Have to admit, we were a bit disappointed to find out that these ladies didn't bust out a cover of Duran Duran's saucy early hit on their latest 12" of the same name. Instead we s'pose they're maybe giving a hearty nod to their recent activities (you might've spotted them in the Jim Carrey movie Yes Man?). They've honed their party and playing chops plenty from heaps of touring, and the trio packs quite a wallop... not to mention a soulful stomp and a tribal thump. This ep features six songs - three new ones and three from their 2007 full length Our Own Island!
Von Iva's music is impassioned, loose and fun! These three ladies seem always party primed. That's right, we said three! Since their last release the band bid a fond farewell to bassist Elizabeth Davis Simpson. As a result, their sound has become far more minimal with Kelly's primal drum beats, Jillian's sultry vocals and some of Becky's stark keyboard lines filling in for the departed basslines. Seemingly inspired by ESG and Tina Turner, Our Own Island's ten tracks are ultra retro sounding and electro funky. Jillian continues to keep brows and loins fevered with her super-soul pipes. These gals don't perspire, they sweat! And we suspect they'll get you all hot'n'bothered too.
These four gals have been raising a ruckus 'round town for a couple years now. You might recognize two of them as being former members of the short-lived SF synth-wave band Clone as well as 7 Year Bitch. Live, they've had their hot nights and ones less so, but when they're 'on', their shows can be a super sassy time with equal parts sweat and lipgloss. Really, a major part of what makes them cool is also what can be their downfall, and that is their unbridled swagger. 'Cuz of course when you're rockin' the blues you can't be all uptight, but you also can't be so loose that you're downright messy. Now on record, they've successfully captured the feel of one of their fiery, saucy good nights on tape. When taken sans vocals, Von Iva rock out a straight-ahead by the books dance punk sound with their two-note arpeggiated keyboard and basslines. However, add in the ballsy soulful female vocals and it's quite a different animal. They definitely provide the distinct personality to this band. A flamin' cocktail brewed up from an ample shot of blues rock, a dollop of disco, a scoop of new wave and a dash of batcave.
This is the first solo record from Steve Von Till, guitarist/vocalist for bay area tribal teutons Neurosis (in fact I think it's the first 'solo' record by anyone in Neurosis). It is a dark and somber affair, as you might expect, but what might surprise you is it's restraint and fragility, just voice, acoustic guitars, and occasional strings. The sounds on this record were hinted at on the last Neurosis record; droning and hypnotic, whispery balladry, replete with cellos and violins (courtesy of Amber Asylum who definitely share some sonic qualities here). Steve's voice is a gruff whisper, abrasive, but subtley melodic, bringing to mind Michael Gira, Nick Cave and Tom Waits.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
So good! An awesome textured guitar and thick Roland Juno 6 synth attack combined with some very angsty vocals sputtering out peculiar thoughts and phrases. This rocks.
Vue are a five piece from San Francisco who previously went by the moniker The Audience. Very much of the retro 70's sweaty, bluesy rock ilk, this record sounds so much like the Rolling Stones it's eerie... in a good way, all high energy and sexed up. Rex is an awesome frontman. They're definitely good at what they do, but it's hard because what they do falls into this vein of music
Bay Area sound sculptors Dominic Cramp and Jared Blum don many musical hats of their own design and in collaboration with others (perhaps most notably, Cramp is in Carla Bozulich's wonderful Evangelista band), and we've carried quite a few of their various projects' recordings here. Have to say, Vulcanus 68 might be one of our faves. This is their second release, and it's as cryptic as the first. They dispel with song titles, instead each track is cataloged with a number/letter. From the seemingly innocuously described instrumentation of electronics, and multispeed turntables and tapes, they churn up a stewed aural bog for you to sink your ears into. It's an ominous sci-fi soundscape populated by insectile prickles, slippery gelatinous gurgles, gritty buzzing masses and heavy rolling drones. Might just be us, but compared to the darkly mischievous tone of Vulcanus 68's debut release, we sense more of an undercurrent of skin-crawling malevolence here. Potentially nightmare inducing. Aaiiieeee... heh heh... good stuff! 47 minutes. Recommended.
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Opening the latest Vulcanus 68 release is the haunting "Monochrome Canon I" which possesses a lost in space sense of lonely melancholia. This tone resurfaces in the second and third passages of the canon which are evenly spaced amidst the seven other tracks. Evoking the indistinguishable shift from dream to nightmare, these are the kind of beautiful and foreboding soundtracks you'd expect to hear in some 1970s post apocalyptic near future sci-fi movie in which insect communities slowly amass to engulf a human civilization (a la 1974's "Phase IV"). Putting their characteristically woozy pitch/speed manipulated samples, analog synth buzzing drones and shimmering resonance to fine use, these Bay Area audio sculptors transport your ears through zones of claustrophobia and expanse, imbuing each of their soundscapes with rich dynamics, texture, subtle movement... and yes, plenty of contour and colour. A terrific addition to your Gigante Sound library!
Jared Blum and Dominic Cramp are two very prolific fellows, releasing a very eclectic array of music both collaboratively and individually under a variety of monikers -- Borful Tang and Blanketship are just two -- on their own Gigante Sound label. Here's their latest collaboration! The Vulcanus 68 self titled release features no song titles, just green, red, yellow and blue dots beside each of the seventeen track numbers. We haven't deciphered the code yet, but it appears the green dots are winning! Ominous dirt and dirge, scrapings and grindings open the album evoking a sci-fi claustrophobia, but the chilling bleakness quickly gives way to curious squeaky squidgey gizmo mischief. However, that doesn't last for long either as the dank drones flood back in. Such is the Vulcanus 68 mission on this cd-r, roaming through explorations of electronics, musique concrete and intriguing collaged samples. If you dig the awesome pioneering craft of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop as well as the dingier, gritty sounds of the JYRK Collective (Skaters and Axolotl), Vulcanus 68 envelops elements of both into their own perplexing amorphous creation. Cool!
Yes, this debut album from SF's Vytear does indeed sound rather rubbery. Kooky, thick analog-y bloops and programmed beats bounce about like a barrel of superballs. Melodies bend and spin and frolic madly, closely resembling a Commodore 64 playground run amok. A fun, sputtering 'n' spastic listen.
Here's a pretty stellar set of classical minimalism from the San Francisco based composer Tashi Wada. "Direct" repeats a series of five detuned notes on a violin, and with each repetition, Wada interjects incremental steps of harmonic overtones and dissonance. The rasping, singing drones build into an incredibly complex, yet wholly acoustic swarm that eagerly applies the classic strategies of the '60s minimalists (e.g. LaMonte Young, Tony Conrad, Alvin Lucier, and of course, Tashi Wada's father Yoshi Wada). The B-side contains "Retrograde" an exact reversal of the "Direct" composition, and through the act of flipping the record over and over again, there's an infinity loop / Moebius strip of harmonic drones that begins to evolve through the speakers.
Yik Yak pressed-up Alignment to be spun at 45 rpm. So, of course, we spun this at 33 rpm and fucking loved it! The raga-drones crawl slower, the overtones ring a little longer, and the whole mood of the composition is all the more ominous. Wada may not care for this bit of instruction on our part, but it's gotta be mentioned as it just sounds so good at that speed!
