The wonderful, willfully naive Japanese indie-pop psychedelic ensemble Maher Shalal Hash Baz takes the first half of this split cd with a live performance recorded in Scotland. Honking sax, wayward vocals, sad-sack percussion, helpless guitar, plinking piano, and even skipping rope make it into the mix. Somehow, it's gorgeous, in a melancholy off-kilter way that few bands could pull off. Following Maher Shalal Hash Baz's seventeen tracks there's ten more by San Francisco outfit The Curtains, who likewise manage to make a virtue out of simplicity and spontaneity, their technical abilities (or lack thereof) never hampering their expressiveness. A good pairing indeed. The Curtains are noisier and more 'plugged-in' than MSHB, with electronic keyboard sounds forming some of their most striking moments. With both bands, what's improvised and what's not is hard to suss out, but experiencing the results can be quite pleasant either way if you don't demand much precision from your 'pop'. To us, these 27 tracks are a pleasant jumble worth experiencing.
Horde Catalytique Pour La Fin, Jacques Berrocal, Semool, Fille Qui Mousse, Jean Guerin, and (this one) Mahogany Brain: there's been a spate of reissues recently of stuff originally released on the Futura label, who were some sort of French version of NYC's avant-garde ESP-Disk, based on this evidence. Mahogany Brain's 1971 debut consists of a dozen head-scratching tracks of outside art skronk rock blurt, completely freeform and loose (but more messy and mellow than nasty or noisy, although they can be that way too). You'll get into their primitive underground vibe if you dig random blues licks, free jazz spazz, and wandering dada vocals. Considered a classic, but only by those who find the likes of Captain Beefheart and the Godz to be a little too "straight". We're told this was "very influenced by drugs" and believe it.
It's been a very long time since Robert Hampson has released a Main album and an even longer time since he's produced a *great* Main album. Ablation changes that, although those who would be expecting the deconstructed hypno-rock of Motion Pool or Hydra-Calm will be disappointed; but those who had followed Hampson's trajectory starting with the last few Main records about a decade ago into spatialized electro-acoustics only to rediscover his infatuation with the drone which finally brought him back to the guitar as a principle instrument will certainly understand where this record is coming from. Hampson is still working at the storied GRM studios in Paris, and there is an infusion of the classic aesthetic of what came out of GRM within Ablation (notably Parmegiani and Ferrari), but at the same time he does link it back, if in a subtle way, to the mesmerism which girded the Main productions in the '90s. That said, any connections to his former group, Loop would be quite a stretch indeed.
On Ablation, Hampson has recruited Stefan Mathieu - a brilliant drone technician in his own right whom we've not heard from in ages - and the pairing works seamlessly, even as it clearly slants towards Hampson's vision of a cold disconnection dispensed in overlapping hissing layers and hypnotic patterns of abstracted sound. The percussive klank of a prepared piano on "I" is a bit of a red herring for what's found throughout Ablation especially on "II" and "III", is a series of slow ellipses of churning guitar drones and golden tonal coronas drifting with all of the uneasy beauty of an android's dream. The closing track "IV" bends along a radiophonic arc with ether crackle and metallic rasping and slow motion pixelations from a sharply rendered synth that forms the coda to the album. Organic. Liquid. Electric. Motorized. Bleak. Holy. All of those adjectives apply to this fantastic album. Welcome back, Main!
When Robert Hampson began exploring "drumless space" through his digitally tricked-out guitarscapes under the guise of Main back in the early '90s, those initial records ("Motion Pool" in particular) were compelling albums of circular hypno-rock riffs spiralling through bleak, ominous drones. On one hand, Main had signified the birth of post-rock alongside other hybrid electronic / rock bands such as Seefeel and Disco Inferno (a couple years before the term got lumped onto Tortoise); yet on the other, Main had inspired the isolationist aesthetic where jack-booted industrialists and grizzled metallers tried their hands at grim ambient constructions. Since then, Main's influence has waned, as people like Jim O'Rourke and Fennesz have upstaged his guitar radicalism; and also as Main's albums have become increasingly more hermetic and less interested in the ideals of rock.
This last reason is obviously why Main got dropped from a sweet deal on Beggars Banquet; but, such opened up a number of possibilities to collaborate with Janek Schaeffer and Antenna Farm, as well as to produce this fine piece of electronic abstraction for (K-raa-k)3. On "Tau," very little is left of anything even closely resembling the timbres, harmonics, and actions of a guitar. It could be quite possible that there is in fact no guitar on this album. Nevertheless, Hampson calmly describes a sonic narrative through discrete samples which recall the alien tonalities of Morton Subotnik's work with the Buchla synthesizer. Loaded with MAX / MSP filters, these individual sounds amass into an icy soundtrack of microphonic detailing.
The evolution of Robert Hampson's career has employed a steady skeletonization of the guitar -- possibly to the point that he doesn't even play guitar anymore on any of his records, but at least to the point where he's producing nothing that resembles a guitar. After dissolving his first band (the incendiary hypno-rock group Loop) and fronting Main, Hampson first dropped all drum tracks, then removed the bass, and gradually shifted towards sampling technologies over the guitar itself. "Transiency" is a short 20 minute EP, released by longtime Main / Loop / Hampson fan Kid 606 on the Tigerbeat 6 label. True to the last couple of releases, Hampson offers studied compositions of electronic minimalism and concrete flourishes that have been clipped against gaping voids of quiet spaces.
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THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Staalplaat continues their "Mort Aux Vaches" series of commissioned radio broadcasts with this split release between Main, White Winged Moth, and Flying Saucer Attack. These recordings find all three experimental guitarist artists at their quietest and on their best behavior. Flying Saucer Attack gets the most attention with 4 softly played acoustic guitar tracks that are buried underneathe a building wall of reverb -- sort of like the mellower pieces on FSA's recent album "Mirror". Main offers a 15 minute track for treated guitars that is quite active by the standards of Robert Hampson's increasingly inaudible outfit. Tiny samples of malfunctioning guitar cables and soft scrapes on the strings repeat throughout the composition along with a bell like tonal drone. White Winged Moth (aka New Zealander Dean Roberts) also presents a 15 minute piece, with his humid guitar drones. Altogether this is an excellent compilation of work.
Mako Sica first came to our attention about a year ago with their awesome cassette on PlusTapes and an insanely limited 12" on Permanent Records. They really struck a chord with us, as the Chicago trio conjured an intimate collection of songs that sounded lush and expansive in a way other groups only hope to achieve. The cassette was lo-fi, but not as an excuse, and now the band ventures to new realms with their proper full length debut. Recorded live in an actual studio with no overdubs, the higher fidelity is used to the band's advantage, as they are able to properly expand upon the sound they nailed on the home recorded cassette. The three lengthy songs on Dual Horizon are the result of musicians who clearly understand the importance of working together as a unit to achieve something else entirely. Sure, there are bands (or more often than not "dudes" with solo projects) doing similar things throughout the globe - you may be reminded of a more Americanized version of Urthona with less distortion, or perhaps Expo '70 if their interests lay grounded in the desert instead of the cosmos - but Mako Sica is its own beast altogether, and more than most, these guys use negative space as an instrument unto itself for a truly unique feeling that is as beautiful as it is unsettling. It should also be noted that Dual Horizon was recorded by Todd Rittmann of US Maple fame, another band these guys recall at times, though after a couple handfuls of peyote.
"I'itoi" opens the record with wordless droning chants and some sparse bells. An atmosphere is established as windy sounds creep in, giving things a nice ominous vibe. Eventually, something begins to take shape as it bubbles out of the haze before turning into a thick ambient fog. The song is evocative of the middle of nowhere, the badlands from which the band took its name, and sharp bursts of jagged guitar snake about while voices continue to swirl in the mix. The sound is huge but still remains grounded by the musicians who refuse to lose control of their instruments to psychedelic noodling. Soon, a steady rhythm comes in and takes things heavenward as one guitar takes the lead with super fast picking on the high notes while the other holds down the role of bass. Things eventually change direction with a pronounced drumbeat taking you to another place altogether. "5th One Is The Dark" begins life with a softly muted root note taking the lead during the lengthy buildup. A tremeloed guitar begins to sound like something blowing in the wind, and though it's a bit "surfy" sounding, there are no waves in the desert, and it becomes another part of the band's enveloping sound. Sustained feedback and a voice soon work their way in, and though you can hear words, you are unsure of what is taking form. The song is dramatic and highly cinematic, managing to conjure the incomprehensible hugeness of nature while also sounding affirmative of the cycle of life that will continue after we're gone.
