You might remember a couple months ago we freaked out over a gritty and gorgeous release out of Mali from Pekos and Yoro Diallo. It was the first release on the new Drag City imprint Yaala Yaala, a label specializing in raw music and field recordings from West Africa. After reveling in their first release for a while we thought it was time to move on to their second outing which we're happy to report is just as mystifying, compelling and pleasing as the first. Bougouni is a small city in Mali and it's there and in nearby Bamako where these sounds were recorded, during hot days and balmy nights. The music was recorded everywhere from house parties, at checker games, under the shade of mango trees, etc. Like the best of the Nonesuch Explorer series and the eccentric tendencies of the beloved Sublime Frequencies label, Yaalaa Yaala has managed to capture the sounds of other cultures in a way much more agreeable to our sensibilities and respectful to the music and musicians themselves then the often manipulated, polished and Western-washed versions that ends up at cafes, on slick compilations and in "world music" sections of most record stores. Often when we've traveled to faraway places we wish that instead of a camera we had a really good tape recorder with us as it's often the raw and unadorned sounds of a place and people that truly captures the spirit of that location more then any photograph ever could.
Thankfully, the sounds on Bougouni Yaalali resulted from just that sort of foresight, someone who did think ahead and managed to record all of these amazing sounds during various travels through Mali, allowing us to really get close to understanding the spirit of a place that most of us have never been to (though would kill to visit!!). With simple yet compelling percussion (some of it wonderfully distorted!) and a slew of various instruments, the extremely minimal liner notes allow us to play the guessing game of trying to identify the sources of particular sounds (is that a thumb piano we hear on lots of these tracks?). And even though we can't understand the lyrics the hypnotic and powerful delivery ring true with a passion and emotional conviction that transcends language. Yaala Yaala is two for two so far, we can't wait to hear more!
As we mention in our review of the White+ album, one of this week's Records Of The Week, we've been digging all sorts of kick ass underground indie rock from China, one of our favorites being this one, the latest from a group called Boyz & Girl, named literally for the gender make up of the group, and whose sound falls somewhere between the the blown out shoegaze noise of My Bloody Valentine, the angular dissonance of Sonic Youth, and the quirky post punk poppiness of the Pixies. These guys (and gal) have obviously been raised on a steady diet of classic nineties indie rock and it shows, thick billows of distorted FX heavy guitars, laconic laid back vocals, driving rhythms, heavy and psychedelic, hooks buried throughout, wild tangles of guitars expand into droned out jangle, squalls of wild guitarnoise are harnessed into lush melodic drifts, we also hear hints of the Swirlies and Polvo, the group at their best when their dreamy pop gems are swathed in thick sheets of buzzing guitar, or driven by what sounds like junkyard percussion, "He Must Be" is our current fave, dreamy, poppy, but noisy as all get out, a cloud of constantly crumbling and swirling and howling guitarnoise over some perfect jangle, sweet sad boy vox, and loose propulsive drumming.
Amidst all this fuzzed out, noise drenched indie jangle, there's also plenty of experimental weirdness, "Cannot Touch" sounds like Blonde Redhead or Deerhoof, but deconstructed into something much more minimal and skeletal, "Cursed And Cursed Again" is a brief swirl of swooping backwards high end, "The Cold, The War", is a haunting reverb drenched brooder, dark and gloom poppy, but set on a bed of crunchy noise, muted and blurred into a lush and weirdly lovely backdrop. In fact most of the songs here have strange production, and cool weird guitar parts, equal parts jangle and crunch, buzz and spaced out swirl. Fans of that classic indie rock sound, who have been hankering for some noisy, shoegazey, jangle, will flip for this!
Francoiz Breut is the modern Brigitte Fontaine, with a healthy dose of Cat Power thrown in. Acoustic loops, soaring strings and skittering drums all frame absolutely beautiful songs, full of emotion and intensity. Breut's voice is husky and deep, the lyrics all in French, making the songs dark and dreamy and romantic.
Bad Seeds or Tindersticks like songs with sultry French female vocals. Fellow Parisian Diminique A plays guitar, bass & keyboards all over the place. Very, very nice.
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Warn Defever of His Name Is Alive conjured up this utterly delightful, pleasantly loopy unauthorized remix of Astor Piazzolla tango music. For those who care, it's a cd-r.
Most fans of legendary (should we say infamous?) world music / punk / surf / WTF? subversives Sun City Girls probably know that a crucial one-third of the trio, SCG's drummer Charles Gocher, sadly met his demise due to cancer in 2007, thus bringing the band's 27-year long career to an end, with their final album being Funeral Mariachi released in 2010. But, their vast corpus of bizarre music lives on, as does the memory of Charles Gocher, at least if the two surviving ex-SCG's have anything to do with it. To that end, brothers Alan "Alvarius B" Bishop and "Sir" Richard Bishop have been touring under the name The Brothers Unconnected, performing an acoustic set of SCG tunes and screening a collection of Gocher's unusual video works. This double lp release documents the uncut entirety of such a show (minus the video portion of course), recorded live in Germany in 2011, with the Bishop bros. delving deep into the SCG catalog, going as far back to such albums as 1987's Horse Cock Phepner and 1990's Torch Of The Mystics to revisit an extensive selection of songs, all of 'em weird and wonderful (to varying extremes of both descriptors). Not only is this intended as a tribute to Gocher, and is something that any SCG devotee will enjoy, it could also serve as wide-ranging semi-introduction for noobs to the beauty, humor, and terror inherent in the SCG's utterly unique oeuvre!
Here's the full tracklisting: "Nyn De Gris Sang", "My Painted Tomb", "The Flower", "The Multiple Hallucinations Of An Assassin", "I Always Felt Sorry For The Monster", "The Brothers Unconnected", "Don't Fuck With The Squid", "Six Kids Of Mine", "Wild World Of Animals", "Academia Nuts", "Soi Cowboy", "Rookoobay", "I Deal A Stick", "Cruel And Thin", "Cooking With Satan", "Eyeball In A Quart Jar Of Snot", "Ali Baba", "Black Orchid", "Bitter Cold Countryside", "Dreamland (For Dinah)", "Horse Cock Phepner", and "Shining Path".
Handsome gatefold sleeve, with one lp on black vinyl, one lp on white vinyl, limited pressing!
