Originally a cd released on Last Visible Dog back in 2006, Tower has now gotten a super swank vinyl reissue on Full Contact, a label run by Jussi from Circle (the vinyl-only offshoot of his Ektro label). And in typical Circle fashion, the sleeve of this new version has been updated with the self deprecatingly boastful legend: *Slightly disappointing jams from 2006 by "The Best Band In The World 2010"*
Haha!
So here's what WE had to say about Tower when first listed it way back in 2007...
What? Another disc ALREADY from our favorite Finnish psych/space/prog/metal/drone/wtf? rockers, the one and only Circle? Good grief, we're still reeling from their amazing Miljard two cd set on Ektro, and their even more recent, mindblowing Tyrant disc in the limited edition Latitudes series! Who do they think they are, Acid Mothers Temple?
But we can't complain, who wants to wait when a new Circle is concerned?? Especially when we're all trying to keep up with (as it says on the face of this cd) the "NWONWOFHM", in other words, the "New Wave Of" the "New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal"... which, as it turns out, isn't in any way metal at all! Nope, the all-instrumental Tower follows Miljard in exploring the really really pretty side of the Circle sound. But unlike Miljard, which was slowly unfolding, almost stately, Tower has much more of an uptempo, rapid pulse.
The album seems to divide into two parts. The first four tracks flow together in sort of suite, burbling beautifully and hypnotically...just so so pleasant. No heavy riffs, nothing edgy at all. Then there's a pause, and the remaining two tracks reveal something of a darker, more mysterious sound. Just a bit though, like a bright sunny day edging towards twilight, the knowledge of the coming night starting to seep into one's consciousness, some clouds drifting in as well, but the sun still shining...
Also, you'll note that this album is billed to Circle "featuring Verde" - referring to special guest Mika Rintala, who has played with Circle and their jazzier cousin Ektroverde as well, and whose solo albums, recorded under the Verde monicker, we've raved about here before. We're not sure how to judge the "Verde-factor" here, but we do note that in addition to playing on this album he also recorded and mixed it. Maybe this does remind us a bit of some of Ektroverde's output, come to think of it... there's definitely a spaced-out, jazzy fusion groove here, of shuffling drums and chiming synths, that makes for a relaxing soundtrack we wouldn't feel foolish recommending to fans of The Necks and Miles Davis as well as Ektroverde, Verde and Circle too of course...
Now we wonder, what will the NWONWONWOFMHM be like? At this rate, chances are we'll find out sometime soon...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Along with the cd reissue of CoO's awesome Eleven Fingers album reviewed nearby on this week's list, comes this brand new, vinyl-only record from Finland's post black metal gloom pop weirdos Circle Of Ouroborus, whose sound really was barely ever actually all that black metal to begin with, but has continually been drifting further and further away, finally arriving here, at a sound that at this point is one distinctly their own, still subtly informed by black metal, but essentially pop music, a gloomy, occasionally buzzing, dour and darkly depressive pop music, but pop nonetheless. And with this record, that sound has mutated once again, taking their low fidelity a step further, and somehow wreathing it in a sonic murk, this new record impossible muffled, and muddied, womblike might be more accurate, the music is all soft focus, the sharp edges smoothed, the notes and chords, the various instruments, blurred and smeared into something more like an abstract chordal drift, the songs less songs, and more like impressions of songs. The only elements seemingly exempt are the vocals, still a haunting deep croon, and the drums, which occasionally stumble, occasionally pound, the combination is pretty stellar, and definitely bizarre, but it most certainly suits the group's dour blackened pop.
The vibe here extraordinarily woozy and warped, washed out and slurred, at times gauzy and nearly meditative, and when the band crank up the intensity, the hazy murk is dragged along as well, and instead of sounding heavy or rocking, it just sounds slightly heavier, but only really slightly. The songs tend toward the midtempo, and the dirge, but do occasionally erupt into some punky pound, but it's all behind a sheet of muffled murk, which again changes everything. The coolest moments are when the band introduce dueling vocals, clean and crooned, croaked and metallic, making for some strange harmonies, which are the perfect match for CoO's depressive blackened jangle pop, which throughout the record sounds alternately melty, detuned or oozing, often all three, a darkly and deliriously druggy songsuite that we're digging just as much as we did Eleven Fingers, which is a whole lot!
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!! The lps pressed on super thick 180 gram vinyl. Housed in a super swank textured card stock jacket, with a 7" x 7" booklet, printed on nice heavy paper, with illustrations and lyrics!
We've always held a special place in our darkened hearts for Finnish black metal weirdos Circle Of Ouroborus. The duo churns out a very strange brand of metal that would appear to share just as much, or maybe even more, with melancholy gloom merchants like Joy Division (who they have covered) and Dead Can Dance, as it does with black metal. They definitely share some of the influences of groups like Lifelover and Amesoeurs - you know, a gothy 4AD shimmer, cleanly arpeggiated guitar melodies, and vocals that don't rely exclusively on shrieks or growls - but to compare Circle Of Ouroborus to those bands, or anyone else really, is to neglect just how unique these guys are. For one, an ever present murkiness permeates all COO recordings, giving their songs a weird dreamy quality that seems to exist completely out of any time or place. The vocals, which have garnered understandable comparisons to the off kilter approach of Mark E. Smith, are hardly what you would expect from a "black metal" band, but there is obviously an acute awareness of the bleak realities of life that is TOTALLY black metal. Maybe more than anything, Circle Of Ouroborus have completely sidestepped any expectations of what a black metal band is supposed to be, and redefined it for their own purposes. In doing so, they have carved out a unique place in the metal underground and never failed to blow our minds with their bizarre sound. Now, after the completion of their Shores/Streams/Islands trilogy of records (we're still trying to track down Islands for y'all!), COO have progressed way beyond the awesome but at times amateur practice space sonics of some of their earlier work and delivered Tree Of Knowledge, not only their most accomplished and well thought out work to date, but certainly one of the best and most interesting metal releases we have heard this year.
The album begins with "A Root Casket", and it pretty much sounds like a more beefed up (and better) version of the COO we originally lost our shit over. The band sounds full and spacious, but still raw and lo-fi, like a ninth generation cassette dub of a lost Factory Records band. A catchy keyboard melody carries the song majestically, while murky guitars spin a sustained droniness that works perfectly with the vocals. At the same time, it manages to give a glimpse into their weird folky side. The seasick queasiness of the band's past releases endures, it just seems like they've better grasped how to work with their limited recording technology. "Demon In Iron" is a slightly atonal piece that makes perfect use of the band's cyclical guitar riffs and shimmery keyboards. It's so melodic and sad, but just BEAUTIFUL and even a bit punky, and you'd be forgiven if you mistook this one for some gloomy as hell indie band from the early '90s. "Show Me The Way To The Wishing Wall" is a midtempo downer with more cool circular guitar and steady, midtempo drumming. The singer's croon goes perfectly with the hazed out nature of the songs, and the natural overdrive on the otherwise clean guitars definitely help to make COO sound unlike most metal bands. Of course, around the 4 minute mark a Xasthurian black metal croak reminds you that, yes, this is some evil shit and not just another shoegazey black metal band. "Dead Eyes, Dead Soul" (how's that for further Joy Division comparisons?) follows another beautifully sad melody with phased out guitars and a discordant chorus that offers a cool transition to the tunefulness of the rest of the song. Instrumental number "Summer Graves" features sustained synth strings and an exotic touch with guitars that, at moments, *almost* brought to mind Polvo... Weird, but not quite as weird as the addition of a trumpet on the closing song, "Through My Fingers". Slow picked guitars and a chorus that manages to throw in some metal as fuck pinch harmonics with the contemplative dreaminess are accompanied by the sustained trumpet melodies that seem almost hopeful. Of course, the lyrics prove otherwise...
Like all COO releases, Tree Of Knowledge features totally amazing artwork, with 8 unique icons (each corresponding to a different song, it would seem) wrapped in the roots of a broken tree. It's rare that a band is able to achieve such a unique and perfectly realized vision, especially within a genre known for its dogmatically orthodox bullshit. But Circle Of Ouroborus are hardly just another band, and with Tree Of Knowledge, they have made that abundantly clear.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
We're a sucker for pretty much anything Finnish. The weirder the better. So when we discovered Cleaning Women, a trio of Finns, who dressed up like ladies, housecoats, stockings, the whole nine yards, and who performed on an assemblage of customized kitchen appliances and household items, stoves, ironing boards. drying racks, clothes horses, we were sold before we even heard a note.
