No, not some quaint, lovey-dovey coupling between a waif-like chanteuse and her mustachioed beau-hunk. This is an Oakland minimal wave duo, whose emotional detachment through cold electronics and monotone vocals is hardly the stuff of romance. The former half of this duo is Max Brotman, who had released a pretty fantastic album of Sheffield-influenced synth-punk under the banner Brotman & Short. As good as that record (and this record is), we gotta wonder about the lack of imagination when it comes to naming his projects. Anyway, the latter is Mara Barenbaum, who records her Not Not Fun approved work of pop-surrealism as Group Rhoda. Let's hope this is not some one-off collaboration, as Brotman really seems to bring a sense of clarity and structural direction, and Barenbaum has plenty of weird-girl cards up her sleeve at any given time. The two come up with some choice synth-pop sequences on vintage gear reflecting a Chris Carter / Clock DVA sense of robo-funk. One of the rare outings from Dark Entries of contemporary work, but easily lives up to rest of the label's impressive catalog.
The tactile squiggles, zoner-drool time suspension, and tape machined guttural splutter of Collin McKelvey's Macro-negative conjure the lovingly grossed-out images of long lost Schimpfluch tapes. There was a legendary-yet-unheard performance of three of the Schimpfluch dudes (probably Phillips, G*Park, and Joke) smashing their contact miced faces into plates of spaghetti while a lithe woman serenaded them with electrified violin drones. While we've not actually heard any actual documentation of this particular aktion, we have a pretty damn good idea of what it might have sounded like. It would be a stretch to think that Bay Area audio-visual artist Collin McKelvey has taken up a similar strategy of fucked-in-the-head method acting, but some of the sounds he's grafted onto this tape have a profoundly scatological implications. One of the sides of this cassette opens with a disturbing set of pitch-shifted samples of intestinal gurgles and saliva dripped smacks (well, that's what it sounds like) which are overtaken by a slumped drone of 60hz electric hum cycling. The other side is grounded with a similarly electrocuted tonefloat with what sounds like a mass extinction of thousands of shrimp having their exoskeletons ripped off in mid-swim. Either that or it's a Small Cruel Party / Yeast Culture collage of tiny shards of flint, shale, and sandstone. Sicktones abound. It's limited to 50 copies and comes with a silkscreened cover.
As of the end of 2013, the San Francisco Museum Of Modern Art has temporarily closed its physical doors at its Third Street location, with plans to expand outward and upward from that structural footprint. Collin McKelvey and John Davis are two Bay Area media artists who happen to work at SFMOMA; and the two embarked on their Episteme project to document the ephemera and non-Art objects that would have typically gone unnoticed by the visitors and even the staff. A book was published for a short-lived exhibition of the visual documentation of said ephemera. Included with that book was a 7" of processed field recordings of the more banal, behind-the-scenes sounds at SFMOMA. The book seems to be sold out, but we did get a hold of some of these 7" singles of which we think there were about 100 copies in total. Each artist offers their own interpretation with McKelvey taking an abstract, phonographer approach with various shuffles, creaking wheels, HVAC purrs, and forgotten institutional clatter. Davis' track takes an opposite approach, recontextualizing various snippets of field recordings into motorik rhythms and radiophonic swarms with a nice Schnitzler / Moebius vibe.
Megaweapon is Mr. DJ George Chen (of Zum Magazine / indie music label right here in the Bay Area) and a few of his Oakland cohorts from Boxleitner and K.I.T. Together they're makin' 'tape music'. Dropsouts is a coarsely ground and blended 4-track recording of noise-alicious distorted scraping, looping and churning. A brief but notable track is the second - a scant thirty seven seconds of what sounds like a chat between two homemade foghorns. 25 minutes total. Limited 'pressing' of 75.
After the twisted avant collage experimentation of the recently released Slow Down Tiger lp, Dan Melchior returns to the garage rock sound he's more well known for, on this, his first for John Dwyer from Thee Oh Sees' Castle Face label, and while it's not so nearly warped and way out as Slow Down Tiger, it's still pretty freaky. Sure there's crunchy jangly guitars, and actual proper song structures, but there's still all manner of weird noises, strange effects, some songs lurch to a stop, like in the strange spoken chorus to opener "A Wizard Doesn't Need A Computer", other tracks are rife with psychedelic popisms, like on "Night Of Fear", where Melchior is channeling sixties flower-poppers The Move, but filtered through a thoroughly fractured modern garage pop filter, and others are just straight up blown out old school garage rock pounders, like the urgent distorto crush of "Rip It To Pieces". Like on all the other Melchior records, he can't seem to deny his experimental side, so drum machines pop here and there, multiple vocal lines tangled into unlikely harmonies, riffs are blurred into extended distorted drones, reverb and echo are slathered on everything, but all of that weirdness is somehow corralled into the service of some seriously great songs, that most definitely do sound right at home on Castle Face.
