Strong material from this local lady with the powerhouse voice. Singer, songwriter and pianist Alison Faith Levy is assisted by several members of the late great Camper Van Beethoven, and the album is produced by Chris Xefos (King Missile). A straightforward voice-driven album, it reminds us of Carole King and Aimee Mann. Sure, it sounds pretty mainstream, but that's definitely not a bad thing when it's done by someone of Levy's talent and integrity. Why she isn't absolutely huge on the radio is a mystery to us.
This is the first we've heard from this local synth pop combo, who manage to mix the lilting indie jangle of that Slumberland Records sound with old school classic eighties new wave into a sweet electro pop confection. Programmed drums, buzzing crackling synths, ethereal female vocals, occasional boy/girl harmonies, all sort of hazy and softly psychedelic. The sound is alternately crunchy and fuzzy and surprisingly aggressive, and wistful and dreamily shimmery. The A side title track is the A side for a reason, hooky as hell, and the sort of song former aQ staffer Irwin would claim would be just the thing to get your body moving. While the B side takes the same elements and crafts something a bit broodier, and almost ballad, that creeps and drifts darkly, but is peppered with bursts of wild squelching synths, and is laced with chiming melodies, reminding us a bit of Stereolab, and like minded retro-poppers. The included download adds another track, which fuses some seriously gristly rhythms, to acoustic guitars, and some wild, noisy synth splatter, but weaves it all into a driving electro-synth jam that's got some heft to it, while still managing to be dreamy and divinely poppy!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Liar Ball is a dandy collaborative project by AQ pal Wobbly and Ball 2000! Right from the get go, it's made perfectly clear that they're not gonna let you get all comfy listenin' to this disc. No, just when you think they might be settling into a followable rhythm or playful melody, a sonic bump in the road pops to toss you out of your smooth head-bobbin' roll, and sometimes they even derail completely. Sorta the musical equivalent of a shopping cart with a gimpy wheel... in the best possible way! But things aren't all off-kilter kookiness, by the fifth track "You Are A Dolphin", Liar Ball has transported the listener into darker, more mysterious territory, only to re-surface in funland for the closing two tracks. Note: don't be alarmed by the packaging... it appears that they recycled cut-out jewelcases (hence the melted nick in the spine) and festooned them with assorted stickers and labels.
We talk all the time about not judging books by their covers, which for us often means bands by their band names, cuz really, the Flaming Lips, Bitchin Bajas, Bathtub Shitter (ok, that one's awesome), Cream Abdul Babar, Scrotum Poles, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, so many kick ass bands saddled with unfortunate monickers. NOT that we're lumping Bay Area duo The Lickets in with those outfits, but they do actually bring up another part of that whole book/cover, band/bandname situation, in that we never would have expected this sort of gloriously blissed out electronic psychedelic drift from a band called the Lickets. We were actually imagining this would be some sort of roots rock, or stripped down pop rock sort of thing, but this is anything but, The Lickets traffic in the sort of stuff aQ folks go nuts for: dreamy transcendental, glistening, textured kosmische psych folk drift of the highest order.
The tracks her merge billowy clouds of wispy chordal drift with constellations of subtle glitch, the edges worn away, the various sounds bleeding into one another, like the soundtrack to a time lapse film of two solar systems merging, hazy and spaced out, touching on the krautdrone of Expo 70, the gauzy melodic shimmer of Tim Hecker, the dreamlike drift of Pop Ambience, infused with little bits of classic krautrock. Acoustic guitars surface amidst swirling abstract pulsations, melodies melt and ooze, the tracks slowly expanding and evolving, occasionally slipping into something more overtly shoegazey, wrangling jangle guitars into vast smears of melodic blur, laced with tinkling chiming melodies, looped and layered into blustery soundscapes, while other tracks sound almost like old soundtracks to mysterious filmstrips about the emptiness of space, one track even shrugs off the hazy shimmer entirely, leaving just a sweetly lovely stretch of fluttery seventies style folk, replete with breathy vocals and wheezing accordion, before quickly returning to the bleary buzzy drift that defines the rest of the record. And as varied as the record is, the sounds are all held together by a lush, dreamlike melodic component that turns this set of songs into some sort of divine celestial songsuite. So good!
