another version of a record you may already own so essential? Well, for the precise reason we all find Boris so enticing and simultaneously frustrating. This new version is SIMILAR, but NOT identical to the Japanese version. Obviously the packaging is completely different. But the music is too, which means all you Boris obsessives will need this as well as the Japanese version if you want all the Mabuta No Ura music there is. Some of the tracks here are -not- on the Japanese version, however, there are a few tracks on the Japanese version that are not found here. ARGHHHH. But thankfully Boris are so good, and Mabuta is so completely amazing, that it makes all this multiple version craziness go down just a little bit easier. But as we said before:
Boris fans are definitely obsessive, most wanting to collect anything and everything the band puts out, whether it's the same record with different artwork, or a limited single, or the same record with 9 minutes of extra music or a different record with the same cover or whatever. The band don't really help matters much, wholeheartedly playing into this, releasing records in ridiculously limited versions and multiple versions, with different artwork or bonus tracks or both. But this new record Mabuta No Ura has definitely pushed all this multiple version collecting about as far as it can go. But hey, let's talk about the record. A soundtrack to a film entitled Mabuta No Ura, this is Boris at their most abstract, maybe even at their least heavy, but Boris has yet to disappoint, and they don't here. Although depending on your personal favorite style of Boris, whether it be the slow sludgy dirges, the minimal drones or the all out super distorted RAWK, you might have to readjust your thinking to get into Mabuta No Ura. There's only one actually 'heavy track', and some of you may already have it, or at least a version of it, as the track in question, "A Bao A Qu" was released as a super limited picture disc 7" not too long ago. "A Bao A Qu" finds Boris churning through a sludgy slab of crushing psych rock, the way only they seem to do it. The rest of Mabuta No Ura finds the band exploring much more contemplative moods, constructing simple, dreamy passages of finger picked guitar, and warm swells of moody ambience. Sometimes sounding a bit like Low, sometimes a little like Slint, the theme here overall does seem to be a brooding slow building post rock. There are variations of course, Eastern sounding melodies, hazy chanted vocals, shimmering washes of cymbal sizzle, tribal rhythms, hand claps, plaintive vocalising, stretches of Sunroof!-like free-noise ambience, blown out krautrock rhythms, but it all sort of hovers around that post rock sound we love so much, dark and moody and smoldering, occasionally bursting with dynamics, but more often than not chugging along all melancholy and contemplatively propulsive. Hard to imagine what sort of film Mabuta No Ura must be, but the songs and sounds here are quite evocative, and let our imaginations conjure up the appropriate images to go with these sumptuous sounds.
This box set version is limited to 120 copies, 70 of which we got here. The normal Brazilian version of Mabuta is packaged insied a white painted and textured box, wrapped in white cord. Along with the cd inside you'll find dried flowere and flower petals as well as a ton of extra inserts, photos, and text. Really beautiful, ultra limited and most likely by the time you read this out of print.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Okay, here we go AGAIN.... ULTRA LIMITED, VINYL ONLY RELEASE FROM THE MIGHTY BORIS. ALREADY OUT OF PRINT. WE HAVE (OR HAD) THE LAST 50 COPIES. EVEN THE LABEL IS SOLD OUT. NO PLANS FOR A CD VERSION. GORGEOUS PACKAGING, ORANGE VINYL! ONCE IT'S GONE. IT'S GONE FOR GOOD.
Okay, now that we got that out of the way, we can describe the actual record, although by the time most of you read this far, it might already be sold out.
The Thing Which Solomon Overlooked somehow manage to sound totally new, and like classic Boris at the same time. Side one is a two track one two slow motion punch, a creeping tarpit dirge, walls of warm rich guitar smeared into a fuzzy guitar glacier, slowly flattening everything in its path, like Earth or Sunn 0))) but with a sweet melody tucked safely inside. Eventually the guitars unhinge and erupt into a Haino like blast of psychedelic skree. Side two is one epic track that is even slower and sludgier than side one, slowly growing from a subsonic rumble to a planet splitting rrroooaaarr. No drums to be found either, making this all the more perfect for fans of Sunn 0))), Earth and all things dirgedoomdrone.
Feels like only yesterday, that we reviewed Volume One, with this same proviso, but here we go AGAIN.... ULTRA LIMITED, VINYL ONLY RELEASE FROM THE MIGHTY BORIS. WE HAVE ABOUT 50 COPIES. GORGEOUS PACKAGING, SAME AS THE FIRST VOLUME. THICK ORANGE VINYL! ONCE THESE ARE GONE WE WON'T BE ABLE TO GET MORE!
