This dynamic Bay Area duo continue onwards and upwards into the stratosphere of terrific music making with their latest release, Nests Of Waves And Wire. After 2006's Us Upon Buildings Upon Us left our ears wonderfully tangled in its wild mathiness and quick twists, we still have to admit we're a bit happy to hear Tartufi bringing back some of their earlier poppiness. This is really really good! Just as ambitious as its predecessor and perhaps even more fully realized. Lynne Angel and Brian Gorman really let their creative juices flow. Each of the seven tracks are impressively multilayered and detailed musical journeys incorporating elements of prog, post-rock, psych (yup, all the good stuff!) - particularly the almost thirteen minute long awesome third track "Engineering" and the final "Hole Or Space". Most are feverishly propulsive and highly rhythmic with vocals chanted and howled in hypnotic cycles. That said, the fifth song "System Folds" does brings a bit of calm to the otherwise breathless proceedings! Recommended.
Tartufi's second cd is simply burstin' with energy and confidence. We still stand by our previous comparison of this Bay Area band (which we made with regards to their six-song EP Westward Onward) to what you might imagine a collaboration between Jody Bleyle (Team Dresch, Hazel) and Rob Crow (Heavy Vegetable, Pinback) sounding like. Sounds pretty darn good to you, don't it? As well, some of their new songs are very much along similar lines as the recent Electrelane album Axes. Hope that doesn't sound like we're oversimplifying things. Really, we're just tryin' to say that Tartufi's music is packed with all the good stuff: a solid emotive pop core, infectious hooks, smartly crafted, challenging twists and strong female vocals. And they just keep gettin' better. Recommended!
Bay Area indie pop trio Tartufi have reached across the ocean to release a four-song EP with the Spainish label Acuarela... and we're glad to hear the word is spreading on this terrific band. If you've dug their intelligent, well-crafted first two cds So We Are Alive and Westward Onward then this will surely be a welcome treat too. Pop tunes played primarily on the straight-forward instrumentation of guitar, bass and drums (okay, there's a little piano, synthesizer and xylophone too), but with lots of plot twists (melodic, rhythmic and tempo-wise) to keep things interestin' and movin' along at a spritely clip. Check 'em (all) out!
Now that they're a duo instead of a trio, SF's Tartufi have shifted their focus away from punchy pop hooks and towards a more epic and expansive punk/prog/pop exploration. The news has created some division around here between those who totally thought their old incarnation was pretty darn great and let down by their new direction; and those who think their old sound was good but a tad derivative and find their new direction amazing, ambitious and refreshingly their own. Perhaps this division would have been better resolved with a new name for their new sound, but what's done is done. Singer and guitarist, Lynne Angel and drummer, Brian Gorman with the help from Tim Green (of The Fucking Champs) have crafted a mathy stew of beauty and noise with vocals that are at times both angelic and damning with turn-on-a-dime changes, majestic sweeps, soft interludes, and only a touch of over-indulgence. The acrobatics that Angel brings doubly to the guitar and her voice have to be seen live to be believed, where they seriously sound like a four piece with a choir. While their new sound to some of us is definitely less immediately engaging than their old sound and may take a little getting used to, we think there will be plenty of fans, love and support for their new shift in focus. Rock on!
Five sunkissed, laidback pop songs make up this debut from this Bay Area singer/songwriter Mr. Steve Taylor. Very much along the lines of The Shins, Elliott Smith and Matthew Sweet... or the soft side of Sloan and The Posies... or perhaps actually reaching further back in the school of pop timeline there's a good deal of Big Star and '70s soft rock in there too.
Issue 2 of this 'zine dedicated to punk, pop goodness from both now and then. Editor/publisher Gus Bernadicou and likeminded friends have packed this ish with 88 pages of interviews and other features, including chats with Dave Davies of the Kinks, John Doe of X (tagline for that piece: "The Hardest Man to Google"), The Mutants, aQ faves Jaill, Cherie Currie of The Runaways, Tommy James from The Shondells, and more� including an article about new wave weirdo Klaus Nomi, guide to '90s power pop gems, and a whole section of various VIP's "desert island discs".
