Not actually for sale 'til Tuesday (10/12), but if you want one then we can hold it for ya...
Yet another fantastic new record from these SF garage poppers, they really crank em out, but hell, every record is jammed with fuzzy jangly crazy catchy perfect pop, so we're sure as heck not complaining. Especially with the band's recent trajectory, their sound getting darker and more melancholy, without losing any of its inherent fuzziness or hookiness. Like on their last record, Play August In My Mind, Play It Strange continues to nudge their core sound, a sort of classic sixties tinged garage/powerpop, all ooooh's and aaaah's and simple rhythms and lush organs and sweet harmonies and big guitars, into territories much more murky and not so nearly sunshiney, adding lots of melancholy minor key mystery, plenty of twang, brooding moodiness, reminding us of classic gloom rockers like the Wipers and Kommunity FK, but also of groups like the Leaving Trains or the Hoodoo Gurus, the result a fantastically moody dark retro jangle garage pop shot through with bits of more classic pop sounds, a la the Zombies, but on first listen this totally sounds like it could have come from LA circa 1985, like these guys could have been playing the Scream club with Tex & The Horseheads, Jesus And Mary Chain and the Abecedarians, plenty of post punk jangle mixed in with that sixties shimmer, the vocals deeper and more dramatic this time around, some of the songs sounding like old school sixties pop ballads, while others still brim with plenty of hazy reverb, crunchy guitar, woozy organ, tribal drumming and big hooks.
Yet another new record from SF's own Fresh & Onlys, and another fantastic batch of moody, melancholy jangle pop, and while it's hard to know what else to say about these guys, what with them seeming to release a new record practically every month, the minute we get an earful of the latest record, all we wanna do is forget all that and get lost in the new set of songs, mainman Tim Cohen's reservoir of classic pop songs still seemingly bottomless. And with every record, we find ourselves proclaiming some song their best yet, or a new favorite, and hare to say it but we're about to do it again. The title track here is practically perfect, Cohen's deep reverby croon, laid atop a low slung post punk bassline, wrapped in chiming guitars, the production lush and polished, but still quirky, with huge swaths of sound dropping out to let a little guitar lick float all on its own, before the band launch right back in, bit and bombastic. Catchy and hook, broody and darkly dreamy.
The rest of the ep is just as good, the songs ranging from twangy organ driving strum (sounding a bit like Calexico actually), to hazy, melodic sixties dream pop shuffle, and from moody lilting garage-y jangle pop, to moody, murky, dark doleful dirge, the last song "Poison WIne" definitely one of our new F&O favorites, bombastic, lush and buzzy, the refrain a haunting descending minor key melody, the bass thick and fuzzy, the guitars crunchy, the vox weary and washed out, one of their darkest yet, and yeah, we know, but still, maybe one of their best. As always, recommended!
On vinyl only via this 12" ep, some fine new material from these local indie pop faves, following in the footsteps of last year's Long Slow Dance full-length. Once again, well-written, upbeat catchiness, mostly sunshiney, very sixties smooth, classic-sounding stuff. Gotta hand it to the F&O gents, they're good at this! So for your melodic indie rock needs, it's easy to predict that Soothsayer's six songs will fit the bill.
Handnumbered edition of 500 by the way.
What else can we say about these local garage pop masters that we haven't already? Every record just gets better and better, and with a release rate that's starting to get Guided By Voices prolific, the quality of songs has not suffered one bit. And not only do the songs sound great, but the records do too, this one recorded in a proper studio and produced by Phil Manley of Trans Am.
The new sound suits the new songs too, hardly garage pop anymore really, just classic kick ass popsmithery, super hooky, the vocals way up front in the mix, all the instruments lush and layered, a classic power pop made modern, with gorgeous vocals from Tarnation's Paula Frazer. Somehow leaves us still wanting more more more!!
Lately some of our favorite San Francisco musical minds have also added record label mogul to their resumes. John Dwyer launched Castle Face records to start putting out Oh Sees records and of course he released that Ty Segall full length which we are so in love with. Also newly a record label head is Kelly Stoltz (responsible for recording the latest Oh Sees album, as well as crafting some of the finest pop songs your ears are likely to hear). Chuffed is the name of his new label and The Fresh & Onlys kick things off with a debut 7" that's sure to please garage rock fans and lo-fi pop enthusiasts. Many folks might have seen the band play live without even knowing it, as they were picked to be the backing band for the legendary performance in town recently by Rodriguez in support of the reissue of his amazing album Cold Fact. Loyal AQ list readers will also be familiar with Tim from the other bands he also plays in: 3 Leafs, Black Fiction and others. Makes perfect sense that they are about to tour with Thee Oh Sees and that their full length will be on Dwyer's label, as these four songs are chock full of fuzzy hooky and raw garage pop spirit.
BACK IN PRINT!!!
Most folks will probably be grabbing this for the F+O's tracks, but we're pretty blown away by Dan Melchior, and his awesomely super distorted garage pop, like Elvis Costello, all jammed up and slathered in crumbling hiss and grit, the vocals delivered in a thick English accent, the drums blown out, effcts all over the place, everything buried beneath a patina of blurred buzz, but the songs themselves, total classic power pop, Costello, Nick Lowe, that sort of thing, opener "Daylight Robbery" is a definite contender for pop jam of the year, with a main hook / melody that will stick with you like crazy. And yeah, we know he's been making record for years, but somehow this is one of the first times we've heard him. We're definitely gonna do some digging into Melchior's back catalog. You probabaly will too after hearing this...
