What do you get when you mix Bay Area grind sludge noise rock sonic deconstructionists Burmese with local howling heavies Kowloon Walled City? You might guess something heavy? Brutal? Punishing? Pummeling? You would think. But this strange hybrid does in fact exist, and is called Child's Wife, and probably better described as tripped out, psychedelic, druggy, electronic, and heck even poppy!
Even we were confounded, we were sort of expecting some downtuned crush, something harsh and hellish, but heck, these guys get enough of that in their day jobs. We always wonder why the hell folks feel compelled to start new bands that sound exactly like their old bands anyway. So in that sense, it should maybe come as no surprise that Child's Wife sound NOTHING like either Burmese OR Kowloon Walled City. Instead, it's a twisted drum machine driven, psych pop of sorts. Lysergic and druggy, looped and woozy, but definitely pop. Guitars crunch and buzz, even jangle here and there, but are not metallic, not in the least, the rhythms are electronic, and skitter and pulse, and the vocals, well, the vocals are the focal point, much of the time at least, a distorted, reverbed croon, surprisingly melodic, the songs in some ways reminiscent of the poppiest Butthole Surfers moments, with a little Residents mixed in, a little industrial crunch and clatter, plenty of new wave / cold wave vibes, all mixed with a little, wait for it... XTC, yep, you heard us, sounds fucked and bizarre and impossible, and maybe it is, but it's also pretty cool. Twisted and tweaked, but definitely cool.
Probably not what most Burmese / KWC fans are looking for, but any one in the market for some freaky, outsider, psychedelic, noise rock new wave weirdness, well, this is definitely FOR YOU.
There are no chashu bao nor any egg tarts coming from these Chinatown Bakeries (at leats not that we know of!). Instead, it's the non-edible, gentle sounds of this new SF neo-folk band -- two brothers Jon and James Sterling Pitt along with Keryn Sovella and Ryan Stively. They follow the enchanted forest path frequented by the likes of Devendra Banhart, Vetiver and Iron And The Albatross. This quartet's lo-fi homespun music nestles itself in comfortably among those artists -- a bit less high-strung than the former and a bit more barebones than the latter. Earnest, unrestrained male vocals atop banjo and guitar plickety-pluck, some flute, keyboards and harmonica too. A very promising debut. (Note: if you dig this, we also have Stively's fine solo cd-r here too).
The Bay Area's Brothers Pitt and company quickly follow-up their Chinatown Bakeries debut cd-r Rise Wide Open with this lil' guy. This disc might only be 3" in size, but it's filled to the gills with twenty one minutes of music. Simply put, Sleeps is more homespun, folksy goodness. Perhaps a bit more trippy -- in a Jandek or Wooden Wand And The Vanishing Voice sort of way -- than their last offering. Nonetheless, fine stuff once again!
Sounding a lot like indie rock fave Smog (if Bill Callahan would only keep up with the state of music today, instead of sounding more and more dated with each release), Church Steps cloak the most heartfelt sensitive-guy vocals in a shimmer of melancholy.
Cover art by beloved local artist Jo Jackson.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This split release is between the wonderful SF-based, lo-fi melding of dreamy electronics and melancholic, sensitive boy strummery known as The Church Steps and the very mysterious group called Gang Wizard. A limited lathe-cut 7" pressing which - you may or may not know - is not the sturdiest of music formats. So we definitely recommend transferring the songs onto a more durable medium for extended listening enjoyment.
It's been a couple years since Citay's great sophomore outing Little Kingdom, and since then the band has experienced significant lineup changes which included the loss of former guitarist Jesse Reiner who left to concentrate on his awesome new band Jonas Reinhardt. Luckily Citay mastermind Ezra Feinberg was able to get some bigtime heavy hitters to become part of this new incarnation of Citay including virtuoso guitarist Sean Smith and the multitalented and super-prolific Josh Pollock (3 Leafs, Auricle, etc.), joining the already present guitar powerhouse that is Tim Green, who was the original cohort of Feinberg when Citay was first born.
So while this is in some ways a more beefed up and full sounding Citay, the elements that made us fall in love with them in the first place still shine so bright. Their ability to create songs that feel epic yet never indulgent. The way they are able to inhabit so many worlds at once while never feeling disjointed. Citay truly are a gateway band. They can lead you to heavier psychedelia, they can show you the intricacy and dreaminess of West Coast pop, they can take you to the woods, the sky, the forest, and the backyard yet every turn they take feels so right and true to their own unique vision.
Dream Get Together has a rushing current of lush and full sounds that makes you want to blast it so loud and just get swept up in its sound. Long passages without vocals that let their wide arrange of instrumentation take center stage and then Feinberg's wonderful expansive vocal delivery adds another layer of depth to the experience. Meryl Press and Thaliah Harbour add their beautiful voices throughout, maintaining that awesome balance of masculine/feminine that has been such a refreshing aspect of Citay's sound. There is also a really nice guest vocal by Merril Garbus of Tune-Yards. Citay really have carved out such an instantly recognizable and unique sound that is so much all their own. We could tell you that Dream Get Together kind of sounds like Heart hijacked by Robert Fripp and Dungen, but the truth is Citay continue to create music that has its feet in so many musical worlds that the sound they've created is undeniably deep and exists entirely in their own wonderful world. Highly recommended!
It's quite remarkable that only two records into their existence Citay have managed to carve out a sound that is so instantaneously recognizable and distinctive. With their soaring guitars, glorious melodies and harmonies that sound as if they're raining down from the sky, this ensemble led by Ezra Feinberg has quickly become one of the shining lights of the San Francisco music scene, but we think that folks from all over the globe should be hearing them, so they too can be swept away by Citay's carefully crafted songs.
Little Kingdom is the follow up to their debut which was a unanimous AQ favorite when it came out around two years back. With a similar sound and feel as that first outing they have widened their reach as the songs descend with a much more expansive quality. Brimming with a crisp sensation Little Kingdom is matching our autumnal mood so perfectly.
We love how Citay always sound so monumental without resorting to the typical quiet...quiet...loud...eruption formula that so many post-rock groups use when they want to sound grand. What makes Citay so great is that they don't TRY to sound grand or monumental, it's just that the songs they make require a presentation that the band understand so well and do so effortlessly. Little Kingdom makes us want to run into leaves and feel the wind rushing against our skin, whisking us away, the sounds of the strings on guitars summoning us to a greater place!