Okay, now that we got that out of the way, we can describe the actual record, although by the time most of you read this far, it could very well be sold out.
Much like the first volume, Volume 2 of Boris' 3 part epic vinyl trilogy The Thing Which Solomon Overlooked somehow manages to sound totally new, and like classic Boris at the same time. Three massive tracks of freaked out droney psychedelic nirvana! The lp starts off with some of that glorious ultra distorted guitar crumble, which soon explodes into some insane Hendrixian / Santanian space psych freakout, all soaring leads and swirling reverbed ambience. Really noisy, but in a warm, soft, head in the clouds sort of way. The second track starts with some chugging Stooges-y sludge, that slowly loses momentum and trances out into some super druggy Hawkwinderful space bliss! Side two is a single twenty minute long track and sounds like the heaviest, noisiest most epic Boris track ever, but with all the structure melted away, leaving just a huge mind melting smear of growling glacial Merzbow / Skullflower style black hole wall of guitars. Awesome!
Feels like only yesterday, that we reviewed Volume One, with this same proviso, but here we go AGAIN.... ULTRA LIMITED, VINYL ONLY RELEASE FROM THE MIGHTY BORIS. WE HAVE ABOUT 50 COPIES. GORGEOUS PACKAGING, SAME AS THE FIRST VOLUME. THICK ORANGE VINYL! ONCE THESE ARE GONE WE WON'T BE ABLE TO GET MORE!
Okay, now that we got that out of the way, we can describe the actual record, although by the time most of you read this far, it could very well be sold out.
Much like the first and more recent second volume, this third volume of Boris' 3 part epic vinyl trilogy The Thing Which Solomon Overlooked somehow manages to sound totally new, and like classic Boris at the same time. Four lengthy tracks of freaked out droney psychedelic nirvana!Ô
The proceedings begin with a barely there microscopic drone, with soft Pink Floyd guitar swells, a washed out, staring at the night sky sort of ambient post rock dreaminess. Beneath, there is a slow bass throb, like a beating heart, while above a soft see through gauze of whispered high end guitar and gentle folky strum. The next track immediately tramples all over what ever dreaminess was still lingering with a pounding slow motion trudge slowly morphing into a torrent of high end feedback fallout and rumbling guitar grrr, with soaring guitar leads, drenched in reverb and bursting like fireworks in the sky, the framework provided by a simple clanging cymbal rhythm. Side two begins with a wallop, a face melting wall of guitar-against-the-amps dronedirge stun, a slow shuffling glacial grind of guitar crumble and amp growl, like SUNNO))) or Earth with even less riffery, very reminiscent of the Boris of old. Then, almost imperceptably, we've segued into the final track, that dronedirge gets more and more blown out, with the guitars getting hotter and hotter until they're absolutely blinding like sonic solar flares, white hot sheets of feeding back guitars, a churning, roiling, blinding, deafening swirl of glorious sludgey psychedelia! Wow.
Originally released on cd almost a decade ago now, this killer single song collaboration is now available on vinyl for the first time ever! Here's our review of Sun Baked Snow Cave when we first listed the cd version back in 2005...
Outside of being Japanese, and VERY VERY loud, one wouldn't necessarily think Boris and Merzbow had a whole lot to offer each other sonically. But as we now know, that is most certainly not the case. Their first outing together was the legendary Megatone record, a stretched out doom drenched drone of mammoth proportions, sure there were guitars and basses and plenty of laptop fuckery and analog squiggle, but it was all smeared into a totally mesmerizing , incredibly dense drone record. Match up number two, the also LONG out of print LP only 04092001, threw some people for a loop, especially folks all ready for the drone. Instead they were given what was essentially a Merzbow produced Boris ROCK AND ROLL set. Like their Heavy Rocks record, an energetic blast of overdriven, Stooges-esque sludge stomp RAWK, but for 04092001, mixed on a Fisher-Price mixing board, broadcast through a transistor radio stuck between stations. Cool for sure, but much more noisy and messy. Which brings us to the awesomely titled Sun Baked Snow Cave, which finds Merzbow and Boris together again, and returning to a sound much like Megatone, but with a definite nod to Flood as well (our favorite Boris record btw). In fact we might go out on a limb and claim that this is the best (non-rock) Boris record since Flood!