The Fresh & Onlys hold their own just fine thank you, with frantically strummed acoustic guitars, skiffly drums, reverbed vox, and two of their best songs yet, both channeling a sound similar to Melchior's, but with a bit more of an American nineties indie rock vibe, lo-fi, but weirdly lush, killer choruses, the sound warm and washed out, some cool sixties girl group back up vocals, the second track definitely getting all Spector-ish and reminding us quite a bit of Thee Oh Sees. Good stuff. And probably limited too...
Early last year Mr. Frillici dropped off a disc for us to check out. We asked him to bring in a batch. We haven't seen or heard from him since then... until now. Here is the result of what apparently has been six years spent crafting, fine-tuning and fleshing out each song. The first couple of songs twinkle and sway gently along the dreamy lines of Dean Wareham and his band Luna. It'd be darn dandy if the whole album simply continued along that path, but suddenly at the third song he shifts dramatically taking us into some Beck-ish horn-laden funkiness. Then we noticed that there are nineteen songs on this album (!), and we anticipated that Frillici might have much more in store for us... and we were right! He fit in some mellow downtempo shufflin', a rockin' guitar noodly rave up to boot, an interstellar Flaming Lips-esque jaunt, some very very Brian Wilson-y grand pop, and some quirky King Missile style storytelling about a fella who ate his own finger (and that's only at the halfway point). An impressive debut filled with a startling array of pop adventures.
Local favorites release another album of quirky, deconstructed indie rock filled with emotion. The die cut cd cover is sooooo cool.
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Newest Matador signing and local AQ-favorites release another excellent two songs.
24 glorious tracks from SF's favorite hushed indie rock combo, who've recorded for Matador and Smells Like. Their magic is heavily evident here, on this album of rarities, singles tracks and live stuff. Fuck are restrained yet shambolic and melodic yet
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With the lovely packaging you've come to expect from San Francisco's Fuck, their first cd is a pleasure to hear. 9 songs, including 2 of the best from their pair of self-released singles.
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I'm embarrassed to say it took a few months for me to realize the brilliance of this album, but better late blah blah blah... This is stark and understated pop, nothing sweet about it, quiet and intense. Unpredictable in the best ways, like a song will be building up up up to a soft climax, only to have the bass stop at crucial moment -- it's that kind of beauty. Definitely for fans of Palace and early Pavement, I cannot recommend them, one of SF's best local bands, more highly. Packaged in a (pre-June of 44) matchbook cover with nice Fuck sticker.
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Mysterious posthumous release of this irrepressible SF speed-punk-metal sect's entire recorded output. Led by the fearless SF scenester Matt Shapiro. Seriously in your (fuck)face. With a splatter of sampled dialogue. Mass unbridled thrashing and nudity abound. Watch the opposition cower in their boots.
The one, the only, the...fucking...Champs! After three years, finally we get their second album (called "IV" on account of the couple of cassette releases that preceded "III"). Ok. Here's the run down, for those who do and who don't know the Champs (and to know them is to love them): they're a trio, they have two guitarists very interested in harmonies, but no bassist, they have song titles like "These Glyphs Are Dusty" and "Thor Is Like Immortal", they play metal but pass it off as indie rock in order to be popular (hey, they're on Fucking Drag City), and they are primarily an instrumental band. Oh, and they have lots of self-imposed problems with their name, always worried about being confused with those "Tequila" oldsters. This time, they're the FUCKING Champs (I prefer: The C'fuckin'hamps myself), but you've probably run across that amazing "III" record by C4AMP5, it's the same band of course. So, how's the new album? Well, it rules. It's a lot shorter than "III" (which was a double LP for goshsakes) at 38 minutes, and pretty much each and every one of those minutes is packed with Thin Lizzy/Maiden/Metallica/Van Halen lovin' genius. There's a lot less of the techno keyboard interludes that they did on "III", this has its gentle moments but none of that Trans Am-ish stuff. (Although it is on current heavy rotation in Windy's 1980 Firebird Trans Am, hey! ) It's also a bit poppier, on the whole. And in another brilliant move the Champs make you wait until the very last song ("Extra Man") to hear vocals. Drummer Tim Soete's vocals and the catchiness of the tune are certainly manifestations of their Thin Lizzy worship, but, being the Champs, even this vocal cut has a lot of instrumental sections, including a lengthy bit in the middle that seems dropped in from a hypothetical black metal math rock record. You'll be playing it over and over again, along with the rest of the disc. The Champs are probably the best (=least boring) post-rock band in the world, 'cause they're in fact a METAL band.
(And let's face it guys, if you're not metal, then you're a novelty act...but if one indie rock kid gets into Thin Lizzy or Carcass 'cause of The Champs, then more power to 'em!) Recommended, if you hadn't guessed! The perfect back-to-school rock soundtrack.
Fuckin' fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Fuckin' A. These guys rule. Yeah, the name change was stupid, but this, their second album for Drag City as The "Fucking" Champs *does* make you think such basic, expletive-laden, fists in the air, devil-horn sign waving thoughts. Fuck yeah! The Fucking Champs. Indeed. And even if Drag City (as a part of the "joke" presumably) won't let it be known that The Champs play METAL (or maybe it's the band's idea to keep that a 'secret' on their press material, preferring the term "total music"), they are a -for real- metal band. A weird one, and a great one. Now, I do worry for The Champs' sake that their instrumental math-metal virtuosity is enjoyed mainly as a novelty by their legions of ironic indie-rock fans...and if so, how many of these fans are going to be interested in "VI", "VII" and "VIII" when they come out? 'Cause "V", their latest, sees these lads go from strength to strength without significantly altering or diluting their vision. If you already love the Champs, you'll love "V" for sure, it's a lot like "IV" but without the one song with vocals found on that album (c'mon Tim Soete, sing!!). Also there's more fusion and classical moves on here -- one song is listed as copyright 1723 J.S. Bach ("Air On A G-String", which IS Johan's original title, although we were suspicious).