Local treasures The Lies know that on the one hand there's abject depression that's fun for no one including your audience, yet on the other hand there's the kind of romantic depression whose embodiment in musical form can be quite beautiful and delicate to
A veritable local super group: Sadie and Sarah from the Bonnot Gang, Casey from Weakling, Tracy from Heavens To Betsy and Flying Tigers, and of course Dale, from Blood Sausage, the Bonnot Gang, the Cut Throats, and the video store across the street! Bleak and dark and hypnotic, like a dirgey garage band playing World of Skin, Tindersticks and Joy Division. Recommended.
Our pal Phil Manley (Trans Am, The Fucking Champs, Jonas Reinhardt, etc.) has done that thing where the title of his krauty, kosmiche, Schulze-y, synthy solo record from 2011, Life Coach, has now been made the name of his new band, Life Coach, a duo featuring Phil and drummer extraordinare Jon Theodore (Golden, The Mars Volta, Queens Of The Stone Age, etc.), both of 'em pictured cartoonishly on the disc's colorfully trippy cover. Guess Phil's really into the Life Coach concept, and we're into the music for sure, which does sometimes sound like it could be the background track on a New Age motivational speaker's VHS cassette, in a good way of course. And that's just sometimes, 'cause this rocks out a bit more than most real life life coaches could stand, harshing their ponytailed mellow with guitar riffing and pounding drums.
We'd always heard a lot about what a great drummer JT is, but it wasn't until we saw Life Coach play live a little while back that we really understood - man, he stole the show! No wonder everyone was always raving about his mad skillz. So, naturally, this Life Coach album is full of rhythmical radness, alongside the spacey guitars and synths of our man Manley. The results are fine listening indeed, as mood music and more. "Sunrise" serves as this album's intro, starting things off appropriately with lovely break-of-dawn, "Rites Of Spring" shimmer, prayer bells tinkling amidst quiet electronic drones, tambura strum, and gentle peals of electric guitar - but then, wham, Jon Theodore's drumkit kicks in with track two, the title cut, and it's all Trans Am bombast meets Michael Rother bliss now, a style of new agey krauty postrock that we'd be happy to enjoy for the duration, and while there's plenty of it throughout the album, Life Coach have a few surprises in store - with Isaiah Mitchell of Earthless/Golden Void dropping in for a couple guest guitar solos (he even appears, with his guitar, in that cover drawing), turning the track "Fireball" into a heavy rocker that sounds a LOT like the fuzzed out '70s-sounding California catchiness of Golden Void, easily a highlight here any devout Golden Void fan (like us) is gonna need to hear. There's singing on that one, by Phil we assume though it sounds much like Isaiah does in GV, but otherwise this album is a mostly instrumental affair, the other notable vocal track being the uptempo "Mind's Eye", lots of electronics swirling around the propulsive beats while Phil sings of inner consciousness, his words floating up above, and beyond. Good times, high times. "Ohm" winds things up with a lengthy wash of cymbals and synthesizers, a wonderfully droned-out finale to this varied and vibrant album.
Big thumbs up to Life Coach's brand of uplifting synth-splorations and stoner rock jamz!!
For those of you who enjoyed Bay Area band The Speakers' cd tribute to W.B. Yeats (Yeats Is Greats: The Speakers Sing The Poems of W.B. Yeats), here's something new from one half of that duo.
This cd is an audio family album or scrapbook of sorts, drifting through scenes and memories with recordings of family members speaking interwoven with collaged soundscapes. The liner notes focus on the recent birth of the artist's first child, and the impact of this new presence is palpable throughout the album. While we're sure this'll particularly be appealing to his friends and relatives, it makes for an offkilter warm fuzzy listen for absolute strangers too.
Fuzzed-out, jangly garage-pop dreaminess from SF's Lilac, new project from guitarist of local favorites Bridez. Heavy hitting distorted guitars strummed under dual male/female vocals, distant organ haze fluttering about, amp melting leads sailing over bratty lyrics and pure punk rock attitude, all thrown together into a super catchy, blurred-out rock and roll bonanza.
SF locals Limosine offer up their debut, a 5-song cd-r about 36 minutes long featuring much in the way of rumbling repetitive percussion, blown-out distortion, ceremonial atmospheres, squealing tape manipulations, droning doomic vocal chant, mad scientist bloops and bleeps, and indie-angsty vox... Limosine's layers of lo-fi loops are a sort of psychedelic DIY industrial musick that we imagine could appeal to fans of such disparate acts as Pain Teens, the Dead C, Sunburned Hand Of The Man, and Wildildlife. Weird stuff, we can say that! And we like it.