Walken raise their fists at the crossroads of hardcore punk and metal on this their debut -- a brief, but promising ep that the band self released on cd-r. With bass strings so loosely strung that you can hear 'em clatter and manly screamo vocals, the band's raw thrashing is heavily indebted to very early Bay Area metal bands such as Metallica, Exodus and Testament, but with unexpected bluesiness in the riff department. Furious, chunky and part of the latest virulent strains of Bay Area thrash.
Even though these dudes are a local band, few of us had heard of them. However, all it took was a brief glance at the back cover, revealing a song called "Beast Toker," and we were pretty much sold. We carried their last ep, a self-released cd-r, but that one is long gone, and now Walken take things to the next logical place with an actual cd, one that is sure to win them support from anyone digging fellow local sludgelords like Kowloon Walled City, Black Cobra, and pretty much all of the East Bay. The band stands along the border of punk and metal, with one foot on each side, but luckily things never seem like some self-conscious hybrid. Best of all, Walken shred things up in expert fashion with all kinds of cool pinch harmonics and uber metal elements while the songs chug along with catchy riffs, super tight drumming, and lots of cool gang vocals. At times, there seems to be a fairly pronounced NWOBHM vibe, but maybe that's just us (probably not though). Things often end up sounding like a more grooving Converge with vocals at times reminiscent of legendary Swedes Refused, or perhaps a more punked out Nachtmystium. Sound good? You bet it does. And if this album is any indication of this band's unholy talents, we can only imagine how much they must KILL it live. Another welcome release from San Francisco's ever fertile heavy underground. Fuck yeah.
I Have Never Told You is comprised of twenty tracks of haunting, contemplative compositions from the fine songwriting quill of one Mr. Erik Ian Walker. Together they form a somberly dramatic soundscape of constantly changing atmospheres. Walker's piano, hammond organ and vintage synthesizers (a Buchla and an Oberheim Matrix-12) entwine with a variety of guest musicians' strings, horns and woodwinds. Brief surfacings of Marit Brook-Kothlow's soulful forlorn vocals, occasional rhythmic outbursts and fleeting glimpses of ambient sounds like the whistling of a tea kettle or the percussive rattle of an old radiator punctuate the proceedings. A particularly stirring stretch comes in the tenth track "Castle Canyon" in which over the course of a few minutes a mere whisper of sound slowly builds, swelling to an absolute roar. Wonderful!
In our reviews of the two most recent compilations on Castle Face, the Group Flex flexidisc book set Son Of Flex, and the Velvet Underground tribute, we singled out a group called Warm Soda, as being a new favorite, and in both reviews we mused "Who is this band?" And now we're kicking ourselves for not realizing it, but Warm Soda is the new group / project from big time aQ fave Matthew Melton, who has played in both Bare Wires and Snake Flower 2, as well as releasing a clutch of killer solo jams. And we're happy to report that Warm Soda pretty much falls in line sonically with all of those groups/records. Jangly garage pop, that unlike much of the current crop of garage rocker newbies, is much more beholden to classic seventies power pop and AM radio rock, the sounds here so genuinely seventies sounding, it would be easy to believe this was in fact a reissue of some long lost power pop gem. And really for all its garaginess and all of it's fuzzy riffage, Warm Soda is all about classic songsmithery, and hooks galore. Fans of another aQ fave Purling Hiss (whose new record is also reviewed this week) should flip for this big time. Think Dwight Twilley band, the Kinks, the Stooges, Cheap Trick, the Mice, even modern groups mining the same influences, like Redd Kross, and yeah, Purling Hiss, total Yellow Pills garage pop radness, with plenty of swagger and crunch, jangle and pound, but the sort of hooks most other bands would KILL for, and which Melton seems to toss off like it ain't nothing. Just check out the samples and you'll be hooked!
Hard to pick out a favorite track here, every listen, we become obsessed with a new song, or re-obsessed with a previous fave, needless to say, this is one of those rare records, where EVERY song is a potential fave, and in a perfect alternate universe, a total radio hit. And really, it's not just the music, but the sound, the production, appropriately lo-fi, but not shitty low fidelity, more like old analog tape style, early reel to reel 4 track, the sound lush and rich, and when things get distorted, the sounds ooze and bleed into each other, the way only old school analog recordings seem to.
Along with the Purling Hiss, and the Tony Molina solo record, another contender for pop record of the year on the same list!! Includes a download coupon as well.
Record number two from local retro garage power pop geniuses Warm Soda, fronted by none other than Mr. Matthew Melton, who avid readers of the aQ list no doubt remember from his previous outfits, the equally genius Bare Wires and Snake Flower 2. But with Warm Soda, Melton and crew continue to hone a practically perfect strain of Yellow Pills style power pop, that sounds, right down to the production, and the songwriting, straight out of the seventies. In fact, if this was 1978, we can only imagine these guys would be HUGE, playing with Dwight Twilley and Cheap Trick, and heck, it's not hard to imagine a Warm Soda Live At Budokan record, cuz holy shit, if we dug the first Warm Soda record, this one is even better. In fact, EVERY time we play this in the store, someone comes up to see what we're playing, and often ends up surprised that it's in fact actually a NEW band. But it's easy to see why, Warm Soda's sound is pitch perfect, jangly fuzzy guitars, woozy super melodic basslines, simple propulsive drumming, and Melton's whispery croon, and of course the SONGS, which are amazing, so catchy, the sort of songs, that even on first listen, sound like you've heard them before, and get immediately lodged in your head, and even after only hearing them a couple times, you'll find yourself humming them days later. Assuming it was something you might have just heard on the radio. The production too, somehow manages to sound modern, while still sounding exactly like some classic vintage recording from back in the day. And the way the choruses are all fuzzy and washed out and reverb drenched, it's hard to explain, but they seem to just soar. We could go on and on and on, as we like to do, and describe this record song by song, but why bother, if you dug the first record, or any of Melton's other projects, you NEED this, and if you've never heard anything, all it should take is a couple of the samples below to convince you, that like us, you might have just found your new favorite retro-garage power pop record!!!
Featuring members of now defunct SF outfit New Thrill Parade, and loosely affiliated with the now seemingly hyped to death 'witch house' movement (due mostly to their cd-r on witch house flagship label Disaro), Water Borders have evolved into one of the strangest and most fascinating bands in the bay area. On their last record they sounded a bit like Coil, but on this 4 song ep, they sound, well, like pretty much nobody else.
The title track is a thick miasma of glimmering high end, lush synth swells, looped percussion, haunting 'witchy' ambience, and deep crooned vocals, and a sound that grows more caustic and corrosive as it goes, the vocals following suit, getting more manic and maniacal, the sound suffocatingly intense and explosively freaked out. "Rome" features Glasser guesting, a creepy post industrial dronescape laced with fuzzy synths and crumbling melodies, Glasser's ethereal vocals locked in a doom-ed duet with those creepy bellowed WB vox, a gorgeously twisted electro-doom-cabaret ballad, melodic but also mesmerizingly damaged. That same track gets remixed and blossoms into something simultaneously more washed out and psychedelic, and more driving and propulsive, whirring loops, repetitive melodies, a low slung dubstep beat, some thick fuzzed out bass, some weirdo processed vox, all very spacey and groovy, sounding like a jam that some enterprising DJ might use to confuse the fuck out of a dancefloor.