Wow! We haven't been this excited about a new project in quite a while. Citay is a new band created by Ezra Feinberg (Piano Magic) along with Tim Green (The Fucking Champs, and about a million other projects). What an amazing exercise in how you can take from influences that have been exhausted by so many in all the wrong ways yet somehow find a way to discover the gold that's never been mined before. According to Feinberg, Citay is influenced by Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Queen, and Heart...but wait don't think this is about irony or played-out 70's rock worship. Citay get to the blissed out acoustic moments of the above mentioned bands (think Queen II, Sabbath Vol.4) to create something that sounds so fresh, breezy and full of the right kind of dirt and sunlight. With an onslaught of guitars (mostly acoustic and including some 12 strings), nice textural sounds created by mandolin, flute, organ, piano, vibes and a an overall sound that is hard to talk about without using really over the top words like..perfect! They nailed how this kind of record should sound. The guitars are so sweeping yet intimate, the vocals seep into your skin and all of a sudden it feels like the longest summer day ever, the kind that you never want to end. We can't stop listening to this and each time we do, all we can think about is finding our old huffy and riding through dirt lots as the sun shimmers down on us and we pedal through twilight. So totally recommended!
For the debut release of Kip Ulhorn's (of Cloudland Canyon) new label, Intercoastal Artists, two of our faves, Citay and Cloudland Canyon, both pay tribute to one of their seminal but less obvious influences, Galaxie 500, with two amazing interpretations.
Citay's take on "Tugboat" (also featured on their last full length, Dream Get Together) begins with what is perhaps a straight forward take until the end, where Citay's baroque dual guitar lines recast the warm glowing evocative sheen of the original into a whole new majestic light.
Cloudland Canyon's lovingly lysergic version of "Temperature's Rising" begins with what sounds like a Mellotron line from another song before the familiarity of the song abruptly jumps in and takes off. Being one of Galaxie 500's faster songs, the cover serves Cloudland Canyon well as a single, that is both exploratory and concise, allowing just enough room to allow some hypno-psych flourishes, but keeping the satisfaction of a good pop song well intact.
Very limited!!! We're not sure we'll be able to get more after we run out, so act fast. Each 7" includes a uniquely designed sleeve - no two are exactly alike. Look out for future 7" releases on this label from Pocahaunted/ Eden Express, Sun Circle, and The Alps!
Wonderful! Clarinet Thing is the collaborative project starring five formidable pillars of the SF jazz community -- Beth Custer, Ben Goldberg, Sheldon Brown, Peter Josheff and Ralph Carney. Yes, as you might've guessed, they all play a variety of clarinets masterfully, and their incredibly expressive performances are captured beautifully on these live recordings. So warm and crisp, you wouldn't know they were performing in a 'live' setting until the audience voices their appreciative applause at the end. The seventeen tracks on Agony Pipes And Misery Sticks document the group's fifteen years of reeded sister'n'brotherhood, and what a consistent delightful document it is!
We always just assumed Clarinette was from New Zealand, probably because our first exposure to this one man soundscaper was via Campbell Kneale's Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label (although before that he had released an lp on Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace label) but in fact the man behind Clarinette, aka Dan Vallor, comes from right here in the Bay Area. The sound of Clarinette might throw you off as well, as Vallor takes gorgeous layered drifts of mutated field recordings, deftly processed loops and all manner of noise making devices and weaves them into something darkly expansive and hauntingly mysterious. This awesomely titled double cd-r / cassette offers up two sprawling sidelong tracks, the first, uses as its focus, what sound like a field recording of a train (much like the recent Chris Watson record El Tren Fantasma), but here the chugging of the train is blurred and smeared and looped into a blackened expanse of rhythmic thrum, over which foghorn tones moan and bellow, those tones constantly shifting and mutating, occasionally coalescing into almost-melodies, but just as often keening mournfully and then fading out. The whole side is based on this chugging softly churning mesmer, but throughout, Vallor introduces all manner of sonic subtleties, whether it's some krautrock like motorik drumming, some wah-wah-ed chordal swirls or some blackened soft focus shimmers, the whole track remains at a constant low level thrum, sans headphones it's a soothing washed out drone, but closer listening reveals a depth to Vallor's sonic construction that is quite breathtaking.
The second disc/side is much more abstract, with Vallor moving deftly through various drone permutations, starting out with a dense squall of hissing swirl, the sound soon shifts to dizzying echoey shimmer, and then more looped mesmer, the timbre changing in many cases more than the actual sound, slipping from caustic and crunchy, to muddy and murky, to glistening and shimmery, to dense and droney, the noisier parts rife with a sort of unhinged psychedelia, while the quieter parts darkly contemplative, a hushed blurred drift, that more often than not slowly blossoms into something much more intense. The whole track constantly seesawing between the two polarities, dragging the listener along on a harrowing hypnotic sonic journey, that again, benefits greatly from headphones, Vallor's sound world deep and dense and well worth getting lost in.
The packaging on both formats is incredible. The cd-r version comes in a cool silkscreened transparent sleeve, a green vinyl record printed on the front, seemingly to mirror the cassette packaging which is more expensive for a reason, not only is it more limited, but the cassette comes INSIDE ITS OWN WALKMAN STYLE CASSETTE PLAYER, then that cassette player is wrapped in a melted colored vinyl record, warped in a way that makes it act as a sort of stand, and that record is then silkscreened. WOW! The cd-r is limited 50 copies and hand numbered, the tape/tape player/warped record version is also hand numbered, but limited to just SIXTEEN copies!!!!