Luckily they had the music to back up their eccentric presentation, a strange chaos of wild percussion, blown out fuzz bass, and crooned vocals. Their second record was a soundtrack of sorts, and ended up being way more varied and schizophrenic than their debut, and once again, for record number three, the simply titled U, they've shifted gears again, and really hit their stride. Where as before, it seemed like the music was secondary to the concept, here, the music is dark and brooding and hypnotic, poppy and melodic, minimal and mesmerizing, they even seemed to have ditched the drag, if the band photo is any indication, they're still glamorous, and odd looking, but in a sort of Euro vampire glam rock way. But the music. Wow. Everything we loved about the first two records distilled and compressed into something magical.
The opening track is like a super minimal junkyard Circle, with its endlessly repeating main riff, the clanky percussion, the woozy seasick rhythm, there's even a creepy interlude partway through, with tolling bells, booming metallic rumbles and mysterious reverbed whistles, before the band launch back into it, this time adding vocals, the Circle comparison becoming even more apt, like an industrial Circle covering Morricone or something? However you slice it, it's amazing.
The second track almost sounds like an analog Kraftwerk, with it's blooping bassline, and motorik melody, mix in a little twangy guitar, swirling synths, super cinematic and dramatic. The third track is a pop gem, with it's dreamy vocal melody, and softly propulsive rhythm, and pizzicato strings, it almost reminds us of Uz Jsme Doma, but way more mellow and shimmery.
"The Miners' Song" sounds like a warped Pink Floyd outtake, until the main riff kicks in, fuzzy and fierce and downright heavy, and suddenly we're back in hypnorock territory, but with a distinctly playful pop edge.
The second half of the record is more of the same, from super minimal bowed string dronescapes, rife with surfy twang and delicate shimmer, to strange otherworldly cabaret pop, with xylophone like percussion, and cool Eastern melodies, to clattery math pop workouts that sound like some mad mix of Nomeansno and Sparks, to the eight minute closer "Scythians", which again veers into Circle territory, spidery looped melodies over simple motorik rhythms, reverbed and softly woozy, before shifting gears, introducing chanted vocals and slipping into a super dramatic slow build, culminating in a cool hauntingly harmonized choral outro.
Absolutely WAY recommended.
We're always �going on and on about the weirdest, most fucked up black metal bands ever, even elsewhere on this list, we review the new one from Tasmanian one man band Striborg, and declare it maybe the weirdest yet. But there's weird, and then there's Dead Reptile Shrine, who beyond being weird, are barely even black metal, the metallic elements far outweighed by the fractured folk and total whatthefuck elements, and the blackness, well that infuses pretty much every sound they produce, just not in the way most folks are used to or most metalheads want. Instead, DRS do their own thing, and their own thing is some fucked up mix of dark dronemusic, detuned free folk, stumbling chaotic black metal, some orchestral bits, tortured vocals, all wound into a confusional world of black rituals and mysterious sonic otherworlds. While we anxiously await the forth coming double cd on tUMULt, we have THREE new tapes to tide us over, two reissue of long out of print rarities, and another brand new album, to be released soon on cd and vinyl as well, but for now on the oh so cult cassette format. Each of these is limited to 400 copies, we got a bunch, 30 or so, but odds are those will go fast and we probably won't be able to get more.
Burning Black Intensity is the new album, and offers up a taste of what will be found on the soon to come sprawling tUMULt 2cd full length, and if BBI is any indication, then two whole cds of this stuff is going to DESTROY. This record begins with some creepy, orchestral Peter And The Wolf type sounds, strings and percussion, sampled we assume, while DRS croon over the top, offering up wavery clean vocals, strange incantations, and various other vocalizations, the result is truly twisted. This goes on for several tracks before the band launch into some black metal, but DRS black metal is a whole other thing, the drums buried in the mix, barely audible, the guitars strangled, and gnarled, buzzing, blurred and murky, dueling vocals, one a high howled screech, the other a rumbling demonic gurgle, both drenched in reverb, both howling maniacally, and relentlessly, while the guitars churn and the drums stumble, the whole thing lurching drunkenly, super raw and primitive and lo-fi and fractured and FUCKED for sure. The next track demonstrates that no matter how weird it gets, everything they do is deliberate, the guitars are thick and fuzzy, the drums simple but propulsive, the riff a near static black groove, the bass, pulsing and undulating, more typical black metal vocals screeching over the top, while way in the distance a voice shrieks hysterically, the two vocals all tangled up, the guitar spewing forth a super mesmerizing singular riff, totally hypnotic and trancelike, the vocals growing more and more unhinged. The next track is a murky muddy Wold style soundscape, melodies and guitars smeared and blurred into bleary eyed streaks of sound, the vocals an ominous rumble, the drums a chaotic blast beat, while the guitars swoon woozily, the whole track dizzy and druggy and weirdly dreamlike, the vocal eventually growing more and more warped, almost cartoonish, sing songy and almost operatic, wrapped in fluttery flutes and more distorted soft buzz.
Needless to say, this is brilliantly twisted stuff, totally wacked, outsider blackness, as true as any of the more classically TROO black metal, but unlike those, DRS are true only to themselves, any resemblance between their music and other black metal is not only coincidental it's a fluke, as most of this sounds like nothing you've ever heard.
We've established that Finland is a strange place. And it's a strange place that produces some seriously strange sounds. None stranger we think than weirdo (sort of) black metal horde Dead Reptile Shrine. And placing them at the top of the fucked up and freaky Finnish music heap is definitely saying something. Especially when you consider that means they are outweirding: Circle Of Ouroborus, Aanal Beehemoth, Circle, Aavikko, Cleaning Women, Jumalhamara, Keuhkot, Nightsatan, Oranssi Pazuzu, Ride For Revenge, Will Over Matter, and that's just scratching the surface. And those last two should really make it clear just how baffling these guys are, cuz as far as we're concerned, Ride For Revenge / Will Over Matter are like the pinnacle for fucked up Finnish weirdness, that is except for Dead Reptile Shrine.
The Sun Of Circles And Wood was originally slated to be a double cd on Andee's tUMULt label (and hopefully still will be), is now available as a massive double lp, released by the super cool Weird Forest label. And if you think Weird Forest is kind of a strange label for a Finnish black metal band, you probably haven't heard Dead Reptile Shrine, who are only sort of a black metal band much of the time, in fact, they are like Circle Of Ouroborus in that respect, beloved by almost every black metaller we know, but sonically, often about as far removed from actual black metal as you can get.
Just check out the 11 minute opener, "Summoner Of Clarity", which does contain some riffs, some subtly blackened buzz, but it sounds more like some sort of twisted No Neck Blues Band / Avarus jam than any black metal we've heard. the riffing chugs along for a minute before fading out, and then returning a few seconds later, seeming to offer more texture than anything, while multiple voices moan and chant, intoning ominously over pulsing electronics, a fuzzy low end synth, rumbling and undulating, peppered with haunting melodies, atonal and abstract, there are bird sounds, bits of buzz and hum, the sound seeming to melt into a woozy swirl, we just realized those bird sounds were actually just the vocalist 'caw'ing, the synths shimming, weaving dreamy crystalline melodies over that buzzing pulse, and those haunting vox, it never explodes into a burst of black buzz, or a churning doomy pound, it just sort of hums and shimmers and eventually blinks out. And the Dead Reptile ritual has begun!
Probably a bit of overkill to go track by track, there are TWENTY after all, spread out over 4 sides, and while the next track opens up with some serious guitar buzz, it's abstract, and the riffage sprawls and oozes and weaves a bombinating backdrop for more strange chanting. It occurs to us that really anybody who loves Circle Of Ouroborus, should really love these guys too, especially if they're after something a bit less overtly folky, and more weirdly ritualistic. And when the band does dip into some 'proper' black metal, like on "Blasphemous Cover" it sounds downright demented, blorpy basslines, detuned guitars, stumbling off time drumming, maniacal strangled mewling vocals, the song lurching and lumbering, like a black metal Shaggs, so totally 'off' and twisted and whatthefuck it almost makes your eyes water.
Elsewhere the band explore some meandering clean guitar doom, which definitely suits them, again all woozy and stumbly, definitely reminiscent of German 'wooden metal' outfit Varghkoghargasmal, the song still driven by chanting, and some demonic croaked vokills as well, the guitars warm and buzzy and almost krautrocky, but still totally fractured and fucked up.
And so it goes, the record veering wildly all over the sonic map but definitely dipping heavily into black metal, at least various twisted Finnish outsider strains of black metal. "Forcefield Across Odensland" is a sort of buzzing post rock, with some seriously fucked up vocals, and some of the most awesomely constantly shifting tempos ever, "Walking Under The Winter Sun", is a blast of blown out blackness, oozing with strange effects, sounding almost like black metal Butthole Surfers, but insanely blown out and lo-fi, "Beholding The Necrocult Relic" is a gorgeous stretch of medieval sounding synthscapery, "Solstice D'Hiver" might be our favorite 'black metal' jam here, the drums tinny and lo-fi, the guitars so muted they're barely audible, the vocals, crazy, on of them a wild falsetto shriek, all over this strange skeletal muted barely there blast. So weird and so INCREDIBLE. And that's just the first lp!
