The former Bungle and current Fantomas bassist unleashes the second album of spazz-jazz from his Trio-Convulsant (following up one from long ago that we can't get anymore). Ranging from hard (almost metallic) to soft (cocktails, anyone?), and generally pretty high on the notes-played-per-unit-of-time count. Complex compositions and loose improv coexist here, and the playing is at a very high level, from Dunn as well as his cohorts Mary Halvorson (guitar) and Ches Smith (drums). If you have Zorn, Cline, Ribot, that sort of stuff in yr "jazz" collection, you'll find that the Trio-Convulsant fits in there quite nicely too.
One of three new releases from local label Acephale Winter, this one possibly the most notable, as it's the debut release from the man behind the label, and apparently, he almost didn't let us hear it, but did once he was assured that our tastes in black metal ran very much toward the damaged and demented, and while this might not be as fucked up as Benighted Leams (but then what is!), it is pretty strange, and seriously far out, definitely a primo slab of outsider blackness, as is evidenced but the first few minutes, an intro of sorts that involves field recordings of rain and storms, dense rumbling drones, haunting synths, moody piano figures, a killer swath of crumbling distortion, even some strange samples, all of it leading up to the first song proper, which is a noisy, chaotic beat, EXTREMELY lo-fi, the guitars an insectoid swarm, the drums a barely there pulse, mostly just the snare audible over the churning blackbuzz din, but then some even weirder stuff starts to happen, the sounds blur and bleed, the buzzing becomes suffused with organ thrum, the vocals transformed into a sort of cult-like chant, the whole thing woozy and psychedelic, before lumbering back into more blasting stumble and howl.
Some of the other tracks are much more straight up raw black primitivism, but others are wild concoctions of atonal clean vocals, programmed machine like rhythms, and squalls of guitarnoise, there are weird lullaby like stretches that almost sound like renaissance faire children's music, there are haunting dronescapes, there are warped, blown out slowcore dirges that almost sound like Nirvana's Bleach demos, slowed way down, and doused in blown out distortion, and the record bookends with another blast of stormy field recorded ambience and a seriously confusional brief bit of sonic schmaltz right at the end. Killer stuff, warped and WTF for sure. Definitely excited to hear more...
LIMITED TO 50 COPIES!!!
We managed to get a small handful of these from a distributor, they're priced super cheap, as the label has since folded, so these are the very last copies we'll ever be able to get, and we have just EIGHT of these...
We tried to find out more about this record, but all we could find online was a bunch of crazy super academic babble that talked about the roots of the Esperanto language, the texts of Borges and Calvino, the art of Dubuffet, heavy metalinguistics, and other stuff that really shed no light at all. But yeah, while this is definitely coming to us from the world of academic sound, the actual SOUND is quite pleasing, the opener is a dark droney, softly rhythmic psychedelic landscape of layered tones, and soft sonic pulsations, swirling effects, and muted glitches, over which a voice in French recites the lyrics, the result a sort of abstract minimal Chain Reaction sort of Portishead, that same rainswept moonlit city downtempo moodiness, the second track sounds a bit more like recent outings by Byetone or Alva Noto, that sort of machinelike electro, but a bit more organic, lots of cinematic tension, cold dark grooves that are surprisingly hypnotic. And so it goes, a series of strangely abstract, and slightly academic groovescapes, a few super abstract, a couple sort of noisy, but for the most part, darkly hypnotic, lushly textured, sonically dense and lushly layered, strangely sultry and weirdly mysterious, a fantastic surprise, that just might be the perfect late night avant academic chill out disc we've ever heard.
Good things most definitely come to those who wait! Those with good memories may recall that I (Jim) had trumpeted about a Sophie Durand & Manu Holterbach album as being one of finest sound art pieces of 2005 alongside the ephemerally beautiful Keith Berry disc The Ear That Was Sold To A Fish. Unfortunately, the label that had released the Durand / Holterbach collaboration had disappeared before any copies could make their way from the label's base of operations in Switzerland. Fortunately, the virtues of vigilance and patience held true, and Aquarius Records can now offer this magnificent recording to our discerning listeners.
The instrument behind what is hopefully the first installment to the Verres Enharmoniques series is a device that modifies the parlor trick of rubbing a wet finger across the rim of a wineglass to produce a continuous harmonic frequency. While the glass harmonica applied this same principle to a series of tuned glass bowls to produce several octaves of those harmonics, Manu Holterbach's invention hooks up four modified wine glasses to four foot pedals which control the water level within the glasses. Thus as water is pumped into the glass or drains out, the harmonic notes ascend and descent correspondingly. Holterbach and his partner Sophie Durand have performed with this instrument for several years now, with renowned sound artist mnortham making the bold claim that their performance was the loudest that he's ever experienced. Considering that their performances are unamplified, mnortham's claim is all the more astounding, but not impossible given that the purity of the frequencies from vibrating glass can rattle inside the human head. In rattling around the human head, these frequencies give the impression of high volumes without the sound pressure of a mountain of Marshall stacks. Durand and Holterbach apply these sounds as deep drones in subtle minimalist compositions with undulating movements and periodic phase patterns that have all of the majesty of LaMonte Young or Phill Niblock.
Sure the record is brilliant, but here's the other selling point: it's out of print and we only got a handful.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This is the very first we've heard from the oddly monikered DVVLLXNS (pronounced "Vallens", we think), which in fact is the new project from Jon Porras, one half of doomdrone duo Barn Owl. Originally releases as a download, LXTVNY is only now getting a proper release. As we mentioned in our recent review of Porras' latest solo album Orilla Oscura, as much as the various Barn Owl related projects and records push past Barn Owl's twang flecked ambient drone sound, they all still share a similar sound and vibe, something that Porras was aware of when he conceived off DVVLLXNS, which still shares the same vibe, it's dark and psychedelic, it's most definitely a whole different beast. When we first got these in, we joked about the very witch house-y logo that adorns the cover, but once we threw it on, we realized that maybe that cover is sort of appropriate, cuz the sound on LXTVNY is actually kind of witch housey to these ears, murky and swirling and psychedelic, lots of processed voices, programed beats, the opener is all skittery drum machines, and ethereal vocals molded into psychedelic swirls, stuttering loops, the result is sort of dance-y, but more sort of hazy and rhythmic, certainly super shoegazey, the whole thing ethereal and ghostly and fantastically washed out and shimmery. The second track adds some dubbiness to the equation, the beats fading in and then out, over which soft swirling shimmering swells drift dreamily, before the rhythm resurfaces and the song is transformed into a weird sort of witch-kraut groove, again crafted from more distorted voices and a pulsing beat, before splintering into an abstract drift of echo drenched sonic fragments.
The flipside starts out all haunting and dramatic, a blurred slo-mo chamber music almost, super minimal and Caretaker-y, a buried heatbeat like pulse beneath the soft psychedelic swirls, before an oscillating synth melody swoops in, the sound blurring into some super minimal Kompakt style Pop Ambience, and then finally, the record finishes off with a woozy cascade of arpeggiated synths, wreathed in tinkling music box melodies and a thick ominous low end drone, the sound super cinematic and sinister, when the beat comes in, it's less a beat, and more a sort of rhythmic filigree, swooping hard from speaker to speaker, wreathed in gauzy hiss, leaving a crackling contrail draped over the percolating synths beneath, fans of all that Carpenter / Goblin worship, will dig this track especially.
As much as we love the sound of Barn Owl, and Porras' various side projects, we're digging this new direction a LOT, and we probably say this every time, but this might be our favorite Porras recording yet!
Eccentric outsider doom metal from the '80s, from waaaaaay down underground. Now hold up, if the words "doom" or "metal" make you think, not for me, think again (maybe). This isn't like any metal you've ever heard, really. More like spaced out '60s heavy psychedelic guitar rock (one song's called "Heavy Vibrations", man), overloaded also with shrill synth symphonics and trippy effects... That's where the "outsider" tag comes in, Dwarr being a one-man band, all the work of South Carolina multi-instrumentalist (but especially guitar!) Duane Warr (hence the name Dwarr), whom we get the impression is quite a character. It's so DIY that the cds have his phone number on 'em, in case you want to get in touch. His privately pressed music comes off like a cough-syrup dosed mixture of Black Sabbath and Todd Tamanend Clark (whom you should know from the double cd anthology we raved about a few years ago). Or, The Happy Dragon Band playing Pink Floyd, from beyond the grave. Maybe a lo-fi Captain Beyond, on even more drugs than Captain Beyond were ever on. Or imagine if Bobb Trimble was an '80s metaller, perhaps (and worked out in the gym a lot more?). Sorry to use so many almost equally obscure references, but it's hard to compare this confusional beast to anything else.
Look at that insane cover painting, a surreal post-apocalyptic landscape (that's a malevolent-looking Statue of Liberty sunken in polluted looking water next to a cave populated by long-haired, skull-faced cannibalistic mutants, with an avatar of Dwarr himself, we're guessing, striking a heroic he-man pose in the upper right hand corner). The music itself is as surreal and apocalyptic and ridiculous as that image, matching up to it much more than most other "metal" albums ever match up to their cover art, both in subject matter and, ah, execution.