Taking up all of side 2 and clocking in at 21 minutes, "Dunes" rides out with giant sweeps of low end before everything drops and a steady tom rhythm comes in like a heartbeat. The guitars come back with a submerged melody and jangly high notes as you venture to the far reaches of your mind, and at around the 4 minute mark, things actually start to move with the flow of a "rock" song, but in a very minimal way, again utilizing the the open space around the band. It's interesting how the drums avoid using cymbals too much, as this works really well with the band's lineup; nobody overtakes anyone else and they sound like a living, breathing unit, and even though there is a lot of improvisation going on, the band clearly knows where to take things. As the song winds down, more voices emerge and disappear, with a blaring trumpet melody helping to further disorient you in the best of ways.
The record itself is pressed up on some awesome black and white hazed vinyl and includes a download card for those of you who plan to wander off under headphones with this thing playing on repeat. And while we're at it, we should point out the fact that there's only 250 of these bad boys out there, so don't sleep on this!
Chicago's Mako Sica have been a longtime favorite here at aQuarius, and with their second full length (third if you count their live vinyl debut), we figured it was about time more people took note of this amazing band. The trio whips up a heady and unique noise that goes way beyond simple classification and remains blissfully in its own world. The main ingredients � two guitars, drums, and evocative wordless vocals � are augmented here and there with trumpet, thumb piano, and various percussive flourishes, but it's the way the musicians interact with each other that makes this band so special. And while they certainly do rock as they ascend to higher levels of psychedelia, calling Mako Sica a "rock band" or a "psychedelic band" doesn't quite hit the mark. The noise addled skronk of hometown labels like Skin Graft is certainly evident as well as plenty of free jazz and world music influences, but the band never tries to be anything other than themselves, and with those influences guiding the way they have arrived at a stellar sound that will be instantly accessible to adventurous listeners. At the same time, a level of mysteriousness remains constant, demanding repeated listens. As distinctive as it all is, we know this will appeal to fans of legendary groups like Trad Gras Och Stenar, Taj Mahal Travellers, and Les Rallizes Denudes, not to mention the current crop of San Francisco bands blowing the minds of the world like Barn Owl, 3 Leafs, and Carlton Melton. How could we not make this a Record Of The Week?
Essence opens with the monolithic sidelong "Fate Deals A Hand". A slow, eerie buildup gives the impression of a rising sun as the sounds bubble to life. Sustained, cello-like drones and bells accompany a voice that is itself another layer of beautiful sound. The mood gradually shifts and an underlying harmonic fuzz on one of the guitars indicates that things are finally gonna take off. The heaviness and unease of the guitars grows as the percussion becomes more insistent, and six and a half minutes in the sounds begin to merge into a more distinct form before launching into an ominous psych jam that is almost metal if it weren't for the way the drums hold it all in place. Queasy, discordant sounds kaleidoscopically swirl about as the vocals (which at times sound almost like Nina Simone if she were wordlessly chanting) add an awesome, somewhat disorienting vibe that makes it difficult to guess when and where this music could be coming from. It's amazing how the vocals illustrate a story without words and create drama, even if you aren't quite sure what it all means. Eventually a delayed trumpet glides into the maelstrom, at which point the band somehow still holds back and lets an atmosphere of spaciousness build - spaciousness being one of the key elements separating this band from the rest of the pack, who often try to cram as much as possible into the proceedings. Of course, Mako Sica launches into another distorted freakout before reaching a final and total silence. Fucking awesome.
Side two offers up two more lengthy jams, beginning with "On Cracked Sea". Cosmic chanting and guitars operate in unison, trading melodies freely without confining themselves to any traditional structure. Instead, it's just TOTAL music, melodic, jagged, beautiful, and noisy, all at once, with the drums clattering about creating just as much mood as the guitars. More of that awesome harmonically rich fuzz guitar comes cascading in, bringing the song to a new level of intensity before winding down into a woozy blissful fadeout. The final track here, "Chain Leg", begins with some low ominous rumblings and more bad ass vocal chants, reminding us a bit of a less metallic version of UK space/psych/drone collective Bong. Eventually the proceedings get a little more abstract even as some discernible riffing takes center stage. Everything sounds perfectly in place and open to whatever adventures appear to be happening in real time. Musical freedom, pretty much.
For a band that has continuously surprised and inspired, Essence stands as Mako Sica's greatest achievement so far. Their somewhat shadowy existence may mean they might not the first band that comes to mind when pondering the international resurgence in explorative, free form psychedelic music, but it's hard to imagine that not changing with this amazing record. Get it now!
Chicago's Mako Sica return with another cassette release, with the band conjuring up two lengthy pieces live in their hometown plus an additional studio outtake from their amazing Dual Horizon album. You couldn't put together a more varied trio; the band is comprised of Polish guitarist Przemyslaw Krys Drazek (who also handles trumpet duties) formerly of longtime favorites Rope, drummer Michael Kendrick who cut his teeth for years in the underground metal community, and North Carolina bred guitarist/vocalist Brent Fuscaldo. Somehow the three managed to come together in the center of the United States, and with an arsenal of influences and references have managed to create a sound that is distinctly their own. Pinning the band down with terms like "psychedelic" or "improvisational" may help one get a vague enough reference, but these ultimately prove insufficient. The songs are expansive and constantly moving forward, always avoiding the pitfalls of mindless jamming and relying on the natural interaction of the three musicians, who possess an uncanny understanding of how to work with each other. Not surprisingly, there is a strong jazz influence to these songs, but the guitar team of Drazek and Fuscaldo is more than qualified to rock out and bring things into bold new territories. Kendrick's drumming perfectly complements his bandmates and provides the elastic framework that really sets the band apart from their peers.
The live performance was captured in August 2010, and monolithic 17 minute opener "Fate Deals A Hand" begins like smoke looming out across the horizon with an exotic Eastern feeling. Wordless chanting is used to great effect - sort of like a MUCH more restrained and melodic Haino-esque wail, at any rate an essential part of the band's musical vision. Things slowly build in intensity as the guitars create walls of swirling atmosphere while cymbals slowly crash about in waves as bells chime away. With the shamanistic vocalizing you probably won't be thinking "band from Chicago" as they lurch forward and become almost demonically heavy. The lead guitar snakes about while the rhythm work is created on the low strings for a sound that is a lot like you would get from an actual bass guitar. As we've mentioned in past reviews, these guys are experts at incorporating negative space for a totally unique effect, and even with members of the audience yammering away it almost seems like the voices were meant to be there. Bits of atonal free shredding stab like knives and bear a resemblance to legendary skronk rockers US Maple (whose Todd Rittman actually recorded the outtake on this tape). The band eventually cools down with sparse freeform drumming and some vocal-like trumpet work adding an elegant yet slightly disconcerting vibe before going into another suite of blissed out heaviness. Wow. Side 2 opener "Ancestors" begins with a steady drum plod carrying things forward while a thumb piano provides a unique kaleidoscopic melody. The dramatic low end guitar resembles something one might get on a synthesizer and the vocals create a cool mysterious feeling before the band explodes into a finale of beautiful noise that no doubt had some jaws dropping to the floor. As mentioned earlier, "Red Rivers" was cut during the Dual Horizon sessions. The song is another perfect demonstration of how well these guys know each other as people and musicians. The sharp bits of delayed lead guitar give out a jagged little melody alongside the gorgeous wordless vocals. The song has a lonely cinematic Western feel to it, eventually becoming reminiscent of Sabbath's "Planet Caravan" as it kicks into a steady groove with one guitar establishing an amazing dubbed out rhythm while the lead guitar dances about before wrapping up like a sunset.
An essential outing from one of Chicago's great unsung bands, and we are looking forward to the band's next full length which is in the works - can't wait!
"Recorded by the band in an old attic with creaky floor boards, rusty pipes, stained rugs, a hot water heater, and a borrowed 8-track reel-to-reel."
So state the liner notes to the PlusTapes re-release of this excellent Chicago band's recorded debut. And after one listen, such a description certainly makes sense, as the music exhibits a sort or urban rusticity, a sound that is as pleasantly detached as it is connected to life in a big city.
Comprised of players from Chicago's experimental and metal scenes (and featuring Przemyslaw K. Drazek of longtime Aquarius favorites Rope), Mako Sica exists as its own island within a city generally known for post rock and heavier sounds. A dreamy haze of gently strummed melodies floats above free form percussion with chantlike vocals that aren't as much sung as they are summoned, occasional bursts of trumpet punctuating the atmosphere. At every moment, a beautiful and softly sustained drone permeates the recording like an additional member of the band. And then, right when you've happily fallen into Mako Sica's trancelike psychedelia, the band snaps into a rhythmic groove that is focused but never forced. The beautifully textured songs walk along the border of experimentation while never losing themselves to mindless abstraction. And when the tape finally runs out, your first impulse will be flip it over, walk into Mako Sica's world once again, and stay there.