And finally, the title track gets remixed by Petals, which just so happens to be former aQer Cameron, and whose mostly unheard recordings rule, it's only a matter of time before some big label catches on and so does the rest of the world, but for now, revel in this grim, freaked out, darkly psychedelic reworking, all low end thrum and pulse, some feral grunts and growls, everything gauzy and blurred and even more haunting that the original, a black ambient electro gloom creep, that builds to a thick industrial pound the whole thing held together by a fragmented melodic loop, that will stick in your head like crazy.
SO recommended. We definitely need to hear more Water Borders, and heck, more Petals while we're at it...
Yet another chunk of electro goth, witch pop, gloom-soul weirdness from this SF duo, who, while originally linked to the witch house scene, seem dead set on blazing their own confusional sonic path, and it does just keep getting better and better.
Drippings is a songsuite of what to these ears sounds like minimal miserable electronic death ballads, or like a more lo-fi, creepy and drug addled How To Dress Well. The same sort of soulful vibe, but WB's 'soul music' is something altogether more grim and evil, mottled and murky, the music here stripped down and skeletal, the vocals verring from DJ Screw style sizurped drawl, to an almost Nick Cave sounding deep and dramatic croon. All laid over a strange framework of super spare electronic dub, crumbling bits of distorted melody, bits of metallic buzz and deep rumble, the occasional swirl of synthy shimmer, gauzy stretches of sci-fi kosmische ambience, wheezing drones, sometimes coalescing into a clattery detuned warped cabaret, other times spacing out into glimmering expanses of crystalline haze, and still other times, stumbling into strange Middle Eastern sounding grooves, that sound almost like Muslimgauze crossed with the Butthole Surfers, but still laced with those creepy ominous bellowed vox. Seriously twisted, dementedly genius, fantastically totally fucked up and thus WAY recommended.
SUPER LIMITED! We might not be able to get more when we run out, so act fast.
Local duo Water Borders makes their debut with this 6 song ep, and anyone with a sweet spot for electro-goth weirdness will find plenty of reasons to rejoice. These guys earned their stripes in the enigmatic New Thrill Parade, whose status at this time is uncertain. Whatever the case, this stuff is right up our alley and sure to appeal to anyone digging the current revival of all things gothy, and yet Water Borders' take on things seems much more effortless and not concerned with racking up scene points. The songs seem to swirl within the self-contained atmosphere, with spooky keyboards and simple but incessant throbbing rhythms forming a nice cocoon for the dramatic and crazed vocals. Some of this stuff reminds us of Coil, while other numbers bring to mind a more, cough, "organic" version of Six Finger Satellite circa Machine Cuisine with more of an emphasis on actually singing. The sounds are both noisy and surprisingly majestic, and we are definitely digging the demented dance floor vibe on songs like "Even In The Dark". Limited to 100 copies, so don't snooze on it. A nice surprise, we can't wait to hear what these guys whip up next!
A beautiful object d'art from the Bay Area cottage industry Land And Sea, Mixed Raced is a rare document of the harmonically charged compositions of Zachary James Watkins. He studied at Mills College under the tutelage of Pauline Oliveros, Chris Brown, Alvin Curran, et al; and is now a professor at UC Santa Cruz in electronic music. Mixed Raced is one facet of Watkins' work for rarefied tonal perfection that is emblematic of many of the graduates who matriculate from Mills, though some of his other solo work does move into an angular dissonance of saw-tooth noise with all the right No Wave allusions. Here, we have two compositions with multiple movements involving guitars and strings respectively. "Positively Right On" is Watkins take on the Branca / Chatham guitar harmonics. Watkins's composition only calls for two guitarists, setting up a duality of the harmonic interplay of growling drones and rasping fundamentals; but the results expose the diminishing returns on the guitar symphonies from both of those aforementioned heavyweights of downtown minimalism. These pieces glide, drift, hum, and blur with the best that either of those had done over the years, though the 20 minute program in three movements (obviously a requisite for a vinyl release) is a bit limiting, where a much longer duration would have been thoroughly entrancing. Nonetheless, "Positively Right On" is quite a triumph for Watkins. "Movement III" for violin and doublebass is a more conventional piece of academic minimalism with rising and decline notes sustained upon those two instruments, played out over seven variations on that theme. Think Lucier, Curran, Ashley, and any number of the American minimalists who came to prominence in the '70s.
Features hand letterpressed artwork in an edition of just 100 copies.
Brand new 7" from one the Blasted Canyons (that would be Heather, once a Bare Wire as well), their Castle Face debut was our Record Of The Week on last week's list, and weirdly enough, they're also on the quintuple flexidisc-book that is one of THIS week's Records Of The Week, needless to say we have mad love for Heather and all of her various projects, including now this one, Wax Idols, a solo project (although a proper band on this recording), and Wax Idols' sonic apple doesn't fall far from the Bare Wires / Blasted Canyons tree, which is just fine with us. The sound here is a little more sixties girl group though, a fuzzed out retro garage rock, but not as sunshiney and jangly as lots of those groups, more muscley, a little dark, and a little new wave-y, crunchy guitars, powerful echo drenched vox, snarly and sassy, over pounding drums and laced with glistening Cure like melodies. And hooks galore. Oh and that sixties girl group thing, we're not talking poodle skirts and sweaters, no we're talking leather jackets, ripped jeans and switchblades, in fact, it sorta sounds like the kind of band Pinky and Leather Tuscadero would start if they time travelled to the present day.
The B side gets even murkier and more new wave, the sound washed out and distorted, more plodding and dour and darkly gloomy. Really great. Definitely psyched to hear more...
Finally, a full length record from Heather Fedewa, aka one woman psychedelic jangle pop new wave garage rock combo Wax Idols, which seems to have been expanded to what essentially amounts to a full band for this full length. Fedewa is a member of aQ beloved recent Record Of The Week honorees Blasted Canyons, and she was a former Bare Wire as well of one of the punx in Hunx & His Punx, so with a pedigree like that it didn't really take a genius to figure out that we'd dig Wax Idols, and dig it we do, the first single we reviewed a while back was a big hit around here, with a fuzzed out garage rock girl group sound that didn't stray too far from the sound of her old band The Bare Wires, which was just fine with us, although as we mentioned in that review, the sound tended to be a bit darker, with more crunch, more murk, a definitely gloom pop vibe, although we have to say, none of that is present on the opening track here, which is fuzzy and crunchy and jangly, with plenty of tough girl swagger, reminding us a bit of the Runaways, especially with Fedewa's snarled echo drenched yelp on the chorus, although the rest of the song is pretty fuzzy and dreampoppy. "Hitman" too, could almost be Best Coast, or the Dum Dum Girls, raw and urgent, fuzzy and crunchy, with chiming guitar melodies over the fuzzy riffage, but then something strange happens, the chord progression of the chorus has this weird turn right at the end that's a little bit sour, and makes the hook have just a little bit of edge, which is probably a good description of this whole record, fuzzy, jangly, a little new wavey, but with just a little bit more bite than other sonically similar bands. In fact, if there was a girl group battle of the bands, that was in fact an actual battle, all of those other bands would get their asses KICKED. Just check out "Dilno", super rocking, blown out and fuzzy, distorted, rollicking and rocking, with some weird vox and a super dynamic stuttery chorus.