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Daptone's The Budos Band has always been pretty fantastic, kicking out the killer instrumental '70s style Afro-Soul-Funk jams, super tight and groovy and quite authentic-sounding (even though they're from, like, modern-day NYC). We've dug all three of the ensemble's previous albums, but Burnt Offering (pointedly not titled Budos Band IV, even though it follows II and III) might be their best one yet. First, it's got some cool artwork of a Gandalf-lookin' wizard on the cover, a total stoner/psych image that looks like it should be on a Sleep album (or the side of a van). That art might clue you in that The Budos Band has been goin' through some changes... well, what's happened is that they've seriously heavied up their sound, the guitar parts are fuzzier and riffier, supposedly inspired by '70s heavy psych and proto-metal, like Black Sabbath and Pentagram!! They're still quite funky, though, so it's not a total extreme metamorphosis into doom metal or anything. We had kind of figured that meant this would sound like '70s Zambian garage-fuzzsters the Ngozi Family or Witch, but no, not exactly, 'cause what with their big horn section, they still sound like, well, themselves, but just with an additional edge of fuzzy, gritty guitar. Along with the hard-hitting rhythms, and spirited, darkly soulful brass, it's pretty darn cool. Think Fela Kuti gone super heavy psych, with a dark Ethiopiques vibe. Also, this new Budos Band sound reminds us of that awesome Italian 'library music' reissue by Blue Phantom, just a bit. Oh, and we halfway wonder if this transformation wasn't perhaps inspired by the success of Swedish Afro-fuzz voodoo psych sensations Goat?? Certainly Goat fans ought to dig this, too!! Super recommended.
Digipack cd, or gatefold vinyl w/ download.
There's never a question as to if a Budos Band release will sound good or not, they are one of THEE tightest and most masterful players of Afro-soul-funk around. And while their first two outings were totally great records, they have stepped up their game big time for number three. It's one thing to be talented musicians, it's another to create songs that have a really strong mood and presence, and that's exactly what Budos Band have done on III. It's a bit darker, wider in scope and just straight up ON FIRE! They've figured out how to take their inspiration from the music of Fela Kuti, James Brown, Sun Ra, Funkadelic, as well as hints of psychedelia from Turkey, Latin America and Africa, and bring it all together in such an infectious and surprisingly original sound. If you ever get a chance to see them live, go for it, cuz they always kill, and this new album is our favorite from them yet!
Some of the AQ shoppin' stoner rock contingent ought to remember Buffalo, an honest to gosh band of Austrialian proto-metal pioneers from the early '70s. We used to stock a 2-fer-1 disc (can't get it anymore, dang) that collected their more Monster Magnet than Monster Magnet ever wuz albums Volcanic Rock ('73) and Want You For Your Body ('74). Missing that disc as we do, we were happy to find a few copies of this, a cd reissue of their prematurely tired-of-living debut from 1972. Dead Forever (nice title, they had a knack for that) was originally released on Vertigo, and at the time Buffalo were probably tipped as an Aussie version of Vertigo best sellers Black Sabbath. Close, no cigar, but what they're smoking has its charms anyhoo. This album's a graveyard of grinding dirgey yeah-yeah-yeah rockers, the kind that demand (as the back cover literally does) you to "play this LOUD". You've got to 'cause this band's lurching riffs and electric psychedelic blues bashings need all the help they can get since producers back then didn't yet know exactly what real metal required. True, this has a few quiet, balladic numbers on it (not bad ones either) but will be 'specially valued for trudging lead-foot boogie blooze proto-DOOM like you get with the album-closing title track coffin-nail-hammerer. For folks who also dig the similarly lost and wasted, stoned guitars and wailing vocals of such acts as Captain Beyond, Randy Holden, Juan de la Cruz, Toad, Leafhound, and Sir Lord Baltimore.
Andee thinks this sounds like Cat Stevens...but that doesn't mean it's not lovely! Benumle Oynar Misin is a rare album from the early '70s by Turkish singer/songwriter Bulent Ortacgil, now available on cd. Recorded circa '73-'74, this is certainly a bit different from the other "Turkish Delights" we've been bringing you lately (Mogollar, Erkin Koray, 3 Hur-el, etc.) as you'll find no fuzzed-out guitars dueling with ouds and ikligs here. No, Bulent is all about mellow, melodic, placid, folk-rock with some bright and shiny horns livening up the proceedings on occasion. It's all sung in Turkish, but the songs should hold up even without any understanding of the lyrics. So nice. It has such a sensitive vibe that it may even appeal to fans of Belle & Sebastian.
Oh yeah. '70s Turkish FUZZ rock in effect here, big time!! Knowing how much AQ customers LOVE the psychedelic Turkish tunes of decades past, this is a no-brainer. Buy it. Now. That is, if you like Edip Akbayram and Erkin Koray and all the others we've gone gaga over as the stack of such reissues gradually grows... These guys actually have membership links to all sorts of Istanbul rock stars, from Koray to Mogollar to Cem Karaca (whose early band Kardaslar we'd love to get a reissue of...). They were a pretty important band in the scene, on an underground level anyway.
The name Bunalim apparently means either Depression or Frustration in Turkish, fitting for a band hailing from a city, Istanbul, who defining mood is melancholy (according to Nobel Prize winning novelist Orhan Pamuk). You can hear both the energy of frustration and the sadness of depression in their music, which consists of blistering, Iron-Butterfly-heavy hard rockers mixed up with the style of traditional Anatolian folk dances and songs. Ballsy bombast and beautiful balladry both. And we're not kidding about Iron Butterfly -- one of the tracks here is a Turkish language cover of "Get Out Of My Life, Woman", a song (originally by Allen Toussaint, actually) that appeared on Iron Butterfly's first album, Heavy. Definitely it's the IB version that inspired Bunalim's rendition! Why so much "Bunalim" with these guys? Well it wasn't easy being a long-haired, underground rocker in that conservative society in those days! Plus even in the West there was much to make the youth feel worried and oppressed.
This disc collects their rare singles tracks (they never made an album) from 1970-'72, and captures them at their most raw and garagey, loud guitar rockin'. They definitely showcase a distinct, kick-ass Middle Eastern take on the acid rock sound of the day, and really what could sound better than that??
This cd reissue includes well-informed liner notes and lots of cool vintage photos in the cd booklet. Shadoks, keep 'em coming!
Oh shit! These are some intensely sweaty and dancey jammers that are sure to be the soundtrack of any truly down and dirty party this summer, and probably for a long time to come. Hailing from Portugal, Buraka Som Sistema have become international ambassadors for the Kuduro scene, bringing this unique sound to people throughout the world. It makes perfect sense that M.I.A. lends her voice to the record's standout track, as the sounds on Black Diamond make a great companion to her latest record Kala. Incorporating elements of hip-hop, Baile funk and electronica, Black Diamond is all about being uptempo and making bodies sweat, move and shake and groove. This is one of those records that should appeal to all sots of music lovers, from fans of Konono No.1 seeking that same sort of intense all out energy to fans of Missy Elliott who want something pulsating and creative to move them on the dance floor. So damn good!
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More ultra suave pop from this smooth French gent who really should consider writing a few chapters in the how-to book of euro-flair. A most highly regarded and highly influential man of many hats in the hip lounge jet set, Monsieur Burgalat certainly has taught those Air boys a thing or two. But who is A.S Dragon and what happens when he meets them? Well, that's simply the name of the band backing him up on this record (who even have their own theme!), and actually it seems things get spiced up a bit. Less cocktail space age pad, and much more upbeat, swingin', guitar-driven retro-poppiness. Full of his handsome smooth vocals, but do keep an ear out for the occasional odd deep vocal turn here and there though. Still very groovy and dance-y though with its funky bass and organ lines. A perfect rocked up accompaniment to the recent Danger Diabolik soundtrack. Aaah, and it all comes complete with an adoring, applauding audience to boot. On his very own label.