Just from the cover painting, let alone the music, this Dwarr album is SO perfectly Aquarius, you'd almost think we made it up. But no, Dwarr's for real, something we'd vaguely heard tell of and been curious about for years, and finally went to the trouble of tracking down (not so hard, thanks to the Internet, now that everybody and their grandmother's bands are on MySpace). And lo and behold, it turned out Dwarr had issued ALL four of his albums (two from the '80s, two from the '00s, believe it or not!) on compact disc. So we had to get a bunch of this one, his second, from 1986, probably his best and "heaviest". A Record Of The Week, easy.
There's 13 tracks, each one incredible (or incredibly strange). There's nothing that's NOT freaked out about this. Even the poppiest songs (like the title track "Animals") are full of sluggish grooves, druggy lyrics, buzzing electronics, melodic stoned vocals, acid rock guitar (and acid WTF synth). Elsewhere it gets away from rock/metal song structure entirely, with interludes of eerie atmospherics, spacey soundscapes overlaid with ominous whispered declamations, and weirdass instrumentals, like the squirrelly, proggy bombast of "Chocolate Mescalyne", a track that if you sped it up a lot would almost fit in on a Orthrelm album.
And then there's the DOOM. Oh yeah, while it's not "normal" doom it IS doom. Sludgy, Sabbath-riffed doom indeed, despite the trebly production. "Ghost Lover", for instance, gives us the feel of both the Sabs' "Iron Man" and "Electric Funeral", and Duane's vocals are particularly Ozzy-ish on the uber-heavy "Evil Lures" too... Great stuff if you really really appreciate the stranger, more psychedelic aspects of true doom artistry, the spirit is HERE.
Three cheers for avant garde new wave downer rock hippie heavy metal weirdness! That gives special thanks "to the Columbia High School Band for the use of their percussion instruments". We are so pleased to play a role in sharing this culter than cult classic with you, which by the way comes in fairly no-frills packaging, the cd in a thin cardboard sleeve with full-color album art front and back but no lyrics, liner notes, nothin' like that. It's pretty cheap though. Not that you should need any further incentive to pick this up, after reading our ravings above...
When we reviewed the Gnod record Dwellings & Druss a while back, at the time we didn't realize that Dwellings was in fact an entirely separate project. We described that record as diverting from the group's usual psychedelic space rock heaviness and into a twisted dark strain of electronica, which makes sense when you realize Dwellings is in fact the name used by the bass player of Gnod, when he's making, yup, you guessed it, twisted electronic music, which is exactly what you'll find here. Shouldn't be too much of a surprise as a handful of the recent Trensmat releases seem to have been exploring a sound well removed from what had become a sort o 'Trensmat' sound. Here, Gnod's bass player weaves a dense landscape of minimal Kompakt percolations, swirling stuttery rhythmic skitter, that explodes into driving, pulsing, noisy, psychedelic electronica, wild tangles of beats, swirling atmospheres, buried heavily reverbed vocals, looped melodic fragments, the opening track begins sort of chaotic, but for the last few minutes locks into a seriously tranced out, murky hypno-groove, that we kinda wish would go on forever. "Drone Invasion" follows a similar pattern, starting out more rhythmic, but gradually, the surrounding sounds building to a dense pulsing drone, blown out and super distorted. "Holographic Mirror" is a lot more skeletal and brittle, super mesmeric and hypnotic, but the final track, "Wave Propagation", is a dark pulsating gem, sounding like Vatican Shadow crossed with some dark Kompakt jam, thick swaths of swirling low end, skittery beats, minor key melodies, all blurred into a murky, moody, motorik haze. So good.
Includes a link to download the whole record, as well as a 17 minute bonus track not on the lp! Already sold out at the label, when we run out, not sure we can get more, but if we can, it might take a little while, so act fast, or be prepared to be patient...
The author of the exceptionally well-written Scrapyard Forecast blog which focuses on all things droned-out, Adrian Dziewanski has also been slowly developing an exceptional sensibility of his own tonefloat minimalism from acoustically sourced drones. There were a couple of cassettes and cd-rs which had been floating around, mostly under the moniker Empress; but Orbital Decay is the first one that has made it to aQ. In perusing his blog, it can be something of a Nurse With Wound list of stellar minimalists and dronologists who have all informed Dziewanski on how to proceed with his own music: Pandit Pran Nath, Andrew Chalk, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Manu Holterbach, Barn Owl, Organum, etc. The warm cascading shimmer that pours from the speaker is a timeless drone, reminiscent of those sustained harmonic intervals that any number of the high-holy minimalists from the '60s might have produced, complete with the rasping buzz of strings that could have been sourced from a sitar, a hurdy gurdy, or even a well-tuned piece of sheet metal. Dziewanski laces this central drone with monochromatic, airy passages of levitated white noise bathed in reverb. These wisps ebb and flow in melodic currents that work into a beautifully rendered hypnosis. Does anybody remember Jim O'Rourke's 1993 album Remove The Need, of prepared guitar drones? Orbital Decay is somewhere between that record, those Keith Fullerton Whitman albums of bliss-out on Kranky, and the Nurse With Wound ambient opus Soliloquy For Lilith. Very well done and very limited. Just 125 copies of this professionally replicated cd (not a cd-r!).
A long lost eighties artifact from UK tape label The Tapeworm, released along with three other strange and wonderful tapes, to be found elsewhere on this week's list.
E-Man is probably not a name familiar to most folks, and Geir Jenssen might not be either, but odds are, most aQ customers and drone obsessives do know Jennsen by his 'other' name, Biosphere!
But before you freak out and nab one of these expecting some sort of icy grim minimal ambience, be prepared, this was originally released in 1984, and is a whole 'nother beast. E-Man specializes in gloomy synth driven new wave, with crooned dramatic vocals, programmed electronic percussion, Joy Division-y basslines, Kraftwerk like melodies, wicked cool, but definitely of its time. Although folks who have been digging on the recent resurgence of new wave / cold wave, should for sure check this out, cuz this is the real deal, warm whirring swooshes of synthesizer, "Rockit" like rhythms, electronic drums, even some scratching, a little bit funky, but also cold and clinical, space-y here and there, with haunting snippets of found sounds, mysterious voices, but all would around the groups propulsive sound. There are some moments that hint at the Biosphere to come, a little more spacey and abstract, but even those tracks are strangely new wave-y, almost new age-y actually, and often lead right into some stiff outerspace robo-funk, usually overlaid with the above mentioned reverb drenched croon. Not at all what we expected, but we're totally digging it.
LIMITED TO 350 COPIES. Bad ass Savage Pencil artwork too...
Drone Records -- run by Stefan Knappe of Troum and Maeror Tri -- exclusively produces seven inches mostly by emerging artists who specialize in expressive drone work (hence the label name). While there is something to be said for Drone's dedication to unknown artists, the work that comes from the ongoing series tends to be some of the best work from each of the artists' respective
EA is a Polish artist who only has a couple of cd-r releases under his belt, but has succeeded in developing a very nice amorphous version of late '80s Zoviet France, albeit without Robin Storey's trademarked looping structures. "11'00" is a delicate strain of manipulated feedback that complements a battery of distant gongs, extended guitar tones, and reverberated textural scrapings. Nice.
Eagle Keys (which is probably just the name of the record, not the name of the band, but since it's on the spine we're calling 'em Eagle Keys) is two dudes, one whom we know and one whom we don't. Respectively, there's electric bassist Tim Olive, who we most recently heard in the Supernatural Hot Rug And Not Used duo recording from EM Records. He's been in some other bands over the years, including Nimrod and Soap-Jo Henshi, best known to Japanese-music nerds like ourselves. The other fella is Francisco Meirino, responsible here for "computer and acoustics". Together they have produced two long tracks, "Eagle Keys Part One" and "Eagle Keys Part Two", about 50 minutes total of crinkly-crankly improvised soundscapes, littered with abstract, atmospheric detail. Part One begins with shuffling clicks and whirring hum and rattling gurgle, sounding a bit like some sort of shaggy electronic beast snuffling through its dinner. Long quiet drones and sizzling hissing and ominous creakings and chaotic clankings occur as this duo rummage about with their instruments and and objects and microphones, the whole process finally building into a dense, satisfying distorted drone-howl at almost the very end of its 34 minutes. Then, the 15 and a half minute Part Two is more about gentle flutter and whispered feedback. It's spooky and hissy and whistle-y (enough so that at points, dogs might not like it!). It comes to an end with a sudden, satisfying "clunkgluntch"!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We obviously don't need to say much to convince all the Earth / Sunn 0))) / doom-dirge-drone obsessives out there that this disc is ESSENTIAL. Most of them are willing to shell out $50 or $100 or even more for limited vinyl releases by any band even tangentially related to Sunn 0))) or Earth, anyway. But for those of you who are new to the Earth phenomenon, as long as you already own their ALL TIME CLASSIC album Earth 2, you might also want to check this disc out (and the OTHER, NEW Earth cd reviewed elsewhere on this list!). 070796LIVE collects the WAY out of print, one sided live lp from a few years back, the equally WAY out of print tour only split 12" with KK Null, an unreleased live recording on WNYU, and a remix by James Plotkin (O.L.D. / Khanate / Phantomsmasher, etc.) In terms of eBay value alone this disc is worth at least $100 if not more!!! But so what? More importantly it's another essential slab of crushing, mesmerising, slow motion drone-metal! The first two tracks are "070796" (from the live lp) and the live radio recording "Dissolution III (Oversaturated Intervallic Collisions)". These tracks are classic Earth, stumbling, droning, rambling, and endlessly heavy. The funny thing with Earth though, is sometimes they sound like they must be taking the piss. A couple scraggly haired dudes, wacked out of their minds, tuning and fumbling for twenty minutes, sometimes sitting there in a stupor, letting the feeding-back guitar do all the work, sometimes plucking and scraping and manipulating the sound into rumbling sheets of drone and skree. But sometimes, that fumbling becomes absolutely divine, which is, we suppose, the magic of Earth. The ultimate outsider drone outfit. Who somehow manage, with the same amps and guitars and effects as the rest of us, to simply stumble into dronerock nirvana! The third track, from the KK Null split tour 12", features the current incarnation of Earth with Adrienne Davies on drums. Bookended by that classic stationary Earth feedback-drone, this track eventually morphs into an actual song, with a fuzzed out, minor key riff, and simple hypnotic drumming, falling sonically somewhere between moody post rock and midtempo Burzumic black metal. Throbbing and loping, and totally mesmerizing. The last track, the Plotkin remix, takes the live track and stretches it into thick ropy drones, with the original track's constituent parts blurred into indistinct smears of fuzz and rumble, a slowly shifting glacial crush, with occasional squalls of buzzy white noise and electronic filligree. Really really nice. And of course as we now know, the rumour we had been hearing, about a BRAND NEW Earth record has proven to be the truth, with the release of Living In The Gleam Of An Unsheathed Sword (read all about it elsewhere on this list), which IS a new record, but features live tracks recorded in 2002. And while one of the tracks here is inexplicably duplicated on the new cd, both discs are well worth the price, with 070796LIVE including three tracks essentially unavailable anywhere else, and Living In The Gleam containing an epic one hour track only available on that cd.