As we mentioned above, this gem comes to us from the good people at the ever reliable PlusTapes, which also means it's ultra limited. 100 copies... we received 20, so you know those won't last long
Even if it didn't say Kawabata Makoto on the cover, or if you didn't know that Kawabata is the guitar player in Japan's Acid Mothers Temple, you might guess that this was somehow Acid Mothers Temple related, just from the cover graphics. Naked hippy chick in yoga pose, check. Flying saucer, check. Comic book style voice balloon, check. (She's saying, "AHAAAAAAA... UMMMMMM", which could be alternate, onomatopoeic titles for this disc's two tracks, actually.)
And knowing that, you have an idea what this is all about. It's one of Kawabata's most blissed out, droned out efforts. Actually, it's hard to imagine something as physical as a guitar being involved in its making. Kawabata seems to be playing some more ethereal instrument, a simple shimmering cloud of cosmic sound that already existed at the dawn of days, long before anything as mundane as a guitar was ever invented. The transcendent, translucent 46 minute "She Came From The Shining Sea", followed by the shorter (17 minute) and even quieter "Kiss On The Dream Planet", seem more like mental projections, delicate dream drones direct from Kawabata's inner space practice space. It's certainly difficult to believe that he's actually, you know, touching anything to make this music. In reality, these two tracks were recorded at the actual Acid Mothers Temple (Kawabata's flat in Tokyo, we assume, or better yet a commune filled with those naked hippy chicks) in January and March of 2006... Kick back, close your eyes, and enjoy.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES.
Last year's Ugly Side Of Love, the debut from UK sampledelic duo Malachai, was a surprise hit around here, we loved it from the second we first heard it, we just didn't realize HOW much. We ended up playing it to death, and it ranked as one of our favorites of the year, so much so that we found ourselves lamenting the fact that we didn't make it a Record Of The Week. Which it no doubt should have been, a dizzying assemblage of samples and proper instruments, woven into what sounded like some some lost seventies retro rock, proto metal, fuzzy, groovy, heavy psych jam, and barring some little bits of obviously electronic filigree, it totally could have been.
So we were super psyched to discover a new record, and while on first listen, it doesn't sound -quite- as catchy as their debut, the more we listen, the better it gets, and we're pretty sure we'll find ourselves obsessed and kicking ourselves all over again. But whatever, just don't sleep on this, so fuzzy, and heavy and groovy and goddamn good. And strange. Simultaneously warm and familiar, but also like nothing you've heard, from the super cinematic opener "Monster", a string heavy bit of dramatic ambience, with big skittery beats, and a gorgeous soaring orchestral outro, which leads directly into a heavy shuffling drum beat, laced with some hazy guitar buzz, some swirling atmospheric shimmer, and then some reverby vox, the sound again some impossible hybrid of then and now, past and present, sixties psych wrapped around looped beats, and wreathed in shimmery effects.
"Mid Antarctica (Wearin' Sandals)" is super heavy proto metal buzz, the riffs epic, the organs whirring, the bass thick, the beats big, a sort of hip hoppy groove underpinning some serious psych fuzz, occasionally breaking down into ethereal drift, but always lumbering right back into some thick churning heaviness. "Rainbows" is all hazy and reverby and echoey, with gorgeous boy girl vox, the strums muted and washed out, everything wreathed in a patina of soft focus shimmer, and so it goes, the record shifting and transforming, from hushed balladic drift, to shuffling sunshiney hippie folk, to buzzy druggy groove, to piano driven super dramatic creep, to what might be our other favorite track, "Monster" which sounds like DJ Shadow, if he were raised on sixties psych as well as hip hop, epic and bombastic, moody and broody and so good. And it just keeps getting better. The sort of 'psychedelic sixties Entroducing' vibe becomes more pronounced as the record progresses, finishing off with the twangy, woozy buzz drenched strum and shuffle of the closer "Hybernation", pepper with some unlikely boomin' system low rider bass, and yeah, we're kicking ourselves now for not making this Record Of The Week, so just figure this is an UNofficial ROTW, which means this is about as recommended as it gets...
This was a total left field surprise, what on the surface appears to be some lost seventies retro rock, proto metal, fuzzy, groovy, heavy jam, is in fact, the work of two electronic musicians who cobbled this disc together via samples, computers, effects and yeah, some actual instruments. We weren't sure how we felt about it at first, but after a few minutes we were pretty much sold. And have been jamming this ever since.
For actual seventies proto-metal freaks, and retro reissue obsessives, this could definitely rub you the wrong way, but for the rest of us, who can dig some twisted modern take on the shit we LOVE, then this might totally hit the spot.
The guitars are fuzzy, the organs are warm and warbly, plenty of twang, some Morricone-esque moodiness, some rad old hard rock drumming, killer vox, hand claps, plenty of jangle, hooks galore, there are also plenty of rad psychedelic interludes, with twisted backwards guitars, swirling FX, all sorts of primitive electronics and layered collaged sounds, but it's the songs that seal the deal. Super heavy, totally groovy, while to these ears it sounds like classic proto-metal, to some folks around here it sounds more like current retro revivalists like White Stripes, Earl Greyhound, Wolfmother, but this stuff is so much cooler and weirder, the little studio tricks that make certain notes stutter, the samples that are played like an instrument but are still wreathed in record crackle, lots of backwards sounds everywhere, it's like some lost sixties psychedelic hard rock lost gem, reimagined and reinterpreted using modern day technology and it RULES.
Awesome. A few years ago, some friends of ours -- the Jewelled Antler guys as a matter of fact -- had a once-in-a-lifetime record collector wet dream come true experience while on a day trip up north of San Francisco. They came across some sort of town dump / recycling center place where a whole bunch of old vinyl lps had been left free for the taking. Like, someone's entire record collection! Of course our friends expected to find the usual beat-up Bread, Eagles, Simon and Garfunkel albums, but took a look anyway, just in case... and soon realized they'd stumbled upon a small cache of extremely cool, rare records! Obscure psych rock and free jazz stuff. Terry Riley and Alice Coltrane and even some Yahowha 13 lps!! Lucky bastards. Among the treasures was an album on Verve by someone called Malachi. We got to hear it, were wowed, and ever since have been hoping to find a cd reissue... at last, here it is!!
Psychedelic New Age before either terms were widely known or even invented, Holy Music was recorded one late San Francisco evening in 1966 by proto hippie Malachi. While most people consider psychedelic music of this time to be from garage rock bands who used sitars, Holy Music was truly one of the first psychedelic recordings in the way we define that term nowadays, meaning long and druggy, hypnotic, droney and blissed out. These five pieces named Wednesday (the day in which he recorded them) are raga-tinged guitar cycles accompanied by Jews harp, tom toms and meditative chanting, that bridged an eastern ornamentalism with earthy western counter-cultural invention. Malachi was the Animal Collective of his day. Allen Ginsberg was a big fan, and if you like your psychedelia to be both dreamy, drifty and earthy then we're sure you'll be big fans of Malachi too. Recommended!!!
Sprawling double disc of self described 'other planetary field drone' from this mysterious Aussie duo featuring members of doomsludge heavies Whitehorse, avant noisemakers Bone Sheriff, and grey metallers Krystoffkrvstoffiston, one disc of collected tracks (hence the title), the other disc a 'collaborative' collage put together by Malakat, and made up entirely of an unreleased collaboration between the now defunct Grey Daturas and the also now defunct Yellow Swans, but more on that in a second.
The collected tracks disc, gathers up various jams from the last few years, all of them hushed and minimal and mysterious, strange dronescapes of abstract ambience and microscopic events, field recordings and performances, long stretches of creak and whir and thrum and rumble, laced with mysterious voices, fragments of melodies, a sound somewhere between the free forest clatter of Avarus, the ritualistic black abstraction of Abruptum and the free sonic exploration of A Handful Of Dust.
Long streaks of feedback, overloaded mics, monstrous howls, low end crumble, whirring layers of glitch and hum, washed out hazy shimmer laid over murky sonar mumbles and muted clatter and clank, doomy crumbling rhythms pulled apart into sprawling industrial blurs, all smeared into creepy hushed black ambient drifts, and groaning, creaking, whispery abstract free noise minimalism.
The second disc, finds Malakat assembling somewhat similar sounds, but using only a recording of the Yellow Swans and Grey Daturas from 2006 as source material, and according to the liner notes: "pots, pipes, a clay skull and a wooden tube". And it sort of sounds like it. Sort of. Ultra minimal, abstract and ambient, stretches of what sound like alien field recordings give way huge heaving swells of crumbling buzz, squalls of roiling blacknoize splinter into full on drum freakouts and blurred drone jams, deep cavernous rumbles explode into jagged shards of hissing static and beastly vocal mewling, gorgeous blown out swells of chordal whir dissipate into chiming metal-buzz minimalism, these lengthy bursts of sonic energy, which actually don't sound all that messed with, more like they're just straight up recordings of GD and YS rocking out,, but those blowouts are all separated by short interludes of barely there shimmer and hazy muted drift. Killer stuff. On bad ass Australian label Sweatlung, and most likely crazy limited...