The euro-pop sounds of composer / solo crooner Monsieur Bertand Burgalat pleases many ears around the globe. Swirling strings, funky guitar and basslines, playful keyboards, horns, woodwinds, swooning male and female choruses -- it's charming in oh so many ways, elaborate and suave but not without levity and wit. If we have any complaints about Portrait-Robot, it would be that when on occasion Burgalat opts for programmed drum beats (versus live acoustic ones) such as on the song "Ripples" they're a bit... well, clunkily robotic and too upfront in the mix. When you take into consideration the album's title, you wonder if maybe be that was his intention, but it's oddly jarring when you take in the rest of the carefully crafted and composed smooth operatin' affair. The album features 19 lounge-ready songs, plus 2 bonus tracks and a video for "Spring Isn't Fair".
This highly influential, euro-lounge-pop producer, composer, arranger, label owner (Tricatel) and performer extraordinaire finally sees the U.S. release of his solo debut (with three bonus tracks unavailable on the European version). Playful '60s flair
Over the years we've fallen crazy in love with lots of compilations highlighting the power and energy and passion of Bollywood music. Collections like Indiavision, Sitar Beat, Bombay Connection, etc all share one common thread: R.D. Burman. Look closely at the credits on the songs on all the great Bollywood compilations and Burman's name is there almost every time. It should come as no surprise really, because if you've watched many Bollywood films made anytime from the early '60s to the mid '90s chances are it was Burman's music you were being swept away by, as his soundtrack work appeared in more then 300 films! His equally prolific wife Asha Bhosle adding her dazzling voice to many of his songs as well as her sister Lata Mangeshkar on some tracks as well. We're so happy there is finally a domestic collection of Burman's amazing music. Instead of being teased with single songs here and there on various compilations, now we have two whole discs worth of his forward thinking yet totally romantic and enchanting sounds. While Burman passed away over a decade ago he finally seems to be getting the respect in this country that he so rightfully deserves. One of the most gifted and prolific musicians and producers of the last half century for sure!
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Andee sneers, "Jim thinks this record is jazz because it has saxophone on it. Jim only wishes all jazz sounds like this; shrieking & sputtering sax electronically processed into skittering waves of grit, buzz, squeaks, groans, drones, and hiccups. As if Pan(a)sonic or Pita of Mego were forced to take sax lessons as children. Like a more animated, more abrasive version of the Parker/Casserly 'Solar Wind' collaboration. I think Jim is jazz."
Jim retorts, "No, I certainly am not."
Bwana are a super-obscure psychedelic-funk-jazz-rock band from Colombia circa 1970. Lotsa Latin percussion, acid rock guitar, jammin' organ... Spanish language vocals for the most part, although actually the majority of this consists of instrumental
We've been working backwards in the Roberto Cacciapaglia catalog. We started with the eccentric pop of The Ann Steel Record from 1979, then a few lists back moved on to his minimalist systems composed piece, Sei Note In Logica. We'd planned on reviewing his first record, 1975's Sonanze, when Wah Wah originally reissued it, but are glad we waited for this Mupymup version which contains a bonus disc of 15 extra pieces from the period which really detail the beautiful range of this experimental classical composer with both Italian prog and Krautrock ties, and this will most definitely appeal to fans of either genre.
Sonanze is perhaps the most classical leaning release of the bunch, but it definitely has a deep kosmiche feel. Its 10 movements begin with cascading gongs filtered through tape loops against an airy atmosphere of piano runs. Chamber string dramatics lay out the definitive feel of the entire piece of plaintive horns and kettle drums before getting full on cosmic in the Second Movement with pulsating synths and deep phased chanting leading to a percolating soundscape of jaw harp vibrations and swelling strings. The third movement brings in Lubomyr Melnyk-style piano cascades, while the fourth movement introduces a disembodied angelic choir, reminding us of Ligetti's "Lux Aeterna" from 2001: A Space Odyssey. The 5th movement brings in Peter Michael Hamel-style organ arpeggiations devolving into bowed gong scrapes. The 6th movement is very Michael Rother like, with cloudy gliding guitar and on and on it goes, a different feel or instrument in each changing movement, but somehow tied into a deeply introspective and gorgeous whole. Mixed by legendary krautrock producer Rolf-Kaiser Ulrich (Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Ash Ra Tempel), Sonanze is definitely our favorite of the three releases we reviewed thus far (though the Ann Steel scores major points because it's so dang out there!).
The bonus disc is also pretty killer, filled with cosmic new age compositions of Moog and piano, filled with wonderful vocal experiments (check out the proto-Grouper track, "Manuela"), gongs and some abstract soundscapes to boot. So totally recommended and these reissues don't stick around long, so get it while you can!
While there ARE lots of amazing reissues of all sorts of old records -- psychedelic, rock, folk, jazz, reggae, metal, etc. -- coming out all the time (and hopefully you've read about a bunch of 'em here, we do our best to keep up), it's also become evident to us that the vast majority of reissued obscurities were, well, obscure for a reason, and it's hard to understand WHY someone would choose to reissue 'em. But then there's reissues like this one, that make us wonder, why hadn't we ever heard of this band before? Why weren't they HUGE? Well maybe Miguel Cantilo Y Grupo were famous in their native Argentina, they should have been, we certainly can't imagine that there were all that many bands of this quality releasing records in that country back then (this dates from 1975). At any rate, we're pretty excited to learn about 'em now thanks to this reissue. An eclectic psychedelic progressive rock album, with songs ranging from acoustic mellow melodicism to heavy hard rockin' bombast, this is something that we'd rank with a few other '70s reissues that have become big favorites 'round here -- if you loved the Eduardo Bort from Spain, or the more-recently reviewed Tarkus from Peru, you'll want this too for sure! It's got strong songs, a charming heavy-duty hippy vibe (check out the cover art), exotic appeal (all songs sung in Spanish, very emotively), and is definitely Classic Rock worthy (reminding us of Led Zep, Budgie, and even Aerosmith at their most mystical, magical a la "Kings and Queens"). Miguel's vocals are a bit Bolan-esque as well. But what puts it over the top for us is the killer blend of exquisite prettiness and sudden, frantic rock n' roll action, a lot looser and rawer than some other progressives of the era. Very dynamic and surprising. It's weird in all the right places. It's always neat to discover cool stuff like this out of the blue, proving that there definitely are unknown reissues worth taking a chance on... Nicely packaged in a slim colorful cardboard digipacky thing, with the cd itself in a sleeve with the lyrics printed on it.
It almost didn't matter what this Capsule band even sounded like. The packaging is so gorgeous and over the top, we pretty much bought one before we even heard it. On the same label, and similarly designed as the Torche 10" from a while back, a cd and lp, with the cd, mounted on the inside of a super deluxe gatefold sleeve, this time, it's all black, with the whole thing slathered in shiny varnish, except the name of the band which shows up as a matte void, a leering blue ghostlike face on the cover, all very tripped out and mysterious, much like the music inside.