THIS LP IS COMPLETELY OUT OF PRINT AND WE WILL NEVER HAVE IT AGAIN BUT WE THOUGHT WE'D LEAVE IT IN THE CATALOG FOR POSTERITY'S SAKE. PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This is the shit. Earth were the masters of the downtuned slow motion dirge, boasting both Joe Preston of the Thrones and Kurt Cobain as one time members. Their second record, 'Earth 2' (which we also carry) is an absolute classic and essential for lovers of doom, metal, sludge, or any sort of heaviness.
This lp collects an alternate version of their first album as well as the two ultra rare '16 rpm' 7"s. It is clear vinyl, housed in a breathtaking hand screened clear sleeve, and limited to 360, of which we only got 20. So don't dawdle or you'll be kicking yourself later.
Crushing and glacial tar pit metal. Like your Melvins records at 6 rpm. Like listening to Black Sabbath on a walkman with dying batteries at the bottom of a swimming pool. Like the last 10 seconds of your life, played out in slow motion, as tons of 'rock' crushes you to death.
You must buy this.
Totally fucking essential if you already like Earth, but definitely for fans of the Melvins, Corrupted, Esoteric, Skepticism and the like.
(For some reason we never listed this before, so rather than just adding it quietly to the website we thought we'd put it on our email, timely since we're also listing the reissue of Earth's "Sunn Amps..." cd.)
Earth. The band that launched a thousand drones. The band that started it all. The heaviest band ever (maybe). Earth was the singular vision of only-permanent-member Dylan Carlson, the long haired guy pictured on the back cover wearing the Morbid Angel longsleeve (whom you might remember from the Kurt & Courtney movie). For 1993's Earth 2, Dylan's guitar was joined by the bass of Dave Harwell, who is pictured holding a cup of coffee on the back cover (and who would go on to disappear completely).
All you kids who thrive on an unhealthy diet of the Corrupted, Boris (who even borrowed the Earth 2 tagline "Special Low Frequency Version" for the Southern Lord version of their "Absolutego" album), the Melvins, Thrones, and sludge like that, as well as you avant-art rockers who enjoy 'dronology' and stuff like Mirror and Jonathan Coleclough and even those of you who sit at home in front of your dream machines and wallow in the historical drones of Angus Maclise and Tony Conrad, need look no further than Earth 2 to experience the drone the way it was meant to be heard: huge downtuned guitars playing riffs so slow that each one lasts forever, LOW END that slides and lurches like a blackened glacier of fuzz and hiss, slow motion notes stretched so far that they become a single note washing over you like a sticky wave of tar and molasses, melodies that are indistinguishable because the notes are pulled so far apart they threaten to come apart completely. When we tell someone that a record is heavy, Earth 2 is the barometer by which all other supposedly 'heavy' music is measured. Even recent AQ faves Sunn 0))) are an Earth tribute band (they will even say as much) named for Earth's amp of choice. There are very few records that are 'classics', that stand the test of time, that remain as vital now, as when they originally came out, ten, twenty, or even thirty years earlier, that have influenced so many bands so much, or that have been unequalled, even with so many people trying so hard to be the heaviest or most extreme. The drug addled, accidental brilliance that is Earth 2, to this day remains a complete and utter classic.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Super limited triple lp version of this all time classic. And we mean VERY LIMITED. As in we only have 1 copies. SUPER EXPENSIVE, but the only way to get this on vinyl at this point. In plain white sleeves, sealed with a sticker, with an insert. Supposed to be numbered but our copies aren't. Sleeves are not in perfect condition as these were dragged around Europe by Earth on their 2003 European tour with KK Null, originally the only place you could buy this sucker! Her's our review of the cd version:
Earth. The band that launched a thousand drones. The band that started it all. The heaviest band ever (maybe). Earth was the singular vision of only-permanent-member Dylan Carlson, the long haired guy pictured on the back cover wearing the Morbid Angel longsleeve (whom you might remember from the Kurt & Courtney movie). For 1993's Earth 2, Dylan's guitar was joined by the bass of Dave Harwell, who is pictured holding a cup of coffee on the back cover (and who would go on to disappear completely).
All you kids who thrive on an unhealthy diet of the Corrupted, Boris (who even borrowed the Earth 2 tagline "Special Low Frequency Version" for the Southern Lord version of their "Absolutego" album), the Melvins, Thrones, and sludge like that, as well as you avant-art rockers who enjoy 'dronology' and stuff like Mirror and Jonathan Coleclough and even those of you who sit at home in front of your dream machines and wallow in the historical drones of Angus Maclise and Tony Conrad, need look no further than Earth 2 to experience the drone the way it was meant to be heard: huge downtuned guitars playing riffs so slow that each one lasts forever, LOW END that slides and lurches like a blackened glacier of fuzz and hiss, slow motion notes stretched so far that they become a single note washing over you like a sticky wave of tar and molasses, melodies that are indistinguishable because the notes are pulled so far apart they threaten to come apart completely. When we tell someone that a record is heavy, Earth 2 is the barometer by which all other supposedly 'heavy' music is measured. Even recent AQ faves Sunn 0))) are an Earth tribute band (they will even say as much) named for Earth's amp of choice. There are very few records that are 'classics', that stand the test of time, that remain as vital now, as when they originally came out, ten, twenty, or even thirty years earlier, that have influenced so many bands so much, or that have been unequalled, even with so many people trying so hard to be the heaviest or most extreme. The drug addled, accidental brilliance that is Earth 2, to this day remains a complete and utter classic.
We made this a Record Of The Week on our special Halloween in-between list last week, here it is again in case you were out trick-or-treating and missed it:
Man, were we ever bummed when Sub Pop told us that Earth's first album (or ep?), their seminal doom-drone debut Extra-Capsular Extraction, had gone out of print (again). WTF? How could that be? That's so wrong. Well, thankfully, it hasn't stayed OOP for long. Southern Lord has just repackaged, remastered, and reissued it, incorporating a whole bunch MORE music recorded at the original Extra-Capsular sessions back in 1990, material that previously appeared only on bootleg 7"s long ago (and/or showed up as bonus tracks on the also-quite-out-of-print Sunn Amps And Smashed Guitars Live disc). So what you get here is the COMPLETE Extra-Capsular album as Earth mainman Dylan Carlson originally intended it. So if you don't have the Sunn Amps disc, this is totally worth getting again even if you already have the Sub Pop version! Plus, the packaging is aces, with gorgeous new art by Simon Fowler, designed by Stephen O'Malley, and there's new 2010 liner notes from Carlson. He talks about how they got signed by Sub Pop after opening for L7 at a show in Seattle, fortuitously 'cause they had been having no luck up 'til then finding a label interested in putting out the record they'd recorded, this one. Apparently it cost just $300 to make at Smegma studios, and the "guest musicians worked for Pabst and Percodan"... Earth back then consisted of Dylan Carlson (guitar/vocals), plus Dave Harwell (bass) and Joe Preston (bass/percussion). Joe of course later went on to fame and fortune in the Melvins, and later, his one man band Thrones (and High On Fire, and Harvey Milk, etc.). Oh, and this is the Earth record that one Kurt Cobain (spelt "Kobain" here), sings on as well, which we know confused and dismayed a lot of frat/jock guys back in the day, who bought this hoping for something that smelled like teen spirit and instead got what turned out to be the inspiration for SUNNO)))!
