It's been about a year since Tussle's great sophomore release, Telescope Mind, and now they've put together an ep of remixes from that disc, calling on the capable hands of folks like Optimo, Dennis Young (Liquid Liquid), Kango & Torkill and their friends Hot Chip (who they hit the road with for a jaunt across the east coast last summer). We are still really anxious to hear what the new incarnation of Tussle will end up sounding like (as there has been some major line up shifts since the original recording of the songs getting the remix treatment here). But until then this will sit nicely next to the other forward thinking kraut-meets-dance-floor offerings in this current chapter of Tussle ever evolving sound.
The second in a series of limited 7"s (the other two are from Tarentel and A Sunny Day In Glasgow) features local SF rhythm jammers, Tussle. The A-side track, "Animal Cop" begins as a lackadaisical dance rhythm with some fuzzy bass before breaking down into percussive clatter and switching gears into what sounds like a seventies cop theme, albeit one buried in fuzzy reverb. While the B-side, "Room 191", is a heavy slow dub with distorted synth crashes put through a wobbly syrupy filter that almost sounds like a Screw backing track.
Our only complaint is that it's too short! We could have easily listened to 5 minutes of that!
The first two eps by San Francisco's avant post-punk mutants Tuxedomoon get the reissue treatment by local (excellent!) reissue label Superior Viaduct. Both eps came out in 1979 before the band's Ralph records debut, Half-Mute in 1980. Formed by Steve Brown and Blaine L. Reininger who met in a City College electronic music class, they formed Tuxedomoon with the plan to be a band that sounded like no one else, and indeed they largely succeeded. Using a polymoog synthesizer, electric violin, guitar and saxophone, the duo enlisted a rotating line-up of musicians, filmakers and performance artists including Peter Principle on bass and Winston Tong on vocals, to make a weird hybrid of mutant jazz, goth-industrial atmospherics and noirish caberet styles with a live show that was both bizarre and highly theatrical. "No Tears" was their first hit and it remains today a classic Batcave goth-punk floor-filler, even if it may be somewhat of an anomaly in the band's overall sound, which leaned more towards an artier Throbbing Gristle than say Specimen or Alien Sex Fiend. They even do a subdued downbeat cover of "Nite and Day" by Cole Porter.
Their theater and avant-jazz leanings endeared them more to Europe than the states and they moved to New York and then Belgium shortly after their debut album was released. But these two eps are Tuxedomoon at their most experimental and exploratory and weird, fleshing out the dark corners of their sound with what Simon Reynolds called "an aura of jaded elegance". For fans of the SF underground, like The Residents, Sleepers, Noh Mercy, and Factrix. Both records come highly recommended!
The first two eps by San Francisco's avant post-punk mutants Tuxedomoon get the reissue treatment by local (excellent!) reissue label Superior Viaduct. Both eps came out in 1979 before the band's Ralph records debut, Half-Mute in 1980. Formed by Steve Brown and Blaine L. Reininger who met in a City College electronic music class, they formed Tuxedomoon with the plan to be a band that sounded like no one else, and indeed they largely succeeded. Using a polymoog synthesizer, electric violin, guitar and saxophone, the duo enlisted a rotating line-up of musicians, filmakers and performance artists including Peter Principle on bass and Winston Tong on vocals, to make a weird hybrid of mutant jazz, goth-industrial atmospherics and noirish caberet styles with a live show that was both bizarre and highly theatrical. "No Tears" was their first hit and it remains today a classic Batcave goth-punk floor-filler, even if it may be somewhat of an anomaly in the band's overall sound, which leaned more towards an artier Throbbing Gristle than say Specimen or Alien Sex Fiend. They even do a subdued downbeat cover of "Nite and Day" by Cole Porter.
Their theater and avant-jazz leanings endeared them more to Europe than the states and they moved to New York and then Belgium shortly after their debut album was released. But these two eps are Tuxedomoon at their most experimental and exploratory and weird, fleshing out the dark corners of their sound with what Simon Reynolds called "an aura of jaded elegance". For fans of the SF underground, like The Residents, Sleepers, Noh Mercy, and Factrix. Both records come highly recommended!
What do you get when you mix Wrest from Leviathan, Malefic from Xasthur, Hildolf from Draugar, Imperial from Krieg and Azentrius from Nachtmystium? Odds are by the end of that sentence, most of you black metal fans don't even care, you just want it whatever it is! Well, what IT is, is a long in the works collaboration dubbed Twilight, featuring the above mentioned black metal masters, all conspiring to produce the sickest, grimmest black metal ever. And Twilight certainly is both grim and sick, but the sound manages to be much more, veering dramatically from the various contributors' usual sound and sounds. The first track is a massive and thick, buzzy and blurry tarpit of swirling BM, that is so unbelievably dense at times that the vocals and guitars and drums almost merge into a single massive blackened drone, before random parts shift ever so slightly and are allowed to drift to the forefront before slipping back into the murky blackness. Layer after layer of downtuned riffing, insane blast beats and hellishly surreal super processed howling vocals (sounding almost like all five of them are singing simultaneously). Quite possibly one of the most frightening black metal tracks EVER. We were totally thrown for a loop though with track two, which starts off with a bizarre jaunty black metal jig, accompanied by grunted troll-like vocals, before splintering into more familiar buzz and drone territory. After that it's exactly what you would expect from a BM dream team like this, lots of midtempo Burzumic throb and buzzy BM drone, plenty of growled, howled, gurgled and shrieked vocals, completely amazing riffs, veering from echoing spacious doom to razor sharp blackthrash to weirdly melodic almost jangle, catchy melodies that reveal themselves slowly with each listen, and of course there's Wrest's amazing and super creative drumming holding it all together. The sticker on the front pretty much says it all: "As an entity, they have delivered a mammoth, blackened metallic statement. Bleak, cold, darkness within and beyond the void."
Every year, we like to have a band play on Sunday after Record Store Day, as part of the festivities. We'd have 'em play ON Record Store Day, but it's just too crazy busy for that. Plus it's nice to keep the RSD party vibe going all weekend. This year, it was the turn of Twin Trilogy, the new power trio headed by fave local guitarist Sean Smith, whom we originally got to know via his guitar soli work, like on the Tompkins Square compilation Berkeley Guitar, where he appeared alongside Matt Baldwin and Adam Snider. But he likes to rock out, too, and Twin Trilogy is his vehicle for indulging in heavy, spacey, proggy jams!
And in addition to doin' the instore, TT also provided us with a RSD exclusive - the first in a series of limited edition, one-sided 12" vinyl releases from the band, this installment featuring two lengthy instrumentals. The multipart suite "Descent To The Pounding Surf/Strings Of The Sea/Flood Of Moonlight On The White Sea" is an epic exercise in lumberingly doomy, mathy surf rock psychedelia, full of 'seasick' woozy parts, dramatic crescendos and majestic metallic riffs, while 2nd track "Surreal Tilt" is an even heavier, fist pumping number, gloriously massive and rollicking. We got to hear these tracks and more at the instore, they were great, though in deference to our upstairs neighbors they toned down the volume a bit (go see 'em on Sunday April 27th around the corner at the Make Out Room if you want to hear them at their facemelting usual). For fans of Mammatus, Stinking Lizaveta, Earthless, Lesbian, Nels Cline, Hedvig Mollestad�
We sold a bunch of these on Record Store Day, and a few more at the instore (which we understand if you missed, it was Easter after all, and also we later realized they played at approximately 4:20 on 4/20, so all the stoners that would have been into 'em were otherwise engaged). But being the exclusive vendor so far, we still have copies left for out of towners and others not around last weekend.