And as we've posited in the past, bands who spend this much time and energy on creating super striking visuals, often back it up with super intense sounds as well. Not 100 percent by any stretch, but we tend to have pretty good luck.
And thankfully that luck still holds with Blue, from this band Capsule, who seem to be some sort of grind band, at least on first listen, and we mean grind in that the songs are twisted and gnarled, and there seem to be a million parts, and the tempos are furious and chaotic, the vocals are a buried in the mix howl, BUT, the guitars sound super clean, angular and abstract, but not blown out and distorted. Lots of melody everywhere, even at it's most complex and convoluted, the melodies shine through, And while the guitars do chug and grind, they also jangle and soar. It's petty strange, in lots of ways it sounds like some classic nineties indie rock, Polvo or Pitchblende, but supercharged, run through some sort of chaos grind filter, there is still plenty of loping minor key melody, and waltz like tempos, strange arrangements, but they're all wrapped around a much more intense and furious core. In fact the more we listen, the more we're gonna go with 'grindmetal Polvo' as the simplest descriptor, and if that doesn't sound like maybe the greatest thing ever, then maybe you're reading the wrong list.
The final track appears to be about 10 minutes long, but don't be fooled, the song is actually 2 minutes, another gloriously complex jangle drenched slab of grinding metallic indie rock, with about 6 minutes of silence, hiding what sounds like a live track at the end, more blown out loping indiemathgrindjangle, this one heavy on the midtempo buzz and woozy riffage. Fucking awesome!
Carsick Cars was the first band we'd heard from this new crop of Chinese indie rock and noise pop bands, and we were initially intrigued cuz of the band name, but then ended up digging both their other records quite a bit. We'd been dying to hear this new one after getting a little tease/taste via their recent split 7" with Flavor Crystals. Their song on that 7" found the band sounding better than ever, super polished, and crazy catchy. We posited in our review of that 7", that part of the new sound might be due to the fact that it was recorded with Pete Kember, aka Sonic Boom, from Spacemen 3, and Hamish Kilgour of NZ pop legends the Clean. And it might just because we know that, but we're hearing a sound that definitely sounds like it's right between the druggy hypno-rock of Spacemen 3 and the fuzzy, NZ jangle of the Clean. Regardless, 3 is a stunner, from the very first track, a very nineties indie rock influenced instrumental groover that actually also reminds us a bit of Pell Mell, sort of driving and hypnotic and a little bit krautrocky. But it's on the second track, "15 Minutes Older", that the band get super poppy, and that Flying Nun / New Zealand influence really shines through. In fact, if you told us this was actually some long lost Flying Nun rarity, we would have totally bought it. Keening vocals, dreamy melodies, fuzzy, buzzy guitars, plenty of jangle, hooks galore, but with a bit of Sonic Youth style noisiness woven into the sound, it's infectious and pretty goddamn great. As is the whole record really, every song here a jangle pop gem, some sung in English, some not, some sort of proggy and mathy, others straight ahead pop, but all of them hooky and heavenly, and easily the best CsC record yet!
We have both the lp and the cd, apparently, they're both slightly different, different mixes, some songs are in English on one format, not on the others, we haven't really done a side by side A/B comparison, but we're guessing unless you're crazy anal or a super collector, you'll likely be happy whichever one you pick, if it matters, this review is of the vinyl version, which includes a download code as well!
Got this super limited tour cd-r from one of our favorite Chinese indie rock outfits Carsick Cars who were just here on tour. This 5 song disc collects a handful of singles tracks and alternate versions, including two of our recent favorite CSC jams, one being a version of maybe the best track from the recent 3 album, which found the group getting super poppy, and heavily influenced by that classic Flying Nun sound (due in no small part to the fact that New Zealand indie legend Hamish Kilgour helped record that record), along with the group's track from the recently reviewed split with Flavor Crystals, a jam that we described as being super bubbly, poppy and sunshiney, all fuzzy guitars, fuzzy melodies, an effervescent blast of power pop, crunchy and jangly in equal measure.
The opening track too, sounds straight out of eighties NZ, albeit with a little bit of modern sheen, but got Flying Nun nerds who miss that sound, holy cow, the fact that it's NZ by way of China only makes it that much more confusionally cool! "Shelter" is more stripped down, a dark jangly brooder, while "She Will Wait" adds some drum machine, and pushes the sound into a slightly shoegazier noise poppier direction, that definitely suits them.
A great introduction to the band for sure, and essential if like us, you're turning into a Carsick Cars completist. SUPER LIMITED cd-r, once we run out, will have to get more from China, so act fast or be prepared to be patient...
Not sure what it is about the current underground rock scene in China, but it seems like it's heavily influenced by the US, which is maybe not a huge surprise, but also, more specifically, nineties college/indie rock. Check out some of the Chinese outfits we've reviewed recently: P.K.14, Skip Skip Ben Ben, Streets Kill Strange Animals, Boyz & Girl, all amazing, and all heavily indebted to the Pixies, Sebadoh, Dinosaur Jr, Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, you get the picture. Jangly, crunchy, fuzzy, noisy, poppy, shoegazey, all stuff we, and presumably, lots of you love, so if you've been missing THAT sound, might be time to dig into some of the amazing Chinese noise pop / indie rock that's blowing up over there these days. Last list we reviewed the self titled debut from the awesomely names Car-Sick Cars, and like that record, this follow up, is a fantastic celebration of all the stuff we loved about nineties indie rock, chiming minor key guitars, shimmery atmospheres, laid back drawled sad boy vox, brooding slow build verses and crunchy, noisy choruses, lots of textures and tension, even the prettiest most straight ahead jams here flecked with all manner of experimental studio weirdness and squalls of psychedelic crunch. But unlike that record, which seemed to be brimming with youthful exuberance, this record is a lot more laid back, a bit more contemplative, a little brooding, with most of the tracks settling in a sort of Sonic Youth / Velvets sort of trance out, the guitars looped and layered, the rhythms motorik, stripped down and propulsive, the songs wreathed in woozy textures, the vocals buried in the mix, the songs sprawling, tranced out and hypnotic, and really really good.
As we've mentioned in the past few lists, we've been getting more and more sounds from the Chinese underground, so many that it's been difficult to listen to them all, let alone get them reviewed. White+, Boyz & Girl, Dear Eloise, P.K.14, Duck Fight Goose, Snapline, Skip Skip Ben Ben, Streets Kill Strange Animals, just to name a few. The one we were most excited to review was this outfit, based partly on their name, as well as the crazy cartoon alien lazer gun 4-eyed fish cover art. It was only recently we were actually able to get enough to list. And while we may have been expecting something way weirder, we ended up digging their sound, which like much of this new wave of Chinese bands, owes much to the nineties US indie/college rock underground. Carsick Cars take classic fuzzy jangle pop and angular noise rock and fuse it into something hooky, catchy, dark and difficult, with boy / girl vocals, crunchy guitar, plenty of noise, tribal drumming, wild flurries of piano, the result falling somewhere between Sonic Youth and Pavement and Sebadoh and Polvo? They definitely sound like the kind of band that would have been on labels like Matador, Homestead, even Touch And Go back in the day. The songs tend toward fuzzed out noise pop / indie rock crunch for the most part, but there's a lot of weirdness going on, and plenty of more abstract experimental noisiness, with the two sides of the band's sound bleeding into each other throughout!