As the record progresses, the songs seem to get a bit more moody, the sound stretching out into gloom pop territory, which totally suits the songs, and balances the more sunshiney numbers nicely. And then the record finishes off with maybe the poppiest jam here, all echo drenched vocals, warm shimmery strum, and sweetly melancholy minor key melodies, but even there, the song has plenty of dynamics, the multiple guitars weaving a lush almost shoegazey haze over the second half, but not enough to obscure Wax Idols' fuzz pop perfection.
Fans of Bare Wires, Blasted Canyons, Thee Oh Sees, Dum Dum Girls, Vivian Girls, Best Coast, Girls At Dawn, Grass Widow, etc. this just might be your new favorite record.
A.C. Way has been a fixture in the Bay Area noise community for close to a decade now, performing constantly and within a number of ensembles (Maleficia, French Radio, Riqis, Carrion, NF Orchest, etc.), but his recorded solo output has been woefully under-represented. He's one to start furiously on projects only to shelve them either out of frustration with the process or if another opportunity might come along. However, the strength of Odo is such that Way should delve back into that repository of mangled tapes and extract more material like this. His means of production often involves a beat-to-shit turntable, a similarly beat-to-shit sampler, vocal growlings, and a noise-freak collection of pedals, resulting in a black noise miasma orbiting around MB, Lasse Marhaug, and Locrian. Odo is a comparatively brighter affair of harmonically interwoven tones and field recordings, but Way's menacing noise lurks throughout. The first of three pieces layers a set of harmonium-sounding drones whose linear stasis is upended by an arching churn of growling, low-end feedback, snapping into the second track of watery field recordings and subterranean drippings sutured to a chorus of mid-range sinetones. The final track engages an uneasy set of feedback tones made even more unsettled by a distant blackened cloud of rumbling distortion slowly joined by a metallic clamor and spectral blasts of wintery black noise. Think the more psychedelic noise of Ramleh, the transitional recordings by Emaciator from noise-to-drone, and most everything that comes out on Utech. Just 20 minutes long, but the price is certainly right!
A disembodied scream becomes noise becomes drone becomes the sound of swarming bees. Such is the course laid out by the oft-performing / occasionally-recording East Bay noise technician A.C. Way on this mighty fine 3" cd-r. This man has performed in numerous projects over the years, bringing his battered turntable, abused sampler, and array of distortion pedals to such projects as Maleficia, French Radio (with MX-80's Bruce Anderson, no less), Carrion, Riqis, and probably a few others that have slipped our mind. All of those aforementioned elements work their way into the crosshatched structure of this 20 minute composition. Whatever Way is sourcing for the initial blast of noise is downright terrifying. As much as we'd like to give credence to the thought it's a reverberant scream captured inside the half-mile Baker-Barry Tunnel found in the Marin Headlands, it's probably a fortuitous abrasion manipulated from Way's turntable. As encrusted distortion and corroded noises begin to dismantle these unsettling sounds, a glowing tone also emerges as something of a shimmering, gilded beacon, that's as beautiful as the noises that preceded it are not. When the sound of the bees flutters through that ephemeral drone, Way hints at another wash of sonic horror but resolves those sounds as a vibrating massage of ecological white noise. Really nice work, and limited to 50 copies.
A new album from this popular local combo who play a full, polished brand of shadowy twang. Delving into the darker side of country music a la Cowboy Junkies and Trailer Bride with layers of sliding, spidery reverbed guitar and gritty organs. The melancholic female lead vocals bring to mind the subdued yet powerful delivery of Hope Sandoval or Carly Simon. They're backed by higher, more angelic vocals. Their decision to include a tripped out cover of Blondie's "Heart Of Glass" seems very strange and out of place. The over the top warbly wah-wah guitars and plodding rhythms totally distracts from the brooding, languid Waycross atmosphere they've so carefully crafted. Instead, it comes across as an alienating, druggy blues rock rendition. Seems like they should've made it either a hidden final track or preferably just reserved it for the live setting in which it's surely a crowd pleaser. That said, if you can program your cd player to skip track 9, you'll have a cohesive, pleasing listen.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY. [/cat/local64.html]
Post-rock gets a little metallic when We Be The Echo are around. Although their central sound is one of Chicago style mathy post-rock, the SF band does muscle its way outside of its boundaries from time to time. Whereas the music that falls under those two genre umbrellas is for the most part about precision, We Be The Echo play it loud and loose. Ultimately this serves to alternately benefit (high energy level) and hinder (somewhat muddled math parts) the impact of many songs on Stanislaw Stories. Nine propulsive instrumentals.
The posthumous debut from (and, thus, swansong of) San Francisco's most cult black metal act, Weakling. Despite their local, non-forested, non-wintry origins, Weakling was a band capable of destroying the best Scandinavia has to offer (as we witnessed upon two occasions, when Weakling had the honor of opening the San Francisco shows by Norwegians Mayhem and Enslaved, and proceeded to make both bands look like punk rockers in comparison! Weakling were so much more epic and intense). All this without any of the ignorant posturing or hackneyed corpsepaint of their peers.
Ghastly, anguished vocals and bloodchilling keyboards combine with dual trebly buzzsaw guitars and inhuman trance inducing drumming to create an atmosphere of utter grinding grimness. Weakling draws upon '90s black metal in the Norwegian tradition (especially the raw and primitive likes of Darkthrone, Burzum and Immortal) and then creates uniquely fucked song structures of epic length (20 minutes per, in some cases).
And, like the best music, Weakling also transcends genre. In some ways, "Dead as Dreams" possesses elements that can be considered akin to the avant garde, experimental creations of the Swans, Skullflower, Steve Reich, or even Yoko Ono. Imagine an extensive, utterly mesmerizing Hermann Nitsch piece, composed for black metal band.
It's a suffocating soundscape of riffing and drone. Subterranean satanic art rock that equals metal. Nihilistic, depressive and never ending.
Featuring Josh from The (Fucking) Champs as well as drummer Lil' Sunshine from local death metallers Sangre Amado. And of course, John Gossard of...well, John Gossard. (And The Gault / Asunder / Iron Vegan.) Local black metal maniac/death rocker extraordinaire. Weakling is largely the result of his devotion to black metal dementia.
We are not engaging in baseless hyperbole when we say: this should be crowned black metal album of the year. Seriously. Essential.
The smoking hot Mexican Summer label unleashes another new great band to the world, this one actually resides right here in San Francisco. Weekend blast out two songs on this 10" overflowing with a refreshing lo-fi rocking and shoegazey vibe. Kind of like a Woodsist band doing covers of Nowhere era Ride, or a less monochromatic Crystal Stilts letting loose on Unrest covers, or The Chills crossed with early My Bloody Valentine. They also remind us a bit of a more ramshackle and raw version of Desolation Wilderness who have also recently been creating great songs from a similar sonic perspective but with a bit more polish and fleshed out production. Weekend keeps things fuzzy and blown own and a bit raw which for sure works in their favor and also aligns them well with the likes of Wavves, Pearl Harbor, Grass Widow, etc.