Here comes a great new San Francisco band making some melt worthy washed out pop. Right at home on Underwater Peoples who have also released records we love by folks like Ducktails, Julian Lynch, Air Waves, and Pill Wonder. They for sure have the kodachrome soaked old cassette recording C86 happening, but there is something nice and subtle about their delivery that sounds so refreshing and earnest. We love how much of a daydream haze these songs put us in, synth pop that is less about beating you over the head with the sounds of synthesizers and more about casting a spell of timeless daydreams and melancholy memories. If you've been digging folks like The Art Museums, Puro Instinct, Memory Tapes, and Holy Shit then for sure you should jump all over this Melted Toys debut. It's some of the best dreamy and druggy, hazy and seductive pop that we've heard in a long time!
We've been fans of this local dream-gaze band since their first ep a few years ago. Then besides a split 45, we heard little from them. We were psyched to see them open for Italian synth-prog cult Sensations Fix this past September, because we had heard they had a new full length out on Underwater Peoples, we knew we needed to stock. But then something unexpected happened. The band imploded, cancelled their appearance at that gig and broke up. Not sure what happened, band drama no doubt, we were bummed for sure. But as it turns out, we then discovered that our new and cool next door neighbor Ole was actually in the band (or until recently, had been) and had copies of their first full length - and final - recording in hand to consign to us, probably because it won't likely get promoted too much since the band is done. Which is super too bad, because this record is so amazing! But at least, we finally get to hear it and share it with you.
Burnt out dreamy hazy pop jangle, pastoral and romantic, melancholy and bittersweet, but kind of druggy too in a sun damaged LA way. Foggy daydream break-up songs that carry a worn and faded sadness of distant memories and unrealized dreams. Reminds of our favorite bands on Creation or Sarah Records, The Field Mice, Weekend or House of Love, even bands like the Great Unwashed or The Three O'Clock, super catchy, compelling and crushing heartbreak pop perfect for rainy day or really any day listening. Our current autumn soundtrack for sure. Limited stock!
As thriving as the garage rock scene is in San Francisco, it's important to note there is some pretty amazing pop being crafted in these parts as well. We loved what we heard on the debut 12" by Melted Toys on Underwater Peoples that we listed a few months back, so we were super excited to get a brand new track of their low-key, yet so infectious breezy and subtly washed out pop.
Dominant Legs, we first heard when they opened for Girls at a breathtaking show at the Swedish American Hall a couple years ago. In fact, the band's main man, Ryan Williams Lynch is one of the guitarists in Girls, and there has always been something about him on stage that made us keep our eyes locked on him, as we knew there was something pretty special about his presence. Along side Hannah Hunt, and a full band with super strong chops, they create such a wonderful version of 2011 boy/girl cuddle-core. Think Belle & Sebastian meets The Softies doing Roy Orbison covers.
Released by the French label, Atelier Cesium, the 7" comes with a digital download.
Another killer batch of sixties style power pop jangle fuzz from this aQ fave, with another out-of-time, heartthrob, Teenbeat, pin-up cover photo, featuring Melton in his ubiquitous leather jacket, this time with no shirt on, gold chain, and a bat slung over his shoulder, as he wanders though some very Paleolithic looking foliage. Kind of like Matthew McConaughey as garage rocker? It's hard to say how much of that part of Melton's schtick is a put on, it hardly matters, but it really does play into the whole retro psych vibe, with this latest, Outside Of Paradise, another gem of fuzzy, reverbed, echo drenched garage pop, that literally sounds like some lost sixties/seventies psychedelic holy grail, from the songs, to the sound, literally nothing betrays this as anything but an actual Nuggets style artifact.
And like the last Melton record, as well as his records as Bare Wires, Melton once again demonstrates an impossible knack for classic, timeless songsmithery, with pretty much every track here a total garage psych earworm, and while there's little here that distinguishes most of these songs from the rest of Melton's catalog (which is not a bad thing AT ALL), he definitely continues to hone his songwriting chops, and his skills as an arranger, delivering some of the catchiest, well crafted tunes yet, with the sorts of hooks and choruses most groups would kill for, not to mention some subtle string arrangements (check out the title track, and "Take My Hand") which lend a dreamy, baroque gravitas to the fuzz and crunch, and makes for what might just be our favorite MM record yet!
Regular readers of the list know how much we love local fuzz pop jangle garage rockers Snake Flower 2 and the equally fuzzy and jangly Bare Wires, both fronted by Mr. Matthew Melton, a long haired, leather jacket clad rocker, albeit one with a pop heart wrapped in prickly fuzz, which is precisely what we find so magical about Melton's songwriting.