We raved about Malcolm's most recent lp not too long ago, Swimming In It, a lovely disc of neo-Appalachian Fahey worship. More of that steel string swoon and twang we love so much. But it seems like Malcolm realized that maybe this whole modern Appalachia movement was getting a bit crowded, especially for someone with Malcolm's experimental tendencies, so he took his guitar, actually his guitars plural, and struck out on his own to make the singularly strange and absolutely lovely Hung. Released on fellow New Zealander Campbell Kneale's Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label, Hung is a series of solo simultaneously played multiple guitar performances. Did you get that? Multiple guitars, all played at once by the same player. No processing or effects, just a bunch of guitars. Some contact mic-ed, some with extra strings and springs and things, one at his side, one at his feet, one in his lap. And wow is this strange and beautiful. From the opening track of chiming twinkling melodies with the guitars somehow sounding just like bells, to the percussive pluck of "Drops" with the guitar sounding like a marimba, a spare and spacious slow motion meander, to the raga-like "The Bells" with one guitar offering up a sitar like buzz, one acting as a sort of scraping percussion, while the other shimmers and glistens. Other tracks sound like clangy and clanky mechanical music, others like washed out indie jangle and strum, while others are almost doomlike in their acoustic dirginess. There's even a Steve Lacy cover, totally and wonderfully transformed. Absolutely amazing, must be a wonder to see these pieces performed live too...
A warm drift of buzzing steel strings, chiming overtones, plenty of space, darkly delicate melodies. New Zealander Greg Malcolm throws his hat into the fast growing Fahey worship / neo-psych-folk ring, but manages to completely mesmerize with his unique take on that droning abstract psychedelic folk we love so much. A rich, meandering, minor key exploration of the guitar and the space that surrounds it. Chords are picked apart, releasing a note at a time and allowing each note to drift lazily toward your ears, occasionally brushing by another note creating a brief harmonic flourish, but just as often continuing on its solitary path like a single ripple in a pond. Gentle strums, and rumbling drones, drift and intertwine like sperate plumes of smoke, the barriers between the two becoming indistinct and leaving us with a dark and drifty lovliness. Recorded completely live with no overdubs, Swimming In It will obviously please fans of Jack Rose, Matt Valentine, James Blackshaw, Charlie Schmidt and all that abstract free folk psych and avant Appalachia, but there's plenty of dreamy droniness to please the rest of you as well!
Newest release from these mysterious Italian black metallers, who recently have evolved into a more sort of avant industrial experimental outfit, albeit with black tendencies. Much in the way Ulver transformed from grim buzz to moody cinematic ambience, Thee Maldoror Kollective have almost entirely shed their black metal skin, revealing a strange metallic skeleton and a circulatory system of buzz and glitch, beats and samples.�
Only�the most adventurous black metallers will dare tread here, four tracks from the soundtrack to a Spanish movie called Proxima, sounding a bit like Skinny Puppy crossed with Muslimgauze, crunchy grinding beats, glitched out electronics, snippets of Eastern melodies and female vocals, little chunks of skittery breakbeats, haunting stereo ambience, record crackle, and creepy synth melodies, and that's just the first song. Epic and cinematic, haunting and mysterious.�
The other three tracks are just as leftfield, a symphony of beeps and buzzes, snippets of voices, crunchy guitar way down in the mix, processed into sort of industrial grooves, more Skinny beats, shuffling Boards Of Canada style electronica, new wavey synths, moaning mournful strings, tablas, operatic vocals, skipping skittering chopped up loops, exotic tribal percussion... Quite dizzying, an intense immersive listen that definitely leaves us wanting to see whatever crazy film these sounds could possibly be designed to accompany.�
Included at the end are two older tracks, remixed and revamped, not sure what they sounded like before, but they've been modernized and minimalized, the first one sounds like some sort of Chain Reaction heroin house, that builds into some synth Euro Kompakt groove, with swooning synths, and all manner of robotic glitches and bleeps, while the second is super creepy and ambient, all high end shimmer and ominous drones, sort of Hitchcockian and John Carpenterian, with a distant heartbeat like pulse, and disembodied minor key melodies.
Definitely a weird one, no metal to be found here, but still pretty awesome. Fans of later Ulver will definitely dig, as will folks into abstract electronica, weird mood music and creepy soundtracks...
An excellent bit of black noise and somber ambience found here! Maleficia is the East Bay duo of A.C. Way and Ilysea Simpson, who craft spectral noises from a small arsenal of junked electronics accompanying voice and violin. The band's name is defined as the curse that witches were thought to inflict upon people or farm animals as acts of revenge through their pacts with the dark forces, and the album's title alludes to the mid-summer Celtic festival whose ancillary is the more well-known Samhain. As one might imagine, a rather ghostly veil of shadow and Iron Age mysticism abound in the work of this Maleficia. Out of an initial fug of gravel-throated noise which decays into an overarching atmosphere of nocturnal desolation, the two interlace a series of loops from those aforementioned instruments which come together as an arc which moves from the misanthropic electronics of early Maurizio Bianchi toward the hallowed collages of Current 93 by way of Phillip Jeck. Easily the best material that Maleficia have set to recorded media to date, but alas this clocks in at a brief 16 minutes.
Maleficia is the work of Bay Area noise artist Andy Way (French Radio, NF Orchest) and avant-vocalist Ilysea Simpson. Their debut cd-r begins with an evocative wordless vocalization from Simpson conjuring the likes of Christina Carter and Jarboe in decontextualizing Southern hymns away from their spiritual intent and toward the raw emotional expression of just voice. After about five or six minutes of a capella delivery, Simpson's duet with Way begins as he gradually unleashes a torrent of tactile noise, all bathed in reverb, which somewhat mutes the sharpness of the distortion, static, and turbulant noise. As her voice becomes more processed and takes on more shrill characterists alongside Way's caustic noise, Maleficia begin to resemble the volatile noise and voice couplings of Fe-Mail to remarkable results. Stitched paper artwork completes this limited edition production of which we only have a handful.
A while back we reviewed a compilation of early Finnish experimental music called Arktinen Hysteria, that documented the lively scene there in the sixties and seventies, from playful goofy sound manipulation, to austere soundscapes, hand built instruments, vocal experimentations, freaked out avant rock and more. A pretty amazing document, that unfortunately seems to be unavailable lately.
Not long after we reviewed it, a Finnish label contacted us with an entire album from one of the artists on the comp, by the name of J.O. Mallander. To be totally honest, at the time we couldn't remember who was who and which tracks were Mallander's, since by that time the comp had been gone for a while, but we figured that folks loved that comp so much that a whole record by Mallander, regardless of which tracks were his would be amazing.
So we got the discs in and they looked amazing, gorgeous eight panel silkscreened sleeve, with totally confusing but eminently readable liner notes form Leif Elggren, and two front covers depending on which way you held it, since it compiled two different sets of pieces. We decided to listen to Extended Play first, two pieces, one from 1962, one from 1968. The first track begins with Mallander repeating a single word over and over. And over. And over. Well, weird. Skip to the end of the first track, still repeating that same word, over and over and over. Okay, we'll go to the second track. Hmmm. Same word. Over and over. Obviously being 'performed' live as you can hear throat clearing and seat shifting and foot shuffling. Wow. 13 minutes of the same word, repeated over and over in a deadpan monotone. Slowly shifting in pitch and inflection, but very, um. similar. But stick with us, after those tracks, which have now grown on us quite a bit, this becomes a super cool, super weird, and totally primitive turntablist / plunderphonic / mashup record. The majority of Decompositions, the pieces that make up the second half of the disc, is manipulated vinyl lps, 78's, 7"s, all tweaked and affected and fucked with. A series of smokey jazz records are slowed way down, pitch shifted up and down, up and down, warbling and wobbling, woozy and dizzyingly soothing, like listening to old jazz 78's through a funhouse mirror, melodies stumble clumsily into each other and pile one on top of another, jostling to return to some normal speed, some semblance of regular jazz, but continue to weave drunkenly, seasick and sleepy, drunken and druggy. Not all that different than stuff we've heard Kid Koala and other modern turntablists do which is pretty amazing. Then: a looped snippet of piano and a weary vocal singing "I'm Alabama bound" over and over, a seemingly endless loop, until the words stop making any sense and become nothing but strange melodic concepts, and then the voice riffs its way out of the loop, the effect similar to when a massive drone finally ends, there's that moment where the tension is finally relieved. Later: a record of thirties boogie woogie is scratched and skipped and looped and becomes a skittering, hypnotic, jumble of female vocals and jaunty horns, all sort of bouncing and hiccuping and skipping, creating strange rhythms and melodic fragments.