Limited to 330 copies, in reclaimed, hand painted/printed jackets, with download code!
A couple years ago this fine album by Two Gallants' was released on cd, and was quite warmly received around these parts. Well, we're pleased to report that it's finally made its way onto vinyl!
Here's what we said about the cd version back in 2004:
Lately we've been getting quite a number of customers comin' in asking for these fellas. Two Gallants weave a solid nine rootsy rock songs with beleaguered male vocals right up front and center. Actually the vocals have an emotive gruffness sorta like a cross between Vic Chesnutt and Cat Stevens (or like what Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst might sound like in twenty years). Tempo and mood-wise The Two Gallants sure keep you on yer toes, easily go from smoky slowly winding somber odes straight into feisty harmonica and whisky-fueled rollickers and back again. Guitars get a hearty workout from the gentle plucking and feverish strumming. Nice.
Now on double LP too, and with a few extra goodies -- two bonus songs and a code for a downloadable mp3!
Here's what we said about the cd version: San Francisco's Two Gallants second album has found a well-suited, comfy home on Nebraskan cool kids' label Saddle Creek! Funnily enough when we reviewed the band's last album The Throes, we compared their vocals to a more aged Conor Oberst (of of the label's breadwinnin' band Bright Eyes). Those similarities are still quite prominent, and fans of B.E. might also find themselves warmin' up all toasty to the sounds of What The Toll Tells. Mind you it's not all slow, hushed and brittle, weep in your pint, this is ragged, rugged country rock. Then again, actually Oberst has also been known to roughen and rile his music up on occasion hasn't he? Simply, we reckon they're all in good company. Perhaps this will open the door for some dandy collaborations?
This SF band craft sturdy country rock with dusty roads 'n' harmonica friendly withered male vocals, and they've packed their third full length with it! Clearly Two Gallants' music is deeply influenced by the blues, the sort whose roots run deeeep in the southern swamps. Here's nine well scuffed, weathered and leathered songs that fit well alongside the strainin' with emotion Americana stylings of labelmates Bright Eyes and Eric Bachmann as well as My Morning Jacket or Waco Brothers. Real good!
This new split 7" features a pair of well matched young bands from around these parts -- the Bay Area's Dame Satan and Two Sheds from Sacramento. They're druggy, dusky hued country folks who slink about in the shadows. Their all too brief two songs harken a woodsy winter chill. Can't wait for more! The record is pressed on the palest seafoam green vinyl and is packaged in a beautiful screen printed sleeve.
We've been slowly working our way through the catalog of this unsung SF outsider slo-mo avant country outfit, having already reviewed their 1993 debut, My Company Is Misery, and the maybe even better follow up 1994's Tender Places Come From Nothing. Hell, Yes! was the group's swansong, released in 1997, and is another gorgeous sprawl of detuned guitars, and woozy warped vocal harmonies. If you thought Souled American were druggy and drowsy, they didn't have anything on these guys. In a way. U.S. Saucer were almost like a country Residents if that makes any sense. Their sound definitely beholden to classic country, but filtered through a serious skewed outsider/underground music filter, resulting in a sound that literally sounds like nothing and no one else. Imagine some old country record melting as it spins on the turntable, or some classic country tune playing on a tape machine with dying batteries. The guitars are reminiscent of Marc Ribot in Tom Waits' band, atonal and detuned, the songs marked by strange tangled harmonies, the arrangements super economical, the instruments just two guitars, bass and viola, ultra stripped down, slipping from hushed and dreamy, to dense and angular. But even the prettiest most traditional sounding songs here can't help but end up sounding warped and weird once mainman David Tholfsen begins to deliver his twisted lyrics in that distinctively warbly dramatic croon. And when Margaret Murray chimes in, the harmonies, while strange, are utterly divine. And the songs that she sings lead on are hushed haunting gems.
Like the other two records, Hell, Yes! is a gorgeous collection of haunting outsider minimal country loveliness, that is definitely some sort of strange beautiful musical mystery, and comes extremely and highly recommended.
These two long out of print early nineties gems back in stock, but who knows for how long. As far as we know, these in fact remain out of print, but one of the band members bequeathed us a tiny handful, so we figured some of you more adventurous folks out there, might appreciate an earful of these SF avant slo-mo country weirdos, who over these two records (and a few more after), created a warped, dark, idiosyncratic drummerless country music, that drifts and creeps, moodily and murkily, the music, hushed and spidery, mostly just guitar and viola (provided by Brian Hageman of Thinking Fellers Union Local 282), the vocals super melodramatic and definitely an acquired taste, backed by Margaret Murray's more hushed, almost whispered croon, the songs loose and ramshackle, drowsy and druggy, but ultimately strangely lovely.
The second record is even weirder, noiser, the guitars buzzing more wildly, Murray's vocals more present, sometimes a wild caterwaul, other times locked into dreamy harmonies with USS main man David Tholfsen, the music, slipping easily from hushed moody brood, to angular Jandekian blooze, both of these records, had they been instrumental, would sound that far removed from the stoner country sprawl of aQ faves Souled American, but the vocals definitely transform this into an even wilder strain of outsider lo-fi country, one that sounds just as good today as when we first heard theses records two decades ago.
Fans of Songs:Ohia, Palace Brothers, and other country outliers should easily fall under U.S. Saucer's dark hypnotic spell.
On the last list, we reviewed the lp version of this long out of print early nineties slowcore outsider country masterpiece, having gotten copies directly from the band. We also managed to get an handful of cd copies as well, which includes three bonus tracks NOT on the lp version!
Tender Place Come From Nothing was the 1994 sophomore release from these SF avant slo-mo country weirdos, who over the course of four years/records, conjured up a warped, dark, idiosyncratic drummerless country music, that drifts and creeps, moodily and murkily, the music, hushed and spidery, mostly just guitar and viola (provided by Brian Hageman of Thinking Fellers Union Local 282), the vocals super melodramatic and definitely an acquired taste, backed by Margaret Murray's more hushed, almost whispered croon, the songs loose and ramshackle, drowsy and druggy, but ultimately strangely lovely.
Unlike their comparatively more mellow debut, this record is even weirder and noisier, the guitars buzzing more wildly, Murray's vocals more present, sometimes a wild caterwaul, other times locked into dreamy harmonies with USS main man David Tholfsen, the music, slipping easily from hushed moody brood, to angular Jandekian blooze, and had it been instrumental, the sound here wouldn't be that far removed from the stoner country sprawl of aQ faves Souled American, but the vocals definitely transform this into an even wilder strain of outsider lo-fi country, one that sounds just as good today as when we first heard theses records two decades ago.
Fans of Songs:Ohia, Palace Brothers, and other country outliers should easily fall under U.S. Saucer's dark hypnotic spell.
It's just a matter of time before one of SF's best kept hip-hop secrets becomes a household name. Unagi has proven to be one of the most consistent and challenging producers of forward-minded hip-hop, replete with nods to the old skool. His latest offering split pretty evenly between warm instrumentals and guest MC tracks that all fit together perfectly as a totally coherent album with NO filler. If you found yourself a little underwhelmed with the latest offerings from Blackalicious and DJ Shadow this might be exactly the record you've been waiting for.
Here's the second album from SF's Unagi. For this follow-up to his well-received 2003 self-titled first album, he's set aside his vocals and overall DJ Shadow-ish stylings in favor of smoooth soul jams and diva samples. This makes for a rather unexpected shift in focus. Folks who dug Unagi's debut and who were eagerly expecting more might be in for a bit of a jolt. Whereas his previous full length was a totally funky hiphop album, Keepin' It Eel is pretty much a luv-yer-lady-down type of soundtrack! You almost expect Barry White to slip in for a nightcap.