Here's the long-awaited follow up to Windswept Trees And Houses and Heat & Birds, those being the two previous, and now long out of print, "friends and family" compilations of music and field recordings (two things not mutually exclusive in the methodology of these artists for sure!) from the Jewelled Antler camp. Now that Jewelled Antler isn't the prolific cd-r label it once was (though the various members of the so-called Jewelled Antler Collective are still quite active) the Music Fellowship label has stepped in to release this new disc, as a proper cd by the way, and it's a terrific third in the "series", bringing together the fantastical sounds of three far-flung artists: Claypipe (New Zealand), Pekko Kappi (Finland), and The Blithe Sons (California). It's an "amazed map" indeed that links those people and places, all so magical from the musical standpoint as we're sure most Aquarius customers will concur. NZ/Finland/California, the current psych-folk-drone axis of awesomeness! Several tracks of nature sounds field-recorded by Tony Endless and (former AQ'er) Byram Abbot also appear here, adding some extra ecological, dronological mystery to a disc hardly lacking in such, acting as purely environmental interludes between the rather diverse yet linked-in-spirit works of the three main musical artists. First up are New Zealanders Claypipe, a duo of consisting of Antony Milton (overlord of the PseudoArcana cd-r label) and Clayton Noone (CJA, Armpit, Futurians), whose tracks here range from lo-fi almost indie-pop to droned-out experimentation. Then Pekko Kappi (Lau Nau, Paivansade) invites listeners to a campfire concert wherein he and his trusty horsehair lyre perform a wonderful set of traditional Finnish folk music, for us perhaps the highlight of this disc, itself a highlight on our list. Finally this disc's unofficial hosts, Jewelled Antler's Blithe Sons (Loren Chasse and Glenn Donaldson) wrap things up with their murky yet microscopically detailed, indoor-outdoor mix of lovely song-like drones, drone-like songs. It's the first we've heard from this collaboration since their Arm Of The Starfish cd on Family Vineyard a few years ago and we hope it's not the last.
If only Music Fellowship could also arrange to reissue on cd this disc's two cd-r prequels, which featured the likes of Avarus, Kemialliset Ystavat, Markus, Golden Hotel, Franciscan Hobbies, The Floating Birthday Children, Hala Strana, Thuja, Of, The Blithe Sons & Daughters, Child Readers, Entlang, Silt, and The Billy Crosby's amongst others! And by the way, that also reminds us -- when are all the out-of-print Jewelled Antler "Library" series of 3" cd-rs going to be compiled into a cd box set or something? We're pretty sure lots of folks are dying to get their ears on those...
Stefan Betke (better known as the electron dub twiddler Pole) asked San Francisco's Kit Clayton (Mimic & The Model, Cytrax, etc.) to contribute the first single on his new label Scape, which is dedicated to be unequivocally groove-oriented and will be responsible for the new automatica installation of dub music. Apparently, so struck with honor of releasing a single for Pole, Clayton manufactured a strikingly similar sound to Pole's granular synth & digital pixelated dub. An exemplary piece of neo-dub, if uttering a little whisper of hero worship.
Right after the granulated dub single for Pole's record label, the prolific SF electronica artist Kit Clayton (who is also responsible for the Hardwaxish Cytrax label and the stellar Mimic & The Model ep) returns to the Bay Area with this release on Drop Beat. The seductive neo-dub elements of bubbling synths and processed digital distortion submit to a shuffling groove of techno 4/4 syncopations. Andee would call this house (in other words, it's not).
San Francisco based visual artist and composer, Ishan Clemenco, in conjunction with a show at NOMA Gallery has released this special edition 10" on dandelion-yellow color vinyl. Consisting of two pieces, the first, "Afterlight (for Henning Christiansen)" is a 7-minute fragment of a longer work for found pianos. Taken from recordings of pianos found in old churches, music rooms and theatres and atmospherically clustered in soft-focus overlapping arrangements, the cloudlike acoustical effects of layered random pianos creates a gentle building upon of harmonic overtones in an almost raga-like structure that is really quite beautiful.
The B-side, "Untitled (Typewriter), is dedicated to Samuel Beckett and is like the title implies, a work based on the rhythms made on an Hermes "baby" typewriter. Recorded during a residency at The Headlands Center For The Arts, the rhythms of the the taps, spaces and returns (ding!) of the old analog typewriter, based on karnatic musical structures bounce against the former military bunker walls in beautiful reverberations. So nice! Limited to 50 copies, this is a bit on the expensive side, but it is basically a limited edition artwork and they won't be around long. Beautifully packaged with an essay by artist Dean Smith.
A bird of a different feather has joined the formerly very electrono-art-brat-centric label Tigerbeat6. Now based in Oakland, CA these former Minnesotans' sound is one of molasses-thick, raw, churning goth-industrial and post-punk. On this their second release (their first on Tigerbeat6), Clipd Beaks are heavy on the dank gloom and murk, leaving little room for breath. A full length is promised soon. Cool stuff.
Slithering slimily forth from our very own San Franciscan tombs comes this arcane analogue artifact of bestial bewitchment, the debut burnt offering from decrepit black/death/punkers Cloak! Indeed their label Transylvanian Tapes (run by none other than Jimmy from East Bay doomlords/aQ faves Swamp Witch) describes Cloak as "pummeling black/death metal executed by punks", but we would go so far as to describe them as "pummeling black/death metal executed by punks WHO ALSO WORK AT AQUARIUS!!!", since Cloak features our very own Kirk wrenching out malignant bass guitar asphyxiations and general low-end terror! Cloak's debut demo is a writhing, twitching leviathan mass of primitive draconian horror, squirming back and forth between glacial doom-vertigo, shadowy crypt-dwelling death metal buzz, and gutter-crawling crusty grooves. The sound is immediately musty, dusty and cemetarial (Is that word?? It is now!), but remarkably catchy and well recorded. The riffs absolutely infectious, the drums a merciless militaristic pummel, the vocals grotesquely dripping with thick droplets of venom - a mid range throaty rasp as opposed to DM's typical low-end gurgle. But for as simple and primal as Cloak's songs can be, there's also a deadly focus and tightness, a sense of sadistic regal purpose. It's a perfect blend of hazy nightmarish atmosphere, hectic energy and genuine fist-pumping metal intoxication free of gimmicks or tricks - organic, pulsing and suffocating! And having had the privilege of catching them live we can say with confidence that it ain't no studio fluke, Cloak is the real dirty deal. Definitely highly recommended for fans of death and black metal's filthiest crevices. Prepare to succumb!
It makes perfect sense that Closer To Carbon would qualify their experimental-chamber-pop opus II as 'scores for unmade films.' All of these instrumental numbers enjoy a theatrical sentiment, as expressed through a variety of strings plus a cavalcade of junkstore objects whose offkiltered quirkiness add many a Tom Waits / Sleepytime Gorilla Museum reference. When not exploring the eccentrically cinematic, Closer To Carbon finds themselves in much darker waters, more comparable to the maudlin Victorian waltzes of Rasputina.
The local label Out of Round has been laboring quietly in the background, not calling a lot of attention to itself yet turning out record after record that are consistently of similar mood -- due to the fact that they all play on each others recordings. The homegrown label's "sound", then, is one of a grimy circus atmosphere, like Fellini's La Strada if it was set in some dusty corner of an urban American metropolis. There are lots of slowed down polkas and depressed waltz time-signatures, dour vocals, sad accoridans, and dolefully plucked guitars. Great mood music for the Tom Waits fan in all of us who feels like Waits is just too hip for his own good these days.