Track one, "Only Poise, Only Prizes" is the heaviest, most claustrophobic cut, with the next two "Stillborn" and "Lo And Behold" being much airier and (relatively) blissful, though then the final two songs here, "Weird Waver" and "Alrosa Villa" bring back more of the distortion and shambolic mayhem of the first track. Not that the spacious "Stillborn", in the course of its nearly 12 minute running time, doesn't get into some intense areas too.
The band is a trio, with Sarah Bernat on guitar and vocals, Grant Valley on vocals and acoustic guitar, and Bert Bergen on drums, electronics, and cassette tape loops. The one we know among 'em is Bert, and you can definitely hear him loud and clear here. He's also a visual artist, his work usual featuring fantastical crystalline patterns, bearded gurus, and innocent marine mammals, you've probably seen it around town on wheatpasted posters advertising rock shows and art gallery events. And he was the drummer (as well as what you might call artistic director) for the now-disbanded new age space rock outfit Ascended Master, which also featured former AQ staffer Lauren, as well as members of Crime In Choir. While we're sorry Ascended Master is no more, we're digging Bert's new ride, Limosine.
The way this is packaged, you could easily mistake it for a 7", but like we said it's actually a cd-r with a folded-up 21"x18" poster, a numbered, signed print featuring freaky art by Bert and Grant. Limited to only 59 copies!!
Following up on his 2006 Feathered Palm Trees cd-r, solo SF singer/songwriter Adam Lipman delivers another intimate batch of down to earth folksy numbers that expose an uncommon vulnerability, earnestness and heart. Once again his tender, youthful voice is joined by some pretty female vocal accompaniment. Those tunes are particularly sweet, engaging listens.
Whereas his last release came with a tiny tiny booklet, this lovingly homespun yet elaborate one comes coil-bound with photo foldouts and text. Ultra limited pressing of 30 (of which we only got a handful which are apparently the last remaining copies!), so act fast. We've been assured that a second (albeit less elaborate) version plus one on vinyl will be released shortly. We'll keep y'all posted!
On occasion our dear aQ customers will grace us with their own music, and such is the case with this self-titled release by Mr. Adam Lipman. Soft spoken in person, he also sings in hushed tones with an unexpected youthful solemnity. The closest comparison would be with Owen Ashworth of Casiotone For The Painfully Alone... if he were an acoustic troubadour who is joined every so often by some dreamy female vocals. These ten intimate, barebones lo-fi songs also recall the earnestness of early Mountain Goats. Nice! The cd-r comes packaged in a digipak with a tiny 1.5" handmade insert booklet.
An all too brief seven tracks of delightfully collaged samples, guitar, vocals and digital gleeps 'n' meeps from this SF gentleman. Light and playful, they alternately take a sip of lounge-iness, dip their toes in glitch-y, down tempo electronics, and venture gently into other soundscape terrain. A wee detail I found a bit disappointing was the disc's abrupt end, the final cut just stops. It was like being jarred out of a 12 minute daydream. Nonetheless, this is a very very warm and pleasing introduction to Liquid Cop!
Any fan of heavy psychedelic music should already be hip to the mighty Liquorball. If you don't own their Fuck The Sky record, find it, you will NOT be sorry. Or hell, let's start a petition to get all the LB stuff re-issued! Anyway, Liquorball are still in fact a going concern, and unlike lots of bands that continue on well past their prime, Liquorball still sound as sick, and heavy and psychedelic as EVER. This lp captures the group live, at 29 Palms, presumably in some dive bar, a couple years back, tearing it up and blowing the roof off. Two side long jams that DESTROY. Super distorted and loose as fuck, tripped out and druggy, pounding and howling epic psychnoise blowout of the highest order. Guitars unleashing wild tangles of frenzied psychedelia over a relentlessly pounding rhythm, like some sort of Fushitsusha / Burnt Hills tag team match, endlessly rocking and totally mesmerizingly EPIC. The first side/track never lets up, launching right into it and shredding the whole side to bits, while the second side is a bit darker, a little more dynamic, but is essentially part two of LB's live set single song infinite psych-space-drug jam blowout!