Indeed, within their distinctive sound, variety abounds on "V", from "I Am The Album Cover" which channels the techno-blues rockisms of late-period ZZ Top, to the Frippertronics-ish-isms elsewhere. There's also a bit of electronic tunesmithery that's so much better than anything they did in their collaboration with Trans Am. But that's no big stretch for this band, and for the most part "V" is heavy, rockin' Champs-at-their-best stuff, the trio dealing out rapid, tense riffing, no-denying-it's-metal-lic sheets of sound, and hard hitting drum filigree left right and center. Familiar faves previously only heard live and on old demo cassettes also appear. Melody and math and metal intertwine wonderfully over the fifteen tracks found here, and it's so good it's no joke. No more of a joke than, say, Hammers of Misfortune is (think about it).
That's the deal with the Champs. There's nothing inherently funny about their music (in fact, without vocals/lyrics, they're LESS funny than many of their influences, like Carcass and Metallica). Maybe that's why they like that "total music" tag. 'Cause at the end of the day, they make this music, and you listen to it, for the sake of the music alone, not for some post-hip, ironic, spoof-on-metal hilarity. I mean, a few of the song titles are amusing, but you also know they kind of mean stuff like "Hats Off To Music". No joking here, really. (But we do have to ask Josh Smith about The Guitar That Was Made Of Water that he has listed in his vast equipment array, among other things...)
Anyway, in sum: another winner from one of our all-time favorite bands!!
You can always rely on The Fucking Champs. Even after a several-year recording/touring hiatus, during which time drummer Tim Soete and guitarist Tim Green had to face a major lineup change -- replacing founding member guitarist Josh Smith (now in mod garage trio The Makes Nice) with Trans Am's Phil Manley -- they've come back to follow up 2002's V with the boldly titled VI and it's like they've never been gone. True they kept their hand in with 2004's Fucking Am album. But still, it's nice to have them back and doing what they do best, which is making Fucking Champs music. Phil fills Josh's shoes with aplomb, fitting in with the two Tims like the old friend and excellent musician that he is. So no problem there.
With renewed fire, VI demonstrates that the Champs really have created a sound unique unto themselves. Say what you will about ironic hipster metal irony gimmickry (no vocals, no bass, nerdy humor), the truth is that you know the Champs when you hear 'em. Sure it's easy to spot the influence of their childhood metal heroes (Metallica, Maiden, Lizzy, Carcass...) but what they really sound like is The Fucking Champs. And not too many bands can claim that they sound most like themselves. And that it's such a damn good sound!! Their majestic harmonies ascend to heaven borne on shafts of light, their chunky "dahdahdah" riffs require immediate and incessant headbanging, their sleek melodies always catch the ear, and their mathy arrangements dizzy and dazzle. Whether in the long run they were smart or not to market themselves mainly to the indie-rock crowd rather than the metal underground remains to be seen. Some might argue that they've painted themselves into a corner, but it's a corner we love to visit!!
Leading of with indeed very Champsy "The Loge" (already heard on Kemado's Invaders compilation btw), VI runs the gamut of Champsy treats and tricks. There's uptempo party rockers that are actually gorgeous prog epics in disguise ("A Forgotten Chapter In The History Of Ideas"), a few gently spacey keyboardy interludes ("Insomnia", "The Crystal Behind You"), even some lovely, lush quasi-Zep folkiness ("Dolores Park"). And of course plenty more powerful, Champsy compositions showcasing fretboard acrobatics, precision drum battery and stop on a dime tightness. About the only thing long-time Champs fans (like us) are going to find disappointing about this record is that, well, we were hoping Tim Soete would step out from behind his drum kit and SING at least one song here, we love his voice. But he doesn't. Oh well maybe next time he'll go for it and give us another "Extra Man" or "Summer Knights". Instead, Neil Hamburger's voice appears somewhere on here...
By the way, stay tuned at the end of the cd for the "hidden" track of chopped up studio chatter / repetitive riff collage. Brought a smile to our faces, might have been even funnier if they whould have started the record off with it!!
The SF indie label Kimosciotic run by Le Flange Du Mal's Chris Rolls is a hard one to pin down. In the last five years he's offered up the soul'n'hip hop of DJ Unagi, the electro-disco-bizarro of Crack We Are Rock, the atmospheric electronics of Not Breathing and the scuzz murk art rawk of Ezeetiger. One of the few common links we've been able to sleuth out is that many of the artists seem to have a penchant for costumes, disguises and devil-may-care attitude. Now get a load of Fuckwolf, Kimosciotic's latest release. They fit right in! From the looks of the photos in the insert, medical masks, wigs, coveralls, a lemon tree, sunglasses, a reel-to-reel, drums, electric guitar and bass all came into play during the recording of this cd. Some degree of propulsiveness lurks within and seeps out occasionally, but the overall results are a molten sludge filth stew that draws equal influence from the industrial and no-wave music of the '70s and '80s.
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It's taken us a while to get enough of these in to list, but it was well worth the wait, the debut full length from this Bay Area metal crust thrash outfit which features our pal Josh Smith, formerly of legendary SF black metal horde Weakling as well as the Fucking Champs and garage popsters the Makes Nice, as well as members of Face Down In Shit and Look Back And Laugh. The label has this to say about Futur Skullz: "They wish they sounded like Anti Cimex crossed with Whiplash, but in reality they probably sound more like Bad Brains and Metallica.", which we're guessing is a (not so?) humble way of saying they sort of sound like all of those. The Metallica thing is big for sure, but we're talking Kill Em All of course, the same sort of classic thrash riffing, plenty of chug, and some surprising hookiness, but the crust element is pretty huge too, which ultimately might eclipse their metal side. Are they punky metal, or metallic punk? Hardly matters really, the songs are heavy and metallic enough that most metalheads should be too busy headbanging to debate the finer subtleties, while this is definitely punk enough to hit the spot for the same folks who have been digging Acephalix, No Funeral, and the most recent spate of Southern Lord signees, all of which seems to be crust punk.