Unagi has been one of the most solid forces in the Bay Area hip-hop scene over the last several years. With Reinventing The Eel he continues to display his great taste in vintage soul/funk inspired breaks and invites lots of guest MC's to join in, adding to the flow of these nicely layered tracks. Unagi is carrying on the hip hop tradition that folks like DJ Shadow and Hieroglyphics started a decade ago. We wouldn't be surprised if he ends up on Stones Throw one of these days as his beats and aesthetic would be a perfect fit.
A fantastic record in the sampladelic genre: fans of DJ Shadow, Barry Adamson, David Holmes should take note! It's rare that we'd quote a press release in an AQ review, but in this case the reasons why I (Windy) like this record so much are exactly what's stated herein:
"Unagi extends an invitation into his unique sonic wonderworld, constructed from forgotten vinyl and dollar bin digging. He serves up mid-fi sample based music, sidestepping the antiseptic production values dominating present day hip-hop. Influenced by luminaries such as Lonnie Liston Smith and Eumir Deodato, Unagi offers tracks carefully crafted with an ear refined through a lifetime of musical consumption. This self-titled debut album is a stylistic drive-by of love. Unagi's magazine is loaded with an array of themes ranging from space jazz, Caribbean cruise ship lounge, roller rink couples' skate and Sunday afternoon afterglow soul fusion."
Some of you may have heard of Unholy Cadaver. But a LOT of you have heard of Hammers Of Misfortune, San Francisco's best rock-operatic political power prog metal (and more) band, featuring members of Ludicra and (formerly) The Lord Weird Slough Feg, among others. Our own Andee's tUMULt label put out their first album, The Bastard, in 2001. That's been followed by three (or four, depending on how you count, 'cause one was a double!) albums for Cruz Del Sur and Profound Lore. Their entire discography was then recently reissued by Metal Blade, who also signed the band for a new, upcoming opus.
Well, not quite their entire discography... 'Cause before The Bastard, Hammers Of Misfortune were known by another name - Unholy Cadaver. Who recorded an unreleased album back in 1997. They put out a rare demo cd-r at the time, with just three of that album's nine tracks on it, none of which sound like "demos" despite being recorded in the band's practice space. But until now, the entire hour-long recording - which includes a song called "Hammers Of Misfortune", by the way, a nearly 15 minute epic, all of side C here - has never been properly released. The always on top of it (when "it" is cult metal) Shadow Kingdom label has rectified that, and then some, with this limited, deluxe edition of what's essentially the real Hammers Of Misfortune debut, done as a double vinyl lp with cd version also included!
This is where it all started, mastermind John Cobbett & Co.'s unusual, amazing mash up of epic / traditional stylings with "extreme" metal mayhem, with loads of guitar shred, dramatic dynamics, majestic bombast, and an influx of avant garde / black metal weirdness. Unholy Cadaver's line up consisted of Cobbett (guitars/vocals), Chewy Marzolo (drums), still the core of Hammers today. They enlisted several guests for the male and female "operatic" singing parts: Mike Scalzi (of Slough Feg), Erica Stolz (of Lost Goat), and Lorraine Rath (currently in Worm Ouroboros, formerly of The Gault), who also did the cover art and logo. In some sort of quid pro quo, Cobbett joined up for a stint in Slough Feg on 2nd guitar not long afterwards, and Scalzi stayed on with Hammers for their first three albums, playing guitar live as well as singing.
The prototypical Hammers herky-jerky stop-start loud-soft songwriting style is already in full effect, incorporating glorious guitar harmonies and bludgeoning brutality both... with social commentary (and a sense of humor) hidden, or not so hidden, in the often allegorical fantasy lyrics. Signs of their origin in "abso-futurist" metalpunk band Thunderchip remain, both the presence of John's rasping black metallish (and guttural death metallish) vokills (which were dropped entirely after The Bastard), and seemingly silly (but actually serious) song titles/concepts like "Fuck The Galactic Police".
John and Chewy also do clean, sorta chant like vocals on some of the tracks, presumably written/recorded before they had availed themselves of Mike's triumphant baritone, the inimitable sound of which you'll hear here, appropriately enough, on the aforementioned epic "Hammers Of Misfortune", that's where they really become Hammers Of Misfortune! Not that the rest of this doesn't sound like Hammers, it sure does, but the male-female mock-operatic thing utterly comes to the fore, on that tour-de-force of a track (which also features a surprising amount of profanity from Rath's "caged princess" character).
We should also mention the final cut, all of side D, the nine-minute "Kloven Septum", which is more of an experimental, freaked out "noise" composition, but still metal. We expect the unexpected from 'em, but yet it's unlike much else in their discography, and actually we could do with a whole album of this, too! It and the other extreme metal aspects of Unholy Cadaver perhaps could be seen as feeding in to Cobbett's Ludicra project later on, as well.
Eventually Janis Tanaka took over the female vocalist/bass player position from Erica, and with a solid, full band lineup instituted, they relegated these early recordings to the vault, changed the name (good call) and plunged ahead into forging The Bastard... but Unholy Cadaver's long lost album was definitely more than a warm up, hearing the whole thing now we wonder why it took so long for this to finally see the light of day.
Considering that The Bastard happens to be our favorite of the Hammers albums, and this is what led up to it, a most welcome and highly recommended release! And we're guessing it's kind of limited, too. The packaging is quite fancy, a double gatefold lp, with one of the inside panels holding the compact disc version. There's also a 12"x12" insert on some sort of glossy photo-paper, with old b&w pictures of the band back then, complete lyrics, and new liner notes giving the history of UC/HoM. The cover features L. Rath's painting, originally used for the demo cd-r, bigger and better than before, 'cause it's now in full color. Oh and both the vinyl and the cd versions have been individually remastered! Nice work. Epically recommended!!!
For their second cd and first full length, The Union Trade's previous post-rock leanings are embraced by their fuzzy indie rock selves. Definitely brings to mind the slouchy, slightly dour charm of '90s college rock kingpins Sebadoh and Seam... for sure a good thing in our books! They've stripped back quite a bit of the guitar effects which dominated their previous release 2007's Now The Swell ep (or perhaps have more thoroughly integrated them), and have retained a nice warm blanket of reverb and gentler squalls of distortion. They're much more vocal heavy too. Eleven terrific songs for these overcast drizzly days!
The Union Trade are a young Bay Area foursome who craft mostly instrumental atmospheric post-rock a la Codeine, Mogwai and Slint. Yes, the 'quiet-loud-quiet' dynamics live on in this band! Occasionally a bit mathy and a bit trippy with lots of effected, distorted electric guitar textures. When vocals come into the picture, they're hushed and quite resemble those of Lou Barlow. A promising debut.
Moog-enabled synth punk subversion straight outta San Francisco in the late '70s/early '80s, entertaining n' agitating electronic New Wave action excavated and reissued! And it's totally timely considering how many bands in today's scene would so love to sound like this.