Gorgeous ghostly guitars, simply strummed or delicately picked, each note and chord set adrift in a vast expanse of barely there sound, spare, drifting and languid. After about ten or twelve minutes the guitars are suddenly darkened by a slow building cloud of distant rumble and reverberant thunder, with lightning flashes of electronic grit, hiss and flicker. Then, about twenty minutes in, the bottom drops out (or IN) and the sky falls when a MASSIVE slab of super distorted downtuned guitar is laid out, a constant buzzing roar, over which Merzbow drapes all manner of glitch and stutter and crunch and crackle. A dizzyingly dense swirl of free noise drone, thick and slowly shifting, noisy, but in a muted controlled way. Eventually the storm passes, and the last twenty minutes of the record is one extended stretch of dreamy drift, surrounded by Merzbow at his most subtle, little smears of sonic haze, sort of like the audio equivalent of the afterimages you see when you stare at the sun. A haunting coda that gradually dissipates and fades to grey, and then black. Packaged like the cd version in an exquisite eye popping gatefold, with lovely black, white and blue metallic artwork by Stephen O'Malley. LIMITED TO 1200 COPIES!!!
We took pre-orders on this ultra limited Boris rarity, but we managed to get a handful of extra copies, so for those folks who forgot to preorder, or folks who are only hearing about this now, here's your chance (however brief) to nab one of these...
As with all Boris stuff, it's gorgeously packaged, a red and black pictured disc, printed to look like it's cracked into pieces, to go along with the title. It sits behind a piece of red vellum, with the band names printed lightly across the top so you can also see the picture disc through the vellum. Includes a DVD in a similarly 'damaged' packaging.
So the 10" matches up Boris with their more punk rock countrymen Stupid Babies Go Mad, both it seems paying homage to Black Flag's "Damaged" in their own way. Each apparently covering a song by the other...
SBGM are up first and kick out the super aggro old school So-Cal punk rock jams, but way supercharged, with ultra distorted vocals, squealing feedback everywhere, super heavy and intense and very much in the tradition of the track and the band this is a tribute too. But it seems as if SBGM have jammed three tracks into one, the second two are sort of two parts of the same song, slightly more groovy but still pretty punk, a chunky main riff and seriously pounding drumming, and a cool minor key guitar harmony refrain that makes the band sound almost like a more punk rock Iron Maiden.
The flipside finds Boris doing their punk rock thing. Starting off in full on dirge mode, droning and downtuned, maybe channeling later era SST, huge slooooow riffing, monstrous drumming, feedback wrapped around crumbling distortion, until the band kicks it into gear, more aggro punk rock, Boris style, complete with squiggly leads, shouted vocals and an old school sing along chorus.
Included with the 10" is a 70+ minute dvd, capturing a live show by both bands. It begins with about one minute of awesome Boris footage, blown out and tinted red, in some huge venue, an extended psych blowout, the drums a chaotic swirl, the guitar and bass soaring and shrieking�And then it stops, and suddenly we're watching Stupid Babies Go Mad, kicking out the jams big time in a furious 30 minute set, super high contrast, damaged film stock, a blazing live show, looks pretty amazing, wild and sweaty and boozy and brilliant...
Then it's back to Boris, on the same blown out red tinted film stock, doing some gorgeous tripped out slow psych, super in the red and heavy as fuck� until they launch into more rocking territory, a whole set packed with heavy, distorted garage psych freaked out jams, with lots and lots of gong action!!! And the band destroy, the sound is raw and ultra hot, distorted and really fierce, the band is definitely on fire, and the way it's filmed makes it seem even more wild and intense.
LIMITED TO 1500 COPIES. Once these are gone we won't be able to get more.
AQ faves Boris (masters of Melvins-esque slow-motion dirge metal) team up with sometime AQ fave Masami Akita (who as Merzbow basically invented 'noise' as a genre) to unleash this three track cd of monster drone! Both camps represent with some of their most gorgeous work. Boris contribute what sounds like the prettier more minimal stuff from their moody album "Flood", with guitar only evident on one track, and even then it's slowed down, stretched out and buried under a thick blanket of Merzbow-y haze and Boris-y rumble. Akita keeps his noise side in check (although there are some truly caustic moments) opting instead for dark, processed low end with the occasional sonic flare. Created using guitar, e-bow, space echo, Powerbook and feedback conduction (!), "Megatone" finds itself situated closer to the drones of Coleclough or Karkowski than it does to the metallic pummel of the Melvins or the Corrupted. The opening track is a deep 20+ minute rumble, with white noise spread thinly above, while Akita's Powerbook gradually becomes more and more sonically intrusive and the processed guitars form subtle melodic overtones, throbbing and pulsing in ultra slow motion. The second track is constructed out of far away, psychedelic, Keiji Haino-esque guitar leads, buried under some Merzbowian ear piercing skree, allowing Akita to unleash some of that 'noise' he is so famous for. The final track lets the guitars do the talking one more time with huge walls of distortion, still heavily reverbed and distant sounding, but much more serene and almost ambient, with Merzbow's noise contributions much more complimetary and distinctly less harsh. A massive, gorgeous totally enthralling collaboration from two of the most exciting artists in music today!