Probably the most compelling and amazing piece is "In Reality", where multiple versions of "I've Got You Under My Skin" are played simultaneously,piled atop one another, seemingly at random, performed at different tempos, in different keys, sounding a bit like a random round, until all of the singers sing the word 'reality' at the same moment, and which point the song starts to loop and repeat and blur, becoming a confusing collage of multiple 'reality's. Literally.
We went a little crazy for the first Mamaleek record, a way too limited cd-r, packed with blown out blissed out shoegazey black metal, head spinning ultra technical metallic grind, and gorgeous blurred black ambience. That record was so intense, so gloriously fucked up, so complex and confusional, it really seemed like an impossible record to top, but this latest record, the first Mamaleek vinyl release, definitely does its best, and in some cases succeeds big time.
Like the record opener, "I Can't Stay Behind", which begins with some creepy sample, a mysterious voices, the sound of horses, then suddenly, speaker shredding blasts of start stop black grind, a haunting lull between each, before finally launching into full on hyper speed black buzz, but with weird interludes, moaning clean vocals, stuttering drum machines, a strangely almost indie rock arrangement, but shredded and shattered, cool loping arpeggiated breakdowns, the guitars impossibly distorted, the sound WAY in-the-red, the creepy intro sample resurfacing throughout.
That indie rock sensibility runs through the whole record, but is deftly twisted into much blacker shapes. The second track, is an almost looped single part song, very hypnotic, partway through keyboards surface, all sunbaked and swoonsome, and while the track remains buzzy and abrasive, those keyboards help transform the sound into something more akin to a black metal M83.
And that side of the band seems to be the most prevalent this time around, trading in much of the brutal grind and twisted blast of the first record for something a bit more melodic and sort of pretty. Gnarled fragmented and fractured angular crunch is butted up against almost loungey piano, and random Japanese vocal snippets, murky industrial rhythms underpin groovy acoustic guitars, grim buzz gets warped and twisted and draped over swinging jazz, and it almost works, but is all the better for not quite working, the result a seriously twisted mash up. And the jazz element runs through to varying degrees, so much so that there's even a Charlie Parker cover, done pretty straight, only the guitars are a bit distorted and a little off, and there are some harsh black vokills that were most likely not in the original, seriously twisted and tweaked. Elsewhere, Mamaleek unfurls drone drenched near static black metalscapes, weaves loping drum machine grooves beneath coruscating super distorted guitar melodies, incorporates what sounds like seventies FM radio rock into otherwise grim blasting blackness,
The closer is more M83 style washed out woozy drift, skittering drum machines, wheezing accordions, shimmering strings, warm and sun dappled, wreathed in crackle and hiss, until the song shatters into a full bore freakout, a squealing fractured nearly white noise free jazz blurred metal outro, that is as kick ass as it is utterly confounding.
If anything this record is WAY more varied, more experimental, less cohesive, but not in a bad way, the sounds all manage to fit together in one epic, seriously demented whole, but this time it's a much wilder ride, not for the faint of heart, or the unadventurous. But much like the first record, fucking amazing and WAY recommended.
Pressed on super thick vinyl, and housed in ultra deluxe sleeves, with striking and subtle, spot varnish inking.
We complain a lot about the glut of cd-r releases. The whole, "even my Mom has a cd-r out" (and yes, her new limited 3" cd-r will be out soon, ahem)� The ease of recording and pressing up 50 copies, means that lots of stuff that maybe shouldn't get released does. Not everything recorded deserves to be released, and not everything played even deserves to be recorded. A serious lack of quality control for sure. But with the bad comes the good, and in this case, the good is often VERY good, and thus it's well worth slogging through all the shit, to get glimpses into some of the twisted creative musical minds, that otherwise might have toiled away in obscurity with no one but their housemate or mother (depending on the circumstances) hearing the amazing fucked up and far out sounds they've been creating.
It sometimes boggles our minds to think about the various songs and recordings, that due to lack of resource or technology, or even initiative, were lost forever, or were just never even recorded at all. We don't have that problem so much anymore (see above), but what it does mean is that folks who might be too timid to start a band, or too isolated to find likeminded folks, still have ways to create, to attempt to realize the sounds they hear in their heads.
And some of our favorite records of the last few years have been just that, random home recorded cd-r's produced not for cool points, or scene cred, but because the artists were driven to do so. The cd-r micro label is now a cottage industry, my Mom doesn't just have a new cd-r out, she also has her own label� but that is still where we find the most vibrant and ultra personal music being made.
Mamaleek is a one man band from right here in SF, this is his long in the works debut and it's a killer, equal parts blissed out metalgaze, furious hyper grind, and buzzing ambient murk. In some ways, it's almost the perfect aQ record, bits and pieces of all the stuff we can't get enough of. But deftly assembled into something cohesive and pretty original. Nods to Jesu, Nadja, Xasthur, the Angelic Process, the usual suspects, but Mamaleek are definitely their own queer beast. The lo-fi recording adding to the murk and mystery, and of course the fuzzy blissy vibe.
The record opens with reverb drenched piano, lazy and laid back, all sepia toned and warm summer porch-ed, which makes the second track sound even more epic and massive. A crushing roiling slow motion riff, superdistorted and almost crumbling, the melodies in the distance soaring, the track shifts briefly into a blast of processed grind, before returning to its majestic trudge, sounding like Jesu, if Jesu still sounded like Godflesh. The track flips back and forth, slipping into a tinny, black ambient interlude halfway through, only to transform into a spacious almost math rock drift.
The rest of the record sort of slips easily between those two sounds, harsh washed out blackened bliss, often peppered with jagged sonic shards, and haunting drones, and murky ambience. The disc's centerpiece is the nearly 20 minute long "Shout On, Children", beginning with some straight up bluegrass guitar pickin', still muddy and lo-fi, some slippery slide and some fret buzz, but then, the programmed drums kick in, some gurgling demonic vocals, and then thick sheets of coruscating sunburnt guitar buzz, but that acoustic twang continues on right below the surface. But it never gets HEAVY, it just shifts between gradations of buzziness, murkiness and blur, some parts are wide open, a skeletal rhythm over smears of horn like synth and throbbing bass, other parts are gauzy, the guitar chopped into haunting pulses and layered over washed out whirs, and others incorporate operatic vocals and barely there shimmer, finally finishing off with a brief blast of ultra-lo-fi blackened metal.
The last four tracks lean toward metallic bliss, and pounding buzzing heaviness, the guitars thick and buzzy, the vocals a fierce growl, the drums simple and mechanical, everything whipped into pulsing waves of sound, occasionally coalescing into blasting blackness, but just as often, becoming unmoored, and drifting skyward the various riffs and beats spreading out like a sky full of black wraiths shot through with sunbeams.
Handmade packaging. Fold over cardstock sleeves, with paste on full color front and back images, and a printed insert on nice thick textured paper. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!
The last few months have given us a flurry of Mamiffer releases, first a split with Aaron Turner's House Of Low Culture, then another split with dark drone-noise heavies Oakeater, and now a brand new full length. With a pedigree that includes members of Everlovely Lightningheart and These Arms Are Snakes, and a crew of guests that has included folks from Isis and Helms Alee and others, you think this band would be sonically in line with their Hydrahead brethren, but instead, Mamiffer do their own thing entirely, which is not at all metal, and certainly not heavy, at least in the traditional sense. Instead, Mamiffer traffics in sprawling expanses of piano driven ambience, epic soundscapes the drift and shimmer and smolder, sometimes hushed and abstract, other times dense and dark and ominous and yeah, a little bit heavy.
This brand new one, released on Aaron Turner's new label Sige, finds the band perfecting their sound, creating a collection of songs that sounds like a more sinister Godspeed, the arrangements intricate and complex, the long songs drifting through multiple movements, all deftly assembled into these mini epics.
Take Mare Decendrii opener, "As Freedom Rings", which begins with a hazy layered bit of shimmery drone, before haunting piano joins the fray, then it's like some sort of haunted chamber music, eventually some heavy guitar comes in, but instead of launching into some crushing doom, the rest of the band switches gears and play something that sounds like the Rachel's, over which someone has laid thick swaths of crumbling distorted guitar. There are drums, and when they come in, the song gets marginally more propulsive, and a bit more proggy, in come strings as well, super cinematic and soundtracky, chantlike vocals, its like some strange Three Mile Pilot / Master Musicians Of Bukkake hybrid, brooding, and haunting, and mysterious and fantastically epic.