Pink Skulls is a new cd-r label run by Glenn Donaldson of Jewelled Antler, for stuff that's too "punk" for Jewelled Antler to put out. A recent list's Record of the Week, Leaf Yard, was one of Pink Skulls' first releases (if you've heard that, you know that what Glenn means by "punk" sure ain't Green Day). Now comes the Teenage PanzerKorps, a band which actually features Glenn himself (under the name Edmund Xavier) in its ranks. This lil' 3" cdr looks a lot like the stuff in the on-going Jewelled Antler "Library" series, but sure doesn't sound like Thuja or Tomes or even Dead Raven Choir. It's raucous, droney, arty rawk with a German singer (a 40-year old punker going by the name Bunker Wolf here). Bunker and Xavier and joined by drummer "Catholic Pat" Toves and Boy True on bass (quite possibly actually Jason Honea, who's a member of the Knit Separates with Glenn). Loud (or at least distorted), not too fast, and Teutonically snotty: nine songs in as many minutes, with titles like "Burma Crawl", "Chinese Machine Gun parts 1 and 2", and "Get Out Of My Shadow!". It references '80s downer artpunk (The Fall, Factory Records stuff I guess or maybe some of Savage Republic's tracks), '60s garage with fuzz organ, and the hardcore bands Boy True and Catholic Pat used to play in. Noisy breaks, abrupt edits, and poppy grooves are all important to Teenage Panzerkorps' sound, but it's Bunker Wolf's accent and delivery that stands out the most. No fake German here like Zeigenbock Kopf! Then there's Glenn. He proved in his old band Mirza's more loud, scree-filled moments that he can do the aggro guitar thing, yet his sensitive side is still in evidence here, so his 6 & 12 string guitar parts here betray an indie-pop influence as pretty as what he's come up with in such outfits as The Birdtree, The Knit Separates, Blithe Sons and even Thuja (with whom Teenage Panzerkorp at least share a partly improvised approach). An interesting blend of inspirations/expertise to be sure. These guys recorded this for fun a couple years ago, and have finally found a proper outlet for it, which is cool 'cause it's pretty great.
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Bunker Wolf, Catholic Pat, Edmund Xavier and Boy True are back with some more of the aggro lo-fi Teutonic art punk attack that only they are capable in this day, age, and state. And leave it to the Teenage Panzerkorps to come up with an automatically classic title like Nations Are Insane. Doesn't that sound like the title of some critically-lauded, obscuro punk rarity? Y'know, a seminal album cited by bands years later? Well anyway I think it's a great title. And the tracks on here are great too! If you liked TPK's Gleich Heilt Gleich 3" cd-r previously issued by Jewelled Antler punk offshoot Pink Skulls, you'll slaver over this. Total '80s DIY worship, sounding like something that coulda been on one of those Hyped2Death comps. Arty, punky noise rock that's equally into the Germs and the Germans (like Neu! and Neubauten). And singer Bunker Wolf *is* German so it's very authentic in that regard. Eighteen tracks that clock in at under a half-hour of murky, shambolic, distorted, somewhat-poppy urgh-splurge. Featuring members of Grim Reality, The Nazi Dogs, Thuja, The Knit Separates, The Birdtree, Blithe Sons, Skygreen Leopards, etc...
Kauf Nicht Von TPK is a collection of oddities from the Deutsche-Americanische punk outfit Teenage Panzerkorps. Spearheaded by San Franciscan out-rocker Glenn Donaldson, Der TPK sports a German giant of a vocalist in Bunker Wolf, plus grizzled American punks Jason Honea and Catholic Pat Toves. Their sound is one of a forgotten bleak punk as if belted from some shitty squat in the shadows of the Berlin Wall circa 1981. Not the Neue Deutsche Welle sound of synth-based crooners nor of the Geniale Dilletanten crowd of Neubauten, Sprung Aus Den Wolken, etc; but the very dirty and very pissed-off punk sound of a group that wouldn't ever consider recording on anything with higher quality than a second hand 4-track. Even knowing this about Der TPK, we were caught offguard by the trainwreck pace of the first few tracks, which crash through 4/4 rhythms as the jangling guitars and throbbing basslines struggle to keep pace. Even Bunker Wolf sounds like he's pitched up his baritone barking just a bit. These couple of numbers sound as if the turntable was set to 45 rpm when the record's supposed to spin at 33. The tracks tend to return to a more manageable pace throughout the rest of the album which is still quite brisk mind you, with cuts rarely exceeding the three minute mark. These dark-gritty punk numbers drone through guitar, bass, and drums with Bunker Wolf chanting his way through each of the tracks, rounded out by the aptly named "Degenerate Disco." A few of the tracks are different versions of tracks found on the Harmful Emotions lp and the Nations Are Insane cd-r, both of which are way out of print, with plenty of unreleased tracks to boot. Limited to 300 copies, Italian import.
We'd been hearing lots about this energetic San Francisco band but our ears had yet to be graced by them until now, and we like what we hear! Angular and melodic post-punk that's reminding us a lot of the crisp energy of the 90's D.C./Dischord scene (Jawbox, Q & Not U, Faraquet) as well as having some of the spunk and relentless uptempo demeanor as folks like Les Savy Fav, Black Eyes, or a less spazzy Mae Shi. We bet these guys are super fun to see live. The LP comes on clear vinyl with a coupon for a free digital download.
Tender oozed out of, naturally, SF's Tenderloin 'hood (all the way up to a studio in Petaluma) to record this lp, a nasty platter of ugly, metallic punk rock n' roll, with wild psych-shred soloing, rubbery basslines, and gruff, in-your-face, high-in-the-mix vocals. Gnarly & nasty, but also not un-groovy, Tender dwell in the same freaky, filthy gutter with such misanthropic bands as Pissed Jeans and Cuntz, to name a few. Vocally, we're reminded of Killdozer, or maybe even Rob Zombie from White Zombie. With a lot of psycho-sexual issues. You can get an idea of Tender's general sick attitude from the song titles: "Ugly People Fucking", "God Likes To Watch", "Jesus Rides The UFO"... just yr basic blasphemous sexually deviant drug-fueled good times. Classic boogying rock gone to a very dark place. Or as the cover sticker sez: "A non-stop string of obscenities coupling feverishly with skull and bones aliens and new age conspiracy pastiche". Yes, they have problems. But secretly seem to be having a lot of fun. Tender's lineup features such veteran musical miscreants as Ed the Creep from The FuckEmos and Whitey Sims from SST's The Leaving Trains, by the way.