Did we mention solos? Smith gets to unleash the beast as they say, spitting off some seriously shredding solos, which definitely up the metal ante, and are Futur Skullz major selling point, but then that's all balanced by the vocals, a painful glass gargling throat shredding below that goes from gruff howl to near hysterical shriek.
Heavy as fuck and totally kick ass, and thus recommended for metalheads and punks alike.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, vinyl only, includes a download coupon.
Second in a new series of live records from John Dwyer's Castle Face records, the first being the recent live White Fence set captured just a few blocks down from aQ at the Amnesia (formerly the Chameleon), and now this, a kick ass smoker of a set from Ty Segall's -other- band Fuzz, whose debut we made our Record Of the Week recently, and whose sound is more like sixties psych meets seventies proto metal, super Blue Cheer-y, all fuzzed out, heavy, and spacey. There's lots of wild and chaotic drumming (courtesy of Segall, who mans the kit, while somehow handling vox too) along with some insane guitar shreddery, courtesy of Charlie Mootheart of the Moonhearts and Segall's band proper, who somehow melds classic rock crunch with blown out, cosmic, brain melting Hendrixian Hawkwindian howl. Live they're even MORE fierce, caught here in the act at local leather-daddy dive the SF Eagle, and on Segall's birthday too (the crowd sings happy birthday, and Segall gets a cake and blows out the candles mid-song!!).
Needless to say, if you dug the Fuzz full length, odds are you're probably gonna want this too, the songs way more loose and raw, stretched WAY out (only four songs!), the sound noisy and fuzzy and in your face, the band are on fire, it's the sort of sweat drenched, blood soaked blowout that deserves to be preserved for all of eternity. Dig it! And if you get the chance, don't miss these guys next time they play in your neck of the woods. Give this a listen and you'll understand why...
For a while the identity of this local garage fuzz combo was a big mystery, and the group's first single disappeared in a heartbeat, multiple pressings gone before you know it, with most of those ending up on eBay for stupid amounts of money. At that point we still hadn't actually heard Fuzz, but they were rumored to be like a garage rock Black Sabbath, and to include some local garage rock bigwig. Well, the second part definitely proved to be true, as Fuzz was revealed to be none other than Ty Segall and a couple of his pals, kicking out jams, a bit more heavy and fuzzed out (so much so that it even spawned a custom Fuzz distortion pedal!). And while it might not quite be Sabbathy, it is pretty fierce and fuzzed out, blown out and super rocking, with big chunky chugging riffs, and LOADS off fuzz (obviously), and yeah, the vibe IS sorta sixties/seventies proto metal, wild drumming (courtesy of Segall, who mans the kit here, while Charlie Moothart handles the axework), a little bit progged out, the recording super hot and in-the-red, and the songs, both of 'em here, could almost be lost proto metal artifacts, the B side in particular, has a serious "Godzilla" vibe, a lumbering, churning BIG riff crunch, peppered with slithery psychedelic breakdowns, which continually explode into wild proto metal freakouts, and it's not that difficult to imagine these guys, and these songs on one of those seventies TV shows, where the band plays on a stage, while trippy primitive video FX swirl all around them. Needless to say, it's fuzzy, crunchy, heavy and hooky, Ty Segall fans who aren't already hip to these guys, here's your chance, and anyone else into the current crop of garage fuzz locals (Thee Oh Sees, Segall, Mikal Cronin, Blasted Canyons, etc.) these guys might be your new favorites. And while this must be pressing #3 or #4 by now, imagine even this batch won't stick around for long, so you know what to do...
The latest single from these local psychedelic fuzz rockers, featuring none other than Ty Segall behind the drumkit. Although listening to this (and the other singles) it definitely sounds like Segall had more to contribute than drumming, cuz Fuzz definitely doesn't sound that far removed from Segall's own records, maybe a bit more fuzzed out (obviously), but fans of Segall, Mikal Cronin, Thee Oh Sees and all the rest will no doubt flip for these guys too. Imagine a slightly Sabbathier Segall, and you're getting closer, the A side is total sixties psych radness, super charged and doused in crumbling fuzz guitars, a wicked hooky, and some wild drumming, has us dying for the forthcoming full length (soon!).
The B side features Fuzz taking on the oft-covered "21st Century Schizoid Man", by King Crimson of course, and they definitely do it justice, sounding like some lost proto metal band, the sound furiously fuzzy, more wild drumming, the vocals raspy and feral, the whole thing appropriately fierce and heavy, especially the double time freakout, here totally supercharged and seriously metallic. Fuck yeah!
At first blush, the debut full length from local trio Fuzz, sounds a lot like a Ty Segall record, as it should, since Fuzz is actually Segall's new band, which was originally described to us as sounding like Ty Segall crossed with Black Sabbath. Needless to say we were pretty skeptical at first, but their preceding 7"s proved the point, and now that the highly anticipated full-length is here, goddamn if this isn't some seriously heavy garage-psych proto-metal retro-rock radness! In fact, you'd most certainly be forgiven for thinking this was in fact some genuine lost proto metal artifact, the songs, the sound, the guitar tone, all harken back to the classics, that sound we here at aQ obsess over, in fact, if we were trying to describe Fuzz with some succinct rock band math, we might replace Sabbath above with groups like Power Of Zeus, or Dust, or the Groundhogs, cuz it definitely has that old school hard rocking vibe BIG TIME.