The rest of the record follows suit, varied for sure, but all woven into an elaborate and ever shifting tapestry, from soaring female vocal driven minimal chamber rock dirge, to shimmery hushed high end ambience, to creepy apocalyptic folk (at moments sounding like a piano-fied Woven Hand), to dark drifts of solo piano, to slow building doom flecked post rock churn, to barely there minimal low end thrum, to dreamy drifty abstract soundscapes...
Good stuff, another strange and mysterious, haunting and beautiful collection of heavy avant sonic abstraction from these audio alchemists!
Been waiting for this one now for a while now, a killer collaboration between Northwestern drone/drifters Mamiffer (aka Aaron and Faith), and Finnish hypno-rockers Circle (aka Jussi and Mika), and this foursome whip up some blissed out avant garde minimal dreaminess, utilizing an old organ, in a nineteenth century stone church in Circle's hometown of Pori. The organ's lush chordal whir may form the basis of these tracks, but they are fleshed out by all sorts of elements, some you might recognizes from the members' other bands, some seem to have been conjured from the ether. Long stretched out tones, hazy layers of sonic gauze, wild keening violin melodies (courtesy of Mr. Eyvind Kang), scrapes and creaks, murky percussion, heavily processed vokills buried way down in the mix, the tracks super dynamic and nuanced, slipping easily from hushed shimmer, to howling squall, the mellower parts, truly mesmerizing, with hints of Morricone surfacing in the twang flecked dusky drifts, while the heavier/louder/more chaotic moments seem to be channeling all manner of noisiness throughout the ages, hints of free form floorcore, Japanoise, heavy drone, black ambience, but all masterfully sculpted into brooding, dramatic swaths of majestic minimalism, that seems to be constantly slipping into maximal sonic overload. Hushed and tranquil one second, tense and intense the next, whispery and woozy transformed into caustic crunch and heart-of-the-sun psychedelia. Some tracks unfold like some lost Circle B-side, Mika's strange vocals draped over flurries of acoustic guitar, simple tribal percussion, and that ever present organ drone, while others begin life sounding like some court music from the past, before morphing into something more ominous and gothic, a blackened neo-folk that would sound right at home on Cold Spring. Elsewhere guitar rumbles blossom blackly into something almost SUNN-like, which is countered by some Circle-like dramatic hypno-prog weirdness, operatic and over the top, before finally, resolving with what might be the prettiest of the bunch, the near ten minute closer, a gorgeously hypnotic slab of rumbling, whirring, shimmering dronemusick, that's equal parts barely there modern minimalism, and rib cage rattling low end assault, the end result, both harrowingly heavy, and blissfully dreamy.
This vinyl version is LIMITED TO 800 COPIES, in deluxe two part jackets, the fancy inner sleeves housed in a deluxe slipcover.
No idea who Demian Johnston is, whether he's a person or they're a band (although weirdly enough, we think he was a member of post hardcore heavies Kiss It Goodbye!), but got two new releases from him/them on this week's list. Both collaborations. The other, a cd-r with the equally unknown to us Mink Stole (on Debacle, the same label that brought us the Slaves, Expo 70 and Megabats), and this, an elaborately packaged cassette boxset collab with aQ faves Mamiffer. Hard to tell actually, all the text is in Russian, there's a set of gorgeously printed artcards inside held together with gold string, each box is numbered with big stamped numbers on the back of the box, inside, these two outfits conjure up some seriously fantastic sounds, well worthy of the elaborate packaging.
Mamiffer, a trio this time around, Aaron Turner, Faith Coloccia and Alex Barnett of Oakeater, offer up a brand new track, post the recent full length, a sprawling doomdronescape of crumbling distorted organs and guitars, laced with voices and field recordings, a bit like SUNNO))) via William Basinski, the sounds starting out intense and heavy, but quickly becoming something much more drowsy and dramatic, a sort of hazy slowcore, underpinned by some distant decaying guitar buzz, soft and swirly, slightly ominous, but quite dreamy actually, the sound shifting continually from hushed and minimal to gauzy and dream poppy, to creepy and haunting, to layered and lush.
The Demian Johnston tracks are a bit more sinister, brooding and malevolent, still sort of ambient, but the sounds rumble and whir, grinding beneath the surface, a sort of blackened drift, soundtracky, mysterious, laced with al sorts of field recording like sounds, giving the tracks a vibe like walking through some dark decimated landscape, some crumbling post apocalyptic city, not to say it's not still lovely, it most definitely is, that loveliness is just infused with a sort of grim tension, and in fact the more we listen, the more it reminds us of a way more dismal and dark Tim Hecker, the same sort of gauzy ambience and buried melody, a sort of creepy cinematic ambience, especially on the second DJ track, where the drift of the opening track is wedded to some seriously distorted muted crunch, and lots of space, a fantastically haunted sounding sprawl of tense ambience, and harrowing droned out drift.
LIMITED TO 110 COPIES!! As mentioned above, housed in a super swank box, with printed artcards, hand numbered, we have a little handful of these, and pretty sure once they are gone we will NOT be able to get more.
Two more blasts of musical mystery from the Utech camp. Last list it was blackdrone alchemists Locrian, blissed out black metallers Gog, and the freeform psychedelic drone and drift of Japanese outfit Tetragrammaton. This time it's the sculpted noise of Daniel Menche (reviewed elsewhere on this list), and this, a split between husband and wife, Aaron Turner, he of Isis, Hydra Head, and of course his solo project House Of Low Culture, and Faith Collocia, and her Mamiffer project.
Mamiffer is up first, and is a single 12+ minute track, constructed from piano, synthesizer, organ, tapes, field recordings, percussion, bass and effects, and it's a beauty. Stately piano drifts atop a bed of smoldering shimmer and minimal low end thrum, haunting and hazy and a little ominous, soundtracky and cinematic, the piano eventually fading out, leaving a gauzy bit of layered drift, laced with muffled explosive booms, the organ gradually swelling up from the murk and mire, building into a squall of soft psychedelic noise, before fading out once again, leaving that strange reverbed boom, to ring out into empty black space.
House Of Low Culture is mostly Turner, but here he's joined by his wife on guitar, and legendary percussionist Z'EV on, well, percussion. A hushed black ambient creep, drifting beneath dramatic multitracked vocals, everything wreathed in thick undulating black buzz, the sound switching from ambient soft noise to the vocal parts, that sound downright new wave/post punky, but those two elements bleed into each other, creating something more than its constituent parts, the track smoothes out, and becomes more and more ethereal, leaving just piano, to float in a field of hushed near silence, stately and mysterious and quite lovely, it's not until the last couple minutes that the tranquility fractures, and the fissure unleashes a cloud of noxious, crumbling distortion, and heaving blacknoise, which too fractures and peels back leaving a brief bit of clean guitar riffing and then nothing at all.
Like all Utech releases, gorgeously packaged, in a oversized full color sleeve, with super striking artwork.
Another impressive release on Aaron Turner's post Hydra Head label Sige, this one a three way live tag team between Turner's House Of Low Culture, Mamiffer and Japanese noise legend Merzbow.
Spread out over three sides (the fourth is an etching), this live show displays a surprising amount of restraint, considering the multitude of cooks in the kitchen, and considering one of those cooks is the iron chef Masami Akita.
The first side is all Mamiffer, aka Faith Coloccia, with gorgeous bit of dark, droney, cinematic chamber music, what sounds at first like solo piano, until you realize the piano is suspended in a field of glimmery soft focus buzz, atop deep rumbling swells, peppered with distant industrial creaks and groans, the piano occasionally giving way to long shimmering metallic tones, or thick dark blackened swirls, but always settling back in that haunting elegiac piano driven drift. Mamiffer's side finishes off with a final eruption of grinding blackened churn, a psychedelic soft noise squall, that while still laced with melody, is still seriously ferocious.
The second side finds House Of Low Culture teaming up with Merzbow, which on the face of it has the makings of something seriously noisy, but instead, the two created a lush expanse of hushed dronemusic, delicate and haunting, all ominous low tones, and warm washed out thrum, streaked occasionally with feedback, and shards of skree, the sound grows more and more dense, still lovely, but with a sort of blackened cast, dreamily funereal, with mysterious vocals drifting in the softly roiling sonic shadows. A brief crescendo leads directly into another stretch of dark shimmer, peppered with bit crashing gongs, and thick crumbling black buzz sells, it's not until the last minute or two, that things get downright Merzbowian.
