This debut ep from Justin Broadrick's (of Godflesh) new outift Jesu has been a bit tough to keep in stock, and since when we originally had it we loved it so much we made it Record Of The Week, and since we finally managed to get more, we figured we'd relist it so those of you who missed out the first time can get another crack. Here's what we had to say about it last time:
Since we made Jesu's debut full length on Hydrahead one of our records of the week recently, it was pretty much a no brainer that Jesu's Heart Ache ep would have to be a record of the week as well. Especially since some of us might actually even like it a little better than the full length, and unlike the Hydrahead release, this one has been impossibly difficult to track down, until now.
Heart Ache, released on Dry Run, a tiny UK independent label, was to be our first glimpse of Justin Broadrick's much anticipated post Godflesh project (but for most of us, it's actually a second glimpse since it's taken until now for us to get copies to list) and sonically it sounds exactly like you might imagine a record between the last Godflesh record and the totally amazing Jesu full length would sound.
We had all pretty much given up on Godflesh. Gone was the glorious industrial pummel of Streetcleaner and gone too was the dubbed out machine metal of Slavestate, and in their place, tired rehashed riffs, shouted atonal vocals, and uninspired songwriting. So while our age-old love of early Godflesh had us super excited to hear this Jesu everyone was talking about, we were pretty much ready to be disappointed. Which was precisely why we were so blown away when we finally heard it. Everything we loved about Godflesh was there, plus a new found love of melody, swoonsome clean vocals, expanded insturmentation (piano!) and extended slow building tracks of brooding intensity and smoldering instrumental ferocity, all smeared into dreamy industrial bliss drone epics!
Unlike the full length, on which Jesu is a full band with a live drummer, on Heart Ache, Jesu is just Broadrick, a guitar, a piano, and of course a drum machine. Ahhh, the drum machine. How it warms our Streetcleaner worshipping hearts. Clangy and clattery, brittle guitars soar over crumbling distorted rumbles, all machinelike and clinical but imbued with a weirdly organic lushness. Drifting clouds of ghostly feedback, sonic vapor trails of haunting minor key swells, all slip and shift into vast stretches of shimmering cinematic ambience, with slowly pealing guitar tones and synthesized chant-like vocals, gorgeously melancholy almost Goblin-esque in its creepy beauty. Everything held together by smooth, clean, barely affected vocals, all dreary and weary, repeating simple mantra-like lyrics, distant and otherworldly. The whole thing sheds its industrial armor as it moves forward, showing more skin, becoming more vulnerable, becoming less and less rigid, and more and more soft and indistinct. Pretty, dreamy, blissed out and sweetly sorrowful, with Broadrick's endlessly repeated, haunting refrain drifitng and fading, like a mirage that may have never been there at all. And that's just the first track.
The second track is just as surprising as the first, starting off with spare solo piano, joined eventually by simple, finger-picked guitar, eventually drifting into a simple low end piano chord, repeated over and over and over, floating in the inky blackness, until the song lurches into a sludgy crawl, with huge murky downtuned riffs (think Fudge Tunnel's "Hate Song" at 16rpm), but then Broderick confounds again with heavily delayed, clean vocals, singing in a strangely hypnotic counterpoint to the main riff. Dizzying and quite lovely. It's a constant tug of war between the black hole tar pit dirge and the almost hopeful sounding vocals. Like the first song, track two devolves into a whole 'nother beast, as it slows down and blisses out, with lilting melodies creeping into the sludge and making what was only moments before a metallic behemoth crushing all in its wake, into a creepy rickety, buzzy back porch crawl, spare and skeletal, with distorted piano, buzzing fret noise and lots of ambient reverb that's gradually smoothed out into a fuzzy smear of static, beneath a simple low end piano figure, chiming and ringing out into nothingness. One of those rare records that manages to be heavy yet pretty, beautiful but scary, sweet and sorrowful, darkly doomy and gloriously luminous!
Seems like Jesu's Justin Broadrick is making up for lost time. Following the sporadic releases in the later years of Godflesh, and a long period of near silence immediately afterwards, since the launch of Jesu Broadrick has been offering up one disc after another, as if there was some untapped wellspring of blessed out metallic pop that had been building pressure since well before he folded Godflesh. And this record seems to cement the fact that he's gradually moving away from the metallic pummel of his former outfit, toward a soundworld of glistening light and fuzzy shimmer. After the very Godflesh sounding self titled debut and Heartache ep, the sound of Jesu began to morph into something much softer, much dreamier, and very evocative of the late nineties shoegaze scene. Lifeline pushes it even further. The sound still wrapped in distorted guitars, but the sound and melody sounding even more like eighties mainstream pop. Like if John Hughes was making movies today, the big climactic scene at the end where the guy finally catches the girl at the airport to declare his love for here, well we can guarantee the title track of Lifeline would be blasting on the soundtrack. And it's not hard to imagine John Cusack, standing in the rain, holding up a boom box blasting "You Wear Their Masks." None of this is a bad thing, just a little surprising. Well, maybe not so surprising anymore. But looking back on the first Jesu, and of course Godflesh, who would have thought Broadrick would be weaving dreamy blisspop jams that sounded more like Ride or Slowdive or even Simple Minds than Pitchshifter.
That said, the guitars here are still crunchy, they definitely chug now and again, but the vocals are breathy and wistful, the melodies are sweet and melancholy, the drums don't really pound any more, they sort of shuffle.
But hold on. "End Of The Road" is all metallic guitars and simple pounding drums, and a hook to die for, not hard to see this track on MTV right next to Blink-182 or whoever. Which we're all for, but halfway through the track changes direction again, becoming all clean and super poppy and downright dreamy.
The only real 'oof' to be found here, are the guest vocals on "Storm Coming On", a crooned sort of R&B female vocal line, maybe they were going for something Portishead-y, and for the first part of the song it sort of works, but when she starts to wail soulfully, OOF. Not so good. You might just want to skip this track...
Barring the aforementioned number, which we'll choose just to ignore, Jesu is all about texture, and Broadrick does some amazing thing with his guitar and laptop, whipping up orchestral chordal swells, lush soundscapes, wrapping billowy spaced out FX and warm sun dappled reverb around everything, making every note sound like big glorious snow flakes of sound.
We can get the domestic version on Hydra Head, but as is usual, the Japanese import has extra stuff, in this case, two bonus tracks, in this case alternate versions of two of the tracks on the record. The version of "Lifeline" is slower, a bit more lo-fi and lazy, actually a nice and subtle variation. But it's SO worth it for the alternate version of "Storm Coming On", which ditches the soulful vocals, replacing them with Broadrick's buried in the mix whisper, and adds TONS of crunchy metallic guitar, making this version maybe the heaviest track on Lifeline.
And as with all Daymare releases, the packaging is super striking, an ultra glossy digipak, Japanese obi, a glossy 2 panel color insert and a foldout insert with loads of liner notes, all in Japanese.
We missed out completely on the cd version of this, as it was only available direct from the band, we finally managed to strike up a deal with Avalanche, the record label of Justin Broadrick, so hopefully from here on out we'll be able to get anything and everything Avalanche, on this list alone we have the most recent batch of releases, Heart Ache on vinyl, a brand new Final album on picture disc, and this, a compilation of old and unreleased tracks recorded between 2000 and 2007.
Apparently, up until now, most Jesu records were made up of parts and tracks recorded in the past, so in a bid to start new and fresh, Broadrick decided to gather up everything he had, and stick it all on a record, and start from scratch.
So here it is, seven years of unreleased Jesu, and while from the above you'd think it would be mostly fragments and song parts and experiments, most of the tracks here are fully realized songs, although sonically the differ a great deal from much of the Jesu you've heard. More stripped down, way more poppy, almost new wave-y here and there, definitely not as heavy, but occasionally dark and intense, occasionally blissed out and shoegazey, and surprisingly cohesive and listenable and really great for a collections of odds and ends.
It starts out strangely enough, with "Don't Dream It", which sounds like a classic Jesu jam, except for the fact, that the vocal line is a snippet of the final number from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but Broadrick, takes that melodramatic croon and sets it amidst minor key piano, warm whirring buzz, skittery rhythms, squalls of distorted downtuned guitar crunch, and wraps the samples in delay and reverb giving it a cool dubbed out vibe.