Crunchy, fuzzy, buzzy, reverby, blown out, catchy and hooky and melodic, sounding almost like the musically wiser big brother to the current crop of lo-fi garage poppers like Thee Oh Sees and the Sic Alps and Ty Segall. Melton's songs just sound more world weary and experienced, there's still a youthful exuberance, but it's a bit tarnished, a little gritty and grimy, and it just suits the sound and the songs.
Still Misunderstood collects early tracks and demos from Melton that predate both Bare Wires and Snake Flower 2, and while it seems even back then his songwriting was fully formed, it is still developing in some ways, the influences of early rock and roll is way more obvious, the Kinks, the Who, the Flamin' Groovies, sixties and seventies garage pop, big choruses, clean jangly strum, tambourine, simple pounding drums, swirling wah guitar, a little psychedelic, a little lo-fi, but awesomely propulsive and fuzzy and rocking. At times it almost sounds like some obscure lost gem from the late sixties or early, some out-of-nowhere reissue of some band from the Midwest's only (unreleased) record, which only reinforces the timelessness of these tracks, and reaffirms Melton's position as one of our current favorite songwriters. Dig it!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Seven-track live disc from these hard-workin' rock madmen. Includes renditions of earlier faves like "Boris" and "It's Shoved" as well as more recent material.
Won't go into too much detail here, since if you're not already a bit obsessed with the Melvins, you're probably not gonna need a 200 page book about em. But thos of you who ARE into the Melvins. WAY into the Melvins will definitely need this. Over two hundred pages of artwork, photos, tour diaries, discographies, interviews, stories, inserts, ALL the artwork from all their releases and more. Also includes a greatest hits cd. Odds are you have most of it, but there are a few surprises. Definitely super cool and gorgeously laid out. And of course, limited!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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2 cds for the price of one. Every track from those monthly 7"s that you couldn't get hold of cos they sold so quickly. Of course, this too is limited. Oh, AmRep.
#2 in the Melvin's 3-album summer plan. This is the self-proclaimed 'quiet' one, and, while not near-silent like a Bernard Gunter record or anything, it is quite restrained by the Melvin's usual loud-and-pummelling standards. Rather hypnotic post-rock is what you get, with strange almost-Gothic vocals from Buzz. The first 'wacky' Melvins album that Allan has liked, because the so-called wackiness is limited to a single (successful!) concept that they stick to throughout the record, instead of trying to surprise/annoy with each and every song like some other Melvins discs of which I could think. No, 'The Bootlicker' doesn't possess the classic heavy Melvins sound that previous disc 'The Maggot' recaptured, but is much better the sort of indie-rock/Mr. Bunglized sound of other recent full-lengths like 'Stag'. So, two down, both pretty good, and one to go. (The next one, 'The Crybaby', we'll admit to being a bit afraid of...seeing as it's the 'wacky guest star' album or something, with contributions from the likes of Leif Garrett and Hank Williams III!)
The first in their three part summer album series recorded for Mike Patton's new Ipecac label. This one is their "metal" record. Supposedly album number two is "slow" and part three is "experimental". Includes a rendition of Fleetwood Mac's "Green Manalishi With The Two-Pronged Crown" (a live favorite at Melvins shows for the past few years). Not as good as the Judas Priest version, but good. Anyway, The Maggot should satisfy those for whom the last couple of Melvins' records were too deliberately weird or "indie-rock".
Merch is the perfect name for this young DIY pop-punk outfit of local transplants from Fresno, California who have been rocking the all-ages scene with their infectiously hook-y lo-fi power anthems. Made even more off-kilter due to their unique use of cello and banjo as well as electric guitar as lead instruments, this reminds us at times of early Pavement, Camper Van Beethoven and Guided By Voices, but done in a way that feels like more of their own making rather than deliberately mining similar sonic influences. A fine debut that makes great use of its rough-around-the-edges production with fun catchy songs that stay with us long after they're over. Cool!
Two artfully infectious lo-fi power pop songs from local trio of guitar, drums, and one rockin' cello. Very catchy songs with quirky lyrics, hummable hooks and back-up vocals. Good stuff, but try to see them live if you can, we're guessing you'll find it pretty hard to keep from dancing.
Latest full length from this local cello driven indie rock outfit, and their most lush and accomplished outing yet, produced by Bay Area psychedelic guru Greg Ashley, the band have crafted a strangely catchy collection of driving, string laden indie rock, inspired by heartbreak, as all worthwhile rock records are, opening with a hauntingly cinematic intro, all soaring melodic swells, buzzing cello, wild psychedelic guitar, plink plonk piano, which leads directly into a heady slab of pounding fuzzed out jangle, that then splinters and transforms into something downright proggy, crooned vocals over busy swirling piano melodies and woozy cello, before the guitars swoop back in, the song seesawing back and forth between crunchy jangle and tense moody brood. The following track drapes softly distorted vocals over loping bass, spidery melodies and fuzz guitar, adding some cool slide, and wild little tangles of psych guitar, and that ever present cello, definitely giving the sound its own unique vibe.