Both songs on here are fucking great! But we wouldn't feel right if we didn't mention that it is only two songs (one of which will be on their forthcoming full length) which makes the $20 pricetag seem a bit, well, outrageous. Of course this is extremely limited and will be gone before the blink of an eye, and we really do love all the music Mexican Summer has been putting out but we do think the cost might be getting a little out of hand. That being said when it comes to the music in these grooves, we're totally sold!
Brand new blast of shoegazey fuzz pop jangle from this SF outfit, the A side just a slightly abbreviated 'radio' edit of the track "End Times" from their Sports full length, and while we're happy to hear that song again and again and again, for fans it's the B-side that's the big attraction here, which finds Sports' opening jam, the 6+ minute "Coma Summer", a blast of summery jangley shoegaze pop bliss, here transformed into something much murkier and gloomier, the sounds washed out and echo drenched, lots of softly swirling effects, the drums almost krautrock sounding in their motorik simplicity, while the vocals seem to have been transformed into streaks of high end sound, blurred into the whirling washed out background, the sound distorted and lo-fi, sounding more like something you might find on an Ariel Pink / John Maus record, that same sort of alien FM radio broadcast, via fucked up 4 track, and while it definitely sounds NOTHING like anything else on Sports, as a brief blast of warped lysergic weirdo krautpop, it's pretty goddamn great.
Comes with a download coupon as well.
At first you're greeted by the warmth of an ethereal new age synth that wouldn't sound out of place on a Vangelis record, and then the peace is broken by a repetitive staggered static echo, followed by driving throbbing bass and then pounding toms. Finally the plucked echo of guitar strings emerges and crescendos into an all encompassing wash. And then the vocals come in, almost like a distant echo. It's literally like hearing all the pieces of a band fall into place over the span of a couple of minutes. It's a great start to a record, and the perfect introduction to Weekend's brand of shoegaze drenched post-punk. Jinx is Weekend's second album, and since they're from our neck of the woods it's hard not to feel a little hometown pride as we submerge ourselves into their reverb soaked dreamscape. For those who are new to the world of Weekend, the quickest way to describe them would be: a shoegaze band you can actually dance to! A bit like if My Bloody Valentine had formed a few years earlier and hopped onto the Factory Records roster. There are serious hooky Joy Division/New Order bass lines aplenty, filling the songs with a sense of urgency that make it almost impossible to sit still, complimented nicely by some upbeat high energy drum work. But on the other end of the spectrum there are the guitars and the vocals - all ghostly echoes and sorrowful blanketing melodies. As soon as that first chorus kicks in with the repeated refrain of "I feel sick, sick, sick in my heart" it becomes clear that you may have just entered into the saddest dance party ever. The vocals are arguably the most classically 'shoegaze' thing about the record in fact. They drift in and out of the songs like some half forgotten memory. Only on "Celebration, FL" do they and the rest of the band ever approach something that could be considered joyful, and even then there's a lingering bittersweet wistfulness throughout. It ends up making for a really great mix, taking the best bits of both genres and using them to their fullest effect. While some shoegaze bands have a tendency to drag, Weekend's rollicking uptempo rhythm section never allow this to happen. And while post punk can often be overly tuneless or sparse, the wall of sound guitars and haunting vocals apply some much needed texture and melody to the proceedings. Clearly it's a good time to be 'gazing in the Bay Area with the likes of Deafheaven and Whirr currently making big crashing waves in the genre as well, and we certainly wouldn't hesitate to add Weekend to the leading lights of that ever growing list.
Brand new ep from these SF shoegaze / jangle poppers, and it's a doozy, taking up right where their aQ beloved Sports album left off, launching right into it with the hazy, dirgey, dreamy "Sweet Sixteen", with its slow pounding beat, low slung bassline, reverbed ethereal vocals, and thick grinding swaths of guitar, which are soon joined by lush chiming melodies, the sound epic and expansive, moody and brooding, we've found ourselves playing it over and over and over. Which means it took us a while to get to "Hazel", which is a bit more propulsive, and very eighties sounding, almost like their take on this whole retro new wave thing, but holy shit is it the sort of song that would be a massive hit in a perfect world, a killer hook surrounded buy weirdly effected guitars, crunchy riffs, all wed to a killer groove, thick fuzzy bass, the sound occasionally exploding into sweetly psychedelic squalls. The rest of this 5 song ep follows suit, dipping into druggy dark shoegaze crunch on "Your Own Nothing", the sound thick and dark and fuzzy, but still rife with melodies and another wicked hook, or bouncy retro fuzz pop on "The One You Want" that sounds like it should be on the soundtrack to a modern John Hughes style teenage classic, and finally, the oddly titled "Golfers", with its thick, downtuned dirgey riff, echoey vox, tribal drumming, and melancholy guitar melody, a dreamy chunk of minimal gloom pop, that might be this ep's real gem.
Finally! The full length debut from these SF jangle noisepoppers, and it's as good as their two song Mexican Summer 10" had us hoping it would be.
Fuzzy, jangly, shoegazey, reverby, a little new wavey, a little droney, super catchy and buzzy and dreamy, pretty much everything we want a new pop record to be.
The first song "Coma Summer" is a dizzying collision of sounds and styles, that displays everything we love about these guys. Jangly Unrest style guitars chime beneath distant crooned oooooh's, eventually buzzy crunchy guitar rock wraps itself around the original guitar, the bassline buzzy and Joy Division-y, the sound repetitive and trancey, then still MORE guitars come in, some seriously MBV worthy buzzsaw blur, over which vocals keen in the distance, then the vocals proper come in, all deep and dramatic and new wavey, accompanied by woozy washed out warped sounding melodies that seem to melt before our ears, and so it goes, shifting from loping brooding jangle to soaring bleary psychedelic bliss to fuzzy minimal new wave pound, and it's not just that it sounds amazing, but that the amazing sounds have been crafted into a killer song, hooky and hazy and damn near perfect.
The second song is more of the same, we heard "Youth Haunts" on that Mexican Summer 10" which we then described as something akin to "a Woodsist band doing covers of Nowhere era Ride, or a less monochromatic Crystal Stilts letting loose on Unrest covers, or The Chills crossed with early My Bloody Valentine" and that pretty much still totally applies, and not just to this track, but to the whole record. Lush yet lo-fi, broody and propulsive, but also noisy and blown out, sunshiney and poppy here and there, but just often, dark and melancholy, easily one of our new favorite records, from one of our new favorite local outfits.
Really mellow soft-pop from 1969, the sole album by teenage San Francisco sisters Wendy and Bonnie Flower (ages 17 and 13 respectively, at the time this album was cut). Very pretty and summery, but NOT super happy, it's got a melancholy sadness (and sweetness) to it, evoking late afternoon, end of summer feelings. Maybe they're a bit like a more folky, psychedelic 5th
Debut full length from this awesome San Francisco band who are bringing a much needed shot of carefree energy and exuberance to the current crop of lo-fi and garage pop peddlers. We loved their 7" from last year which while being right at home in a stack of records by such likeminded folks as The Fresh & Only, Nodzz, and Woods, also had its own really cool unique energy. 1x1x1 proves that while these guys do have a lot in common with the new wave of indie pop greatness they also tap into the golden age of indie rock with melodies as bright as Superchunk and the charged rhythm of The Feelies. They also have this really cool ability to merge different elements into their overall sound. Somehow bridging the gap between the all out party raucousness of bands like Hunx & His Punx and Shannon & The Clams, while having an ease and breeze to their sound similar to Beach Fossils and Melted Toys. Snotty without being obnoxious, and so catchy without being saccharine. This is how we love our pop music to sound.