The final (playable) side, features all three, a Mamiffer / HOLC / Merzbow collab, and is easily the noisiest of the bunch, a constantly shifting sprawl of undulating low end, blasts of hissy white noise, heaving slabs of crumble and crunch, corrosive and caustic for sure, but still textural and atmospheric, and strangely melodic. By HOLC / Mamiffer standards things definitely get pretty fiery and fierce, but by Merzbow standards, the sound is still relatively tranquil. A pretty fantastic chunk of spaced out abstract noise drone for sure.
LIMITED TO 330 COPIES, each one hand numbered, housed in super swank, black on black Aaron Turner designed matte jackets, with printed inner sleeves, pressed on clear vinyl, music on three sides, a cool etching on the fourth.
Brand new split from these two experimental outfits, each taking a side, Mamiffer starting things off with a gorgeous bit of plaintive piano, drifting beneath fields of reverberant buzz, lush and layered, the sound soon expands and blossoms into a thick wall of sound, heaving and crumbling, a roiling sonic miasma that soon dissipates, leaving a landscape of looped backwards melodies, which swirl softly and sound almost new agey, driftfully dreamy. The second Mamiffer track opens up all textural and super minimal, but like the first one, it too bursts into something noisier, in this case MUCH noisier, as in full on white noise Merzbowian howling skree, it too eventually drifts off, leaving a weird stretch of grinding industrial rumble, beneath soaring echo drenched vox, which somehow manages the feat of being both noisy and lovely.
Weirdo post black metal avant soundscapers Pyramids, counter with their own bit of sonic abstraction, laying down a field of shimmering ambience, moaning horns buried in the mix, roiling looped programmed rhythms, it ends up sounding like some sort of noisy abstract electronic prog, with some seriously fucked up and freaky processed vox, all staticky and demonic. The drums are often blasting, but the production is such, that instead of sounding heavy, it sounds sort of hypnotic and trancey. The second half of Pyramids' side long track is a weird hazy psychedelic drift, backwards vox set atop a lush swirling backdrop of prismatic shimmer, creepy and cinematic, slowly building to a haunting ambient doom creep.
Housed in super nice heavy jackets, pressed on different colored vinyl, and includes a newsprint insert/poster with liner notes/lyrics.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES!!!
The fourth in Rocket Records' 'Collisions series', where the label pairs up like minded bands, and lets 'em rip. Past installments have included nothing but aQ faves: The Heads, White Hills, Oneida, Mugstar, Shit & Shine and Gnod. This volume introduces us to a couple lesser known outfits, up first Italian kraut-psych weirdos Mamuthones, who deliver a sort of motorik grooviness, at times touching on the psychedelic funkiness of Goat, at others, locking into sprawling Hawkwindy headnod heaviness, percussion peppers the proceedings, as does loads of effects, but also plenty of samples. The first track sounds like some strange eighties industrial jam given a psych makeover, while the second drifts into Moon Duo-ish hypno-rock, with distorted vox drifting atop a thick bass throb and choppy guitar crunch, all laced with some squalls of distorto noise guitar freakout. Elsewhere the band channel Devo into something much heavier and noisier, before finishing off with the funkiest jam of the bunch.
The flipside features UK post punk noiserockers Evil Blizzard, whose first track is all low slung and slithery, like a more harrowing Joy Division, reverbed vocals draped over sinewy basslines with some chunky guitars, that the label compares to both P.I.L. and Hawkwind, and we have to say that's pretty spot on. The other track is a remix of that same track by another aQ fave, Teeth Of The Sea, who give the original a sort of John Carpenter makeover, unfurling all creepy and cinematic, a lush, smoldering slow build, all atmosphere and tension, hushed and haunting, spacey and seriously tripped out, right down to the moody trumpets that surface partway through, giving it a sort of psychedelic Morricone vibe.
Packaged in an eye popping green and black die cut disco style sleeve, with a printed insert. And yeah, you guessed it, very VERY limited.
Apparently the impetus for creating this multiple drummer-ed outfit, was to create something akin to Metal Machine Music for drums, which makes sense when you realize the man behind Man Forever is Kid Millions, drummer for NY experimental rockers Oneida, and one of the drum leaders in the huge many drummer-ed Boredoms performances that happened a few years back.
What started out as something more like a mini-Boadrum situation, became something much more subtle and simple, with whole kits ditched in favor of single drums, with the drummers playing single stroke rolls, and amidst this flurry of rhythms, allowing all manner of patterns to emerge, similar in the way that dronemusic often involves various overtones from the various sounds interacting, in Man Forever, the dense drumming, stops sounding like drumming after a while, and becomes more textural, and actually becomes a sort of drone, the shifting rhythmic subtleties adding all sorts of color to the sound. But this is not just music for drum nerds (although if you are one, you WANT this), the group add guitar and bass, but much like the drums, those instruments seem less concerned with 'riffing' and more with adding still more texture to the proceedings, rumbles and drones and thrum and hum and moaning low end, barely there melodies, when the whole group is finally in full effect, like halfway through "Surface Patterns" it sounds a bit like the Boredoms jamming out with Phill Niblock, or SUNNO))) backed by a drumcorps, heady and hypnotic, the repetition and rhythmic mesmer evoking Reich and Riley.
The second track, "Ur Eternity", is another dense drumscape, a smoldering rhythmic slowbuild, that manages to be hypnotic enough sans any other instruments, but when the rest of the band join in, with strange staticky drones, and clipped looped fragmented melodies, the result is something surprisingly psychedelic, still hypnotic and minimal, but also droney and a little bit soundtracky, dense and textural, the drums sounding less like drums and more like the pounding of feet, or the churning of some machine, and until the rest of the track less about driving the music, and more about spreading out beneath it, adding a haunting heft that is more felt than heard. So good!
This flagship political power violence band broke up a while back, but those without some of their best 12" vinyl tracks will be glad of having this newly released cd compilation. Includes the songs from their split ep w/ Capitalist Casualties.
This is the first we've heard from the brilliantly named Manbeard, the fucked up freak folk cabaret offshoot of old aQ faves Urdog. Here they share a cd-r with furry Finnish folk combo Avarus, originally a tour only release, and while it might not seem like it, weirdly it's kind of a good match. Manbeard are tough to explain. Very jaunty and sing songy, almost like sea shanties, big drums, dramatic WAY over the top vocals, angular riffing, a little bit gloomy and dark, gothic even, with squiggly synths, damaged percussion, and really twisted songs. And really bizarre overdubs, strange characters making announcements, speaking to the listener, adding their 2 cents to various songs. Definitely an acquired taste, but if you're into the same weird stuff we are, then acquiring it might not be that difficult. The weird thing is, this disc is jam packed with short-ish Manbeard songs, then right in the middle, tack 5 in fact, is the ONE Avarus song, a massive half hour jam, recorded live, all ramshackle rhythms, and detuned guitars, chanted vocals, fluttering woodwinds, raga like buzzing, stumbling druggy far out freaked out damaged outsider genius for sure. It sounds like a blast, like they just set up on the street in the middle of rush hour, and their merrymaking just sucked in a massive crowd, dancing and howling and whooping and wildly frolicking through the streets of Helsinki. At least that's what it sounds like.�
Then it's time again for more Manbeard weirdness, fragmented song experiments, fucked up drones, lo-fi off kilter bedroom folk, fractured dada-ist pop and whatever else crossed their twisted musical minds.�
In cool hand screened color sleeves, with printed inserts. We got these direct from The Manbeard when he was in town, and he mentioned these might be the last copies, so if we run out that might be it.
MPEG Stream: MANBEARD "Original Performance Of The Manbeard Denizens Folk Classic, Manbearde Folk Classic, Manbeard Factory" [/audio/manbeardoriginal.m3u]
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
A big turn for Mr. Jacob Mandell, whose previous releases have been sort of stomping. "Underling" is filled with enigmatic slashes of electronic sound and digitally simulated tectonic rumbles make for album one would expect from Stilluppsteypa or John Duncan. This is the second in a 12 part series from Kodama. Very little information is given either about the record or for the series, but if this is an indication of what the future holds, things look quite interesting.
Digipack reissue of 1999 album on Manifold from these local weirdos!
Yet another mysterious musical discovery from the wild wooly world of underground Finnish rock. On first listen, Maniacs Dream sounds like they just might follow the same path as fellow Finns Avarus, Anaksimandros, or Kemiallliset Ystevat, with splattery, droning, free folk clatter. But we're in for a rude awakening as the band launches into a series of massive psych rock jams, echoey, reverby and relentlessly propulsive, with heavily affected riffing underpinning huge shards of angular guitar melodies. Like some unholy union of Faust and the Butthole Surfers. The ban dips into homemade electronica, damaged and slathered in all sorts of cobbled together effects, and what sounds like some sort of alien circus music, skronky and bouncy but still noisy and sinister. But those get sort of chopped up anyway, into stumbling bursts of rhythmic space rock oddness that become more raw material for MD's freaky psych rock weirdness.