Killer new split 7" featuring one of our favorite Chinese indie rock outfits, Carsick Cars, teamed up with a Minneapolis psych rock band we'd heard of, but hadn't actually heard until now. The Carsick Cars side is super bubbly, poppy, and sunshiney, fuzzy guitars, fizzy melodies, effervescent almost power pop, crunchy and jangly in equal measure, maybe the best sounding jam we've heard from these guys, which makes sense as it's an outtake from the sessions for their newest record 3 (which we'll review on the next list, and it's great! And we DO have them in stock, cd and vinyl, both kinda different too!), produced by NZ legend Hamish Kilgour and Pete Kember, aka Sonic Boom. It's kind of hard to figure out why this was an OUTTAKE, cuz it's a scorcher, and the Hamish Kilgour connection makes a lot of sonic sense, cuz this totally sound like it could be some lost Flying Nun rarity, which is high praise indeed!
The Flavor Crystals side is a bit more downcast, moody and broody, with gothy guitar shimmer over a lowslung bassline and motorik drumming, the vocals a reverby whispery croon, Moon Duo fans will definitely flip. Soon the surrounding sounds build, pulsing and pulsating, adding a dark sonic swirl to the proceedings, as the song proper follows suit, growing more dense and driving, heavy and hypnotic, before launching into some serious spaced out psych for the last few minutes, that will definitely hit the spot for fans of White Hills, The Heads, Moon Duo, etc. Definitely need to hear more from these guys.
Gorgeously packaged, super eye popping, over the top cartoon art sleeves, each with a different, equally eye popping postcard inside, and pressed on dark red vinyl! Oh, and probably pretty limited as well!
A mind-bending Italian library obscurity gets a nice reissue thanks to Penny Records. Daniela Casa may not be as well known as Ennio Morricone, Egisto Macchi, or Alessandro Alessandroni, but his 1970 concept album Societa Malata (The Sick Society) is one of the strangest psych "soundtracks" we have heard. It begins very dreamy, with hypnotic vibes and woodwinds lulling us into a restless sleep state, where we are introduced to the acid guitar grooves, loping bass rhythms and bongos that seem to anchor the majority of the record as we traverse otherworldly landscapes tinged with paranoia, seduction and uncertainty. Moogy flourishes and hectic rhythms add to the fever dream feel. With piano and echoing metallic percussion highlighting the noirish vibe, but it's not all terror. "Esoda" carries a wondering pastoral vibe, even if it does have a creepy tinge, but not as creepy as a track like "Occultismo" with its chorus of ghostly voices, or the final track, "Dittatura", a beautifully doomed march to destinations unknown. It's a wonder how the Italians can make such beautifully dreamy music that scares the bejeezus out of us, but we're entranced every time! Each record comes with a cd version as well, nice.
We don't do this often, but sometimes, the easiest thing is just to link to a YouTube video. Especially 'cause it's what got us interested in tracking down this reissue in the first place! Made us kind of obsessed, actually. You'll see/hear why if you go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgGK4qBTwpw&ob=av2n, and check out the psychedelic video version of this album's title track. (For those who just want a quick idea, take a look at the album cover operating room scene, that's in the vid, complete with people dressed up in disturbing animal masks, a Rolls Royce driving through the desert, naked ladies in the jungle, and, well, just watch it...)
So, Jean-Marc Cerrone was/is a French dance music producer and badass drummer (elsewhere on YouTube you can see him live in concert, kicking out the massive drum solos). The more disco-savvy among us here had heard of him, he's up there with Giorgio Moroder in the Euro-Disco pantheon. And Supernature, from 1977, his 3rd album, is the jam. A disco-PROG masterpiece. The title track starts things off, the one that crazy video's for, and dominates, being almost ten minutes long in its album version. An epic. No ordinary club fare here, on the surface maybe, but the disco diva vocals (lyrics by Lene Lovich!) are about some dystopian sci-fi scenario wherein twisted science is turning men into monstrous beasts (which explains - sort of - some of the video's surreal imagery), these mutants rising up against their masters. Hauntingly, she sings lines like "how can I explain, things are different today, darkness all around, and no one makes a sound..." Woah, downer disco. It's pretty dark, and weird, and the thump thump thump of the music gets that way too, with some fat synth bass riffing at about the six minute mark that brings this into imaginary Magma doing disco territory, almost. Cerrone sure puts his state of the art ARP Odyssey Mk III to good use here. The track ends with hint of 2001's "Also Sprach Zarathustra", that's how epic this is. The rest of the side maintains the mood, "Supernature" segueing seamlessly into Cerrone's solo spot "Sweet Drums", his insistent beats heavily effected and spaced out, and that's followed by the more blissfully eerie electronics of "In The Smoke", which could be from a Goblin soundtrack.
Side two (tracks 4-6 on this cd), is the brighter side... More typical fusion-funked Euro-Disco anthems, all three songs with "Love" in the title ("Give Me Love", "Love Is Here", "Love Is The Answer"), great stuff though, top-knotch! Lush, lively dancefloor fodder for sure.
So, recommended to fans of Zombi, Goblin, Moroder, and the recently departed Donna Summer. This import reish, in one of those rounded-corner "Super Jewel Boxes", comes with extensively detailed liner notes in the cd booklet, illustrated in full color.
Now domestic! This former import-only CeU album (originally released in 2005 on the Sao Paulo based Urban Jungle label) is now available here in the States courtesy of the Six Degrees label. The lovely Brazilian singer whose full name is Maria Do Ceu Whitaker Pocas draws easy comparisons to Bebel Gilberto, and will surely appeal to her labelmate's fanbase. At once sultry and fresh-faced, CeU's breezy, smooth groove of samba, dub and electronica laced with delicious horn and percussion accompaniments evokes gorgeous, warm summer evenings. Ah yes, the calendar might proclaim that it is April, but while this soulful, chill-out album is spinning it's a steamy August night in Sao Paulo.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Boy, were we looking forward to this: A strange 1974 French sci-fi based concept album that claims comparisons to both Alain Goraguer (La Planete Sauvage) and Jean-Claude Vannier (L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches, Melody Nelson), by some composer we had never heard of, Jacky Chalard, perhaps originally made under the assumed identity Gilbert Deflez (the booklet has the puzzling backstory). We were blown away by the opening number, "L'Agonie", almost fulfilling the promise of the B-Music folks' claims. But then almost all the following tracks are either spoken word, or strange radio plays in French (sort of in the same wacky spirit as Les Maledictus Sound), which we wouldn't mind normally, except the spoken stuff is on almost every track on the record, and after awhile, we want to just hear the backing music alone, because it IS so good! Occasionally, there is a French woman singing which is nice and there's a couple of Massiera-ish disco pop numbers, but overall, the narrative aspects becomes just a bit tedious. At least it's in French, though, that helps. We're sure this is a must have for some folks who dig the stranger realms of french prog-pop, but we can't recommend it as highly as La Planete Sauvage, Jean-Paul Massiera, or Jean-Claude Vannier.