We won't pretend we were familiar with The Units before this fantastic anthology album showed up. Perhaps we'd heard the name before (or maybe we were confusing 'em with ol' Jandek's 1978 debut album, also under the name The Units), but we knew nothing about this band 'til we heard this disc a few weeks ago. And as soon as we did, it went into heavy rotation here at the store. These Units were definitely a important piece of San Francisco punk/new wave history, but just a bit before our time. Well, not Aquarius's time, just us folks who work here now! Actually, a close reading of the thanks list in the cd booklet will find a shout out to Aquarius, 'cause (if you didn't know) Aquarius was THEE punk/new wave record store in San Francisco in the '70s... (Which reminds us, we've got to get more of our history up on the AQ website.) And, in fact, The Units' debut lp Digital Stimulation was the very first release on seminal SF indie 415 Records (who had their biggest hit with Romeo Void), a label run in part by Aquarius' owners at the time. So this most certainly isn't the first time that The Units music has been blasting regularly in the Aquarius shop, it's just been a few years, is all.
Putting things in proper place/time/scene perspective, this archival disc starts off with an audio snippet of the late SF punk "godfather" Dirk Dirksen on stage at Mabuhay Gardens, good-naturedly mocking both The Units (accidentally referring to them by the name of another band, the Zeros) and their cheering fans (with the sardonic comment "obviously, people with as little taste as yourself would become ecstatic over such average talent"). Then, making us ecstatic, twenty tracks of prime Units music follows, The History Of The Units containing most all of the tracks from their 1980 415 Records album Digital Stimulation as well as a handful of stuff taken from early 7"s and demo tapes, as well as more experimental pieces recorded for film soundtracks and art happenings and other ephemera.
Not unlike Devo, The Units had a concept thing going, all about a critique of alienated modern industrial society, dehumanizing conformity, and corporate culture, with songs like "Cannibals" and "Work". Perhaps perversely choosing to use machines to make their point, The Units tried to take the human element out of the rock band equation, preferring for instance to project their own propaganda films rather than allow the audience to focus on a frontperson. And yes, they do also sound quite bit like Devo at times, which is way okay by us!
Their synth-obsession was also in part an anti-guitar thing, a reaction to the mainstream. In fact, they took their anti-guitar philosophy to the extreme of not only having a "stamp out guitars" logo, but also making fake guitars out of plywood to smash on stage, while letting their synths play on "cruise control". So definitely The Units were highly conceptual, art schoolish, but not academic - the liner notes are clear that the idea was to be an all-synth band that "kicks ass" (the full quote being: ""I wanted an all synthesizer band... and not some fucking polite, socially acceptable electronic experiment in academia. I didn't want a doctorate in electronic doodling. No, I'm talking about a synth band that kicks ass!") and according to what we're hearing here, they succeeded. And they were not without contemporaries. There were The Screamers, Nervous Gender, and of course Devo; all of whom wanted to take the synthesizer into punk. For many of the Units tracks, it would very easy to replace the lead synth lines with guitars and have an equally kick ass rock song, but the fact is that these are Moog-powered cuts which do oscillate between a quirky sensibility with angular chops and a full-throttle punk car-crash. If you would think the former finds the Units sounding like Devo and the latter like the Screamers, you'd be right!
Yes indeed, the songs on this disc range from urgent Devo-esque pop punk and Screamers-y rants to moody proto-'80s dance tracks to more abstract, instrumental, rhythmic/textural electronic pieces like "Tight Fit" and "East West". There's loads of electric energy, some goofy humor, and certainly serious intent. So many gems here, incorporating buzzing droning distorted synths, propulsively skittering drum beats, and monotone vocals (both male and female).
Their incredible singles "Cannibals" (a tempestuous, driving song that was pure '70s punk), "High Pressure Days", and "Warm Moving Bodies," are prominently featured here, all of which were impressively catchy. Their ability to write these hooks earned them a deal with Epic, who released two seminal 12" singles (which couldn't be licensed for this compilation) and has been sitting on another collection of recordings since 1983. But beyond the hook, the Units were plenty weird, as seen in their peculiar lullaby melodies on "Red" which almost comes across like a Rodd Keith song-poem with a very sparse arrangement. Despite the band's curses toward academic music, a few choice intertwining moments of the Units minimalist grooves come awfully close to sounding like a punked out Terry Riley! Hardly polite music!
Other selections here include the cold wave weird science of "Digital Stimulation", the gloriously grinding downer melody of "Contemporary Emotion" (apparently a cover, a song by some contemporaneous hard rock band we've never heard of called Trakstod Station), and there's even an ode to our very neighborhood, "The Mission Is Bitchin", with lyrics about burritos and marijuana!
Of course it's all a bit dated, of its era, and that's part of the charm... but like we said, a lot of this also sounds like it could be put out by a band today, since everything old is new again and the '80s New Wave / synth thing is a current retro craze. Definitely this is a good time for The Units to be reissued!
And Community Library have done a really nice job of it, the gatefold cd sleeve containing a thick 32 page cd booklet with elaborate colorful collage style liner notes by bandleader Scott "Dr. Tex Nology" Ryser, a Units manifesto of sorts, he also talks about the wild and crazy San Francisco of the '70s/early '80s era, and also there's several pages of old fliers for Units gigs at the Fab Mab and other SF punk venues... we noticed one for the Warfield too, with The Units opening for OMD and Gary Numan. Also shows with Romeo Void, Dead Boys, Soft Cell, Psychedelic Furs, Dead Kennedys, Crime, Screamers, Iggy Pop, the Police, Tuxedomoon... Definitely makes us young 'uns wish we'd been around in SF back then. (Another note about the packaging, it says copyright 2007 on the back but that that's a mistake, it's when the artwork was initially prepared, this is indeed a brand new 2009 release, with also a vinyl version upcoming as well, not sure when, though.)
The liner notes claim that "no ambient or field recordings were used during the production of this work," making this album, which really does sound like a collection of field recordings, all the more perplexing. So, instead of wandering outside and capturing the sounds of cars whizzing by on a distant highway, Paul Winstanley (the man behind Urban Space Music) painstakingly constructed an artificial sound ecology to appear as if it were the real deal. Ostensibly using white noise generators and a small army of EQ filters, Winstanley's sounds have all of the trappings of a gritty urban din that really does sound like opening a window in any given metropolis around the world and hearing the collective exhaust of hundreds of thousands of automobiles rumbling around the city grid. As a listening experience, it's not too far off from Organum's Vacant Lights (sans the chain dragging and clanking), and it actually works quite well as Winstanley suggests these sounds as an aural complement to any given urban soundscape, in melding with the street noise so commonplace on Valencia Street here in San Francisco. A strange record, but a compelling one. Limited to just 30 copies.
Our very own mailorder underlord Matt just got back from a month long US tour with his band Wildildlife, hope you got to catch them live. We grabbed a bunch of this tape that Matt was selling on tour, a recording of his solo project, the bizarrely titled Usputuspud. When he's not shirtless and flailing wildly on stage with a bloodied and battered guitar, he's apparently holed up in a dark corner of some basement with some tapes, a 4 track, a different guitar and a harmonica (!). That's right, harmonica. But fear not, these aren't a bunch of back porch blues jams, this is some seriously dark and droney ambience. Deep resonant swells, drift and shimmer, melodies are pulled apart, the constituent notes allowed to float freely along the mysterious black tide, dramatic, melodic and strangely cinematic, you can almost imagine some vocalist like Nick Cave, crooning over the top, some hellish end of the world balladeering. Mysterious and mystical, a muted mumbly soundscape of rumble and shimmer, a gauzy low end smear, through which all sorts of subtle sonic colorings are visible, everything druggy and subtly psychedelic, an ominous creeping crawl into some dark pit of sound, glowing red, lit from below by some mysterious fire below. Essential for fans of all things slow and low, but wouldn't be entirely out of place in your tape case, next to your Yellow Swans, Skaters and Quetzolcoatl cassettes...