(Note to any preexisting Tender fans to avoid confusion: all of these songs previously appeared on a cd-r from couple years ago but now, in advance of a new album soon to be recorded, they've released their faves from that disc on vinyl.)
We might as well mention right up front, we only got 19 copies of this, so be prepared to leave empty handed. But if you are one of the lucky 19, you'll get the chance to fill your ears with that sweetly shimmery Skatery mumbled murky sonic gurgle. Which of course makes perfect sense since Teotihucan is the work of one half of Bay Area noisemakers the Skaters. This super limited tape, recorded "In Tijuana mexico and the desert outskirts of El Cajon California October-December 2004", is an expansive world of lo fi drones blurred into fuzzy slabs of indistinct melody, peppered with twinkling sonic sparkles and squeaking creaking feedback, buried loops of hypnotic disembodied vocals and strange instrumental smudges, all under layer after layer of buzz and rumble and hiss, then all washed out, like a chalk painting on the sidewalk after a rainstorm, a barely there swirl of soft focus color and blurry whirls of faint melody, a big beautiful colorful smear of sound.
Packaged in super janky, beat up, dirty and old-price-tagged thrift store answering machine style cassettes, which leads us to a brief aside: While we totally support and celebrate DIY artists -- as seen/heard on the plethora of homespun cassettes and cd-rs we have in stock and that we seek out from all over the world -- we also heartily encourage said artists putting the same effort they put into music making into the presentation, the art and the packaging. Sure photocopied covers, recycled vintage record sleeves, handwritten liner notes are all parts of the aesthetic, but could you at least clean the old price tags and label adhesive off of your taped-over thrift store tapes and their cases before releasing them to your audience? C'mon, a little lighter fluid goes a long way towards makin' something look like it wasn't just dredged up from the bottom of a dumpster. Your art and your audience deserve it.
Finally! The debut full length from these Bay Area punks, after two kick ass singles, and we have to say the full length definitely fulfills the promise of those 7"s, the sound is essentially the same, if anything even more kick ass, big crunchy, fuzzy guitars, pounding drums, super melodic basslines way up in the mix, that totally drive the songs, and the super distinctive vocals, which had some of us thinking of the Smoking Popes, that sort of Morrissey style croon over buzzsaw punk pop. We mentioned the Undertones and the Buzzcocks in our review of the last seven inch, and it's hard not to hear that here as well, but listening to these tracks as an album, the sound really blossoms, and somehow the sound seems way more pop than punk with every listen, the songs just impossibly catchy, hooks galore, and unlike most records, that tend toward being front loaded, Killing Time, seems to just get better and better, catchier and catchier, with some of these tracks sounding like classic pop songs from years past, albeit with crunchier guitars, fuzzier bass and pounding-er drumming, occasionally wreathed in feedback too, even some cool boy/girl vocal interplay, and that's sort of what makes Terry Malts so good, that undeniable punk energy, but wedded to some of THEE best songs we've heard in ages. Haven't found ourselves listening to a record this much nonstop since the Veronica Falls record...
Latest from these Bay Area punks, and like the Barreracudas 7" reviewed elsewhere on this week's list, originally available as part of a subscription series, but now available individually. And like the Killing Time full length we dug so much, the A side is another gloriously distorted punk pop blowout, the sound super raw this time around, the guitar blown out and crumbling, the vocals, even more dramatic, again reminding us of the late great Smoking Popes, a Smiths like croon, over churning pounding fuzzpunk poppiness. The flipside finds the band taking on "over 21" by legendary SF jangle poppers, Henry's Dress, and gives it fantastic fuzzed out makeover.
A couple of years ago, San Francisco's Magic Bullets reinvented themselves as Terry Malts. The former owed their existence to The Housemartins and The Smiths, in an admirable rehash of sashaying / hipswaying UK mod-pop; but the latter embraced those all American punk icons, the Ramones (with Andee here at aQ positing Terry Malts as deadringers for the Smoking Popes). Snotty petulance, suburban boredom, slacker idiocy, oversexed / underfucked moodiness, and lyrics that seem to always start with "I don't wanna..." before issuing a cornflakes-n-beer statement of punk philosophizing. Vocalist Phillip Benson was the Morrissey impersonator in the Magic Bullets, and strains of that maudlin theatricality lilt throughout the three-chord, 1-2-3-ROCK, power-pop punk riffs that Terry Malts trade in. The bashed punk tunes are deliberately simple stomps that make no bones about referencing the iconic punk songbook (a bumbled bassline right out of The Damned here, a gloriously fuzzed out punk riff from any given Lookout! 7" circa 1993 there); and yeah, it's totally dumb. Shit, they even admit it in the feedback dusted ballad "Comfortably Dumb." You know exactly what you get with Terry Malts, and it's a hell of a lot of fun. Yup, the vinyl comes with a download code too!