Yikes! No quiet forest folky revels here. Sure, last time we reviewed something by Finland's Maniacs Dream, an lp they did for HP Cycle a few years back, they were a sort of skronky psychedelic heavy freakout band, whose jams we likened to an unholy union of Faust and the Butthole Surfers. Well, on this disc they've gone a bit further down the freakout path. In fact, it seems like they set out to prove that Finnish peeps can make "Finnish noise" that's just as noisy as any Japanese noise. Turku Hold 'Em is just an all out assault on the ol' earholes, 68 and a half minutes of sheer feedbacking, crinking-cranking, screaming n' screeching N-O-I-S-E. Spread out over two long tracks with nary a respite, though sometimes the rumbling distortion will hold "steady" long enough to take the hardy listener into something of a drone trance zone. This happens more during track two (or maybe its that by track two, the listener is in a state of stunned submission anyway).
If this calorie-burning cavalade of chaos was by Japanese spasming noise outfit Incapacitants (subject of a recent 10cd box set), Allan here would buy this in a second. In fact, he's gonna buy it anyway. It's that good. And if good=noisy in your book, you might agree!
Manic Shooter is one of three new cd-r's on The Upstairs cd-r label, run by Daniel Lopatin aka Oneohtrix Point Never aka KGB Man aka one third of the trio that is Manic Shooter, this is the first we've heard from these guys but it definitely fits in with the Upstairs stable (Flower Man, Nonhorse, that Radio Scenic Glow comp), some futuristic sci-fi synth soundtrack weirdness, that veers from minimal beat heavy drift to garbled collaged whatthefuck, to atmospheric ambience, all run through that distinctly cracked Upstairs future/retro filter: clipped electronic beats get all twisted up by warped effects, hovering like UFOs over a field of distant high end squiggle and washed out shimmer, which gives way to some murky submerged vocal late-night swirl, before fracturing into a super distorted crawl through bad-reception radio, before settling into some skeletal synth skitter. Elsewhere hushed minimal synthesizer wheeze gets molded into a darkly propulsive Blade Runner groove, laced with warped bass and ultra creepy sped up vox, and so it goes, a dizzying trawl through some late night futuristic underworld rendered in blurred ambience, and short attention span soundscape, haunting and unnerving, mysterious and weirdly evocative, lovely here and there for sure, but definitely freaky and frightening in equal measures.
LIMITED TO LESS THAN 100 COPIES! We only got a handful, you do the math...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Just a few months ago this French post/chamber/drone rock (rock? no, not rock...) duo successfully piqued our interest with their two song debut ep, rounded out by Justin Broadrick (Jesu) and Robin Rimbaud (Scanner) remixes. Now they've followed it up with a sprawling double cd (11 tracks, 110 minutes)... when they said a "full-length" was upcoming, they meant it! And it's magnificent. Maninkari's music, made with viola, piano, drums, cymbalom, santour, synth, and samples, is exceedingly textural, almost classically eerie. Like Thuja scoring a thriller or horror film soundtrack, perhaps. There's droning and groaning strings, mumbled, whispered voices, the rattle of bells and percussion, rumbling electronics, a drifting wash of sound usually underpinned with repeating, precise piano parts, compelling rhythmic figures, or some other driving sonic element emerging from the moody murk. Each track is carefully composed and undoubtedly effective, simmering along with slowly unfolding suspense, showing quiet restraint, allowing the minor key melancholic melodies and repetitive motifs to go to work on your nervous system! Hypnotically lovely yet ever so creepy, a bit like The Necks gone goth... ambient "dronejazz" soundscapery, abstract industrial chamber music, whatever you want to call it, we like it!
Mysterious, quaking, hissing, clattering instrumental post-rock soundscapery, a murky improv, weird and warm, full of shimmering strings slightly dissonant, like something processed from the sounds of a symphony tuning up, building to bombastic dense, droning nirvana. Very cool... What is this? Well, we're always interested in what Belgium's Conspiracy label decides to release (just look 'em up on our website and you'll find a slew of AQ faves, from a bunch of Boris to the recent Sunburned Circle album). Never heard of Paris' Maninkari before, but this debut release of theirs being on Conspiracy gets our attention -- as does the fact that Jesu's Justin Broadrick contributes a remix (as does Robin Rimbaud aka Scanner). That's right, as the title suggests, this disc is just two songs, plus two remixes... it's 42 minutes total, though, so if it's not a full-length album, it's not exactly just an ep either.
Maninkari construct a gorgeous soft cacophony of epic post-rock drift and minimal jazzy shuffle on 8:21 opener "Pyschoide". Dense drumming, frenzied strings, wound into tense soundscapes of slow burning shimmer. Godspeed plays the Dirty Three, or maybe Angus Maclise jamming with Chris Corsano, dark and druggy, some sort of glorious mantra-like minimalist dronejazz, with a super cinematic Phillip Glass like coda... That's followed by "Participation Mystic", a 16 minute track of lilting pizzicato strings, underpinned by deep soft swells of shimmering warmth and distant bits of industrial clatter, a slow burning ambient drift that is eventually joined by a simple motorik rhythm, transforming the pulsing ambience into something jazzy and minimal, propulsive and hypnotic, channeling the spirit of Finnish hypnorockers Circle and minimal dronejazz combo the Necks... and again near the end, everything enveloped by intense swarms of frenetic strings...
The two remixes are different enough from the originals to be quite worthwhile, and stand by themselves, not surprisingly being more "electronic music" sounding, and in the case of Broadrick's remix, more "extreme"!
Limited to 1000 copies. Full-length to follow soon...
While most aQ customers probably know the name Phil Manley by now, the ones who don't still have probably heard one of the bands he's played in: Trans Am, The Fucking Champs, Jonas Reinhardt, Oneida, or maybe one of the bands he's recorded: The Alps, Moon Duo, Wooden Shjips, Mi Ami, Arp, Saviours. And while like us, you might have been thinking a solo record from Manley would sound like either the Champs or Trans Am, or something right in between, Manley instead looked back to a certain German music of the seventies, music that most definitely informed Trans Am, and continues to influence Manley and his music, stuff like Kraftwerk, Neu!, Cluster, Popol Vuh, Harmonia, and while around aQ, modern folks trying their hand at krautrock is nothing revolutionary, Manley proves his krautrock mettle with a suite of songs that manage to fuse the classic sounds of old with something slightly more modern. The opener is all pulsing synths and spidery Rother like guitar melodies, and a warm swelling melodic refrain, the Kraftwerk vibe is huge, while the follow up "Commercial Potential" takes what sounds like the main melody from Metallica's "Enter Sandman" and stretches it out into something much more haunting and meditative, lacing it with piano, softly swirling new agey synths. Dark and brooding and quite lovely.
"Lawrence KS" is post rock gone krautrock, with a guitar part that sounds a bit Slinty, draped over a stuttering minimal rhythmic pulse, which leads into "Forest Opening Theme", a lush bit of hazy, softly psychedelic krautdrone drift, like some lost Popol Vuh soundtrack.
"Work It Out" is all buzzing synths and lush layered spaciness, while "Make Good Choices" is some super spare steel string Appalachia, subtly droney building to a softly chaotic finish. "Gay Bathers" is a brief bit of (seemingly) tongue in cheek new age-y shimmer, all swoonsome synths, and "doot doot doo" falsetto vox, sounding more like a lost backing track for the High Llamas.
But it's "Night Visions" that feels like the album's centerpiece" a 9+ minute Tangerine Dreamy sprawl of arpeggiated melodies, soft synth swells, swirling moody minimal melodies, all drifty and hypnotic and minimal and abstract and so utterly mesmerizing, one of those tracks that definitely could have kept right on going.
And finally, the title track, which returns to the pulsing synth and motorik rhythms of the record opener.
So good. And don't let the silly album cover and goofy song and album titles fool you, Manley and friends just have a dorky sense of humor (see: The Fucking Champs, Trans Am, etc.), and Life Coach is a serious, and seriously kick ass slab of modern minimal krautrock. Dig it!
Released as a part of a 7" series of modern ambient artists inspired by Brian Eno's groundbreaking Ambient series, local San Francisco painter and sound artist Marc Manning (formerly of Tied To The Branches) delivers this epic slice of cosmic gloom. Four hazy planetary lullabies of soft-edged electronics and guitarwork, cut by distant floating vocals and a wayward descending trajectory. In addition to the 7" there is a cd of one long 70 minute track called "October", which sounds like the doomed travels of a silent running spaceship far from home. Beautifully packaged with a 33rpm hand stamped 4 track 7", a 70 minute cd, artist portrait, double sided insert, 'ambience letter' insert, and a download code. Limited to 150 copies!