The rest of the record unfurls darkly and dramatically, shifting constantly from sound to sound, each sound (and song) seemingly representative of a step in the grieving process, Merch mainman Joe Medina translating that grieving process into sound, minor key miserablist downer pop blurs into stripped down bluesy rock, fuzzed out indie rock blossoms into bombastic almost progginess, twang flecked drifts sprawl into propulsive hypnotic minimalism which in turn transforms into shimmery acoustic folk and back again, the sound rife with hints of Sparklehorse, Giant Sand, TV On The Radio, and other purveyors of dark indie pop and fuzzy psychedelic garage rock.
Special colored vinyl version just for aQ (marbled grey swirl), also includes a poster, and a download coupon for the whole record!
Another record that was originally a Record Store Day exclusive, now thankfully more widely available. We were initially excited about this three way split for the new jams from aQ faves Milk Music, who start off with a killer Creedence Clearwater Revival cover ("Effigy"), which like all great covers, sounds like it could be a MM original, the guitars blown out, the vocals drenched in FX, the song gorgeously minor key and drowsily noisy, reminding us a little of Sub Pop unknowns (but also aQ faves) Rein Sanction. The second MM track sounds like it could have been plucked right off the last record, and weirdly enough, sounds like it could be another cover as well, all fuzzy and twangy, and then they finish off with another cover perfectly suited to MM's sound, Johnny Thunders' "You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory".
Destruction Unit deliver a blast of swagger, noise drenched garage punk, with bellowed dramatic vocals over, dizzying swirls of distort guitar, all wrapped around a churning lo-fi crunch, bathed in feedback, and noisy as fuck, but crazy catchy too, slipping easily into stretched out psych jams, before slipping right back into some stomping garage rock crunch. And finally, Merchandise from Florida, get all spacey and gloomy and dramatic, a drifty, slow core creep, laced with steel string shimmer, low slung bass buzz, and some deep, dark vocal crooning, the first track, a smoldering dark ballad, the second a bit more post punky sounding a bit like a popper, jangler Wipers. Cool stuff all around.
Comes with a cool, full color insert/booklet, and no download.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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More local SF weirdness from a band that may be familiar to the early-'90s Bananafish readership.
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We had this lil' single for a short time sans festive green sleeve, but now you can get the complete package. The two sweet instrumental melodies here bring to mind a picnic in the park or a wintery sleigh ride. Features William Winant on marimba and glockenspiel. Limited pressing of 500 from nice local band.
Despite the exclamatory title of their debut album, Mercury Dimes balance their fiddle-driven repertoire between peppery squaredance-ready tunes sure to get ya up kickin' a heel in the air, and more subdued numbers that are perhaps more appropriate for porchswing star-gazin' with your sweetie. This Bay Area combo's warm, homey, very traditional country sounds make for a nice companion to their fellow Bay Area folksters Amy & Karen's recent (also self-released and similarly cool screen-printed cardboard fold-out sleeve packaged) cd, or SF rootsy vets such as Crooked Jades (who have their own brand new album out now!) and Virginia Dare.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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The band has decided to reissue their first album, previously only available as a cassette.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Looking for some pretty, hushed, gentle, folksy acoustic pop? Well, the debut cd-r ep by SF's Messes just might hit the spot. Their six songs are very intimate and sensitive singer/songwriterly along the lines of Elliott Smith. The 19-minute cd-r is lovingly packaged in a sewn paper sleeve festooned with bird imagery.
The pros and cons of Metallica's new album, pretty much off the top of our heads:
Pro - It's literally AT LEAST a million times better than their last album, St. Anger.
Con - Of course, that might not be saying that much, since St. Anger was absolutely one of the worst albums ever made.
Pro - It's also much better than Load/Reload/whatever else they've done since the Black Album.
Con - That also didn't take much.
Pro - It's actually metal, which is what a Metallica album should be!
Con - James' singing is still still pretty 'chain wallet' though.
Pro - There's guitar solos this time around, they actually let Kirk play his guitar!
Con - They're still letting Lars play drums. And boy does he sound tired on some of this.
Pro - Produced by Rick Rubin.
Con - Rick Rubin producing Slayer in 1986 is not the same as Rick Rubin producing Metallica in 2008.
Pro - Definitely some decent riffs here. Parts of "The End Of The Line" are pretty badass ferinstance. We're also digging how chunky and speedy and thrashy the likes of "My Apocalypse" and "All Nightmare Long" get, amongst others.
Con - Lots of 'meh', sensitive dude parts too.
Pro - The digipack packaging is really nifty, with a die cut cover and cd booklet that gives a 3-D effect to the coffin shape depicted in the cover art.
Con - "The Unforgiven III". That's right. III.
Pro - Like old Metallica, most of the songs are at least 7 minutes long.