The drums throughout are way more electronic sounding, skittery and glitchy, less POUNDing, which makes a lot of this sound almost Boards Of Canada like, but with those floaty weary vocals, and lush swaths of woozy drowsy keyboards. A couple of the tracks get all loping and post rocky, a few others are super laid back and glimmery and down tempo, like the perfect soundtrack for some mysterious late night wandering. Here and there, things do get a bit heavy, like the crunchy chug on "Dummy", although even there it's all tangled up with some stuttery almost krautrocky keyboards, but for the most part, this is a whole different side of Jesu, one we're super into, and now that we've heard it, we hear more within proper Jesu records, but with all the skitter and jangle and shimmer, this also reminds us of another past aQ favorite, the sort of post rock electronica of Asbestoscape.
Needless to say, Jesu fans NEED this. But anyone into M83, anything on Gooom, or any sort of cool skittery electronic metallic pop weirdness should definitely give it a listen as well. check it out.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES. Pressed on super thick 180 gram vinyl, and housed in swank full color gatefold jackets. Hopefully we'll be able to get more when we run out, but just in case, probably better not to risk it.
Wow, is this ever a surprise. The sensitive side of Jesu. Which is weird since Jesu was sort of the sensitive side of Justin Broadrick (Godflesh, Final, Techno Animal, Napalm Death). Maybe sensitive is not the right word. Poppy? Yeah, that might fit too. Hot on the heels of two epic mindblowers, the self-titled full length and the Heartache ep, Silver finds Broadrick exploring the pop side of his personality. Writing proper songs, even SINGING. Weird but still cool. Just a bit... unexpected.
The two previous Jesu records took the bleak mechanical pummel of Godflesh and doused it with My Bloody Valentine guitar bliss out, and huge swaths of M83 guitar fuzz. A truly unique blend of ominous crunch and swirly shimmer. Pulsin, lengthy epic jams, sparkling, glistening and gauzy, a sort of soft focus alien krautrock. We were obviously immediately smitten.
So this half hour long 4 song ep is basically a pop record. Seriously. Hard to believe but it's true. Melodically and songwriting wise, these tracks sound like they came straight off of an early nineties Sebadoh or Superchunk record. Lilting and sort of bittersweet. Classic sounding early nineties indie rock wrapped in thick glistening swirls of fuzz guitar, that guitar being the only thing keeping it from sounding like something on Merge records. Not sure what to call it, maybe industrial indie rock, fuzzy jangle dirge, both are pretty accurate. Too bad this ISN'T a nineties college rock record, it easily would have been my instant favorite back then. Sweet sad boy bedroom mope rock but with super fuzzed out METAL GUITARS!!?? C'mon, how much would that have trumped every record you had back then? But even now because of the unlikely mix of moody indie rock and pounding dirgey fuzz, this still sounds pretty fresh. Thick walls of fuzzy guitars, warbly warped melodies,Ôsweet melodic jangle, some killer catchy hooks, and those sort of classic plaintive, mopey Mac / Lou sad boy vocals. Track three is the first one to get all M83, blissy and blown out and sweetly shimmery, a plodding sun dappled dirge, but the more we listen the more this sounds like a record Codeine would have made if they were still making records. Sort of sweetly depressive, but with a dark tail dragging vibe. On first listen, we were sort of bummed out, this is SO different than the other two Jesu records, but the more we listen, the more we're beginning to think this jus might be our favorite yet. A record that is both soft and sweetly melodic, but thick and heavy and blown out is a rare beast indeed. And now that we hear the Codeine in Jesu, we're even more sold. For our money, Codeine left a gaping hole when they called it quits, slowcore or moperock or whatever continued to move forward but never with the same intensity or emotion, until now perhaps. The final track is the strangest. A sort of M83 / Jesus And Mary Chain style effects laden bliss out, with loads of swooshing backwards loops, shimmery stretches of light as air vaporous guitar, and even a super chunky Godfleshy break part way through. Awesome. The best industrial dirge jangle indie bliss slowcore doom pop ep ever??
The long awaited Jesu 12" Sun Down / Sun Rise is finally here. Might be a tad bit anticlimactic for Aquarius customers, as these two epic tracks populated the bonus disc that came with the Japanese version of Jesu's latest and greatest, The Conqueror. Not sure what the hold up was, and pretty sure, the vinyl was meant to surface before the cd, but so what?! Jesu fanatics and vinyl nerds, it was well worth the wait. Two long tracks, more in keeping with the more aggressive sound of the first couple Jesu records, that the more recent shift to dreamy fuzzy bliss pop. Not to say we don't love the new sound, we do, but we still dig hearing Justin Broadrick and company unleash the Godflesh pound, which they do in a big way on these two loooooooong tracks.
Thirty three minutes, of epic and majestic, huge throbbing fuzzed out guitars, pounding rhythms, drifting minor key melodies, thick washes of blissy psychedelia, soft processed vocals, the first track a crushing dreampop dirge harkening back to the first Jesu record (albeit a bit poppier), the second an almost ambient guitarscape of layered melodies, murky vocals and shimmery rhythms, so good. So worth it. Even if you already have the cd. Cuz like all the Aurora Borealis releases, the sound is pristine, the vinyl is thick and the packaging is beautiful.
Pressed on super striking grey and clear swirled vinyl (looks like storm clouds) in a gorgeous hazy full color sleeve (with photographs by Seldon Hunt) that is the perfect visual analogue to the blissy droney buzz inside. LIMITED TO 900 COPIES!!! Got a bunch, but not sure how long they'll last...
Not a brand new Jesu record, instead, this ep collects the three tracks from Jesu's split lp with Eluvium from last year, and adds two alternate versions to flesh it out a bit. Folks who missed out on that now out of print 12", or those amongst you who remain turntableless, will for sure want to pick this up, and Jesu fanatics, might just find this worth it for the two extra alternate takes. First the songs proper:
Three new songs from Jesu, and as if we didn't already see Broadrick and Co. heading in this direction, they've almost entirely jettisoned the heaviness, in favor of a blissy new wave-y drift. Really! No massive sludge, no blissed out crunch, in fact, most of this sounds like Jesu doing the soundtrack to a John Hughes movie, all drift and croon and no crunch and pummel, but it's really nice, and pretty, and still suitably Jesu-like. Imagine Simple Minds or the Cure but raised on Slowdive and Chapterhouse and Swervedriver and My Bloody Valentine, doing the theme song for Sixteen Candles 2008 (which if our calculations are correct would be more like Forty Candles). The first song would be a massive hit, sort of melancholy and romantic, dark and dreamy, but still sort of catchy and hopeful, like sunbeams barely making it through grey storm clouds. The final track sounds like it could be from that last scene in Sixteen Candles 2008, the one where the boy and the girl finally make it to the dance after all of the crazy mishaps and misunderstandings and are finally sharing that slow dance... lugubrious and fuzzy, and soft focus and so great actually. It's weird, and a bit unexpected, but as much as we love the glacial crush of past Jesu discs, this new-wave-y drift really suits them, which is a good thing, since they seem to be heading even more and more in that direction with each new release.
The two extra tracks are definitely not -drastically- different, but different enough certainly to make them worth having. "Farewell" gets even more washed out, the whole thing muted and over saturated, the chugging guitars, disembodied and more textural than heavy, the whole song suffused with chiming harmonics and sun dappled soaring bittersweet melodies. "Why Are We Not Perfect", the above mentioned Sixteen Candles 2008 closer, hews closely to the original, the change more in timbre and texture than anything, the vocals still weary and woozy, the beat a loping skittery shuffle, surrounded by shimmering clouds of effervescent streaks of warm buzz, swirls of backwards melody, all whirling softly and dreamily.
Beautifully packaged in a super thick oversized Japanese style mini lp cd jacket, with a thick printed inner sleeve.
Got a whole batch of new tapes in from our very own Andrew's Chaos Of The Stars label, all of which are reviewed elsewhere on this week's list. This one in particular is a doozy, and seemed especially aQ-worthy, the first we've heard from the mysterious (and mysteriously monikered) Jesus Christ Jr. who delivers two side long sprawls of crumbling, processed, spaced out psychedelic sound. Hard to say what the sounds are or where they came from, whether they're actual compositions, or found sounds and stolen samples, cuz they're seriously warped and extremely fucked with, but it sounds like, even before said fucking with, they were some sort of tranced out psychedelic Spacemen 3-style hazy droned out drug rock drift. But once they're run through JC Jr.'s fucked up filter, they become something even more druggy and psychedelic, the sounds melting and crumbling, riffs slowed down and spaced out, tape speed constantly shifting, voices surfacing and disappearing again, swells of thick crumbling distortion, reverby chunks of twang, the sound locking into tranced out grooves, but just as often devolving into abstract drifts, sometimes laced with Eastern raga style melodies, other times, we almost recognize little snippets that pop up, but before we can put our finger on it, it crumbles and melts into the surrounding sounds. At times it sounds like Les Rallizes Denudes via Faxed Head, other times like Spacemen 3 recorded onto a dubbed to death cassette left in the back pocket of a pair of pants run through the washer, and played back on a Walkman with dying batteries. Sometimes it coalesces into something near symphonic, epic, blown out psychedelic space rock drone-kraut freakout, other times it falls apart into random spaced out drifts, but the whole thing is pretty fantastically mesmerizing, two twisted, layered sprawls of collaged psychedelic trip out, droned out minimal mesmer, and freaky fucked up free noise drift. Fuck yeah.