So, here's what we said about this when we reviewed the prior version, back on list #135 in 2002, when Sub Pop repressed it (at our urging, we like to think):
Kind of a holy grail for those who didn't pick up the long-out-of-print original version of this when it was first released, the 1991 debut cd by the Pacific Northwest's late great drone/doom masters Earth. Originals sell for big $$$ on eBay. And those who DO have one consider it an old friend. Now Sub Pop has finally got their act together (prodded by the pleas of many an Earth fan, including Allan here at AQ, who takes full credit, so you can thank him) and have reissued it at last - this time in a jewel case instead of the mere cardboard sleeve of the original version (another triumph for Allan). The artwork is the same, though: the medical-text inspired 'Postgraduate Seminars: Eye Surgery - Concepts and Problems' graphics. There's no extra tracks or anything, but the original three tracks ("A Bureaucratic Desire For Revenge Parts 1 & 2", "Ouroboros Is Broken") are more than enough: 32 minutes of downtuned dirge, metallic slow-motion sludge riffery that goes to extremes of low, slow heaviness that even the mighty Melvins never achieved. The lengthier, airier follow-up "Earth 2" might be Earth's masterpiece, but "Extra-Capsular" was their devastating opening act, sounding like the grand, ominous martial music meant to accompany an invasion by malevolent Underearth Dwellers. We remember when I first got this, most of our friends thought it was the most retarded record ever. Now they know better. Well, actually, they probably don't, but WE know. So recommended. Also "Geometry Of Murder" seems to sneak in a Saint Vitus riff!
So NOW thanks to Southern Lord, this album by the still great (and no longer late!) Earth is back in print, as God and/or Satan intended, in its complete version for the first time, extended to seven tracks over 55 minutes. The extra stuff fits right in, more-Melvinsy-than-thou slow-mo sludge riffery that outshines almost anything that came after.
An obvious Record Of The Week, and perfect for our special Halloween list, as it's super heavy and menacing, as well as such a long-time fave - and also the eye-surgery theme of the cover art always gave us the chills.
And FYI, Southern Lord will also being doing this on double vinyl, due out November the 22nd!
The further Earth evolves, the harder it is to believe they were once THEE progenitors of the doomdronedirgesludge sound that's so prevalent these days. They began life as a sludgey, druggy, slo-mo avant riff behemoth, no one could have imagined they would have turned into this, a dusty, twangy, deserty, moody minimal slowcore combo, with a sound that has essentially evolved into a score to some stark, spare, imaginary black and white independent film, more soundtrack, imagined or not, than proper rock band, let alone, METAL band, which is how they have been traditionally categorized. But Angels Of Darkness, like the last few Earth records before it, is most definitely not metal, not even heavy really, at least in the traditional sense, this one even in the NON traditional senses, instead, it's again dark and brooding, evocative and emotional, cinematic and soundtracky, the core sound has again been expanded to include strings, which only adds to the whole moody minimal soundtrack vibe. But hell, it still suits them, we now have enough other bands doing the whole slow and low dirge and drone thing, and if anything, Angels Of Darkness might be Earth's most full realized stab and capturing their 'new' sound. No pretenses, no strings attaching them to the old Earth, very few allusions, sonic or otherwise, to the ghost of doom past, they're even more secure on the new path they set out on years ago, and it shows, each of the long tracks here unwinds gradually, a slow, swirling smoldering bit of twang flecked slowcore, a little bit droney, the guitars spidery and crystalline, the bass and drums super minimal, the cello doing much of the heavy lifting this time around, its deep throaty buzz, the perfect compliment to the band's sun baked shimmer, and bleak drowsy moodiness. Not a huge shift in sound, but then nobody wanted that, we just wanted more, more slithery, sun dappled darkness, more summery shadowy twang, and that's what Angels Of Darkness is, more just a honing and perfecting of a sound that's already pretty perfect, and exactly what you'd want to be playing in the background as you wandered down the dusty street of some old ghost town, and a perfect fit alongside the rest of your 'Ghost Town' mix alongside Scenic, Tulsa Drone, Barn Owl, Calexico, Sixteen Horsepower, and the rest.
Kind of a holy grail for those who didn't pick up the long-out-of-print original version of this when it was first released, the 1991 debut cd by the Pacific Northwest's late great drone/doom masters Earth. Originals sell for big $$$ on eBay. And those who DO
Earth on this disc consisted of mastermind Dylan Carlson (guitar/vocals) plus Dave Harwell (bass) and Joe Preston (bass/percussion). Joe of course later went on to fame and fortune in the Melvins, and later, his one man band Thrones.
Oh, and this is the Earth record that one Kurt Cobain plays on as well, which I know confused and dismayed a lot of frat/jock guys back in the day!
It's all been leading up to this. In the early nineties, when most of us heard Earth for the first time, our minds were totally blown. What was that massive slab of fuzzy sludge doing on Sub Pop? Why didn't it sound like Soundgarden or Mudhoney or Tad? It didn't take long before we stopped asking questions like that and began wondering where the hell were all the other bands that sounded like Earth. Well, it took 10 years, but now that whole downtuned slow motion sludge thing is an actual genre. With more and more new bands popping up every day. All honoring the mighty sludge that was Earth. But those of you who were into Earth the first time around, might remember the band changing directions pretty dramatically, adding a drummer, and playing actual songs, even doing a Hendrix cover at one point, the Earth of old having mutated into a groovy sort of stoner post rock, propulsive swinging riffs, relentless chugging guitars, all wrapped in a druggy spacy swirl. Back then we were all a bit bummed out, as Earth became, well, more normal, at least to our ears. It was as close to selling out as Earth were liable to get.
Back to the present day. Recordings started popping up here and there, along with rumors of actual Earth shows, limited 7"s and tour only 12"s, all filling us with an impossible anticipation. Earth was back. But if they were back, why were all the recordings from live shows and all several years old? It made sense, the sound of the new Earth practically picked up right where they left off, stretched out, spaced out, druggy post rock with simple drumming and wavering distorted riffs, not heavy per se, but dark and dreamy and mesmerizing. But none of that could have prepared us for the desolate, sun baked, slow crawl, shuffle and twang beauty of long-awaited new studio album Hex. Definitely hewing closer to Earth's more recent post rockisms, Hex is warm and expansive, slow building and contemplative, with simple drums, heavily reverbed, not distorted, guitars, occasional lapsteel, the whole thing unfurling into a haunting twang, a ghost town desert lullaby, a Cormac McCarthy novel in song, tumbleweeds, miles of scrub and windblown landscapes, old dead trees, plenty of space for the cymbals to sizzle and each riff to drift into black clouded skies. Drone / doom / dirge / sludge purists (if there can be such a thing) may well be a bit disappointed, or at the very least confused. And Earth's history / reputation for black hole heaviness might be an albatross at this point as this new sound falls squarely within the territory of groups like Low, Codeine, Friends Of Dean Martinez, Calexico, Scenic, Torrez, Sixteen Horsepower, even Mazzy Star or Godspeed You Black Emperor. But ultimately none of that has anything to do with the fact that Hex is just simply beautiful. A dark and mysterious and truly haunting record. Huge swells of instrumental tension dissipate into warm washes of drift and shimmer, melodies are slowly uncoiling snakes, waking drowsily and slithering off sun baked rocks, every note and every drum beat, every slippery lapsteel swoop, every stretch of near silence, are all draped lazily over broken fences, fallen power lines, rusted out tractors, fallow fields. Dark clouds drift above, across a steel grey sky, sending small shadowy shapes scurrying across the landscape like mysterious creatures, the breeze is warm and smells of death and desolation. Every one is lost and alone, out of money, out of time, just waiting around to die. The mood is bleak, but the sound of Hex is so so beautiful. Somehow hopeful and full of joy, but the sort of joy that comes from being powerless and close to despair, and simply choosing joy over misery, finding happiness the way animals in the desert seek out moisture. The heart of Hex is heavy, the sound appropriately heavy as well, but in a way few conventionally heavy records can manage. A brooding, storm about to break, dam about to burst, soul about to loose itself from its earthly moorings and escape to a better place kind of heavy. The sound of the desert, and the human spirit, of death, of sadness and horror, of loneliness, of abandonment, of hearts breaking, lovers lost and drifting apart, of life. The sound of laying in the dry dirt, the breeze stretched across you like a moth eaten old blanket, eyes closed, the sun sending all sorts of shapes spinning behind your closed eyelids, memories becoming fuzzy and drifting away, your whole body and soul wrapped in a warm darkness, the world fading into nowhere, you fading into nothing.
It's been an Earth kinda year so far, eh? Once considered a going-beyond-the-Melvins joke, notable mainly for the early involvement of one Kurt Cobain, Earth's status has grown and grown over the years. They've got to be much more popular now than when their first few Sub Pop albums came out in the early '90s. Back then, only a few folks -- that'd probably be me, you, and those guys who later formed SUNNO))) -- were into Earth, and understood the immense genius of their slo-motion, drone-heavy ambient doom riffage. Now, we sell more copies of Earth 2 every week than Aquarius probably sold the year it came out (well, that might be a slight exaggeration, but we do sell a heck of a lot of Earth 2, considering). And SUNNO))), Boris and all the rest of 'em owe a lot to Earth's Dylan Carlson and his various cohorts.