By now, we're sure most of you heard about the horrible accident that claimed the life of DMBQ drummer China, and left the rest of the band as well as their booker / tour manager (and AQ pal) Michelle injured and hospitalized. And as is always the case with situations like these, most musicians are uninsured, and need all the help they can get to help pay their medical bills and try to recover, regroup and make it home.
So this here comp is one way you can help. 100 percent of the proceeds goes direct to the band to help them get back on their feet. And as if helping out a bunch of cool folks and a kick ass band to boot wasn't enough, you also get this killer comp out of the deal. New and exclusive tracks from Comets On Fire. Paik, Trans Am, Lightning Bolt, Burmese, Fucking Champs, Ezeetiger, Ludicra, No Doctors, Nate Denver's Neck, and more!!! And if you want to do more, you can donate via Paypal to this address: dmbqpanache@lovepumpunited.com or by mail to this address: Lovepump United, PO BOX 3241, Poughkeepsie, NY 12603.
And again our condolences to the band and friends and family for the loss of China, and our best wishes for speedy recoveries all around.
For those of you who've been keepin' track of the Ace Of Spades limited edition cd-r series of monthly live acoustic performances at Oakland's Mama Buzz Cafe by various Bay Area rootsy folksy musicians, here's the final release! It's a limited edition 'best of' compilation cd (not a cd-r), and it features a single track each from seventeen different artists including Rogue Wave, The Moore Brothers, Sean Hayes, Black Bear, Dave Gleason's Wasted Days, Alela Menig, The Lonely Hearts, Jason Webley, Paul Panamarenko, Mandrake, Black Bird Stitches, Laura Weinbach, Audio Out Send, Etienne De Rocher, Brian Glaze, Bart Davenport, and Paula Frazer.
And for extra warm fuzzies, it's a benefit cd with for the Little Kids Rock Foundation supporting children's music education.
Local label Voltaire does it again. First it was the Publicist Keep It Off The Record 12", a killer slab of propulsive robotic cyber funk grooviness from the alter ego of one of the guys in Trans Am, now it's Affairs Online, a new compilation, and a fantastic collection of retro psychedelic disco-prog Euro-synth electro, and introduces us to five new artists (one of which is in fact Steve Moore of Zombi in disguise), hailing from all over the globe, Sweden, Japan and the US, but what they all have in common is their slavish worship of vintage Eurodisco and old school electro and synthwave, and whereas lots of other artists dabbling in the same sort of sounds twist them all up, add some modern twist, the sounds here are perfect replications of songs that could have been, soundtracks to some obscure eighties softporn VHS, or the score to some rare Argento giallo, the sounds here are all swirling synths, groovy beats, vintage analog buzz, and that hazy eighties production.
Lovelock, aka Steve Moore, offers up a track that sounds like the soundtrack to the Loveboat or Hart To Hart or some other classic TV show, a little disco-y, a lot funky, with warm synths, and soaring faux strings, tense and dramatic and melodic, evoking the lazy after school TV watching afternoons of our childhood as much as some futuristic Eurodisco. Loose Shus gets all Logan's Run with his track, creepy pulsing synths, and percolating sci-fi melodies, before the song kicks in with some discofunk bass and lots of handclaps. Narctrax is a little ethereal, but that swirling groovy haze is wrapped around some pulsing rhythms, more handclaps and a big fuzzy bassline that would have Daft Punk in a tizzy. Le Pimp is total eighties Eddie Murphy movie soundtrack, slap bass, synth stabs, a woozy electrofunk that would work in a dance-off as well as a chase scene, and finally, Erik Artur offers up a brief bit of washed out squiggly swirly electro synth melancholia rife with swoops and bloops and swirls and bleeps.
So awesome. And obviously anyone into the current crop of retro futurist synth wave Goblin/Carpenter revivalists will dig this BIG time.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, each one hand numbered! And check out these amazing videos that were created to accompany some of the songs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evEG1j1kvV4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqc2hZFsoTc
With more to come!!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Three volumes of a locally produced single series. Each features four artists who contribute a song and describe their musical processes and interests in a cute little self-designed insert, so you get a nice feel for the musicians beyond the songs themselves. Vol. 1 features folks from Dumptruck, Caterwaul, Snowmen (Cole Marquis), and Bob Reed of Overwhelming Colorfast. Vol. 2's got people from Grandaddy, Morella's Forest, Dart, and Shove. Vol. 3: Gaze, Lunchbox, Sunset Valley, and Jenhitt.
For those of you who somehow missed the Anticon boat, and maybe even for those of you who need to fill said boat with every release and extra track you can get your hands on, here's a massive 33 track sampler from the Anticon label, funny, funky, idiosyncratic, bizarre and musically adventurous, home of the off kilter indie hip hop of Sole, Themselves, Odd Nosdam, Alias, Why?, Restiform Bodies and loads more. This comp has it all old tracks, new tracks, soon to be released tracks and of course, some UNRELEASED tracks. 33 tracks mixed seamlessly into one big ol chunk by Odd Nosdam, featuring all of the above folks as well as Passage, Sage Francis, Deep Puddle Dynamics, Controller 7, Dosh and Jel. All for a measly seven bucks. Nice!
Longtime supporter of the rights of Afghani women, AQ-customer Steven Tobin has produced benefit shows and now this double disc benefit cd -- and what a comp it is. The musical choices are all over the genre map yet it works nicely as a sit-down listen, and it will certainly introduce you to many groups you've never heard. Includes experimental indie rock (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Deerhoof, Zmrzlina, The Intima), ethnicky female vocal theatrics (D'yara, Charming Hostess, Jou Jou, Samsara), avant electronics (Blevin Blectum, Bran, Planetsize, Zeek Sheck), quirky weirdness as only East Bay bands can do it (Spezza Rotto, Charming Hostess, Faun Fables, Mono Pause), world-class improvisers (Dave Slusser, Saadet Turkoz, Miya Masaoka), underground hip hop (DeepDickCollective), and much more. All proceeds benefit RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, an organization founded in 1977. Pick this up, feel great about it, and get a genuinely good listen to boot.
MPEG Download: GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR "George Bush Cut Up While Talking" [/audio/azadigodspeed.mp3]
MPEG Stream: GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR "George Bush Cut Up While Talking" [/audio/azadigodspeed.m3u]
MPEG Download: THE INTIMA "The New Savage" [/audio/azadiintima.mp3]
Back in 2011, Dark Entries released a great comp, vinyl-only, called BART: Bay Area Retrograde. All Dark Entries style stuff - vintage minimal wave / new wave / punk electronics - from the SF Bay area. (For those who don't live around here, BART also stands for Bay Area Rapid Transit, the local commuter train system.) Just today, we just got a 2nd volume of Bay Area Retrograde, on vinyl, which we'll review as soon as we can, AND also this, a compact disc containing both volumes, yay!!
So, we're listing this cd now, though we can't say much yet about the stuff on here from Vol. 2, other than what we've heard spinning it so far has been great, and it seems maybe a bit more raw and punk and experimental, with tracks from the likes of Factrix, Chrome and Red Asphalt. So, more on that Vol. 2 when we get a chance to properly review it next time, but here's what we said before about Vol. 1, and by itself it means this cd is quite recommended:
A few years back, Minimal Wave offered some choice crate digging collections of nearly forgotten darkwave and post-punk electronics through their Lost Tapes and Found Tapes collections, highlighting the differences between the European and American models of underground new wave. Dark Entries produced this anthology in that same tradition, focusing even more tightly on the geography of the Bay Area. As Johnny Ray Huston so rightly points out in the liner notes, San Francisco in the '80s had its own unique crucible of local events that shaped the Bay Area's particular sound (e.g. the assassination of Harvey Milk, the growing AIDS epidemic and the fear surrounding the disease, etc.). While there's none of the art-damaged abstraction filtered from The Residents, Snakefinger, or Tuxedomoon in an obvious lineage to the artists featured here, BART (named after the subway that connects Oakland, Berkeley, and other parts of the East Bay to San Francisco) is a great collection of quirky minimal wave electronics, with a fair amount of unreleased material from obscurant Bay Area new wave bands.