When we first heard Chancha Via Circuito's debut a few years back, it was one of the those magical moments when a record by an unknown artist seemed to stop time and everything around us as we became completely emerged in their dubbed out, Latin American cumbia-inspired sounds.
With the follow up, Chancha Via Circuito prove that record number one was no fluke, as this album melts and sizzles with its own seductive flair. Sonically it's like some awesome mix of Twilight Circus Dub Sound System, Fauna, Kit Clayton, Massive Attack, Prince Far I, and Rainbow Arabia.
Mixing elements of cumbia, minimal techno, dub, and adding strains of traditional folk from the sprawling roads they've traveled near their home outside Buenos Aires, which has taken them across the border to Bolivia and beyond. Like one of our other favorite modern South American psychedelic music makers Las Malas Amistades, Chancha Via Circuito have this amazing ability to incorporate their surroundings and heritage and bring it into the future without compromising its integrity.
Chancha Via Circuito is not only the train that Pedro Canale rides back and forth from his hometown to nearby Buenos Aires, it's also the name he's chosen for his dubbed out, free flowing, and more nuanced and minimal approach to "Cumbia digital." We've been entranced with this record since the very first time we heard it, as it's equal parts soothing and moving, slow burning and dance inducing. We're reminded a lot of the great Mad Professor vs. Massive Attack outing No Protection, as it has that same blend of cut and paste dub, along with more recent blasts from that Cumbia scene. In fact it wouldn't surprise us if Gang Gang Dance had gotten a copy of this before they recorded their latest record as it has that same kind of tripped out and late night dance vibe they latched on to. This is exactly what you would want blasting from the speakers in a club as you waited for M.I.A. to take the stage, or in your ears as you roam late night streets, moving at ease as these seductive beats intertwine perfectly with the flashing lights of the cars zooming by.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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The debut album from the former lead vocalist of the awesome, electrifying French group Mano Negra! A wonderfully refreshing and uplifting cornucopia of styles.
Manu Chao, former leader of the French band Mano Negra, was born in France of Spanish parents, and in recent years has spent much of his musical career in South and Central America. And as you would expect, his music is a similar stew of sounds, all of which
Manu Chao (formerly of French band Mano Negra) releases a lengthy live album which is even more upbeat than his albums proper, if you can believe that. And if his albums are the perfect party soundtrack, then this live record *is* a party in an of itself. I can see the lighters waving julbilantly in the stadium right now. The music's foundation is in rock, overlayed with the surrealistic silliness of another AQ fave band Os Mutantes. Yep, it's that good. You hear a psychedelic pastiche of horns and rocksteady swing, samples of people chattering, bells and buzzes, Latin rhythms, dub, hip hop, vocals in Spanish, girl backup singers, addictively catchy singsong melodies. *Super* celebratory. If you don't already have his previous albums Clandestino and Esperanza, get those first.
These Unidisc Music reissues aren't necessarily new, but they are new to us here at AQ, and we've found them to be quite intriguing and enjoyable listens. On this 1968 album it's clear that Robert Charlebois' collaborative work with Louise Forestier were just as high on dramatics (and at times as loopy) as her solo albums... if not more so. The chemistry between Quebecois artists Charlebois and Forestier is not unlike two old friends getting together to bend a musical elbow over a glass of wine (or two or three). Heck, on songs such as "C.P.R. Blues" and "Egg Generation" they get downright unhinged -- lively frolics that verge on the mad or chaotic. You also get a duet version of the song "California" which appears as a solo-sung number on Forestier's Avec Enzymes album. Great!
Finally got enough of these to list. It's something you're gonna DEFINITELY want to have if you're into the whole '60s/'70s Swedish psychedelic scene, Sweden's "krautrock" bands if you will. Y'know, if you like Parson Sound, Trad Gras Och Stenar, International Harvester, Arbete Och Fritid, Algarnas Tradgard, Kebnekajse, and all the other often interrelated outfits that we've been lucky enough to find reissued on cd in recent years. You can add this to that list, a brilliant collection of loping, rollicking, freaky hippie jams from the drums/sitar and guitar duo of Edmund "Charlie" Franzen and Esdor Jensen, and friends. They got their start together in 1969, and performed at the first of the free festivals in the summer of 1970 that are now an part of Swedish counterculture hippie history. They definitely must have fit right in that time and place, judging by this cd's awesome mixture of Eastern-inspired raga rock, Swedish folk troubadour music, Dylanesque ballads, and HEAVY guitar power trio acid rock.
These tracks, recorded in 1970 and '71, have languished in obscurity, mostly unreleased for the past 30-some-odd years, several of them originally meant for an abandoned album release back in the day. A few, like "Wolfs Mouth Song" (here given its original title of "Fuck The Cops"!) were released on vinyl as singles and so forth. But you were probably never gonna run across one of those rarities... so it's great to have this all on cd! And Mellotronen has presented this in a nice digipack. Isn't that a great cover shot, of Charlie's back as he beats his drum kit at one of those hippie festivals?? It would good for a Levi's ad (you can see the tag on his jeans) if they were that hip. The 32 page booklet provides plenty of photos, a history of the band, and detailed track-by-track commentary on these recordings. There's also a discography complete with full-color reproductions of album covers and single sleeves. Very very nicely done.
We rave about jazz legend Don Cherry as often as we can. Every reissue has us all in a tizzy. In the past we made his mind blowing Orient an aQ record Of The Week. And in retrospect, we probably should have made the Blue Lake reissue a ROTW as well. Cherry was continually pushing the boundaries of jazz, exploring and helping shape free jazz, and incorporating all manner of world music into his ever changing and expanding sound.
This disc, recorded in 1978, found Cherry once again reimagining the sound of jazz, and challenging unadventurous jazz fans, by teaming up with legendary Indian percussionist Ustad Ahmed Latif Khan. Cherry had experimented with Indian music before on past recordings, but this was the first full on collaboration. Two sides, one featuring Cherry compositions, accompanied by Khan on tablas, the other side, Khan compositions, the tablas more of the driving force, the sound distinctly more Indian classical, with Cherry accompanying Khan.