Outside of being Japanese, and VERY VERY loud, one wouldn't necessarily think Boris and Merzbow had a whole lot to offer each other sonically. But as we know, that is most certainly not the case. Their first outing together was the legendary Megatone record, a stretched out doom drenched drone of mammoth proportions, sure there were guitars and basses and plenty of laptop fuckery and analog squiggle, but it was all smeared into a totally mesmerizing , incredibly dense drone record. Match up number two, the recent LP only 04092001, threw some people for a loop, especially folks all ready for the drone. Instead they were given what was essentially a Merzbow produced Boris ROCK AND ROLL set. Like their Heavy Rocks record, an energetic blast of overdriven, Stooges-esque sludge stomp RAWK, but for 04092001 mixed on a Fisher-Price mixing board, broadcast through a transistor radio stuck between stations. Cool for sure, but much more noisy and messy. So here we are with the awesomely titled Sun Baked Snow Cave, which finds Merzbow and Boris together again, and returning to a sound much like Megatone, but with a definite nod to Flood as well (our favorite Boris record btw). In fact we might go out on a limb and claim that this is the best (non-rock) Boris record since Flood!
Gorgeous ghostly guitars, simply strummed or delicately picked, each note and chord set adrift in a vast expanse of barely there sound, spare, drifting and languid. After about ten or twelve minutes the guitars are suddenly darkened by a slow building cloud of distant rumble and reverberant thunder, with lightning flashes of electronic grit, hiss and flicker. Then, about twenty minutes in, the bottom drops out (or IN) and the sky falls when a MASSIVE slab of super distorted downtuned guitar is laid out, a constant buzzing roar, over which Merzbow drapes all manner of glitch and stutter and crunch and crackle. A dizzyingly dense swirl of free noise drone, thick and slowly shifting, noisy, but in a muted controlled way. Eventually the storm passes, and the last twenty minutes of the record is one extended stretch of dreamy drift, surrounded by Merzbow at his most subtle, little smears of sonic haze, sort of like the audio equivalent of the afterimages you see when you stare at the sun. A haunting coda that gradually dissipates and fades to grey, and then black. Packaged in an exquisite Japanese style mini gatefold, with lovely black, white and blue metallic artwork by Stephen O'Malley.
More than a year after it was first announced, it's finally here. The anxiously awaited new lp from Japanese psych doom heavyweights Boris, and their Japanoise partner in sonic crime Merzbow. This is Boris / Merzbow matchup number FOUR for those of you keeping score. Now we know, that as with most new Boris releases, no description is really necessary, most of you probably haven't even made it this far, in fact, just seeing the word Boris triggers the perfect Pavlovian response, your finger immediately clicking on the BUY button. And who are we to argue, let's take a second and let the Boris freaks take care of business, then we'll go into a little more depth for those of you who might need to hear a bit more about the long overdue Walrus...
Okay, a brand new Boris record, we know you're excited. We are too. Boris have again teamed up with Merzbow. The two outfits had previously worked together on the absolutely killer drone record Megatone, the epic and sludgy Sun Baked Snow Cave, and the ear shredding live lp 04092001, and now here. The strange thing, is that these two tracks were recorded waaaaaaay back in 2001. So they may even in fact be from the same sessions that spawned one or all of those other releases. Back to business, two tracks, relatively brief, and as with all Boris releases, so completely gorgeously packaged. Deluxe thick gatefold, the front a sort of green to yellow fade, with the Boris / Merzbow logo done all Roger Dean 'Yes' style, the inside, a surreal landscape, also in the style of Roger Dean with some strange turtle/seal creature in the foreground. So completely beautiful. When the bottom drops out on the doom-sludge-drone market, these guys will be some seriously in demand graphic designers. But what does it sound like? Well that's funny too, cuz it's not at all what we expected.
The A side is actually in fact a cover of the Beatles "I Am The Walrus", and a pretty straight cover to boot, minus the noisy ministrations of Merzbow. Beginning with some simulated seal (or seagull?) sounds, the band launches into a fuzzy, laid back version of "Walrus", pretty cool for sure, but here it's all about Merzbow, adding all sorts of hiss and fuzz, most of the time it sounds like some spastic DJ scratching, relentless and dense, elsewhere it's snatches of white noise and weird industrial whirs. The middle chunk of the song finds Boris kicking it up a notch with Wata unfurling some killer Hendrixian leads, but it's almost drowned out by the Merzbow's noisy squalls. Minus the noise, this might not have been so exciting, a pretty straight ahead cover of an oft covered tune, but the strange textures and noisy backdrops manage to transform it into something pretty interesting.