The second one starts out all loping slowcore post rock, with some ominous dramatic crooning vox, some spidery guitar melodies, still more chanting, lots of feedback, before launching into a cool droned out raga, all deep vocal drones and sitar like buzz, which leads directly into some stumbling demented, strangely melodic doom, which in turn leads directly into some blurred blackness, that is about as traditionally old school black metal as these guys get, mostly cuz it's all a buzzing black blur. From there on out, it's a series of twisted blackened missives, slipping (un)easily from abstract experimental ambience, to churning punky chant flecked blackened noise, from weird almost new wave sounding lo-fi dirgery, to tripped out almost dubby spaciness, and from chaotic abstract ritualism to stumbling, atonal, almost catchy weirdo new wave blackened pop, which finishes things off.
Needless to say this stuff is fucking NUTS, and absolutely RULES. Circle Of Ouroborus fans line up, and anyone who like us, loves Finnish weirdness, and demented blackness, this is about as good as it gets!
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!! Housed in a super swank, full color gatefold jacket.
When we travel, record shopping plays a huge part in our planning. We're guessing the same is true of many (most?) of you. Not only do we typically have various stores we want to check out, we also have a list, with all the stuff we've been looking for forever, and while we may have scoured our local stores looking for stuff on that list, in the hopes that something might pop up, it's when we go someplace new, when we really expect to get lucky. When Andee went to Finland a few years back, he was lucky enough to have Jussi from Circle as his host, who is legendarily obsessed with record shopping (and who on his last visit to San Francisco, went record shopping EVERY SINGLE DAY!), and Jussi was tasked with helping Andee find two things at the top of his Finland-specific list, a single from Finnish dirge rockers Worms, and any or all of the three singles from legendary Finnish punks Death Trip.
Thus, this is pretty exciting - here we have the COMPLETE recorded works of Death Trip, released on Jussi's Ektro Records, and barring a trip to Finland and much crate digging, this is the only way you're gonna get to hear this stuff, and even then, besides the six songs from those three singles, there are EIGHT bonus tracks, available only here: six rare live recordings and two unreleased demos! And while Death Trip were punk, they weren't necessarily 'punk rock', their sound was almost more Stooges-y, all sludgey and dirgey, with a crazy lead vocalist, Laja Aijala from Finnish punk legends Terveet Kadet, and who slips from guttural yowl to hysterical shriek, it's easy to see why Jussi would be obsessed with these guys, heck, why anyone would be. Their namesake song "Death Trip" is total swaggery glam blues slither, with some wild shredding guitars and those twisted vox, it's from 1988, but the sound is total nineties noise rock. Albeit a weirdly minimal punky proto-noise rock. "We're Gonna Die Tonight" begins with weird synth buzz and twisted weirdo vocals, which goes on for a whole minute before the band kicks in, sounding a bit like Hanoi Rocks, but still with those bizarre vocals. Here's where we pause, and say, if we didn't know better, and didn't know for a fact that Death Trip were a real band, we'd be tempted to think it as another Jussi / Circle project, like Steel Mammoth or Mercedes Hell or something. At the very least, it's easy to see where Circle and Co. got much of their inspiration.
"Chainsaw Goddess" is all Loop / Spacemen 3 guitars wedded to punk rock beats, swirling synths and more feral vox, while, "Deep Red" is total tripped out punk doom, with even MORE unhinged vox, dirgey and noisy and super heavy. "Please Skin Me Alive" is total noisy post punk / noise rock crush, with wah wah guitars, a seriously Stoogesy main riff, and finally "Something" is all low slung bass, another dirgey groove that reminds us of Green River or Skin Yard more than proper punk rock, which is probably why we love this stuff so much. Those of you who remember the band Smack, who were sort of a glammy, trashy rock band from Finland, there's actually a surprising amount of sonic overlap, with much of Death Trip's sound verring into the almost grungy/glammy. It's only six songs, but most bands would kill for a body of work half this ruling.
Then there are the live tracks, which are super blown out and lo-fi, noisy and chaotic, one of 'em an altered Stooges cover in fact, with some of the tracks getting stretched way out into sprawling dirges, and the two demos are great too, for tracks which were never properly recorded, and while super raw and lo-fi, still sound just as kick ass as the singles tracks proper.
Gorgeously packaged too, with a huge booklet, filled with loads of rare photos, track notes and old reviews (all in Finnish).
Hephaestus, the blacksmith, the ancient Greek god of fire and metal. Also, the title of a 1993 album by skate metal avantgardists Iceburn, one of our faves of theirs that we wish would get reissued. However, THIS Hephaestus has got nothing to do with skate metal, although it is avantgarde. On this experimental drone disc issued by Editions Mego, cellist Arne Deforce's classically acoustic, acoustic classical instrument is subjected to the electronic effects of Pan Sonic's Mika Vainio.
We hadn't heard anything by Deforce before, but there's nothing like cello for creating some seriously dark, doleful atmospheres. And Mika Vainio is Mika Vainio - heck it's not really 'experimental' if he does it, 'cause you know the result will turn out great, right? So what you get here is pretty fantastic, six tracks (whose names all come from the cartography of Greek mythology) of spacious, abstract dronescapes. The first track, "Phlegethon", starts off in subtle stealth mode, quietly haunting, before the cello's drone is distorted into sounding something more like an aircraft engine, rumbling with distortion and feedback - yeah it gets HEAVY, sounding like SUNNO))) or Earth, or even Merzbow. Sudden -boom- explosions of low-end, the volume peaking, add even more dynamism. That's how it goes throughout the disc, there are restrained passages of cinematic near-ambience; and others, wherein the cello sonics are processed into something more fragmented, frazzled, even frightening. You'd think you were listening to a Caspar Brotzmann guitar solo some of the time! Really well done, and recommended.
Many of you will recall that a few years back, we had the pleasure of reviewing six (6) different limited edition cd-r releases by this murky and mysterious improvised instrumental free rock ensemble from Finland, which features members (we eventually determined for sure) of mega AQ faves Circle! In those reviews, which taxed our powers of description, we said things like:
"A Finnish drug thing you wouldn't understand."
"Lo-fi, low-key freakout."
"Imagine a cross between Circle and Thuja."
"Imagine Hawkwind or Acid Mothers Temple locked in a cave with broken instruments."
"Installments from some massive on-going jam still happening right now... outdoors under the ever-dark winter sky."
"Slow, meandering, very stoned ambient psych jamming to the max."
"Imagine if you had neighbors who lived below you in a WWII bunker and all they did all day was listen to certain Fushitsusha albums, this is what you might hear through the floor."
Now, all six of those cd-r's have been out of print for some time now. But Doktor Kettu's spacey jamming is indeed on-going, and now they're back with a brand new disc, Soft Delirium, and ALL our lines quoted above could easily apply, again. This time it's a real cd, not a cd-r, from Super-Metsa, a division of our friend Jussi's Ektro label that brings us so much stuff by his band Circle and other strange treats. In the typical Doktor Kettu tradition, there's but three long tracks on this disc, each of them an extended, wandering journey through darkness and light. The twelve minute, 44 second "Wulff" which opens the disc, billows forth, amplifier hum and droning chords riding abstract waves of percussive tinkerings to eventually unleash some seriously dense, distorted muzz. Someone's having a Tokyo Flashback, even though these guys are from Finland! Track two, "Triggeri" (9:56) is a bit gentler. Rather pretty, reminding us a bit of Circle's exquisite Miljard. Quiet music you'll want to play loud. And then the disc's third and final track "Kosmonaut", provides even more brooding ambience, exhibiting the ominous, twilight moodiness of another AQ fave, Bohren & Der Club Of Gore. It's over seventeen minutes long, but for us that's barely long enough. These pale rumblings, with surges of percussive texture and slow, slow hints of melody, could flow on endlessly and we'd be forever entranced...
When John Duncan sent us this collaboration with the members of Pan Sonic, he warned us that the first two tracks would be a little hard to take on headphones. Oh yes, that warning should be heeded by all, headphones or not; especially if you're expecting the electric seduction of Duncan's Phantom Broadcast. But don't let the warning scare you off; as this is an incredible fusion of caustic electronics, shortwave radio signal manipulation, and the hammering arpeggiations which have become a trademark of the Finnish techno minimalists. So Nine Suggestions begins with some 15 minutes of white-knuckle noise tightly composed from siren squall electronics, volatile data streams from shortwave utility signals, and plenty of sawtoothed abrasiveness. In this introduction, Nine Suggestions harkens to the Pan Sonic masterpiece 4CD box set Kesto, which expressed plenty of noxious intensity in its rhythmic overload. Even as the album calms considerably in the expanse of the album, Kesto still stands the most accurate comparison as that album shifts from aggression and explosion to contemplation and eerieness. In the shadowy half-melodies, tectonic rumblings, nocturnal drones, dental drill vibrations, submariner sonar pings, and delicate modulation of electronic tones found within the latter two-thirds of Nine Suggestions, Duncan, Vainio, and Vaisanen have created something that really is as one would expect from these high-calliber artists. Highly recommended!