Nomimal State opens the compilation and was from the suburban hamlet of Danville, recording this demo 1983 with a militantly uptempo drum machine and urgent synth lines. It's a track that easily fits next to the likes of The Units and Nervous Gender in terms of manic, punkish use of electronics. Speaking of The Units, they round out the compilation in contributing their sci-fi pop anthem "Mission," which is still bitchin' after all these years! Voice Farm is the other 'big name' to appear on this compilation, contributing a sinewy darkwave number from their 1982 album "The World We Live In." Batang State, Quiet Room, and Necropolis Of Love offer more Joy Division / Wire / Kraftwerk atmospheric post-punk number with considerable panache. The Wasp Women were a crossdressing trash-punk outfit, whose demo featured a wastoid lo-fi number and had appeared in the 1982 film "What Ever Happened To Susan Jane." Danny Boy & The Serious Party Gods offer a fabulously campy disco number with suitably over-the-top raunchy lyrics that ramble on and on against anthemic synths. If there's one track that you need to hear from this compilation it's this one! But the whole collection is very well done, and comes highly recommended as with everything that Dark Entries releases.
A few years back, Minimal Wave offered some choice crate digging collections of nearly forgotten darkwave and post-punk electronics through their Lost Tapes and Found Tapes collections, highlighting the differences between the European and American models of underground new wave. Dark Entries produced this anthology in that same tradition, focusing even more tightly on the geography of the Bay Area. As Johnny Ray Huston so rightly points out in the liner notes, San Francisco in the '80s had its own unique crucible of local events that shaped the Bay Area's particular sound (e.g. the assassination of Harvey Milk, the growing AIDS epidemic and the fear surrounding the disease, etc.). While there's none of the art-damaged abstraction filtered from The Residents, Snakefinger, or Tuxedomoon in an obvious lineage to the artists featured here, BART (named after the subway that connects Oakland, Berkeley, and other parts of the East Bay to San Francisco) is a great collection of quirky minimal wave electronics, with a fair amount of unreleased material from obscurant Bay Area new wave bands.
Nomimal State opens the compilation and was from the suburban hamlet of Danville, recording this demo 1983 with a militantly uptempo drum machine and urgent synth lines. It's a track that easily fits next to the likes of The Units and Nervous Gender in terms of manic, punkish use of electronics. Speaking of The Units, they round out the compilation in contributing their sci-fi pop anthem "Mission," which is still bitchin' after all these years! Voice Farm is the other 'big name' to appear on this compilation, contributing a sinewy darkwave number from their 1982 album "The World We Live In." Batang State, Quiet Room, and Necropolis Of Love offer more Joy Division / Wire / Kraftwerk atmospheric post-punk number with considerable panache. The Wasp Women were a crossdressing trash-punk outfit, whose demo featured a wastoid lo-fi number and had appeared in the 1982 film "What Ever Happened To Susan Jane." Danny Boy & The Serious Party Gods offer a fabulously campy disco number with suitably over-the-top raunchy lyrics that ramble on and on against anthemic synths. If there's one track that you need to hear from this compilation it's this one! But the whole collection is very well done, and comes highly recommended as with everything that Dark Entries releases.
Here's the vinyl of Volume Two from the BART: Bay Area Retrograde series, which was included with Volume One on a single cd we listed last time (and are relisting now, to add this info), also released on the inimitable Dark Entries. Like Volume One, this collects vintage minimal wave / new wave / punk electronics from the SF Bay Area. (For those who don't live around here, BART also stands for Bay Area Rapid Transit, the local commuter train system.) The line-up for the second installment includes some fantastic obscurities from Factrix, Chrome, Tuxedomoon, and Indoor Life; and there's plenty of great new discoveries of forgotten Bay Area outfits like Zru Vogue, Red Asphalt, Timmy Spence and more. The Factrix piece was taken from an old Subterranean compilation, with the trio entertaining more of a sprightly goth-synth vibe instead of their signature industrial murk through tinny drum machine patter and strangle-choked guitar riffs. Chrome's throbbing motorik synth-punk number "Meet You In The Subway" was taken from their 1979 album Subterranean Modern, released through the Residents' Ralph Records. Red Asphault is up next with a squalid torrent of No Wave inspired fire-alarm mania. Both Tuxedomoon and Indoor Life (the latter including Patrick Cowley on synths!) adopt a disjointed, art-damaged theatricality to their warped, all-thumbs tracks. Baby Buddha's "Little Things" proves to be one of the synth-wave gems on this comp, with its spiky electronic sequencing, haunted house chord progressions, and grimly monotone vocals, followed by the equally strong "Human Dub" by Human Being Men peddling streamlined electronic anxiety of minimal wave perfection. The dour "Nakweda Dream" with its chimingly Cure-ish guitars rounds out the comp, which is considerably darker than the first but is just as recommended!
Oh yeah! With so many great collections of golden-era soul/funk coming out in the last couple years chronicling the wonderful sounds that came out of scenes in different parts of the country and abroad it makes perfect sense that there should be some collections detailing the amazing soul & funk that came out of our very own backyard, right here in San Francisco and throughout the bay-area during the '60s and '70s. Like their great collection of soul & funk from Michigan on the Searching For Soul comp, Luv N' Haight have once again hit solid gold with a totally stellar collection of should have been big time hits that mostly slipped under the radar on a more national scale. From the heartbroken soul of Mary Love, the always reliable Sugar Pie DeSanto, the tripped out funk of San Francisco T.K.O.'s, the charismatic hip shaking sounds of Little Denise Stevenson and the gut wrenchingly gritty funk of Primevil, this collection is pretty much super solid from start to finish. We can't get enough of the raw good stuff, from a time when Soul & Funk was done so totally right. Fans of the Eccentric Soul series and of all vintage soul & funk, this is a definite must have!
The Tompkins Square Label focuses its spotlight locally on the next generation of Northern California acoustic guitarists -- Sean Smith, Matt Baldwin and Adam Snider. Hailing from Berkeley, where John Fahey's label Takoma was (as well as where Windham Hill first began to blossom), these three young and very talented players have been playing in local clubs and cafes for a few years now. Sean Smith, whose stunning debut on Isota we reviewed a few list back and was also featured on the second Imaginational Anthem compilation, is the "elder" of the group, while Baldwin and Snider have their recording debuts here. Lovely and melancholy with beautiful cover art by John Baizley of Baroness (which looks remarkably Pushead-like), this is a great introduction to the local acoustic guitar scene.
Ten years of groundbreaking hip hop releases celebrated in one package -- $28 for *four* discs, over 60 tracks spanning the entire Bomb Hip Hop catalog, and including unreleased stuff as well. This is the label run by SF's own David Paul, who with the Return of
After a handful of killer releases (Sunchariot, Svetovid, Surt, Lascowiec, Gnieu, Uruk-Hai) comes this long in the works compilation from local black metal tape label Brotherhood Of Light, which gathers up a handful of rare and unreleased tracks from some of those same groups, as well as a bunch of others in BoL's underground orbit.