Needless to say, anyone into heavy psych, needs EVERYTHING from these guys, and if you're into the current crop of psychedelic space rock, give this a listen and watch the rest of your space psych records cower in fear and shame!
LIMITED TO 540 COPIES!!!
Not sure how many of you remember this San Francisco band. But man it's a crime they weren't huge. This is liquored up (obviously), smacked out, dirty, trashy, buzzy, droney, chaotic, fully fuzzed out lightning bolt psych drone damage. Think Butthole Surfers playing Fushitsusha after drinking a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Or imagine slipping some speed into Bob Pollard's beer and watching a fried and freaking out Guided By Voices desparately try to work their way through the Hawkwind catalog. Or take equal parts Bunny Brains, Brainbombs, and Brainticket, add some acid and lock 'em in a dark and dingy basement. This is seriously damaged, outsider psych rock nirvana. Filthy and sloppy and just about the best thing we've ever heard. LP only, and these were a warehouse find, so not sure how many we'll be able to get. This is Allan's favorite LB record, a blurry buzzy drunken amp to the head, guitar to the groin, musical beer dumped over your head before a good ass whooping. VERY RECOMMENDED!
Not sure how many of you remember this San Francisco band. But man it's a crime they weren't huge. This is liquored up (obviously), smacked out, dirty, trashy, buzzy, droney, chaotic, fully fuzzed out lightning bolt psych drone damage. Think Butthole Surfers playing Fushitsusha after drinking a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Or imagine slipping some speed into Bob Pollard's beer and watching a fried and freaking out Guided By Voices desparately try to work their way through the Hawkwind catalog. Or take equal parts Bunny Brains, Brainbombs, and Brainticket, add some acid and lock 'em in a dark and dingy basement. This is seriously damaged, outsider psych rock nirvana. Filthy and sloppy and just about the best thing we've ever heard. LP only, and these were a warehouse find, so not sure how many we'll be able to get. Hauls Ass is the yin to Fucks The Sky's yang. One is incomplete without the other. The sound of one hand clapping. Hauls Ass is the follow up to LB's classic debut and wallows in the same filthy, noisy, druggy, boozy swirl of demented garage-y psych rock genius! Again, SO RECOMMENDED!
Throughout the greater part of her debut album, Lisa Alice weaves the sweetest of acoustic gal pop very much in the vein of the dreamy, wistful side of K Records - think the Softies, Gaze or Mary Lou Lord. However, on songs like "You Win" her vocal delivery also brings to mind more recent female indie singer/songwriters like Tegan & Sara, Bonfire Madigan or Emm Gryner who themselves possess degrees of the confidence and raw determination of the Difranco kind. Very down to earth, no frills, heart on your sleeve songs. If you've been seeking something of this variety, That Thing In Your Hand might be just the thing for your ears.
Shimmy up, down and all around! The first few playful bars of Little Fuzzy's sophomore album made us think we'd stumbled onto Sesame Street... but Sesame Street for grown-ups, mind you! This SF gang keep on rollin' out their pop infused groovy goodness. Hey folks try this one on for size... new genre: 'twee funk'! Little Fuzzy, we thusly dub thee.
On their self-titled debut, Little Fuzzy do not unfurl what everyone expected from their name and album art -- that being bright fuzzy-wuzzy bouncy twee-pop. NO! Instead this SF quartet (whose membership includes former members of Mission neighborhood music vets Fantasy) bust out a highspirited, funky breakdown complete with much lighthearted silliness in lyrics and song titles. Sorta reminiscent of '70s Sunday morning variety show staples the Bugaloos or the Banana Splits but with a faux Prince falsetto vocalist.
The perfect red apple featured on the front cover of this new Little Wings album seems promising of things bright, crisp and sweet, but the music is considerably more bittersweet and muted. On what is perhaps his most fully realized album to date, Kyle Field roams deeper into the ever-darkening path of autumnal somberness and melancholia tread by the likes of Tindersticks, Black Heart Procession, and the late Vic Chesnutt. And we couldn't help but note that, to both the eye and the ear, his lilting, withered voice making its way through a burly beard stirs a fond familiarity with fellow indie folk troubadours Will Oldham and Sam Beam. During one recent in-store listen, a customer also commented that this album sounded much like early J.J. Cale.