Yeah! Here's another rad reissue of early '70s proto-metal. Of special interest to us, Elonkorjuu are Finnish, in fact hailing from the same town, Pori, that later gave us AQ faves Circle!
Their ultra-collectable 1972 album Harvest Time is a heavy progressive gem, full of ripping guitar and wild organ... wailing English-language vocals, melodic moody parts, many mathy changes, and galloping riffage are also all elements of the sometimes complex Elonkorjuu equation. Although fairly heavy for the time, they also have a generally "happy" sound, one that's often hectic too, these guys obviously reveling in their music making prowess. Their fervor is infectious, this is great stuff for anyone who loves other early '70s prog-psych acts of this ilk like Trettioariga Kriget, Wishbone Ash, Cargo, Culpeper's Orchard, Murphy Blend, Steamhammer, Wind, Irish Coffee, Osage Tribe, Odmenn, Blues Addicts, Stonewall, Toad, Road, etc.
While they only recorded one more album in the late '70s, the talent and exuberance displayed on Harvest Time earned 'em (and Finland) a spot in early, obscure hard rock history, for sure. Forever underground, they even title a song here "Praise To Our Basement", wherein these young long haired hippies first had first begun jamming back in '69...
Coming out of the same Finnish scene that spawned AQ-faves Circle and Ektroverde, Es is the work of Sami Sanpakkila, who in addition to this solo project, also plays in various bands like Kiila and Velvolino. He also runs Fonal records. (I guess all that
Es is the work of Finland's Sami Sanpakkila. This is the first work that we've encountered from Es, though Sanpakkila is closely connected to the out-rock ensembles of Circle and Ektroverde. The nine tracks are hermetic sculptures built out of beautifully gossamer guitar playing with Zoviet France like backing loops and atmospheres. Fans of early Durutti Column or Steven R. Smith's evocative work should definitely take note.
Here's the third album from our Finnish friend Sami Sanpakkila, who is also a member of Kiila and Kemialliset Ystavat, and runs the excellent Fonal label. Excellent 'cause of releasing wonderful records like this, his new effort under the name Es. The previous two Es albums, Flick and A Love Cycle, were all about mesmerizing, looping soundscapes. Now Kaikkeuden Kauneus Ja Kasittamattomyys -- in English, The Beauty and Inconceivableness of Everything -- continues Sami's explorations in meditative modern psychedelia, somewhat sad but beautiful, with guitar, some very lovely piano, and various field recordings mixed in. On some tracks, this sounds like Sami has dragged a few of A Love Cycle's turntables out into his garden, where he sits with the birds and plants and makes music while a female friend sings so nicely. It's like Philip Jeck meets Jewelled Antler. Definitely for fans of JA, as well as Kemialliset and the recent Kiila record. As always, we say, yay Finland!
Brand new record from this Finnish aQ fave, every new album a slowly blossoming mystery in sound, whether it's manipulated chunks of old vinyl, rickety campfire psychedelia, or expansive soundscapes of delicate crystalline shimmer. Es is the musical monicker of Sami Sanpakkila, who also plays in some other aQ Finnish favorites, most notably Kemialliset Ystavat and Kiila, and who is often joined by various members of the ever shifting and constantly collaborating Finnish underground community.
Kesamaan Lapset seems to be a record composed and performed entirely on keyboards and synthesizers, the opening track is a gloriously sun dappled chunk of skittery sunshiney new age synths, lush swoonsome swells of fuzzy whir, tinkling little melodies, and soft tangles of squiggly glitches, looped and chopped, like a more kinetic caffeinated Oval. The follow up begins with some circusy lo-fi keyboard melodies, that get more and more dense and intricate before the vocals swoop in, super effected and lush, wrapped in delay and reverb, ghostly and otherworldly, drifting lazily and dreamily over the softly chaotic jumble of tones and melodic fragments, managing to be pretty and soft, but fractured and off kilter at the same time.
The first of the two long tracks is a slow building dronescape, thick swells of warm lush organ whir, beneath delicate spidery piano melodies, the whole thing growing ever brighter and more insistent, various keyboards beginning to stutter and skitter creating all manner of incidental rhythms before finishing off in a dense swirl of hissy soft focus drift.
The 21 minute title track is all woozy dream pop, female vocals, over a constantly undulating bed of looped pianos and swirling synths, male vocals offer up some unlikely harmonies, horns slowly surface as do gauzy clouds of effects, before transforming into a deep, dark, almost brooding bit of keyboard driven drift, replete with all manner of Oval like digital glitch, warbly and underwater sounding, super hypnotic and intense, eventually giving way to a strange bit of majestic fanfare before fading out in a brief blur of warm abstract melody.
The final brief track is a buzzed out coda, all electronic glitchery, fuzzy drones, plonked electric piano, howled vocals buried in the mix, tons of grit and texture, buzz and whir, like a way more abstract Animal Collective.
Certainly a bit different than any of the other Es releases, but in its own warm and warped, tripped out and twisted way, a logical extension of Es's ever expanding soundworld. And we dig it.
As always, the packaging is super cool full color 4 panel gatefold, with some amazing childhood photos, printed insert with more cool art and liner notes, and a gold and white printed obi.
Yet more transmisssions from the wonderful world of Finland, from a name most AQ list readers should be familiar with by now, Es, the group headed by Sami Sanpakkila, who happens to run the amazing Fonal label who has brought us releases from Kemialliset Ystavat, Islaja and Paavoharju, and featuring luminaries from other Finnish free rock outfits like Avarus, Kemialliset and Anaksimandros. This vinyl only (for now) release compiles an entire lp's worth of newwly recorded material, as well as a sidelong piece from a few years back and live on the radio recordings from the recent Es tour of the States.
The new tracks are as lovely as anything we've heard, Christmas carol like harmony vocals, lilting and folky, delicate tangles of steel string guitar and tinkling piano, that slowly untangle into wispy smears of droney dreamy psych folk. Long languid organ drones laid across a field of tape hiss and record crackle, while hovering just beneath are sqeaking reeds, quavering strings, plonked piano, all so gorgeously lovely.
The live on the radio tracks sound like some lost pagan artifact, deliberately strummed guitars, insistent rhythms, an angelic chorus of female vocals all with a distinctly krautrock style pulse beneath.
The final track is a side long drone, constructed from two guitar tracks, played by not touching the stings, only brushing the knobs and strumming way up on the neck of the guitar. Haunting and creepy, warm, dark and lugubrious.
Luxuriously packaged in a thick matte finish gatefold (with printed inner sleeves, photos and linernotes) with dreamlike watercolor paintings of the band members in different states of psychedelic repose, over branches in trees, wrapped in a scarf or rainbows or with rainbows coming from their fingers!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
""A fork is a cold shiny tool / To pierce, tear and ingest / Whoever has the fork in hand / Controls the meal of its choice." The opening lines for the Lard song, "Forkboy" which in turn gave the name for an Oulu-based quartet formed in 1993. Born out of love for AmRep noise, AC/DC, Dead Kennedys and driven by twenty-something angst, Forkboy recorded three demos and one previously unreleased session during their 6 year existence and it's all documented here on one disc. Furiously rocking songs packed with gritty guitars and feedback, rhythm section heavy as an elephant turd and as the band puts it, "lots of shouting". The original recordings have been carefully restored and remastered by Pentti Dassum and the sleeve features original artwork and photos by the band along with liner notes. If you were there during the late 90s noise rock craze or if you have only recently discovered its splendour or if you just have a boner for hidden gems of Finnish punk/noise/rock, this CD is for you!"
Yes! The cd debut of this fantastic Finnish four-track project... We actually meant to list this, like, a month ago, but unfortunately the original review we wrote of it was lost in one of our several recent arggh-inducing komputoor crashes, but actually that's a good thing, 'cause it gave everybody here at AQ more time to listen to this, over and over, at home and in the store, and have us all decide that this HAD to be a Record Of The Week. So we ordered more copies from Finland, and re-wrote the review (which, in our memory, was actually probably better written the first time, so trust us on this) and here we go!
Ah, Finland. We've said it before, we'll say it again. So many of our favorite bands hail from Finland, from the hypnotic NWOFHM space rock of Circle to the the funereral doom of Skepticism, with all the freaky forest folk of Kemialliset Ystavat, et. al. in between. And now Fricara Pacchu, solo project from a member of such underground Finnish acts as Avarus, Anaksimandros, Maniacs Dream, and yes Kemialliset Ystavat.