Anthony Di Franco is probably best known as a one time member of UK noise institution Skullflower, but outside of SF he was involved in and responsible for a whole bunch of other amazing projects, he was the man behind the industrial / power electronics / black drone of Ax (whose recent Metal Forest career retrospective we recently made Record Of The Week) as well as the power electronics / noise assault of Ethnic Acid, he was a member of Skullflower offshoot Ramleh as well as one half of industrial noise duo Novatron. As if that weren't enough, he also recorded as JfK, a 'group' conceived by Di Franco, to create "a total music, absorbing all possibilities", and while we're not sure he necessarily achieved anything quite that grand, what he did do is whip up some seriously kick ass psychedelic dirgery, and twisted post industrial noise rock that KILLS.
This collection gathers up a 1992 single originally released on Fourth Dimension and a clutch of rare and unreleased tracks, and delivers what will likely be some folks first exposure to Di Franco's JfK project, which one might expect to be caustic and noisy and harsh, but in fact is way more song based, sounding at times like UK space rockers Loop, and others, like some obscure home brewed bit of NZ style 4 track noise pop, and at others like a slightly dialed down Godflesh.
Opening with "Big Fat Sin", Di Franco sets the template with primitive programmed drums, jagged crunchy guitars, woozy effected layers, buried loops, shards of feedback, tense and intense, cleaned up a little, it could be some bit of late eighties gloom pop, but here it's presented in all its noisy glory, rough around the edges, loping and lumbering, crumbling distortion, it's pretty great, but even that hardly prepares you for the tranced out space-psych dirge of "Omen" which lays down a simple motorik rhythm, wraps it in a noisy chugging riff, wreathed everything in reverb and echo, then the vocals, an FX drenched croon, the 'group' locked into a groove that's total space rock trance-out, Loop for sure, but even fans of modern day outfits like Moon Duo and White Hills will find lots to like here, although the sound here is much more raw and rough. "Aktion In A 10/6" lays down a weird robotic beat, and then adds an almost metallic riff, but instead of sounding 'heavy' or 'metal', it's like Stooges at 16rpm, a slithery creep, laced with weird bits of percussion, the whole thing swaggery and snarly and surprisingly rocking.
But it's not all caveman riffage and space rock dirge, "Will To Love" is a wild concoction of detuned guitars, warped percussion, squealing feedback, which gives way to a swirling murk of buried vocals, and low end thrum, disembodied samples, a warped tangle that eventually erupts into some full on noise. Then there's "Avernus", which is like JfK via the Dead C, a crooned minimal bit of pop, wreathed in a cascade of impossibly distorted guitar crumble, and clouds of staticky hiss, or "Black Tower" which is all keening melody, and weirdly wistful poppiness, driven by some fierce fuzz bass, and some occluded noise rock jangle, or "Teenage Fantasy", which is a slo-mo creepy crawly dirge, driven by a buried tarpit rhythm, and wreathed in wild squalls of guitars and strange voices, effects and crumbling layers of sound, noisy for sure, but also hauntingly hypnotic.
The last two tracks are from the aforementioned 7", the A side a blast of propulsive psychedelic space rock, that fuses Godflesh like programmed beats to corrosive guitar buzz, and a darkly gloomy Jesus And Mary Chain style vibe, while the B side, a longer version of one of the unreleased tracks is like a super charged near metallic noise rock Moon Duo, which is most definitely a good thing.
Fans of post industrial heavy psych space outs (and who's not????) NEED this! We're so psyched Di Franco's various past projects are getting some long overdue love, and as much as we love that Ax reissue, this JfK record has been getting pretty much nonstop play since we got it in...
Pronouncing this artist's moniker would undoubtably come out sounding like you had a mouthful of marbles; but in fact, John Grzinich (a slightly easier name to speak aloud) has applied the same logic that fellow musician Michael Northam used for his pseudonym, Mnortham. While Grzinich has been pretty active during the past eight of nine years collaborating with Seth Nehil and Northam, Intimations marks his debut solo outing. Like Nehil and Northam, Grzinich specializes in droning sound art, culled from conceptually driven performances that border on ritualized ceremony, and often involving particular situations for an environmental sound coupled with droning instrumentation. Here on Intimations, Grzinich began with a series of piano recordings, which get the laptop treatment and end up sounding more like long-string instruments as all of the hammering attack has been done away in favor of amorphous drones. Grzinich interjects those drones with a number of field recordings from Texas and Eastern Europe of cicadas, twittering birds, and the gentle lapping of the ocean, resulting in a mighty fine album that should appeal to fans of Francisco Lopez, Jonathan Coleclough, and mnortham.
It's easy to get lost in the sounds from John Grizinich, as his slippery compositions for abstracted field recordings impart a stupifying hypnosis when listening to them. While we've had a couple of his solo discs, most of the work that we've encountered by John Grzinich has been through collaborations with the likes of Michael Northam and Seth Nehil. And even though both of those artists have a particular fondness for the drone, it seems as though Grzinich was responsible for directing those collaborations into the depths of sonorous hypnogogia. This was especially true for the impeccable Grzinich / Nehil album Gyre, and the same could be said for the Grzinich / Northam disc The Absurd Evidence. Yet, this sensibility becomes all the more obvious when Grizinich strikes out on his own, as is the case on his stellar 2007 album Rudiment Of Two.
Released by the British drone-artist Paul Bradley on his new Edition Sonoro imprint, Rudiment Of Two contains three lengthy tracks, which engage Grzinich's preferred strategy for vulcanizing field recordings into elegantly serpentine tonalities. Through revolving sets of fluctuating bellows and incrementally changing drones, Rudiment Of Two come across as a painterly take on BJ Nilsen or Jonathan Coleclough. Typical of Grzinich's sound is the trickle of rain on the album's massive 30 minute centerpiece, which activates a silvery auditory filigree amidst the reverberation and metallic vibrations. With the rattle of a heavy iron bell, the crackling textures begin to swarm into a full spectrum chorus of miniscule ticklings that eventually condenses into a bleary drone shot towards infinitude. A really fantastic album from an under-recognized artist.
For many years now, John Grzinich and Michael Northam have long been two of our favorite sound artists. While we had thought that we had uncovered the bulk of their respective back catalogues, we somehow managed to have missed this early collaboration between the two. Both Grzinich and Northam emerged into realm of audio research and sound experimentation from Austin, Texas which had been quite a nexus of activity thanks in part to ND, which was a magazine, label, and what might be considered a think tank for sound art. The Absurd Evidence appears to have been an album that they had completed while they were both still residing in Texas before the two ventured beyond American waters (Grzinich currently resides in Estonia and Northam has been last spotted in France). This was also released at the same time as another collaboration entitled The Stomach of the Sky which Staalplaat released about a decade ago, but it is a little odd that we would have let The Absurd Evidence slip under our radar since this was released by the Texan label Bobby J, who had also released the brilliant, outsider mope rock / dronescape albums by Twenty-Six and Thirty-Seven.
The Absurd Evidence is a magnificent construction of agitated objects, manipulated field recordings, and electrically charged minimalism, where the tactile crunch of rock, brick, and sand snap into focus against the unsettled ambience generated from magnetic field disturbances. Slowly motors being to be whir and grind in a symphony of urban detritus being coaxed to utterance. The entire proceedings allude to some arcane scientific discourse being unveiled in process only, without any hint as to the purpose or conclusion to the ongoing tactile rumble and drone. These strategies may be similar to what The Hafler Trio produced on Kill The King, but the results of The Absurd Evidence parallel what Loren Chasse was creating at the same time with his seminal project Id Battery. Other references could be found in Giancarlo Toniutti, Eric La Casa, Small Cruel Party, and Tarab.