Con - Most of the songs are at least 7 minutes long.
Ok, enough. We were just trying to be funny with the last one.
Lots of pros, cons too. And maybe Metallica, with Napster and Some Kind Of Monster and Load and St. Anger and haircuts and everything, have made it impossible to be objective about them at all.
Basically, one reaction is that, hey it sounds something like old Metallica, and at this point, that's something to be thankful for! Of course, also at this point, if you want to listen to old Metallica, chances are you're gonna just put on Master Of Puppets or Kill 'Em All, or one of their other albums that are all pros, pretty much no cons...
Basically, the diehard '80s Metallica fans here at AQ are never gonna truly be happy with these guys again, unless Cliff comes back from the dead, but heck at least the average radio-listener, record-buyer is getting something fairly metal out of the deal, more metal than Metallica has been in a looooong time. If we're gonna get a new Metallica shoved down our throats, it could have been a whole lot worse. (They've proved it in the past.) Now, if they'd have done another Diamond Head cover on here, we really might be calling it a comeback. That would have been sweet. In the meantime, we WILL be spinning Death Magnetic, mentally weighing record review pros and cons but also unconsciously air guitaring and headbanging... whoops, were we doing that? To the new Metallica?? Shit, maybe we DO like this!
Oh and here's another pro: it's cool that Kirk is still rockin' the long hair, like he's still in Exodus or something, even though maybe he shouldn't. Getting close to the dreaded "Gallagher!"
Seems like a bad idea, sure (the band playing with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra). But surprisingly some of this actually works. They start off with a Morricone cover which segues perfectly into their instrumental opus "Call of Ktulu." The slow ones work best seeing as they are basically slowed down Wagner played on guitar. The fast ones are a mess. I (Andee speaking here) was there, and I can tell you it was worth it just to see a shirtless metalhead ejected for stage diving at the symphony.
Debut blast of noisy, filthy, swaggery, feral, gloom punk from this SF trio, who go by the lovely sobriquet Meth Sores, and these guys definitely live up (or down) to the name, spewing a seriously caustic brew of jagged, crumblingly distorted guitars, blown out bass buzz, yowled, reverbed vox buried in the mix, and a barrage of chaotic drum destruction, this raw, primitive sound only further enhanced by the medium, a hand made, one sided lathe-cut 7", which makes the sound that much more lo-fi, and in-the-red, perfectly suited to the group's vibe, but the end result is so awesomely distorted and damaged, it's hard to imagine the band sounding this good, and this utterly trashy and fucked up in the flesh. But check out the sound samples, it's the tracks before being carved into that slab of plastic, and goddamn if it doesn't sound just as good. Think Joy Division crossed with Lubricated Goat, or the Unsane covering Iceage, or something that fantastically noisy and gloriously gloomy, two totally blown out psychedelic noisepunk goth / gloomwave noiserock jams, easily some of the coolest local stuff we've heard in a while. And yeah, SUPER LIMITED too.
Over the last couple years Mi Ami have become a serious and sweaty inspiration for the music scene here in San Francisco. Whether it's playing and hosting all night dance parties in living rooms, or DJ'ing African jams and cosmic disco in dark rooms with reckless abandon, the three guys in Mi Ami have shown that they have a deep and vast appreciation for music of all styles and variations. This is a band whose record collections are as likely to have vinyl from DNA and JFA as they would M.I.A. and MDC. But thankfully, they are one of the few bands who makes music as cool and exciting as the records in their collections. It's been so hard to actually get a hold of any of their recordings until now, unless you were lucky enough to snag one of their previous slabs of vinyl at one of their high energy body moving live shows. Chances are that this will likely be most folks' first chance to get a hold of Mi Ami on record, and this 12" is a really great introduction to what they're all about. And what they're all about is all over the map, from dub to disco, no wave to post-punk. Yet somehow they find a way to meld all those sounds into something distinctly their own. While members of the band were previously in Black Eyes and even did some time in The Rapture, Mi Ami is truly a beast of it's own vision. "Ark Of The Covenant" finds them firing at full throttle with no-wave aspirations and heavy grooves to keep the blasts hitting so right. The B-side which is "The Ark (Version)" finds them dubbing out with such spacious delight, the energy and vibrancy reminds us a lot of how we felt when Tussle first hit the scene. We can't wait to see what the future holds for Mi Ami as they continue to pull from such rich and varied influences from the past while feeling so committed to the present.
Yeay! We are so excited that SF's own Mi Ami were recently snapped up by Quarterstick and as we type this are on the road touring the States! It's just a matter of time before these guys start becoming loved all across the map for their high energy approach to genre bending, percussive, heavy and sweat inducing colorful rhythms. Echonoecho is the first song on what will be their new full length Watersports and once again they get to let shine their love of the 12" format. Side A finds the song in its full almost nine minutes of glory. High pitched vocals come blasting right out of the gate along with frenzied instrumentation for a totally epic and catchy track that sounds like some kind of joyous meeting of Nation Of Ulysses, The Rapture and Liquid Liquid. And we have to say that Mi Ami shine so brightly with the 'Version' sides of their singles. Dubbed out for maximum slow burn perfection. We can't wait for the full length, but we hope they keep cranking out 12"s as well cause they are one of the few groups around today who really know how to make the most of this special format.