So far, 2004-2005 has seen the release of two new (though, live) Earth albums and a 7". And now this. You know you've made it when the remix album comes out! Handpicked by Carlson himself, the remixers here are an interesting lot: Mogwai, Russell Haswell, Jim O'Rourke, Autechre, Justin Broadrick, and surprise surprise SUNNO)))! Now, on one hand that's an exciting line-up, sure, while on the other, it'd might be even more interesting to hear those blokes remix something like Brittany Spears, right? For subversion's sake anyway. But they're all Earth fans, and Earth is fans of them, and we're pretty sure Earth fans are gonna like what they've done here. And even if you think that the presence of SUNNO))) is a little...redundant, or that Jim O'Rourke, cool as he is, need never trouble himself with yet another remix, overall no complaints! We like how Mogwai has introduced what sound like avant-classical violin into "Teeth Of Lions Rule The Divine", we found Russell Haswell's Merzbow-ization of the almost Champs-y "Tibetan Quaaludes" enjoyable, and SUNNO)))'s sixteen-minute "Rule The Divine (Mysteria Caelestis Mugivi)" sounds the most Earth-like of all these remixes, which might be to be expected, dontcha think?
Interestingly, no one remixed anything from the first Earth album Extra-Capsular Extraction, while two mixes are from the same Earth 2 track, and three of the remixers (Haswell, O'Rourke, and Broadrick) picked songs from the out of print Phase 3: Thrones And Dominions. Autechre went even further afield and chose a song from Earth's fourth and last (also out of print) studio album, Pentastar: In The Style Of Demons. Hmmm. While I would have liked to hear something from Extra-Capsular, perhaps the presence of all those Phase 3 derived tracks will convince Sub Pop to reissue that album!
Some of the remixes, like Haswell's, feature obvious fuckery, whereas others, like Broadrick's more trebley, buzzier "Harvey" almost need to be played back-to-back with the original to tell which is the remix and which is the real Earth. Though, that "Harvey" sounds like it could also easily be a track by Broadrick's awesome new Jesu project as well! All in all, SUNNO))) excepted, this is generally a bit less riffy and "doomy" than the Earth originals, concentrating instead on Earth's drone-washed trance elements. Almost makes sense that the cd booklet art looks kinda looks like a Pop Ambient cd! Now, it doesn't usually take much of a recommendation from us to convince AQ customers to buy anything Earth-related, but we did like this, a lot!
More sludge trickles down from heaven, giving all you Earth fanatics another reason to live. This is a one sided, live lp, recorded at the Hyperstrings Festival in Vienna in July of 1996. Anyone who bought one of those limited clear vinyl 12"s from a few months back, obviously needs one of these. Crushing tarpit sludge from the masters of all that is slow and heavy. Former Earth-lings include Joe Preston of the Melvins and the Thrones and Kurt Kobain! This is their first 'official' release since their last (Pentastar) on Sub Pop. This is VERY LIMITED. Not sure how long we'll have these.
Finally in stock on vinyl! But like most of these things, probably not for long... We listed the cd version a while back, alongside another (also live) Earth cd, 070796LIVE. Here's a precis of what we had to say about Living In The Gleam Of An Unsheathed Sword then:
There are only two tracks here, both live, and you might have one of them already since it also appears on that 070796LIVE disc. Thankfully though, the track that's exclusive to this record is a doozy -- an hour long! Album-length in itself, a sprawling doom dirge, recorded live in 2002. So while this is a NEW record, it's not an especially recent recording. But what the hell. We'll take our Earth where we can get it. The first track, the one that is duplicated on the Live cd, is a fourteen minute, solo guitar buzz / dirge / scrape that sounds really damaged, stumbling and clumsy, and definitely messed up. The hour-long second track features drummer Adrienne Davies, who seems to be a permanent member of Earth now, and whose spare, hard hitting style perfectly compliments Carlson's new riffier songwriting. Gone are the glacial fuzzy dirges that inspired Sunn 0))) to become Earth 2 (too) and in their place, is a massive fuzzed out riffy doom metal / post rock groove, super repetitive and totally hypnotic. Much more reminiscent of Earth's under-rated, more song-oriented final Sub Pop album Pentastar: In The Style Of Demons. Definitely still doomy and drone-y and drug-addled and head nodding, but dare we say, more rocking!
Now, since this is a single LP and not a double, we're pretty sure that the hour-long track from the cd version must have been edited down to fit on here! But we haven't cracked one open yet to find out. And since most collector-types buying this won't be opening theirs either, we're not gonna bother. Collectors might also be curious to know that the first pressing of black vinyl was limited to 750 copies, but the ones we have might be a second pressing, dunno if they're limited. Well of course they are, but does it matter?
Used to be that Earth was best known for their appearance in the Kurt and Courtney documentary. But those days are long gone. Even your Mom probably knows who Earth is (okay, probably only if you have a super hip Mom, but still, you get the point). These are indeed the days of Earth. Reissues, reunions, remixes...and of course that great new album, Hex. Sub Pop has finally figured out that there's a demand for this stuff, so they've repressed all the Earth albums on vinyl and finally reissued the cd of Phase 3: Thrones And Dominions (the vinyl is actually delayed a bit on this one).
When Phase 3 first came out, we were already BIG Earth fans, totally obsessed with the godlike Earth 2, and were a trifle disappointed by Phase 3, shorter songs, cleaner guitar tone, riffs that were actual riffs and not just slow motion smears of distorted rumble. But more recently we were reminded that Phase 3 really was a pretty darn good record by that Legacy Of Dissolution remix album, when several of the best tracks on there turned out to be sourced from songs from this record!
This still has plenty in common with its predecessor, the lugubrious tempos, the sludgy riffage, the whole Melvins on Thorazine sound, but as mentioned above, the songs are shorter and there's a whole lot more variety in sound and texture and instrumentation. Which at the time, chomping at the bit for Earth 2.5, was a bit of a bummer, but returning to it now, it's really amazing. In fact we're beginning to think track two "Tibetan Quaaludes" is one of our all time favorite Earth songs.
It's easy to see how the band ended up with Pentastar, the record that followed Phase 3, a pretty straight ahead stoner rock record with drums and piano and songs, even a Hendrix cover. This is definitely the transition record, and as such, is a little awkward, but still weird and wonderful. With the riffs more fully formed, we sometimes find ourselves expecting the drums to kick in, we can almost picture the huge fill, BOOM, BAP, BUM BUM BUM BOOM BAP and then the killer metallicized krautrock rhythm that would perfectly fit some of these riffs, but without the drums, it adds all sorts of tension. It's still droney for sure, but it's more like a blissed out guitar experiment than full on sludge. The extra melody makes for some strange referents. The opening track "Harvey" sounds like someone took just the guitar track out of a Queen song, and then slowed it down a tiny bit. Strange but cool. Track three, "Lullaby" sounds like some alternative take on Hendrix's "Star Spangled Banner". Song 6, appropriately entitled "Song 6" is acoustic guitar strum under electric guitar melody with twinkling chimes, a sort of folkdrone hoedown. It's the longer tracks that keep the drone dream of Earth 2 alive though, the aforementioned "Tibetan Quaaludes", the ambient windblown desolation of "Phase 3: Agni Detonating Over The Thar Desert..." the damaged psych drone guitar strangle of "Thrones And Dominions", it all makes for a killer slab of droning guitar weirdness and definitely qualifies as one of our favorite chunks of low end guitar grrr ever. While not as relentlessly monochromatic as 2, it's still pretty dang heavy and droney and sort of pretty too. So, to recap, Earth 2 and their debut, the amazing "Extra-Capsular Extraction are both way heavier. Pentastar is way groovier and more like a regular rock band, but Phase 3 is still kinda heavy but groovy as well which maybe makes it a good introduction for the Earth novice, depending on which way you lean, drone or groove, you can decide which Earth to get next. The rest of you weird rock obsessives just assume this is absolutely essential.
Too bad they didn't spring for the deluxe packaging of the original with its sheet of red transparent plastic and multiple inserts, on the reissue it's just replicated on the digipak, funny too as the original packaging must have been pretty pricey for a band who at the time probably wasn't selling a whole lot of records, but now with the world in a sludge drone frenzy, and Earth practically a household name (well, in our house hold at least) that sort of packaging would pay for itself in no time...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Only have 3 or 4 of these. Probably won't ever get more. Limited to 330 copies and originally only available on the 2003 Earth / Null European tour. Some are on pink vinyl, some on light blue. Two lengthy tracks!
Originally released as a super limited colored vinyl 12", for sale only on a 2003 European tour (and limited to, depending on who you ask, either 330, or 660 copies) this amazing and amazingly limited record finally gets a proper release on cd. Which is also great considering the label that released the 12" apparently never paid the bands ANY money and actually ditched said European tour taking lots of the bands' money with them. Hopefully this will help set things right on that front, and at the same time it's a chance for those of you who missed out on the vinyl to finally check this out. KK Null, guitarist for Japanese sludge metal outfit Zeni Geva offers up a lengthy free noise exploration, guitars and electronics, abstract space-y weirdness, that gradually builds and builds into full on squalls of guitarnoise and ultra distorted electronic freakout. The cd also includes a twenty minute bonus track from Null, a sort of part two addendum to his original 12" track, and it's appropriately enough another extensive blooping swooshing analog space-out psych-free-noise epic, equal parts Merzbow and Space Machine (Masonna's space-y analog analog synth project). The Earth tracks is a single twenty minute long track recorded live at the Crocodile Cafe in Seattle in 2003 and was one of the first (if not THE first) recordings to introduce the new sound of Earth, owed in no small part to the addition of Adrienne Davies on drums. A lot less sludgey and droney than old Earth, and a lot more hypnotic and melodic that later Earth, a very minimal post rock almost, with slow motion distorted arpeggiated melodies and woozy droned out riffs, all sort of pulsing and throbbing supported by simple shuffling, drumming and lots and lots of space. As hypnotic as ever, but definitely more rocking, and certainly the first hint of Earth's slow directional sonic shift.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Definitely don't need to say too much about this one. SUPER LIMITED obviously, this split single, Earth on one side, Neurosis offshoot Tribes Of Neurot on the other, was originally released as a give away to all who attended the San Francisco New Years Eve Earth / Neurosis show only. However, we (thankfully, surprisingly) managed to get a bunch, but considering the above, these will be gone in a flash.