Hopefully you remember our review of the Fricara Pacchu 7" and accompanying art/collage booklet that the Fonal label put out not too long ago (we may still have a few of those babies in stock, if you act fast). Both Allan and Andee accidentally wrote separate gushing reviews of it, that's how much we all liked it! That 7" left us eager to hear a full-length, and now here it is, courtesy of Lal Lal Lal. 12 wigged out instrumental tracks of Fricara Pacchu's undefinable, eccentric, psychedelic weirdness. We had compared the 7" to everything from the Boredoms to Oliva Tremor Control, and that goes too for the all-instrumental music on this cd, to which we can add such other disparate references as Neu! and When and Fuck Buttons. Fricara Pacchu's music is part techno, part noise, part pop... all awesome.
Recording at home on a four-track, Pacchu creates a woozy, rhythmic soundworld filled with distortion and delight. A world of magical gnomes with chugging machines spewing colorful clouds... clouds of mysterious, maybe illegal substances that coalesce in pretty patterns you can hear, as well as kaleidoscopically see. There's dense, druggy layers of guitar feedback with electro beats; lo-fi fuzzy loops, gurgly computer bleeps and sci-fi sound FX swooshes; throbbing pound and gentle ambience. Fricara Pacchu produces fragile music box melodies that exist amidst exploding minefields of noise, like the detonations of distortion that rhythmically obliterate parts of "Four Seasons Of Violins". Noise that is taken to an extreme with the utter, surging distorto-destruction of "Sky Helicopter"...
Whew! Wow. Maybe if the glorious synthscapes of fellow Finns Shogun Kunitoki were way grittier and guitar-ier, done more D.I.Y., and wrapped in steel wool and played backwards on a cheap cassette, that would sound something like the quirky and compelling music of Fricara Pacchu. By which we mean, this is great!
By now we probably don't need to tell you know nuts we are for Finland. For whatever reason, the music that comes from Finland pretty much always blows our mind. And when it comes to black metal, hell, it's tough to think of a region the produces more bafflingly brilliant blackness. Aanal Beehemoth, Ride For Revenge, Will Over Matter, W.A.I.L., Jumalhamara, Circle Of Ouroborus, Horna, Dead Reptile Shrine, Beherit... Well, you can add Funerary Bell to that list, their debut full length, The Coven, another twisted black missive from Finland, and like many of their Finnish black metal brethren, classifying these guys as black metal, is a bit of a stretch, sure they blast and buzz with the best of them, but they spend just as much time, creeping, jangling, whispering, strumming, they're sorta tough to pin down.
Check out opener "Vision Of The Undead (World)", which is all clean guitar strum, whispered almost melodic vox, simple loping drums, and when the metal does kick in, it's more like classic old school eighties metal, chugging riffs, almost stadium rock sounding, minus the WAY up in the mix blasts of double kick, the song lurching from doomy (yet still melodic) plod to seasick sort-of waltz, back to that double kick laced power metal riffery. Right near the end the band do explode into a brief bit of blackened blasting, but then it's right back into melodic lope. And did we mention the bass, an instrument most often missing from most black metal, but here it's busy, offering up bloopy melodies and add a whole other dimension.
"Detachment" starts out similarly, all melodic and post rocky, then in swoops some Maiden-ish riffing, the vocals a growly grunt, and then there's that double kick again, at least twice as loud as the rest of the drum kit, adding some serious low end oomph.
And so it goes. Folks looking for grim buzz and frenzied blackened blast will be left wanting, but if you like your black metal to flit from crusty d-beat pound to synth laden swirly stumble, from melodic classic metal (via twisted Finnish blackness) to woozy harmonized guitar doom, and from almost indie jangle to melancholia Katatonia-esque melodic blackness, then this might just be your cup of demented druggy blackened Finnish tea!!
Here in America, the name Garfield makes us think of an assassinated 19th century President, and a cartoon cat - and not necessarily in that order. Some might also recall that Garfield is Henry Rollins' real last name. But fans of the tongue-in-cheek musical genre from Finland known as the "New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal", spawned by several Circle side-projects, should know another Garfield - Garfield Steel, the distinctive, drawling lead singer of NWOFHM standard bearers Steel Mammoth. And now here we have Garfield Steel's solo debut! Like his work in Steel Mammoth, this both is and isn't exactly metal; a (parodic?) sort-of-metal is part of it for sure but there's a lot more going on. Weird, synth-laden indie pop boogie would also describe it, a bit.
Several "synthesizerists" are listed in this album's credits, and boy do they synthesizerize. Also quite often the electronic drums and/or drum machines are locked in overdrive - the track "Memory Rhythm" gets almost Digital Hardcore with its noisy, speedy distortion/destruction. But this onslaught of eccentric electro-metal & lo-fi synth punk is very poppy too, head noddingly so, mellowing out at times as well. Along with all the electronics, Garfield Steel's hoarse melodic crooning is of course also a big part of the sound, delivering (just as he does in Steel Mammoth) some truly ridiculous lyrics to go with great, silly song titles such as "Nuclear Retard" and "Skullfist Emperor".
Fans of Steel Mammoth's over the top absurdity and catchy riffing and occasional detours into dreaminess will be right at home here, in other words, even if the sonic palette of GS's solo effort is a little bit different. And it becomes evident that the NWOFHM 'thing' is as much Garfield's doing, as it is Circle's...
Oh, and fyi, NWOFHM fans, Jussi from Circle also has a new, VERY metal band called Arkhamin Kirjasto. Their debut cd Torches Ablaze just came out on his Ektro label, we have just a few in stock right now...
Another blast of twisted black metal weirdness from Finland, from long time aQ faves, one man BM weirdo Dead Reptile Shrine, and fellow one man black metal outfit Goatmoon, who just happen to be finally making their aQ list debut.
And as you might have surmised, 'weird Finnish black metal', could very well mean that this is not at all like the black metal you're used to, and in this case you'd be right. Goatmoon, who in the past have shared a split with another aQ fave, the truly insane/brilliant Ride For Revenge (in fact, Mr. Goatmoon is a member of the RfR live band), offers up the nearly 25 minute title track, which is barely black metal at all, instead, the first 4 minutes is all acoustic guitar, draped over swirling winds, sounding a little like a Nordic Six Organs or something, that is until the guitars fade out, leaving just the wind, then some tribal drums, howling wolves, and then what sounds like some alien gypsy ritual, buzzing guitars that sound very Eastern, the percussion bells and shakers, the only real black element is the howled demonic vox, otherwise it sounds more like Amps For Christ, that is until that fades out, leaving just piano, a mournful lament drifting over that same whipping wind, then that distorted gypsy folk sounding buzz returns, this time with crooned clean vocals added to the mix, before everything fades out, leaving just a soft swirling expanse of melancholy synths, a meditative dronescape, haunting and dreamlike, drifting darkly though the ever blowing wind. So amazing, twisted and far out. Finland!
Which brings us to Dead Reptile Shrine, who like Goatmoon, confound and confuse, here offering up a thick swirl of hazy psychedelia, minimal percussion beneath a cloud of tangled looped buzz, a weird disembodied distorted voice buried in the mix, the sound tense, never quite offering release, instead, a continual crescendo, epic and majestic and gorgeously haunting, before giving way to the stripped down minimal stumble folk of the next track, reverbed notes drift over electronic buzz, the vocals a caveman grumble, before a second vocal swoops in strident and powerful, the track flecked with steel string guitars, atonal melodies, monstrous whispers, a creepy chunk of haunting black folk mesmer.
And so it goes, the sound definitely seems to exist in some warped abstract folk continuum, stumbling looped rhythms, distant fluttery flutes, detuned finger picking and fractured folk strum, eventually subsumed by some almost blackened buzz, and ridden by echo drenched sung/spoken vokills, the next track is about as close to proper black metal as DRS get, but as you might imagine that's not very close, with a black metal riff slowed way down and gradually unraveling, while various bits of percussion or shaken and rattled, and strange chant like croons swirl all around, until finally, DRS finish things off in a cloud of keening almost Skullflower like guitar, peppered with tiny bits of percussive glitch, thick low end rumbles, and a strange voice that almost sounds like he's speaking while breathing in, warped and weird, and pretty amazing in fact, a haunting, confusing bit of black ambient ritualism, and pretty much what we would expect (if one could really expect anything) from Dead Reptile Shrine.
Of course, unadventurous black metallers should steer clear, but everyone else, whether you dig anything weird and Finnish, or love blackened outsider folk, or twisted deconstructed folk flecked black metal or like us want ANYTHING from either of these bands, this comes HIGHly recommended.