There aren't too many bands you can say sound "unlike anything else". San Francisco's own Mi Ami is one of those rare groups. For the past few years they have been setting SF, and more recently a good deal of the rest of the world, on fire with their spastic blend of skronky rhythmic awesomeness. Things are constantly moving, and the band's secret weapon is no doubt drummer Damon Palermo, who pulls double duty in cosmic explorers Jonas Reinhardt (whose Powers Of Audition record we recently listed). Of course, the other two members, guitarist/shrieker Daniel Martin-McCormick and bassist Jacob Long (both former members of legendary Dischord band Black Eyes), are just as essential in contributing to the sonic maelstrom that makes up Mi Ami's sound. Warmly distorted guitars howl and slash relentlessly, while the grooving basslines hold the foundation as the drums carry the songs all over the place without letting up. And then there are Martin-McCormick's feral screams, practically an instrument on their own. They manage to sound totally fun but with a firebeathing delivery that will also make you stop to think about songs like "Native Americans (Born In The U.S.A.)". The band has been expertly building up its sound over the past few releases, and they possess a keen production sense which makes Steal Your Face their strongest effort yet. The sound is frantic and ridiculously fun most of the time, but they also know how to slow things down, like on the mellow yet tense groove of "Dreamers", which rides slow and steady in a haze of dubbed out, feedback laced atmospheres. There is a constant sense of adventure here, and in never limited themselves Mi Ami have arrived at a seriously unique sound, one where amazing whirlwind rhythms and quirky electronics merge perfectly with a punk aesthetic. Ten years ago, this would have been a pretty difficult combination to imagine, but this is 2010 and Mi Ami own this sound. Highly recommended.
Hoss is a newish label that are working with eclectic minded bands (Excepter, Lichens, WZT Hearts, Ecstatic Sunshine, Jason Forest, etc.) for limited edition vinyl releases where the artists are encouraged to really push and expand a side of their musical DNA in a way that they haven't before. So it makes perfect sense that they reeled in San Francisco's Mi Ami to launch their new "techno" series, which allows Mi Ami the opportunity to fully indulge in their love of techno and craft some serious dance floor burners. We hope Mi Ami keep exploring this side as they really understand how to weave an array of dance/electronic influences into such a fresh and eclectic sound. This is not the screamy/punky side of Mi Ami, instead Towers Fall finds the boys crafting a truly unique slice of electronica that somehow fuses the Berlin school, Chicago and Detroit house and even dubstep, without sounding stale, retro or rehashed. Each side of this 12" is about 10 minutes long, giving the tracks space to breathe and sprawl so nicely. Recommended.
It's been a pretty great several months for San Francisco's Mi Ami. They went from being a living room party band secret to getting signed to Quarterstick and touring the nation, with Europe coming up on their horizon this spring. With a few now-hard-to-get 12"s under their belt we were anxious to hear what shape their debut full length would take. Watersports (such a dirty album name, and we love the cover photo!) definitely brings the full voltage, power and energy of their live shows. While much is made about their incorporation of dub, disco and cosmic influences, listening to an entire Mi Ami full length we're very much reminded of their punk and post-hardcore roots, with ex-members of Dischord's Black Eyes making up 2/3 of the band and a spazzy and high pitched squealed vocal delivery that reminds us a lot of some of those great '90s post-hardcore bands like Native Nod, Nation Of Ulysses, Rye Coalition, Antioch Arrow, etc.
Sonically however there is much more at play in Mi Ami's bag of tricks and while the vocals may be a make it or break it scenario for some folks, you can't deny the energy, enthusiasm and visceral fury bursting out of their creative and lively songs.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
In the anti-tradition of whitebread Bay Area thrash metal, the violent morass of New York no wave, and a familiarity with Ralph Records / THE RESIDENTS insanity, Microwaves draws from a palette that is somehow as wide as it seems limited. Spiked skronk-infested guitars spit tonality-impaired riffs like so much chaff from a surgically calibrated tree shredder, while a propulsive fretless bass assault is jammed through all manner of alien effects, often rendering it as more a bowel-rumbling presence than an actual instrument. The percussive cyborg clatter and MICROWAVE's paranoid dual vocal attack serve to further blast MICROWAVES' dystopian thrash into the outer void.