The B side is what does it for us, a massive, overblown super distorted dirgedrone. A thick wall of crumbling guitars, and buzzing crackling electronic hiss, over a wild drum jam, the drums recorded super blown out. It's like Skullfower, Gate, SUNNO))), Yellow Swans and Birchville Cat Motel all jamming at once while a drummer tries desperately to kick up a competing din. Very free, VERY noisy, but pretty kick ass as well.
As with a lot of Boris releases, this is not necessarily one for the newbie, although it could make a decent 2 song sampler for the curious. Fans already know they MUST have it, Boris virgins might want to check out Flood, or Amplifier Worship, or if they are looking for more rock than dirge, maybe Pink, first, but if you're at all curious, don't dawdle, as with all things Boris this will be gone and only available on eBay before you know it...
All right, we got about 100 copies, as far as we can tell there were four different colors, including black. Here's how it works, first come first served on the colored vinyl, once we run out, it's back to black, if you won't be happy with black, then do not order AT ALL, we will not accept orders for ONLY the colored vinyl, we're going to assume, that the reason people buy records, and yes, even Boris records, is to listen to them, and to enjoy the music (wait, these collectible discs contain music??!?) so while it might be cool to have colored vinyl, it's the music you're after, so black will do just fine (and black sounds better as everybody knows), so go ahead and order it, if you're in time to get colored vinyl, you will, if not you'll get black. And as with most things like this, it's SUPER LIMITED and thus is limited to ONE PER CUSTOMER.
A few lists back, we reviewed a cd from this German 'techno-kraut' duo, who as we mentioned in that review, we first heard remixing Conrad Schnitzler. That disc gathered togther two of B&G's recent 12"s, and was a perfect introduction to their strange string laden, motorik electronica, hypnotic and tranced out electro-kraut minimalism, that deftly fused techno, and dark hypno-jazz, pop ambience, and all sorts of disparate elements.
Clouds is something else altogether, but equally appealing. No beats to be found here, the vibe is about as far removed from krautrock as can be, or dark jazz, or any of the other sonic elements that made up those 12"s. Instead, Clouds finds the duo creating super abstract modern twenty first century classical minimalism, and experimental ambience. The opener reminds us of WIlliam Basinski, or maybe Philip Jeck, a gorgeous fragment of swoonsome melancholic symphonic strings, is manipulated into a hazy dreamscape of washed out loops, of blurred melodies, simple and cyclical, repetitive and gloriously hypnotic, the sound doesn't really change at all until about 5 minutes in, when haunting operatic female vocals join the strings, making it sound all the more dramatic and cinematic. And it's only briefly, soon, the voices fade, blurred into the background, and it's another gorgeous stretch of swirling strings.
The second track is similarly arranged, but much more percussive, a plucked guitar, a symphonic stab, those two elements spread out over an expanse of near silence, super dynamic, heavily reverbed, it's a strange, and strangely rhythmic composition, this track especially smacking of some super abstract Jeck experiment, two turntables set up in a huge empty room, one spinning a single orchestral burst, the other that guitar pluck, the speed constantly shifting, very weird, and very mesmerizing stuff.
"Secret Bells" is not bells at all, but instead, dark languorous piano, drifting in a sea of rumble and buzz, flecked with what sounds like mysterious field recordings, static and crackle, it's very hazy and dreamlike, a warm swirl of otherworldly chamber music.
The record finishes off with the three part, 14+ minute title suite, and begins as stately piano, wreathed in natural reverb, soon joined by woodwinds, the sound growing blurrier, and more dissonant, building to a strangely atonal crescendo, before easing back into the more tranquil drift of the opening, and so it goes back and forth, lush and hushed and delicate, dark and brooding and almost bombastic, before blossoming into the second movement, which is more driving and discordant, horns, piano, buzzing strings, locked into stuttering rhythms, darkly dramatic, and very cinematic, again very dynamic, and very hypnotic, before finally finishing off with a stretch of long tones, a more mournful dirge, the horns moaning, the strings keening, the vibe almost like some ancient court music, majestic and melancholy, finishing off with a final flurry of tangled melodies.
Quite cool, and yet so entirely unlike anything we were expecting from these two, which might be why we're digging it so much!
FYI there's an lp version too, with download code, but we only were able to get a few, not really enough to list, but you can ask...