Volume five in the long running Black Tar Prophecies series, finds cinematic post rockers Grails teaming up with their self proclaimed favorite band, Finland's hypno-rock Circle offshoot Pharaoh Overlord! Grails start things off with some dark, brooding, Morricone-esque soundscaping, all atmospheric and a little bit gothic, swoonsome chordal swells beneath lush layered shimmer, a definite Godspeed vibe, but Godspeed via Barn Owl. The following track adds some twang to the proceedings (someone here thought it sounded a little like the intro to Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead Or Alive"), wreathing the deserty drift in FX drenched swirls of buzz, all driven by some woozy somnambulant riffage. There's definitely a bit of an eighties vibe going on to, with much of this sounding like soundtrack music from some strange thriller on late night cable, the sound at times slipping into surprising soft prog grooviness, but eventually settling into a shadowy sprawl of twangy post rock dreamdrift thrum.
Pharaoh Overlord, a long running side project of aQ faves Circle (and really at this point, PO are just as much aQ faves as Circle, if not moreso), fill their side with two epic jams. The first is all chuggy, and riffy, and Circle-like right out of the gate, in fact, it sounds essentially like Circle, stripped down, minimal and motorik, churning hypnotic riffery solid simple rhythms, but as the track progresses, the surrounding atmosphere thickens, adding all sorts of psychedelic filigree, adding layer upon layer of shimmery swirl, eventually blissing out into some seriously abstract kosmische drift. The second track gets even more spaced out and minimal, unfurling a gorgeous sprawl of dense drones, thick and woozy, a blurred downtuned raga of sorts, sounding like the Taj Mahal Travellers via Wolf Eyes, rumbling, shimmering low end thurm, underpinned by muted percussive pulses, barely audible through the blackened sonic swirl, everything blurred into a hazy, slow motion expanse of softly psychedelic, almost SUNNO)))-like tectonic reverberations.
LIMITED TO JUST 1500 COPIES! Each one hand numbered. We took every copy our distributor had, and they weren't sure when/if they would be getting more, so when we run out, while we're hoping we can eventually get more, this could be it, so best snag one now just in case... as they say, buy now or cry later...
Almost before we even heard this, we knew it had to be an aQ Record Of The Week. A double dose of Finnish sonic insanity in the form of this insanely limited one sided 12", which finds Finnish one-man psychedelic noise project Haare, aka Ilkka Vekka, creating his new record, a single sprawling twenty minute soundscape, from various sounds, much of which is sourced from the 2004 album Forest by fellow Finns and all-time AQ faves, Circle!
Here Haare transforms what was already an atmospheric, sort of acoustic sinister spookiness, into something even more abstract, an arcane sonic ritual, all deep resonant rumbles, keening distant tones, rumbling thrums, haunting chimes, murky melodies, clouds of blurred metallic shimmer drifting over softly undulating sprawls of moody murk, a swirling smear of all manner of gauzy melodies, and ever-shifting texture. The sound barely obscuring creepy monstrous low end rumbles, that sound like some sort of demonic crooning. The upper register tones, sounding a bit like bowed metals, muted and muddied into sonorous tones, but that metallic buzz gradually breaking free from the murk and the mire, intensifying like some swarm of metal insects, way off in the distance, a sort of blurry buzz that billows ominously around the softly roiling ambience at the track's core. The sound obviously moving in a noisier direction, but finding a sort of swirling almost serene stasis just on this side of that ambience/noise barrier, the sounds gristly and crackling with energy, infused with a haunting dark mystery, that seems to imbue all the buzz and crunch with something much more soft focus and abstract, which somehow gradually attains a strange sort of next level dreamlike ambience, all the sounds blurring into a bleary bit of washed out thrum, a thick layered wall of super active sound, but with all the edges worn away, resulting in a slow pulsing stream of warm whir and dense warm dreamnoise, which reaches a sort of bliss out near-raga equillibrium in the last few minutes, and definitely has the listener in a total trance, and had us really wishing there was a second side.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, each one hand numbered!!
Attention Finnish music freaks, yet another weird and wonderful discovery from our favorite far away sonic Mecca. Colossal is the debut full length (released in 2008) from this Finnish stoner sludge combo, whose sound is gloriously thick and viscous, blown out and blisteringly heavy, a mix of Kyuss-y desert buzz, churning aggro AmRep-y noise rock, Eyehategod slo-mo Sabbathy dooooom and crumbling Torche style distorto pop, all tangled up into a super (subtly) hooky and heavy psychedelic brew. Plenty of stonery swing for sure, so fans of recent aQ faves like Black Pyramid, Orchid, Obrero, Freedom Hawk and all things Meteor City should definitely check this out, but ONLY if they're ready for something WAY more fucked up, sludgey and super distorted, with lots of the songs smoothly segueing from grinding, howling tarpit heaviness to groovy near poppiness, sometimes laced with wild psychedelic leads, wah wah guitars, other times, just utterly filthy and distorted and blackened, the drums bombastic, the arrangements mathy and super dynamic, with the occasional stretch of woozy stripped down slither, and sprawling expanses of detuned ultradoom crawl, but generally spending most of its time in either super sludgey stoner mode, or wildly pounding noise rock mode, usually some unholy union of the two. The magic to the record really is the recording though, which is impossibly heavy, ridiculously blown out, the sound super saturated and in the red, it sounds like the tape is frying or the speakers are melting, the guitars so distorted they become heaving swells of crumbling buzz, anchored by the drums and transformed into some seriously fierce riffage, the sort of tranced out riffiness that turns this into something just as spaced out and psychedelic as White Hills or Carlton Melton or any of those outfits (just check out the tranced out closer "Death") albeit WAY WAY heavier. Definitely recommended if for folks who dig the EXTREMELY slow and low, Sleep, Bunkur, Conan, Monarch, the Body, Otesanek, Slomatics and the like, but these guys definitely have their own twisted take on that sound, one that has us already tracking down their newer one, which will hopefully show up on a future list...
It was really only a matter of time before Finnish stoner-sludge noise rock weirdos Hebosagil found their way to Jussi from Circle's super eclectic and equally weirdo Ektro label, we're sort of surprised it took this long actually. The metalheads around aQ have long been fans of Hebosagil, whose sound in the past touched on lots of our slo-mo sludge favorites (Sleep, Bunkur, the Body, Monarch, etc.), but who here on their most recent, ditch much of that glacial tarpit crawl for something a bit more high energy, a punked out metal that borrows from classic old school heavy metal as much as modern day pigfuck noise ruck crush, the songs almost proggy in their arrangement, slipping easily from blasting almost blackened blasts, to woozy stonery sludge, to wild noisy churn, to swaggery, almost Stooges-y hard rocking, the most distinctive thing the vocals, which sound really Finnish to us, if that makes any sense, it's not hard to imagine Hebosagil as some twisted Jussi side project, super dramatic and way up in the mix, a raspy gravelly bellow that sounds more like Turbonegro or Scissorfight or Fucked Up than any vokills that might be more appropriate, but it's that strange mix, that makes Lahto so appealing. And while the band may be more rocking these days, they can still lay down some seriously sludgy downtuned heaviness, the band constantly locking into churning caveman riffage and Neanderthal drum plod, but then those vocals come in, and it's transformed into something much more strange, and really, much more fun. Not to say this is a 'fun' record, it's still plenty heavy and dark, noisy and chaotic and metallic, but it's also Finnish, which means it's geniusly fucked, totally batshit rocking weirdness that you can add to your Finnish whatthefuck collection, which by now includes (or really SHOULD include) Circle, Pharaoh Overlord, Ride For Revenge, Undor, Stench Of Deacy, Will Over Matter, Arkhamin Kirjasto, Billy Boys, Death Trip, Dead Reptile Shrine, Steel Mammoth, Uton, Cardinals Folly, Keuhkot, Lurk and we'd imagine a whole lot more.
***Finnish Supergroup Alert! ***
Lau Nau, Islaja, and Kuupuu all together in one band - it's like the dreamiest aQ daydream come true! All three of these ladies have been responsible for some of the most mystical and beautiful recordings of the last few years, all of which have become permanent favorites with everyone here. Lau Nau, and Islaja's recent recordings have shown them moving toward a more direct approach in their songwriting, but this project really lets all of these ladies dig deep into their textured, experimental roots.
It's a bit like listening to a seance happening miles away. Distant and subtle rumblings, murmurs, and gently conjured spells. One of those records that you can't identify what instruments/electronics are being used, with many of the sound sources seeming to be drawn from nature. They use their voices as another haunting instrument that glides in and out of these four long tracks. It has us thinking of the Jeweled Antler crew performing an Arvo Part piece, or Grouper and Hala Strana collaborating on the soundtrack to a pagan solstice ceremony. Completely breathtaking!
Most folks are probably more familiar with Mathew Kvohst McNerney as a member of avant post black metallers Code, or Dodheimsgard offshoot DHG, but in Hexvessel, MKMcN explores a different sonic path altogether, a sort of ritualist psychedelic folk, that has more in common with groups like Woven Hand and Comus and other modern freak folkers than any of the bands in his more metal pedigree.