Field pens and sings achingly heartfelt songs of earthy introspection just right for those overcast days when the grey clouds stubbornly refuse to allow the sun to shine through.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
These guys sent us an lp a long while back, and somehow we totally slept on it. Not sure why, a 12" x 12" image of a cloudy sky, the sun glinting in the background, and the words "PURE TRANSCENDENTAL BLACK METAL" writ large in big black records across the front, and inside, just what the cover promised some seriously buzzing blazing blackness. It's not surprising these guys found there way to 20 Buck Spin, a pretty good fit for sure for this NY horde.
Unlike the blissed out blackened ethereal transcendentalism of the lp, back when Liturgy was a one man bedroom black metal band, Renihilation finds Liturgy expanded to a 4 piece, and the sound is much more raw and organic, still blown out and pretty blissy, goddamn soaring and epic in fact, but it sounds more like a proper rock band, although the drumming is still inhumanly fast, and the band lock into these cool, weird, and very un-black metal sounding high end trills, that only make the sound that much more mysterious and mystical. The band claim some unlikely non-metal influences, but as you get into Renihilation, it's easy to hear that there's way more going on here than Ulver or Darkthrone worship, the band slipping into lurching, almost mathy breakdowns, incredible dynamics, that almost sounds like Harvey Milk at 78rpm, the sort of stop start, sway and lumber, that only works if the band is tight as fuck.
These songs are not super long either, but they feel majestic, and sprawling, and never ending, in a good way, the guitars are frantic, the drumming relentless, the guitars seem to exist only in the upper registers, like wild psychedelic leads transformed into some sort of blackened tremolo picking, so instead of black metal, these jams almost sound like modern classical compositions, like Arvo Part composing for black metal band, when a song ends, you feel exhausted, and drained, like at the end of a long journey, but before you can even catch your breath, the band explode into action once again. And before you know it, they're locked into another high end blast of extreme tension, no let up, no slipping into acoustic interludes, it's almost like the musical version holding your breath, soaring as high and for as long as (in)humanly possible, so when the band does pause briefly, it knocks you on your ass, of when they switch gears and get all spacious and dynamic, it nearly blows your mind.
When we first got this, we only listened to it a couple times, and thought it was pretty cool, but on repeated listens it is proving itself to be truly transcendental, and unlike almost all of the other black metal out there, and is quickly becoming a contender for black metal record of the year.
Live Human's previous albums never really did it for me, so this great album is a revelation. Here the groundbreaking trio of standup bass, drums, and turntables is *live*, recorded right here in their hometown of San Francisco at the Great American Music
Live Human mixes warmly organic bass lines that are funky but not overly so, with percussion that is as breakbeat "funky drummer" style as it is carefully shuffling, staccato and delicate. The third equal element is hiphop DJ Quest's visionary turntablist style. While he does his fair share of athletic, textural scratching here (he even plays with the tense sound of a skipping cd, of all things), it isn't overdone, nor boring, nor predictable. He brings in just enough outside elements like women's voices, snippets of old hip hop classics, James Brown's "heuh!", etc., to prevent the "jazz" from imploding self-indulgently into itself, yet not so much that it becomes a sample-heavy smorgasbord. It is incredible how perfect Quest's instincts are for what is too much and/or not enough. I have to say that the turntablist skills demonstrated here are so seamlessly integrated with the bass and the drums that I can't help but think this is one of THE FINEST examples of turntablism I have ever heard -- he knows that the way to us listeners' hearts is not to showboat his virtuosic skills, but instead to bow to the demands of the music itself.
This is an awesome record that is completely worth your money. As if that wasn't enough, it is purposely being sold directly from the label to retailers for the express purpose of keeping the price down and, according to the liner notes, "cutting out many of the redundant music-industry middle-men that traditionally add nothing to the art but are happy to pocket more than their fair share of the profit (biiiiaaaatch!)."