Maybe we've been going through a bit of a techno phase here at aQ lately, freaking out about the likes of Shed and Silent Servant, among others. For some of us here, it's waaaay more than a phase... And you know we love the krautrock. So Christian Borngraber & Jens Struver are just what the doctor ordered. The Berlin based duo (whom we first encountered remixing the late great Conrad Schnitzler) offer up what could arguably be considered "techno krautrock" on this disc, which collects together two of their vinyl 12" releases (still available separately, we got 'em), Urlaub and In G, originally from 2011 and 2010, respectively.
The three tracks of Urlaub are all quite compelling, rhythmically and otherwise, full of hushed pulsations and eerie echoing electronic hypnosis. There's the tremulous atmospheres of 16 and half minute opener "Reise". The icy dancefloor noir of "Berlin Tribal Music". And then the nearly 12 minute "Dancing Queen", which has a breathy, flute-like lick looping throughout as part of its happy chugging shuffle that we can't help but associate with early, traffic cone era Kraftwerk (gone disco). All of Urlaub is groovy, minimalist, motorik stuff we're really digging.
Maybe even better, and even more krautrockish, is the second half of this disc, In G parts I and II, totaling almost 32 minutes, a slow-building beatscape with whispery, wind-like textures and choppy samples of sweetly sawing strings. It's both haunting and groovy, quite a krauty techno tour de force that incorporates clicks n' cuts, drones, and pop ambient 20th century classical sounds. Wow. We note that it bears a dedication to revolutionary free jazz bassist Sirone.
In particular, if you liked a couple of other releases we've reviewed recently - Oren Ambarchi's Sagittarian Domain, and/or Elektro Guzzi's Live P.A. - this might be right up your alley. Recommended, of course!
When D.C. recording engineer / producer Trevor Kampfmann himself makes music, he goes by the moniker Trevor/hollAND. Dunno if you recall the Takako Minekawa remix record from a few years ago, but Trevor contributed what is in my opinion the best remix on it...
Unfortunately it's only when trevor/hollAND lets loose with his musical interludes that the record gets going. Acoustic guitars mingle sweetly with chiming synths and stuttery percussive loops and cuts. He knows how pretty his material it is, and knows that in order tone down the sweetness it's better to situate his music within more experimental contexts. Trevor/hollAND and Borthwick are certainly talented, but this record is trying my patience. A disappointment from the usually trustworthy label Temporary Residence. Comes with a couple Borthwick polaroids and a foldout poster with the poem's text.
We almost didn't list this, as we only managed to get 5 copies of it, and all of our distributors told us it was out of print. But just for the heck of it, we contacted the label directly, and they still had a stash that they were willing to sell us, which is a good thing, cuz it's amazing! And it's CRAZY expensive, but when you see it (and hear it) you'll realize it's pretty much well worth it.
Never heard the name Karl Bosmann before, but he seems to be sonically aligned with the doomdreamdeathdrone crowd. And that's precisely what this is, although a bit more varied than usual, this one's definitely for the SUNNO)))-set (umm� sorry), a huge old chunk of low end drone. Multiple variations on the glacial near static crawl, some glimmering and effervescent, others grinding and thick, crumbling and abrasive, at least one seems to be all processed vocals, looped and smeared into some weird Steve Reich-ian drone and coupled with a wash of minimal low end shimmer, and one is all detuned guitar strum and disembodied buzz. Easy to hear some Wolf Eyes and definitely some Vulture Club. All of side 2 is a single slow burning sidelong epic, very Fear Falls Burning sounding, beginning as a whispery shimmer, building to a massive clamorous Sunroof! style din.
And let's not forget the packaging. Holy shit, it would be worth it even if the record sucked. Embossed metallic silver on matte black jacket, inside a metallic silver on black insert, a metallic silver on black sleeve, even the record labels are reflective silver, super striking and SO worth the extra scratch.
Karl Bosmann is a German post-industrial / electro-acoustic tactician who seems to from the Conrad Schnitzler mold of continuous experimentation with his equipment in pushing it to expressive means, no matter how atemporal or atonal the resulting sounds might be. Our previous experience with Bosmann had been through monolith drone-fields that swelled from electronics and possibly cymbals into discordant dissonant crescendos somewhere between SUNNO))) and Sunroof! Here, Bosmann showcases a wide array of electronic circuity, whose home-built, tone-bent aesthetics take after the sound poems of early electronic music coupled with the nondestructive strategies from the likes of Nautical Almanac. His electronic insectoid blips, click, and blorps percolate through live-wire electrical fields and the humming cycles akin to fluorescent bulbs. Many of these tracks begin rather charmingly similar to something by Dan Deacon or Black Dice, but Bosmann twists the demeanor of his electronics through anxiety-riddled tones that glow as if a background radiation, with all of the clicks then standing in for Geiger counter pulses to allude to the neutrino bath that he's unleashed through his electronics. The pierced feedback mantra "Around The Sun" is a great recapitulation of what Arcane Device and Nurse With Wound have done with similar material. Dotted through the experiments, Bosmann interjects collages of industrial-space field recordings coupled with overlapping male / female spoken word bits, whose content and context are smeared to the point of abstraction following the Hafler Trio's many demonstrations of information overload.