The coolest part about Hexvessel is McNerney's distinctive vocals. For us, the best part of Code were McNerney's clean vocals, especially set amidst churning black buzz, or Interpol like metallized gloom, so to hear those same vocals draped over sun dappled acoustic guitars and fluttering flutes, is pretty spectacular, and reveals that in many ways, his talents were wasted screeching and shrieking over black buzz.
The tracks are dark and haunting, minimal and dreamily druggy, hazy and washed out, warm and woozy and psychedelic, conjuring that seventies acid folk vibe, buzzing metallic drones swirling around lush finger picked steel string Appalachia, the vocals crooned one second ominously whispered the next, the core sound of the group augmented by a fantastic array of musical instruments including mandolin, banjo, bandoneon, upright bass, gongs, harmonium, dulcimer, zither, psaltery, bells and more, the songs alternately ominous and sinister, hushed and dreamlike, sometimes set amidst the sound of a summer glade, all bird calls and whispering wind, other times wreathed in strange occultic ambience, the lyrics mysterious and cryptic, the delivery, passionate and urgent, a gorgeously timeless collection of old timey ballads, haunting laments, foresty folk dirges, and various other permutations of Hexvessel's mystical dark folke.
Most definitely for fans of all strains of folk: psychedelic, apocalyptic, doom, freak and otherwise, as well as fellow folk brethren like Woven Hand, Comus, Sixteen Horsepower, Burial Hex, Espers, Six Organs Of Admittance, Timesbold, Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat, etc.
Super striking packaging, all metallic gold ink on full color matte finish, inside an equally striking booklet filled with haunting images, lyrics, liner notes and original artwork by Albert Witchfinder of Reverend Bizarre.
There's a whole series of these, split cd releases from the cult-minded metal label Stormspell, giving some of the new breed of thrash metal bands from all around the world a snazzy showcase, two bands per disc. Head to head headbanging, as it were. They're all been pretty cool, and we probably should be listing each one, but can't write reviews 24/7... however, we really wanted to at least do a write up regarding this volume in particular. It pits California's Infantry against Finland's Pyrotoxic... and if you know AQ, you won't be surprised to learn that it's Pyrotoxic that really got us all excited. FRENZIED FINNISH THRASH METAL MADNESS!!! Don't get us wrong, Infantry are good, but Pyrotoxic simply kill. Part of what gets us about these maniacs is their uber energetic off-the-rails speediness (they make Infantry sound slothful) but it's also the awesomely wretched and rabid vokill delivery of the singer. Furthermore, while their more chaotic approach is quite frazzled, and feedbacking, and frothing mad, amidst all of it they've got hooks happenin' too, really rockin' and rollin' on such tracks as "Nuclear War (Has No Rules)" and "The Secret Of Steel". This is the true NWOFHM!
Though Pyrotoxic are our faves here, Infantry bring it too, they're just in comparison much more restrained, polished and precise, but certainly slay it up with such tunes as "Desecrate The Church" and the instrumental "Inhumane". Heck, their half comes first and listening to 'em rage you wouldn't think they'd get upstaged by the Finns, no sir. Which makes Pyrotoxic all the more impressive.
Well, not much more to say, there's 6 songs here from Infantry and 5 from Pyrotoxic. songs, and we'll be definitely on the lookout for more from either band, but especially those crazy Finns!
PS to give you a further notion of what these bands are all about, we'll mention the influences they each cite in the cd booklet. Infantry give props to "Slayer, Demolition Hammer, Deicide, Cannibal Corpse, Destruction, Kreator, etc." We get the idea they like black metal too, since one song is called, "Black Metal", and we already mentioned the one about church desecration! Meanwhile, Pyrotoxic hail "Dark Angel, Bulldozer, Tankard, (early) Slayer, Destruction, Armagedom, Sadus".
It's no secret we have a deep love of so many of the sounds that come from the Finnish underground, and Islaja is one of the most golden treasures to come from that magical region. It's been over three years since we've heard new material from her, but with artists of this quality, whose songs are so meticulously constructed, we totally understand and appreciate that it takes a good deal of time to create a new album. And man oh man was the wait worth it, as Keraaminen is her most bold, up front, crisp and riveting work to date. Her earlier songs were very much buried in layers of rustic dirt, muddied and mysterious, but with her mystical sounding voice cutting through the fog. But now she has reached a place where she is confident and assured enough to strip away the excess layers while maintaining such gorgeous and evocative atmospheres, and her voice sounds as powerful, and alluring as ever. While previous outings have found her being compared to Bjork, that comparison maybe seems more apt here, as on this record she is able to use her voice as such a strong instrument conveying such striking and mesmerizing emotions. And for people who haven't heard Islaja before but love folks as haunting and varied as Zola Jesus, Fever Ray, Beth Gibbons, Jane Birkin, Brigitte Fontaine, Laurie Anderson, Kate Bush, PJ Harvey, and Jarboe, we imagine you'll probably fall very much in love with the sounds on this record. We definitely have!
Recorded in locations all across the globe, in Helsinki, Berlin, Grand Popo, and Hong Kong, this is an album that transcends both geographical and musical borders. We've loved all her albums and this one has grabbed us from our initial listen and we've been listening to it multiple times a day since it arrived, and this will probably be a record that pops up on several of our year end favorite lists too!
I'd be reluctant to identify this as quote unquote Finnish Folk Music if there weren't a family of bands making a similarly spirited music in Finland these days. Such folks include Kemialliset Ystavat, Pekko Kappi, Avarus, Kiila, Keijo, Anaksimandros, Uton, Markus -- all living in different cities yet, like a family, sometimes meeting up for a holiday in a rustic cabin to join forces. Islaja is perhaps the most pastoral and lovely member of this family, her voice confidently evoking an underground wilderness of pine and birch, shadowy lakesides, twisting footpaths and mandalas in wool and moss. The instrumentation is sparse, delicate and full of shadows, melodic clouds shaped from accordion, plucked strings, mouth harp, horn, piano and purring electronic atmospheres. The playful mood and sensitivity of these songs brings only one other artist to mind...Brigitte Fontaine (especially the album Incendie� and her other collaborations with Areski). It is worth mentioning too that the beauty of the Islaja's music, like many of her Finnish contemporaries, is fleshed out by the artist's own drawings of fantastical trees, beasts and runic patterns, completing Islaja's first release as a document of flourishing imagination. [That was a guest review by Jewelled Antler's Loren Chasse, who just returned from a trip to Finland, among other fantastical places.]
Oooh, as if that recent Lau Nau cd on Locust wasn't enough (it wasn't -- fantastic female-fronted Finnish free-folk albums are few and far between and we'll take all we can get!!), then here's the brand new second album on Fonal from Islaja. Chances are if you're a dutiful AQ customer you're already hip to her, as we've been selling her debut album Meritie pretty steadily since it came out last summer. Sweetly haunting and gentle, Islaja's music represents the loveliest extreme of the aforementioned Finnish free-folk underground, her music not quite so freaky and fractured as that of countrymen/colleagues like Avarus and Kemialliset Ystavat. More dreamy than difficult, Islaja's music reminds us a bit of Greg Weeks' psychedelic folk outfit Espers...with her singing, also Brigitte Fontaine and maybe Tara Jane O'Neil. Her delicate vocals, whispering like a mother to a child, lilting and layered, backed with bells, accordion, acoustic guitar, melodica, samples, percussion, piano... So very nice.
On her first two records, Finland's Islaja completely swept us off our feet and delivered us to an enchanted world of mystery, warmly wrapped in delicate layers of a unique beauty that just doesn't come around that often. Definitely reminiscent of Brigitte Fontaine's experimental leanings or maybe what we imagine Bjork might sound like stuck deep in a Finnish forest.
With her latest outing Islaja has done it again! She's conjured up a handful of songs that immediately begin to melt into your consciousness the roots going deeper and deeper with every listen. With the subtle addition of horns and electronics to her already dense and seductive sound, Islaja shows once again what a unique vision she possesses. Imagine Patty Waters joining White Magic at a late-night seance... Ulual YYY is like sinking into some warm dreamy state, eyes clouded with wisps of smoke until everything becomes a hazy blur. You're not sure where you are or what to do, but you are absolutely sure there is no where else you would rather be than deep inside Ulual Yyy's alluring and mystifying world. Highly recommended!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Two new songs by two of favorite Finnish artists. They couldn't be more different, but this reminds us of why we love and have such a soft spot for split 7"s. Groups that sound nothing alike but share geography or friendship with each other. And with the increasing price of making vinyl, split 7"s are truly a labor of love and such a sweet token, as really its quite impossible to make money from them. First be forewarned as it will become obvious that the single was labeled wrong and the side that says Islaja is TV-Resistori and vice versa. TV-Resistori give us more of their upbeat totally fun synth pop that if we didn't know better we'd think they were another great Japanese pop band. And a new song by Islaja is of course something to rejoice about. Tiding us over until whenever her next album comes out, her track is so lovely and will for sure get you standing up every few minutes to reach for the needle to hear it over again and again.