Check out www.outofroundrecords.com -- we carry all of their releases. For a limited time only, get an out of Round Records label sampler free with purchase of this disc.
Okay, so we have to admit that the first time we listened to this album, a customer was playing the Rastan game at the front of the store. The music from both sources somehow got enmeshed and became one crazy adventure soundtrack!
On its own, Cloud Archive's first album Left The Bright Opening... has its own fair share of epic dynamics. The band draws from some very familiar instrumental post rock traditions -- the loud/quiet bursts, the hypnotic cyclical guitar and basslines -- but they avoid the obstacles of triteness and redundancy. Sometimes it seems like the guitars are escaping in a getaway car separate from the rest of the band, but hang on tight, they weave and roam and find each other again. A terrific debut.
Definitely my favorite cLOUDEAD recording yet. The latest installment of limited 10"s finds them stretching out, mellowing out and getting all stoned/psychedelic/dreamy. Dark and loping with simple hiccupping beats and sinister samples and a gauzy ambience over the whole thing. Super melodic and minor key with lots of scratchy surface noise, background incidental noise and all sorts of mumbling and muttering. Much more song-y than other cLOUDEAD records, sounding almost moody indie rock-ish with the lyrics practically sung instead of rapped. Perfect four in the morning chill out weirdness. So good.
It seems like maybe it was inevitable, but SF's Cloudland Canyon have finally ditched the last remaining trappings of whatever sort of band they may have been before, and now emerged a fully fledged modern day psychedelic krautrocking combo who are masters of their craft. This new super limited, import 12" finds CC exploring that sound, opening with a serious kosmische kraut / new age trip out, a slow building pulsing shimmering synthscape, before driving synths take over and transform the track into a dizzying swirl of looped and arpeggiated synth cascades, cyclical and repetitive, tranced out and mesmerizing, a churning synth swirl beneath a sky full of tangled melodies.
The B side is much more laid back, a woozy cosmic groove with a pulsing house music throb, all swirly and cinematic, until a seriously crunchy beat kicks in, super dubbed out and almost industrial sounding, like some lost DHR jam or maybe early Techno Animal - whatever it reminds you of, it kicks ass, and turns the record into something else entirely. The record begins to wind down in another dizzying sprawl of throbbing synth swirl, this time over a stuttering New Order like beat, and driven by stuttery ethereal vocal loops. Sweet.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. In fact, we have less than ten, and it's very likely these will be the last ones we can get. Pressed on foggy clear vinyl!
The second you drop the needle (or if you prefer the cd format, press the play button) on this puppy it's full speed ahead trash garage rawk action Coachwhips-style. Live, this SF trio are known for sneering and spewing out the blistering basement party tunes with reckless abandon. PBR cans, furniture and limbs a-flailin'! Take this disc home for a sweaty, raw-knuckled, shimmy shakin' good time of your very own. Features a mighty sweet album cover to boot!
God Bless the Coachwhips! The terminal primal garage rock psychotics of John Dwyer (Pink and Brown, OCS, and now Yikes!) receive a final epitaph in this double dose of unreleased songs and b-sides with a DVD of live house party insanity. The Coachwhips as a concept were a live fast die young kind of band (Dwyer's got many hands in many pots to keep Coachwhips going full time), but they were best experienced live. We still have fond memories of seeing Dwyer dance on the fire pit at the Eagle while nonchalantly ripping out some hellish Bo-Diddly style guitar licks and looking at us like "what, this? it ain't no thang". Alas that footage isn't on the DVD, but you do get to see an awesome bar brawl where a dude gets brained by Dwyer's guitar before he gets the Coachwhips beating of his life. If this was on YouTube, we'd watch it a million times. RIP Coachwhips!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Our local troublemakin' party band dish out more lo-fi, stripped-down garage rawk at its trashy finest. Akin to the Gories, or Doo Rag or any of Billy Childish's incarnations. Tinny, distorted Pussy Galore / Jon Spencer-ish vocals issue from the wisecracking mouth of John Dwyer, Valencia Street's answer to Bart Simpson. They put on such a kickass show live, you have to see them if you ever get a chance. If not, you should of course hear them on record, but you won't get as wet with beer, soaked with sweat or kicked in the head with crowd surfers.
New converts to the garage-y goodness of Thee Oh Sees might not remember Oh Sees mainman John Dwyer's former outfit the Coachwhips, who set the template for what would in fact eventually become our beloved Oh Sees. But the Coachwhips were a much more feral proposition, seething sweaty blown out minimal/maximal garage punk stomp. Way back in 2001, here's how we described this fearsome threesome:
John Dwyer. Rhode Island via SF scene fixture, daily aQ-visitor, roundly acknowledged wise ass, some people just know him as "Pink" (of Pink & Brown). As crazy hyper leader of garage-trash trio Coachwhips, he'll twist you around, sass you to your face, make you duck for cover, he'll jump on the tables in a frenzy of just wanting to wake up this town, this scene, our sorry mellow asses. He'll screech into a voicebox and wreak havoc with the guitar while the other John (Harlow) pounds the floor tom and MaryAnn wields the tambourine so hard she might break it. Like Pussy Galore and the Gories ran over the White Stripes in the middle of the road! Grimy three chord rockin' with energy to burn.
And even a decade plus later, this reissued (first time on vinyl!) stuff still sounds so goddamn good. Fierce and fun, wild and loose, sweat soaked and bloody knuckled, a gloriously hyper kinetic, ear drum destroying blast of garage-y goodness that will surely hit the spot for fans of the current crop of SF garage rock combos, and a sweet blast from the past for those of us who were there the first time around! Now includes six "unheard" bonus tracks, and the vinyl comes with a download.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
While this is not the first time we listed Bay Area based art-pop group Coconut, this is the first time the band has made a full length release on vinyl and with their new fully-formed incarnation as a four-piece band. Their cd debut was a sprawling 3 cd set of pop experiments between the two main men, Tomo Yasuda (Tussle, Hey Willpower) and artist and publisher Colter Jacobsen, which was originally intended to be one half of a boxed set that was designed to become an actual box when put together, but that second half never materialized. We guess they have been busy playing a lot more live shows and because of that had to enlist two more full time members, the Japanese keyboardist and vocalist, Keiko and bass player Justin Loney. But this development has given the songs more polish and more dynamic focus, while still keeping a loose and fun playfulness to the proceedings.