The interesting thing about Fuzz, is that while Segall is still singing, he's now behind the kit, and is actually a seriously kick ass drummer, very much in the style of say Ginger Baker or Mitch Mitchell, busy and loose, slipping from wild octopoidal freakouts to locked in hard rocking grooves and back again, while guitarist Charlie Moothart (who also plays in Segall's band, as well as the Moonhearts) proves himself to be a serious shredder, who should be getting the same sort of love that dudes like Isaiah Mitchell does, in fact fans of Earthless will find much of the jamming here right up their alley, with Moothart unfurling, crumbling, blown out heavy rock riffs, alongside wild blasts of mega shred psychedelic freakout. And while most of the songs her are loose and jammy, with much of the record sounding like different parts of the same mega-jam, rife with lots of space, and stop/starts, stretches of amp hum, lurching abstract almost doomy breakdowns, even some almost-drum solo bits, a few pop gems surface here and there, like "What's In My Head", which would have sounded right at home on any of the Segall record proper, so catchy, with a hook to die for, but still somehow fitting into Fuzz's retro fuzz-rock soundworld. That sound in full effect on "Loose Sutures" which is about as loose as these guys get, the midsong breakdown total heavy seventies psych-prog radness, complete with fuzzed out bass solo, killer drumming, and when the main riff comes back in, SO HEAVY. The record finishes of with three more blasts of blown out riff heavy psych rock that kills, lurching from fuzzy lope, to full on near metallic crunch, to total classic old school heavy psych, and as much as we love pretty much everything Segall has done, this Fuzz record is fast becoming our favorite.
Killer psychedelic space dragon cover art, the lp includes a download code as well!
The LAMC series of 7"s features tons of our favorite bands (Fuzz, Ty Segall, Thee Oh Sees), delivering an exclusive track on the A side, while the B side features one of THAT band's favorite new artists. A pretty cool concept for sure and we're reviewing 3 of our favorites in the series.
Number 10 comes from none other than Fuzz, Ty Segall's heavy psych combo, who offer up, you guessed it, a fierce and fuzzy slab of super rocking psychedelic garage crunch, churning, blown out distortion, wild drumming, shredding leads, wailed vox, this jam in particular reminds us of Redd Kross at their heaviest, which is a very good thing for sure. A jam that would have been right at home on the recent Fuzz full length.
Fuzz's pick for up and coming artist is a band we had heard of but never heard until now, CCR Headcleaner, and it's easy to see why Fuzz would have picked them, murky, drone-y, druggy psychedelia, urgently strummed acoustic guitar, wreathed in a gnarly haze of blurred distortion, wasted, drowsy vox, the whole thing woozy and washed out and seriously trippy. Mesmerizing psych-noise garage-dirgery that sounds a bit like a ramshackle, lo-fi Loop! Killer tracks from both bands. And as you might imagine, also SUPER LIMITED!!!
Here's a lovingly homespun assemblage of field recordings which have been altered and pieced together over the last couple years into a hushed collage of mysterious texturous scrapings and ambience. These three hazy soundscapes were created by Bay Area artist Fuzzboy (aka Dan Borstein). 'Tis the gentler side of experimental noise that he treads.
Moon Glyph is back with a new tape from aQ pal Glenn Donaldson (Skygreen Leopards, Thuja, Art Museums, Blithe Sons and Horrid Red). And this outfit's second release seems to be all about the nostalgia of freeway driving in Southern California and listening to tapes while gliding through a maze of freeways in the cool desert air. Half of aQ's staff probably can relate to that as many of us are transplants from the southern half of the state and while the reality of being stuck in traffic is no fantasy, some of us do miss driving the long freeways and canyons at night listening to our favorite tapes. With songs like "Irvine", "Orange Circle" "Sepulveda" and "Garden Grove", FWY! channel a motorik New Order vibe in extended instrumental synth jams that are both bright and moody with a languid romantic groove that's hard to resist. A real road trip!
So, Glenn, do you even know how many bands / projects / monikers you've been in? Or are currently in? Somebody may know the answer to this question, but that person probably isn't Glenn Donaldson aka Edmund Xavier aka FWY! We can go all the way back to Mirza; and then there was Thuja, The Blithe Sons, Franciscan Hobbies, The Ivytree, The Birdtree, The Knit Separates, Tomes, and probably a handful of others aligned with the Jewelled Antler label; and we've also got the primitive punk stylings of Teenage Panzerkorps / Der TPK and Horrid Red, and we can't forget about the paisley-tinted art-pop of The Skygreen Leopards and The Art Museums. There's stuff we've left out of that list... Needless to say, Glenn Donaldson is a very prolific musician, adopting a new moniker with each new idea he has when it comes to recording. FWY! keeps true to the idea of an instrumental project of motorik post-punk dedicated to late night driving amidst the Byzantine network of Southern California freeway interchanges and nondescript four lane roads that might connect from somewhere in Orange County to somewhere in Los Angeles, or not. These wistfully nostalgic songs are aligned with some of the jauntier aspects of Factory records (especially The Wake's earliest recordings) or even some of those Cure demos which graced the expanded cd versions of Faith and Seventeen Seconds. Clockwork drum machines gird each of the songs that spiral through the harmonic interplay between the Marr / Reilly guitar melodies and the taut Gallup / Hook basslines. Nice work, Glenn!
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Another band featuring Glenn from Blithe Sons, Horrid Red, Skygreen Leopards, Art Museums, etc., etc.... etc., etc..... etc., etc.....
Gabby La La is known in the Bay Area and beyond for her very imaginative and playful musical mind. She has played alongside folks like Les Claypool, who actually released her previous solo outing. I Know You Know I Know finds Gabby making all her beats and electronics with a Nintendo DS Lite as well as playing sitar, Theremin, ukulele and singing in her childlike voice. In fact the record sounds like it could be an awesome soundtrack for some new super cool psychedelic cartoon for kids...