It seems like ages since we've featured a new Fonal release, one of our favorite Finnish labels, and this one is quite beautiful. Jarse is the solo project of Jari Suominen, who is a member of those aQ faves, Shogun Kunitoki, as well as Kiila, both bands we have extensively reviewed in the past. The psychedelic sound of Jarse falls somewhere between Zomes and the mellower psych side of Dungen. Suominen builds his own instruments and uses a brand new, self-built synthesizer based on the schematics of the 'Sahkokvartetti', a machine which was used by the first electronic band in Finland, led by M.A. Numminen, back in 1968. It was this original synth that was used on Shogun Kunitoki's last album, Vinonaamakasio.
Det Gar Runt Igen consists of four long tracks, but within each track Suominen packs a myriad of ideas - and space as well. Repeating and building synth loops coalesce into spacious structures of texture and rhythm, introducing soaring guitar maelstroms that funnel in on themselves before relaxing tension and bringing in soft-sung vocals and classical string and bell textures, all within a psychedelic shimmering skin. Lovely, hypnotic and majestic!
Ok, so AQ customers are likely well aware of the "New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal" movement popularized by Circle and cohorts, an alleged genre that's usually more krautrock than metal anyway, but is certainly Finnish. Well, drop the heavy metal part and you've got Finnish New Wave, eh? And that's what new Smalltown Supersound act K-X-P are up to. Synth-laden '80s inspired "New Wave" from Finland, played on drums, bass, and keys (no guitar), with plenty of that motorik krautrock groove Circle and Co. are known for as well. One of their two, rotating drummers (they switch off on this recording) is in fact Tomi from Circle and Aavikko so that certainly makes sense.
Consisting largely of instrumental grooves, these eight tracks are heavy on the electronics, and driving hypnotic rhythms, with some vocals here and there, that at times remind us of Adam & The Ants, or what we think we remember Adam Ant sounding like, though the vocals in "Pockets" are weirdly effected in a way that makes 'em sound almost like Mika Ratto from Circle, singing over Gary Numan-like throbbing synth pop. K-X-P doesn't lack variety, "Mehu Moments" actually reminds us of a krauty version of that Charanjit Singh Ten Ragas To A Disco Beat reissue, it's got that "exotic" vibe with synth squiggle freaking out over steady pulsations, and "18 Hours (Of Love)" has a bit of a glammy Gary Glitter shuffle-time Fred Bigot feel to it, with the singer chanting anthemically over rhythmically spaced electronic distortion-detonations. Elsewhere, K-X-P offer up moodier, dubbier excursions. And yeah, with our love of Finland, and Circle, and krautrock, and coldwave, and noise, and disco, and dub, this pushes plenty of buttons. So this disc has been getting a lot of instore play here at AQ, as word passes from one staffer to another...
We'd happily recommend this to you if you enjoy some/most/any/all of the following: Jonas Reinhardt, Aavikko, Neu!, Suicide, Circle, Cold Cave, Salvatore, Bronze, even Rah Bras.
Although this came out just last year, we've been lacking this in our racks for some time now 'cause the label had sold through 'em all and needed to do a re-press. Well, now, thankfully for the legions of lovers of all this fabulous Finnish free-folk stuff, Fonal has put this gem back into circulation! So queue up if you missed it before. Here's the review we wrote on list #191 when it first came out:
The 18 tracks found here are a riotous festival of Finnish folk-psych. A pagan parade in a forest glade. Abstract, druggy, dark, delightful... We're always entranced by Kemialliset Ystavat's damaged improv folk mystery, and Alkuharka is yet another reason for us to keep saving our pennies in order to afford a trip to Finland (lucky Andee's been there once already). Anyone into anything along the lines of Tower Recordings, Thuja, Trad Gras Och Stenar, Six Organs Of Admittance, the whole Broken Face 'zine scene (to whom Kemialliset mainman Jan Anderzen used to contribute much art) will want/need this. Horns flutes guitars drones bells tapes voices feedback. Weezing buzzing bliss. With contributions from honorary Finns Dylan Nyoukis (Prick Decay) and Campbell Kneale (Birchville Cat Motel), Jan and company are the true underground krautrock heirs, making music so long haired that it's furrier than any Animal Collective. Music from the soundtrack to The Wickermoomin, perhaps?
Hallelujah! More droning, buzzing, flickering folk-psych from Finland's mysterious Kemialliset Ystavat collective. Sure, we know who's in the band -- Broken Face 'zine artist/contributor Jan Anderzen, Fonal label head Sami Sanpakkila (Es, Kiila), and a host of other Finns -- but they still SOUND mysterious. The damaged four-track folk sound of NYC's Tower Recordings filtered through the forest ambience of AQ-fave improv-psych outfit Thuja might, MIGHT be an approximation of Kemialliset's sonic space. They inhabit that territory previously explored by the likes of Amon Duul, Ghost, Kalacakra, Toho Sara, Parson Sound, International Harvester, Amps For Christ, Six Organs Of Admittance, Algarnas Tradgard, etc. If any of these names bring a warm sensation to your frontal lobes, then you're likely already a Kemialliset fan even if you haven't yet heard 'em. Each track (there's 17 of 'em, spread over 47 minutes) is a psychedelic miniature constructed of drifting, chanting vocals, gentle melodies, and primitive rhythms, contrasting distorted electric guitar wash with pretty, chiming percussion, strings and woodwinds. Freaky and far-out yet mostly mellow and warm and cosy. Fucking lovely. Ah, Finland.
Lucky for us there's not a whole lot to do in Finland other than drink, smoke and make records. It means that we will never have to worry about running out of weird and wonderful Finnish foresty psych rock jams. And by now, we're quite comfortable in admitting that we can never get enough. EVER. Circle, Avarus, Uton, Islaja, Es, Kiila, Anaksimandros, Tivol and of course Kemialliset Ystavat. They've all tapped into something special and mysterious, some gorgeously primal world of drones and simple rhythms, minimal psychedelic freakouts, deliriously primitive drumming and outer space melodies. A sort of Krautrock meets seventies pagan folk meets minimal drone meets free rock meets everything else. No wonder it all sounds so good. It's little purloined scraps of everything we love, woven haphazardly together into gorgeous rambling and meandering sonic explorations. Banjos accompany wavering falsetto vocals, shuffling seasick rhythms underpin wild songbird like melodies and fluttery flutes, buzzing distorted guitars rumble beneath full on harmony pop vocals, warped and warbly organs and woodwinds nestle up against the clattery clang of kitchen sink percussion. It all sounds so perfectly imperfect together. Dreamy and melancholy, stumbly and goofy, dark and brooding, woozy and hypnotic, innocent and playful, exuberant and festive, creepy and bizarre, pretty and darn near perfect.
And if a repress of the beloved Kellari Juniversumi wasn't enough (no it's not, and might we suggest their Suurempi Pieni Palatsi album get reissued sometime too?) there's also this "new" cd from Finland's foresty freak folksters Kemialliset Ystavat. Actually, this has been released twice before in other formats: first as a cassette on Finland's Huutomerkki label (hmm, missed that) and then again as a lathe cut double vinyl 8" on New Zealand's Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label (dang, didn't get one of those either!). So thankfully Fonal has now put it out on cd for those of us who somehow inexplicably failed to get either of those previous versions when they were "available". Yay! And what of the music?
Well, imagine sitting somewhere deep in the forest... not alone with nature though. No, you're hanging out with a bunch of elves and trolls, drinking or smoking pot or something delinquent like that. Actually this isn't even that foresty really... maybe you've invited your little friends back to the city and you're hanging out in your apartment listening to weird '80s industrial experimental music and electronic krautrock records. And maybe you've got a few of these records going on several turntables at once, at 16 rpm, the volume turned down low, and some of the trolls are joining in (faintly) on vocals, and one of them's got a flute, and another one's got a broken music box, and some bells, and a shortwave radio. But the music you're hearing/making is still amazingly nice and mellow and organic 'cause you're with a bunch of elves after all. The sun's going down and the light is fading and you feel all warm and toasty and kinda sleepy-drunk.
Ok, stop imagining. You'll have your own (better) mental images to go along with this music when you hear it. But we'll say that right from the get-go this is immediately some of the rawest, most primitively-electronic Kemialliset Ystavat stuff we've heard. There's what what sounds like layers of loops, tape machine fuckery, all kinds of pleasingly distorted textures folded into a mysterious and still somewhat (abstractly) melodic sound-world, with haunting eerie vocals and tribal clink-clank. And yet, among the 15 tracks here you'll find some of the simplest and prettiest of the Kemialliset canon too. Loose, lovely and loveable stuff.