It's quite possible that we ended up with the very last copies of The Absurd Evidence, so if you were at all like us in missing this tremendous record, do yourself the favor of picking this up. It's fucking amazing. If you do already have, well then you already know how good it is!
Just so you know, that is not a typo. John Grzinich has followed his occasional collaborator Michael Northam (aka Mnortham) in cramming his first initial onto his last name to obtain his public persona. And like Northam, Grzinich has developed a knack for concept-heavy procedures that manifest themselves into densely processed drones. "Confluence" is a collaborative album between Grzinich and Seth Nehil, who is another frequent partner for both Grzinich and Northam. This is sort of a sister album to their "Stria" album. Both pieces are electro-acoustic exercises that are meant to "study evolutionary patterns of sound dynamics through various methods of live generation and recorded mediums that focus on multiplications and groupings." In other words, they got a whole bunch of people in a room, handed them instruments with similar timbral qualities (i.e. clay pots and metal bowls), recorded these people making clamorous noise, and then rendered most of the gestural actions moot by blurring everything into a heavenly drone, somewhere between Francisco Lopez and Jonathan Coleclough. The second track "The Distant Edge" deviates slightly from the process with the intrusion of field recordings from an unknown demonstration in Belgrade. The only clues to the event that Grzinich and Nehil provide are in the form of a chorus of car horns blaring non-stop for 10 minutes, occasionally harmonizing into a strange polyphony like a battery of Egyptian reeds, but more often than not accumulating into an angry swarm not unlike Xenakis' "Persepolis." Altogether, "Confluence" is a fantastic record that actively pursues agitation and anxiety.
Pretty killer match up between two aQ faves, Justin Broadrick's (Godflesh, Jesu, etc) new electronic outfit JK Flesh, and long running experimental noise/power electronics combo Prurient. The JK Flesh tracks here are about the darkest and fiercest we've heard from Broadrick, opening with a thick corrosive buzz, droned out and dense, before exploding into a dense churning industrial dirge, which soon blossoms into some old school jungle, and thus flits back and forth between chugging, metallic, almost Godflesh like crush to still bleak, but more beat-y drum n' bass stutter.
The other tracks follow suit, laying a groundwork of beats and rhythms, and then dousing them with noisy, psychedelic sound, a loping breakbeat is looped over a dark background of industrial clatter and buzzing synth squelch. Creepy gothy electro roils ominously, the lumbering machinelike grooves sounding not unlike classic Skinny Puppy, albeit a bit revved up and dirtied up.
Prurient, aka Dom Fernow (Cold Cave, Ash Pool, Cold Cave, etc.) counters with whirring drones, mysterious disembodied voices, all reverbed and processed, and set adrift through fields of soft noise thrum, buried feedback, and heavy crumbling sheets of distortion, even some synthy cold-wave style pulsations, haunting and murky and muddy, at super rhythmic at times, reminding us of some of Fernow's other recent projects, Vatican Shadow, Silent Servant and Christian Cosmos. The final track though is the perfect blend of noise and dreamlike ambience, a Caretaker / Tim Hecker style gauzy drift, a swirling sprawl of ethereal ambience, haunting reverbed piano melodies, floating in glorious expanses of dep hum and slow shifting thrum, and beneath it all a constantly roiling sea of jagged, but muted and muddied feedback, all smeared into a hazy bleary eared, but still subtly corrosive, dronescape.
Pressed on ultra thick vinyl, and packaged in heavy, old school Stoughton style tip on sleeves.
What might you expect from a band made up of two parts Khanate, and one part Isis / Grey Machine / House Of Low Culture? Probably nothing as pretty and haunting as this. That's right, we said pretty. We were definitely expecting some crushing slo-mo heaviness, figured if that much of Khanate was involved it would have to be screechy and torturous.
And while Jodis is doomy, it's also moody, and atmospheric, slow and spare, spacious and strangely lovely. Occasionally the guitars rev up and get way louder, and it sounds like the band might explode into some sort of bellowing dirge, but instead, they sprawl into an ominous creep, the guitars shimmery, the notes spaced way out, as much about the decay and overtones as the initial note or the overall melody. The vocals are weary and washed out, reverbed and down in the mix. If anything this reminds us of some classic slowcore, maybe Codeine or Seam, albeit a little more abstract, a little less indie rock, but the same sort of moody drift, the same kind of minimal melody, emotional and dark and haunting and dreamlike.
Surprisingly, the drums are super restrained, in fact, the first few tracks sound almost drumless, minus a few cymbal shimmers, some flares and accents here and there. On "Secret House" the drums are active, flurries of fills all over the kit, but not for bombast, again for texture, almost like playing chords on the drums, there are some harsh vox on "Secret House", and they almost sound out of place, disrupting the strange slow tranquility. But once we move on to the next track, we're back to that gauzy melodic drift, the drums again super skeletal, the guitar drifting in the ether, the vocals choral, almost monk-like, super meditative and ethereal.
And the rest of the record plays out in a similar fashion, long drawn out slow burning epics writ small, the three exploring the space around the notes, finishing off with the gorgeous 9 minute "Slivers", the guitar unfurling a fuzzy blurry drone, the drums more active, a bit tribal, but still muted, and the vocals a falsetto off in the distance, the track, heaving and pulsing and shimmering, before slipping into a more abstract drone and then blinking out.
Some seriously gorgeous stuff, a surprise new favorite for sure, getting lots of play late at night, lights turned low, consciousness at rest, on the cusp of some other plane...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
After two stunning records of orchestral filmscores released by the stellar Touch Records, Iceland's Johann Johannsson presents his score for the film Dis through The Worker's Institute (who also recently released the lovely debut disc from Amina, Sigur Ros' string section). There is a significant sonic difference between the work Johannsson did for Touch (e.g. a grandiose impressionism for large chamber ensembles augmented with electronics) and this album, which features an almost saccharine pop, '80s feel with repeating motifs and melodies, seemingly designed for particular scenes / emotional ambience within the movie. Johannsson's score for Dis is a fantastic simulation of a dreamy bubble-gum sentimentality, the sort evoked through many of John Hughes soundtracks; to top it off, the repeating motif throughout the Dis is deadringer for the Mickey & Sylvia track "Love Is Strange" which appeared on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. Seriously. As Johannsson envisioned this soundtrack to capture the zeitgeist of 21st Century Reykjavik, one has to wonder if Johannson is comparing Reykjavik to the Breakfast Club / Fast Times teenage American drama of twenty years ago?
Founding member of the Kitchen Motors arts organization in Reykjavik, Johann Johannsson has been at the forefront of adventurous music in Iceland, performing with the Apparat Organ Ensemble and working with some of the more acclaimed Icelandic exports (i.e. members of Sigur Ros, Mum, Stilluppsteypa, Halfer Trio, etc.). "Englaborn" is the first album for Johannsson, who reconstructed this album from the score he wrote for the stage play by Havar Sigurjonsson. Johannsson stated that "The play is extremely violent and disturbing; and basically, when faced with the script, I decided to work against it as much as possible and just try to write the most beautiful music I could." While we do not have the benefit of witnessing the play itself or any images for that matter (beautiful Jon Wozencroft photographs of the sea grace the cover of this album), Johannsson invokes a profound sadness through his descending chord progressions for the Epos Spring Quartet which he augments with spartan use of percussion, electronics, piano, computerized voices, and harmonium. Where Sigur Ros has crafted grandiose operas of Icelandic melancholia, Johann Johannsson simplifies his scores into poignant short stories that nevertheless resonate with those emotions.
A reissue of the 2004 album Virdulegu Forsetar from Iceland's post-classical composer Johann Johannsson. Since the release of this album, Johannsson has jumped from Touch to 4AD, with international acclaim following right along. Virdulegu Forsetar is an hour long piece written for 11 brass players (trumpets, horns, tuba), percussion (Glockenspiel and bells), electronics, organs and piano. Virdulegu is all brooding, slow building, minor key, cinematic epic. Warm and lush, rich with harmonic overtones, and melodically very grandiose. The sounds here are very visual and definitely bring to mind vast expanses of land or space, whether it's the sun slowly rising over the desert, the moon peeking from behind a planet, a slowly spiralling galaxy, and even the Olympics. Huh? Yep, the Olympics. The melodies and instrumentation are quite similar to the fanfares used during the opening ceremonies, or over montages of past Olympiads, lovely nonetheless. And of course much darker and dronier than any of the music actually used for the Olympics. Each epic fanfare / flourish dissipates into a rumbling subterranean drone, where it hovers and slowly shifts until another fanfare surfaces in it's place, shines briefly, only to quickly sink back into the inky darkness.