Guillermo Galindo dons a diverse array of musical hats -- experimental, electro-acoustic, electronic, sound art installations and opera! He even wore a modified helmet during his performance at last year's SF Electronic Music Fest! This is the first we've heard from Gal*In_Dog, his atmospheric soundscape chapeau. The six slowly shifting vaporous tracks stretch out over the course of 69 minutes. Occasionally the sound fades to often barely-there drones, sometimes more tactile prickles and swarms of hiss, once in a while giving way to the surprise of nature bird songs. A quite nice record of electronic experimentalism, dark and mysterious, dense but still quite lovely.
We've been enjoying a barrage of weird new tapes from East Bay tape label Sanity Muffin over these last few months, and this week marks the release of yet -another- batch, one of which is this one right here, the latest from Galena, the blackened synth-drone project of the man behind the label, and like the Galena jams we've heard before, Buried Finch is another collection of smoldering kosmische space outs that often splinter into grinding, glitched out psychedelic noise. Give a listen to the opener, beginning with soft shimmery celestial swirls, before a crumbling caustic buzz surfaces from below, pulsing and sinister, wrapping its inky tendrils around the otherwise dreamy drift, but while it's that buzz and crunch that seems to sonically dominate, much of Buried Finch finds Galena exploring much more abstract and spacey sounds, deep rumbling thrum, bleary, blurry swaths of chordal shimmer, gristly Tim Hecker like shoegaze-synth buzz, mysterious disembodied voices, deep dramatic vox, dubbed out barely there rhythms, a few moments of Casio drum machine driven Goblin / Carpenter style grooviness, but with plenty of jams that could be remixed Will Over Matter tracks. Thick gnarled sprawls of synth buzz, minimal and mesmerizing, here wrapped around motorik rhythms, and swirling space-y textures, like the soundtrack to some tripped out low budget art film, or the music accompanying the scariest planetarium show EVER.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!
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What do you get when you mix two parts Barn Owl and two parts Eternal Tapestry? Pretty much just what you'd expect, which is this here lp, 4 looooong tracks from a group called Garden Sound (not to be confused with, uh, Soundgarden), which is in fact equal parts Barn Owl and Eternal Tapestry and offer up a sound that balances right between the brooding twang flecked post rock drift of the former, and the blown out psychedelia of the latter.
The first song sounds almost like Barn Owl solo, a dark dronescape, all desert and twangy, moody EARTH-y shimmer, spidery melodies, almost like one of those slow building epics, but instead of building it just sort of drifts and hovers, there's some minimal percussion, and some extra psychedelic swirl that hints at E-Tap's involvement, but it's not until the second song, that the partnership equals out, with a massive, thunderous superdistorted doomdronedirge, big crashing drums, blurred guitars smeared into black streaks, buried barely there vocals, peppered with occasional squalls of full on psychedelic freakout.
The flipside starts out like the A side, a smoldering minimal raga, buzzing guitars, simple tribal rhythms, hazy and dreamy and definitely mesmerizing. And like the A side, the second track finds the two groups going all out, but this time, it's something way more spare and abstract, still heavy, and doomy, but the drum crashes are spread way out, less a rhythm, than a sort of textural punctuation, the guitars peal and rumble and buzz, streaks of feedback everywhere, a plodding, spaced out stretch of minimal dronedoom drift.
SUPER LIMITED!! We have less than 20 copies, and once those are gone, then this will be gone for good...
By now everyone should be familiar with SF black metal legends Weakling. A brief existence, a handful of shows, and a single amazing record (released on Andee's tUMULt label, we should mention). Members of Weakling played in and/or went on to play in Amber Asylum, the Champs, Drunk Horse, Asunder, Sangre Amado, Saros and the short lived but now totally cult blackened gothic doom outfit The Gault. Recorded way back in 1999 by Tim Green, The Gault's Even As All Before Us languished for years before the band finally agreed on a mix and a label, and now five years later this mighty slab of depressive doom finally sees the light of day. Some of you may be wondering why we're only getting around to reviewing this now, since it was released a few months ago... and, the entire first pressing is already sold out. So what's the deal? Well, bad news for any of you who already picked up a copy somewhere else. The ENTIRE first pressing was, in fact, defective. But not defective enough apparently for the label to care, as they refused to repress it and continued to sell the defective copies anyway. To our ears though, the harsh digital glitches inadvertently inserted between every track totally detracted from the gorgeously bleak and harrowing ambience. So the band took it upon themselves to have corrected copies pressed themselves, and thus we finally have the Gault record the way it was meant to be heard. Imagine those Weakling riffs, slowed down and wrapped in dense '80s-ish reverb, smeared and stretched into serpentine minor key melodies, throbbing and pulsing and slithering through midtempo dronescapes of shimmering guitar buzz, creeping basslines, ghostlike female vocals, crashing steady drumming all cloaked in a rich blackened haze, suffocating and claustrophobic, but somehow completely epic at the same time. Think a black metal Joy Division and you might be close, due in no small part to vocalist Ed Kunakemakorn's distinctive wail. Equal parts Ian Curtis, Interpol's Paul Banks and weirdly enough, Dutch weirdo black metallers Urfaust, a soaring mournful croon, rich and velvety and quite haunting. Each track is a twisting complex doomscape of fuzzed out drones, pounding downtuned riffage, swirling psychedelic ambience, slow motion crawl and creep, building and building into massive black swells. A gorgeously creepy collection of heaving, lurching, dark and delicate, doomy and dense epics. So emotional and so totally and completely intense!