Premonicion De Guerra is the debut release from this grim black metal horde, and it's two 20+ minute tracks of glorious, haunting, hateful black metal. There isn't a ton of information to be found on this project. Hailing from either Santa Cruz or Mexico (or both), and featuring possibly only one member, Lluvia specializes in orthodox black metal performed with utmost precision, class and respect. The record opens with a lonely torrent of rain and the crack of distant thunder whispering underneath listless clean guitars. It's a very literal calm before the storm, because before too long we're met with the foreboding buzz of a single grinding guitar that seems to exist in stasis for an unnaturally long time, lulling the listener into a false sense of calm before the blasting begins. When all of the pieces finally come together it's an overwhelming wall of sound. Pummeling blast beats and mournful, oppressive guitars give way to heart-wrenching mid-paced breakdowns. The whole record is awash in tons of reverb, soaking every moment with the cavernous atmosphere of a moss specked catacomb. The vocals are distant and echoed, like some hateful unsilent spirit craving revenge from the afterlife. The drums are enormous, every fill sounding like an avalanche. On paper it would be easy to say that Lluvia are dealing in the same traditional, Transilvanian Hunger style black metal as someone like Sargeist, but in execution the scope seems to be much larger. Instead the affect isn't far off from the hypnotic transcendence of Ash Borer or Fell Voices, but with a much more orthodox approach, which makes the results all the more impressive. The end result is overpowering yet strangely distant, sorrowful yet proud - invoking a feeling ancient and sad. It's black metal that can truly be called atmospheric in the purest sense of the word, but without one iota of the hate or the fury sacrificed.
Limited to 333 copies, on 180 gram gray/black swirl vinyl, gatefold jacket w/ inserts.
This Dodo Bird is charming from the very first song! The other four gentle folk pop tunes with their effusive acoustic guitar and soft-spoken male vocals are pretty darn lovely too. The gent behind all of them is Meric Long, a singer/songwriter from right here in SF (fyi: he's recently performed under the moniker Dodo Bird). This is his impressive debut ep, and it's super confident and composed. Very much in the easygoing, engaging tradition of Simon And Garfunkel, Astrud Gilberto, and definitely recommended for fans of Iron & Wine, Kings Of Convenience and Elliott Smith. Can't wait for more!
Perhaps it took Scott Arford winning honorable mention at the 2005 Ars Electronica to get this split release with Francisco Lopez to come out. These two pieces were originally recorded back in 2002 and had been slated for release by a couple of different labels, until Low Impedence had the sense to finally just do it. Curiously enough, this is one of several releases to come pouring out of Arford's 7hz studios after a couple of years of silence. Electricity appears to the source material and subject matter for the two composers on Solid State Flesh & Solid State Sex. The latter is the work of Mr. Arford who has always had a penchant for hard, blistered noises and cacophonic feedback squallor; and those sounds are heavily featured here punctuating the deadened buzz of smoldering electricity. It's hard to think of this as being sexy music or even sexual music given the electrocutionist throb of Arford's sounds, thus lending to plenty of transgressive readings if you're so inclined. On the slightly more voluptuous Solid State Flesh, Lopez expands the monotone of 60 cycle hums and the hissing buzz of electrical static through his signature compositional strategy of slow-burning tumult which abruptly halt and annouce a prolonged passage of inactivity. Unlike some of his Belle Confusion pieces, Solid State Flesh adds a considerable menace to his self-professed absolute concrete, but nevertheless is very well done and an excellent companion to Arford's work.
Following their very well-received Penny Drop 5-song ep, Loquat issue forth a slightly longer 7-song cd of equally pretty pop that once again brings to mind that fine British pop combo The Sundays. Wide-eyed, wistful, girlish vocals from Ms Kylee Swenson with a subtle, hushed backing of gentle piano, guitar and drums that tip toe gracefully around her voice. Be forewarned if you already have the ep, four of those five songs make a reappearance here (the final song "Band-Aid Queen" didn't make the cut), however they do deliver a sweet rendition of The Smiths' "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out". Should tide fans over until their soon-to-be-released debut full length. FYI: this is the third in Devil In The Woods Magazine's delightfully low priced Builder series.
For those of you who gobbled up the wistful, pretty pop stylings on Loquat's recent Penny Drop cdep, here's another similarly tuneful offering. Four mellow songs in all (including an alternate version and a remix of "Swingset Chain" from the ep) that come in the form of a 10" record that's part of a Bay Area artists series from the Dreams By Degrees label. Rounding out the other three seasons are Colophon (spring), Sappington (summer), and Coastal (winter).