Brand new split 7" from East Bay pop punks Terry Malts, whose two songs here are just as good as anything on their recent full length, two new blasts of fuzzy poppy punkiness, all crunchy fuzzy guitars, woozy basslines, hooks galore, some rad guitar freakouts and of course those vocals that continues to remind us of Morrissey, or maybe more accurately Morrisey-worshipping punks the Smoking Popes. Both tracks here kill, although the second might be our fave, the vocals taking on a distinctly echo drenched eighties vibe that perfectly suits TM's punky garage pop.
Terry Malts share the split with a group called Dead Angle, who we'd never heard before, but who remind us a bit of Veronica Falls, which is a very good thing. Fuzzed guitar jangle, dreamy female vox, a bit lo-fi, with some seriously dirgey breakdowns rife with feedback, and of course hooks a plenty. The second track is all wiry riffs and kinetic rhythms, sounding more post punk than garage pop, but both tracks have us definitely wanting to hear more!
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The third in trangressive experimental musican Terre Thaemlitz's series of unlikely piano recitals... Previously he's turned the melodies of both Kraftwerk and Gary Numan into gorgeous, sort-of-ambient piano meditations. Here, completing a twisted trinity of
Local duo that play a very very pleasant, quiet sort of midtempo indie rock, with lots of delicate details if you're patient enough to listen closely. They remind me a lot of another beloved local band -- Fuck -- not only because the groups share similarly whispered boy vocals, but also in the way the melancholy songs start off quietly and serenely, then build the tension as the songs progress, culminating in restrained yet intense explosions of emotion. They also recall the lyrical wistfulness of Lambchop, and the scratchy vocalising of Wilco's Jeff Tweedy. At 56 minutes the album is unnecessarily long; take off a third of it and the album would sound sweeter, more poignant in its brevity. Nonetheless a fine rainy day record for indierockers.
Thee More Shallows have a new unexpected home on the usually hip hop-centric Bay Area label Anticon, but we shouldn't really be all that surprised now, should we? Heck, music genre boundaries have been dissolving left right and center over the past few years. The SF band's sound on their new full length is a little unexpected too. Since their last release 2006's Monkey Vs. Shark, the formerly more rootsy rock band's already broadening scope seems to have expanded in all directions with impressive results. Book Of Bad Breaks journeys through many moods -- alternately romping, rocking and reclining -- but always with a shadowed, subtle druggy headiness.
Not sure about the significance of this 7-song EP's title, but we are sure that Thee More Shallows can deliver the dreaminess. 'Tis all soft pop grandeur like a not so distant cousin of Mercury Rev and Flaming Lips. The third song "Phineas Bogg" is particularly gorgeous, whisking you off into the heavens. The EP includes a remix of their song "Freshman" by Odd Nosdam and Why? which takes them into the neighborhood of the Postal Service (the band not the, um... service). Ultra pretty!
More? Yes, please! This fine album has received a very welcome reissuing, offering this Bay Area band's fans and newcomers another opportunity to have their hearts melted. On More Deep Cuts, Thee More Shallows are seemingly inspired by the over-the-top trippy grandeur of bands such as Sparklehorse, Flaming Lips and Radiohead, but adeptly avoid falling prey to idol worship, crafting a dark, achingly beautiful world of their own. 'Nuff said!
Live hip hop has always been a dodgy proposition. Bad sound, rapping over boring backing tracks, lots of "Hey! Ho! Put your hands in the air!!" kind of stuff. So a live record seems like a pretty bad idea. Especially when you're talking about a group that thrives on production, weird sounds, and studio fuckery. Thankfully and surprisingly, this is a pretty great set, and a testimony to the skillz of Dose One and Jel. Jel weaves a crazy musical backdrop of rumbling creepy soundtracks, bouncing boppy funky jazz, stuttering breakbeats, Phantom Of The Opera organs, beeping blooping electronica and monor key hip hop shuffles while Dose One spits an amazing, tongue twisting, never-ending flow in that distinctive and impossible whine of his.
Hip hop remix records have huge potential for disappointment. Actually remix records in general have pretty much become pointless and boring, albeit with a few exceptions. Thankfully Them(selves) first foray into handing over their raw tracks for other folks to fuck with has yielded some surprisingly good results. Most of these remixes of tracks from their most recent No Music album don't sound all that remixed, especially if you're not too familiar with the original tracks, since those original tracks are so dense and multi layered to begin with. Part of the reason this record sounds so good, and still retains all its Anticon-ness, is the fact that most of the remixes are handled by Themselves...er...themselves, as well as the usual Anticon suspects: Controller 7, Why?, Alias, and Odd Nosdam. The guest remixers though do their best to add their own stamp while keeping things flowing nicely. AQ fave Hrvatski adds some additional skitter, dreamy ambience and rumbling low end...before seriously junglizing the proceedings with murky throb, digital crunch and spastic beats. Hood smear some healthy portions of Jesus And Mary Chain fuzz and My Bloody Valentine guitar skree over everything turning their track into a pulsing drone. Grapedope (Tortoise's John Herndon) fiddles with the speed and pitch, giving the original loping hip hop ditty a stuttery, jumpy, playful bounce, and Notwist give Themselves (not themselves) a sweet indie techno pop makeover. Really great.