Sitar raga music from Sweden? Sure! On the Swedish label Kning Disk, who last brought us cds by Wolf Eyes and James Blackshaw -- so we'd expect just about anything (interesting) from them. Composer/arranger Jerry Johansson is a sitar player (who studied with sitar master Roop Verma, who was taught by Ravi Shankar). Here he presents his piece "Next Door Conversation", in two parts, 53 minutes total. His sitar is the lead instrument, and in traditional style he's accompanied by santour and tambura -- but also by a violin/violin/viola/cello string quartet from the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra! Shades of Kronos, eh?
It's a dreamy, slowly unfolding, sitar n' strings soundscape, the Eastern twang of Johansson's sitar calmly contrasting with the more cinematic sweep of the string quartet, each recontextualizing the other. With sounds from the subcontinent and Swedish folk motifs both incorporated, this is a gorgeous East-West hybrid indeed, and crosses over other borders to somehow remind us of everything from Spaghetti Western soundtracks to Chinese orchestral music. Gosh, there's not much more to say other than, enjoy!
For those of you who missed out on the super limited handmade Five Pillars Of Soul cd-r's JWB released one at a time over the last couple years, you can once again thank your lucky stars, you've been saved. And those of you who did manage to get em, well, why not get this handy disc that collects all 5 cd-r's onto a real cd with even more extensive liner notes added.
While this is purportedly a tribute to soul music, the soul music seems to be mostly implied here, like 'soul' in spirit, in concept, in intention, but not in execution. Which is not a bad thing. This -is- soul music, but the way it can only be played by middle class, white, mid-western boys. All shrieking, skronking, sweaty, pounding, rocking and GROOVING. You can catch glimpses of the Make Up, the Blues Explosion, the White Stripes, New York Dolls, as well as Alice Donut (especially in the vocals). Weird and pretty wonderful. Spazzy, soulful, glammy ROCK AND ROLL. There are 5 volumes. Short and sweet (each clocking in at 10-15 minutes) and all in honor of JWB's peculiar ideas of the pillars of soul: Melvin Van Peebles, Tania Hearst (Patty Hearst with her SLA name), Albert Ayler, Marc Bolan and Yoko Ono. They also throw in some covers of the Zombies, the Fugs, and Mission Of Burma but turn them into punky soul-fuck explosions... Good stuff. Although I'm still clinging to the belief that the sixth pillar must be BRUCE WILLIS!!!
While this is purportedly a tribute to soul music, the soul music seems to be mostly implied here, like 'soul' in spirit, in concept, in intention, but not in execution. Which is not a bad thing. This -is- soul music, but the way it can only be played by middle class, white, mid-western boys. All shrieking, skronking, sweaty, pounding, rocking and GROOVING. You can catch glimpses of the Make Up, the Blues Explosion, the White Stripes, New York Dolls, as well as Alice Donut (especially in the vocals). Weird and pretty wonderful. Spazzy, soulful, glammy ROCK AND ROLL. There are 5 volumes (we have the first four). Short and sweet (almost too short, clocking in at 10-15 minutes) and all in honor of JWB's peculiar ideas of the pillars of soul: Mario Van Peebles, Tania Hearst (Patty Hearst with her SLA name), Albert Ayler, Marc Bolan and the as yet to be announced 5th pillar.
Nice handmade sleeves with cool/funny liner notes. They do covers of the Zombies, the Fugs, and Mission Of Burma and turn them into punky soul explosions... Good stuff, here's hoping the fifth pillar is BRUCE WILLIS!!!
While this is purportedly a tribute to soul music, the soul music seems to be mostly implied here, like 'soul' in spirit, in concept, in intention, but not in execution. Which is not a bad thing. This -is- soul music, but the way it can only be played by middle class, white, mid-western boys. All shrieking, skronking, sweaty, pounding, rocking and GROOVING. You can catch glimpses of the Make Up, the Blues Explosion, the White Stripes, New York Dolls, as well as Alice Donut (especially in the vocals). Weird and pretty wonderful. Spazzy, soulful, glammy ROCK AND ROLL. There are 5 volumes (we have the first four). Short and sweet (almost too short, clocking in at 10-15 minutes) and all in honor of JWB's peculiar ideas of the pillars of soul: Mario Van Peebles, Tania Hearst (Patty Hearst with her SLA name), Albert Ayler, Marc Bolan and the as yet to be announced 5th pillar.
Nice handmade sleeves with cool/funny liner notes. They do covers of the Zombies, the Fugs, and Mission Of Burma and turn them into punky soul explosions... Good stuff, here's hoping the fifth pillar is BRUCE WILLIS!!!
While this is purportedly a tribute to soul music, the soul music seems to be mostly implied here, like 'soul' in spirit, in concept, in intention, but not in execution. Which is not a bad thing. This -is- soul music, but the way it can only be played by middle class, white, mid-western boys. All shrieking, skronking, sweaty, pounding, rocking and GROOVING. You can catch glimpses of the Make Up, the Blues Explosion, the White Stripes, New York Dolls, as well as Alice Donut (especially in the vocals). Weird and pretty wonderful. Spazzy, soulful, glammy ROCK AND ROLL. There are 5 volumes (we have the first four). Short and sweet (almost too short, clocking in at 10-15 minutes) and all in honor of JWB's peculiar ideas of the pillars of soul: Mario Van Peebles, Tania Hearst (Patty Hearst with her SLA name), Albert Ayler, Marc Bolan and the as yet to be announced 5th pillar.
Nice handmade sleeves with cool/funny liner notes. They do covers of the Zombies, the Fugs, and Mission Of Burma and turn them into punky soul explosions... Good stuff, here's hoping the fifth pillar is BRUCE WILLIS!!!
While this is purportedly a tribute to soul music, the soul music seems to be mostly implied here, like 'soul' in spirit, in concept, in intention, but not in execution. Which is not a bad thing. This -is- soul music, but the way it can only be played by middle class, white, mid-western boys. All shrieking, skronking, sweaty, pounding, rocking and GROOVING. You can catch glimpses of the Make Up, the Blues Explosion, the White Stripes, New York Dolls, as well as Alice Donut (especially in the vocals). Weird and pretty wonderful. Spazzy, soulful, glammy ROCK AND ROLL. There are 5 volumes (we have the first four). Short and sweet (almost too short, clocking in at 10-15 minutes) and all in honor of JWB's peculiar ideas of the pillars of soul: Mario Van Peebles, Tania Hearst (Patty Hearst with her SLA name), Albert Ayler, Marc Bolan and the as yet to be announced 5th pillar.
Nice handmade sleeves with cool/funny liner notes. They do covers of the Zombies, the Fugs, and Mission Of Burma and turn them into punky soul explosions... Good stuff, here's hoping the fifth pillar is BRUCE WILLIS!!!
We weren't sure what to make of this one at first, a mix of modern electronica, and traditional African music, the story of how these two guys got together is a good one, John Wizards, aka John Withers, was living in Africa, when he met Rwandan singer Emmanuel Nzaramba, the two talked music, while Nzaramba was at work, and Withers was walking around with a guitar, they then parted company, Nzaramba losing his job and his cellphone, only to meet a year later, in a different city, at which point the two decided to work together. The results are pretty strange, but wonderful too, minus the vocals, this might be some idiosyncratic Planet Mu oddity, but the vocals root the music in the traditions of classic African folk music. The sound is a dizzying hodgepodge that aQ-ers might imagine would result from a mix of Shangaan Electro, Music From Saharan Cellphones, and some of the weirder Sublime Frequencies releases. The first two tracks deliver what sounds like a plunderphonic collage of sounds and influences, swirling calliope like melodies, twangy guitars, reverbed piano, disco-y drumming, groovy psychedelic synths, handclaps, what sounds like a looped field recording, transformed into a woozy melody, whistles, thick bass buzz, steel string guitars, wild psych jams, drum machine stutter, all of which gives way to some stripped down drums, and what must be Nzaramba talking to Withers over a strangely electrified version of African high life, then some autotuned vox, and the song unfurls as some warped modern day variation of classic African music, laced with all sorts of warbly electronics, dubbed out drum beats, mutated synths, the song stripped of all the weirdness might be too saccharine and straight, but as imagined by Withers, it becomes something super freaky, and super fun. And so the whole record goes, the songs leaping from sound to sound, style to style, groovy disco-funk, stuttery R&B, woozy slow jams, mellowed out dubstep, cheesy eighties MTV style pop, dreamy collages glitchery, and pretty much every twisted variation in between, the recording super loose and abstract, with some of the songs just stopping, allowing us to hear Withers and Nzaramba talking in the studio, before the song bursts back into action. So good, so strange, and so fun. Easily the coolest, weirdest 'world' music record we've heard in a while. Anyone into the above mentioned comparisons (Sublime Frequencies, Music From Saharan Cellphones, Shagaan Electro), should definitely check this out...