Braggadocious San Francisco metallers Midnight Chaser unleash their album debut, brought to us by the same label that put out the Vektor album we highlighted last list. But while Vektor blew minds with their advanced thrash tech, Midnight Chaser are much more retro and rockin' than that. They play sleazy hard rock steeped in the sounds of the late '70s/early '80s New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, a la Diamond Head, Blitzkrieg, Chateaux, and Tank. And we know they know their stuff, they covered Tank on the limited edition ep that preceded this, and are named after a song by obscure NWOBHMers White Spirit (the band that Iron Maiden third wheel Janick Gers got his start in). Combine that with their native Californian good time rock n' roll roots and you've got a party... in fact, the lead off track here, entitled "Awesome Party" (actually Midnight Chaser's original name before wiser heads prevailed) tells you pretty much all you need to know. Super catchy chugging riffiness, in support of the singer's spirited contention that he's "got nothing to lose", "really need(s) to cut loose" and is "looking for an awesome party tonight". And it would be an awesome party, if Midnight Chaser were playing...
The whole rest of the record is similarly rockin' and fun, including their cover of "Dynamite" from Blackout by the Scorpions. Other things to like about 'em: the singer has short hair, wears aviator shades, and thus kinda has a Graham Bonnet thing going. The disc's cartoonish cover is pretty rad/ridiculous, depicting a sexy woman of indeterminate age (possibly the protagonist of track 5, "Cougar'd") riding a mechanical amplifier beast with electric guitars for legs, galloping across a hot pink landscape. Yeah they're not very grim and kvlt, are they? But take a break from the black metal and rock out for once! Seems we've got a little New Wave Of San Francisco Old School Awesome Partying Heavy Metal happening here, with the likes of Space Vacation, Hot Fog, and now these guys! Cool.
Do you have a fist full of quarters? About five dollars worth? Do you like feisty '80s-style punk pop tunes? Well, you just might wanna head for this Midway! Their debut five song ep positively bursts with youthful vigor. As you may guess from the title, they're all about cute, no-frills fun. And we'd guess they're more into riding the rollercoasters and the bumper cars, than the Ferris wheel! Fun!
Earth Has Doors is the first solo record from Fresh & Onlys guitarist Wymond Miles, and while in many respects it's sonically similar to the F&O's mothership, Miles paints a much darker musical picture, twangy and dirgey, heavily reverbed, a little bit swampy and gothic sounding, Miles' vocals are haunting, deep and dramatic, and while these songs are heavily rooted in Miles' study of eschatology, anthroposophy, and Gnostic and Hermetic symbolism, one might not necessarily hear that, even on close listening, although the sounds here are most definitely dark and mysterious, reminding us at times of Scott Walker, Woven Hand, Mark Lanegan, and other similarly dark spirited songsmiths. Miles' vocals do definitely also remind us of Fresh & Onlys frontman Tim Cohen, which makes sense, and sonically, Miles's first foray is again not that far removed from his main band, which of course means F&O's fans will definitely dig, as long as they're prepared for a bit more darkness than they're used to. But that said, Earth Has Doors is its own dark beast, with some strange production, sweeping strings, buzzing synths, proggy arrangements, tribal percussion, lots of buzz and drone, some thick spaced out effects, as well as some surprisingly catchy songs, all wreathed in a darkness that somehow only makes these songs that much more appealing. Great stuff!!
Super sunshine indie pop in a very Beulah meets Pavement-esque fashion... It's San Francisco's Milk Chopper! Breezy boyish harmonies abound with a subtle bit of twang and snippets of sound samples shuffled in here and there. Quite a pleasing pop debut.
Found a VERY small stash of these original 1993 vinyl pressings at one of our suppliers. At original 1993 vinyl prices too! (Yes, remember when vinyl was cheaper than cds?). This release was the debut from Milk Cult, a beats-and-sound-collage side project of Dale "C.C. Nova" Flattum from San Francisco's late great grungy noiserock heavies Steel Pole Bath Tub, and it predates our "list" by a couple years, so we've never reviewed it, though much later on we did make Milk Cult's fourth and final album a Record Of The Week (2000's Project M-13, now long out of print unfortunately).
Love God opens with the title track, well worth the price of admission alone, 10+ minutes of chugging distorted Slayer riffage meets turntablist whip-whip-whap in a sampledelic maelstrom. All kinds of other insanity enters into the pounding mix, from flamenco dance music (?) to police sirens. It's apparently the soundtrack to a short film by Frank Grow which we've never seen but we figure it must be pretty freaky. From then on, the warped vibe of underground '90s plunderphonic noiserock industrial soundtrack mayhem continues, in a surrealistic style where, like, moments of sepia-toned old tyme record crackle loopage that could be from a Leyland Kirby disc, will be rudely juxtaposed with sudden onslaughts of -actual- Slayer samples, or even blasts of machingun fire. It's definitely very '90s, in a good way, think Pain Teens, early Scorn, Sucking Chest Wound, experimental Melvins, Cosmonauts Hail Satan, WordSound label dubby "illbience", and of course Steel Pole Bath Tub themselves - they always used samples, weird voice-overs and whatnot, and if you're familar with them, what you'll hear here will remind you of that aspect of their sound, but given center stage. Chaotic and/or creepy for sure, but "groovy" too in a way. Needless to say, these are the last copies we're gonna see, and when they're gone, they're gone. (Honestly, we only found 4 of these, so apologies in advance if they're all been snagged by the time you read this.)