The Neurot side is a killer, gorgeous long form drones, thick and serpentine, we hear some Niblock, some Chalk, some Taj Mahal Travellers, gorgeous and thick, dense and dark, one of the best things we've heard from those guys for sure.
Earth counter on their side, with some super stripped down Fahey-doom, sprawling slow motion Appalachia, tuned way down and allowed to spread out like a slow moving black fog. Just guitar mostly as far as we can tell, but pretty dang lovely.
Well worth your $9, especially if you were kicking yourself for missing the show. Pressed on clear yellow vinyl, in a striking, super thick full color sleeve, and as if we needed to tell you again, SUPER LIMITED, so one per customer!!
Synth-drone heaviosity and thousand-yard-staring contests are on deck for this project by San Francisco icon Chris Dixon. This man about town has been in countless projects over the years -- Death Sentence Panda, Cops, Murder Murder, Tujurikkuja, to name a few - mostly following a scum-rock/no-wave/hardcore axis of skronking jazz-not-jazz energy, perpetual punk enthusiasm, and a quick-witted tongue to boot. Earth Jerks is none of those things; and it actually came as a bit of a surprise for us as a meditative album of elegantly swirling radiophonic tones better suited for the hallowed chambers of the San Francisco Tape Music Center than a grimy, stuffy basement crammed with people eagerly awaiting Dixon to blow out their ears on drums, guitars, or both.
File #01 opens with a lonely set of synth clusters recalling the empty-band signal bleeps of modems vainly seeking a connection with another modem in the dial-up days of the internet, or maybe the overseas dial-tones while trying to make a satellite call to someplace in Vanuatu or Mauritius. As these tones shimmer and billow into long-form pieces, they maintain that sense of underlying melancholy through an archaic technology, as gorgeous oceanic harmonics and stoned-blissed drones ebb and flow, falling somewhere between Growing, Pulse Emitter, and Daphne Oram. Nice!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We'd like to say that the second missive from Chris Dixon's kosmische drone project Earth Jerks features the echoplexing electronics of Noel Von Harmonson (Comets On Fire, Sic Alps, etc.), but in true congressional testimonial fashion, we can neither confirm nor deny that. Dixon has long been a man about town here in the Bay Area, as a flamboyant personality showcasing his racket-making skills in the Spockmorgue / NoWave-esque outfits Death Sentence Panda, Murder Murder, and Cops (to name probably just a few). The Earth Jerks recordings are radiant coronas of analogue radiophonic worship, blossoming through extemporaneous tendrils of golden drone and hallowed tone-float. The first two tracks tiptoe upon electronic lilypads resting on moonlit pools whose echoes reflect as softly poetic but suitably kosmische arrangements akin to whatever Klaus Schulze album you'd call nocturnal. The final number spins through the commingling observation of blindingly oblivious sunspot activity and late period Spaceman 3 prescription drug abuse through the tremolo-vibration oscillation and luminous minimalism. Yup, it's a limited pressing. Something like 40 copies.
More electrified ragas from Earth Jerks, who now present themselves as the duo of Chris Dixon and Noel Harmonson. Both of these characters have long been part of the San Francisco scene with Dixon operating in the spaztastic spockmorgue calvacade which spawned Death Sentence Panda, Murder Murder, Total Shutdown, Cops, etc. and Harmonson is the much-revered knob twiddler from Comets On Fire and Sic Alps. The kosmische tumble for drone-on guitar and drone-on electronics drive the coyly named "Fighting A War We Can't Win" -- a long-form piece of undulating tone, fuzz, and blur that's as martial in demeanor as a ruby-red sunrise. An equally idiosyncratic title graces the toothsome minimalist fragment of "The People's Poet Is Dead." Poetic and concise for sure but hardly a funereal bone in its body, this languid duet for electronics and guitars swirling in the same universe of post-lysergic / astral projection wash conjured by Popul Vuh, Cluster, Manuel Gottsching, and whoever your favorite Krautrock magician may be at the moment. Mr. Dixon did pass on the VERY LAST copies of the first Earth Jerks discs for those of you who may have missed out on that one earlier. File #04 too is a super tiny run, and we may not be so lucky in the future.
The latest missive from local dronelord/soundscaper Earthen Sea, comes in the form of this sonic homage to our very own Ocean Beach, although the sonic picture these two sidelong sprawls paint is altogether much more abject and sinister than the sunny seaside one might imagine. Sure, it's foggy and cold, but here that overcast sky manifest as swirling sheets of soft grey shimmer and bleary blustery thrum, all smeared into softly heaving swells. And that sound is infused with deep shadows, to these ears, this is might be the sound of Ocean Beach, but some post apocalyptic beach devoid of humanity, the earth scorched and mankind extinct, the sand littered with ash and burnt husks of unknown creatures, the water black with blood and rife with mysterious detritus, the sky choked with roiling clouds, the light filtering through hazy and blurry, almost like the whole world is underwater. This beautifully bleak soundscape is laced with strange staticky percolations, glitchy shards that fuse into a sort of abstract skeletal rhythm, a sort of abstract minimal krautrock melted down into something oozing and primordial. A haunting soundworld of sci-fi, kraut-age, black ambient drones, buried murky rhythms, and muted minor key melodies. Awesome!
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!! Each one featuring a unque cover that's individually hand painted!!
Another batch of WAY too limited cassette releases from Twonicorn, whose releases seem to go out of print in the blink of an eye. This time we managed to get even more copies, in fact we took most of the copies from each pressing, but considering the fact that the pressing usually run between 40 and 100 copies, you know these won't last long either way.
Earthen Sea, what a killer name, however, the tape's title, Seeking Enlightenment 12 Oz. At A Time, had us expecting some sort of lo-fi, damaged and drunken sludgerock slugfest, but nothing could be further from the truth. Earthen Sea craft delicately developing drones, that begin life as a droney ultra minimal krautrock / postrock hybrid, with lots of swirling low end, pulsing melodies, propulsive barely there rhythms, a murky kraut jam like listening to Neu! practice six floors below you in an -almost- soundproof rehearsal room. Those various elements eventually begin to come apart, and blur together, becoming a thick tangled swirl of low end grind and throbbing, rumbling thrum, shot through with subtle sonic colors and glistening melodic sparkles. Nice.
LIMITED TO 90 COPIES. We got 25 and we will not be able to get any more.
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A gorgeous new batch of hazy transcendental keyboard dronemusic from this SF based one man band, once a member of Mi Ami and Black Eyes, although you'd never know it from these two sprawling minimalist explorations.
Unlike the propulsive almost krautrock-ish murk of his first tape, Waves is more a sort of barely moving, lush layered lysergic new age, the sort of keyboard kosmische that folks into Emeralds and Expo 70 should go nuts for. The melodies are subtle, the movements muted, the various tones and overtones float and hover and wash into one another like, well, waves. There's definitely a Niblock vibe too, but filtered through a more modern lo-fi space drone floorcore aesthetic. The A side for all its spaciness and dreaminess is also thick, and in its own way heavy the sounds raw, and a little abrasive, it's mesmerizing and ambient, but also intense.
The B side however is WAY more ethereal and ephemeral, those same waves of sound are now more monochromatic, pulsing in slow motion, woozy swells of muddy melody that mask a barely there propulsion, the track seems to fade and crumble, before finally switching gears as a distant melodic hum, the backdrop to a mysterious set of field recordings, a warm whirring bed for a soft swirling clouds of Philip Jeck like click and hiss. Nice.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!! We have less than a dozen, and once these are gone then that's it...
Gorgeous split lp from these two drone combos, the A side is a single sprawling bit of foggy sonic murk, from local outfit Earthen Sea, whose most recent release, the Ocean Beach tape, channeled the cloudy coastline of SF in slow moving fields of softly psychedelic fug, and ES's sidelong track here explores much of the same, adding some deep low end pulsations to the mix, buried under layers of grey thrum and softly swirling melodies, a gradually unfurling, smoldering landscape of longform tones, and slow shifting layers, moody and muted, ethereal and gauzy, a hazy meditative bit of minimal mesmer, slightly sinister, the lush chordal swells swaddled in shadows, a ghostly overcast creep, that slips into something much more pretty and prismatic for the last few minutes.