The untitled opener finds Cherry and Khan covering Ornette Coleman, Cherry's former band leader. It's a dark brooding shuffle, all warm keyboard grooves, and the tablas, how they change everything, the skittery rhythms, but also the strange rubbery low end, the song eventually morphs into a Cherry original, and gets a bit proggy with wild trumpets and thick organs, the tablas still driving the whole thing. It's the next track where it gets really interesting though. A sprawling rhythmscape, the tablas doing double time, the rhythm, and a pulsing sort-of-bass line, Cherry delivering abstract almost scat like falsetto vocals, dark and drone-y and spaced out and minimal, peppered with occasional bursts of wild horn skronk, but for the most part, a swirling tripped out stretch of throbbing subtly psychedelic jazz minimalism. The final Cherry composed track is another gem, all glistening chimes and high end tones, flurries of piano, distant horns, whooshing effects, and of course the skitter of the tablas, more melodic almost that rhythmic on this track. Cherry also introduces some flute, which gives the track a sort of freak folk vibe, really!
Khan's side is distinctly less jazz. The tablas way up in the mix, his dexterous rhythms totally spellbinding, intricate, and again melodic, Cherry offering up strange bits of percussion, muted keyboards, very abstract and so cool. The final track, a sprawling 13 minute epic begins with just organ, drifting in space, until the tablas come in, and holy shit, even more intense and intricate, wreathed in a bit of reverb, and slipping from loping grooves to wild bursts of impossibly complex rhythmatism, the organ, a constant warm whir in the background, and the timbre of the keyboards, continues to infuse the track with a distinctly prog feel. Making this some sort of abstract classical Indian jazz prog? Whatever you want to call it, these are some gorgeously hypnotic and meditative sounds. So very recommended. Fans of the Necks might get into this too, similarly dark minimal vibe, especially the Khan tracks, and well worth checking out for the rest of you, even if jazz isn't normally your thing.
B-Music/Finders Keepers strikes again, with another crazy, kitschy, catchy collection of South Indian movie music! This is the follow-up to their delightful Solla Solla anthology of the 1977-1983 output of "The Maestro" Ilaiyaraaja, a top composer for the Tamil-language film industry based in "Kollywood". On this album, popular singer K.S. Chithra (aka Chinna Kuyil, or "Little Nightingale") is teamed up with The Maestro, her sweet vocals accompanied by an entertaining, unrestrained array of sounds - lush orchestration, groovy rhythms, and digital sampling. That's right, on these recordings, dating from between 1986 and 1991, Ilaiyaraaja made full use of the latest available technology (sounding awesomely '80s vintage-retro to us now), so there's drum machine beats and electronic synth bleeps alongside more traditional Indian instrumentation of flutes and tablas...
Wonderful stuff, as any fan of Bollywood/Kollywood/Lollywood music should expect. Utterly charming. Chithra and Ilaiyaraaja's "plugged-in pop" is impossible not to like. Add this to your shelf alongside Solla Solla and long time fave, Vijaya Anand's Dance Raja Dance. And this being a Finders Keepers release, there's copious liner notes and compelling colorful graphics included, these folks know their stuff.
As much as we love all the indie rock and noise pop that's been coming out of China, and we do, hell, check elsewhere on this list for a couple new Chinese bands, we tend to become super obsessed with the more out there, experimental groups and records that have also been coming from the same scene. We made the latest record from White+ our Record Of The Week a while back, the sound like Yellow Magic Orchestra crossed with Neu!, or so the label suggested, to our ears it was way more far out and psychedelic. Out latest discovery / obsession comes from this Beijing based experimental four piece called Chui Wan, who according to the label, count Beach Boys, Arthur Russell, Les Rallizes Denudes and the Sun City Girls among their primary influences, but as always, there's no way a band could possibly sound like that, and Chui Wan, to our ears at least don't really sound like what we imagine that band math would produce, but that's not to say we don't dig it, we do, a LOT, in fact this is one of our favorite of all the Chinese records we've gotten in recently, but the sound is a bit harder to pigeonhole, the opener is a sort of loping, instrumental jangle pop jam, all blooping basslines, shimmering guitars, and motorik rhythm, surrounded by burbling cascades of swirling melodies, and chiming spidery guitars, so we were kind of prepared for a whole record of that, but then the second track swoops in, all distorted guitars, and driving drums, not to mention some strange echo drenched vocals, lots of swirling psychedelia, the track veering from spaced out mesmer to heavy, chaotic freakout, with brief bits of mathy angular pop, it's a weird mix, but it somehow works, at times sounding like a warped WTF version of Television, maybe with a little Boredoms mixed in, with plenty of spaced out psych jamming, and hypno-kraut grooves.
And amidst all this krautgroove and psychedelic drift, the band add swoonsome viola melodies, soaring ethereal vocal harmonies, plenty of almost proggy arrangements, subtly deployed samples, Eastern melodies, swirling electronics and FX, with some tracks sounding like psychedelic ragas, others blossoming into horn flecked almost-klezmer, and still others field recording laces tribal dirges. The record finishes with a nearly eleven minute closer, that's like some sort of doom-prog / kraut-folk, epic and majestic, weirdly recorded so the sounds are all blown out and crumbly, the arrangement strange too, in constant flux, the whole final half of the song peeling back all the noisiness, leaving just a gorgeous sprawl of processed horns, pointillist pianos, swirling synths, layered electronics and strange samples, super heady and hypnotic, tripped out and utterly mesmerizing.
WAY recommended, for fans of space rock, psych rock, experimental avant pop, and the weirder side of the new wave of Chinese indie rock...
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Here's an old AQ fave, happily back in print on cd! Psychedelic rock from Israel, circa 1968, the original lp a rare collectible, and a classic. With Middle Eastern touches, backwards FX, lovely melodies, and twanging guitar solos, Churchill's should appeal to all fans of international sixties psych. Influenced by the Beatles and other British rock groups of the era (in fact, Churchill's later on became very Led Zep-ish, and covered "Living Loving" on a 7" single!), the Churchill's debut was apparently recorded as the soundtrack music for a pair of obscure films entitled A Woman's Case and The Dress. But the album is definitely a collection of songs, not instrumental/incidental music. And great songs they are. Some soft and mellow ("When You're Gone"), others weird and wigged out ("Straight People"). No doubt drugs were involved. One of the best tracks is the melodic, mandolin-fueled "Subsequent Final", an East-meets-West stunner indeed, pretty much worth buying this disc for just by itself, though you get lots more treats besides, in fact, this new reish includes TEN bonus tracks, unlisted for some reason, but we think they're songs from various non-album singles, as they do include their version of "Living Loving".