Kristin Miltner is one of many very talented electronic musicians from the Bay Area who has gone through Mills College with a deft understanding of Max/MSP language and how to apply that understanding to a post-techno framework of electronica. While she has collaborated in a couple of other recorded projects, Grains stands as her solo debut, and it's quite a gem of twinkling glitch-based electronica and crunchy rhythmic skitter. Fragmenting tiny snippets of her own voice and splicing it all back together with all of the digital threads exposed, Miltner builds looping melodies that hold the same languid sensibility found on those beloved Colleen records, but with the additional pixel smear patina from the likes of Tim Hecker and Fennesz. Using these melodies as the building blocks to her pop-song length pieces, Miltner stacks these sounds with increasing density and jagged drum machines, all the while maintaining the basic tune of the melody. Grains emerges as a short and sweet reprisal of the classic Autechre use of melody with plenty of technological tricks up its sleeve to keep it charming, fresh, and unique. Very nicely done.
First we've heard from these local math/post/kraut rockers since their The Ringing Silence Between Your Ears 7", which we LOVED, and even then we were already hankering for more, so here we finally have a new full length, five new songs, clocking in at more than 30 minutes, and all it takes is about a minute of the first track to remind us of why we love these guys so much. If this was 1995, these guys would be HUGE, and fuck it, even in 2013, these guys should be. Equal parts old school math/post/noise rock and more modern slow build heaviness a la Mogwai, Minot are masters of nuance, so tight and controlled, the sound intricate, rhythmically complex, heavy as fuck, and somehow, totally crazy catchy, a tough feat for sure when you're all instrumental, but after repeated listens, we find melodies and riffs stuck in our head like crazy. Progged out mathiness fused to moody jangle, all wound up into sprawling hypno-rock mesmer. The opener manages to be alternatingly dizzying and moody and melodic, while the second track dials the math back a bit (except for the drums which seem to be in constant motion) unwinding a fantastic sprawl of mesmerizing minimal post rock, the track already locked into a super dramatic slow build, atmospheric, majestic and epic, but these guys mix it up like crazy, the track constantly shifting into dense rhythmic tangles, stuttering start/stops, some seriously dense metallic mathiness, somehow all the while remaining utterly catchy.
The rest of the record follows suit, the band deftly weaving super intense soundscapes of chiming harmonics, busy drumming, angular guitars, thick super melodic basslines, even some electronics, the band nimbly flitting from dense brood to majestic metallic swirl and back again, loping post rock waltzes that morph into psych-prog jams, woozy droney dirges that lead directly into minimal mathy skitter, only to somehow get even mathier, but again, remaining kind of melodic and catchy. Rare is the band that can pull that off, and pull it off so consistently, but if you haven't figured it out by now, Minot is one of those rare bands. Totally recommended. Essential listening for fans of mathrock / postrock then AND now!
First we've heard from these local math rockers, who KILL IT in a way few bands have since the heyday of this kinda stuff. These guys are obviously totally beholden to nineties style math rock, which we're totally fine with, as longtime readers of the aQ list know, we LOVE math / post / noise rock, and love all the old bands from back in the day, and actually, some of the guys in Minot may even have a pedigree that reaches that far back, regardless, this is so good, with a sound that manages to evoke that old sound we love, but still be super modern and not any sort of retro trip at all.
Instrumental, dense, melodic, intricate, driving and heavy, but super moody and textured, the A side manages to be catchy as fuck while delivering said catchiness in a barrage of constantly shifting arrangements and tempos, in fact in a way it sounds like slow build Godspeed style post rock all cranked up and tangled up, into something more dense and dizzying. We actually played the A side like 4 or 5 times before we even made it to side two. And as you might imagine, the B side kicks ass too, digging a bit deeper into the moody meandery side of math/post rockiness, but after a few second of rhythmic loping, the sound explodes into a dense drum heavy groove, driven by a super melodic bassline drifting over the roiling instrumental below, it begins to sound like strings at one point (probably a mellotron, which one of the guys plays in addition to bass!), and then the song splinters into a jagged start / stop breakdown before swooping right back into into it. The 'strings' surface again, and even though it's a wild wrangle of guitar and drums, the sound blurs into a brooding, dreaming epic that so much has us wanting to hear more!
Pressed on pretty clear blue vinyl, and includes a sticker. And they just so happen to be named after one of our favorite places on earth, Minot, North Dakota!!