Rad slab of very limited wax from this awesome San Francisco duo who serve up some totally exciting raw and supercharged garage psych pop. Recorded by Tim Cohen from The Fresh & Only's, Wet Illustrated prove they belong right there alongside other awesome like minded bands from SF like Nodzz, Bare Wires, Ty Segall, and The Fresh & Onlys. You can feel the sun shining down, the wind blowing, kites flying free. This is music made for blasting while drinking your favorite beverage of choice and letting go of inhibitions as these are songs that just take a hold of your body and you can't help but smile uncontrollably while these infectious songs get stuck in your head. As well as having a classic garage pop sound there is this really cool early SST vibe in these songs as well, reminding us of the Meat Puppets, and "Born Stoked" has this rad guitar sound that's like a dubbed cassette version of Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation. Only 300 of these handsome 7"s were pressed so best to act fast on this one!
Apparently sharing their name with a progressive metal 'djent' band from the Isle of Wight (ha, first mention of djent on the aQ list ever!), the When Prophecy Fails responsible for THIS tape is from right here in San Francisco, and is in a fact yet another project by our pal Monte Cimino (Burial Tree/Time Spent/Dark Matter Halo). Hopefully none of the djent band's fans will accidentally get this or they'd become very confused, possibly upset. 'Cause it's all cassette-dubbed, electronically processed, wind tunnel / vacuum cleaner noise style sonics. Think, the lighter side of Merzbow, basically. It's pretty noisy, but also it's noise that's pretty, 'cause in keeping with Monte's other projects, while (often) loud, it's got a soothing side to it. New Age Noise, perhaps? Drones with dynamics, sudden lulls and stretches of quiet beauty before the volume ramps up again.
The first side of the tape consists of two songs: the 14+ minute title track, made with cello (and copious electronics we infer), sounding a lot like noise guitar in the vein of Urthona or Sunroof. That's followed by an approximately 3 minute piece called "Hiding Under The Guise Of Religion", done with organ and drums. Side two features two tracks, each about 9 minutes long, given the great title "Life May Be Fleeting, But You're An Asshole, pt. I & II". Made with contact mics and "misc. surfaces", this detailed and abrasive droning also sounds like abstract feedback drenched guitar noise.
Hmm, just the other day we got in a used copy of jazz guitarist Pat Metheny's notorious "noise" album from 1993, Zero Tolerance For Silence. After listening to this, we know just who we're gonna try to sell it to. If he doesn't already have it. Seriously, though, if you agree that "noise" can be good or can be bad, this is GOOD noise. We're not kidding, for noise stuff we like this a lot.
By the way, winning an award for most annoying packaging idea this week, the cassette case is full of loose leaf black tea. Argh!
A bit of archival noisiness from aQ pal Monte, who most of you might know as the man behind brooding twangy heavy drifters Burial Tree, as well as the more ambient projects Dark Matter Halo and Time Spent, but the sound of When Prophecy Fails is something else all together, recorded while Monte was still in graduate school, this chunk of blown out digital noise and dense black ambience was in fact inspired by a book about a cult from the fifties, their expectations of the impending apocalypse, and how they dealt with it all when the end of the world did not come to pass (sound familiar?). So if you're reading this, we can assume the most recent extinction event also didn't end up happening, so once again, a legion of doomsdayers are forced to deal with their (and everyone else's) continued existence. And what better way to represent the ever impending apocalypse and the frustration of a million mysterious and undecipherable end of world prophecies, than with clouds of grinding Merzbowian murk, screeching strings, machine gun analog stutter, heaving swirls of grit and grim and glitch, undulating tangles of sculpted hiss, fracture melodic fragments, mysterious samples, haunting stretches of muted electronic shimmer, pocked with jagged shards of digital errata, guitars and violins, doused in effects, the sounds pulled apart until they're fully removed from their sources. The sound chaotic and brutal for much of the disc, but often settling into haunting passages of serene drift, soft psychedelia blurred into crackling swells and muted smears of dense, tense buzz and howl. These brief respites are of course bookended by dizzying bursts of crunch and howl and skree, but even at it's most chaotic and freeform, there does seem to be a method to this musical madness, which comes into clearer focus on the final two tracks.
The first of which is based on recordings of a mentally ill woman (Monte works in the mental health field and captured these recordings with the woman's permission), her voice cracked and weary, the words garbled, but occasionally certain phrases stick out, "can you help me?" being the most disturbing, and they are looped and layered, subtly effected, some reversed, all tangled into a disturbing collage of pain and anguish, which is as fascinating as it is strangely compelling, and of course chilling. Which leads into the final track, which is downright lovely, albeit creepy and sinister and broodingly dark, as if this was in fact the moment of rapture, deep rumbling tones, lush layered droned, slowly shifting over an expanse of deep black nothingness, the instruments coming to the fore, what could be a bit of guitar drifts amidst this abject sprawl of groaning, moaning minimal ambient creep. The sound subtly glitchy, cavernous and dense, a dark strain of black ambient industrial shimmer, the soundtrack to a timelapse film of the end of the world, a cascade of slo-mo blackened churn, that plays out glacially as everything around it, and us, fades into oblivion.
Cool packaging too, printed cardstock inserts, in a stickered plastic sleeve, each disc accompanied by a doomsday fortune, predicting your end, and what you'll experience at the end, along with six unlucky numbers, all printed on a little fortune sized piece of vellum.
There's been a bit of a mini-explosion of bands from our neck of the woods as of late, all of whom have been specializing in their own unique take on shoegaze. There was Deafheaven's recent lp which we reviewed a couple of lists back, that masterfully collides classic shoegaze/post rock with ferocious black metal (Whirr does feature an ex-Deafheaven axeman in fact). Elsewhere on this list you'll find a review of Weekend's latest, an infectious blend of shoegaze and driving post punk. Now we can add to that list of our gazing hometown heroes a brand new ep from San Francisco's very own Whirr (formerly Whirl, naturally). Whirr deal in a bit more traditional strain of shoegaze. The songs are minimal - sparse, but also drenched in that wonderful, all encompassing reverb - and melodically quite mournful. There's certainly a wistful sorrow running through Whirr's music, at times maybe even sounding like Red House Painters run through a million effects pedals and cranked to 11. What's immediately apparent about Whirr in fact, is how heavy they can be. There are moments here that could almost pass for funeral doom - like the airy coo of a My Bloody Valentine vocal cut fluttering over the crushing heft of Asunder. This is thanks in part to an enormous cavernous drum sound as well as some seriously weighty guitar tones that thankfully set Whirr apart from some of their airier peers. Around is a dense immersive set of songs, so much so that the term ep doesn't really seem to do it justice, as that seems to imply some kind of stop gap release - something a bit disposable. But this is as crushing, consuming and satisfying as any full length you'll hear this year, and is surely essential listening for your most dreary-eyed late-night comedowns.