One of two new releases this week from the always awesome Debacle Records (Expo 70, The Slaves, Megabats and about a million more), the other is some gorgeously druggy and dreamy downercore bedroom pop from Cough Cool, this one is a cool collaboration from Demian Johnston, whose team up with Mink Stole we raved about a few lists back, and who was once a member of late great kick ass postpunk metalcore heavies Kiss It goodbye. But on the solo stuff we've heard so far, Johnston tends toward dark and blackened drones, which makes this collaboration all the more apt, with Johnston joined by Kevin Gan Yuen, one half of local black metal noise merchants Sutekh Hexen.
And thus you can imagine the sort of sinister sounds these two conjure up. Deep devilish rumblings, strange bits of percussion and creepy sonic detritus, a roiling black sea of blurred tarpit riffage, laced with chiming harmonics, haunting barely there melodies, the sound dense and heavily layered, slipping from meditative thrum to churning gnarled crush and back again, shifting from Wolf Eyes-ish black industrial creep, to thick pulsating SUNNO))) like black hold doom, to swirling, almost pretty blackbliss ambience. The two occasionally dip their deep rumblings in something more caustic and corrosive, adding a patina of crumbling hiss, and gristly static, but just as often, smearing those sounds into another layer of undulating buzz and blur, the twisted chugging slo-mo near-static riffage at one point wreathed in the sound or falling rain, creating a weirdly atmospheric stretch of ambience that evokes some sort of unholy black storm, before splintering into one final blast of grinding low end crunch.
Sweet stuff, WAY recommended for fans of grim black slow low heaviness, and creepy, sinister, blackhole buzz, which we're guessing probably includes a whole lot of you...
LIMITED TO 120 COPIES!!
We're beginning to think that Debacle might just have to be our new favorite label. Certainly one of the coolest weirdest cd-r labels around. With a massive catalog we've only begun to work our way through, the spaced out krautdrone bliss of Expo 70, the hazy mantra like synth/vocal ritualism of the Slaves, and the tripped out synthscapery of Megabats, all killed, and now we have these, one of two releases on this week's list from Demian Johnston, who we knew nothing about, until we read that maybe he was in legendary technical metalcore outfit Kiss It Goodbye, which makes more sense here (than on the split tape with Mamiffer, reviewed elsewhere on this list), as this is some seriously corrosive, and caustic heaviness, not in the sense of metal, or rock, or even riffing, this is some dense, heaving, roiling blacknoise ambience that rivals Blue Sabbath Black Cheer for sheer power and intensity, but unlike the nearly impenetrable black hole sound of BSBC, the sounds here are infused with melody, and for every blast of brutality, there's a stretch of hushed shimmer, or creeping minimal drift.
Oh did we mention we have no idea who or what Mink Stole is either? The Debacle site offers no insights, a quick web search reveals that it's a guy called Chris Negrete, and that this whole record was born of a single guitar effects improv jam, recorded live, by Johnston, and then sent off to Negrete to fuck with, and fuck with he did, adding all manner of texture, extra noise, percussion, transforming a cloud of swirling guitar growl into a sprawling soundscape of black ambience, and foggy low end creep. The opening track is a harsh blast, but the follow up is a hazy, distorted slowcore free-drone drift, the record unwinds and unfurls gradually, slipping from sound to sound, hazy almost new agey krautdrone one minute, complete with haunting crooned vox, to deep minimal ambient thrum the next, an oozing black cloud of sound, laced with thick percussive low end flutters, and blasts of tweaked effects, otherworldly and a bit harrowing. Elsewhere thick swells of metallic buzz pulse over creaking, groaning industrial landscapes, SUNN-like sheets of blackdrone guitar buzz billow over buried barely there melodies, washed out shimmers float weightlessly alongside operatic vocals, in a gauzy expanse of warm layered warble and crystalline guitar shimmer, and roiling seas of whir and hiss churn over a submerged series of mechanical drones and machine like pulsations. Awesome, and dark. For fans of Kevin Drumm, Prurient, Wolf Eyes, and the grim bleak side of the black drone spectrum.
SKWEEE!! DJ Jon AD (who runs the LoDubs and losonofono labels as well as the kick ass Anthem Records store in Portland) claims responsibility for the "first skweee mixed cassette in the known universe". Yep, that's probably correct. Kudos to him, and as skweee connoisseurs ourselves, we can tell you it's a damn fine mix, dense with percolating glitch and electronic future-funk freakiness from some of the best in the biz.
And you're reading this and wondering what the heck this "skweee" is of which we speak, well first off this tape will school you, and secondly, just do a quick search on our site and you'll find reviews of previous skweee comps like Skweee Cruise and Skweee Tooth that should explain it.
Jon wanted to demonstrate that skweee can rock a (dance) party, and definitely succeeds. We like how he mixes in a few ringers - non-skweee, or perhaps we should say pre-skweee (?) tracks by the likes of Boogie Down Productions and the Beastie Boys, to give the listener a sense of skweee's hiphop, b-boy roots. The tape is also crammed, of course, with the work of such Scandinavian skweee luminaries as Limonious, Daniel Savio, Spartan Lover, Mangrove, Uday, Rigas Den Andre, V.C., Randy Barracuda, Slow Hand Motem, Beem, and Joxaren. The new wave of American skweee is represented too, with Portland's Lazercrotch leading off side A...
Over the whole tape, there's nearly 30 individual skweee cuts seamlessly mixed together, in quite a dense and frenzied fashion. Each side of this C-60 cassette was recorded in a single take, with two turntables, mixer, and effects ('cause skweee can always use MORE video game zipps and zapps).
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!! Comes with download code, so you don't actually need a tape deck...
A fantastic split lp released for Record Store Day, on one side Mr. Glenn Jones, formerly of modern krautrockers Cul De Sac, now an undisputed master of the Appalachian guitar, on the other side, a bluegrass hoedown teamup, bluesman Charlie Parr and country string band the Black Twig Pickers.
Fans of Jack Rose (who Jones dedicated this record to), James Blackshaw, Marisa Nadler, Ilyas Ahmed, Tom Carter and the like who haven't heard Glenn Jones, now's the time to remedy that for sure. Lush tangles of intricate steel string picking, gorgeous melodies, plenty of buzz and slippery slide, rich overtones, from moody dark drift to effusive folk flecked twang, every track here is a gem, Jones a modern master of the Appalachian guitar.
The flipside finds Parr shacking up with The Black Twig Pickers for a serious hootenanny, a back porch, sun-going-down, campfire country folk bluegrass jam session, fiddles, banjos, steel string guitars, all whipping up a wild rollicking country workout, from dark haunting twang to old timey blues, from rollicking hoedown to mournful lament...
LIMITED Record Store Day release, so these may not be around for long. Housed in a super heavy full color jacket, includes a download coupon, and multiple inserts, including some recipes from Charlie Parr.
Another clattery automated masterpiece from composer Joe Jones. It's hard to gather any information from the liner-note-less cd booklet or from the almost information-less website (what info there is, is in German) but what we can tell you, is Jones creates automated, often solar powered machines that beat drums, hit cymbals, strum autoharps and create mysterious, noisy robot jams, simple thumping caveman beats and cacophonous metallic clangs meander nervously over a continuous high end whir. Sort of like an android No Neck Blues Band warming up while Skullflower rehearses down the hall. Nice.
Local experimental guitarist Mason Jones -- you know him from his popular space rock band Subaranoid Space, and perhaps also from his isolationist guitar explorations under the name Trance (a moniker it seems he's dispensed with here), or his Japan-o-centric music 'zine Ongaku Otaku, or his former label Charnel Music, or his other dabblings in the world of Japanese noise, etc. -- presents this cd-r of guitar music. Really beautiful, spaced-out guitar music. These nine tracks incorporate both lovely, melodic note-picking and echo-effected ambience. We know Mason's got a ton of effects pedals and isn't afraid to use 'em, but the underwater drones and neighing-horse symphonies he creates don't stop him from actually utilizing his guitar in a more conventional sense here as well. Mason's pleasant, kinda sixties-sci-fi-sounding playing on this solo project (live to DAT, with subsequent edits) falls in zone somewhere betwixt the pretty post-rock dynamics of, say, Sonna, and the physicality and psychedelia of a Kawabata Makoto... good stuff Mason!