Israeli psychedelic rock band from the late '60s/early '70s who started off playing covers of Beatles and Led Zeppelin songs and then slowly worked original after original into their set. They became famous. The Churchill's peak was with their absolutely stunning, mandolin-fueled song "Subsequent Final" which alone is worth the price of this disc, one of Windy's favorite songs ever. Their first self-titled LP is now one of the rarest and most collectible albums from that period, so aren't we lucky to have this cd, which also has 4 bonus tracks (including the aforementioned Beatles and Zep covers). Now with the Jericho Jones (Churchill's successor band) album on a second disc. Here's our review of that: Late '60s Israeli psych rock group Churchill's is well liked here at AQ -- indeed, it's one of Windy's all time faves -- so we were quite curious about this band Jericho Jones, which was the hard rockin' '70s incarnation of the Churchill's line-up. Recorded in England, this is essentially the second Churchill's album, but with a new singer and a new name 'cause they didn't want to offend the Brits. And also, how could a record called "Junkies Monkeys and Donkeys" not be good? Released in 1972, it's very 'of the period', and pretty much what we expected. The Churchill's were into Led Zeppelin (they covered "Living Loving" after all), and this sort of bluesy hard rock psych is a logical progression of their pop psych sounds. "Junkies Monkeys and Donkeys" is nothing incredible, but manages to rock hard (they almost sound like Bad Company) as well as having mellower moments of melodic bliss. Some good songs, some forgettable ones. We'd say "get the Churchill's disc first" but you can only get the two together now it seems.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Most aQ customers by now are familiar with (and fanatic about) both Circle and Pharaoh Overlord. Kind of like Parliament-Funkadelic, the two Finnish groups are more-or-less the same band really, making more-or-less the same kind of music, the Circle-Pharaoh Overlord thang all about repetitive, "circular", psychedelic sounds. Sharing members and a mesmeric M.O., both Circle and Pharaoh Overlord are masters of spacey hypno-rock, often heavy, sometimes "metal", frequently quite WTF?, all of which is what you get here for sure, in both cases, on this pair of vinyl-only live records with similar, sharp cover graphics and the same dang title. Turns out these are the first two in what promises to be a series of "high quality, multi-channel 'live' recordings" under the 6000 km/h banner (a name meant to connote "speed, dynamism and goal-orientedness" according to the tongue-in-cheek corporate jargon employed by the label's press release).
Circle's entry in the series was recorded on tour in Europe, Spring 2014. The set list must have been a strange one, indeed, so you get a diverse six tracks, including a couple minute-or-less hardcore blasts sourced from their 2007 Panic album. Going to the other extreme, duration-wise, there's also a version of a song, "Se Jonka Nimea Ei Mainita" that had only previously appeared on ANOTHER vinyl-only live Circle album, 2011's Maxim, where it took up the entire second side, as it mostly does here as well. Plus there's also a ten-minute track entitled "6000 km/h", presumably exclusive to this release, also one from a rare 7", and to open the album, they do a track originally from another 2007 Circle album, Katapult, called "Fish Reflection" - an operatic, over the top thrasher that morphs into shimmery drone-bliss in the course of its ten minutes. Indicative, really, of the "dynamism" of the entirety of this exciting document.
Black vinyl is what we've got, limited to 350 copies only!
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You've probably already know this, 'cause you heard it from us, or from a friend, or you were there, or you saw it on Youtube (see http://youtube.com/watch?v=rkDGd28Kxm8 or http://youtube.com/watch?v=4FWftvvaVok for some examples) but let's just say it again: CIRCLE ARE AN AWESOME LIVE BAND. Their 2007 US tour was proof of that. During their stop in San Francisco they did an fantastic Aquarius in-store, ruled at the Bottom Of The Hill, and utterly destroyed playing in the enclosed confines of our friend John's bus. Hopefully you saw 'em. If you did, you know you want this new live cd, recorded on that very tour (in Charlottesville, Virginia at a place called Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar). If you didn't see 'em, at least don't miss this chance at the Circle live experience, as captured on cd. It'll make a believer out of anybody foolish enough to doubt reports that some weirdo Finnish proggers could have created such an urgent and infectious hybrid of rhythmic, krautrocky minimalism and tongue-in-cheek, leather-n-spikes ass kickery, that's for sure. Such a hybrid (which itself is only a part of the wider range of Circle's music) is in full effect all over this hour-long disc, right from the get-go. A disc, by the way, that includes LOTS of material that we're pretty sure Circle has never previously recorded on any of their many previous studio albums.
Actually track one "Uusi Uhraus" (which is one of the several songs here that appear to be unique to Rakennus) starts innocuously enough, an introductory stretch of pretty, burbling synth a la Terry Riley mixed with the random anticipatory noises of the crowd, talking and laughing. Then, boom! at almost the three minute mark of this nearly 11 minute-long track, the "New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal" riffage kicks in, Circle's nervous "circular" chugging getting your head banging as Circle's vocalist/keyboardist/all-purpose madman Mika Ratto begins to bizarrely babble and screech like a homeless Rob Halford... "Shake shake shake / six six six" are some of the only words in English we (think) we can make out. And then, getting weirder (and cooler) still, at about two-thirds of the way through the song, someone else in the band starts honkin' way on the harmonica!
The second track, "Nopeuskuningas", comes from their classic album Sunrise, and rocks even harder, with more unhinged, Judas Priest riffed, motorik metal. They continue on "Breaking The Law" Circle-style with the equally metallic track three, "Tulilintu", originally off of Tulikoria, which boasts another harmonica solo. And by now, when/if you can hear the crowd at all, they're not talking, they're screaming and shouting and and hooting and clapping wildly, as this album/live set reaches an early, energetic peak.
Everybody takes a breather for the lovely ten and a half minutes track four, "Tuhat". It's a laidback jam with lots of meandering, Miljard or Tower-style electric piano and smoothly percolating percussion. Mika does deliver some expressive vocals here, but nothing in comparison to what he unleashes on the very next track, "Virsi", a song marked by bombastic prog-rock organ fanfare and crashing percussion, and especially Mika's over-the-top singing, sounding not unlike an even more extreme and dramatic version of Peter Hammill of Van Der Graf Generator -- a tall order, any fan of VDGG will concur! Triumphantly, Mika leads the band onward into old, old favorite "Point" (originally appearing on a Bad Vugum 7" from back in 1992, before they even had an album out) which demonstrates that the NWOFHM is no new thing they just thought up. And then "Murheenkryyni" is even heavier, yet more melodic and grandiose, and certainly left the band and their Charlottesville audience (and perhaps you the listener at home) totally spent and drenched in sweat. That's the final song of the set -- except of course they get brought back for an encore, wrapping things up with a version of "Kaappikellon Kummitus" which originally appeared not on a Circle album, but on a disc by Mika and bassist Jussi's side project, Ratto Ja Lehtisalo. It's a nice, mellow, piano-grooved and hand-clapped coda to a pretty darn intense show! Whew!
Rakennus is pretty much an essential document of something you don't see everyday, a band tearing the roof off playing music unlike anything else on the planet. Insane vocals! Harmonica leads! Spacey synth zappery! A prog-splosion of energy and tripped out bliss both... transcending all the elements of pastiche that color their music, the combination of riff-rockin' abandon and precise minimalism a truly hypnotic thrill ride. It's also something never quite to be recreated on any of their studio discs, another dimension added by their live prowess and choice of material.
And by the way, the live recording sounds fantastic, like you were there in the flesh, basking in Circle's vibrations, clear and powerful. The way the crowd noises are mixed in is not only the hallmark of a true live album but also seems to work as an extra texture with the music, like something Circle might have attempted in the studio anyway, mutterings reminding us of the Sunburned Circle set at times...
As always, this cd package features some nice graphics work, the booklet full of what appear to be snapshots of "Americana" from Circle's on-tour viewpoint.