We were pretty blown away by the last White Fence record, a sprawling double album spread out over two lps (or one cd), which found one man band WF aka Tim Presley, spitting out a dizzying barrage of fractured jangle pop and warped garage rock, an already massive collection of songs, supposedly culled from more than 80 written for the record, which only confirmed what we sort of already knew, that White Fence was maybe the weirdest and most idiosyncratic outfit in the SF garage rock scene, which is full of genius weirdos (Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, Mikal Cronin, etc.). On this new one though, Presley manages to both get even weirder, AND dip into much more traditional songsmithery. It's almost as if instead of working on songs in his garage, Presley assembled a rickety old time machine, which he used to travel back to the sixties, which is definitely where this record seems to find most of its sonic inspiration, but it's almost as if that rickety time machine only barely made it back, jumbling up all of Presley's perfect sixties garage pop songs in the process, so all the lilting melodies, fuzzy, strummy dreaminess, spidery psychedelic leads, hazy crooned vox, swirling acoustic guitars, came through the portal just a little bit fucked up, sounds that seem to melt before your ears, weird blurts of damaged effects, sounds swooping backwards, drums doused in delay, fuzz guitar cranked and jammed WAY above the mix. The mixes all over the place, raw and brittle one second, lush and lovely the next, drums loud, guitars howling, melodies muted and muddy, vocals barely there in the background, then cooing in your ear. In a way, it almost reminds us of Faxed Head, the way their caveman metal was defined by the recording, the tape drop outs, the weird varispeed pitch changes, everything woozy and crumbling and falling apart. Which is basically how Cyclops Reap sounds, BUT, all of that weirdness and fucked up damage, can barely disguise the sheer pop brilliance on display here. Total retro jangle pop garage fuzz genius. Total sixties hippie hookiness, hazy power pop shimmer, swaggery blooze garage stomp, all tangled into some of THEE best and catchiest pop songs EVER. Minus all the damage, this could have easily been some lost sixties artifact unearthed and reissued, in fact, the whole time machine thing above, could easily be swapped out for someone ACTUALLY discovering Cyclops Reap in an old dusty, moldy box, in the basement of some SF flat, the tapes warped and mildewy, that damaged translating into some of the more psychedelic sonics here.
Needless to say, we've loved every White Fence record, and this one's no different, in fact it's fast becoming our new favorite. And as hard as Presley seems to be trying to obscure his perfect jangly fuzz pop masterpieces, that sonic obfuscation only serves to make them that much more warped and wonderful.
Note: the vinyl version already sold out but is soon to be repressed, we're told.
First we've heard from these sixties psych channeling, garage pop retro rocking locals since last year's awesome Cyclops Reap (and not counting the recent equally awesome Live In SF disc). Cyclops Reap took White Fence's already twisted sound and somehow made it even more far out, while at the same time upping the ante on pretty much everything else (song craft, production, etc.), and now on For The Recently Found Innocent, WF mainman Tim Presley teams up with his buddy Ty Segall and drummer Nick Murray (Mikal Cronin even pops by to play a little piano), for a record that continues Presley's quest to craft some impossible sixties beholden, modern retro-psych masterpiece, and gets closer than he ever has. In the process, Presley and crew dial back a lot of the weirdness that defined the sound of Cyclops Reap, and come up with some of the best WF songs yet. Certainly the best sounding, the production is massive, just check out "Anger! Who Keeps You Under", which somehow sounds properly from back in the day, but modern as well, jangling guitars, soaring vocals, hooks galore, powerful drumming, all sorts of effects and textures, the sound lush and majestic, a little bit fuzzy and crunchy, and so so catchy! And it pretty much doesn't let up, every track here a fuzz pop retro garage gem, "Like That" features Presley's keening falsetto, with some fantastic harmonies, all set amidst lush jangle and some pitch perfect sixties-isms, what we really need to do is get Presley together with Matthew Melton (Warm Soda, Bare Wires)!
But until that happens, we get to revel in Presley's alternate sonic sixties, conjured up here and now, with all the musical references to might imagine, Bee Gees, the Monkees, the Zombies, some of the tracks here do genuinely sound like they were plucked from some reissue compilation, while others find WF indulging in some experimentation, but even then, they manage to make it sound totally genuine. As always, fantastic stuff, and pretty sure we probably say this every time, but might be our favorite White Fence record yet!
For those of you who didn't get enough warped garage rock / lo-fi noise pop on the recent sprawling two part collection from this local one man band, snap up one of these quick before they're gone. Originally intended to be a Record Store Day Release, these only showed up a few days ago, but fans of WF won't be disappointed, three more songs, that sound like they could have been plucked from the same 80 songs that the above mentioned collection was culled from. Fuzzy and jangly, a serious sixties pop vibe, with dreamy harmony vox, lots of fuzz and echo and reverb, hooks galore, the second track a bit more druggy hippie folk, while the sidelong title track is a pitch perfect blast of super catchy retro pop radness, just a bit warped, all the songs here held together by weird bloopy basslines, and some super distorted wild way-up-in-the-mix leads, not to mention some seriously tripped out vocals. Another gem from this SF outfit who should definitely have a place of honor on your shelf alongside The Oh Sees and the Sic Alps and the Bare Wires and Blasted Canyons and all the rest...
Live records are a strange proposition. We know folks who love live records, and just as many who don't. For some it's to commemorate a classic show they were at, and want to relive, for others, it's a chance to hear a band live, when they might not be able to ever actually see them in the flesh, and to be fair, bands generally are WAY better live. Recording is all about capturing that live energy, which any band will tell you, might be the hardest part of recording. For us, live records, are a chance to hear a band let loose, to tear it up, no worrying about the take, or certain parts, or subtleties, just rocking out, reacting to the crowd, with the best live records oozing blood and sweat, the live energy of not just the band, but the crowd as well, exciting in a way that sitting in a studio could never be.
So here we have local garage psych rockers White Fence, performing live in March of this year, right down the street from aQ at Amnesia (which used to be the Chameleon, our favorite venue from back in the day), kicking out the jams, and as described above, the sound is loose and wild, the band on fire, some of the psychedelic subtleties of the recordings lost, but in their place, one of the best performances we can remember from these guys, heavy, jangly, noisy, poppy, psychedelic, the crowd going nuts between songs, the songs we already loved supercharged, the guitars fuzzed out and crumbly, total psych garage bliss out, some of the versions here maybe even better than the recordings proper. If you've yet to hear these guys, this would be a great introduction, and hell, even if you have all the records, you probably dig them as much as we do, and are gonna likely want/need this one too...
For some reason, this 7" and the vinyl version of the most recent full length from local garage rock one man band White Fence, were both practically impossible to keep in stock. We did eventually list and review the WF Cyclops Reap full length, and now we finally have enough of these, the pre album 7" to list. And while it may seem backwards, WF fans are still probably gonna want the single, cuz 2 of the three tracks are exclusive to this 7". The A side "Pink Gorilla" is the first single from the Cyclops Reap album, and it's easy to see why it was picked, a super warped chunk of ultra psychedelic scuzzed out fuzz rock, with blown out guitar gristle wrapped around swirling jangle and breezy vocals, like some classic sixties pop gem, worked over by some modern garage rock mad scientist, which it essentially is.