The sides of the record are split into day and night moods with the day side featuring covers of Leiber and Stoller's "Searchin' " and a slammin' version of Arthur Russell's post-disco classic "Is It All Over My Face". Like a folkier version of Deerhoof, but also channeling groups such as Young Marble Giants and Slapp Happy, the album is not without its experimental explorations, especially on the "night" side. Such a great and beautifully realized record. Released by Oakland-based art-publishing concern, Land And Sea on various colors of vinyl (we have purple and black swirl vinyl in stock). Limited to 300 copies, and highly recommended!
The first Coconut release, Rain / Cocoanut / Hello Fruity, was a low-key handmade behemoth 3cd-r set that was the first of 2 parts of a planned box set (the idea being that both sets would form a cube. box set, get it?). That quickly sold out and went out of print and while the band tells us the second part is still planned, they are taking their sweet time. The core duo of visual artist Colter Jacobsen and multi-instrumentalist Tomo Yasuda, who also plays bass for Tussle, are busy folks after all, making both art and music, releasing hand-pressed books and exhibiting art or curating shows or touring and playing everywhere in various musical incarnations. They have recently expanded their line-up to a foursome, and released this vinyl debut for local artist-run production house Land and Sea, who make small runs of artist made books and records and plan art-centric gathering events in various places such as the Berkeley Art Museum, the mountains of Ukiah and most recently Grace Cathedral where this 7" was released. Coconut performed with a full choir for that event which was quite beautiful in the setting, with lit candles and a projection of a dark cove looking out toward the ocean behind them. They musically move in many directions from fragile folk songs to chamber pop to more rhythmically inspired mantras and experimental noise excursions, often pulling lyrics from found poems or pop songs that can be quite off the cuff and humorous. For this 7", the two songs are in a folk-pop vein sounding like the mesmerizing Latin-tinged folk of Jose Gonzalez mixed with the angular structures of Deerhoof, or comparable in style to the Tenniscoats and Tape collaborations for which Coconut share similar affinities. These are on "random-colored" vinyl (sort of a washy silvery grey with specks of pinks, blues and greens - each one different) and come in handsewn sleeves with a beautiful nest drawing by Jesse Schlesinger on the cover. Limited to 100, we have 10 and not sure we'll be able to get more. So Nice!
Eschewing the "less is more" aesthetic of most DIY outfits, local SF-based duo Coconut has made an ambitiously beautiful lo-fi debut, comprising of not just one album but three. This would be a big gamble for most bands, but with Coconut, it seems to make sense. You see, Coconut has long been the side project of visual artist and drummer Colter Jacobsen, who also has played in bands Window Window and Steeple Chase and multi-instrumentalist, Tomo Yosuda who is a member of both Tussle and Hey Willpower. Recording at home over a period of three years, Coconut has been the kitchen sink for all the ideas they haven't been able to place in their various other projects: Deconstructed Appalachia guitar, melancholic pop, pretty long-form experimental electronic compositions, disembodied vocals, musique concrete, druggy rhythm excursions, and sprightly angular guitar anthems. It's all here but with a solid consistency throughout that doesn't seem like it's a bunch of one-off ideas. Sort of like Deerhoof meets Gastr Del Sol.
The first of the three discs, Rain, is about 29 minutes, and it's perfect for a rainy day with shimmering electronics, percolating percussive elements and acoustic guitar with far off drifting vocals. Cocoanut (note the added a) is the second disc and is the most far out experimentally especially with the nearly 13 minute electronic mindmelt centerpiece "Dubbud". Running at about an hour, it is also the longest of the three. While the third disc, Hello Fruity, is about 30 minutes and is the most song-oriented, featuring guest appearances from members of Tarentel and Deerhoof. Part overview and part artwork, this 3 cd set is housed in a handmade triple folded cardboard stock with spray painted stenciled images of clouds, crescent moon, and lemon drops and includes a folded insert of drawings and credits. Conceived as half a box set, with another 3 cd set in the works, so that both sets put together will comprise a hand painted cardboard cube. Odd, Sweet, Beautiful, and Totally Recommended!!!!
For those versed in all things Jewelled Antler, Loren Chasse should need no introduction thanks to his magnificent elemental scraping and poetic hymnal minimalism in Thuja, The Blithe Sons, The Franciscan Hobbies, and others. As prolific as Jewelled Antler have been, Loren has somehow still managed to find the time to continue his Coelacanth collaboration with AQ's very own Jim Haynes. There are a lot of similarities between Coelacanth and Jewelled Antler stuff, as Loren and Jim do perform with a mess of rocks, moss, twigs, rust, wind, water, copper, metal, etc. and apply that source material to their own imagined sciences and areas of sound research. Through their expressive performances, hermetic field recordings, and site-specific events, Coelacanth transmits empathic swells of organic textures nestled into immersive droning sounds.
Mud Wall marks the third album for Coelacanth; and rumor has it that Mud Wall may have been partially recorded in what we call "The Slaughterhouse", the storage area behind Aquarius which acts more as a damp repository for grit and dust than for anything macabre. Mud Wall nevertheless is Coelacanth's darkest album to date, begining with intense low rumblings that inevitably give way to sustained tones encrusted with shadowy textures. It's one long 60 plus minute adventure of sonorous physicality, which moves in a number of different directions yet all the while maintains a singleminded focus. So beautiful.
This is actually the second pressing of Mud Wall, and we desperately tried to get our hands of some copies of the first pressing which came out as a CDR on some label from Belgium. That first pressing proved to be prohibitively expensive (who wants to pay $22.00 for a bloody CDR?). Fortunately, the enigmatic Helen Scarsdale Agency, who released Jim's first album Magnetic North, decided to repress Mud Wall as a proper CD. The second pressing is a vast improvement, not only featuring 20 minutes of extra material culled from the original sessions seemlessly interwoven into the composition, but also some very nice silkscreened artwork.
Second release from this droning duo. Coelacanth is our very own Jim Haynes and AQ pal Loren Chasse (Jewelled Antler, Blithe Sons, Thuja, Franciscan Hobbies, Id Battery et al). Four extended tracks of gorgeous space-y drone-y almost-ambience. Forests of cricket-like chirps are blurred into smeary ambient washes of cool greys and pale whites, beneath smatterings of clinking clicking clatter. Keening, indistinct moaning tones sound like distant foghorns, reflected from the slowly shifting terrain. Underwatery warped sonic shudders billow outward as vague melodies drift and float, chiming and reverberating, eventually dissipating into misty clusters of ethereal almost transparent notes. Hissing, fuzzy high end buzz whirs machinelike over industrial clatter that has been smoothed out into pulsing, barely-there rhythms. So so nice. All of the sounds were collected from various public and private Coelacanth performances over the last couple years, before being assembled into the Glass Sponge. Released by local sound art nonprofit 23five.