Jackpine Records is home to many fine Bay Area artists' releases (Kelley Stoltz's Antique Glow, Parchman Farm's self titled debut, Oranger's Shutdown The Sun, as well as the compilations paying tribute to Joe South and Kris Kristofferson). Now they welcome a new member to the family... Loquat! You might already be fondly familiar with this SF band's sweet brand of smooth pop from their two cdeps (Penny Drop and Before The Momentum) and one 10" which we've carried in the past. If so, you'll probably be quite pleased with their latest offering, and if not, then this should make for a very pleasant introduction. If you like female fronted, lilting pop bands such as The Cardigans, The Cranberries or The Sundays, Loquat might be your new crush. Lead singer Kylee Swenson's voice continue to be a deadringer for that of The Sundays' Harriet Wheeler.
Please note: some of the songs from their previous releases reappear here. The ninth song "To The Floor" was originally on their debut Penny Drop cdep and their song "Swingset Chain" has been included on every cd release thus far. Yeah it's a great song, and yeah it was on a WB TV show, and yeah this is a freshly recorded version, but c'mon Loquat don't milk it to death! We know you've got plenty more where that came from.
Okay, enough grousing, but we just thought we should alert you to all of that, in case you were expecting a completely new album. Anyways, the sun is shining brightly today, and Loquat is taking its cue, beaming out warm, wonderful, well-crafted pop songs. Dreamy!
With their sweetly lilting female vocals and pretty mid tempo pop songs, Loquat's Penny Drop EP slips very gracefully in alongside the music of the Sundays or early Cranberries. Simply put, this SF quintet make very well-executed, warm and dreamy pop music. Pretty darn polished and radio-ready! Shuffling drum beats, synthy strings, and understated piano and guitar melodies swirl around the lead vocals of Kylee Swenson and the kindly male back-ups which come to think of it, also really brought to mind the loveliness of Emma Pollock from the fabulous Scottish band the Delgados. Soft but with a little twist of wryness in it.
Don't know why it should be any different for this genre than for any other, but it strikes us that it's gotta take some major cojones to tackle the badass stylings of Stax! That said, L.L.A.W.M. do so, and they do it admirably well. These folks clearly have a genuine gritty love of old soul music. These days every style of music has made its way into both the indie and mainstream circuits, hasn't it? Guess it was only time before this goldmine was tapped. Good times.
Live performance and touring (especially internationally) does much to sharpen the chops, expand the scopes and get the creative juices flowing for most artists, and it certainly appears so in the case for one Mr. Dominic Cramp. It seems the many journeys on the road performing as keyboardist and sound shaper for Carla Bozulich's group Evangelista have spurred him - already a very prolific music maker for many years - to stretch his limbs a bit, and push the boundaries of his music-making comfort zone into some fresh but not altogether foreign territory.
Lord Tang is definitely the brethren of Cramp's other musical personas (particularly Borful Tang, but also Vulcanus 68, Qulfus et al), and those familiar and fond of his Bay Area indie label Gigante Sound will surely geek to this too, but what sets Lord Tang apart are the new influences and inspirations Cramp has drawn upon, and the incorporation of more conventional song foundations (at least comparably so when placed next to his alter egos' more loosely structured soundscapes). However, he does not remain within those confines. As always, his music is free roaming. His soundscapes creep along, build, dissipate, and shapeshift like the cloud formations referred to in the opener. At once, both dense and vaporous, the tracks may linger on a note sequence or beat pattern for a spell then moving on, occasionally returning to revisit a theme in cyclical fashion.
In previous works and incarnations, Cramp scavenged, sculpted and collaged together the structures and narratives from existing samples (field recordings, tapes, and such). In Lord Tang, the elements (most notably melodies and rhythmic passages) are much more composed from scratch, and the sounds are built, shaped and performed on instruments (we detect a gaggle of analog synths, drum machines and digital effects processors among them). That said, although his creative processes may have diverged somewhat from his usual path, the resulting tracks aren't too alienatingly different to the ear. As with many of his instrumental recordings, this one oozes, lurches and seeps its way into your ear canals. Moody with a dark whimsy. We envision a subterranean being clawing its way up to the Earth's surface to eavesdrop on the city dwellers. Curiosity piqued by their daily routines and mundane dialogues, the churning rhythms of traffic reverberating down into his dank sunless world.
New one (getting better) from this popular San Francisco hard rock trio. Not 'stoner rock', not 'punk', not 'metal', not 'grunge'...not exactly. Loud guitars, tough girl vocals, lots of attitude and rock action. Members of Amber Asylum show up to add
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Finally, on cd. Digipak in fact. One of San Francisco's most popular hard rock verging on metal by way of grunge groups... They're no Sir Lord Baltimore, but it ain't the seventies no more either.