Insect Factory, another one man band, changes things up dramatically, opening with a seriously sharp sine wave tone, keening and high pitched, while all around it weird little glitches and bits of fragmented melody bob and weave, tranced out in its own way, that main tone, soon seeming to fragment, and eventually joined by more tones, all tangled and gristly, glitchy and distorted, eventually erupting into what sounds like a wild blown out psychedelic swirl, reminding us of Amps For Christ or Dan Friel, crunchy and caustic and weirdly melodic, and ultimately strangely and inexorably mesmerizing. That abrasiveness is balanced by the much more tranquil and brief coda/closer, which is softly reverbed guitar, drifting in a field of barely there hum and shimmer, a sort of modern Appalachian solo guitar drift, that's really quite lovely, and nicely balances the crunch of the first track.
Fantastic stuff from both groups, and yeah, probably quite limited...
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Not sure if this is part 4, or just the first in a new multi part epic, hardly matters, what does matter is, this is another glorious expansive collection of meditative psychedelic abstract dronefolk ambience. Every High Mountain Tempel disc we're reviewed thus far has gotten played to death here, and this one doesn't appear to be any different. Well, at least in that respect. In one distinct way it is very different, HMT are not going it alone this time. They've assembled a pretty impressive collection of sonic alchemists and musical conjurers to help with this ritual, Isis Aquarian from the Source Family, Charles Curtis from La Monte Young's Just Alap Raga Ensemble, and two crews from the UK we've never heard of, Earthling Society and Astarism, but even with all those cooks in the kitchen, HMT and friends have managed to weave another dark minimal masterpiece, all hushed barely there guitar shimmer, drifting whispered vocals, delicate crystalline melodies, dense swirls of piano, warm swells of tape hiss, mysterious voices and field recordings, whirring organ, bowed steel strings... so lovely.
If the liner notes are to be believed, two of the tracks feature Earthling Society on their own, and those tracks do sound different, much less free and sprawling, a bit more structured, like seventies UK acid folk, swirling and melodic and quite lovely. The final two tracks find the two groups in full on collaborative mode, and the gears shift to something much more space rocky and Hawkwindy, all blissed out and heart-of-the-sun, until the final track which is a strummy, delicate, moody chill out closer, a sort of dour doom folk drift, that makes a perfect ending.
Super nice packaging, silkscreened oversized 4 panel sleeve, white on black, with the cd-r affixed to the inside. And of course, SUPER LIMITED!
Beta-lactem Ring Records tells us that Earthmonkey is the work of Steven Stapleton and Peat Bog, who had also been responsible for a few odd psych / prog meanderings as The Inflatable Side Show. However, Stapleton is only mentioned in the 'thank you' credits, unless he's taken the unlikely pseudonym of Ian Cahill. There are definitely plenty of the far-out, psychedelically damaged references that one would expect from a psych / prog album that Stapleton might appear on. The ghosts of Faust Tapes, Amon Duul II, Ennio Morricone, and Jac Berrocal are all present on this album of groovy, elliptical patterns and extended, if mopey freak-outs. The songs are pretty good, but why all the cornball sax solos?
San Francisco's Earwicker produce sounds that seem to lurk up from deep beneath the city streets. Damp, dank, and ominous.
The liner notes for Eastanburia's first and possibly only record state that "there was no intention other than having a fun reunion." This vinyl-only limited edition Japanese import picture disc release definitely lives up to that claim, being a percussion and vocal jam session from and all star line-up: Yoshimi P-We (Boredoms / OOIOO), Atr (Boredoms), David Nuss (No Neck
Japan's EM Records, our new favorite label for totally unknown reissue surprises -- from singing saw records to electronic brainwave music to New Age psych -- come through YET AGAIN with this fantastic album of guitar music by a long-haired, Viking-looking dude from the '70s named William Eaton! A gentle soul, judging by his gorgeously mellow music on this disc, all instrumental, all improvised, originally self-released on vinyl in 1978 in an edition of just 1000 copies. The simple drawing on the cover, with the rays of the setting sun and puffy clouds in the sky, really gets at what these 18 tracks are all about. Languid, blissed-out acoustic and electric string caresses, music that seems heaven-sent... You can imagine him sitting, cross-legged, eyes closed, with a meditative calm belying the virtuosic skill with which he plays. Rooted in hippy psych folk this is, but with some hints of more difficult, avant-garde new music, for sure like John Fahey, and perhaps like a very very listenable Derek Bailey, or better yet, like FMP-label guitarist and inventor Hans Reichel. And if we say it's just a bit New Agey, don't let that scare you off. We think all fans of the whole wonderful "wooden guitar", John Fahey / Robbie Basho worshipping, neo-Appalachia, modern day "American Primitive", steel string guitar improv scene today -- Jack Rose, James Blackshaw, Ilyas Ahmed, Richard Bishop, Matt Valentine, Sean Smith, etc. -- will really find a lot to like here!!
Another point in common with Hans Reichel, is that the instruments Eaton plays here he built himself. A mystical luthier from the Arizona desert, William Eaton crafted some AMAZING instruments, depicted in the pages of the thick cd booklet. Totally baroque-looking works of art like his 26 string Elesion Harmonium, or his beautifully sculptural harp guitar. And just check out the curves of his double neck Quadrophonic electric... wow.
So, totally recommended. Oh, and this disc is one of the first beneficiaries of EM's new Japanese AND English liner notes policy! Yep, English language liner notes, and lots of 'em... along with the usual full-color photos and album art found in most EM cd booklets.
Four juggernauts of transgressive noise literally plugged their brains into mixing consoles for this wild documentation of high-concept / high-impact sound-art. For those not hip to the names of these jackbooted folk, Rudolf Eb.Er and Joke Lanz are two of the figureheads of the seminal Schimpfluch-Gruppe of Swiss aktionists, with the former taking on the moniker Runzlestirn & Gurglestock and the latter performing as Sudden Infant. GX Jupitter-Larsen is the principle architect (or demolition expert) in the California noise-project The Haters; and Mike Dando is best known for his unseemly power-electronics pseudonym Con-Dom. The high-concept in question was to sonify the EKG signals from these four extreme musicians as they sat, zen-like on a stage. Is it noise that streams through their veins, channels through their nerves, and vibrates the very molecules that comprise their corporeal bodies? In this context, the answer is a resounding YES! Over the course of the performance - which took place as the grand finale of the 2012 Extreme Rituals festival in Bristol which celebrated the excesses of all things Schimpfluch - the four brains dialed up a rancorous transmission of sawtooth waves and generative blossoms, recalling the complexities of digital programmers like Florian Hecker or the spasmodic Serge-synth modulations from Thomas Ankersmit. It's easy to think of this piece as a feedback loop, with the atonal squiggles from one participant's noggin translated into a particular sound which in turn triggers a thought in another participant's head, and so on. It makes for brilliantly impossible listening!
It's been a while since we've heard from Ata Ebtekar, an Iranian sound artist and electronic composer born in Germany, who previously recorded for Warp under the name Sote, creating a clutch of killer records that were furious and fractured, beat heavy concoctions that found him fusing rave and drone and jungle into something much more dense and confusional. And dense and confusional is definitely a good way to describe the music he makes under his own name, a 'world music' of his own invention, but unlike the collaborative record he released with the Iranian Orchestra For New Music, released on local label Isounderscore, on which he took recordings and manipulated them, other than some prepared traditional instruments, Dear Iran is a wholly original work, of vast sonic scope. We read up on Ebtekar, and could have just paraphrased the dense academic description of his work, and this record, but odds are most folks just want to know what it sounds like, and Dear Iran is incredible, dense and dizzying, at times almost overwhelming, layer upon layer of textures and mutated percussion. There are no 'beats' to be found here, this is definitely not a beat record, but it is rhythmic, it just so happens that the rhythms are often implied, gnarled tangles of cascading tones, of garbled processed crunch, fractured melodies, and gristled fields of blurred glitch, it's actually quite difficult to describe, as it really does sound unlike most of what you've heard. Some tracks are almost cinematic, sweeping sheets of buzz and squelch, bits of clang and clatter seem to be pulled apart at the molecular level, and recast as flurries of splatter and skitter, which is then sculpted into almost melodic shapes, bell like tones surface throughout, lending the record most of its melodic heft, but those tones are often all twisted up, smeared into hazy chordal streaks, or laid atop one another creating strange pulsing harmonies, or alternately, lush minimal stretches of hushed bleep and bloop, all wreathed in clouds of electro static thrum. The rhythmic component surfaces throughout as well, but not in any way you might expect, a burst of tangled melodic squiggles, will suddenly coalesce and transform into a lurching stutter step pulse, before dissolving into a fog of pixelated prismatic flutter, or a seemingly freeform assemblage of rumble and whir, will gradually take the shape of mysterious propulsive soft noise streaks, before once again, splintering into a field of strange digital crunches and shimmery, or fractured swirls of darkly droney, woozy electro-minimal psychedelia. Gorgeous stuff for sure, as equally suited to academic deep listening, as pure sound, audial overload sonic bliss out. WAY recommended.