Ace Of Spades is a cd-r series of live recordings showcasing the intimate acoustic music of a variety of local indie artists. The series so far boasts consistently strong performances from all participants (well played and well recorded at Mama Buzz Cafe in Oakland).
The Volume 6 edition was recorded on February 20th, 2005 and features a few songs each from Mike Therieau, Brian Glaze, Paul Panamarenko, James Moore and Monique Lacour.
First issue of this rad old school style zine, all about the SF music scene, and featuring tons of aQ faves, and before we go any further, we should really decry the lack of actual zines, sure, we love blogs as much as the next music nerd, but there's something about zines, the passion and energy put into actually making something instead of just sitting in front of your computer. Lots of cutting and pasting and actual physical layout, and going to Kinko's, cutting, stapling. It's like cds and vinyl versus mp3's, there's just no comparison. There's still nothing like picking up a zine, and reading about bands you love, and hopefully discovering some bands you might not even know about yet.
So here it is, issue number one of Thick Fog, which really captures the spirit of music fanzines that we love so much, opening with an interview with The She's, who we have yet to hear, but who have a new record coming out any day, and we're now excited to check out for sure. There's also a piece about Tim Cohen, he of the Fresh & Onlys, Magic Trick and of course Amocoma. There's a goofy interview with Swiftumz, an interview with Brilliant Colors, and one with Dominant Legs, not to mentions some other fun stuff, with a cool mix of humor and lightness and some really great writing. Anyone interested in the SF music scene should pick one of these up. Can't wait for future issues! And hell, while you're at it, make your own zine too!
New album on different label. Excellent! As always, the Fellers progress by leaps and bounds, continuing to make music that's always better than their previous (stellar). One of our favorite bands ever.
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Import 7".
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Their pre-Tangle sought-after cassette only release is finally available again. Highly recommended.
Ever hear of Warren Ng? We hadn't either. At least until THREE separate DOUBLE cds showed up in the shop, two by his blissed out ambient guitardrone outfit Somnambulists, one by his old school post rock combo This Invitation. SIX DISCS, all of them pretty dang amazing, and pretty dang cheap too. We imagine if there's any justice in the world, Warren Ng won't remain unknown for much longer. And we're happy to do our part.
This Invitation is the duo of Ng and Casey Farnum, and Sunless / Ellipses, Lapses, And Collapses is their second full length. Unlike the gorgeous guitarscapery of Ng's Somnambulists releases (both reviewed elsewhere on this week's list), This Invitation is more of a proper band, and pretty much from the get-go, triggered our warm fuzzies for "old" post-rock instrumentals from the likes of David Pajo, Tarentel, Tristeza, Village Of Savoonga.
Hushed vocals waft above loosely layered cyclical guitar lines and droney soundscapes, everything is hazy and washed out, warm and woozy and so dreamy, some of the tracks gradually unfurl sun dappled sprawls of soft focus psych folk drift, while others are softly propulsive jangle rock meanders, spidery melodies curl around sweetly layered chordal thrum, there's a definite dreamy/druggy Galaxie 500 vibe happening to, with much of Ng's distinctive guitar playing in Somnambulists still present, but blurred into something much more gauzy and hushed. Sprawling fields of soft smolder and swirling skitter seem to stretch out forever, melancholy and moody, hypnotic and mesmerizing, and even though this is more properly arranged as a 'rock' record, it's still so abstract and swoonsomely slowcore-y, that much of the record plays out like another of Ng's gorgeous guitarscapes, just in this case, they're fashioned into shapes a bit more song-like, but only just a bit.
Pastoral, soothing and wistful and so good.
In the reviews of Ng's Somnambulists double discs, we suggest buying both, since they're pretty cheap for doubles, and are both incredible, but the more we listen to this, we feel like we should now suggest buying all three! Six discs, nearly six hours, all for $36, hard not to recommend buying all three, they're all incredible, and do actually sound like they belong together, a hazy drone-psych post-rock, guitarscape songsuite.
By far the best electronic sounds we've heard come out of San Francisco in a long time, and damn while this is only an e.p it may just be another major contender for electronic record of the year. Ben Thompson creates super saturated prismatic Technicolor colorful beats that swirl and flow and shimmer so infectiously. Like a standout track on a Kompakt Total compilation, this is electronic music that is as much about the dancefloor as it is a fully satisfying sonic experience. Like Gui Boratto or those early Aphex Twin and Plaid records we loved so much, the sounds on Time Traveler incorporate everything we loved about the heyday of IDM into a more current sonic template. There is something so flawless about Thompson's execution that really makes this record stand out, as it has the potential to appeal to both fans of dancemusic and those of us who would rather just put our headphones on and nod along to the music. We can't wait to hear more from Thompson, but for now we are blasting this ep over and over and it sounds so damn good each and every time!