Throughout the '80s and '90s, Michael Gendreau worked extensively in the East Bay avant-noise project Crawling With Tarts, often constructing surreal experiments with idiosyncratic pop-babble and tape collages of art-damaged noise. For Gendreau, the turntable became an ideal instrument for his explorations; and soon, he began working with the archaic technology of lathe cut, handcrafted vinyl. Often the results were bizarre, if sporadically successful recontextualizations of homemade instrumentation, radio noise, and anti-pop. Recently, it seems as though Gendreau has put Crawling With Tarts on an extended hiatus, due to his increasing attention into the field of vibrations diagnostics and consultation. This incredibly technical arena has lead him to researching the problems of acoustic noise vibrations upon highly sensitive pieces of optical equipment, which could present faulty analysis due to the tiny, but measurable effects of environmental noise (air condititioning ducts and heating vents in particular).
"55 Pas De La Ligne Au No. 3" finds Gendreau bridging his current activities of acoustic diagnostics with his once prolific avant-turntable collages. It appears that Gendreau has hooked up a number of accelerometers - technical devices used to detect, measure, and catalogue any number of vibrational frequencies - to a series of battered record players spinning his handmade vinyl. Gendreau's accelerometers are so sensitive, that they pick up, not only the interaction between the needle and the record in question, but also the muffled whir of the thick rubber band stretching between the motor and the turntable plate. The results found on "55 Pas De La Ligne Au No. 3" are astounding, with eerie mechanical drones, minute needle crackle, and the occasional, but always unnerving upsurge of quiet voices floating though the din like the EVP sounds from "The Ghost Orchid" of purported recordings from beyond the grave. This will probably become one of my (Jim's) favorite records of the year.
It's been a while since we've heard any material from San Francisco sound researcher Michael Gendreau, althought he has certainly kept himself busy since his impeccable last release 55 Pas De La Ligne Au No. 3 which explored the innerworkings of old turntables. His day job as an acoustics technician takes him all over the world in order to analyse the low frequency impact of industrial machinery upon architectural structures and highly sensitive optical devices; the obvious benefit of this trade is that Gendreau's perception of the particular frequencies is incredibly refined. Gendreau put this skill into practice during the 2003 Activating The Medium Festival at SFMOMA where he found the resonant frequency of the McBean Theater and effectively rattled the entire building, much to the consternation of the head curators worried that their prized Philip Guston paintings might leap off the walls.
Vitoj is Gendreau's first album since that aforementioned 2002 release and features three distinctly different situations that Gendreau handles in very specific manners. The first piece is a real-time exploration of the micro-dynamics of air compressors. Amplified through the technical sensors he uses when studying infrasound vibrations, Gendreau's air compressor emits toxic hisses, metallic clanks, and electrical static that could easily be confused for the processed drones of the Hafler Trio or John Duncan. However, Gendreau does add a gleefully destructive side to his work, as he fully opens the valves of his air compressors on several occasions, unleashing a torrent of noise as dense and tumultous as Merzbow and Masonna. The second piece exhibits a much greater restraint to the point of rendering the buzzing whirls of a old Victrola to nearly inaudible levels. The final entry is a Lopezian field recording mutation of the din of an industrial landscape morphed into a nightmarish ambience. A mighty return for Mr. Gendreau!
Neat little tape + 3" cd-r package here from this local (Oakland, CA) noiserock unit, nice precise fascist-chic graphic design work too, everything color-coordinated in red and grey. The ep-length tape and cd-r have the same music - with one extra, epic-length bonus track on the cassette, actually, almost as long as the other songs put together. Generalissimo call it a "digital + analog value pack". On these 5 (or 6) songs, Generalissimo blast out raucous, slightly mathy, aggro-poppy grunge-punk, pounding away in a kind of '90s AmReppy style, a la stuff like Unsane maybe, with vocals that urgently shout more than sweetly croon, though there's a bit of both. The music's all chiming and churning, full of stops and starts, guitars spiraling into sharp shards sometimes, with rhythms to make you jump up and down. And then, on the tape anyway, a moody, post-rocky grand finale. Digging it!
Note: LIMITED to 69 copies only.
Introducing a new warm and sunshiney combo from SF pop veteran Jon Fellman and co. Gentlekin spin retro psychedelic 60s style pop with soft male vocals much like the Posies or Go-Betweens. Lots of sweet and yes, ever so gentle harmonies and jingle-jangle guitars. Particularly tempting confections are the very first and very last songs ("Fair Weather" and "Something Changes Here"). Delightful!
Music For Sick Queers is very strange album from the bowels of the San Francisco synth-punk scene during the early '80s. The band was founded by Stephen Scheatzle and Sandy Stark in 1981, who concocted lumbering, atonal synth blorping and stumbling drum machines that served a very loose backdrop to the flat, cynically delivered lyrics that mocked the paradigms of control - politics, morality, and religion, complete with the requisite Jim Jones appropriation that was commonplace for the proponents of Industrial Culture. Their first single from 1981 featured a song entitled "Booty Jones" which told the true crime story of child molester who kidnapped a young boy and then raised him as his son for many years. The infamy of that song devolved into the suicide of Sandy Stark who in 1984 was awaiting trial on trumped up charges of child molestation. The band continued on with Mark Hutchinson replacing Stark, well sort of... as Stark and Hutchinson were in fact the same person, and the Sandy Stark suicide was all just a publicity stunt to support the 1984 album Music For Sick Queers. Woah!
The album is an exercise in deliberate confusion, with the songs being loose, visceral collages of sicktone electronics lurching around broken rhythms and megaphone vocal distortions that at their best take on the guttural aspects of Factrix or what Debbie Jaffe would later manifest as Master/Slave Relationship (might any of her stuff get reissued?). On more than a few tracks, German Shepherds push the vocals forward in the mix and their lunatic ranting embraces an unrefined, performance art ethos with an affected, flat intonation of sarcastic mockery.