We had never even heard of Jooklo Duo until recently. Even though they have oodles of records and cd-r's out, many of them on their own Troglosound imprint. No use kicking ourselves, all we can do is dig in and catch up, which we're doing big time. Not only do we have this kick ass, super limited tour only cd-r, available only at shows on their current US tour OR from aQuarius, nowhere else, we're copresenting their show at Cafe Du Nord on April 21st (more on that elsewhere on this week's list), we're also hosting a Jooklo Duo instore on April 20th (also more about that elsewhere on this list). So by all means, come to the instore, go to the Du Nord show, and buy one of these cd-r's before they're gone, you won't regret it.
So for those of you, like us, who are relatively new to the magic of the Jooklo Duo, are the Italian duo of Virginia Genta on sax, flute and voice, and David Vanzan on drums and percussion, they're sort of free jazz, but also just sort of spaced out avant improv, as at home jamming with Burnt Hills or No Neck as they are on a jazz bill, maybe more so. They incorporate all sort of haunting vocals and chants, into their constantly shifting skittery improvised mystical sound explorations. Eastern melodies, Gamelan sounds, it's free, and improvised, but also mystical, occultic, spiritual, the sound of revolutionary sixties free music, channeled through the spirit of today.
On High, available only at aQ and at shows, the duo are on fire, maybe one of their most intense recordings ever, the sax is blown out, in the red, fierce and fiery, the drums, wild and octopoidal, the two instruments, dancing around each other, frenzied and frantic, and about as heavy as free music gets, they're heavily influenced by Coltrane and Ayler and Cherry and Coleman, and it's easy to hear that on High, it's like post post POST bop, the sax is a lethal weapon, the drums laying down suppressive fire, a totally transcendent, epic, mind blowing, next level, free jazz blowout. WAY recommended, as are the upcoming shows.
LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES. Each one hand numbered. We got about half, you can only get them here at aQ, or at the shows on this tour, they're packaged in super swank paste on cardstock sleeves, with a super striking miniature full color version of the SF show poster inside. For more on the tour, the SF show, the other bands playing, the cd-r, and the Jooklo Duo in general, go here: http://troglobloger.blogspot.com
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
A few years back Italian free jazz / experimental outfit the Jooklo Duo, played a fantastic instore at aQ, while on tour in the US, playing exclusively on toy instruments, it was lovely, and super unique, playful and really special. Around the same time they played a woefully unattended show, at which they destroyed, a furious free jazz psychedelic freakout a la Brotzmann / Fushitsusha, drummer David Vanzan destroying his kit, brutal and punishing, measured and finessed in equal measure, whole saxophonist Virginia Genta wailed like a psych-jazz banshee. The tour cd-r we had briefly around that same time, was a blast of face melting psychedelic jazz crush, and as we mentioned at the time, about as heavy as 'free' music gets.
Well, Jooklo Duo are back in the US, playing a handful of shows, which should NOT be missed, and we managed to get a little handful of their tour only cd-r, limited to just 66 copies, and unlike the aural punishment of that previous disc, Live At Occii spends much of its time skittering and shuffling, the first four or five minutes sounds like a more free jazz No Neck Blues Band, a field of constantly in flux bleats and breathy flutters, over a bed of spare percussion, and loose abstract drumming, eventually the disc explodes into some serious free jazz intensity, both Genta and Vanzan sparring relentlessly, the horns dropping out, for a long stretch of wild percussion, which is soon joined by wild vocals reminiscent of Art Ensemble at their very wildest, and over the next 20 minutes or so, the sound veers wildly from tangled free jazz bleat, to dizzying drum solos and octopoidal percussion workouts, they even manage to infuse some groove here and there, not to mention some Borbetomagus worthy skronk, the vibe and intensity super energetic, and extremely psychedelic, dynamic to the point of exhaustion, perfectly capture what made them so mind blowing at that previously mentioned show. Killer!
And again, this is SUPER LIMITED. Only 66 made, each one hand numbered, housed in a mini plastic case with printed covers and inserts, only available from the band on tour, or from aQ, while they last...
Latest blast of blown out, super fierce and fiery free jazz pummel from this Italian duo, whose last tour cd-r was a huge hit around here, and whose surprisingly hushed and minimal instore was pretty fantastic. But for those of you who lucked out and snagged one of those cd-r's or saw the duo perform live when they were in SF, you know what you're in for, two sides, two tracks brimming with nonstop, relentless, frantic, frenetic, explosive super rhythmic, wildly tangled and super psychedelic next level free jazz freakout. The drums never let up, laying down a super textured avalanche of rhythmic shuffle and skitter and pound, a non stop drum solo, that manages to be totally free, yet somehow strangely rhythmic, but it's the sax and clarinet, wielded by Virginia Genta, that drives these jams, the sounds she gets out of her horns are inhuman, alien, free jazz may skronk and squeal, but this stuff SHRIEKS and GRINDS and is just a face peeling onslaught of strangled notes, atonal melodies and wild high end squiggles. There are bits of extra percussion, some vocals, even a little blast of harmonica (?), but this is definitely hardcore free jazz that will send anyone with any sort of aversion to skronk and squeal and shriek running for the hills. The rest of us can just revel in Jooklo Duo's divine jazz chaos.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Six maximalist guitar pieces played by Seth Josel, who performs compositions by James Tenney, Lois V. Vierk, Phill Niblock, John Cage, and himself. Vierk's composition for five guitars is sheer chiming hypnosis much like the symphonies of Glenn Branca. The one by Niblock is a lengthy white hot drone spanning 30 minutes. Josel's own pieces are incendiary jams a la Caspar Brotzmann.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Solo recording by Don Joyce of Negativland. All sounds used come from WWII and sound effects.
Be warned, the $21.00 price tag and the title of this disc "The Complete Recordings" might be a little misleading. The complete recordings of James Joyce actually total all of 12 minutes. "Eolian Episode" recorded in Paris in 1924, and "Anna Livia Plurabelle" (from Finnegans Wake) recorded in Cambridge in 1929. Both scratchy and antiquated, that sound we here at AQ love so much. Also included in this set is a huge book(let) containing an unpublished book by Eugene Jolas as well as an introduction written by Marc Dachy about the friendship between Jolas and Joyce. Haven't had a chance to delve too much into the book, but it looks really interesting, and helps justify the price. We have to admit to being a bit diappointed by the brevity of the disc, but fans of Joyce will obviously need this.
This is the first in a planned series of 3" dvd-r's from the folks at Jyrk. This first installment comes from Jamie Potter of experimental drone ensemble Bonus, whose cd-r on Root Strata we reviewed a while back (don't ask, it's out of print) and dug pretty heavily.
This dvd features more of that deep rich Bonus buzz, a whirring rich warm chordal drone that subtly shifts over the course of this 25 minute film and the film is as strangely mesmerizing as the music. At first it's hard to tell exactly what you're seeing, some sort of alien starscape, or some incredibly magnified view of atoms and molecules, tiny little colored lights, that soon grow into a big white blinding sun shape that swirls and spins and changes colors, like watching some sort of scientific representation of some cataclysmic cosmic event. It's totally hypnotic and it's easy to drift into some sort of trance, with the drones and the spinning shapes. The shapes are fascinating, looks like some sort of monitor, and the images on the screen shift and spin, transforming itself into weird spinning symbols, and pixelated glowing discs, like video feedback but more more 'designed'. Really striking and completely beautiful. To look at AND to listen to.
Packaged in a cool mini 3" jewel case with full color insert. LIMITED TO 90 COPIES! ALREADY SOLD OUT. WE HAVE ABOUT 20 COPIES, AND THAT'S ALL WE'LL BE ABLE TO GET!