The schizophonic erasing and minimalist-dub-industrial aktions of Thought Broadcast are strategies directly replicated from very obscure sources from a very specific time frame. One admitted source is the unheard catalogue of Vanity Records flexidiscs from Japan circa 1981. In positing the work as an outright forgery, Thought Broadcast's copies of copies of copies of copies engender a punk-situationist zenith of radically free appropriation as artform. Where Through Broadcast is taking its cues from Vanity; Vanity was obfuscating the work of Maurizio Bianchi (amongst others), who in turn took after Conrad Schnitzler (amongst others), who leapt into sound upon his tutelage from Joseph Beuys. The network of influences and detours and rhizomes through both time and space is never a linear one, always convoluted and morphing; and Thought Broadcast is very clearly aware that the simulacra of signifiers can be an exhausting, unending cycling of ideas. In the replication and variations on stolen, damaged goods, Thought Broadcast re-ignites an obsessive, psychological tension which speaks of VHS video nasties, conspiracy theories of subliminal messages coded in television static, and the liminal horror of sound being used a control mechanism. Yes, these were the ideas that were spawned out of the Industrial Culture Handbook (e.g. Burroughs, TG/PTV, Z'ev, etc.); and Throught Broadcast's distillation of synth-punk ideas and aesthetics through the variation upon the most minimal of means -- a flanging, noisy-as-fuck synth droning above a grittily-phased drum machine -- is undeniably perfect in it's reminiscence for a time when everything else was fucking boring and fucking horrible. Yeah, one of the best electronic records of year. 1981? 2014? It matters not.
Quite the student of the obscure & forgotten histories of synth punk and industrial culture, Ravi Binning's Thought Broadcast firmly embraces the primitive technology and the vacated zeitgeist from 1979-1983. For Binning, the musical universe may have ceased to exist after SPK's major label dalliance on the unforgivably bad "Metal Dance," but he still carves out plenty of room to operate alongside The Units, Factrix, and Club Moral. As we heard last on the super limited Phaserprone 7" released earlier in 2012, Binning has at his disposal a collection of primitive monosynths and drum machines, possibly of vintage origin, possibly reverse engineered through modern technology, possibly new circuits designed to sound old. No matter what the means of production might be, his sound is decidedly primitive, with the simplest of minor-chord melodies, the most zombified of arpeggiations, and the tinniest of mechanical rhythms filtered from Conrad Schnitzler through TG and MB, all of it swamped with tape hiss and scabrous noise errors. How could Binning not record this on the shittiest of 4-tracks? Highly compressed, garbled vocals bark in distant monotone at erratic intervals, with crude tape-delay manipulation further obfuscating whatever apocalyptic, anti-social, damaged epithets Binning may be uttering. It's brilliant in its bleakness and its re-animatation of that peculiar hollowed-out industrial sound.
This is the most challenging album yet from local love-'em-or-hate-'em self-proclaimed "nerd rock" outfit Three Day Stubble, who've been seriously puzzling audiences long before lead singer Donald the Nut's legendary Gong Show appearance in the late '80s.
Those wacky SF nerd rockers are back. With, ahem, a rock opera. Three Day Stubble fans, you know who you are. If you're unfamiliar with this long-running local joke band, well, how do song titles like "Baby Butt Baby" and "Pee Pee Pee & Poo" grab you?
While two thirds of late great post rockers A Minor Forest (featuring AQ staffer Andee) continue to pursue all things droning and heavy as TICWAR, the other third of AMF joins forces with former AMF/current 33.3 cellist Dominique Davison and AQ pinup/voicemail genius Dave Cerf as The Threnody Ensemble! A new chamber group, somewhat pretentiously claiming to combine "conventional notions of chamber music with improvisation, rock sensibilities, and elements of non-western musical traditions." Definitely complex, very well played, and beautifully recorded in an old church by Brian Paulson, but for the most part, lacking any sort of warmth or emotion, and treading perilously a path between delicate 'post-rock' and over-sentimental soundtracky new age (due in no small part to somewhat cliched and weepy string arrangements). For fans of the Gastr del Sol/David Grubbs/Jim O'Rourke artrock axis (check out the very O'Rourke-ish out of place 30 second calypso surprise in the first track). On local new music/new age label New Albion.
A happenin' EP from the Mission's own Thug Emporium, this is underground hip hop done really well, like kitchen sink Cannibal Ox, with catchy yet sinister melodies forming a backdrop to the several guest MCs. No nonsense, no silly skits, no mistakes, nothing
Meanwhile, Thuja have also released a new 3" cd-r as we mentioned above: Fable. It's #10 in the series of twelve, getting close to the end, about time for these guys to finally make an appearance (unless you count the almost-Thuja Tomes entry). 20 or so minutes, 2 tracks. Again, the Thujans (Loren Chasse, Rob Reger, Steven R. Smith, and Glenn Donaldson) make some of the most beautiful and mysterious abstract instrumental improv we've heard. All we're told is that Fable was "recorded at night in the Garden of Kains, August 30, 2003". There could have been weird old hippies sitting in, or magical woodland beasts (of the past), or academic dronologists gone a bit strange on natural pharmacueticals...but probably it was just Thuja, and their music is conjuring these imaginary visitors not the other way around. Get this one.