Jazz saxophonist Phillip Greenlief, a prolific local treasure, here departs from his experimental side and releases an album of standards, covering such diverse artists as Hank Williams, Billy Strayhorn, Monk, and Irving Berlin. Warm, masterful, and very listenable. With Dan Seamans (bass) and Tom Hassett (drums). Recommended!
Love duets -- strange, twisted, and surreal -- sung by Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr Bungle, Fantomas) and Jennifer Charles (Elysian Fields), and presided over by Nathaniel Merriweather a.k.a. DAN THE AUTOMATOR (Dr. Octagon, Deltron 3030, Gorillaz), the
Dan the Automator strikes again. This here record is the INSTRUMENTAL version of the Lovage album, and in our opinion it is much better! We felt the same way about the Deltron 3030 record, whose instrumental version kicks ass so much we named it Record of the
From the young Bay Area label whose roster continues to grow with such richly atmospheric mood rock combos as D.W. Holiday, Soltero and The Bother, comes this new quartet. Your introduction to Love Vigilante is a brief one. This record containing two of their drowsy indie pop tunes "Technically I'm Wrong" and "Days Of Auld Lang Syne (A Slacker's Ballad)".
After two cd releases this local band have opted to enter the glorious vinyl realm... a limited 4-song 12" pressing no less! On "Into The Fire", The Love X Nowhere continue the bigger rock trajectory they set on their last release the Odyssey cdep. Comes in a brown cardstock sleeve nicely printed with a circle of black birds and radiating blue lines.
This Bay Area band follows up their 6-song debut with another fine cdep. Considerably less boyish pop and less space-psych than last time, and more manly rock. On this Odyssey they've opted for a bigger slicker arena rock trajectory that brings to mind shades of U2. Onwards and upwards, lads!
SF locals The Love X Nowhere's debut 6-song ep begins with a cloud of swirly keyboards. Visions take shape of a shimmering space ship comin' in for landing, but as the hatch opens we're greeted with straightforward energetic pop rocks. This first song "Unworthy" is propelled by a driving beat and boyish vocal harmonies that sorta reminded me of Sloan. From there things move back to the moodier, spacier and Pink Floyd-ier sound that was hinted at by those first few moments. Layers of trippy psych-folk-y acoustic and electric guitars with mellow male vocals. The highlights are definitely the aforementioned lead-off track and the second to last, a lush string-laden number "#45". Very nice! The cd closes with a thumpin' remix version of the third song "Freedom".
Very strange and cool. The debut album from this SF group brings with it a heady air of somber intrigue. The Lovely Public draws together many styles as they roam through different dramatic scenes, slinking in and out of the shadows -- like an ensemble of olden time court entertainers descending into an electrified pagan ritual. Burning Tape At The Mystery Dinner has elements of jazz, post-rock, avant-folk, pop, krautrock, psych and much more. Whew, can you keep up with them? At once, very trippy yet very surefooted. Fans of Oneida and the latest Liars album will probably find much to dig here. Recommended.
Well the 80's new wave resurgensation isn't over yet, friends. The thing is, despite how much our Lovemakers sound sooo much like Depeche Mode and Human League, their songs are so catchy and good! Their veer a little over into that territory of songkraft-cheesiness that DM and HL often lathered themselves in, you know... those tracks that aren't huge hits are pretty big stinkers. But the tracks on Times Of Romance are not huge hits, nor are they all thaaaat baaaad. At moments they nearly reach that level of huge new power-pop as seen in Maximo Park! If your sleek electro new wave personal dance party isn't over yet, you gotta pick this up. For fans of Interpol, The Faint, Maximo Park, and you know... those OLD bands, Depeche Mode, Human League, Soft Cell, etc.
Here's the sophomore album from SF's Low Red Land! It finds the band traversing more rocky and turbulent territory than on their 2006 debut Weight Of Nations. Dog's Hymn is laden with far stormier moods, darker tones, and increasingly weathered vocals. Layers of churning post rock guitar lines build densely overcast atmospheres. Overall, still very emotively reminiscent of Doug Martsch (both in Treepeople and Built To Spill) in its cathartic delivery especially on tracks such as "Better Angels" and "West Texas", but also brings to mind The Weakerthans or a more rocked up Mountain Goats. Good stuff!