In the two years since we last heard from Coelacanth, other drone based groups have unleashed hundreds of cd-rs of extended vibrations, treated field recordings, and fucked-up droning noise; and Coelacanth could have easily fallen into that camp, releasing any number of perfectly adequate live recordings. But they didn't. Instead, Loren Chasse (Thuja, Blithe Sons, Of, Child Readers, and many things Jewelled Antler) and aQ's own Jim Haynes chose to labor on the details of their recordings so that every timbre, every drone, and every tactile grain of sound was perfectly aligned with the sounds of their elemental objects and particular environments. In the world of Coelacanth, there are rocks, rust, sand, leaves, strobe lights, weird electrical devices, shortwave, and plenty of oceanic field recordings (in honor of the fish they're named after); and from those sounds, Coelacanth creates multiple layers and deep textures, all together in a mesmerising tapestry of sub-aquatic abstractions and chiming reverberations. Perfecting their tactile dronework was just the beginning in preparing for their fourth album Wrack Light In Copper Ruin, as they also began collaborations with the film/sound artist Keith Evans in finding a visual corrolary for their sonic abstractions, utilizing breathtakingly hypnotic film and video installations to compliment Coelacanth's music and vice versa. Evans is also a member of Silt, a multimedia collective that specializes in elaborate multi-projection / kinetic-sculpture installations -- one of which was featured at the Whitney Biennial back in 2002. Given that Evans has previously worked with Chasse for a Thuja performance in Scotland a couple years back, a Coelacanth / Keith Evans pairing seemed logical.
So, Wrack Light In Copper Ruin is both a CD and DVD, with the audio portion finding Coelacanth not only collaborating with Evans on some of the recordings, but also Matmos who had asked Chasse and Haynes to join them for part of their 96 hours of performances at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Underwater bell tones, raked stringed instruments, ringing glass harmonics, and gaping drones saturated in a density of texture so complex that it almost sounds like an acoustic version of a Fennesz album! The DVD features Evans' jaw-dropping video work: abstract undulating landscapes of refracted light, all scored to a subtle Chasse / Evans remix of the sounds on the CD. The rippled linear patterns seem innocuous at first; but like the hypnotic primal power of fire, it totally sucks you in. So gorgeous!
A sort of companion to Cohen's recent Magic Trick solo full length on Captured Tracks, which was less a solo record, and more of a new band record, that new band being his 'Magic Trick' who also back him up here, on this double 7", and like the full length, the sound is definitely closely related to that of his other band the Fresh & Onlys, a gorgeous collection of lush mini pop epics, that range from classic jangle, to woozy balladry, reverb drenched countryish twang to fuzzy indie jangle, bouncy, hazy folky strum to gloomy post punk pop. And the thing is, whatever Cohen and crew decide to do, somehow it works, and sounds amazing, Cohen's deft popsmithery is pretty much unrivalled these days, with a release schedule that by all rights should have made us sick to death, but instead, we can barely get enough, every new record, a new collection of perfect(ly imperfect) pop, that will remain stuck in our heads until the next batch.
There are lots of highlights here, the raspy voiced, shimmery strummy drift of "Delicate Creatures", the Johnny Cash-esque, swaggery twang flecked shuffle of "Doctor, Doctor", the gloomy new wave-y brooder "Purpose In Life", and the sixties dream folk jangle of "Rock Bottom"... Like we said, it's all good, and even still we find ourselves, hankering for more. Luckily we probably won't be waiting long...
Yet another new release from the uber prolific Mr. Tim Cohen, who, when he's not fronting aQ faves the Fresh & Onlys, jamming out massive space drug epics with 3 Leafs, or blasting away mysteriously as black metal one man band Amocoma, finds time to make solo records too, like this one, with his OTHER band Magic Trick. And as you might imagine, the sound of TC's Magic Trick doesn't veer to far from the sound of the F+O, if anything, the sounds and songs here are more varied, less overtly garage rocky, and more personal, like experiments, but experiments suggests there's some risk of failure, some chance said experiment will fail, and as we know by now, Cohen's deft hand at popsmithery makes that pretty unlikely. And TCMT does seem to extend his streak, with another collection of perfect(ly off kilter) pop songs, from simple shuffly jangle, to pulsing electronic moody new wave, from brooding dour acoustic folkiness to sixties style sunshiney Spector-ish fuzz, often weaving all of those disparate sounds and styles together. Hazy reverby guitars drift under deep crooned vox, muted electronic pulses drive a warm liquid basslines, synths swirl and soar, female back up vox offer up angelic harmonies, Cohen's vocals getting better and better, rough and ragged one second, warm and smooth the next, and often slipping into a sweet falsetto, the songs too, with every record seeming to become more and more well crafted, a practically perfect assemblage of unlikely parts, surprising melodies, lush textures, quirkly electronics, multiple vocal parts, but none of those distracting from Cohen's vision, just adding to it, woven into a smooth, warm, shimmery, jangly dream poppy whole. Nice!
As if fronting super hyped garage rockers the Fresh & Onlys wasn't enough, or being the one man in one man weirdo black metal horde AmocomA, or playing in Black Fiction and Three Leafs or any of a number of other local bands, or even being the back up band for psych rock legend Rodriguez, well, apparently none of that is enough, as here's a brand new full length from Mr. Tim Cohen, he of all the above mentioned rockness.
The Two Sides seems to focus on another side of Cohen we've only gotten little glimpses of, and that's the classic popsmith. And yeah, classic pop sounds infuse pretty much everything he does (heck, even AmocomA has a distinctly pop vibe), but this is definitely his 'pop' record, a sort of lo-fi, ramshackle, home brewed psychedelic Pet Sounds for the current landscape of FM radio revivalists, a la Ariel Pink, Ty Segall, etc. But where Pink is truly drug addled and twisted, and Segall tends towards the slightly more rocking, Cohen here is emotional and sincere, the lyrics plenty twisted and bizarre, the music fractured and freaky, but it's all wound into something definitely classic sounding, Beach Boys, Beatles, of course, but more than the sound it's the vibe and the feel, as folky as it is classic rock, poppy all over, slipping effortlessly from moody and brooding almost Nick Drake sounding intimacy, to surprisingly lush almost radio ready old school FM pop. The vocals drift from softly sung spoken to soaring falsetto, wrapping themselves up in sweet harmonies, the musical backdrop more subtle than one might expect, intricate acoustic guitars, muted percussion, everything stripped down and wreathed in reverb and delay, a low key fuzzy psych pop, that will definitely appeal to the current crop of retro lo-fi drug poppers, but is way less willfully obscure, tapping into something a bit more classic, a bit more timeless.