This was one of those records that you would see around San Francisco pretty much everywhere back in the '90s; but obviously they slowly got snatched up, making this a pretty intriguing reissue for those outside of the Bay Area interested in the more out there proponents of DIY post-punk electronics. The Superior Viaduct reish comes wth a bonus 7" of unreleased material, and the LP has a single-only cut not found on the original vinyl. Yup, there is a download code.
Not only referencing a rare strain of flower, but also an AQ favorite collection of ghost voices, otherwise known as the Electronic Voice Phenomenon, the Ghost Orchids stand in direct contrast to the confrontational screamo-spazzcore of most of their San Francisco contemporaries, with their cold, detracted aesthetic of new wave electronics and goth theatricality. "The King Is Dead" is the Ghost Orchid's debut full length, having recorded the album at I Am Spoonbender's Seismic Seance studios. Much of the avant-pop plasticity which coats the Spoonbender aesthetic carries over into The Ghost Orchids' sound, although the Ghost Orchids have dropped all of the Factory label references of their "Architecture" EP in favor of the detached electro stares of contemporaries like Adult. but keeping truer to the '80s darkwave electronics of Clock DVA or Cassandra Complex with spartan, repetitive programming and hard EBM rhythms. Black eyeliner required.
MPEG Download: "A New Bloodtype" [/audio/ghostorchidsanewblood.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "A New Bloodtype" [/audio/ghostorchidsanewblood.m3u]
Anyone remotely familiar with aQ knows we've long had a soft spot for earthy, psych-tinged music that weaves its way along beautiful shadowy paths through the dewy glimmers and murky sludge. Well, here's something new that fits the bill and has been pleasing many an ear around here! We actually put a call out to these Portland, OR folks back in October to send some of their music down the coast. A few months have passed and here we are finally with cds in hand, and we think it was worth the wait! Heck, in the short time we've had Like This Forever in stock, in-store play has already been stirring up many many queries with at least one purchased each time it's spun.
Stormy waves of electric guitar distortion and reedy woodwinds crash upon one another, then melt into clear smooth bell chimes. Horns and piano also enter the fray that ebbs and flows around mainman Eric Crespo's emotive vocals that have been compared to those of Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes. As you listen you get a sense that Crespo and co. may have been raised on a balanced diet of Pink Floyd and Fleetwood Mac as well as Pavement and Slint. Yes, all the most nutritious and tastiest food groups! Recommended.
Doug Hilsinger is one talented fellow. On his own, he's remade the entire Brian Eno album Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) with Caroleen Beatty on vocals. Together they're two fifths of SF smoky twang combo Waycross. He's also played with numerous local and international artists. Plus he was previously in two other great Bay Area bands... namely Bomb and the creators of this here album, Gifthorse, a heavy prog/psych/metal band who rocked the bay area from 1991 through 1996, and perhaps as referenced in the title, this was their first full length. Absolutely tight and powerful instrumental hard rock! If you dig the Fucking Champs, why don't ya let their elder Bay Area brethren rip your head off too... in a good way!
Wow! if you've a penchant for rustic melancholia richly rooted in American country folk traditions, don't miss this new SF quintet's debut album. Although these days The Gilded Rooks are a full band of five, for these recordings which were captured in Nashville, TN, the band leaders Jessy Brown and Devon Angus were backed by locals Red White Blue. From the sounds of things, they got along smashingly well. The performances are terrific!, so easy-going and relaxed, you can easily imagine that they've been playing together for years. Scarecrow's Pockets is wonderfully drowsy and withery in mood and tempo. Brown's honeyed lilt and Angus' considerably more bristly, Waits-tinged delivery play off one another beautifully. The band tastefully embellishes the core guitar, bass and drums with piano, lap steel and organ, as well as surprise appearances of bright horns and a ghostly whisper of musical saw - all while still maintaining plenty of space to allow the duo's vocals to truly take flight. Each of the dozen songs is burnished to a mellow, whisky hued glow. Very warm and inviting despite the plaintive tones. Highlights are the opening title track, "31 Pages (Of Country Music)", and the closing "Joan Of Arc Of Bernal Hill". Along with the ten originals, they transform Jules Shear's "All Through The Night" (popularized by Cyndi Lauper) into a sweet shadowy lullaby, and also do a terrific rendition of Richard Thompson's "Walkin' On A Wire". Recommended!
It's been a while since a San Francisco pop band has gotten the kind of national attention that Girls are receiving although in the case of Girls, we have to say it's totally well deserved! The timing couldn't be more perfect for some totally unabashed romantic, wide eyed soaring pop. Recently most of the pop we've been digging on is so much about its lo-fi aesthetic and somewhat detached disposition, so it's super refreshing to hear a band who really understand the power of a song, and who also display a really nice sonic range that turns and flows so perfectly throughout their record. Girls kind of make you want to be a twenty something dreamer for the rest of your life. They conjure images of running through the streets at night with a bottle of wine and no cares, a ratty old shirt, a tattered heart but an unrelenting smile plastered on your face. No doubt many of the songs here will conjure images of those early Elvis Costello records that are so undeniable in their universal appeal.
While so many records have been made in tribute, love, admiration and under the influence of New York City, it's so nice for those of us here in San Francisco to get a record that really does feel like an absolute product of the city we live in. Laying in the grass in Dolores Park, taking that special someone to the top of Bernal Heights, getting lost in the fog of the Outer Sunset... We've listened to this record so much as we ride the bus and walk the streets and hills of SF and we just can't think of a better soundtrack to remind us of how magical this city really is. But not to fear, no matter where you live, this is an album that gives so much as it taps into universal feelings of yearning and bittersweet triumph with such ease and undying conviction. Get with Girls!