Up first is local BM duo (trio?) Lascowiec, who unfurl a gorgeous bit of super lo-fi, pastoral psychedelia, that gradually expands into a buzzing black cloud of washed out buzz wrapped around soaring majestic melancholic melodies, stumbling murky drum lope, and some seriously fierce bellowed vokills. Surt deliver a dreamy bit of piano laced drift, haunting and spectral, more of a sonic fragment, but quite lovely, like some lost Caretaker B side all fuzzy and hazy and dreamlike. The oddly named Vinland Special Services layout some strange industrial soundscape, all sampled voices, weird buzz, creaks and clatter, a sprawl of abstract collaged noise, the sound constantly shifting, and eventually splintering into a woozy bout of primitive turntablism, all warbly melodies and warped voices, before slipping back into more strange blackened industrial ambience. Finally, the A side is closed out by Uruk-Hai, and whose sounds is a mournful, depressive black metal drift, that's almost dreamy, with the guitars soaring majestically, the busy bassline providing a woozy melody, the vocals appropriately harsh, but otherwise, it's very Alcest like, all shoegazey and shimmery.
The B side starts off with Sunchariot, whose recent tape was a big hit around here, and is a new unreleased track from a forthcoming full length a blurry, bleary washed out avalanche of crumbling buzz, buried drums, muted melodies, and anguished vokills, super bizarre production, definitely can't wait to hear the full length. Up next is Cosmic Breath 88 who deliver a sort of abstract blackened industrial blowout, all flanged guitars, processed vox, and blacknoise buzz. Then there's a super raw, lo-fi chunk of primitive black buzz from USBM outfit Lord Foul, brittle guitars, the sound woozy and warped, almost looped sounding, tranced out and hypnotic. Aryan Art unfurl some surprisingly melodic black buzz, everything washed out and almost dreamy, a little bit shoegazey and blissed out, the vocals super anguished and WAY up in the mix, jarring at first, but then it sorta makes sense. The music gets very folky and medieval, even at its most furious it's sort of warbly and darkly dreamy. And finally, Svetovid finish things off, with some fuzzed out drum machine driven black buzz, laced with inhuman croaked vox and some super fuzzy dreamy melodies, again a weird mix of harsh and pretty, but it makes for a pretty compelling listen.
LIMITED TO 200 COPIES!! Each one hand numbered, and housed in full color J-cards.
Super low priced video document of the current "San Francisco Scene", heavy on the Extreme Elvis (you've been warned). Let me explain. AQ pal Virgil Porter had a cable access show called Burn My Eye, and this here DVD collects the greatest most memorable bits, including: A sweaty swaggering house show from garage rock trio The Coachwhips with random testimonials from some CW fans. An awesome high energy performance from Deerhoof -- watching the drummer, seated on a milk crate and pounding on his ramshackle 2 piece kit is totally mesmerising and pretty impressive. An interview with SF's very own Extreme Elvis, who is kind of like GG Allin trapped in the body of (fat) Elvis, as well as a sort-of Extrem Elvis greatest hits reel -- the candy cane in the ass, the pissing on the flag, the head shaving break up, the cum drinking. Wow. Some raw live footage of The Locust, as well as a backstage interview with them by Extreme Elvis that gets a little out of control. Noiseniks the Lowdown destroy it live at a house party and in a backyard. The Numbers get an interview and some live action. And Total Shutdown are naked in a park, and bursting eardrums at legendary local watering hole Bottom Of The Hill. Secret extras include a Numbers video as well as some live mayhem from local faux-gay-leather-techno boys Zeigenbok Kopf.
Hey all you grown-up kiddies, the nice folks at Daft Alliance don't want you to feel left out! Joining the other fine child-oriented releases that have come through our door recently is this Children's Music For Adults Volume 1 compilation. And despite the title, we can report that there's plenty on it for most age groups and attention spans. From the get-go, it's a lively listen. The most obvious appeal is not that these songs were 'made for children', but that many of them were playfully created with the sounds from a child's world (toys, tv shows, etc). It ends up becoming a name-that-toy puzzle of sorts! That said, it is definitely more than a one-time-listen novelty. Most tracks are thoroughly engaging and amusing, but the fifth and seventh songs are particular stand-outs. They're Bad Dudes' "Dawn of the Dudes" and hey willpower's "Janet and Aggie" respectively, seeming very inspired by the nuttier spastic moments of Mr. Bungle. The Bay Area-centric compilation also features tracks from Concentrick (Tim Green of the Fucking Champs), Open City, Sarge, M. Kourie, Comainu, Bookmobile, Final Cut To, Hell Hound (on my trail), Circadia and three from Tomo! If you like what you hear, keep in mind that this is just the beginning -- the first of a three volume series.
Collection of recordings made live at San Francisco's Clit Stop. 38 tracks from such notables as: Kit Clayton, Three Day Stubble, No Neck Blues Band, Deerhoof, Zeek Sheck, Rubber O Cement With Karla Lavay, Casiotone For The Painfully Alone, and much more.
Better act fast on this one, super limited, as in ONLY SEVENTY COPIES, and it's a pretty killer sampling of some of the best SF bands around, all exclusive tracks, from a bunch of our favorites, and a whole bunch of bands we'd never heard of before.
Barn Owl, Lucky Dragons, Tussle, Pale Hoarse, Ascended Master, Snowblink, Drumz and so many more. Two discs, nearly 2 hours, of spaced out drone, groovy abstract rhythms, dark swilring ambience, woozy drum machine driven lo-fi pop, pounding low slung post rock, and lots of stops in between.
All of the tracks were recorded live in the Fall of 2007, during Drew Bennett's collaborative Clouds Carved The Mountains Installation / Sound Series at the Triple Base Gallery, here in SF.
Beaufiul hand assembled and hand silkscreened cover, with a printed insert, of the seventy copies we only got a handful, so grab one quick before they're gone...
A document of the SF experimental noise underground answer to Burning Man that took place this past August. Featuring Satosonic, Symplx and Planet-Size: Clit. Plenty of tangled wires, creative circuitry, and fire hazards.
The title for this compilation of gloom 'n' groove bands, "Death Before Disco" is a loaded historical allusion dating back to the late '70s, when rock purists held an irrational, fascistic antagonism toward the culture of euphoria and leisure that disco offered as a legitimate alternative to the American hegemony of straight, white-boy rock'n'roll. Well, with Princehouse themselves claiming that this compilation "represents where Princehouse is coming from and what we're into" (i.e. electro-punk dance bands who often exhibit plenty of disco slipperiness), "Death Before Disco" is an ill-fitting title to an otherwise good (and well-timed) compilation of mutant, death disco with tracks by Adult., I Am Spoonbender, The Pattern, The Numbers, The Vanishing, Ghost Orchids, Gogogoairheart, A Tension, Hint Hint, Dance Disaster Movement, The Pleased, The Lovemakers, Broker / Dealer, Paradise Boys, and Kill Me Tomorrow. Most all of the tracks had been featured on other albums, giving it a sort of K-Tel feel; but the curatorial decisions work well enough in favoring the infectiousness of rhythms dolled up with black eyeliner and plenty of artworld / designer-drug attitudes, typified by the excellent cuts from The Vanishing and Dance Disaster Movement. The compilation noticeably detours with two blue collar rock'n' roll cuts from The Pattern and The Pleased, the latter sounds *exactly* like The Strokes. Those strange additions aside, "Death Before Disco" is worthwhile medicine for those waiting for another fix of Fisherspooner or The Rapture.