We're super-happy to herald the arrival of "Ghost Plants", the brand-new second album from San Francisco's Thuja! (That's pronounced "thoo-zhuh," by the way, and it's the genus name of the North American cedar tree.) We loved their debut cd "The Deer Lay Down Their Bones" (released on our own Andee's tUMULt label, in fact) and try not to miss their rare live performances, which in addition to their transcendental music also often incorporate video projections of trees, piles of branches, and other atmospheric, extra-musical additions. With "Ghost Plants", the four members of Thuja -- AQ-fave experimental sound artist Loren Chasse, pianist Rob Reger, and former members of ambient-psych rockers Mirza Stephen R. Smith and Glenn Donaldson -- have crafted another utterly lovely, improv instrumental masterpiece! In comparision to their first album, this disc seems darker and heavier, somehow more "rock" production-wise although Thuja are hardly a rock band. Thuja's music is very organic and "natural" sounding, with their quietly meandering, melodic guitar and piano explorations seeming set amidst wood, wind and water -- you can imagine a Thuja concert taking place on a darkened forest floor, with Chasse's crackling branches and stone rubbings.
At their most "rock" Thuja goes "kraut" with Chasse's drum-kit rhythms, and at their most "experimental ambient" the tinklings of percussion blend with ominous (yet pleasant) humming dronesc(r)apes of organ and bass and other things quite blissfully.
Whilst not exactly 'folky' you can still draw a connection between the woodland vistas of Thuja and the fractured folkpsych of Tower Recordings, or Finland's Kemialliset Ystavat (Thuja being more abstract than KY, who are more abstract than TR). We'd also cite the likes of Labradford, Richard Youngs/Simon Wickham-Smith, the
No Neck Blues Band, the Taj Mahal Travellers, Popol Vuh, Gunter Schickert, and :Zoviet*France: as fellow travellers in the psychedelic realms that Thuja carefully tread. This disc offers 13 untitled tracks in just under 40 minutes -- a very nice length indeed for an afternoon's reverie, perhaps one of the few improv-drone discs you'll find yourself hitting the "repeat" button on frequently. If you enjoy the solo work of Stephen R. Smith or L. Chasse (also of id battery and Coelacanth), or liked Mirza's drifting atmospheres, and haven't listened to Thuja yet, what are you waiting for? Everyone else, check ALL these guys stuff out, starting with this disc! So beautiful.
Ah, Thuja, the mothership if you will of the Jewelled Antler armada. Featuring names that by now should be quite familiar to AQ customers: Loren Chasse, Steven R. Smith, Glenn Donaldson and Rob Reger.
Between them, these four are responsible for fifty records at least, under twenty or more different monickers. All of them great, and all of them loosely based in one way or another on nature, or natural sounds, or the way music and found sounds interact with the spaces they are performed in. There are instruments like guitars, drums, bass, but more often than not, you'll find sticks and stones, found objects, junk, all sorts of industrial and natural detritus, recorded, re-broadcast, and recorded again. Utilizing natural reverb, the sounds of certain spaces, ambient sounds as well as making the act of making music, music in itself. Wow. So what does Pine Cone Temples sound like?
It's wide open and expansive. Ambient perhaps, but there's too much going on for it to be strictly ambient. It's more a sort of abstract soundscape, the sort of soundscape the requires close listening, active listening, in order to understand, and feel the sounds, not just hear them. The rustle of leaves, crickets maybe, running water, or are those sounds manufactured by the band in an attempt to pay homage to the music of nature? Does it matter. Maybe its both, the sound of running water accompanied by Thuja emulating the sound of running water. Clicks and creaks, and little bits of clatter, a simple melody played on a recorder, warm organ warble, whipsering wind, toy xylophone notes released and left to drift in the slowly shifting breeze, distant bird calls, reverbed piano, dark cavernous rumbles, shimmering single notes stretched perilously across a sound field dotted with the echo of dripping water and the buzz of vibrating guitar strings. This isn't so much music as it is simply sound, sound that has been lovingly shaped and guided, observed and interacted with, recorded in its element. As if Thuja were just recordists, who use their own sounds to lure the sounds of nature to come just a little closer, in order to capture them raw and natural, and incorporate them into the sun dappled cloak of their jewelled nature-folk. The sounds of music can be smooth and soothing, or raw and primitive, as can the music of sound, and thus Thuja, whose music of sound is pure, and organic, lush and lustrous, and breathtakingly beautiful.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The newest release on our Andee's tUMULt label takes a trip to the sonic opium den of San Francisco's Thuja, a new band that consists of two former members of the hazy psychedelic outfit Mirza (Stephen R. Smith and Glenn Donaldson), pianist Rob Reger, and noted sound artist Loren Chasse (of Id Battery). Their debut release, "The Deer Lay Down Their Bones," drifts through passages of improvisations for washed out guitars, tinkling piano, drums, and a pile of stones & branches. Thuja's lovely sound embraces the same freely meandering lack of structure as the No Neck Blues Band but with the dark shimmering colors of Eyeless in Gaza or Dif Juz, harking back also to gentle krautrock a la Popul Vuh or something. As beautiful as the piece of marbled wood veneer that serves as the cover to this unique and gorgeous package. By the way, please don't suspect (if you do) that a form of nepotism or favoritism has anything to do with us selecting yet another tUMULt release for Album of the Week honors--honestly, it's rather the case that Andee's taste mirrors that of the store enough that we don't think he would release something on his label that wouldn't at least be considered for the AQ-List top spot! Really.