Super nice packaging, thick eye popping sleeve, inside a printed lyric sheet, as well as an insert, with the code so you can download the whole record, as well as a bunch of digital only bonus tracks!
We were sad to learn of Grass Widow's break-up after releasing their amazing Internal Logic album back in 2012. Though they are calling it a "hiatus", we're pretty much convinced it's over. Time will tell. Anyway, bass player and vocalist Hannah Lew has spent the past year forming a new band that shares Grass Widow's penchant for enchanting harmonies and song-craft but wrapped in a tighter, sharper and much darker package. Cold Beat reshapes the dark post-punk drive of Joy Division and The Sound with haunting but infectious vocal harmonies and melancholic imagery in a more metallic polished gloss. Like The Mallard's last record, Finding Meaning In Deference, Cold Beat inject a dose of off-kilter energy and damaged beauty into their debut that sets it apart and gives it a fresh feel, like a brand new scar.
While Grass Widow are on a hopefully temporary hiatus, bass player and singer Hannah Lew is staying busy with her brand new outfit Cold Beat. Worms/Year 5772 is their punchy debut single and it's augmented by a remix of each track by Pow! and Mikey Young respectively. Cold Beat has a harder driving beat and garagier gloss than Grass Widow, but the dreamy vocal harmonies of that band have translated over well to this new project.
We're assuming they borrowed their name from a song by the post-punk band The Sound who had similar affinities with guitar driven urgency and high energy rhythms. The remixes mechanize the music by switching out the guitars with synths and providing a dreamier and poppier sheen to the songs. Looking forward to hearing more from this group for sure!
Anthem collects two sets of long out-of-print 3" inch singles from Joe Colley's earlier days, right after he shed the Crawl Unit moniker in the early oughts. There's the titular track which was originally released on C.I.P, which came out in 2001 and which we had been able to stock back in the day through Mr. Colley himself. The flipside contains all of the material from the uncomfortably packaged triple-business-card cd-r entitled Triptych For Paranoia Calibration, released through the terminally underground California noise label Banned Productions. The first side, subtitled "Static For Empty Life", lifts itself out of deep rumblings with streaming, cold gray ribbons of electrical fizzings that subtly phase across the stereo field. These physically active drones build up to a sublime chorus of electrical field hummings, that deflate into silence before throbbing mechanical stabs of low-bit-rate noise drive to the end of the piece. Where moments of "Anthem" are relatively placid and almost pretty (for a Joe Colley track, that's saying something!), "Triptych" is a torturous affair of brutalist squiggles, damaged circuit-bending techniques, mistreated electronics, and dead-line tones, all of which get caught in out of phase tape loops. Brilliantly toxic work, as always. Limited to just 200 copies.
If you hold the cover at just the right angle, a misanthropic and self-loathing text emerges from what might appear at first to be simply just another austere, all white package housing another austere album of micro-glitch minimalism. This well-executed design strategy (courtesy of Randy Yau) works to complement Joe Colley's subversive agenda, which even ends up undermining his own intentions. For all of the macho posturing of the text (e.g. "REMEMBER HOW WE DESTROYED THE THINGS THAT MADE US HAPPY AND HOW WE STILL DO? LETS DAMAGE EACH OTHER BEYOND REPAIR..." and so on) and the opening 8 second jolt of unneccessary noise, Colley's sound constructions speak of an inquisitive spirit. Throughout this record, Colley pokes and prods various sonic-making situations that often hold fascinating textural detailings. The most obvious example of this is found in his recordings of water being absorbed by modelling clay, which results in a dense chorus of tiny squeaks and squiggles. Colley almost allows himself to be seduced by these sounds; but just before he does, that misanthropic urge deep within his being instructs him to obliterate those curious textures though harsh digital noises, piercing arpeggiations, and noxious jump-cuts. This strategic hammering of sound certainly keeps the listener alert to what may be coming next; thus making the intricate detail work far more enjoyable... if "enjoyable" can in fact be a description attributed to Colley's solo output or his earlier work as Crawl Unit.
Some 10 years ago, there was Joe Colley hulking over a four-track on the floor of 964 Natoma - a performance space in San Francisco that hosted the monthly Field Effects series by Aaron Ximm (aka Quiet American). Ximm populated the very large loft in that converted autobody shop into one of the best places to experience live music, by encouraging the audience to sprawl out on futons, couches, bean bags, and pillows in order to better zone-out and focus on the sounds at hand. While much of the work that Ximm would curate focused on sound ecology and phonography, he would bring in some more intense acts such as R.H.Y. Yau & Scott Arford's legendary Infrasound, Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson, and Joe Colley. At the time of this performance in 2002, Colley was just starting to record under his own name after a stint using the far more abject moniker Crawl Unit. As the explosive and negating power of his earlier noise constructions matured into complex, more conceptual pieces, Colley began to develop into something akin to the Bruce Naumann of sound art - with repetitive, occasionally self-destructive actions that investigated psychological, behavioral, and cultural codes.
"Lonely Microphone" is a reconstruction from the original tape-piece that Colley presented at 964 Natoma; and our memory of the night doesn't recall much more than the view of the lumbering Colley crouched over his gear and the impact of his signature jolts of sonic juxtaposition. Here, Colley masterfully puts together an album that looks to the woolly electronic scrabblings of David Tudor, the expressive environmental collage work of Eric La Casa, and the dead-line feeds of CM von Hausswolff. Ugly buzzes from gutted consumer electronics, terse piezo chirps, blasts of wind-shearing noise, monstrous din from some infernal machine belching beneath the San Francisco urbane crust, and plenty of watery field recordings threatening to short out Colley's haphazardly constructed microphones and hand-soldered circuits. That sense of threat is a constant in Colley's work, the threat of disaster, the threat that nothing will be resolved, the threat of another dead end, the threat that 'no' might be the only answer. "Lonely Microphone" is one of the more subtle presentations of Colley's work, and more self-contained than the post-structuralist ellipsis of his opus "Disasters Of Self." Recommended as with pretty much everything he's ever done.