Limited stock on this title, we might add.
Record number two from this mysterious Bay Area black metal horde, a group whose sound is as heavy on the Louisville math rock is it is on the black buzz, and on record number two, they stretch out even further, exploring their math/post rock tendencies in ways that were only hinted at on the first record. And as one might expect, the mix of black buzz and meandering post rockisms sounds much more organic this time around, where as the first time the separation between the two sounds was more jarring. The production is much improved too.
Just take the opening track, "Volume Two Chapter One", with its darkly dynamic opening, all start stop minor key minimalism, a melancholy minor key melody played out over a series of chords, left to ring out, the drums crashing in time, the only hint of the blackness to come is a howled vocals way way off in the distance, it's two minutes before this crashing moodiness segues fairly smoothly into some frantic blackened blasting, the drums not your typical blastbeat, instead offering up all manner of unlikely fills, the result a little off kilter, and a good balance to the otherwise more traditional back buzz guitar and shrieked vox. And then with about 2 minutes to go, the buzz seems to dissipate leaving just a churning, chuggy chunk of palm muted math rock, that sounds more like Don Cab than Darkthrone, pounding out the final minute in a tangle of mathy rhythms.
The post rockisms are much more subtle in "Marie In A Cage", which plays more like your standard buzzing blackness, but there are those wild chaotic drums, not to mention a killer part midsong where the band switch into a brief bit of proggy mathiness that KILLS, but it's brief and soon the band are galloping along again, never fully shedding that mathiness, but instead incorporating it into the black buzz. "The Lampless Hours" is another track that starts out sounding like some lost mid nineties Touch And Go record (minus the flurries of double kick drum), before launching into a stretch of 'proper' black metal. "The Death Posture" is a churning doomy plod, peppered with burst of blasting black metal, and again here, the band are much more subtle with their deployment of post and math rock elements, which ultimately makes for some truly idiosyncratic black metal. And finally, the record finishes off with the 11+ minute "Why Am I So Lovely? Because My Master Washes Me.", which again sounds on the surface traditionally blackened and buzzy, but the post rock undercurrent seems to seep through every chance it gets, finally shouldering the blackness out of the way at about the midway point for a stretch of gnarled mathiness, that manages to not sound out of place, instead, it's drawn in shades of black, that make it that much easier for the band to slip back into the furious buzz that finishes off the record, until the last minute when the recording seems to go haywire, everything blown out and distorted finishing off in a wild squall of Merzbowian white noise.
Definitely less post rocky than its predecessor, but again, the trade off is that the post rock element doesn't sound as much like a gimmick, instead sounding more an actual intrinsic part of BdN's sound, and while black metal dabblers may not be so inclined this time around (although they should be), true grim metalheads might just find their horizons being expanded, whether they realize it or not.
Hot on the heels of last week's listing of the new double cd release on tUMULt from Bay Area hypersonic one man black metal band Mastery, comes something even stranger. Yet another mysterious one man black metal horde (and another double disc), rising from the fertile SFBM underground. The scene that gave us Leviathan, Draugar, Crebain, Pale Chalice, Sutekh Hexen, Dead As Dreams, Dispirit, Horn Of Dagoth, Pandiscordian Necrogenesis, Amocoma, Elk, Necrite, Palace Of Worms, and more, has now spawned the oddly monikered Botanist, an odd moniker only until you realize that all the songs here are about plants and flowers, and all of the artwork following suit, old faded images of strange and wondrous flora and fauna, but that's not nearly the strangest thing about Botanist. Nope, the strangest thing would be the fact that there are NO guitars, and there is NO bass, just drums, vocals, and HAMMERED DULCIMER. That's right, eerie and esoteric, buzzing and baffling, drum and dulcimer driven black eco-terrorist black metal. And as strange as that may sound, the SOUND is even stranger, the dulcimer a particularly haunting and strangely melodic instrument, the typical black metal riffs replaced by maniacal dulcimer melodies, repeated motifs, flurries of cyclical notes, the sound buzzy and brutal in it's own way, with an almost old-timey feel to the sound, the drums mathy and intricate, often sounding strangely like a demonic drumline, the vocals a hellish raspy croak, but it's the dulcimer that drives the sound of Botanist, a distinctive metallic buzz that's eerily creepy and darkly cinematic, with many of these tracks sounding like they could be some alternate soundtrack for a lost seventies giallo or some super surreal art film.