Originally released as a super limited tape on Digitalis back in 2010, Sonic Within, from Iranian sound artist and electronic composer Ata Ebtekar (aka Sote) finally gets a proper reissue on vinyl, via local label 333 Recordings, and it's a beautiful collection of modern electronic flecked chamber music, Ebtekar teamed up with pianist Mazdak Khamda and cellist Betty Wu, the core of the sound, Khamda's delicate, crystalline piano, plaintive and haunting, the piano ties every track here together, with Ebtekar working around the soft clusters of chordal thrum, and darkly pointillist melodies, conjuring up deep swells of metallic buzz, adding a subtly ominous vibe, weaving in Wu's moaning cello creating gauzy clouds of sonic shimmer. Some track are warbly and woozy, as if someone had their finger on the record, manually changing the pitch and tempo, like chamber music via Philip Jeck, lilting and lovely, but just slightly twisted. The piano drifts resolutely through fields of crystalline glimmer, and is draped over distantly churning backdrops of low end swirl and blurred abstract FX, all applied with a deft hand, so often, sans headphones, it sounds like solo piano, but deep listening here is definitely rewarded.
The flipside however is definitely more traditionally classical, at least on the surface, with the production tricks and studio affectations dialed back, once again letting Khamda's lyrical playing take center stage, but Ebtekar is still there, lurking in the background, subtly tweaking the sound, swaddling Khamda's piano in soft cottony clouds of ambient thrum, the B side building to an almost Hermann Nitsch style cacophony, before setting back down for a brief, playful and melodic outro. So nice.
LIMITED TO 150 COPIES!!
NOW ALSO AVAILABLE IN SPECIAL 'ETCHED COVER' VERSION. For a just couple dollars more than the regular vinyl version we listed last time, which we still have some of too. Originally released as a super limited tape on Digitalis back in 2010, Sonic Within, from Iranian sound artist and electronic composer Ata Ebtekar (aka Sote) finally gets a proper reissue on vinyl, via local label 333 Recordings, and it's a beautiful collection of modern electronic flecked chamber music, Ebtekar teamed up with pianist Mazdak Khamda and cellist Betty Wu, the core of the sound, Khamda's delicate, crystalline piano, plaintive and haunting, the piano ties every track here together, with Ebtekar working around the soft clusters of chordal thrum, and darkly pointillist melodies, conjuring up deep swells of metallic buzz, adding a subtly ominous vibe, weaving in Wu's moaning cello creating gauzy clouds of sonic shimmer. Some track are warbly and woozy, as if someone had their finger on the record, manually changing the pitch and tempo, like chamber music via Philip Jeck, lilting and lovely, but just slightly twisted. The piano drifts resolutely through fields of crystalline glimmer, and is draped over distantly churning backdrops of low end swirl and blurred abstract FX, all applied with a deft hand, so often, sans headphones, it sounds like solo piano, but deep listening here is definitely rewarded.
The flipside however is definitely more traditionally classical, at least on the surface, with the production tricks and studio affectations dialed back, once again letting Khamda's lyrical playing take center stage, but Ebtekar is still there, lurking in the background, subtly tweaking the sound, swaddling Khamda's piano in soft cottony clouds of ambient thrum, the B side building to an almost Hermann Nitsch style cacophony, before setting back down for a brief, playful and melodic outro. So nice.
LIMITED TO 150 COPIES!!
We first heard from Ata Abtekar under his pseudonym Sote, with a flurry of releases for Warp, then Dielectric, and a sound that definitely hit the spot, a deft amalgamation of fractured jungle, old school rave music, downtempo beatscapes, and shimmery dronemusic. More recently he helped compile a double disc compilation called Persian Electronic Music: Yesterday And Today (1966-2006), still to be reviewed, which collected the work of legendary Iranian new music composer Alireza Mashayekhi on one disc, and Ebtekar's more modern compositions on the other, drawing a sort of sonic timeline between Persian new music past and present, which leads directly to this double lp.
A long in the works 'collaboration' between Ebtekar and Mashayekhi. For these extended sonic explorations, Ebtekar took pieces composed by Mashayekhi, and performed by the Iranian Orchestra For New Music, and then applied various techniques to the sounds, taking live recordings, studio tracks, and then processing them, rearranging them, adding effects and samples, synthesizers, adding original sounds, harmonies and melodies, for a unique sort of modern classical Persian musiq concrete.
The original sounds are definitely present, this is most certainly not a case of the sample being rendered unrecognizable, those original sounds are as important to these pieces as anything Ebtekar had to add. Flurries of piano, moaning cellos, pizzicato plucks, soaring strings, subtle percussion, all surface here and there, and often, they are wreathed in fuzzy drones, or chopped into strangely percussive loops, or jumbled up into something much more chaotic, but just as often, Ebtekar's machinations are much more subtle, playing along as if he were not a remixer per se, but another player in the orchestra, only armed with a computer and effects instead of a flute or violin.
The sounds are varied and wondrous, from fantastical flurries of wild freaked out electronic flecked free form soft noise, to delicate tinklings and hushed moonlit drift, spacey metallic shimmers to haunting alien music box like lullabyes, Eastern sounding folk fragments drifting in soft swirls of rumble and hiss, long stretches of barely there melody and wispy streaks of distant rumble. Really quite mysterious and beautiful, whether you're into modern classical, electronic music, abstract dronemusic, or all of the above. ESPECIALLY all of the above.
Beautiful screened sleeves, with a printed insert, detailing the project, as well as the various performers and composers.
We continue to be obsessed with the darker side of techno and house music, the strains that are all murky and shadowy and mutated, the four on the floor beats slowed down to a dying-heartbeat pulse, most of the dancefloor sucked out of the sound, leaving just the twisted skeletal remains. Elsewhere on this week's list you'll find a new record from Lucy, whose sound is just that sort of dubbed out techno-murk we can't get enough of, but this new one from Echologist is something else all together. We just discovered this is the TENTH record by Brendon Moeller, aka Echologist, but the first one we've heard, and we are totally smitten. Not nearly as murky and dark as much of the stuff we dig, what Moeller does is, is something similar to The Field, creating super lush, layered repetition, little blurts and pulsations, bits of glitch and static, sculpted and woven into deep undulating electronic soundscapes, that only sound tangentially like proper techno, and instead, sound super tripped out and psychedelic, almost like some sort of avant experimental noise music, but in the guise of techno.
The opener here "Frequency Of Love" pretty much lays it all out, exactly what is so amazing abut Echologist and why we knew this had to be Record Of The Week. A dense field of pulsing squelch, all hazy and gauzy, some alien machine language transformed into sound, a glorious blend of droned out raga-shimmer, and percolating electro, droney and trancey, and less about the rhythm, as the texture created by the rhythm, and when the low end drops out, as it occasionally does, the sound becomes some sort of airy drift, before the low end swoops back in and the sound gets, well heavy again, for lack of a better word. But then heavy is the word for what happens next, when the sound begins to thicken, the tones all gradually descending in pitch, those sounds suddenly coalescing into a thick, buzzing drone, which grinds away malevolently, before dropping out completely, leaving just a field of glimmering chiming melody, and a hazy keening high end drone. Fuck! We say it a lot, but that track, could easily have been the whole record, and we still would have made it Record Of The Week. We're guessing it'll take some serious will power to keep from setting that track on repeat play. But you know, fuck it, go for it. Still worth the price of admission if you never make it any further in.
But if you do, you'll be rewarded with more of Echologists, haunting, propulsive and mesmeric machine music, from churning industrial crunch, to loping tranced out techno, and from squelchy and cinematic low end deep dub, to gristly static drenched skitter, and from lush, almost poppy, drone-gaze electro, to stuttery sci-fi glitch-buzz groove. But those thumbnail descriptions are only part of the equation, cuz once Moeller sets the scene, lays down the beat, loops the sample, whatever electronic voodoo he does, it's all about how the sounds develop, and pro/re-gress, tone and timbre in constant flux, the background sounds a dizzying, hyperactive soundworld all their own. The sound impossibly immersive, the sort of rare electronic music that manages to be weirdly dancefloor appropriate, while still the perfect bliss out / chill out / come down soundtrack, and equally rare in that sonically, it's way more than 'dance music' or 'techno', it's a fantastically next level mutant strain of electronica, or even more specifically, some modern minimalist avant electronic experimental soundscapery, that just happens to involve elements of techno and house music, and that we find utterly and endlessly addictive. We're guessing most of you will too...
From deep within the Cascadian forests comes this beautiful piece of heavily atmospheric blackened bliss, the solo project of Echtra from black metal duo Fauna, whose awesome Rain album/song we reviewed a few lists back. As with Rain, listening to A War For Wonder requires patience and time, with two highly meditative tracks stretching out to 23 minutes each. Unlike Fauna, however, Echtra's solo work is a much more subdued affair, but no less gorgeous or awesome. It never quite ventures into full on black metal territory, and even when the relentless double bass drums and Darkthrone style blast beats enter the mix the sounds are still much more gentle, with highly melodic acoustic guitars and plenty of 4AD soft squall going on in the background. Sure, there are plenty of bands that incorporate post rock grandeur into their blackened attack, but this is something removed from furious metal almost entirely. It's actually quite strange, and totally mesmerizing, to hear such beautiful, dreamy melodies played out over the relentless, nonstop drumming. Strange as it may sound, the results are actually life affirming, or at least affirmative of something worthwhile... probably not human life, you know, this is still no doubt black as fuck in its peculiar way. Just looking at the four quotes in the album's gatefold, one is able to detect Echtra's take on mysticism, where man's insignificance is laid bare within the glory of the unknown. Such a realization of truth is comforting in itself, and the sounds within A War For Wonder perfectly mirror this knowledge.