In an interview for The Wire not long ago, Thuja's Loren Chasse joked that he wanted the upcoming Thuja album to just be a log with some lichen on it. Well... Chasse's wish almost comes true with this, the first volume of what they call "Thuja Museum", as the band has enclosed a small lichen encrusted stick in the cardboard box with each of these incredibly limited 3" CD-Rs. While all of the rest of the Jewelled Antler catalogue is available as made-to-order CD-Rs, "Thuja Museum #1" is strictly limited to 50 numbered copies. In addition to the disc and the twig, each tiny "Thuja Museum #1" box also includes a woodcut print by Thuja's Steven R. Smith, a leaf rubbing by Chasse, and a small square of wood. Thus, each of these boxes is a unique item of artwork.
As for the actual music found on the 20 minute long, green spraypainted cd-r, it's a sprawling piece of psychedelic drone improvisation, their least structured recording to date. The quartet of Chasse, Glenn Donaldson, Stephen R. Smith, and Rob Reger playfully meanders through scraped violin passages, melancholic organ drones, mandolin pluckery, sustained oud bowing, and non-specific textural clatter that could just be a pile of metal and branches dragged across the floor. Hazy and beautiful, this is a very nice mini-album both in its wonderful packaging and in its sound.
The second (and possibly final?) of the "Thuja Museum" releases is strictly limited to 50 copies, and is well on its way to being sold out like the first. While that initial Thuja Museum was a forest themed production, this one is centered on oceanic themes. Again packaged in a little jewelry box (get it?), Thuja Museum #2, in addition to the 3" cd-r itself, comes with an assortment of artwork from all of the members: Steven R. Smith offers a woodcut, Rob Reger an etching, Glenn Donaldson a collage, and Loren Chasse some found objects from the beach (crab claws, shells, bits of coral, etc.). So each one is unique and suitably aquatic.
Musically, this finds these local experimental psychedelic nature boys at their best as an improv ensemble focusing their collective attention upon the construction of an imaginary soundtrack for the ocean. These twenty minutes represent a mere fraction of the extended sessions they recorded for this project, coaxing resonant drones and quiet, nonspecific hums from their instruments and beachcombed objects. Occasionally, percussive items are scraped, a piano is gently stroked, and stringed instruments are plucked, to punctuate the magical spell of their drones. Nice -- get it while you can, and go for a swim in the sea of Thuja.
A brand new vinyl only full length from aQ beloved ambient improvised free rock explorers Thuja. The core group is all present, Loren Chasse, Glenn Donaldson, Steven R. Smith and Rob Reger, joined for these sessions by Thuja satellite members: Greg Bianchini, Keith Evans, Bryan DeRoo and former aQ mailorder mistress Christine Boepple. Collected from various live performances, these tracks find Thuja setting up in various venues around the Bay Area, and transforming each location, at least briefly, into a forest glade, or a darkened wood, or a fog shrouded seashore, using traditional instruments as well as sticks and stones and other found objects to conjure up ghostlike soundscapes , each track, every performance, a slow burning sprawl of humid and humming minimalism.
Almost the entirety of the A side is taken up by an epic stretch of alchemical minimalism, a muted series of washed out melodies, of gentle scrapes and distant shimmers, various notes and chords expressed in long streaks, the guitar lines unfurling lazily, the band eventually coalesce into a glistening high end crescendo, suddenly reminding us of Sunroof! with their upper register ur-drone skree, but here that skree is more muted and muddied, a mournful keening, before the band elves back into a more minimal moonlit crawl. Disembodied slowed down riffs are draped over whispered whirs, while the band lurk in the shadows, letting tiny bits of light spill out, creating barely there sonic patterns, and dusty dreamlike song skeletons.
The B side is even more understated, each track a brief soundscape, exploring dark dusty corners, shuffling through a blanket of dead leaves, the band barely there at all. Almost like they set up their instruments and just stood there, letting the wind and the wildlife create the sounds. When the music does materialize, and take more solid form, the guitars weave themselves into delicate little tangles, drifting over deep resonant swells, all around sounds betray the environment, but become inexorable parts of the organic sound being created, snippets of conversation, voices, footsteps, alongside subtle bits of percussive thump, warbly distant melodies, a deep dark ambience, a gorgeously subtle sound that manages to be quietly propulsive even as it seems to hover motionless.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
Here's the cd version of volume two of My Cat Is An Alien's split series with artists they like. This time that Italian drone duo shares disc space with a band we really like as well, our pals Thuja. A good match for sure. Thuja's track "The Magma Is The Brother Of The Stone" (great title guys!) is an 18 minute improv that segues almost imperceptably into MCIAA's equally lengthy "When The Earth Whispered Your Name". Both are narcotic and nocturnal-sounding, with Thuja's seeming closer to the Earth while MCIAA's drones down from space. Highly recommended to fans of either band!!