The tracks are mostly short sharp blasts of metallic buzz, the dulcimer alternatingly offering up dense overtone-rich clouds of frenzied tangled melody, but just as often, unfurling stretches of haunting atonal shimmer, occasionally spacing way out, and weaving sprawling dreadscapes of minor key tension and slow build terror, the sound of the dulcimer so strange, sometimes evoking old pianos in ghost town saloons, other times impossibly melodic, with the songs on the verge of pure poppiness, or as poppy as something as twisted and confusional like this can be. The sound of Botanist is definitely black metal, in form, in structure, in intent, in spirit, even to a degree in sound, but it's also something wholly other, the relation between the rhythms and the melodic component of the dulcimer's haunting buzz and chiming metallic tone hard to quantify, and obviously even harder to accurately describe, then there's the dulcimer's traditional station as a folky Appalachian instrument, it all adds to the crazy, confusional appeal of Botanist's warped sonic world, one that manages to be both heavy and buzzy and blackened, but also haunting and hypnotic and strangely soundtracky, a swirling, hazy, chaotic sound, densely melodic, relentlessly rhythmic, fantastically fucked up and bafflingly brilliant.
The discs are housed in super swank full color mini-lp gatefold style Stoughton jackets, with a thick booklet of lyrics, the jacket and booklet both printed to look like an antique botanist's field journal. ENTER THE VERDANT REALM!!
Full length number FOUR from this local eco-terroristic, drum and dulcimer driven black metal one band band, whose first two records were released as a pair on our very own Andee's tUMULt label. At the time, as much as we loved Botanist's unique and warped take on black metal, we must admit we were a bit surprised when Botanist sort of blew up, making all sorts of year end top ten lists, even popping up on Pitchfork and NPR. We sort of assumed it was too weird to have much appeal, but it seems if anything, that weirdness only made Botanist more appealing to non-metalheads, and in another surprise twist, brought out the open minded experimental streak we had just assumed most metalheads might be missing. But it's easy to see why people dig Botanist. Heck Andee dug his stuff enough to put it out. Botanist's music is dark and twisted, droned out and buzzy, weirdly melodic, super trance-y and hypnotic, it's really barely black metal, the blasting drums and the croaked squashed spider vocals really being the only truly black metal elements, even the metallic buzz of the dulcimer, aping the sort of fast picked BM riffing, ended up sounding like something wholly other. Botanist's third record, on the Total Rust label, found him slowing things down, and creating his own version of doom, which like his take on black metal was appropriately and fantastically skewed. Which brings us to IV, the fourth Botanist full length in two years, and once again, a whole sonic shift has taken place, this one more difficult to quantify, it's not black metal, and not doom, and this time around, we're tempted to say it's not even really metal. Actually not at all.
When we first heard it, we were struck by how melodic it was, almost shoegazey, the dulcimer strangely recorded, to turn the brittle buzz of the early records into something washed out and gloriously distorted, single strings ring out like prismatic chordal swirls, and the more rapid passages blur into blissed out streaks of hazy blurred dreaminess. In fact, minus the vocals, Botanist IV sounds more like some experimental shoegaze pop band, even the blast beats seem to have been ditched in favor of more midtempo rhythms, and then those are mostly buried in the mix, beneath clouds of reverberant overtones, of whorls of FX drenched metallic chords, that all seem to sprawl like cloud of metallic shimmer, laced with keening melodies, the whole thing surprisingly sun dappled and prismatic, if we didn't know the grim story behind the lyrics of IV, we'd assume the theme was one of redemption and rebirth, or in keeping with the Botanist's themes, IV plays out like the soundtrack to post-human earth, once the human race has been eradicated, and the world is a lush nirvana, where nothing but plants grow, allowed to spread out endlessly, and reach forever heavenward. And heck, even with the vocals, it's hard to disguise the lush melodic elements that pretty much entirely define the sound of IV.
Considering the sort of surprising widespread appeal the first few records had, we can only imagine this one might just be the real big breakthrough record for Botanist, it's so catchy and melodic, so pretty and lushly layered, that it's hard to imagine that even some of the more metal averse folks wouldn't or couldn't be won over. We even suggested to the Botanist himself that he should release an instrumental version, imagining the pure psychedelic shoegaze sonic bliss that would result, but for now, IV's glorious mix of lush sonic bliss and grim verdant vokills is more than enough.