The other two tracks are more of the same, but unlike "Pink Gorilla", for some reason were NOT included on Cyclops Reap proper, which hearing these tracks now, it's hard to figure out why. "Fragility" is a gorgeous chunk of hushed, moody, softly psychedelic buzz and strum, that's warm and billowy, lush and dreamily jangly, wreathed in whirring organs and tangled and fried guitar melodies, all blurred into a hazy chunk of washed out sixties garage pop bliss, albeit with some weird blurts of guitar glitch and weird whirling atmospheres. And on top of that there's the second B side, the track "Cyclops Reap", which weirdly is NOT on the Cyclops Reap record at all.
White Fence fans should nab one of these before they disappear AGAIN.
Totally awesome breezy lo-fi garage pop from Los Angeles, that we just can't seem to get enough of. While many of WF's lo-fi counterparts these days are all about fuzz and feedback, White Fence is so much more about infectious songs and deep running melody. Like some lost early recording of Chris Knox covering The Kinks or The Zombies, or imagine The Art Museums if they were a little more washed out and blurred and blissy. Also reminds us a bit of a more focused Ariel Pink, as WF are able to tap into such golden pop tones yet give them a nice warped and lysergic twist. While it's for sure going to get lumped in with a lot of our favorite recent garage pop faves like The Fresh & Onlys, Woods, Hanoi James, etc., there is something very timeless about the songs White Fence create. They could just as easily be lost nuggets from some obscure pastoral psych band out of the UK in the late '60s as it could be a Cherry Red band from the Paisley underground in the '80s, or a young Robert Pollard merging with the Elephant Six collective. For sure a strong outsider pop sound, with hints of Syd Barrett and Bobb Trimble. Bottom line is that this is top quality songwriting delivered in such a satisfying way. So damn good!
Don't think that Make-A-Mess pressed a ton of the vinyl so better act fast. But fear not, there's a cd on Woodsist too.
Even though it wasn't all that long ago that we were served with the serious space rock wallop of White Hills' most recent full length Glitter Glamour Atrocity, it was only a matter of moments before we were already jonesing for more. And while this is not a proper WH record per se, it is at least another heaping helping of that spaced out sound we can't get enough of.
Here, White Hills team up with SF noise outfit White Pee for a nearly 30 minute single track of space-y, druggy, krautdrone ambient noise. And it's a killer. Never heard of White Pee before, and because this disc is so abstract and sort of shapeless, it's hard to put a finger on what exactly they bring to the table, but these two groups together sound like one. The noise is relegated to brief bursts here and there, for the most part, this is gloriously tranquil blissed out dronescapes. Long expanses of slow flowing Tangerine Dream and Popol Vuh synth sprawl, the FX are muted but wrap their shimmery tendrils around everything.
Here and there, the meditative shimmer is disrupted by dense gnarled squalls of gritty guitar growl, arranged into strange almost-rhythms, a stretched out lurching throb plodding along over long ominous streaks of sci fi synth. The synths got from ethereal and whispery, to throbbing and fuzzy, from dreamy and barely there, to pulsing and propulsive, almost like some disembodied Gary Numan rhythm track.
The second half of the disc is wide open and spare, shades of Tim Hecker and Machinefabriek and that sort of buzzy blurred soundscapes, guitars ebb and flow, keening high end melodies drift WAY off in the distance, dense washes of distorted guitar crumble bathe everything in grit and buzz, plaintive piano drifts in and out like some unearthly transmission, all hazy and indistinct, darkly dramatic and so lovely.
This is a SUPER limited edition, except for the copies the band kept, these are ONLY available from aQuarius. LIMITED TO 85 COPIES!! The first 50 in hand made wooden sleeves, the other 35 in jewel cases, but also hand made and each one unique. We got about 30 copies of the wooden sleeved version, and a handful of the jewel cased version. While supplies last, you'll get the wood ones, but once those are gone, you'll get the jewel case version. Needless to say these will be gone in a flash...
We reviewed the super limited wooden cover version of this disc on the last list and sold out immediately. So here's the even more limited jewel case version, still with hand made covers, only this time housed in, you guessed it, a jewel case. There were only 85 copies made in total, 50 of the wood ones, and 35 of the jewel case version. We're the only store in the world to carry these, and we have about 25 of the jewel case version in stock. Once these are gone, they are gone for good, so this is probably your last chance to pick this up...
Even though it wasn't all that long ago that we were served with the serious space rock wallop of White Hills' most recent full length Glitter Glamour Atrocity, it was only a matter of moments before we were already jonesing for more. And while this is not a proper WH record per se, it is at least another heaping helping of that spaced out sound we can't get enough of.
Here, White Hills team up with SF noise outfit White Pee for a nearly 30 minute single track of space-y, druggy, krautdrone ambient noise. And it's a killer. Never heard of White Pee before, and because this disc is so abstract and sort of shapeless, it's hard to put a finger on what exactly they bring to the table, but these two groups together sound like one. The noise is relegated to brief bursts here and there, for the most part, this is gloriously tranquil blissed out dronescapes. Long expanses of slow flowing Tangerine Dream and Popol Vuh synth sprawl, the FX are muted but wrap their shimmery tendrils around everything.
Here and there, the meditative shimmer is disrupted by dense gnarled squalls of gritty guitar growl, arranged into strange almost-rhythms, a stretched out lurching throb plodding along over long ominous streaks of sci fi synth. The synths got from ethereal and whispery, to throbbing and fuzzy, from dreamy and barely there, to pulsing and propulsive, almost like some disembodied Gary Numan rhythm track.
The second half of the disc is wide open and spare, shades of Tim Hecker and Machinefabriek and that sort of buzzy blurred soundscapes, guitars ebb and flow, keening high end melodies drift WAY off in the distance, dense washes of distorted guitar crumble bathe everything in grit and buzz, plaintive piano drifts in and out like some unearthly transmission, all hazy and indistinct, darkly dramatic and so lovely.
This is a SUPER limited edition, except for the copies the band kept, these are ONLY available from aQuarius. LIMITED TO 85 COPIES!! The first 50 in hand made wooden sleeves, the other 35 (these) in jewel cases, but also hand made and each one unique.
The latest release from local label and psychedelic powerhouse Valley King is the latest record from stoner psych space rock visionaries White Manna, and like the two Holy Mountain records that came before, Come Down Safari, is another gloriously tripped out sonic sprawl, all hazy, buzzy throb and tranced out heart-of-the-sun mesmer, looooong tracks that seem to unfurl endlessly, the drums and bass weaving lush languorous backgrounds, that seem to pulse and ooze, over which the guitars soar and howl, melodic streaks blurred into heaving washes of chordal shimmer, riffs stretched out into druggy sonic mantras, the sound slipping effortlessly from churning psychedelic heaviness, to soporific, dream-drone drift, WM channeling the sound of their psychedelic forefathers, into heady, abstract sonic rituals, that manage to take the sound of classic early space rock and fuse it to a more modern take on retro psych.
Fans of the usual suspects (the Heads, White Hills, Mammatus, Carlton Melton, etc.) should already be WAY into these guys, and if they're not, this should fix that pretty quick.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, eye popping psychedelic picture disc artwork by Alan Forbes!