Earlier in 2006, Joe Colley won an Award of Distinction at the 2006 Prix Ars Electronica in Digital Music for his album Psychic Stress Soundtracks. The jurors of Ars Electronica grafted a political sentiment onto Colley's work by drawing parallels between Psychic Stress Soundtracks and the use of extreme sound as a method of interrogation pushed to the brink of what can be defined as torture under the Geneva Convention. While Colley's previous work has intentionally blurred the boundaries between noise, sound research, and psychology, all of his investigations (including Psychic Stress Soundtracks) appear as exercises in self-negation and existential failure manifested through maltreated electronics (as opposed to what those at Ars Electronica saw in his work as a mimetic work of external horror). Waste Of Songs is a blunt follow up to Psychic Stress Soundtracks, and true to Colley's demeanor, he's not particularly inclined to resolve any questions about the intentions of his album or its relation to the outside world. Rather, it's another brilliantly executed album of his own "negative reactions to an environment" as realized through jittering electronic feedback, overdriven servo-motors smoldering with too much voltage pushed through their dynamos, volatile drones extracted from the ether, and field recordings rendered toxic with choice use of DSP treatments. The exact synthesis between Xenakis' precision and Wolf Eyes' malaise; yeah, that's close enough to describing this. Highly recommended.
Having put their post-rock orchestrations on hold for the time being, the members of San Francisco's Tarentel have been exploring a number of divergent musical ideas. Guitarist Jefre Cantu has spent his sabbatical from the group exploring the arenas of digital abstraction in tinkering around with Max / MSP. Sometimes Cantu has been found working under the moniker Joshua Torres for more rhythmic pursuits and under Colophon for the atmospheric work. "Spring" - a 10" released on the promising Dreams By Degrees label - is the first recording that Cantu has done for either project, blurring spartan piano clusters and acoustic guitar samples from the other Tarentel guitarist Danny Grody. Following the lead of fellow dreamy code-slingers Ekkehard Ehlers and Stephan Mathieu, Cantu transforms his source material into a beautiful pixelated ambience haunted with residual melodies and distant rhythms. While this artful 10" is a very nice addition to anybody's collection of Ehlers and Mathieu, its scary to think about how good Tarentel will be if they manage to synthesize Cantu's newfound laptop abilities with Tarentel's rock expansiveness.
We love when folks usually associated with a certain sound and style step out and show off a different part of their make-up. Best known as the drummer for the mighty Comets On Fire, Utrillo Kushner lets his breezy sunny side shine through with his new project Colossal Yes. Perfect for those lazy days when all you wanna do is lay in the grass and stare into the rays of the sun. With really well crafted songs that incorporate lush piano into a more traditional folk/rock mix, this has made us think of the prime pop of Elephant Six related bands, early Mercury Rev, a dash of Beachwood Sparks' relaxed twang, a hint of Vetiver, the blissed out mellow hooks of Mojave 3 and the warmth of early 70's Beach Boys. There is a level of confidence in the playing that helps make this record flow so seemlessly and rise above so many others outfits going for this same sound and style with less satisfying results. Nice stuff!
Here's ten more piano-pop gems from Colossal Yes. Both catchy and somehow laid back, this is a record for outdoor barbeques and conversations with old friends. Not overly sappy, the record walks right through sweetness and sentimentality and emerges on the other side without the ickyness of either. The ubiquitous vocal/piano/guitar combination is fleshed out nicely with the occasional flute, organ or horn, especially noticeable in "They Feast on Us / We Feed on Them" and the penultimate jazzy track, "Outskirts of Radiant". Listening to the album on headphones (always recommended) allows the give and take between guitar (panned left) and piano (panned right) to stand out. Although at times the mix feels like the piano and guitar are fighting amongst themselves for sonic hegemony, they usually compliment each other in a way that shows quality musicianship and songwriting.
We've yet to list anything from these Bay Area emo/screamo killers, which is a shame cuz these guys SLAY. Every thing we've heard from them, has been practically perfect. Heavy, mathy, complex, melodic, epic and brutal and emotional and LOUD. The songs are short and super intricate, with tons of parts, lots of stop/starts, the sound somehow chaotic but still ultra tight, the drums wild, all over the place, the vocals very raw and raspy and Rites Of Spring-ish, in fact in some ways, Comadre sound like a revved up super charged RoS or Fugazi, which is most definitely not a bad thing. And besides the -sound-, they whip up incredibly catchy songs too, hooks galore, totally unforgettable melodies, jamming more into 90 seconds than most band can pull off in 10 minutes, the sort of sound that hints at insane, sweat soaked, stage collapsing live shows, that energy captured surprisingly well on wax!
If you dig stuff like Pianos Become The Teeth, Orchid, Mohinder, The Locust, and classic emo/punk like Fugazi and Rites Of Spring and Embrace and all that stuff, you should definitely check these guys out!
The final missive / swansong from this long running Bay Area emo/screamo outfit, and like the records we've reviewed before from these guys, it's another dense, mathy, moody, super heavy, crazy catchy, intricate and emotional blast of post hardcore heaviness/hookiness that KILLS, and once again has us wondering why they weren't way more huge. And while much of the ferocious energy of their early releases is still present, there definitely seems to be a more pronounced pop/melodic element. Even on tracks like "Cold Rain", it's mostly just the shrieked vox that make this screamo or emo, otherwise, it's more some sort of super poppy crazy catchy post punk, with a main guitar hook that kills, and a bouncy crunchy main riff that would be just as at home in a proper pop song. And while these guys always had a pop element, this time around, they've cranked the pop through the roof, and that poppiness is literally all over the place, which makes it even more of a tragedy that this is the last we'll hear from these guys. And sure there are some tracks that are way more rocking and punky, furious and fierce, but even at their most aggro, the sound is shot through with a poppiness they just can't seem to shrug off, but who says they even want too, the combination of shrieked chaotic heaviness, lilting melodies, weird electronics, occasional piano, organ, driving rhythms, and hooks galore, seriously tough to beat. So catchy and crunchy and heavy and so goddamn good. RIP Comadre.
Vinyl version comes in a thick gatefold sleeve, pressed on 180 gram wax, with a big 12" x 12" booklet, the cd version in a digipak.