MPEG Download: VANISHING "Black Umbrellas" [/audio/dancedisastercestlavie.mp3]
MPEG Stream: VANISHING "Black Umbrellas" [/audio/dancedisastercestlavie.m3u]
A few months ago, we presented the debut quartet of releases from AQ-pal Drew(cifer) Webster's new record label Dielectric. Four stylishly packaged 12" vinyl eps from four diverse, mostly-unknown but excellent sonic architects. Now those four are back, together on this cd, each contributing four tracks apiece -- a total of ten new cuts along with one or two tracks per artist that already appeared on the eps. The disc starts of with Akta Ebtekar aka Sote, who prior to his Dielectric release had already gained some attention with a disc on Warp. Actually two of Sote's cuts are credited to Virgox, Ebtekar's collaboration with Safar Bake. Sote/Virgox produce crunching, stuttering beats and computer melodies -- it's like dance music constructed from the sampled sounds of a mad scientist's laboratory. Definitely in the vein of much Warp/Rephlex/Tigerbeat6/Ambush label material.
Next up is wunderkind Carson Day, operating in an electonica realm not far from that of Sote, but more mysterious, mellow, and pretty -- less house, more home (with headphones). His broken beats, distorted melodies, and digital fuckery meet up with some hiphop flavor on the standout track "Get Hurt" which makes good use of a vocal sample repeating the title phrase. On the evidence of Carson's four cuts here (only one comes from his 12"), he's a match for the likes of Chris Clark, Matmos, and Lesser...
The next four tracks are from Die Elektrischen, the man we know better as Drewcifer. Sure it's his record label, but his music dispels all ideas of a vanity production. It's good stuff. Like Sote and Carson, he brings the beats too, but is much more on the percussive-distorto-drone-extreme side of things. Crinkle, crackle, crumple. There's hints of Merzbow beneath the surface, yet this remains quite musical. Early Scorn meets Philip Jeck meets DJ Scud? Well deserving of his nifty black metal styled Die Elektrishen logo designed by Wrest of AQ black metal faves Leviathan.
Last up is Karen Stackpole, perhaps the most left field entry of these four -- she's no laptop or turntable jockey. Her first track is entitled "Gong and Cello #2" which will give you an idea of the sound: percussion and string drone. We could throw around some descriptive catagories like experimental, Mills College, academic, 20th century avant garde, improv... or we can just say that her stuff is really, really nice. Creepy yet lovely.
Basically, this a great comp, programmed perfectly -- Stackpole's tracks make for fine wind-down at the end after all the electronic/elektrik tracks. If you've already got the vinyl eps you need this too for all the new cuts. If you don't have the 12" records, get this, and if you like what you hear and you have a turntable, then you'll know what to do! We're definitely looking forward to hearing more from these artists -- are full lengths in the offing? -- and to future Dielectric discoveries as well. And we're definitely not saying all this just 'cause Drew's our friend, he'd be the first to tell you that'd be unlikely. Recommended!
About a year ago we wrote about a 12" split of a couple of Wackie's tracks that were both amazing in their own ways. The A-Side was Horace Andy's "Musical Episode", an extended 12" mix which is probably one of the best disco mixes we'd ever heard and the B-Side was an absolutely bizarre extended mix called the "Wack Rap" from 1979 and featuring some completely off kilter impersonations of the Sugarhill Gang. Well, Dis-Joint records, the fellas who released that 12", have put together a nice compilation of tracks featuring the aforementioned along with several singles -- new and old -- that their label has released. Now the vinyl-ly challenged can also join in on the enjoyment of these two tracks and then some. There's quite a few rare tracks here, including an instrumental mix of Ronnie Gee's "Raptivity" from 1980, Zap Pow's reggae homage to Kool & The Gang "Lottery Spin" recorded at Dynamic Sounds way back in 1976, plus some new dance floor cuts inspired from the old school by the likes of DJs Cool Chris & Romanowski, Ben Cook & Deep Fuzz, Dub Diablo and more.
The first of two Kris Kristofferson tribute albums to come out in this here year 2002, Don't Let the Bastards Get You Down was put together by local man about town Nick Tangborn. Like a Dwight Yoakum of his day, Kris Kristofferson was equally involved with
Bay Area indie band The Cubby Creatures make home-spun crafty pop music, and their homebase label Cubby Control run by bassist/vocalist Brian Weaver also puts out compilations of other likeminded Bay Area and beyond artists. This is the fourth and final volume of the series which began back in 1997 as a celebration of 4-track home recordings. This volume differs from its lower-fi predecessors in that it is comprised of twenty completely exclusive tracks by exclusively Bay Area artists. There's quite a variety of styles from acoustic folk to funk-a-booty, from loopy psych-pop to minimal dub-tronic, from an off-kilter carnivalesque theme to a more urban soundscape. A charming lil' something for everyone! The participants include Thee More Shallows, The Slow Poisoner, Dax Pierson, Jai Young Kim, The Andy Peters Show, Mos Eisley, Thee Druggles, Brian Weaver and The Cubby Creatures or course.
An assortment of tracks by 19 very disparate SF indie artists. The most odd is probably the inclusion of Lower Forty-Eight, who contribute a rumbling stoner rock track that bursts forth amid the much more abundant, low-key melodicism. The other 18 songs
Holy crap! An epic, double cd, FORTY THREE band, label sampler from local label 20 Sided Records (who recently released the awesome new Trainwreck Riders album!), featuring a bunch of bands from right here in SF, but also LA, Fresno, Santa Cruz, Long Beach, Oakland, and as far away as Seattle, Bellingham, Spokane, Phoenix, Portland and Denver. The really crazy thing, is that of those 43 bands, we actually had only even heard of 5 or 6, and more than half of those are from right here!
So this is a pretty awesome introduction to a whole bunch of new bands, a list of which we would imagine wouldn't mean much, since odds are you probably wouldn't know most of these groups either, but there's definitely some good stuff, the sounds super varied, heavy on the indie rock and variations thereof, but still all over the map: crunchy, fuzzed out twee pop, jangly Pavement style indie rock, Ramones-y garage punk, chugging math metal, blown out shoegazey Built To spill sounding indie pop, bluesy garage stomp, rollicking chaotic garage stomp a la Thee Oh Sees, dreamy echo drenched folkiness, brooding slow build epic post rock drift, and that's just a tiny taste, and heck, screw it, here's a list of the bands, the ones we know: Blank Tapes, Slow Trucks, Ugly Winner, Hazel's Wart, Ash Reiter (who has a new full length on 20 Sided!), Trainwreck Riders, and the ones we don't: Sci-Fi Caper, The Suicides, Quiet Americans, High Horse, Wild Pack Of Canaries, Saything, The Hoot Hoots, Mosshead, Big Mittens, Future Space And Time, The Palisades, Smalls, One Hundred Percent, Eureka California, Myth Ship, Rosa Grande, The Fay Wrays, San Joaquin Steamers, Vows, Fpod Bpod, Li Xi, Rubedo, Cannons & Clouds, Sugar Candy Mountain, Pony Village, The Cat From Hue, Pro Wings, Street Pyramids, Upstairs Downstairs, The Wild Kindness, Excited States, One F, Candysound, Animal Eyes, Former Friends Of Young Americans, Owl Paws and Speak Friend. Phew! It almost reads like one of those Robert Pollard / Guided By Voices box sets, where every song is credited to a different made up band! And usually we're pretty wary of comps where most of the bands are names we don't know, but lots of this stuff is pretty great, and odds are if you dig all the strains of indie/garage/fuzz pop/rock/punk, there's lots to love here!!