One of six new tapes from the always awesome Holodeck label out of Austin, Texas is this washed out retro '80's synth jammer from Juan Cisneros, who previously operated under the moniker, VC Childkraft (and who had one of our favorite tracks on the Brainclub Vol. 1 compilation). Vaporware is a hard to quantify mix of post-witch house haziness through a glaring Miami Vice heat. "Shattered Glass in Oil Rainbow" jarringly begins with a choked speedboat motor noise before settling into a calm seascape invoking a sonic comparison to The Holy Other channeling slow motion Jan Hammer. Romantic synth textures and even far away saxophone, taking us back to some love scene from an unrealized Michael Mann thriller, but filtered through an even dreamier veil of alien sensuality, placing an unfamiliar tense spin on a forgotten nostalgic moment. "Angel Cop/Black Market Exotica" brings some danger to the proceedings with sounds from a futuristic Asian crime thriller with crowd screams and laser bursts. Less tongue in cheek than someone like, say, Umberto, JU4N actually manages some thoughtful compositional choices that takes this to a deeper place than the references invoked would suggest. This is not your standard, Carpenter/Goblin synth worship, instead diving bravely head-on into some scarier Phil Collins "In The Air Tonight" territory and re-emerging rather unscathed with a unique sonic twist. Wear your Ray-Bans and proceed with caution! Limited!
There's absolutely no information about Judah as to the who, the what, or the when. We could be really bold and say that this bleak, murky synth-punk outfit was active in the early '80s emerging out of the Bowery alongside the likes of Suicide and Dark Day; but in all likelihood, this is a contemporary project that has all of the minimal wave trappings. The arrangements on this eponymous album are suitably stripped down with just syncopated bass-tones, monophunk drum machines, and motorik pulses through pure analogue electronics with very little touching on melody. The vocalist (whoever that may be) strikes a sneering rock pose certainly modeled on the rockabilly vocals of Alan Vega with a few funhouse Elvis grinds by way of Karl Blake of Shock Headed Peters. This is a pretty damn compelling record, and one that we wish we could tell you more about. Unfortunately, we do have very limited stock on this, with very little hope of getting more...
A self-taught musician with a keen understanding of electronic circuits, F.C. Judd published the first of 11 books on the nascent field of electronic music in 1954. This was a few years before the BBC founded its Radiophonic Workshop, and documentation exists that Judd and the Workshop's Daphne Oram were in communication with each other. That said, Judd might have counted amongst the hundreds of amateur enthusiasts who tinkered in garages, basements, attics, and sheds throughout the UK (and beyond for that matter!); but his anonymity was not for a lack of trying, as he did publish those 11 books, founded the Amateur Tape Recording magazine (with a run from 1959-1967), and funded a couple of record labels, all in the pursuit of disseminating experimental tape music to a wider audience. Many of those singles did get bundled by Studio G for library use (and subsequently, one of those tracks made it onto the G-Spots compilation from the Studio G archives, curated by Trunk Records), and Judd did create the electronic sound design for the children's sci-fi puppet show Space Patrol in 1963.
Judd's late '50s / early '60s studio featured various oscillators, tape decks, and filters alongside a primitive drum machine and an experimental synthesizer, both of his own design; and he rendered an eerie array of vibrations and electronic plonk, coupled with a rough-cut / hand-spun approach to tape edits and loops. Judd varied from the spookily abstract paralleling (and predating) the sound design from the Forbidden Planet and Dr. Who soundtracks; and some delightfully playful electronic poptunes looking forward to Joe Meek's gleeful electronics as The Blue Men. Interspersed throughout the electronics and tape experiments, Judd offers up his own thoughts on the tracks themselves with a dry sense of humor tossing about explanatory definitions of basic musique concrete techniques and various electronic circuits. A fantastic and compelling document of the earliest and nearly forgotten pioneers of British electronic music, to which Judd himself said it best: "Musique Concrete is fascinating!"
When's the last time you bought a goddamn CASSINGLE?? The nineties? The eighties? Well it's about time to make it right goddamn now, cuz this latest blast from Milwaukee rapper Juiceboxxx (yeah, he's added an X since last time) is a doozy. Now that's it's cold and grey, rainy and grim, this is THEE summer jam that will make the inside of your car feel like you're cruising down the coast, top down, sun shining, cracking 40's, smoking blunts, and scamming on the ladies (or the dudes). Total Beastie Boys style radness, hooky loops, big bouncy loops, and a whole mess of guests including local boy Antwon, who each contribute a verse, the sound slipping from bombastic boombox hip hop, to sample heavy summery electro-pop, with a main vocal hook that will stick in your head like crazy. And flip it over, and you get the a capella, which somehow is just as cool / even cooler. Pressed on a bright pink tape, housed in a full color cardboard cassingle style sleeve. LIMITED TO 50 COPIES!!!
Another list, another batch of tapes from UK label The Tapeworm! This one comes from a guy named Phil Julian, who despite apparently being quite active in the experimental music underground since the nineties, we had not previously heard of. But all it took was a few seconds of his Live Flux to convince us that that was definitely an egregious oversight on our part. Huge billowing clouds of low end rumble and buzzing metallic shimmer, all constructed from experiments with "unstable/chaotic systems", aka modular synths, contact mics, feedback etc. It's impossible to tell what the source is for these sounds, but it hardly matters, just sit back and let these thick sonic swells wash over you. Undulating, and softly pulsing swirls seem to coalesce into heaving walls of sound only to immediately dissipate into drifting clouds of sonic particles, before beginning to gather once again. The sound eventually settles into something much more serene, a sort of Niblockian stretch of layered tones, backed with all manner of incidental sound, voices, shuffling feet, pieces of wood on concrete, hard to say if these were purposeful or not, but they do add mysterious texture, to Julian's dronemusic, which even in its more serene state, begins again to build to something dense and intense. The flipside is more of the same, but the recording is more raw, wreathed in hiss, the sounds pulsing madly as well, as if tones were chosen that were just off enough that their overtones would collide and disagree, the results though are a wild chaotic cloud of hissing, throbbing soft noise, that for all of its noisiness and abrasion, still manages to be weirdly hypnotic.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We've gotten to a really weird place in our music obsession, as evidenced by the fact that sometimes a recommendation against, is almost stronger than a recommendation FOR. Sounds weird but it's true. We have friends at other stores, who will tell us something is terrible, they hated it, but then will add "you might like it though." And the weird thing is, they're usually right (that we'll like it). We've developed such a taste for the bizarre, it's sometimes hard to tell if something is bad, or so fucked up it's genius.
However, one of those friends recommended against buying this very record, very vehemently in fact. Hard to recall, but it was something along the lines of it not being very metal and being all jangly and wussy. Fair enough. But they are from Finland, and they do have a song called "Discover The Pigtail"! Those two pieces of critical info were enough to overrule our friend's warning, and we're so glad they were.
This latest ep from Finnish black metal, psychedelic post rock horde Jumalhamara is AMAZING. Three songs, all on the long side, with a sound that is pretty difficult to pin down. It is easy to see why someone questing for serious black metal grimness might be disappointed. The record begins with the sound of children, laughing, playing, and what sounds like oinking pigs, a field recording of some village, until the band ROAR into action, pounding out a fierce blast of blackened buzz, grinding and intensely heavy, but it literally only lasts for about 10 seconds, then the band drifts off into some washed out hippy psych territory, all crooned reverbed vocals, lazy sun baked melodies, simple hand drums, slippery minimal bass, streaks of dubbed out distorted guitar, but for the most part, this is almost like some blackened Finnish Grateful Dead. Near the end there's even some fuzzy organ, the guitars get a bit heavier, the vocals moaning and chant-like, but it never really explodes, just gets thicker and more dense, while still seeming jammy and druggy. So awesome. Almost like a slightly heavier, way more fucked up black metal version of the recent Dead Man record.
"Discover The Pigtail" begins with glistening harmonics, which are soon joined by some strange off kilter drumming, tangled riffing and howled vocals, the cool thing about this track is that those harmonics never go away, so even as the band slithers and sprawls, spewing out a sort of buzzy blackness, the glistening shimmer totally shines through, diluting the heaviness, turning what might be something raw and heavy into something way more bizarre and trippy, at times it almost sounds like two records playing simultaneously, they drift in an out of sync, all very dizzying and gloriously tweaked.
The final track is the briefest of the bunch, and begins as a grinding gnarled and blackened doomic dirge, but not typically sludgy and murky, instead it's super dense and layered, the drums doing much more than pounding away, stumbling and skittering, beneath streaks of high end guitar, and chugging blown out riffage, the cymbals sizzling, the whole track recorded super hot and in the red, blasting and pounding and twisting until it fades out.
Definitely not really black metal, more like some sort of twisted doom-ed post rock avant psych, but still plenty heavy and really fucking great!
